Rand Paul Will Sue Obama Over the NSA

You will not the the Liberals at the national Journal don't take the Constitutional protections against government spying on its citizens without a warrant seriously. They may have screamed bloody murder the George Bush was a war criminal, but the lovable Barack Obama who has doubled down on his policies is not to be feared. So going to court to protect our privacy is now a proper object of ridicule.

Here comes some fun. Sen. Rand Paul will join a lawsuit against President Obama, National Intelligence Director James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, and NSA Director Keith Alexander. The suit, Paul says, is because Obama "has publicly refused to stop a clear and continuing violation of the Fourth Amendment. The Bill of Rights protects all citizens from general warrants. I expect this case to go all the way to the Supreme Court and I predict the American people will win."

The Kentucky Republican is joining a suit from FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe. And to just round out the group, the lead counsel is Ken Cuccinelli, former Virginia attorney general and Republican gubernatorial candidate. In the press release from RandPac, Cuccinelli says that "we expect to be opposed by the vast resources of the federal government, yet I am optimistic that we will prevail."

And of course they accuse Paul of not being serious either.  It's all a ruse to get a mailing list for donors.

Paul's class-action suit has accrued hundreds of thousands of signatures via his his website, though some have pointed out that the list will likely double as a supporter database for future political aspirations, which may include a run for the White House in 2016.

Is the Republican Party the party of Conservatives?

At National Review Online, Jim Geraghty asks the question: Does the RNC Deserve the Blame for Cuccinelli’s Loss? One of the comments following the essay claims that "all Republicans are Conservatives."

 

Are they?  I strongly disagree.

The national candidates that the Republicans have fielded since Reagan have all claimed to be conservative, talked the talk, but did not walk the walk. They paid lip service to smaller government and lower deficits but did nothing to achieve those objectives while in office, or were rejected at the polls.

 

I remind you that Bush 1 opposed Reagan for the nomination the first time he ran.  And that when he was elected as Reagan’s heir disposed of his followers as quickly as possible and then raised taxes, giving the Democrats their main talking point to defeat him for re-election.  Need I remind you that Bush 2, who I supported because I supported the Iraq war, created a whole new entitlement and was a profligate spender who created TARP? Both Bushes bought into the “Republicans are mean” myth, one creating those “thousand points of light” and the other trying to sell “kindler, gentler?”

 

And how about McCain who pandered to every liberal institution and movement that that he could find: amnesty, global warming, Gitmo. He was the MSM’s picture of the perfect Republican. Of course they only supported him until he was nominated. The only conservative thing he ever did was bring Sarah Palin onto his ticket. The same Sarah Palin whose back still shows the scars of McCain’s handlers’ knives.  It's hard to say who tried to damage Palin more during the 2008 election, Team McCain or Team Obama.

 

George Romney was a truly nice man; moral, upright and no one’s idea of a conservative. When he was questioned about his conservative credentials he said that he was “severely conservative.”  When you have to say that, you are not. He was chosen by the Republican establishment precisely because no one would really identify him as a genuine conservative. Rather, he was the competent alternative to Obama. How did that work out?

Did these people lie? Not in the same way Obama lied when he said that you could keep your health care plan. But they say what they want you to hear. There is a cultural gap between the Republican establishment and the conservative base. The establishment is more comfortable with the reigning orthodoxy as expressed by Obama and less comfortable with the pieties of the Right. Most of them probably agree with Obama about the “bitter clingers.” Most of them don’t really believe that marriage should be defined as between one man and one woman; they have “evolved.” Most of them would rather open the borders so that this issue would go away. They have lived with deficit spending so long that it no longer really bothers them as a fact, simply as an issue to be used to win votes. They campaign as conservatives because that’s where their base is, but when they get back to Washington, they shed their conservative disguises like you would take off your jacket except when it’s time to throw a bone to the base.

 

It's very difficult to gain prominence while defying the dominant culture.  This is especially true on the political arena because you are opposed by those who dominate the avenues of communication.  If you say you support traditional marriage, the media tells everyone that you are homophobic.  If you oppose abortion for any reason you are waging a war on women.  If you oppose waste and corruption in welfare programs you are accused of wanting to starve the poor.  If you want to enforce the immigration laws you are accused of hating immigrants and minorities.  If you want to make education more affordable by reducing the cost you are accused of being anti-children.  And the ones making the accusations are not your political opponents, but the supposedly "impartial" media.  One of the interesting statistics coming out of the election in Virginia is that Ken Cuccinelli got the majority of married men and married women.  As one wag put it he got the moral vote.

 

The commenter is wrong about his assertion, but raises a very good question. Who is a real conservative and how can you tell? What is a real conservative? That’s a question worth debating.

Kerry Dougherty thinks you are a terminal disease.

Kerry Dougherty thinks you are a terminal disease.

She was quoting Larry Saboto, but she apparently agrees. Here’s Kerry on the major candidates.

One candidate was dishonest. The other hated women.

It's a wonder anyone went to the polls.

"These two candidates are among the worst I've ever seen," declared the University of Virginia's Larry Sabato during an election eve appearance on Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show."

"Virginians have a choice between a far-right-wing Tea Party social conservative and a Democrat who's been guilty of sleazy business deals and questionable fundraising," Sabato sighed.

"I've never seen unfavorable ratings this high for both of the major-party candidates," he added, as a graphic flashed on the screen showing that only 24 percent of Virginia voters had a favorable impression of the Democrat and only 29 percent liked the Republican.

Virginia's premier pundit said the situation was so dire this year, "I had one person tell me it was like a choice between a heart attack and cancer."

Terminal diseases. That sums it up nicely.

Any wonder so many held their noses Tuesday as they picked the lesser of two little men?

"I may not vote; I'm serious," whispered one of my yoga pals from her mat early Tuesday. "I hate them both. Really hate them."

By late afternoon, Twitter was on fire with posts from disgruntled Virginia voters.

"Would rather have a crook than a crazy, which is why this Republican just voted for McAuliffe for Governor," one person tweeted.

"Dear ladies in Va.," tweeted another. "Plz vote with your brain and not fall for the same old uterus crap. You are more intelligent than that!"

So let’s ignore for a second what Kerry thinks about McAuliffe, the guy who made $18 million in Global Crossings stock sales shortly before the company declared bankruptcy and threw about 10,000 people out of work.

 

Here’s what she thinks about you Tea Party people. You’re “far right” kooks who hate women. That would be a surprise to the young girls, mothers pushing their strollers, businessmen and retirees, black and white at the first Tea Party rally I attended in Virginia Beach several years ago. You Tea Partyers are a terminal disease to electoral politics in the Old Dominion.

 

Oh, and you’re racist bigots who hate black people and if you’re black you are a self-hating black. You’re a homophobic knuckle dragger who want to deny people their rights. You’re gun toting rednecks who believe that a women’s place is barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. And you listen to Rush Limbaugh and watch FOX News, you stupid racists.

Don’t try to deny it; it’s true what they say about your because you can read all about it in the Virginian Pilot.

Exclusive: President Obama's Speech

Exclusive: President Obama's Speech

Good Evening, Earlier today, the Cuccinelli Campaign obtained excerpts of President Obama’s prepared remarks for the campaign event with Terry McAuliffe. In case you or your organization did not receive a copy of the below, we are providing it to you as a public service. If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know. Best, Richard T. Cullen Communications Director Cuccinelli For Governor

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary ________________________________________________________________________________

EMBARGOED UNTIL 10:00 AM ET SUNDAY, November 3, 2013

President Obama Joins Virginia Gubernatorial Candidate Terry McAuliffe For Celebration Of The Affordable Care Act

Today, just over a month since the Administration launched HealthCare.gov, President Obama joined Virginia Gubernatorial Candidate Terry McAuliffe for a campaign event in Arlington, Virginia. McAuliffe, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is a friend of the President’s and a long-time supporter of his legislative priorities, including the Affordable Care Act. Excerpts From Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama Sunday, November 3, 2013

Hello Virginia! Are you all fired up or what! Let me hear you! Now,

I know you’re fired up for me, but I’m talking about my good friend, Terry McAuliffe.

Let’s hear it for Terry!

I’m here today because Terry has always had my back — alright maybe not in 2008 — but ever since then.

He’s been a vocal supporter for our legislative priorities, especially the Affordable Care Act. Terry even wanted the public option and was just as disappointed as I was when that didn’t work out.

You all know that Republicans like Ken Cuccinelli are doing everything possible to stop the law. They are grossly misleading the public, saying I wasn’t honest with you all when I said if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it. Can you believe that?

Sure I said that — but you all know what I meant! I meant most of you all! It’s not like I prefaced it with ― read my lips‖ or anything . Look, no one is more upset than I am with how this rollout has gone, but Rome wasn’t built in one day.

Sure I would have liked to see more than six people sign up on the first day, but change is never supposed to be easy. It doesn’t happen overnight, heck, it doesn’t happen in five years either. Fortunately, I’m going to have a partner in Terry McAuliffe right here in Virginia when it comes to ObamaCare!

Terry has made clear that he’s relying on the law — through Medicaid expansion — to pay for his platform and I’m

glad to hear that. And in fact, I’ve been reading that Terry’s stumbled onto something interesting …profiting on the death of others. You know the old saying ... there are two things that are certain: death and taxes. I’ve got to hand it to Terry, not even ObamaCare’s death panels were able to accomplish that.

If there’s one thing Terry and I have in common, it’s a lifelong love of big - government policies. But that’s not the only thing we have in common. Terry and I are both authors. When Terry started writing his memoir, he called me for advice. He had read Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope, and wanted to get my two cents. My advice to him was simple: speak from the heart, let people get a sense of who the real Terry McAuliffe is, and most of all, don’t hold anything back. I was pleased when I saw that Terry took my advice. Before we took the stage today, Terry told me he knew exactly what I meant when I said ―if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. He’s got that car company down in Mississippi and they’re not building cars and that pellet company down in Franklin that doesn’t make any pellets. Nobody’s working harder than Terry McAuliffe to prove that people in business didn’t build anything! Ah come on Terry, you know I love you! Hillary may be likeable enough, but I just love Terry McAuliffe – no matter what he told Jon Stewart.

All of you Democrats here in Northern Virginia need to make sure you vote, because there’s a lot of folks out there

in the rest of Virginia still clinging to their guns and religion and those folks are going to vote. You know, unlike my last opponent, Terry McAuliffe can actually prove he’s created 100,000 jobs…oh wait…he can’t prove it…I mean, unlike my last opponent, everyone’s giving Terry McAuliffe a pass on his claim to have created 100,000 jobs. And I also want to give a big shout out to The Washington Post, after relentlessly tormenting my opponent about releasing his tax returns last year they’ve done Terry McAuliffe quite the favor by not demanding the same of him.

Tomorrow, some of you will hear from Vice President Biden… Uncle Joe as we like to call him in the West Wing. With any luck, he’ll talk about binders…binders full of Chinese investors…binders full of Chinese investors that my friend Terry and his company successfully duped for millions.

Way to go man…that’s quite an economicfeat as opposed to owing them trillions. And finally, I want to clear one thing up and let everyone know that I’m not the least bit concerned about the DHS and SEC investigations that involve Terry McAuliffe. From my staff in the White House, to the folks in the Vice President’s office, to the folks at DHS – my administration has gone above and beyond to help McAuliffe’s GreenTech and I’m not about to let a couple federal probes by my own administration dampen my support for Terry. If there’s a problem, I’m sure we’ll hear about it after Election Day, but for now, it’s time to focus on more important stuff. Virginians should always know, they can count on Terry McAuliffe! Whether its 3 AM or some other time, he’ll likely be playing cards with my friend Bill enjoying each other’s company in doses.

Kerry and me.

 

 

Kerry Dougherty is a columnist in the Virginian Pilot and is unquestionably the most mainstream of the ones that the Pilot pays. She’s also a good writer. You feel that you get a chance to know her from her stories about her parents, especially her mom, who was apparently a heavy smoker who liked a cocktail or two. This is the sort of family that people can relate to: neither plaster saints nor “Mommy Dearest” villains.

The other thing to respect about Daugherty is that she’s more than willing to take on the conventional corruption that passes for local government in places like Virginia Beach. Here the big money comes from real estate interests who are always ready to saddle the taxpayers with expensive things like “light rail,” a boondoggle that is designed to enrich only the developers along the line at the cost of a billion dollars.

So I was disappointed to find Kerry using the label “ultraconservative” as a way of smearing Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican candidate for Governor of Virginia. There is no question that Cuccinelli is a conservative, but one of the ways that the MSM uses to demonize people on the Right is to label them and ridicule them rather than engage them in debate.  Cuccinelli is Catholic and opposes abortion. Cuccinelli's opponent has been making the case that he is waging a "war on women"  because he opposes abortion. So is opposition to abortion an "ultraconservative" position outside the American mainstream?  According to the Washington Post, no fan of Republicans,

By 56 percent to 27 percent, more Americans would prefer to impose limits on abortions after the first 20 weeks of pregnancy rather than the 24-week mark established by the Supreme Court, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

An additional 10 percent of those surveyed volunteered that they would prefer to outlaw abortion in the United States altogether or limit it sooner than 20 weeks after fertilization.

The fact is that the country is roughly evenly split between people who oppose abortion and those who support it. But when you ask people to get more granular, you find that only 19% say that abortion should be legal in all cases.  

 

That means that about one in five are in favor of abortion up to the moment of birth: for convenience, for fetal abnormalities, for sex selection, and  - since we’ll soon be able to test for the homosexual gene – to abort babies who may be homosexual. Those who oppose abortion in all cases, 17%, are roughly equal to those who favor it in all cases; neatly balancing the scales. If you remove those who support abortion in all cases and add those who have no opinion (22%), 78% of Americans would like some limits to abortion which puts them at odds with Terry McAuliffe and his supporters at Planned Parenthood as well as with Barack Obama.

We wonder if Kerry Daugherty would like to reconsider who should be tarred with the “Ultra” label, or if she has other issues in mind?

Terry McAuliffe Pledges Colorado-Like Gun Control if Elected

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe's (D) website was updated Monday to show his commitment to bring Colorado-like gun control to the commonwealth.

Cuccinelli may just have won the election.

The Virginian Pilot is upset that their trashing of Ken Cuccinelli isn't working as well as planned.

The headline is: Governor's race seems to be navigated by negativity.

But the subhead should read: "I thought we had trashed and lied about Ken Cuccinelli enough to have destroyed his reputation. We're upset that Democrat Terry McAuliffe is getting a taste of his own medicine."

McAuliffe, a man who made his fortune in politics and politically connect enterprises is an awful human being. He made a reported $18 million from his share of Global Crossings, a firm he got shares in due to his political connections, and sold out at the peak before it went bankrupt and thousands lost their jobs. He's had as string of business failures, most of whom seem to leave him with more money than before and his campaign to be the next Virginia governor seems to be based on his non-existent business acumen.

WaPo reluctantly reports Terry McAuliffe’s bald-faced debate lie.

Via Redstate.

In the most obvious misstatement of the debate, [Democrat Terry] McAuliffe attacked [Republican Virginia Attorney General Ken] Cuccinelli over the findings of a Richmond prosecutor who had been tasked with investigating Cuccinelli’s financial disclosures.

“If you read the whole report, which I have, it says in here that the attorney general should have been prosecuted,” McAuliffe said, over Cuccinelli’s failure to disclose his stock holdings in Star Scientific and gifts from Williams. McAuliffe also said that because of Cuccinelli’s ties to Williams and Star, which filed a civil tax case against the state, “a judge took the case away from him because of a conflict of interest.”

Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael Herring said in a report last week that he found no evidence that Cuccinelli had violated the law. And it was Cuccinelli’s office that requested recusal from the civil tax case.

“So much is inaccurate,” Cuccinelli said when asked in the debate to respond, “I’ll let the fact checkers take care of it. That one’s gonna get sliced up.”

After the debate, McAuliffe sought to clarify his comment. “On the report — the attorney general could have been prosecuted if we had stronger disclosure laws in Virginia,” McAuliffe said, although Herring’s report did not make that assertion.

You can be sure the Virginian Pilot will repeat McAuliffe's lies verbatim.

Is the Virginian Pilot going to demand Crony Capitalist and Tax Cheat Terry McAuliffe come clean?

Don't bet on it. He's their candidate and they will do everything they can to make any questions about his past, present and future go away. The Virginian Pilot and its billionaire owners embody the core beliefs of the Move-On group that told us that the Whitewater, Cattlegate and Lewinski scandals were irrelevant. OTOH, Romney's wealth was a scandal.

In short, based on the available evidence, Terry McAuliffe appears to have used Leaf Clean Energy as precisely the kind of perfectly legal tax shelter that he and his fellow Democrats routinely rail against as immoral and irresponsible. Until he releases his full tax returns, there is no way of knowing for sure.

McAuliffe is always promising the moon and delivering nada, nothing, zip. One example close to home is the Franklin pellet-manufacturing project in the abandoned International Paper factory. McAuliffe is using cut-outs on this project so that his name will not be associated with a project that's never gotten off the ground.

That project has engendered its own controversy in Isle of Wight County, as the pellet plant has failed to materialize more than three years after McAuliffe announced his bid for the site. I spoke this afternoon with Lisa Perry, director of the county’s Department of Economic Development, who assured me that the project is still active and answered “Yes” when asked whether McAuliffe was still personally involved (notwithstanding CMI’s removal of McAuliffe from its website). Perry also said, “This is a real project. We have approached it from the beginning as a real project. . . . I have complete confidence that it will continue.” Citing nondisclosure agreements, Perry could not furnish details about the current state of the undertaking; but she explained that “Being engaged with International Paper on this type of economic development project is overwhelmingly difficult,” and cited “just the fact that International Paper is engaged with this company at all” as evidence of seriousness on the part of McAuliffe and his consortium.

Oh, and the place where tax cheat McAuliffe has his headquarters?  Ugland House.  This is what McAuliffe's sponsor said about it.  Is McAuliffe a tax cheat?  You don't have to take my word for it; here's Barack Obama:

On the campaign, I used to talk about the outrage of a building in the Cayman Islands that had over 12,000 business — businesses claim this building as their headquarters. And I’ve said before, either this is the largest building in the world or the largest tax scam in the world. 

One more reason to make Ken Cuccinelli the next governor of Virginia.

Governor McDonnell is getting the Issa treatment in the Virginian Pilot.

While mostly ignoring the Obama administration’s Fast & Furious, Benghazi, IRS, NSA, and reporter-spying scandals, the Virginian Pilot has been full of Bob McDonnell “scandals.” One of the latest was the “scandal” involving a friend who lent his limo to drive McDonnell’s daughter and her new husband after her wedding. We’re not kidding you: that’s one of the breathless revelations that the Virginian Pilot hopes will so smear McDonnell that he won’t be able to go out in public, or at least will never run for office again.

The assault on McDonnell is simply the tried-and-true way the Obama team wins elections. They destroy the opposition by smearing them personally. That’s how Obama won most of his elections in Chicago, and he likes the way it works.  It's the Chicago Way and it's landed in Virginia. 

After winning the Presidency in 2008 with a worshipful press the smear has become the favorite tactic of Team Obama. The reason it works is that there are enough willing accomplices in the media who will broadcast and amplify the smear.  Paid political ads are discounted by the public, but if you can get a newspaper to print a smear, and then editorialize about it, the low information voter buys it hook, line and sinker.  The key is finding a reporter willing to spread a lie, and at the Virginian Pilot they are lined up with knee pads at the ready.  Nowhere is the appellation: "Democrat operatives with bylines" more true that at the Virginian Pilot.

In the election of 2012, Mitt Romney, probably the most straight-laced candidate for President in my lifetime, was vilified as a murderer and a felonious tax cheat by the press so far in the tank for Obama that they rarely came up for air.

 

In the summer of 2010, with Republicans poised to take over the House and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) in line to lead the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the White House started urging reporters to write negative stories about the congressman’s past, a new book says.

Now it’s McDonnell’s turn and the Democrats have a willing accomplice in the Virginian Pilot who are trying to destroy both McDonnell and Ken Cuccinelli who’s running for Governor against Obama crony and political fixer-plutocrat Terry McAuliffe.

If you don't know what a "Crony Capitalist" is you just might be an editorial writer.

 

Christina Nuckols has this in common with most of the people in the dead tree news industry: she hates Ken Cuccinelli with the heat of a thousand suns. So she chooses to tag him with the accusation that he’s a crony capitalist for accepting donations for companies that support his stand on their industry and the environment. Using that slur, which is pretty much all the editors of Virginia’s newspapers have left, the term loses its meaning. Is Obama a crony capitalist because he and his PACs accept money from business interests? No; Obama is a crony capitalist because he shovels tax money to companies who can’t make it on their own. In fact, like Solyndra and the scores of “solyndras” that have followed in its wake, they can’t even make money when they got huge loans and subsidies from the Federal treasury. Hardly a week passes without the announcement of another “green” company that got direct financial aid from the Obama administration going bust. Crony Capitalism is hard at work when pals and allies of the administration get money, loans, or special regulations that enrich the Crony Capitalists at the expense of the taxpayer.  Allowing companies to engage in business by removing crushing regulation is the very opposite of crony capitalism.  

 

Nuckols is the editorial page editor for the Roanoke Times, owned by the billionaire Batten family who have moved their Christina around the state from one property to another.

For people who are interested, here is a recording of Christina interviewing a member of a gun rights group who tells us that she misrepresented what he told her.   By the way, recording your conversations with reporters is always a good idea.  If they lie about what you said, as usually happens (they wrote the article before they interviewed you, they're just hunting for the right quote to support their story), you can then put the recording on the Internet.  Sending a letter to the editor does no good; it won't be printed. 

 

Glenn Reynolds calls people like Christina Nuckols Democrat partisans with bylines.  

Incest at the Virginian Pilot

Their slogan: “True to the Democratic Party in victory of defeat.”

 

It has been clear that the Virginian Pilot and the Democrats are in bed together. Sometime we forget just how incestuous that relationship is until they tell us themselves.

A few days ago they ran a mean spirited editorial calling on Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to resign. The reason? He’s going to be running for governor. A number of Cuccinelli’s predecessors have done so but not all. And no other state’s attorney general has done so. Remember Bill Clinton?  He ran for Governor while attorney general  of Arkansas. Why should Cuccinelli be held to a different standard than, say, Barack Obama who didn’t resign from the Senate to run for president? Maybe because Cuccinelli‘s a white Republican and Obama’s a black Democrat?

But back to that editorial. Not being on the Democrat's speed dial, we thought that the partisans who run the Virginian Pilot dreamed that up by themselves. But no! Today they reveal that this was a Democrat talking point. And so is the so-called “controversy” about Cuccinelli’s investments. It’s not a surprise, but it’s a useful reminder how much of what’s in the Virginian Pilot are re-writes of Democrat press releases. It reminds us once again of Glenn Reynolds’s definition of the press as “Democrat operatives with by-lines.”

Cuccinelli in Church

Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was asked to addressed a breakfast meeting of the Virginia Christian Alliance (VCA) with the theme of “Christian Citizenship and Godly Government” on what pastors are allowed under the law to say from the pulpit. The group of nearly 300 was comprised of a number of Pastors from the African-American community who see the basic morality of the country in severe decline. As ministers, they have an obligation to lead their congregation, and that leadership includes pointing out the actions that are leading to the moral decay in America.

Specifically concerning do’s and don’t in the pulpit:

“You will be surprised to learn just how much freedom you have. You can speak to any issue in America, from the pulpit, full-throated, ears pinned back. You don’t have to hold back at all. Any issue at all. You can be critical of votes elected officials have taken on those issues. Now be careful, don’t cross the line into un-endorsing. Don’t say ‘we need to defeat this person’ while you’re standing there in the pulpit. But when you get down out of church you can hold fund-raisers, you can put your name on candidates, you can identify yourself as the pastor of thus and such church but it needs to say something like ‘for identification purposes only’. You never want to lead anyone to possibly believe that you’re, on behalf of a church, endorsing a candidate.”