Finally Specter Gets Honest... Maybe.

Arlen Specter is finally on the side of the aisle many of us figured he really should have been on all along. Unfortunately, taking on the technical title of Democrat isn't going to help the Republican cause any as now we won't be able to count on him to even try to act like a conservative.

My biggest concern at the moment is card-check. He was for it, then said he'd vote against it... but now that he's a certified (certifiable?) Democrat will he switch again and give them the vote that puts another nail in the coffin Barack Obama and friends are building for America?

Lots of questions.

You have to wonder what's going on in Specter's mind. He's had all the health problems which could result in someone either getting real honest with themselves or have them wigging out completely. I've had friends go both ways under similar circumstances.

Is Specter just getting back at all the Republicans who've been trashing him since he gave Obama the ability to mire our kids and future grandkids in debt they'll never rise above? Is he just being pragmatic, realizing he has zero chance of winning as a Republican so he's making himself the darling of the Democrats so he can hang in there another election cycle?

Lots of questions.

Only Specter knows the answer.

No matter what the reason, he's now hurting Republicans even worse than he was when he was a liberal Republican.
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Great Thoughts on Tea Parties

I hope just about everyone receiving this has gone or will go to a Tea Party this week. (Some tea parties were held on Saturday, including very successful ones in Studio City, CA and Pittsburgh, PA)

The big issue, of course, is this: Will the Tea Parties be just a "one-and-done" event, or will they become the beginning of a mass movement that eventually will sweep people like Obama and Reid out of office? On TeamSarah.org, which I hope you'll join if you haven't already, Puma4Palin wrote an excellent blog piece on what the Tea Parties can mean. We need to use them as opportunities to meet like-minded people and to organize for future victories. Let's make sure the Tea Parties are a beginning -- and not an end.

http://www.teamsarah.org/profiles/blogs/tea-parties-a-fad-thats-a?xgs=1

Over at Fox News they’re running a blog by a guy named John Tantillo who says he is a marketing expert and the founder and president of Marketing Department of America. Hey, the guy is very good at marketing his business because he got my attention with his disparaging article about the upcoming tea parties.

According to Tantillo, the April 15 Tea Parties are nothing more than a fad and, not just any kind of fad, but a fad that flops. Actually, the more I think about it, how can a fad flop? Fads come and go, but if something gets enough attention to be called a fad, then normally that’s called a success. Right?

He offers several criticisms of the parties, but what is striking to me is that he is labeling it “Republican” and “Conservative.” Personally, I think this is a tactic that the left is using to attempt to belittle the tea parties as “just a bunch of Republican losers” and to portray the Republicans as angry outsiders. The truth of the matter is that I know many people supporting the tea parties who are Democrats and Independents and who consider themselves moderates.

Further, if it’s just a bunch of Republicans why is the Huffington Post asking for citizen reporters to go to the tea parties and, well, do what? Write a slanted article? Disrupt? Bring a pro-Obama sign? I mean, why would the left care if it was just a “fad” and a Republican one at that? (Although anything that is not pro-Obama appears to be a threat to the insecure obats).

Actually, the other point Tantillo makes that has me laughing is that his take on the reports that tea party merchandise is flying off the shelves is bad news and a sure sign that this is all fad.

For example, he takes this quote from Jason King, VP of marketing for Zazzle, an online retailer selling tea party items: “This is probably one of the bigger things –- not counting the election– that we’ve seen since the Client 9 sex scandal broke in 2008.” And interprets it thus: “Hey, if a marketer’s comparing your “serious” political movement with “Client 9 sex scandal” sales you know you’re in trouble…”

Well, excuse me, but if the election was a big merchandising success, doesn’t that make it a fad, too? And didn’t the Client 9 sex scandal end a governor’s career? Pretty powerful fad!

I do think there are legitimate concerns about what next? Just getting together in a local park with a permit is not really going to accomplish anything. Most media will not cover it. And the location of the tea party in my town is low visibility; there is no drive-by traffic so no one will even notice it is happening unless they make a point to stop by.

Frankly, I think the tea party organizers should take some tips from Moveon.org. When they held their anti-war rallies here they lined a very busy street in front of our Congressman’s local office with not just signs, but drums, and they did it during rush hour. They also took a petition into the Congressman’s office where it was officially received.

It remains to be seen if the tea parties bring about change, but in the meantime it is encouraging to see average Americans getting heated up enough about something to make a sign and stand on a street corner. Maybe this is just practice but I don’t think I would classify it as a fad. In fact, I think that’s a challenge and I’m always up for one of those.

Steve Maloney
Ambridge, PA
DraftPalin2012
SteveMaloneyGOP

Note: Steve Maloney has become a good friend of mine through the Read My Lipstick Network, Team Sarah, and other conservative cross-over efforts. He is a great guy and a dynamic thinker and doer. I hope you'll read his blogs and maybe if you're lucky you'll get to know him as a friend. - Janet

Reid: Paying Taxes is Voluntary

I thought this video was comedy at first because they weren't showing the interviewer and Harry Reid together. It had to be a spoof it was so ridiculous.

Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, asserts that we have a voluntary tax system because we can claim exemptions.

Um, last time I checked, if we don't pay, we go to jail. We have no say over what is done with our taxes (aside from trying to elect the right people... I won't tell you what I think of that one in this post :-).

Our system is better than the European system, per Reid, because there the employer takes out all the taxes and here we get to fill out tons of forms, pay tax accountants, hassle with the IRS, get fined if we don't report correctly or we're late... OK, yes, I admit, I embellished his comments on that last bit... take me to jail, fine me... oh, wait, I was confused, that's what happens when you have tax problems in our voluntary system, not what happens when you exaggerate what a politician said... at the moment. Given what's going on in Washington, that could change at any minute.




Hat tip to Bruce P. Majors on Facebook for bringing this video to may attention.

#TCOT to Republican Senators: NO to Porkulus, NO to Compromise, No to Turncoats

Michael Patrick Leahy, co-founder of Top Conservatives on Twitter, the conservative grassroots organization that dominates the conversation on Twitter, today announced that the organization is focusing it's OPERATION MOVE OVER MoveON.org on all Republicans in the Senate.

"Led by #TCOT Project Servant-Leader Wendy Hermann, a work-at-home mom from Corpus Christi, Texas, #TCOT's MOVE OVER MoveOn.org project is focused on defeating the "Porkulus" Bill in the Senate (S.1), in any form." Leahy said today.

"We intend to communicate that message to all 41 Republican Senators in the most direct way today and through the rest of the week. We know that Senate Majority Leader Democrat Harry Reid is trying to ram this bad bill through the Senate without a sufficient discussion of all the truly wasteful mini bail-outs to the Democrat Party's political allies it contains."

"Our message to every Republican Senator is clear and simple: Stand firm, and don't fall for false promises of 'bi-partisanship' that are being used to merely provide political cover to the Democrats. This is a clear example of the Democrats' wasteful economic policies, and we need to let the Democrats own their foolhardiness."

"The history of compromise in the US Congress is easy to understand. When Democrats coerce Republicans to abandon their principles, they call it 'bi-partisan' compromise. We conservatives call that fundamentally wrong."

"Anyone who wants to help us in this higher calling in the defense of American free markets can take an advantage of an innovative interactive tool that allows the average person to view the most recent spending elements of the "Porkulus" Bill, and register your approval or disapproval of each item. We will be periodically be sending out press releases highlighting your opinion of the most wasteful and extravagant elements of the bill."

"This great tool has been developed by Aaron Day, of Daylight Networks. To use the tool right now, simply go to: www.daylightnetwork.com/senate-stimulus.

"Once there, you can register and vote on whether or not a specific line item included in the bill will help improve the economy or will hurt it.”

MoveOn.org, the liberal activist group funded by George Soros, is focusing an ad campaign to turn around 5 Republican Senators. They are using radio and television ads to encourage people to contact these Senators and tell them to vote for S.1. The targeted Senators are:

(1) Collins - Maine
(2) Snow - Maine
(3) Newmann (yesterday appointed to replace Judd Gregg) - NH *
(4) Murkowski - ALASKA
(5) Grassley - Iowa

Leahy continued by adding that now all Republican Senators will be contacted.

"We've seen reports that various Republican Senators are offering a few ideas to make the bill seem more palatable. This simply won't work. Adding a few elements to placate moderate Republicans while keeping 90% of the $825 billion of pork included in the House version of the bill does nothing to help the economy. If Republican legislators want a historical model to guide them, they need look back only a few months to the disastrous vote in the fall in which many of them supported the ill advised and ineffective $700 billion Wall Street Bailout."

Top Conservatives on Twitter was started on November 29, 2008. It consists of a list of over 2,400 conservatives who use Twitter. The list can be found at http://www.topconservativesontwitter.org. The list serves as a rallying point for conservatives on the Internet, and has led to the formation of many action projects, of which Operation MOVE OVER MoveOn.org is one.

The organization is referred to as #TCOT because those five characters are used so that anyone on Twitter can follow the “tweet stream” of conversation on Twitter that is aimed at the #TCOT community. To follow this “tweet stream”, go to http://search.twitter.com and enter #TCOT.

In January, www.hashtags.org data showed that #TCOT dominated the Twitter conversation. #TCOT was the number one most used hashtag, with over 18,000 tweets. The second most used hashtag had less than 6,000 tweets.

#TCOT dominated the conversation on Twitter so dramatically that it had more than three times the conversation tweets as the number two hashtag.

#TCOT has released the following details of their plan of attack:

1. Phones. As we did in Operation Melt the Phones in DC, we are going to keep up a steady stream of phone calls to these Senators offices and report back on the TCOT Action Project site what the senators are saying. This time, however, we want to also call their local state offices. Each Senator has several in their state and they should be pressured as well. The numbers are listed by state at the bottom of the page as well as a sample script. We recommend calling each of the Senators offices every day. We will be issuing daily talking points for you to question the senate aid about. Be polite, but assertive.

2. Faxes. This time we will add faxes to our blitz. Many out of state people wishing to send a letter to a senator were stymied by the Senate e-mail system not allowing them. We have posted fax numbers next to phone numbers for those wishing to use that method. A sample text is listed at the bottom of the page for use in drafting e-mails and faxes. Again, we would like each person to fax each office daily emphasizing that days talking points.

3. E-mail. If you live in the senators state, we encourage you to send daily e-mails to the senators giving them reasons to vote against this piece of legislation. Links to each Senator’s webpage are on the Phone/Fax list at the bottom of the page. Use the Fax/E-mail text suggestions to know what to say.

4. Blogging and local media. We do not have George Soros’ money. We will have to be more grassroots than that. We are wanting all conservative bloggers to post this Action Project on your blog and give your opinion or perspective on the talking point of the day.

5. We are also asking "TCOT members to call their local talk radio programs, send letters to the editor and notify local media of what you are doing. Our hope is that some will be picked up as human interest stories and we can rebroadcast them over the Internet. We have made an outline/talking points list available to you for your reference. Please use that list as a starting point. We are working to build this media list, so please report back whomever you talk to and how they reacted.

6. We are looking for people with video experience that will write and produce short videos that can be posted on youtube that counter the ads being run by MoveON.org. Please contact us if you are interested in this project.

7. We are looking to target moderate or blue dog Democrats in the Senate that could be swayed to our side. Please let us know if you find any Democrats on the fence about S. 1.

Above all else, be polite. Passion is encouraged, foul language is not. Be aggressive, but not abusive.

Resources:
Senate Phone/Fax numbers (with links to e-mail) can be found at: http://moveovermoveon.posterous.com
To volunteer directly, and receive more detailed instructions, go to http://tcotprojects.ning.com

The Obameter

According to PoliFact, from The St. Petersburg Times, Florida, Obama made 500 promises during his campaign. They're keeping track of the 500 they counted. I'm going to put the link on the sidebar of some of my blogs so I can check off and on and keep track of what they're giving him credit for accomplishing.

They've already given him credit for making two of his promises come true. Bush made one happen, but they're giving the credit to Obama simply because it happened. If that's their criteria for giving credit, twenty years from now the Obameter may still be clunking along with items being checked off...

However, I do understand their decision to give it to him. Obama promised shrewdly. He promised something that was gonna happen. And, based on what I've been hearing in recent days as more news comes out about some of the things President Bush laid the groundwork for, I bet President Obama is going to have a few more Bush actions marked as things he accomplishes during his tenure. Politics. Media. Whatever.

In fact, I just took a look at the Obameter a little closer. I had focused on the 2 accomplishments, and overlooked that he was also being given credit for 12 items being "in the works". I didn't read all of them yet, but the ones I read were things happening without his intervention or guidance. Of course, supporters will say that Pelosi, Reid and friends are pushing some of the items because he's now in the hot seat and yes, they can.

It's a new world. Now Presidents are getting credit for things that happened before their watch. Maybe we need to start a Oba-change-meter and keep track of all the things that change over the next four years. Hmmm.... I may just do that!

I'm also going to copy the list and put it in a safe word document somewhere just to save for posterity... I don't know how long it will be up and I don't know if some things will change under pressure.

Here's the link: The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/503/appoint-at-least-one-republican-to-the-cabinet/