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Honestly, this is a stressful time for those of us who stand to the right in this election year. Many of us feel that this could be a major turning point in our country because of the stance and political viewpoints of our opponents on the left. Their very liberal views and policies have the potential to be destructive to this country we love. Their pro-abortion policies alone are enough for me to head in the opposite direction. My wife recently said, "If a candidate does not recognize the sanctity of life then I care very little where he stands...

Here's the video of the new ad:

I suggested this in the live thread and obviously the McCain-Palin campaign had the same idea and did it! Is Obama ready to lead? NO!

Kicking someone while they're down has long been considered bad form - except in politics. Republicans have fallen on hard times of late, trailing Democrats in party identification by 9 points, 27% to 36%, the widest margin in many years. President Bush suffers record low approval ratings (but then, so does Congress), and the GOP's election prospects look less than rosy.

Most conservative political commentators tiptoe around the unpatriotic positions maintained by many liberals in America. We hear prominent conservatives say things like this, "I am not challenging Mr. Liberal's patriotism. I am challenging his point of view." The fact is that much of the new left is unpatriotic. And that is okay. The Founding Fathers knew that not all Americans would be patriots; in fact, they counted on it. In this article I will show why the culture of the left is not patriotic. My basic contention is that patriotism is now the responsibility of the right -- abandoned by...

...Few would have even noticed if Thomas had succumbed to the Royal request. He probably could have even justified the action through the exercise of his well honed rhetorical and logical skills by calling it a merely perfunctory action. He could have thereby restored his political position, some would have argued, in order to try to influence the King for the good over the long haul. He could have had his substantial properties restored if he had just sworn that oath, others would say, in order to provide material safety for his beloved family. Instead, this man who loved life,...

In my discussion with a "lefty" I came to the conclusion that he prioritizes knowledge ("He went to X University", "He's a Rhodes Scholar", etc) over wisdom. I never hear anyone from the left suggest wisdom as the more valuable asset. IMO, a wise man knows what he does not know. A learned man does not necessarily act wisely. We never hear reference to the "knowledge of Solomon" or the "knowledge that comes with age" What is it about the left that sees knowledge as primary, is it the "Knowledge is Power" cliche?

Barack Obama targets the religious Right By Alex Spillius in Washington Last Updated: 8:46PM BST 11/06/2008 Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama is aiming to lure members of the religious Right, as the movement that twice helped George W Bush win the White House. His campaign is set to launch the Joshua Generation Project, an initiative that will include household gatherings, blogs and concerts, to attract young evangelicals and Catholics ahead of November's US presidential election. The campaign has noted an "unprecedented energy" among young religious people for the Illinois senator and aims to bring them into a new coalition of...

SINGAPORE, May 31, 2008 – With progress being made in Iraq, the United States must focus on getting the “end game” right, while being patient enough to refrain from making “a tactical decision that has strategic consequences,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said here today. Gates, addressing questions after his keynote address at the Asia Security Summit, conceded that the war in Iraq war has been controversial. “But regardless of what you think about how we got where we are, it is terribly important not to get the end game wrong in Iraq, because the consequences for the whole Middle...

Israel's real friends are on the right Posted: May 05, 2008, 12:13 PM by Marni Soupcoff Theo Caldwell, IsraelAs the world watched former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, embrace terrorists from Hamas and lay a wreath at the grave of Yasser Arafat recently, it is worth considering which side of the ideological divide includes Israel's real friends. For more than a generation, even before Republican president Richard Nixon prevented the Soviets from entering the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel's allies and defenders have most commonly been found on the right, among the ranks of conservatives and Christians. On the...

President George W. Bush may turn out to be the top economic forecaster in the country. About a month ago he told reporters, "We're not in a recession, we're in a slowdown." At a White House news conference a few weeks later, despite the fact that reporters pressed him to use the "R" word, Mr. Bush refused. And on Friday, after the most recent jobs report -- which produced a much-smaller-than-expected decline in corporate payrolls, a huge 362,000 increase in the more entrepreneurial household survey (the best gain in five months), and a historically low 5 percent unemployment rate (4.95...

The Left has one thing right. The oilcos are screwing America. What they have wrong is the method they allege. The Left trots out its marxist litany of greed, monopoly, speculation, oppression of the poor, etc. and inf nauseamque. That's where they're dead wrong. Here's exactly how we are being screwed, Left, Right, and Oilco: The United States is the world's third largest oil producer, pumping from established wells that were bought and paid for many times over, and operating steadily with what amounts to federal subsidy in the form of tax incentives and depletion allowances, etc. etc. That oil,...

THE GOVERNING CONVENTION of America's third largest religious body meets this week. And the results might be a pleasant surprise for conservatives. Like the elites of other Mainline Protestant denominations, officials of the United Methodist Church have served as an amen corner for the secular left in America for more than 50 years. Episcopalians have imploded in schism since the 2003 election of their first openly homosexual bishop. Presbyterians and Lutherans are locked in gridlock over sex issues. And the more liberal-than-thou United Church of Christ has fully embraced the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as a suitable spokesman. United Methodism, whose...

ROME (AFP) — Self-made billionaire Silvio Berlusconi looked set to win a third term as Italian prime minister Monday, with early projections giving him a wide margin of victory in the all-important Senate. Berlusconi's centre-right coalition has a lead of between 4.6 and 9.1 percentage points in the Senate, according to projections based on about one-third of statistical samplings of the vote. A victory for Berlusconi, 71, would return the media tycoon to the prime minister's office for the third time since 1994, the year after he burst onto the political stage by creating the Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party....

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court gets to write on a blank slate when it takes up the meaning of the Second Amendment "right to keep and bear arms" and the District of Columbia's ban on handguns. The nine justices have said almost nothing about gun rights, and their predecessors have likewise given no definitive answer to whether the Constitution protects an individual's right to own guns or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia. The case that will be argued Tuesday is among the most closely watched of the term, drawing 68 briefs from...

On every side, one can read obituaries for the religious right. Jim Wallis’s new book, “The Great Awakening,” carries the subtitle, “Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America.” E. J. Dionne Jr.’s book, “Souled Out,” is subtitled “Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right.” The subtitle of David P. Gushee’s new book, “The Future of Faith in American Politics,” poses “The Public Witness of the Evangelical Center” against that of the religious right. Sometimes stated outright and sometimes between the lines is the hope that the decline of the religious right will ease what Americans have come...

Researchers are revealing hidden complexities behind the simple act of kissing, which relays powerful messages to your brain, body and partner When passion takes a grip, a kiss locks two humans together in an exchange of scents, tastes, textures, secrets and emotions. We kiss furtively, lasciviously, gently, shyly, hungrily and exuberantly. We kiss in broad daylight and in the dead of night. We give ceremonial kisses, affectionate kisses, Hollywood air kisses, kisses of death and, at least in fairytales, pecks that revive princesses. Lips may have evolved first for food and later applied themselves to speech, but in kissing they...

Fred Thompson Receives Endorsement of Rhode Island Right to Life State's National Right to Life Affiliate Supporting ThompsonContact: Press Office, 571-730-1010; www.Fred08.comMC LEAN, Va., Jan. 11 /Standard Newswire/ -- Today the Rhode Island Right to Life Federal PAC endorsed Senator Fred Thompson for President."The RI Right to Life Federal PAC will do all it can to assist in the nomination of Fred Thompson for President," said Rita Parquette, Executive Director of Rhode Island Right to Life.  "Fred Thompson will do everything he can to protect the lives of the unborn, the elderly, the disabled and the sick if he becomes the next...

COMMENTARY: The Huckabee Phenomenon and the fall of the old 'religious right' 1/4/2008 Catholic Online (www.catholic.org) Many of these voters do not take kindly to being called “fundamentalist” Dr Sabato. And Rush, with all due respect, they simply do not care if they if they fit your definition of what constitutes a “true conservative.” Republican presidential hopeful, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and his wife Janet arrive at a campaign stop early on caucus day in Grinnell, Iowa Thursday, Jan. 3, 2008. LOS ANGELES (Catholic Online) - First, it was Larry Sabato and then it was Rush Limbaugh. Sabato is...

Religious right is deadBILL PRESS 26.DEC.07 No matter who becomes the next president of the United States, the American people have already won a great victory — with the total disintegration of the once all-powerful religious right. Starting in 1979 when Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority, Christian conservatives have been the most powerful voting bloc in the Republican Party. Ironically, they began by casting out of the White House a born-again Christian who continued, as president, his lifelong practice of teaching Sunday school, and replacing him with a divorced and remarried man who seldom stepped inside a church. But...

Colorado Right to Life spokesman Bob Enyart says, "Embryos are living human beings with eternal souls and spirits. You just have to refrain from killing one to see what a precious child it is." Voters would decide if a fertilized egg is entitled to the Colorado constitutional protections of inalienable rights, equality of justice and due process of law. But opponents charge that the proposed ballot measure is just another attempt to fight abortion and a particularly misleading attempt because the word "abortion" would not appear on the ballot. ... And this week in Washington, the same coalition, with representatives...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Those who dismissed Rep. Ron Paul as a joke in the Republican presidential primary campaign aren't laughing so hard these days. The Texas libertarian's rise in the polls and in fundraising proves that a small but passionate number of Americans can be drawn to an advocate of unorthodox proposals such as returning to the gold standard and abolishing the income tax, CIA and Federal Reserve. Paul, 72, recently set a one-day, online GOP presidential fundraising record, and pulled slightly ahead of Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee in a New Hampshire poll, where he had 8 percent of...

Some Christian conservatives are so disenchanted by the 2008 Republican field for president that they are mulling whether to desert the GOP and form a third party. We're tempted to say "go ahead." But if religious conservatives don't want to marginalize themselves, they will instead take former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's advice and resist subjecting candidates to a litmus test on abortion or any other single issue. Giuliani and his fellow Republican candidates spoke over the weekend to more than 2,000 "values voters" assembled in Washington by the Family Research Council and other conservative groups. They were literally...

You know the religious right is in trouble when some of its leaders threaten to bolt the Republican Party if it nominates a candidate who supports abortion rights. But the well-publicized warning directed against Rudy Giuliani this month is decidedly not the most important sign that religious conservatives are facing the disintegration of their movement. What matters more is that a new generation of evangelical leaders, tired of the rancid partisanship, is breaking away from the culture wars. The reach of this new evangelical politics will be tested with the release tomorrow of a statement under the very biblical title...

Healthcare has been the single biggest domestic crisis facing America for at least the last decade, and yet time and again Congress has applied Band-Aids to cover a gaping wound. Every other American, not including members of Congress, is one accident, illness or diagnosis away from financial ruin in the richest nation on Earth. If that isn’t an embarrassment as well as a call to action, then Congress has truly become indifferent to the American people. Every time we apply a Band-Aid, more Americans get hurt or die because of our lack of vision and political will. A Health Savings...

BC: It’s not hyperbole to say that your latest release, The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, brought about a firestorm of contention. You were criticized by both leftists and conservatives. For what reason did the book outrage so many people? Dinesh D'Souza: Well, it’s not surprising that the book provoked hysteria from the left. The position I take is not one previously espoused by the right concerning the left’s role in 9/11. The common view that conservatives have is that liberals are naive or simply don’t understand terrorist motivations, but none of my peers...

WASHINGTON -- During the Cold War, President Dwight D. Eisenhower often said that he would go anywhere, any time, any place in pursuit of peace. Ike promoted co-existence with the former Soviet Union and invited Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to visit the United States. Conservative Republicans were unhappy when President Richard M. Nixon made his surprise journey to hard-line communist China in 1972. But the move was mostly applauded as a diplomatic breakthrough, leading to better relations between the two nations. The American people rejoiced at those peacemaking gestures and didn't think that Eisenhower -- a World War II hero--...

In Europe, reforms are in vogue. Though many special interests are fiercely resisting change, it is striking to see just how many European Social Democrats have come to recognize the need for structural reforms to welfare states. Witness Gerhard Schröder, the center-left former chancellor of Germany: in 2003, he called for a "change of mentality" in his own party, the SPD, as well as in German society as a whole. "Much will have to be changed to keep our welfare and social security at least at its current level," he added, as he argued in favor of reforms that would...

Earlier I posted Senator Barack Obama's answers to my questions. If you missed it, click here. Now let me take a few moments to analyze what he said. Let's discuss this line: "I've just always been clear that my Christian faith has motivated me for 20 years, and I'm not ashamed to talk about it, or the role that faith should play in our American life." There's no doubt that faith is important to the majority of Americans. They want a candidate who believes in God. The winning ticket for Obama is to talk about your faith and how it...

Let's be clear about gun shows: There is nothing that can be done at a gun show that cannot be done legally outside of a gun show. The terms "gun show loophole" and "unlicensed gun dealer" are fabricated to mislead the public into thinking that gun shows permit gun sales that would be forbidden anywhere else. The intent of this scheme is to villainize gun shows, making the public more receptive to additional restrictions. This is just the first step in a "private gun-sale registration" scheme. Gun banners know they must take small steps, placing more and more hurdles to...

Conservative voices continue to have a stranglehold on talk radio - at least on those stations owned by the biggest media corporations, according to a study released this week from a liberal think tank. The report, from the Center for American Progress, in collaboration with the group Free Press, found 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative-oriented on 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five group owners: Clear Channel, CBS Radio, Citadel Broadcasting, Cumulus Media and Salem Communications. "Group owners, those with stations in multiple markets or more than three stations in a single market,...

PUBLISHING executive Eric Jackson's first foray into children's books was a cartoon tale of two brothers and a lemonade stand. Hoping to earn money for a swing set, young Tommy and Lou squeeze lemons until their little hands ache. But they are thwarted by broccoli-pushing, camera-hogging, Jesus-hating liberals who pile on taxes and regulations and drive the boys out of business. The book, "Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!," came out two years ago. Jackson said it sold nearly 30,000 copies, which in the publishing world made it a bona fide hit. That success reinforced Jackson's view that...

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's centre-right opposition made solid gains in local polls but Prime Minister Romano Prodi avoided a drubbing in his first major electoral test a year after taking office, according to provisional results on Monday. Ten million people were eligible to vote in the elections on Sunday and Monday, with opinion polls suggesting six out of 10 Italians think Prodi's fractious centre-left government has not done a good job.

Regardless of what you might think of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, his syndicated Sunday talk show is a must-see due to the unscripted statements that often emanate from those not used to being so unfettered. Such was certainly the case Mother’s Day when NBC’s Chief White House correspondent David Gregory made some extraordinary assertions about the “big bad threat of Islamic fundamentalism” and that “George W. Bush did not get that part of it wrong, that the [Middle East] needed to be transformed after 9/11.” The discussion had moved in the direction of the Iraq war, and what position the Republican...

TWO teenagers who wanted to experience murder told police it "felt right" to strangle a friend and bury her body in a shallow grave beneath her West Australian home. The 17-year-old girls, who cannot be named due to their age, today faced a sentencing hearing in Perth Children's Court after pleading guilty to murdering Eliza Jane Davis in the small coal mining town of Collie on June 18, 2006.

Taste of Right is proving irresistible to French By Henry Samuel in Rungis Last Updated: 2:20am BST 17/04/2007 It is the confluence of "la France profonde" - deepest France - and its urban epicentre. Rungis, Europe's biggest food market, just south of Paris, is also a sounding board for the political mood. And with less than a week to go before Sunday's voting in the presidential election, it was clear yesterday that France is moving to the Right. Well before dawn, vans spill Roquefort from the southwest, holey cheese from the Alps, oysters from Brittany and beef from the Auvergne...

WASHINGTON, March 26, 2007 – Several positive developments indicate that Iraq’s leaders and its people will eventually surmount insurgent violence occurring in the country and ultimately achieve stability, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to Iraq told reporters in Baghdad today. “In my view, although difficult challenges lie ahead, and there is a long way to go, Iraq is fundamentally headed in the right direction and success is possible,” Zalmay Khalilzad said at the news briefing. President Bush has nominated Khalilzad, who has served as the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq for the past 21 months, to become the new U.S....

Many Arabs in foreign countries would choose to remain where they are despite Arab League and Palestinian Authority (PA) demands that Israel allow them to immigrate to the Jewish state, according to a report in the International Herald Tribune. The so-called "right of return" demands that about three million Arabs in foreign countries be allowed to live in Israel because they are descendants of about half a million Arabs who fled during the War of Independence in 1948. Most of them left Israel under the leadership of Arab nations that told them they could return after a quick defeat of...

The Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council will study whether it can restrict access to the list of people with concealed-handgun permits. By Michael Sluss (804) 697-1585 RICHMOND -- A state advisory council will examine the possibility of restricting access to information about Virginians who are licensed to carry concealed handguns, responding to a controversy sparked by The Roanoke Times. The Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council on Monday created a subcommittee to study the protection of "personal identifying information." Among other things, the group will consider the merits of allowing public access to a state police database listing the...

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON, D-N.Y.: If anybody tells you there is no vast right-wing conspiracy, tell them that New Hampshire has proven it in court. We have the facts, and we're going to make that a crime.

"This is a public declaration to Hillary Clinton and all the leftie youtubers out there. Yes, there is a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, and I am a member. I am ashamed that I am in the conspiracy, because the left wing only controls the television networks, the news media, Hollywood, most NGOs, most PACs, the UN, and only a few other organizations that in no way create a conspiracy. So here is my secret membership card with name redacted. Yes I am a member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy." FREEPERS, if you are a youtube member with a webcam,...

Several conservative politicians, moralists and evangelicals have been embroiled in scandal recently. As congressmen, Tom DeLay and Duke Cunningham had publicized brushes with ethics laws, while their former colleague Mark Foley and Ted Haggard, who was pastor of a large evangelical church, were implicated in embarrassing sexual affairs. In the past, scandal has hit other prominent conservative commentators who preach public virtue while indulging their private appetites, whether for gambling, drug use or other vices. But moralist Republicans don't have the market cornered on hypocrisy. If giving into excess embarrasses some of them, for a number of Democrats — supposedly...

We often argue about left/right or conservative/progressive (liberal is a misnomer in the classical sense). I thought a little diversion from the standard debates might be interesting. The link to the Political Compass will allow anyone interested to see where their beliefs fall. It assesses your beliefs both economically and socially, take the test to see where you fall. My score: Economic Left/Right: 6.00 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.33 I don't claim to be another Milton Friedman, but my score places my political compass beliefs close to his, far right economically and moderate socially.

IF YOU HATED IT the first time, you might like the sequel better. Remember Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the right-wing goon squad whose defamatory insinuations helped sink John Kerry's presidential campaign? They're back! This afternoon, key Swift boaters George "Bud" Day, Mary Jane McManus and Carlton Sherwood are holding a little reunion, in the guise of a panel discussion at the American Conservative Union's annual Conservative Political Action Conference. The panel topic? "The Left's Repeated Campaign Against the American Soldier." --snip-- The reemergence of the Swifties is depressing, but not because they're likely to do much damage to progressive...

Today, Boneless Wonders sit on the benches of both parties in Congress. More are to be found on the Democratic side of the aisle than the Republican... Say you're an average congressman. How do you react to President Bush's Iraq speech? You suspect, deep down, that he's probably doing more or less what he needs to do. We can't just click our heels and get out of Iraq--the consequences would be disastrous. And the current strategy isn't working. You have said so yourself. Last fall you called for replacing Rumsfeld. You've complained that there weren't enough troops. What's more, you've...

Good Fundamentalism Bad Fundamentalism   At the age of semantics meaning a lot, it is evident that this term is reserved very selectively. I dare the MSM on fundamentalists such as: secularists, or anti-warriors.   1) "Anti War" warriors beat up ordinary innocent passers by in France (2003).   2) Radical secularists are on an all out war on religion in America, via ACLU and other.   3) Hatred towards practicing Christians in liberal Europe, the anti-Bush bashing manifesting in denigrating his Christianity is part of it.   4) A minority within a minority, radical gays in a secular minority...

If you want to predict on which side an American will line up in the Culture War wracking America, virtually all you have to do is get an answer to this question: Does the person believe in the divinity and authority of the Five Books of Moses, the first five books of the Bible, known as the Torah? ("Divinity" does not necessarily mean "literalism.") I do not ask this about "the Bible" as a whole because the one book that is regarded as having divine authority by believing Jews, Catholics, Protestants and Mormons, among others, is not the entire Bible,...

Get health care right this time By BONNIE ERBE GUEST COLUMNIST On health care, most U.S. politicians have it all wrong. When Democrats take over Congress next month, health care accessibility will be Topic No. 2, just below resolving the mess President Bush created in Iraq. The Republican answer on health care -- so-called health savings accounts (HSAs) -- doesn't allow low-income people any possible way to save enough money for cancer treatment or other catastrophic illness. A Government Accountability Office report to Congress this January on the government's experimental rollout of those plans for federal workers showed those who...

'Not left or right; right or wrong!" That's the current marketing slogan of a local talk radio station (not mine). It's a clever turn of a phrase and an interesting approach to establishing product differentiation from competing talk stations that promote the conventional split between liberals and conservatives. This imaging strategy is designed to convey the impression that the programmers, personalities and producers on that station somehow rise above the limitations of ideology and the pettiness of partisan politics. The station and radio show (Caplis & Silverman) that Mike is talking about - http://www.khow.com/pages/shows-caplis_silverman.htmlIn theory, this might attract listeners that...