BREAKING:  My early debate comentary, then I'm posting so I can go watch it:  Brit Hume already blew it.  The only time I do the 'college' thing is when anything positive is said about the South Carolina Gamecocks.  I went to Clemson. 

 

After spending most of my adult political life in South Carolina, I can honestly tell you there is nothing Republicans in SC like more than hard fought primaries.  The harder the fighting the better.  This debate tonight in SC is just good entertainment and sport for them.  They're loving it, that's for sure.

 

Miss Piggy still hates me.  She glares at me.  Doc has been so helpful today and my hands show it.  She sits by the computer, nice and loving, then pounces.  It is quite painful. 

 

Let’s face the fact that any GOP Presidential comments made today are irrelevant until after the debate.  The sudden death of Jerry Falwell is going to have some interesting implications for the 2008 campaign.  Off the cuff, it appears to me that Rudy Giuliani is the beneficiary of this very sad and shocking event.  I cannot be sad about Falwell’s death.  Why?  Well, right now he’s up there telling God what to do.  The death of any Christian should not be a time of mourning but a moment of celebration.  Falwell, like my friends Carrla, Penny, Jane, and Ruth are HOME!  Interestingly, I heard Neil Cavuto remark that Falwell’s passing could be a harbinger to come in that the power of the Religious Right may be on the wan. 

 

A MINI RANT

Self Financed Campaigns

One thing that concerns me today is the word on the street that Bloomberg is considering an entry into the campaign – independent.  People around him, including Chuck Hagel, are bragging that Bloomberg has upward of a BILLION DOLLARD to dump into a campaign.  I don’t know about you, but to me that is the last straw.  In other words, Michael Bloomberg thinks he can buy, purchase, secure for himself – the most important office in the world – not with votes, but by buying it.  This is absolutely distasteful to me.  It is disgusting.  Then we hear about Romney and his millions that he can throw around.  It reeks of buying an election.  I know it isn’t conservative, but maybe we need to have some campaign reform where candidates are allowed only a certain amount of self-financing – say a half a million – and that’s it.  If they can’t generate enough interest to finance their campaigns the old fashioned way, by pandering to the public, then they shouldn’t be allowed to pay for it themselves.

 

Ick – nudists are aging – caution – weird story ahead, but we need some comic relief!

 

 Crybaby Islamic bully workers quit a Swift packaging company because their demands weren’t met. I am glad someone stood up to them!

 

An amazing paleo-evolutionary find in Egypt. 

 

I told you so – yesterday I mentioned that the “usual suspects” will neglect to mention the cause of death of Border Agent Richard Goldstein because he drowned, and it appears as though they’re not going to pin the cause of death on any illegal immigrant.  Well, Digger’s Realm is the first to prove me correct.

 

MY UNLIKELY RANT

Yes, My Dear Conservatives, There Are Gay Cowboys

In Fact – There Are a Heck of a Lot of Gay Cowboys

 

As you know I avoid World (NUT) Daily like the plague and consider it the National Enquirer of the ultra conservative wacko world.  I was going over to WND to see if they had a commentary trying to figure out a way of blaming illegal Mexican migrants for the above incident but saw nothing.  What I did find, thought was David Kupelian’s absolutely ignorant review of Brokeback Mountain (which I finally saw a few months ago – magnificent movie). Kupelian proves to this New Mexico resident who has spent enough time hanging out with REAL wild west cowboys – not the Hollywood John Wayne wannabes, but real genuine cowboys – he is nothing but an ignorant city slicker.  Kupelian proves he knows absolutely nothing about cowboys other than what Hollywood has spoon fed.

“…As I said at the outset, Hollywood has now raped the Marlboro Man. It has taken a revered symbol of America – the cowboy – with all the powerful emotions and associations that are rooted deep down in the pioneering American soul, and grafted onto it a self-destructive lifestyle it wants to force down Americans' throats. The result is a brazen propaganda vehicle designed to replace the reservations most Americans still have toward homosexuality with powerful feelings of sympathy, guilt over past "homophobia" – and ultimately the complete and utter acceptance of homosexuality as equivalent in every way to heterosexuality….”

First, do you know any heterosexual man who would go around dressing like the fancy Hollywood version of a cowboy?  Well, I don’t.  Real Cowboys don’t dress ‘fancy’. Well, they do but that’s just in Lincoln County, New Mexico and Tombstone, AZ where men get to dress up and play out their little boy wild west fantasies.  Fact is, want to see how a ‘real man of the wild west’ dresses?  Just look at President George W. Bush.  He is the perfect example of the western gentleman.   A real westerner knows just how to wear his fancy dress boots with his white tie and tails, and never looks silly.  After all, he’s a real man.

 

Poor Mr. Kupelian is also showing his historical ignorance by waxing poetic about The Great American Cowboy.  He obviously knows nothing about the history of the Wild West, or he would call today’s “cowboy” a “drover”.  In the Wild West, cowboy was a derogatory term.  “Cowboys” were the dregs of society, bottom feeders, and outlaws.  They were like today’s criminal ‘gangs’.  Drovers were men who herded cattle and worked ranches.  And – there were many, many gay drovers. 

 

One of the reason homosexual men headed ‘west’ is because there was a tradition of “no questions asked” about a man’s past and his background.  People moved west for a new life, leaving their own behind.  People did not think twice about gay men.  There were saloons that specialized in the homosexual trade in some wild west towns.  One of the things that attracted homosexuals to the ‘drover’ (cowboy) lifestyle was the fact that it was all male.  Men were men and interested in men.  This isn’t to say that all drovers were gay, but a good many of the Anglo drovers were.  

 

Over 65% of all cattle drovers and ranch hands were black being former slaves and former Buffalo Soldiers.  The fact is a ranch owner would go out of his (or her) way to bring a former Buffalo Soldier in as ranch foreman or even as a ‘rep’ (someone who deals with other ranches).  MOST RANCH HANDS WERE BLACK.  After that, a goodly majority were Hispanic.  The rest, and we’re maybe talking 20% were Anglo or white.

 

And then David Kupelian waxes poetic about the traditional ‘cowboy lifestyle’.  “…a revered symbol of America – the cowboy – with all the powerful emotions and associations that are rooted deep down in the pioneering American soul, and grafted onto it a self-destructive lifestyle it wants to force down Americans' throats…” Once again Kupelian is showing his ignorance about ‘cowboys’.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more pathetic lifestyle than the way cowboys live, especially today.  I hate to tell you this, but Brokeback Mountain got it right, but then we’re dealing with Larry McMurtry usually gets it right.  He knows his subject matter.  He hangs around out here in the “west”.  Nothing is more tragic than a used-up cowboy.  There is something in the mind-set.  They drink too much.  They ride hard, party hard, smoke hard, and end up battered, old before their times, crippled up from job related injuries and dead at a young age.  

 

Real cowboys, today, live an almost disparate, degenerate lifestyle.  They live hard.  They die hard.  There is no pension.  They have no health insurance.  If they are injured on the job, they just take it, and lose everything they have.  You will rarely see a ‘rich’ cowboy or one who is even well off.  And, you will not find real cowboys who discriminate or avoid other cowboys who are homosexual.  It’s none of their damn business and that’s how they look at it.  

 

If you want to see how today’s cowboys live, die, and suffer, then I suggest you watch Brokeback Mountain with an open mind.  And, then when you see a real cowboy, give ‘em some respect.  They deserve it.  A real cowboy is polite.  They behave with honor around women (except when they are drunk).  A real cowboy is going to vote.  They are basically conservative.  They are not ignorant wretches, but fairly well-read individuals.  Real cowboys are individuals.  One of the reasons they are cowboys is because no one is going to tell ‘em what to do or when to do it.  And real cowboys don’t stick their noses in things that are none of their business, including what those two fellers’ are doin’ in that tent over there.

 

There is nothing heroic about Cowboys of yesterday.  Cowboys of yesterday included such sociopaths, criminals, and losers (and a few may have been gay)  as John Ringo, Curly Bill Brocious, Ike Clanton, Billy Claibourne, Wes Fuller, Zwing Hunt, Billy Grounds,  Charlie Snow, Frank Stilwell, Jessie Evans, James Patterson, Luther King, Frank Patterson, Johnny Barnes, Billy Byers, Pony Diehl, Jack Green, Joe Hill, Billy Leonard, and about 125 other ANGLO outlaws.  These were Cowboys.  They were not drovers.  It wasn’t until the invention of a little think called a moving picture that Cowboys became the stalwart salt of the earth.  Until the early years of the last century, Cowboys were to be feared and avoided.

 

Did you know John Flood, the trusted business partner and secretary to Wyatt Earp was gay?  In fact Josie Earp would often invite Flood and his life-partner to visit and have dinner with she and Wyatt.  There are unsubstantial reports that John Ringo – yep, the dreaded Johnny Ringo may have been gay.  I think Billy Breakenridge, the “legendary” sheriff of Cochise County was.  In a letter to Fred Dodge, John Clum, the former editor of the Tombstone Epitaph refers to Breck as a ‘nice old lady’.

 

In the Wild West being gay or straight was a non issue. In fact, most writers who know their wild west history have a tendency to snort and snicker at conservatives who get all hysterical at the thought of a gay cowboy.  As one great writer, Ben Treywick, once told me, “Why do you think they were cowboys if they weren’t that way?”

 

David Kupelian wouldn’t last two minutes here in Lincoln County.  He’s way to sissified and citified.  You see, gay cowboys out here aren’t sissies.  They are what you call “the men’s men”.    Kupelian would be the object of much derision as one of ‘em would pull out a six shooter (yep they still wear them and they are loaded) and would make him dance! If he would come into the establishments around the ‘west’ that cater to cowboys, dressed up like a city slicker,  people would sit around and laugh at him.  Like my friend Lisa once said, (and she’s been married to a few REAL cowboys) “There’s nothing more stupid than jinglebobs on flat-landers.”  

 

Translation:  Jinglebobs are the little noisemakers real cowboys wear on their spurs when they are out riding the range.  They wear them so as to disturb the rattlesnakes before they walk up on them.  City slickers (flat-landers) immediately deck themselves out like Hollywood cowboys and prance around, looking like a bunch of fools. You hear their jinglebobs tinkling along like little bells, making their own unique and distinct noise.  The gay cowboy who is a real cowboy would be sitting at the bar, nursing a shot and a beer, laughing with the straight cowboys as the make fun of the man who pounces in, determined to prove that the Hollywood version is the real thing.

 

It isn’t.

 

David Kupelian needs to make sure he knows what he is talking about before he makes a fool of himself.

 

 MY RANT FOR THE DAY

Bush Hatred Syndrome & The Soros Factor

 

Even Fred Barnes wants to know if Bush can recover.   Funny, but no one is asking if the Dems in Congress, with their humorously low polls can recover.  Strange, isn’t it?  Flopping Aces sends a loving raspberry to HRM Nancy I and Harry Reid.   Let’s put this into perspective.  We’re dealing with a Gallup Poll.  We all know Gallup heavily tilts its polls to favor the Dems.  

“…Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,003 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted May 10-13, 2007. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls….”

  In other words, the Dems are in such complete disarray Gallup can’t even tell us how many Dems they asked in this poll.  Polls like this usually have a specific number of Dems and a specific number of GOPs.  This one doesn’t say.  In other words – the Dems are in very deep dodo. 

 

Something isn’t right here.  Ipsos has the Dems with a 35% approval rating, but don’t mention the number of Dems v. GOP they asked.  They just list demographics and ask ‘adults’.    

 

Now read the internals from the most recent Quinnipiac poll.   

“…From April 25 - May 1, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,166 American voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percent, including 469 Republicans with a margin of error of +/- 4.5 percent, and 499 Democrats with a margin of error of +/- 4.4 percent….”

We all know the Dems have a distinct advantage when “adults” are questioned instead of actual voters.  Captain Ed is playing with the numbers, also and is coming up with much the same conclusion.    I don’t think I would bury the Republican Party yet.  All of this plays into the rant below. 

 

According to Bloomberg, and Albert Hunt, the GOP is terrorized by a paralyzed Presidency.  Evidently one of the problems is the World Bank and Wolfowitz situation. Karl Rove is an embarrassment and Congressman Ray LaHood of Illinois is terrified he is not going to be re-elected.  Now one needs to remember Ray LaHood is one of the cowards who ‘confronted’ the President, quivering like a bowl of Jell-O because he could lose his Congressional seat if Bush doesn’t do what he wants!

 

What I find fascinating is the way Albert Hunt is using the World Bank “embarrassment” as one of the reasons Bush is destroying the GOP.  Fact is, it looks like the megalomaniac hand of George Soros is behind his problems.  According to Ed Lasky’s American Thinker article,

“…As Paul Wolfowitz struggles to retain his post as President of the World Bank in the face of a trumped up faux scandal engineered by his opponents (the outlines of which have been the subject of various Wall Street Journal exposes (here, here, and here), a grim scenario becomes possible, should he be forced from his position.

Wolfowitz has never been a favorite of the mandarins in the elite diplomatic corps. He will be forever associated and never forgiven for his involvement in the Iraq War. His resolute attitude - a zero-tolerance attitude - toward the corruption that has wasted billions of aid dollars has ruffled too many who have adopted a laissez faire attitude toward bribery and cronyism and indifference to bleak future of those who never see the aid that is channeled to overseas bank accounts….

 

… This situation should be a cause of concern. Soros is a major funder of the Democratic Party, activist groups that aid the Democrats (such as MoveOn.Org), and was a very early and generous backer of Barack Obama. This support could be crucial in the years ahead. Congress has recently been considering increasing the regulation and the transparency of hedge funds. Indeed, some attention has been focused on the role of hedge funds in American politics. The New York Times, for instance, ran an article earlier in the year ("Hedge Fund Chiefs, With Cash, Join Political Fray") that predictably, focused on hedge fund managers who seemed to support the GOP.  Unsurprisingly, the article omitted any mention at all of George Soros, whose politics are more compatible with those powers-that-be who are running the New York Times (into the ground). Yet Soros has very important reasons to want influence in Washington. Not just to support his agenda, but also to ensure that he can continue to operate behind a veil of secrecy and avoid any increased scrutiny of his hedge funds….”

This leads me to another question.  What connection does Michael Bloomberg have with George Soros?  They were working together in 2002 in the Open Society Institute,and another health care project.    With Bloomberg making noises about a 3rd Party candidacy that could directly harm Rudy Giuliani and help Hillary Clinton, with her connections to George Soros, one wonders just who is behind Bloomberg.  I think the Albert Hunt article is going to be a series of hits on George W. Bush, who is hated by George Soros.

 

We need to also face the fact that the only reason Bush has such low opinion ratings is because the MSM, much of it controlled by MoveOn.Org, a Soros tool, delivers talking points to both the MSM and Dem leaders on a daily basis.  So, let’s just admit the truth.  The reason George W. Bush has such low poll ratings is because George Soros wants him to be destroyed.

 

I would not be surprised to see that the next Soros campaign against George W. Bush will involved the ages old Soros practice of destroying an economy.  As late as the summer of 2006 Soros was plotting to short the American dollar.  If he is true to form, Soros has enough capitol to nearly destroy our economy, which he would do, if it would include destroying George W. Bush.

‘…According to Slate, in 2003 Soros stated publicly that he was betting against the dollar. In February 2005 in a meeting in Jeddah, Soros predicted further declines in the dollar and warned that "a fall beyond an unknown 'tipping point' would severely disrupt markets." According to Wall Street Window Soros was still shorting the dollar in the summer of 2006. During this period, Soros has become increasingly involved in domestic US politics, contributing heavily to the Democratic Party and to "dovish", potentially anti-Israel causes. It is quite likely that a dovish push in Israel could destabilize the balance of power sufficiently to encourage a fourth war of Arab aggression. This would cause a plunge in many financial markets, possibly including the dollar, especially if additional fiscal expenditures on defense were inflationary. There are various other avenues that a push toward a Democratic Congress could benefit Soros's short dollar and long precious metals positions, such as Democratic demands for increasingly inflationary policies….” 

Wolfowitz responds to World Bank officials.  “Lavish package?”

Outside the Beltway  

 

 According to Clarice Feldman’s American Thinker article,

“…It is a highly damaging, utterly biased account of the events and the nature of  the release suggests it was designed to give his detractors first crack at the news while handicapping him in his capacity to respond. Yet it is par for the course in a matter which has been characterized by false accusations, unfair treatment and selective manipulation of the press by those members of the Bank and the staff who oppose him. (See Christopher Hitchens' account of this sliming.)…”

Hitchens declares what the World Bank directors (read: Soros flunkies) did was the nastiest piece of character assassination he has ever seen.

‘…Like Dr. Nusseibeh, I first met her when she was at the NED and hosted a lunchtime event for a celebrated Iranian author—since even more celebrated for her book Reading Lolita in Tehran. On subsequent occasions, I was honored to be present when she brought Palestinian lawyers and physicians and publishers to meetings at the World Bank, hoping to help them acquire the sinews of a future statehood. Her shyness did not altogether conceal a very solid core, and her dislike of any symptom of corruption or authoritarianism was very marked. She is now attacked for volunteering to visit Iraq after 2003 to assist democratic forces in that country—a rather brave thing for a divorced woman with a child to be doing. I cannot think of anyone who should have been asked to go instead, and I feel almost polluted when I point out that her interest in the question long predates her relationship with Wolfowitz. These are facts that could and should have been known to any reporter. But no—a high-risk visit to a desperately wounded country is presented as "the girlfriend" getting a cushy job. For shame.

Anyone who knows anything about this also knows that it is part of a power play by certain European and Asian interests at the bank to challenge American dominance of the institution. Two previous managing directors, Shengman Zhang and Caio Koch-Weser, were allowed to have their spouses working there without any demur. Riza's job did not require her to report to the office of the president in any case. Wolfowitz nonetheless offered to sign a statement, as soon as he was appointed, recusing himself from any involvement in her work. It was certain bank high-ups who laid the trap for him by insisting that she lose her post and who have now sprung the trap by blaming him for following their well-documented recommendation that she be compensated for this unfairness. In the intervals, they have disgraced themselves by feeding a gullible or biased press and destroying the privacy of a woman who is worth more than all of them put together. Her "confidentiality agreement" with these characters was torn up without even a hint of scruple….”

And from the Opinion-Journal we get a glimpse of what is really going on – an attempt – yet again – to humiliate the US and George W. Bush in particular.  Also note that Ms Riza is know for her assistance in helping Iraq establish a democracy, something else the Europeans don’t appear to desire. 

 “…So now the full 24-member board will take up the case, even as European ministers try to browbeat the White House and Treasury to get Mr. Wolfowitz to resign as part of some "plea bargain." But what does Mr. Wolfowitz get out of that--except more leaks saying he left under a cloud? President Bush should understand that none of this is about Mr. Wolfowitz's "ethics." It is all about the European desire to punish a Bush appointee for his support for the Iraq war and his determination to change the bank's policies to fight corruption rather than simply push taxpayer money out the door. If the board really wants to oust Mr. Wolfowitz, the White House should insist on a recorded vote. We wonder if Europeans really want this showdown. And oh, yes: President Bush could also help by declaring that, if the Europeans do oust Mr. Wolfowitz, his likely choice as a successor would be Paul Volcker, the former Fed Chairman who has made a recent career of fighting corruption. There is certainly a lot of that to clean up at the World Bank.”

And the White House believes the hate against Wolfowitz and Riza have more to do with their efforts in Iraq, rather than any real scandal.  observations are