For the first two weeks on the new site, we did really good about blogging on state and local politics. Let’s keep it up.

Here’s my challenge: next post you write, write about your state representative or state senator. Let’s keep the initiative. Be sure to put the name of your state in the tags.

JUST TO BE CLEAR: Write about the people representing you in your state legislature not Congress or write about your county commissioner, city councilman, mayor, sheriff, etc.

Let’s get in the habit of covering our local politics because some of our local guys will one day run for higher office. We should start covering them now.

See here.

If your candidate is going to stage enormous rallies in front of tens of thousands of chanting Germans (with monuments to Prussian military might in the background) in the middle of his Presidential campaign, it isn’t the GOP’s fault if the footage comes out looking a little like Hitler at Nuremberg.

John McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, called out Obama today saying, “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.”

The media, though, is denying that Obama played the race card. They do not want to believe that their golden boy has stooped so low, so soon.

By the way, do you notice a pattern? When a Democrat fails to meet expectations, he plays the race card. Obama has bottomed out in the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll, losing his 9 point bounce. So what does he do? He pulls out the Democrat Standard Book of Tactics and throws the race card on the table.

The media is denying that Obama is pulling the race card.

They are foolish to be so willingly blind. Why? Because Obama has said this stuff before and the media recognized the race card.

Let’s examine the transcripts:

Read More →

There you go ladies and gentlemen. Barack Obama has let loose with where he actually stands — that is directly against you, the American people.

You can listen to Rush talking about it here. He rightly draws the connection to Jimmy Carter’s policies.

Next, I suppose, Obama will advocate the maximum speed limit be 55 mph again.

First, let’s point out that he’s full of it on this. This is one of those statements that is not true, when you look into it, but the Washington Post will never devote a front page story to debunking Obama on something like this.

Second, what Barack Obama precisely fails to mention is anything having to do with lowering the price of a gallon of gasoline.

Consider Barack Obama’s own ad, the transcript of which is here.

Barack Obama thinks high gas prices deserve serious answers, and a serious plan: Crack down on oil speculators, raise mileage standards and fast track alternative fuels.

These are not the answers of serious men.

We already know cracking down on oil speculators will have a de minimis impact on the price of oil. Why? Because they’ll go overseas and play in the exact same market.

Raising mileage standards will take a long time to deploy and does nothing to increase supply.

Fast tracking alternative fuels? Like ethanol? We’re already artificially keeping that price high through import tariffs Obama does not want to reduce. And how the hell are else are we suppose to fill up our cars?

Seriously, and this is the central point of contention you cannot ignore Barack Obama offers exactly nothing to deal with the high price of gas by the gallon. Unless he advocates the federal government buying every American a brand new car that can accept his alternative fuels, he offers no relief.

Inflating your tires and getting a regular tune-up sounds more like Obama’s plan for ego maintenance than it does for helping American families.

Well, this was supposed to go up at 12:03 p.m., but somehow did not.

So here we are close to 2 o’clock. Let’s make this a general open thread.

Been on since 6am EDT. If you are interested, you can listen here. We cover local, state, and national news. We’ve had a lot of fun at the Obamessiah’s expense this morning.

UPDATE: Oh, you’re probably going to want to be listening at 8:37 a.m. EDT.

Well done you effete snob, but race has nothing to do with it.*

Barack Obama has finally pulled the race card against John McCain and the Republicans. You know, Mr. “I transcend politics” has finally, tacitly admitted he is just a typical politician by accusing those who don’t like him of being racist.

“Nobody thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face. So what they are going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Obama warned, **“You know he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all of those other presidents on the dollar bills.”**

Jake Tapper has an absolute must read on this.

And just to clarify, those of us who don’t like Obama aren’t racist. We just think he’s a petty, shallow politician with a vain streak that makes Narcissus look humble.

Oh, and we know he has skin so thin at some point his whining is going to blow up in his face. He can’t take what we’re going to be dishing out for 97 more days.

*Maybe this is why Obama won’t speak up for Steve Cohen in TN-09.

We’ve added to the RedState store. You can pick up a host of items including these two new designs:

Some person at Vox Nova, a Catholic site I don’t read, has up a post complaining about the “childishness” of the “nonsense” at RedState.

Naturally, this person was banned here and ran back there to complain about us. He (it’s got to be a he because the person whines like a girl, but a girl would generally not sound so pretentious), however, wanted to complain about our stifling of dissent, but has a “comments are closed” notice at the bottom of his post.

Some people just need to suck it up.

UPDATE: Several hours after this post went up, he opened the comments to let his friends cry in agreement with him in his comments.

UPDATED and BUMPED: According to the Politico late yesterday, the Democrats have denied a request by Cohen for money to fight off Nikki Tinker. But, the Congressional Black Caucus has given Nikki Tinker $5,000.00 and additional fundraising support from Stephanie Tubbs Jones.

The answer to the question is no. It is, in fact, the only acceptable answer and if you think otherwise, RedState is not a good fit for you.

But I ask the question because it raises an important point about the media, the Democrats, and Barack Obama himself.

We are, each year, treated to national media reports on race relations in this country and they invariably discuss white America coming to terms with other races in this country. Very, very rarely does the media ever report on other races coming to terms with white America.

It is not really relevant, frankly, to point out that most black voters are going to vote in droves for Barack Obama. Regardless of his race, black voters would vote for the Democrat. But when you read about Congressman Steve Cohen’s race in Tennessee’s Ninth Congressional District, you really are confronted by both racism and anti-semitism in a way we rarely think about in this country. And the media is silent. Barack Obama is silent.

Steve Cohen just might lose his re-election not because he has been ineffective in representing his district, but because he is white. And a number of black members of Congress are happy about that.

Read More →

The show is about to start. Use the comment thread to weigh in.

Check this out. Wired blogger Sarah Lai Strickland has a look at the GOP’s Facebook parody site of Obama. In it, she notes:

Rezko, a Chicago landlord, *most recently was in the headlines for being on trial for corruption*. Ayers, now a university professor, was a member of the violent 1960s group The Weather Underground, and Katz, now a public-relations consultant, was a former student activist involved in sometimes-violent Vietnam War protests against the police. Rezko is a campaign donor, Ayers sat on the board of a charity with Obama, and Katz is a fund-raiser.

How about Rezko was convicted on 16 counts in a federal corruption trial.

Oh, and how about Barack Obama got his start in elected office in Bill Ayers’s living room.

Let’s not forget Marilyn Katz who was not just “involved in” the protests. She marched in 1968 at the Democratic National Convention, through nails in the street to obstruct police, and championed a “Democratic Socialist paradise.”

Ted Stevens (R-AK) has been indicted by a federal grand jury on 7 counts. While people are innocent until proven guilty, we know enough facts to suggest Mr. Stevens is going to be looking for a deal.

And the voters of Alaska, committed to reform, are going to throw him out of office.

This is one seat that should stay in Republican hands. It will not, however, if Ted Stevens decides to hang on.

For the longest time Ted Stevens has done all things for the good of Ted Stevens. Now is the time for him to fall on his sword and take one for the GOP team.

Ted Stevens must resign.

The Savannah Paper has a story on the challenge to Senator Johnson.

A state senator from Sharpsburg wants Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson’s job, but Johnson isn’t saying whether he wants to keep it.

Senate Republican Whip Mitch Seabaugh has told follow GOP senators he’ll seek the post the Savannah Republican has held since 2005.

I’m a big fan of Eric Johnson. He has, more than any other person or group, championed school choice in Georgia. He has worked to expand charter schools, give parents of special needs children the right to go to the school of their choice, etc.

I’d hate to see him removed from the President Pro Tempore spot. Mitch Seabaugh is a good guy, but he should not make this challenge.

We’re moving slow. We know. I’ve read the diaries.

There are things we (read: Neil) are working on as fast as we can to get the server response time improved. Right now, the way the front page is set up, a lot of repeated inquiries are being made to the server that can be consolidated. When we were in beta, we had such low traffic, it wasn’t really detectable.

It is abundantly clear now.

We . . . er . . . Neil . . . are/is working as fast as possible. And lay off Neil. I’m the guy who pushed us to this new platform. The third party developer highly recommended it. And while user function, readibility, etc. have been improved, the responsiveness is a pain in the ass.

We’re working on it. Thanks for your patience.

Kansas Meadowlark has a new fun way to raise money. Meet Sean Tevis. Sean has done little fundraising in the 15th State House District of Kansas.

Instead, Sean went to Netroots Nation and passed the hat. He raised closed to $96,000.00. As Kansas Meadowlark notes

A huge part of Tevis’ contributions (71.9%) were small, unitemized, and without any additional information. *Only 1.8% of all contributions were from known Kansas sources, and NONE were from Tevis’ district.*

He is running against incumbent Arlen Siegfried. The district appears pretty solidly Republican. Nonetheless, it is a pretty cool fundraising idea. Go to Netroots Nation, say you are running against a Republican, and pass the hat.

I’ll have to remember this when I’m on the ballot again in three years. Only, um, my name will be, um, Advan Tageofyou.

The show is starting. Consider this an open thread on the show and whatever you’re moved to comment on.

And Happy 20 Years Rush.

By the way, Karl Rove pays tribute to Rush Limbaugh today.

Jed Babbin interviewed Rush for this week too. It’s a great read.

All week long over at Human Events, they’re celebrating Rush’s 20th anniversary. On Friday, we’ll have a great many front page posts about it.

But starting today, at noon, we’re going to being the Daily Rush Open Thread. We know a lot of you listen. Between now and noon though, please consider using this as a thread to share your favorite Rush moments.

Though there was a lot of outrage expressed over someone pulling Obama’s prayer out of the Western Wall, I personally figured he’d focus grouped the heck out of it first, knowing someone was going to get hold of it.

Well, it appears I was probably right. In fact, according to the Israeli paper that published Obama’s prayer, he, well, from the New Republic:

the Obama campaign actually leaked the note to reporters before Obama even placed it in the wall. *Yediot Aharonot*, Israel’s most popular daily, apparently also received a copy of the note in advance but decided not to print it.

Of course, as we could expect, Obama’s campaign now denies the note was “approved for publication.” Can we really believe that though? They leak the letter to the media and it is somehow not approved for publication? They aren’t, after all, denying that they let it leak in advance. And even if they did, can we believe them now? I doubt it. There is less and less we can believe from Obama’s press operation. Like candidate, like staff.