The computerized voting machines used by many voters in the 23rd district had a computer virus – tainting the results, not just from those machines known to have been infected, but casting doubt on the accuracy of counts retrieved from any of the machines.

Cathleen Rogers, the Democratic Elections Commissioner in Hamilton County stated that they discovered a problem with their voting machines the week prior to the election and that the “virus” was fixed by a Technical Support representatives from Dominion, the manufacturer. . . . None of the machines (from the same manufacturer) used in the other counties within the 23rd district were looked at nor were they recertified after the “reprogramming” that occurred in Hamilton County.

As is pointed out in the article, this virus debacle calls into question all of the NY-23 election results. It is simply unbelievable that a virus was found in Hamilton County voting machines one week before the special election and none of the other machines in the district were examined. Who really won in NY-23, and did the virus tamper with the vote count?

Last and most pertinent question: Where did the virus come from? Were there any, erm, community organizers near the voting machines prior to the election?

Cross-posted to RedState.

First up is news that the New York Times, clearly desperate for readers, is offering any college professor who makes the Times required reading in his or her syllabus a free subscription. In case the implications aren’t abundantly clear — I know it’s early — let me spell it out for you. The Times is going to let professors have a subscription to their newspaper for free if they make you pay for it. I would call for a student boycott of the New York Times, but clearly none of us are reading it anyway or they wouldn’t have hatched this scheme.

Next up is news out of Pittsburgh that is sure to boil your morning oatmeal. Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is proposing a “Fair Share Tax” that would levy a 1% tax on college tuition (h/t Instapundit). In his not-so-humble opinion, students just aren’t paying their fair share for city services. Mary Hines, president of the Pittsburgh Council on Higher Education and president of Carlow University, disagrees. She points out that students already pay income and property taxes in Pittsburgh. But of course that’s not enough for Ravenstahl. When are there really enough taxes for any liberal?

If this “Fair Share Tax” passes muster in Pittsburgh, look for it to come to a college town near you. I’m sure the corruptocrats in the Athens County Democratic Party will be chomping at the bit to levy a similar tax once they hear the news. Just remember, my fellow matriculants: You do have options. Republicans are for lower taxes and, unless they’re RINOs, aren’t likely to tax your tuition. These folks who want to levy taxes on your tuition are counting on you to keep voting for hopeandchange (TM) at the ballot box.

Last but certainly not least, in this edition of What Were They Smoking and Where Can I Find Some?, we explore what kind of hard drugs University of California regents must have been on when they thought they would quietly get away with increasing tuition by 32%. Are they familiar with the long tradition of student protest at California colleges and universities? But UC students aren’t going quietly into that good night; they’re raging, raging against the dying of their bank accounts. And good for them. But guys, don’t just blame the regents. Your far left state government and its budget mismanagement, that’s the real culprit.

All of this begs the question: Leftist assault on higher education, or just putting the liberal in the liberal arts?

Cross-posted to RedState.

We can do that by supporting a libertarian, populist revision of DOMA — by introducing a Let the People Decide Act of 2010.

Here’s how it would work. The full faith and credit clause that prevents same-sex marriages from being forcibly exported to other states would be left completely intact. The clause that excludes same-sex marriages, civil unions, and domestic partnerships from federal rights and benefits would be repealed if and only if voters within a state approve some version of same-sex unions through ballot issues.

More beneath the fold…

On a partisan strategic level, a Let the People Decide Act would effectively beat Democrats to the punch and allow Republicans to reach out to libertarian and conservative gays and lesbians, as well as social moderates, without betraying the base. It would level the playing field, allowing both proponents and opponents of same-sex marriage to make their case directly to voters and then letting voters make the final decision. A Let the People Decide Act would effectively remove this issue from the Democratic campaign arsenal.

Within the party, it would allow the GOP to reclaim the mantle of the Big Tent by appealing to libertarians, conservatives, and moderates. What’s the appeal for opponents of same-sex marriage, you ask? In order for states to secure federal rights and benefits for same-sex unions, they would have to receive voter consent rather than bypassing voters through judicial activism or liberal legislatures beholden to special interests. A Let the People Decide Act would force states like Massachusetts to finally seek voter approval of same-sex unions.

While this would carry some risk for opponents of same-sex marriage, it must be remembered that in every state that has presented same-sex marriage to voters through the ballot it has been rejected. This most recently includes socially moderate Maine. While proponents of same-sex marriage would stand to potentially gain from a Let the People Decide Act, so would opponents in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and elsewhere. Whatever the outcome, at least both sides would have to be satisfied with the fact that voters — not judicial activists or legislators — made the decision.

On an ideological level, a Let the People Decide Act meshes well with the libertarian strain within the Republican Party. It would make a great addition to a platform that emphasizes freedom first and state sovereignty, and it would emphasize the federal government’s Tenth Amendment responsibility to place the power to decide this issue directly in the hands of the states and the people. This proposal would be federalist and libertarian at its core, emphasizing a Republican commitment to respecting the constitution.

There is valid disagreement within the Republican Party and among the people of the fifty states about the proper degree of recognition for same-sex marriage. The best way to iron out those disagreements and reach consensus is to encourage vigorous debate among voters at the state level. Let’s demand the right of the American people to express their values on this contentious issue. Let the People Decide.

Cross-posted to RedState.

While finding out where Palin stands on policy is important, I think there are other ways one can discern whether or not she is qualified to lead our nation. Over a year ago, Palin gave her speech at the Republican National Convention as the GOP vice presidential candidate. I think now is the appropriate time to look back on that speech and see just how prescient Palin’s claims about the future of America under an Obama administration have turned out to be.

More beneath the fold…

Sarah Palin on September 3, 2008:

Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And, since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let  me explain to them what the job involves: I guess, I guess a small town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.

The situation today: Over a year ago, Sarah Palin highlighted in general that she was the only candidate in the election who actually had executive experience. Specifically, she questioned the leadership ability of a man whose longest job title was not state senator or U.S. senator, but community organizer. More than a year later, has Barack Obama proven that he is ready to lead?

The clear answer is no. Sarah Palin was right. He has not led our economy into recovery, as unemployment climbs to 10% and the so-called stimulus has only created jobs in congressional districts that don’t exist. He has not made our country more fiscally sound, as the bailouts have only positioned the country for a repeat of our previous crisis and out of control spending has brought our deficit to $12 trillion. Nor has he led on health care reform, the supposed centerpiece of his domestic agenda. Rather, he has played basketball and gone golfing while abdicating the job voters gave him to do to the most radical Speaker of the House in history and a weak-kneed Senate Majority Leader.

On foreign policy, his inability to lead is even more grave. Iran and North Korea remain obstinate. He spits in the faces of veterans who served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam as he shows the world a weaker kinder, gentler president who bows to emperors and dictators. He refuses to acknowledge an ongoing war on terrorism, and when that war once again returns to his country via a radical Muslim army psychiatrist he refuses to accept responsibility for the first terrorist attack on American soil since September 11, 2001. He is giving the 9/11 mastermind a civilian trial and all of the risks that come with it. But maybe most seriously, his dithering on Afghanistan threatens greater harm to our troops and ultimately the victory of a resurgent Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Sarah Palin was right: Barack Obama is not ready to lead.

Sarah Palin on September 3, 2008:

I might add, I might add that in small towns we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they’re listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening. No, we tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.

The situation today: Sarah Palin pointed out that Barack Obama didn’t really respect working men and women; if anything, he looked down on them with a condescending sense of pity. In Obama’s worldview, working Americans don’t need freedom; they need government.

This is so clearly true today. The government take-over of the health care industry is really a statement that Americans need government to manage their health. Rather than focusing on free-market solutions that would give Americans more choices, the Obamacrats would rather mete out health care as they see fit. They know what’s best for you. In the process, they’ll tax you and tax you again. They’ll even put a tax on soda and juice drinks to try to control your behavior.

And by the way, because you’re too stupid to know what’s going on, they’ll promote ideas like the “fairness doctrine” to regulate what is and is not said on television and radio, and “net neutrality” to introduce the greatest increase in internet regulation in American history. But don’t worry, all the taxes and regulations — they’re just doing what’s best for you, because you can’t be trusted to do it yourself.

Sarah Palin was right: Barack Obama has no respect for working Americans. He sees them as lesser human beings who need government to take care of them.

Sarah Palin on September 3, 2008:

Our opponents say again and again that drilling will not solve all of America’s energy problems, as if we didn’t know that already. But the fact, the fact that drilling though won’t solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all. Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we’re going to lay more pipelines, and build more nuclear plants, and create jobs with clean coal, and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal, and other alternative sources.

We need, we need American sources of resources, we need American energy brought to you by American ingenuity and produced by American workers.

The situation today: As Sarah Palin predicted, Barack Obama has not moved forward on energy independence. His “climate change” proposals have virtually nothing to do with energy independence; they’re more about imposing artificial government restrictions on business, and the largest tax increase in American history. We’re still not drilling for more domestic oil or natural gas. We haven’t built nuclear power plants. We’re not doing anything with clean coal (in fact, cap-and-tax will destroy the coal industry). There has been no progress on alternative energy sources like solar, wind, and geothermal.

By ignoring energy independence, Obamacrats have ignored a legitimate economic and national security issue in which the government should have become involved through incentivizing leadership and innovation. The Obama administration has ignored what could have been the single largest job stimulus program we could have achieved, an energy independence stimulus that would have created jobs, reduced our trade deficit, and made us more secure and less reliant on hostile foreign powers.

Sarah Palin was right: Barack Obama has done “nothing at all” on energy independence. We are still as dependent as ever on foreign sources of energy — to the detriment of our workers, to our domestic economy, to our trade deficit, and to our national security.

Sarah Palin on September 3, 2008:

Now I’ve noticed a pattern with our opponent, and maybe you have too. We’ve all heard his dramatic speeches before devoted followers, and there is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs, but not a single major law or not even a reform, not even in the state senate.

This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word victory except when he’s talking about his own campaign.

But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed, when the roar of the crowd fades away, when the stadium lights go out, and those styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot — when that happens, what exactly is our opponent’s plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he’s done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer, the answer is to make government bigger, and take more of your money, and give you more orders from Washington, and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world.

America needs more energy; our opponent is against producing it. Victory in Iraq is finally in sight, and he wants to forfeit. Terrorist states are seeking nuclear weapons without delay; he wants to meet them without preconditions. Al-Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights.

Government is too big; he wants to grow it. Congress spends too much money; he promises more. Taxes are too high, and he wants to raise them. His tax increases are the fine print in his economic plan, and let me be specific: The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, and raise payroll taxes, and raise investment income taxes, and raise the death tax, and raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars. . . .

Here’s how I look at the choice Americans face in this election: In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers, and then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change. They are the ones whose names appear on laws and landmark reforms, not just on buttons and banners or on self-designed presidential seals. . . .

The situation today: Nearing the end of her speech, Sarah Palin offered what was perhaps the most sweeping indictment that came out of the convention of what America would look like under an Obama administration. She worried about a man who would be Campaigner-in-Chief rather than Commander-in-Chief, a man with radical disdain for our military and radical views on foreign policy, and a man who epitomized tax-and-spend liberalism. She worried about a man who was manipulating change to promote his career, because he had no career in which he had promoted change.

Was she wrong? Was she wrong about any of it?

There are many ways to measure the qualifications of a political candidate or potential candidate. One way is to look at his or her policy views, and over the past few days Sarah Palin has been laying out what she calls “common sense conservative” solutions to American problems. She is leaving little doubt that she knows what America needs to do to restore domestic prosperity and restrengthen our much weakened position in the world.

But there is another way to measure the qualifications of a candidate, and that is by measuring his or her judgment. Does the person seeking your support show the good judgment that is necessary to lead? More than a year ago, Sarah Palin used her judgment to offer a glimpse into Obama’s America. That brief glimpse during the Republican National Convention now seems as though Palin was looking through a window to the future. If she had the good judgment to know exactly what America would look like under President Barack Obama, why would she not have good enough judgment to lead us into a better, more prosperous, and more secure future?

I haven’t decided who I will support in 2012 yet; for Pete’s sake, we don’t even know who’s running. What I do know is that if Sarah Palin runs in 2012 and if her opponents and their supporters try to cast her as too inexperienced to lead, we need to remember that she had the good judgment to know that Barack Obama could not lead and the guts to say so. Maybe, just maybe, we should trust that good judgment to run the GOP presidential campaign in 2012 and, more importantly, the White House in 2013.

Cross-posted to RedState.

Clue #1: In the run-up to her inevitable endorsement of NY-23′s lying leftist Bill Owens, Dede Scozzafava was told by text message that this Democratic president was trying to get in touch with her. Dede declined to return his calls.

Clue #2: Following the passage of PelosiCare by just five votes in the House of Representatives, this Democratic president went to the Senate and told Democratic senators that attacks by so-called “teabaggers” (a derogatory term for conservative Tea Party activists) meant that the Democratic majority was actually winning. He urged Senate Democrats to make history and pass PelosiCare right away.

Find out just who this Democratic president is beneath the fold…

If you guessed sitting President Barack Obama — I’m sorry, that’s incorrect. You don’t win the prize (er, there aren’t any prizes really). If you guessed former two term Democratic President Bill Clinton, you are a winner! Yes, it was Bill Clinton who was dispatched to get the endorsement of Dede Scozzafava and it was also Slick Willy who riled up Senate Democrats by taking gratuitous shots at the conservative grassroots. Is this some new Obama stimulus project, putting former Democratic presidents back to work? Maybe he can expand the project to Democratic presidential failures. Y’know, send Michael Dukakis and Geraldine Ferraro to lobby against the Stupak amendment, dispatch Al Gore to tell Congress how important cap-and-tax is, and send John Kerry to all the talk shows to explain to the American people why President Obama was for victory in Afghanistan before he was against it. Oh, and he should totally send Jimmy Carter to the Middle East to explain to the Israelis why they’re just like the Nazis.

Dear Lord, that was a gratuitous amount of snark, now wasn’t it?

Putting on my serious face, one can’t help but see the irony here. It was Bill and Hill who told us during the ’08 Democratic primaries that Barack Obama was too inexperienced to govern. They explained that he didn’t have enough experience in Washington to take on the big political battles that are necessary to effectively govern, and that he simply wouldn’t be taken seriously. He could promise change all he wanted, but only the Clintons with their vast Washington experience could deliver. Remember that? I thought you might. Obama said it was nonsense. Of course he could deliver on his promises of change, if only people had enough hope (which is also, by the way, how you bring fairy tale creatures back to life).

It turns out the Clintons were right. President Obama is the bumbling charlatan behind the curtain, and Bill Clinton is the giant talking head proclaiming himself the Great and Powerful Oz. Apparently Obama can’t really give Harry Reid a brain, or Nancy Pelosi a heart, and he certainly can’t muster the courage to win in Afghanistan. The only thing he probably can do is help Congressional Dems click their ruby red slippers together and send them home next year. I wonder what all those Democrats think of the ObaMagic now? Apparently, some of them are not pleased.

So when 2012 rolls around and after four years of failure Obama swears he can govern, remind your friends and neighbors that during the decisive political battles of 2009 he was just the impotent man behind the curtain. He needed Bill Clinton twice in as many weeks for the smoke and mirrors.

Cross-posted to RedState.

“The president has handed us a bill that reverses Roe v. Wade,” she told ABC News, condemning the amendment originally drafted by Stupak and Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Penn. “Stupak-Pitts is such a sweeping denial of insurance coverage of abortion for women that it in fact in essence makes abortion unavailable to women. In Roe v Wade the court said the government may not restrict women from exercising their choice to have an abortion and Stupak-Pitts clearly stops women from doing that.”

During the Democratic primaries, the campaign of then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, suggested that Obama would not fight for abortion rights as would Clinton. O’Neill sees this current action in that light.

“There’s no question that Hillary Clinton would have fought for our rights,” she says. . . .

All emphasis mine. Three things:

1. Is O’Neill aware that the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is a woman and that it was she — not Obama — who allowed the vote and passed the bill with the Stupak amendment? It’s amazing how she avoids all mention of Pelosi and passes all the blame to Obama.

2. Do I detect a little buyer’s remorse here? Maybe not entirely satisfied with President Obama? Wishing instead for Hillary Clinton? Just a teensy bit?

3. Is anyone happy with the monstrosity that is health care reform these days?

Scozzafava’s black Nokia phone vibrated nonstop. She rarely picked it up, except for family or close friends. She called the publisher of the Watertown Daily Times to convey her private support for Owens. She received a text informing her that former president Bill Clinton was trying to reach her, but she wasn’t returning any messages.

The emphasis is mine. Leaving aside the unbelievable notion that Scozzafava wouldn’t have returned a message from a former president, take that in for a minute. Bill Clinton was trying to reach her.

The former president of the United States, former leader of the free world, Democratic superstar, almost First Gentleman Bill Clinton was reaching out to Scozzafava for an Owens endorsement.

Could it be that the Obamacrats knew they were going to lose in Virginia, feared they were going to lose in New Jersey, and were desperate for some face-saving victory? Fearing that if they lost all three elections the media might turn on them, Democrats dispatched a former president for an assemblywoman’s endorsement so the media would cling to the meme that Republicans were killing the party by pushing out “moderates” when we couldn’t win with conservatives.

We can never prove that President Obama was concerned about last Tuesday’s election. What Scozzafava has revealed is that at least one Democratic president was concerned. Don’t let them tell you that last Tuesday didn’t matter, and don’t let them tell you that their desperate grab for NY-23 means a conservative defeat. Hoffman and his supporters made Bill Clinton beg for an endorsement from a woman who wouldn’t even return his calls. If that kind of humiliation of a former Democratic president is their “victory,” let them have it.

Cross-posted to RedState.

He was a big guy with a somewhat intimidating presence, the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to run into in a dark alley (or a bright alley, for that matter) if you had somehow ended up on his bad side. He also struck me as a no-nonsense kind of guy. No excuses. You succeed or you fail, and if you fail you pick yourself up again — but you don’t make excuses. You own your life, your triumphs and your mistakes, and you either work to better it or you don’t.

But it was also pretty clear that he was a good guy, a man with a deep sense of loyalty. That sense of loyalty was obvious by the way he interacted with his family and by the way they interacted with him. Here was a real father in an age when real fatherhood is rare, when men are so often inclined to cede their responsibilities to the mothers of their children, to the public educational system, and to other government programs. Not this guy. With him, you got the impression that he would be just as willing to die for his family as he was willing to die for his country as a Marine.

More beneath the fold…

For as long as I live, I think my friend’s father will shape the impression that I have of the Marine Corps. His commitment to personal responsibility and loyalty is also reflected in his children. My friend, his oldest son, is among the most loyal friends I have ever had. He even stays loyal to friends who may not deserve it. He likes to have a good time — one of the things we definitely have in common — but when your nose is to the grindstone and you need to lean on somebody for support, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better friend than he is.

Like a lot of others, my friend didn’t do so well in his freshman year of college and at least for now he’s decided that college isn’t for him. But he didn’t go home and cry about it, sulking in any mistakes he might have made while relying on his parents for support. He went home and went straight to work, and he worked hard. He became a supervisor at the restaurant he worked at, and now he’s moved on to a better job with better pay and greater opportunities for career advancement. I’m proud of him, and I’m sure his dad is proud of him too, because he took responsibility for his life and decided to make something out of it.

That’s who the Marines are to me. They’re the ones on the front lines because they know that somebody has to be responsible for defending our country, and they’re willing to take on that great responsibility. They take on that responsibility because they have an abiding loyalty to their friends, their families, their freedom, their country, and their God.

Responsibility and loyalty are the two qualities that I have seen in the only Marine Corps family that I know. It just so happens that responsibility and loyalty are two values sorely lacking in our culture today. Look at the banks, disloyal to their customers and to the national economy but taking no responsibility for their actions. Instead they want bailouts. Meanwhile the government spends us toward the real possibility of bankruptcy, all in the name of taking responsibility where others in the private sector should. The list goes on and on. Irresponsibility and disloyalty permeate every aspect of our culture.

234 years later, maybe all of us can learn something from the Marine Corps. Maybe we can learn from them what America is really supposed to be about.

What about you? What experiences have you had with the Marine Corps that have shaped your perspective on their service and your views on what America means through the eyes of a Marine? Cassandra at Villainous Company has a breathtaking perspective from a Marine wife. Go read the whole thing. If you know a Marine or someone with a loved one in the Marine Corps, be sure to thank them for their service and dedication to our country today.

Cross-posted to RedState.

Translation: You hate Republicans so much, but GOP health care proposals are the only ones that offer 100% protection of abortion choice.

This is not to suggest that the GOP has any great love affair with the pro-choice movement; as we all know, quite the opposite is true. What it does suggest is that pro-choicers have either been incredibly naive or outrageously hypocritical. Under government-run health care, with a government-run option and government subsidies for private insurance, there was always going to be greater governmental control over health care decisions. Either pro-choicers didn’t think this through in terms of abortion rights, or they thought the rules wouldn’t apply to them. Maybe they thought, for some reason, they would be exempt from government control over their health care choices.

Sorry gals, but in this brave new world that we call ObamaCare/PelosiCare, no one is exempt from government control over their health care choices. This week Bart Stupak is making decisions about your perceived right to an abortion. Next a panel of experts will be making a decision about whether breast cancer patients really need breast-conserving surgery. Mastectomy, after all, could be deemed more cost-effective. You see, when you want government-run health care, that kind of implies that you want the government to, well, run health care.

Now, if the Stupak amendment has made you think twice about having politicians accountable to public opinion managing your care versus a market driven by consumer demand, you do have options. You can join House Minority Leader John Boehner in calling on Congress to “scrap the whole bill and start over.” But I won’t hold my breath. We all know that this is about a radical leftist ideological agenda of which your movement is an integral part. It’s not really about women’s health, and I don’t doubt for a minute that you’ll prove us right again.

Cross-posted to RedState.