You can tune in now to listen to RedState contributor and annoying younger brother Ben Howe live at WBT News Talk 1110 in Charlotte, NC. You can also listen live online here . And if you want to call in and harass him, the number is 704-570-1110. OPEN THREAD
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Open Thread: The Ben Howe Show
Well here you have it. Feel free to discuss the results as they come in, or join us above in the live chat. At the time of this posting, the projected result: Gingrich, Romney, Santorum. OPEN THREAD . .
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South Carolina Primary Result – Open Thread
So, Erick Erickson decided to make a big push against SOPA today, again bringing out the primary threat card . I also had a post on SOPA and PROTECT IP today . We were heard. On the House side, Speaker John Boehner echoed Majority Leader Eric Cantor , and said the committee needs to find consensus before the bill can get a vote. And again, conservatives like Darrell Issa, Justin Amash, and Jason Chaffetz aren’t going to lie down and quit. So as long as Boehner and Cantor are true to their words, SOPA is dead in the House this Congress. On the Senate side, of the 16 Republicans co-sponsoring PROTECT IP, I’ve received word of six of them changing their minds. Kelly Ayotte, Roy Blunt, John Boozman, Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, and Marco Rubio are dropping their support. Moe was keeping track , but I think Ayotte flipped after the posted. The threat of electoral consequences is all a politician will listen to. Democrats know that the online left won’t lift a finger, so Democrats are still backing SOPA and PROTECT IP, much to Markos Moulitsas’s disappointment . We stood on principle, while Daily Kos just whined. We got results, he got blown off. Erick even tried to make this a bipartisan thing, where both sides would primary the SOPA and PROTECT IP supporters, but he got crickets. Lamar Smith remains primary target number one though, as he does his best impression of the Saddam Hussein Ministry of Propaganda. The Allies are not in Iraq! SOPA is still in control of the country! It’s all lies! Also, Lamar Smith is himself an E-PARASITE . Will he resign and report to prison? And remember: being against the SOPA/PROTECT IP plan is not the same as being pro-infringement. There are better, more workable ideas . I started talking about PROTECT IP last May, back when the Kos left was all in favor of Internet regulation. So I’m staying ahead of the game and will continue to beat the drum about the next fight: national and Internet sales taxation. There’s a plan gaining steam called the Marketplace Fairness Act, and we all know what it means when people talk about “tax fairness:” Grab your wallet. Governors love the plan , no, really , as it’s a way of raising taxes while claiming you’re not raising taxes. That saves them a political fight to cut spending. They then resort to personal attacks on the opposition, by claiming they’re “evaders” or “cheats” or other such nonsense. Those shameful attacks change the subject from the undeniable fact that the Constitution reserves the regulation of interstate commerce to the Congress. Without an interstate compact, state attempts at interstate taxation defy the Constitution and are illegal. Beware the compact plans currently coming about though. Demand that they contain safeguards, such as the compact being dissolved immediately, or state accession documents requiring the states to withdraw immediately, in the event of a national sales tax plan, in the style of the Canadian HST. Demand that tax rates be limited. Tell these sponsors that you oppose back-door national sales taxes with the full brunt of income tax left in place. News flash: it’s not illegal for Google to do something just because you don’t like it . It annoys me that there are people who want to bring government into this. Bunch of whiners. Use something else if you don’t like it. Grow up! Bad spectrum regulations harm access to the Internet . Yes, yes they do. I’m not going to adopt the language of these groups and say it’s a “civil rights issue,” but I agree that we need more competition. And that means less regulation and smaller government, not a runaway Justice and FCC. We need to let firms large and small get the spectrum they need.
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Tech at Night: SOPA day wrap-up, and the next fight: taxes
RedState Morning Briefing December 23, 2011 Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge. 1. Stopping SOPA 2. About Those Racist Ron Paul Newsletters that He Didn’t Read and Completely Disavowed 3. So Hang On A Minute 4. Joe Lieberman inserts himself into Operation Fast & Furious. ———————————————————————- 1. Stopping SOPA I love Marsha Blackburn. She is a delightful lady and a solidly conservative member of Congress. And I am pledging right now that I will do everything in my power to defeat her in her 2012 re-election bid. I wonder if the left feels that way about Debbie Wasserman Schultz? Both Marsha Blackburn and Debbie Wasserman Schults, the head of the Democratic National Committee and a Congresswoman from Florida, are cosponsors of the Stop Online Piracy Act. The Act intends to stop online piracy. The way the Act goes about doing this is, in large part, allowing Eric Holder to take control of the internet and shut down websites he does not like. It is a totalitarian response from a bipartisan coalition of Congresscritters most of whom admit they have no freaking idea how the internet even works. Don’t believe me? In a committee hearing on SOPA, co-sponsor Mel Watts (D-NC) was really open about it saying, “I’m not a nerd” before proceeding to admit he understood nothing about the law, how the internet worked, or pretty much anything else related to it. The legislation originated with Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX). As Neil Stevens explained in detail here the legislation will wreck terrible havoc on the internet. There is an alternative called the OPEN Act, which stands for Online Protection & ENforcement of Digital Trade Act. The OPEN Act accomplishes what SOPA intends to accomplish without handing Eric Holder the power to shut down websites that make him unhappy. Another big difference is that SOPA is backed by rich men in Hollywood and the OPEN Act is backed by people who actually use the internet and know how it works. This battle is so important — and is one of those rare fights where the left and right are united against Congress — that I suggest the left and right unite and pledge to defeat in primaries every person named as a sponsor on H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act. Please click here for the rest of the post. 2. About Those Racist Ron Paul Newsletters that He Didn’t Read and Completely Disavowed First of all, let me apologize for all the Ron Paul stuff lately. Being a dumb yokel from Nashville who has never lived or worked in or near Washington, DC, I am powerless to resist the mind control rays from the Establishment, who have ordered me to continuously assault Ron Paul (or at least this is the answer to my posts that I most often find from Paul’s followers). Almost nothing I have written on in the last week is new from 2008, so I know that many of you already know it. On the other hand, based on the response, a surprising number of people didn’t know a lot of this stuff – which I guess makes sense. It’s difficult to explain Paul’s rise in the most recent Iowa polls without theorizing that he is duping at least some actual Republicans, as opposed to leftists disgruntled by Obama’s aggressive foreign policy stance [pause for hysterical laughter]. This one, however, is genuinely new to me. A lot of ink has been spilled about Ron Paul’s racist newsletter that was printed in the late 80s/early 90s. At this point, literally no one will defend the content of the letters, not even Paul himself. It is universally recognized that some truly repugnant stuff went out in Paul’s name during this time period. If you want a sampling of this material, click here. Now, this stuff has been known about for years, and was known about in 2008. Paul’s explanation back then was that he didn’t know about what was going out in the newsletter, didn’t read most of the issues, completely disavowed their content. In other words, the exact same thing he is saying today. So although this demonstrates that Paul is not really built to withstand the sort of scrutiny that every other frontrunner has to take as a matter of course, you can at least understand why he got exasperated and walked off during an interview with CNN’s Gloria Borger on the topic. Please click here for the rest of the post. 3. So Hang On A Minute Let me get this straight. Twenty years ago someone put some crazy, racist stuff in newsletters bearing Ron Paul’s name and written in the first person as if they were from Ron Paul. Ron Paul never read them. Ten years ago, when confronted with some of the crazy stuff (I’m trying really hard not to use “crazy s**t” here), Ron Paul says he wrote them, but they must be taken in their whole context to understand them. Fast forward to the present and Ron Paul never wrote them, does not know who wrote them, cannot recall the names of anyone who worked for him who might have written them, is shocked to learn he made big money off them, and people think this guy has the qualifications to be President of the United States? Letting someone write bat crap crazy stuff under your name, not knowing who they are or what they are doing, profiting from them, then taking responsibility before denying responsibility is credible?! If we’re to take Ron Paul at his word, maybe we need to get him an Alzheimer’s test. He is old. Hell, if pigs did fly and he did get elected President, he’d be 81 at the end of his first term. Please click here for the rest of the post. 4. Joe Lieberman inserts himself into Operation Fast & Furious. Short version of the background: Operation Fast & Furious was a botched Department of Justice operation where the federal government catastrophically mucked up a program ostensibly designed to curtain illegal gun running to Mexico by… sustaining, encouraging, and enabling gun running to Mexico. Several hundred people have died as a result – including at least one American law enforcement official – and now questions are being asked in Congress. Including questions by Homeland Security Chair Joe Lieberman (CT). Please click here for the rest of the post.
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Morning Briefing for December 23, 2011
Roy W. Spencer, former NASA climatologist and climate expert, explains why the leftist warming agenda would still be wrong, even if their science were right. A very interesting video. Consider this an OPEN THREAD .
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Video: “Why The Left’s Global Warming Agenda Is Flat Out Wrong”
