Jun

25

Congratulations, Jason!

Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment

On a great win in the face of tremendous odds.

Chris Cannon seemed to have everything going for him: endorsements of most of Utah’s Republican leadership, name recognition, a bigger budget, experience from previous campaigns, PAC money from outside Utah, all that and yet volunteerism and a great grass roots effort were able to unseat him in a near landslide.

Everyone thought that the 59%-41% vote at the State convention was a fluke, but here it is again repeated in the Republican primary. Obviously Jason has something to say that resonates with voters. Too bad Chris Cannon was more interested in listening to outside voices.

Jun

24

Mr. Cannon, You’re Fired!

Filed Under Campaigns, Elections, Government, Politics | Leave a Comment

I spent the evening at Chaffetz Headquarters in Springville. At about 11:00 PM, Chris Cannon called to offer his congratulations, and to concede the race for Utah’s Third congressional District.

The totals as of right now (with all but one rural precinct reporting) are:

  • Jason Chaffetz - 59.96% (27,266)
  • Chris Cannon - 40.04% (18,208)

In his acceptance speech, Mr. Chaffetz thanked Mr. Cannon for his service to the community, which was a nice gesture.

There was a point during the evening where Mr. Cannon said something that served to solidify our feelings about him. He told a local reporter that he was disappointed in the low turnout, and said that it aserved as a lesson to the people of Utah; that if they want good representation, they’re going to have to get out and vote. The comment drew a lot of cat-calls from people at Chaffetz headquarters.

To me, it was reminiscent of another comment that was made several years ago. When Al Gore lost the presidential election in 2000, one of the Democratic leaders was interviewed at the State Capitol. Her comment made my blood boil. She said, as closely as I can recall, “The people have spoken, and if they want to drive this ship of state into the ground, that’s their business.”

Now I know Mr. Cannon didn’t say exactly that, but it certainly felt a lot like it. I am convinced that Washington has historically attracted people who think like that; who think they know better than us benighted masses. Chris Cannon has called for transparency in earmarks. What is really needed to overcome this effect is transparency in government. Washington needs to be a fishbowl, not an opaque bubble. Then nobody could say, “Well, you just don’t understand how things work back there.” That’s always a red flag for me. It says three things, 1) Washington is a closed society that, 2) the politicians think we aren’t bright enough to understand, and 3) we couldn’t get things done there because we aren’t part of the clique.

Here’s hoping Jason Chaffetz breaks it wide open!

Jun

24

Chaffetz Takes Early Lead

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9:40 PM

With 30% of precincts reporting, Jason Chaffetz has taken a sizable lead.

Current results:

Chaffetz: 61% (10,583) Cannon 39% (6798)

Watch current results on-line at

http://www.electionresults.utah.gov/xmlData/30003.html

Jun

24

Primary Day

Filed Under Campaigns, Elections, Government | Leave a Comment

Today is the Republican Primary.

Do the right thing, and vote.

I voted Jason Chaffetz for US Congress in Utah’s Third District. I think it’s time for a change, and I’m not talking about the empty change-for-the-sake-of-change that Obama wants. I mean substantive change.

Chris Cannon has served Utah reasonably well, but he now seems to have picked up whatever germ has infested Washington DC that causes our public servants to become arrogant and cocky, to rise up against the people and take an attitude of “I know better than you.”

Jason’s positions more closely match my own, as does his feelings on the immigration question. Leaving in place the incentives that cause people to come here illegally, only to be caught up in the web of deceit laid by our leaders wherein these people cannot lift themselves out of poverty is wrong. We are a country that has prided itself on the equality of opportunity. But these people are shut out of that opportunity cycle by their legal status. The solution is not to make categorical changes to their status, but to encourage them to come to America the right way, in accordance with the law. Luring them here with promises of free health care, better income, whatever, is an evil that must be abolished.

Both Jason Chaffetz and Glenn Beck have rightly named this the new slavery–a community of non-citizens upon which our economy supposedly hangs. That argument was wrong during the revolution, and it is wrong now.

Get out and vote.

Jun

20

Family Matters

Filed Under Education, Government | Leave a Comment

I support Parents for Choice in Education. I support their cause because I support the idea that parents, not elitist government bureaucrats, know best how to educate children. The “anointed elite” believe that because of their highly educated status, they are among the very wise and therefore must be obeyed when it comes to social policy.

One example I want to share. This comes from a newsletter recently sent to me by PCE. It includes a portion of a letter by Denise Griffiths. She writes,

My daughter’s stress and anxiety left her hating school and suffering a down turn in her delicate health situation. We believed a change in schools and peers would help. A transfer should have been easy since our our school was overcrowded and the other school had room for almost 200 students.

We applied to transfer her by the deadline but were rejected. Our written appeal, with letters from two doctors, was also rejected. When I complained to the district I was told ‘It’s not about capacity, it’s about things you don’t understand.’

In desperation to help my daughter, we were compelled to turn over custody to grandparents. Unbelievably, a school administrator attended the custody hearing to inform the judge that we were just trying to get around district policy. I wish the district understood that it’s about the children and things that parents do understand.

The only thing the newsletter leaves out is the identity of this busybody school administrator who believes he or she has the right, even the duty, to interfere in the lives of other people. In my opinion, this administrator should be fired, their name well-publicized, and they should be made the target of public scorn, derision, and ridicule.

Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. Remember the Jensen family that ran afoul of the State when their son, Parker, was diagnosed with cancer? Rather than subject their son to the torture of chemotherapy, which would leave their son sterilized in addition to offering little chance of saving his life, they opted to get a second opinion. That’s when their doctor reported them to the Utah Dept. of Child and Family Services. The DCFS took the case to a judge who ordered that Parker be taken into state custody and that his parents be arrested for kidnapping (they were on vacation in Idaho when the judge made his ruling).

Well, the family was recently spotlighted on a local news broadcast. The state has since dropped it’s case against the family, but only after two years of pursuing them. The father lost his job, they lost their home, and they are basically having to start over. But what they did was nothing short of heroic. Their actions are of the same character as those of our founding fathers, standing up against government overreaching its Constitutionally-limited authority. Instead, there are still many people here in Utah and elsewhere who see the Jensen’s as abusive parents who need to be jailed.

What these obtuse individuals have failed to grasp is that the government has never legitimately been given power over families like that. It has taken that power unto itself, which means that it does not really have the authority at all. It may have the power, but it lacks the authority.

Do these folks realize that the DCFS can sieze a child from its parents without due process? All they need is someone to say the child is in imminent danger. And the courts have historically sided with DCFS on the issue, Constitutional prohibitions notwithstanding. The DCFS and the courts thus routinely violate the Supreme Law of the Land.

Fortunately, there still seems to be a majority of people who oppose this usurpation. It’s one of the things I am asking Jason Chaffetz to address when he gets to Congress–to enshrine in our Constitution and laws the unalienable rights of parents to direct the upbringing of their children, including the recognition that government does not have first right of refusal in providing for childrens’ needs.

Vote for Jason Chaffetz on June 24.

Jun

17

Idiots from the Planet Stupid

Filed Under Fascism, Government, Ideology, Politics, Socialism | Leave a Comment

Here’s a fine example of why Barak Obama must be defeated in November. With morons like this guy supporting his positions, we’ll all soon be enjoying the fruits of American Liberalism–we’ll all be dirt poor, our standard of living will fall through the floor, we will see the rise of a new European lifestyle in the big cities of America, and abject poverty and death in the small towns, the jobless rate will skyrocket, and crime rates will follow, and a depression far deeper and more vast will begin here in America as corporations move overseas, and will engulf the entire global economy that will last for at least 4 years.

This is why the Electoral College is so vitally important–more so now than ever. If it were up to the educated idiots who live in places like New York and Los Angeles, the rest of the country would have become a trash heap long ago. These people think nothing exists beyond what they can see from the tallest skyscraper. To their understanding, there are no wide stretches of open land in America. There is only a 200-mile stretch once you leave New York before you get to L.A. The only reason they don’t travel there via ground transportation is because the subways don’t connect.

Sean Hannity repeated a quote by someone, I forget who, who could not understand how a Republican could win in an election, when nobody they knew voted for them. It’s the same principle on a larger scale. They don’t believe anything exists outside their own little sphere.

And the sphere includes not just space, but time as well. They are completely ignorant of the lessons of experience and history. You can’t point out to them how the policies of Barak Obama are not much more than Jimmy Carter’s policies revisited, and therefore will have a similar effect. The difference is that because of this lame-brained tendency to refuse to learn the correct lessons, they think these policies will work this time if only they try harder, or work at making government even larger and more powerful, or take more of our money. They think it will be different because the people involved are different.

Barak Obama is a full-blown Marxist. If he gets elected, America will have fulfilled Nikita Khrushchev’s prediction of one day becoming a Communist nation by our own stupidity:

You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept Communism outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have Communism. We won’t have to fight you. We’ll so weaken your economy until you’ll fall like overripe fruit into our hands.

Given the behavior of the current Democratic leadership, and the goals of Barak Obama and his liberal friends, is there any wonder about whom Khrushchev was speaking when he said “we.” there is only one explanation for the complete opposition by the Democrats to forestall the slide of our economy into chaos and wreckage by allowing us to drill for oil in our own country, only one explanation for their policies of the past 40 years. They have become the enemy. Traitors to their own people, they have sold themselves out for the chance to wield power over mankind. They are Stalin’s useful idiots. They are not our countrymen; they do not belong among us.

Jun

17

The Pledge to Increase US Oil Production

Filed Under Environment, Global Warming, Government, Politics | 4 Comments

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) is circulating a pledge among House members that signifies their willingness to rely more heavily on our own, domestic resources.

As of 4:00 PM MDT on June 17, 2008, Congressman Chris Cannon’s name is not on the list. Why not? Maybe he’s just too busy talking about it.

Those who have signed to date:

Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.)
Tom Price (R-Ga.)
Paul Broun (R-Ga.)
Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.)
Patrick McHenry (R-NC)
Wally Herger (R-Calif.)
George Radanovich (R-Calif.)
Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio)
Mike Conaway (R-Texas)
John Culberson (R-Texas)
Tom Reynolds (R-NY)
Greg Walden (R-Ore.)
Bill Shuster (R-Pa.)
Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.)
Dan Burton (R-Ind.)
Judy Biggert (R-Ill.)
Tom Feeney (R-Fla.)
Tom Latham (R-Iowa)
Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.)

Jun

5

The 15 Theses

Filed Under Environment, Fascism, Global Warming, Mitt Romney | Leave a Comment

When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, he was challenging the authority of the prevailing religion of the day, the Catholic Church. In a way, his struggle mirrors our own today.

Instead of an infallible Pope, we have Al Gore unilaterally pronouncing the debate over. Instead of corrupt priests, we have climate scientists parroting the “Pope” in exchange for favors. I could go on.

Recognizing I am about 80 short, I hereby post my own 15 statements of rebellion against the new Universal Church of the Earth. I call this “My Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Climate Legislation, including the Kyoto Protocol.”

I deny that Global Warming has any significant connection to human industrial activities.

I deny that we are destroying the planet.

I deny the claims that we are causing glaciers to melt, polar bears to drown, arctic ice to retreat, sea levels to rise, acne to increase, or any of the numberless things that have recently been attributed to Climate Change.

I deny the assertion that humans are parasites, a cancer, a plague, or any other fear-laden word abused by green activists.

I deny environmentalists any right to impose legislation that will adversely affect my way of life, or that will harm my family’s way of life.

I deny the false assertion that eco-activists have any concern for human welfare.

I deny the assumption that we must change our way of life to more closely match those of third-world countries in order to protect the environment.

I deny Barak Obama’s claim that leadership in the world means we should acquiesce to the demands of other countries regarding how much we can eat, what we can drive, or how we should live.

I deny that our American way of life is a threat to other nations.

I deny that the Kyoto Protocol will do anything about cooling the planet.

I deny the assertion that CO2 is a pollutant, and that it is harmful to the planet.

I deny that we can stop Global Warming, or Climate Change, or whatever other term the environmentalists wish to abuse this month.

I deny that the Left can come up with anything positive for human progress.

I deny that Leftists have any right to call America home while they work tirelessly to pull it apart and destroy it.

In conclusion, I am willing to concede that I can be called a denier. I’m in good company. Given that the temperature decrease of this year alone has offset the past 100 years of warming, and that the IPCC has predicted a cooling trend for at least the next 15 years, how can anyone who now continues to claim that human activities are to blame for climate change expect to be taken seriously? Some people will continue this “struggle” to save the planet in the face of mounting evidence that that our planet doesn’t need saving. They want one of two things: a cause or power. It’s not hard to see who wants which.

I am a denier, and as far as it is in my ability I will deny both of these things to those who have proven that they will only abuse them. I encourage you to do the same.

Jun

5

Jason Chaffetz Within Two Percent of Chris Cannon

Filed Under Campaigns, Elections, Government, Immigration, Politics | 13 Comments

I got an email earlier today from my friends at the Utah Republican Assembly. It was forwarded from Bay Buchanan, a nationally known Conservative pundit and author of The Extreme Makeover of Hillary Rodham-Clinton. Ms. Buchanan was US Treasurer from 1981-1983, and she was awarded 2007 Woman of the Year by the Claire Booth Luce Policy Institute. She converted to the LDS Church in 1976 (not that it makes any difference to us folks here in Utah…end sarcasm).

The letter says it all.


Dear Friend,

The race in Utah is heating up and our man, Jason Chaffetz, is closing in on one of La Raza’s favorite congressman, Chris Cannon. You remember the Cannon-he’s famous for saying that in Utah, “We don’t often times make the distinction between legal and illegal [immigrants]”

Two weeks ago, when in Utah for my son’s wedding, I made of point of having lunch with Jason and his wife. I wanted to be certain he was the kind of candidate who deserved the endorsement of Team America and your support as well.

I am excited to tell you he is all that and more. Solid on the issues, Tancredo-good on immigration-Jason is also tough and gutsy. He will not buckle under pressure. Jason is exactly what we need in Washington.

I just spoke with Jason and he is really thrilled with the feel of the campaign. As well he should be-he has closed to within 2% of Cannon!!!

But he needs our help if he is to beat Cannon. The establishment, ethnic lobbyists, and corporate buddies are once again pouring money into Cannon’s coffers. They know he is a solid vote for their amnesty and guest worker bills. They will do all they can to keep Cannon in Congress-and Jason out.

Jason’s knows he needs to get his message right to the people with strong radio ads. He has already cut the ads-now he needs to raise the money to get them on air!

And Chris Cannon is up to his old tricks. His website has an outrageously misleading video on immigration in which Cannon claims to be against amnesty!! We need to help Jason get the facts out about Cannon’s record and Jason will win this congressional seat.

He needs our help and he needs it now. If there is anyway you can make a contribution to him please do so TODAY. Jason has promised me that all the money Team America raises for him will be used to buy radio Your generous contribution will be used for Jason’s radio buy.

If you want to make your contribution directly to his campaign at his website. Otherwise contribute to Team America and mark in the comment section “For Jason”. We will then send Jason-overnight-a check for the total amount of earmarked contributions. (Team America keeps no portion of contributions earmarked for candidates.)

Thanks again for everything you do to protect and secure this nation.

Warmest regards,
Bay Buchanan

2% is likely within the statistical margin of error. Jason can win this election. The people of Utah are tired of Cannon’s empty rhetoric and constant inaction. Glenn Beck told his listeners today about the 6,000 people who have been killed along our border with Mexico over the past couple of years by violent gangs. Our legislators knew almost nothing about it. This is why we need strength in Congress. We need someone who can shake those dullards out of their sleepy comfort. Congress needs a new spine. Chris Cannon has failed us in that regard.

Let’s really hit Cannon hard in the next few weeks. Go Jason!