While I’m as cynical as the next conservative about presidential memorabilia (and I’m sure plenty will be hawked at the Inauguration), I’m not sure the “kind eyes” of the commemorative plate can be blamed on the activist, liberal illuminati. I’ve seen too much commemorative junk in Sunday ads and coupon circulars alone, much less QVC. Recall, for instance, the amount of household items bearing Princess Diana’s visage. Plates, towels, spoons, postcards, Barbies, porcelain dolls. And that’s just the beginning.

It’s not limited to official merch, either: there are ridiculous conversations taking place on Obama product preferences, like whether Barack favors iPod or Zune.

Great. A celebrity in the White House.

Before the Republican Party can move forward, there needs to be some honest assessment of others in the party before worthwhile partnerships can be made.

For instance: despite her personal choices (to ignore an abortion option, for instance, or go to an un-mainline church), many of Gov. Palin’s actual political policies jive well with libertarian principles.

Also, in a recent interview, she reached out to feminists, and, as a conservationist, praised the new administration’s potential for addressing environmental problems. She’s not exactly a right-wing whacko.

But the mainstream media talking heads don’t mention that, they only replay footage of her interview in front of some guy prepping Thanksgiving turkeys. The leftist illuminati do not have the GOP’s best interests at heart: their portrayal of all caucuses within the Republican Party will be aimed to further divide GOP constituents, not find creative ways of bringing us together.

The job at the EPA calls for someone with a keen sense of both ethics and science. Kennedy is not that person.

The following letter was written in support of Robert H. Boyle (founder of Riverkeeper and author of “The Hudson River, A natural and unnatural history”) and others who resigned from Riverkeeper rather than support R. F. Kennedy, Jr.’s compromise of the principle that ethics must never be separate from science.

This letter was first published in the Putnam County News and Recorder, Cold Spring, New York, on August 30, 2000 and they have carried it on their website ever since for which they have my thanks. (AHS, 2008)

Letters:

Supports Former Riverkeeper Board Members’ Action
Editor,

The Fishkill Ridge Caretakers, Inc. supports Robert H. Boyle, former president of the Riverkeeper, Inc. and former Riverkeeper, Inc. board members John Fry, treasurer, Nancy Abraham, Kathryn Belous Boyle, Pat Crow, Theresa Hanczor, Robert Hodes, Ann Tonetti and Alexander Zagoreas in the action they have taken in resigning from Riverkeeper in opposition to the hiring of a convicted environmental felon to serve in the position of staff scientist on the staff of Riverkeeper.

In issuing this statement of support, The Fishkill Ridge Caretakers wishes to emphasize that ethics cannot be separated from science and that the environmental movement will prosper best in an atmosphere of demonstrated personal responsibility and earned mutual respect.

We encourage individuals as well as environmental organizations to join us in similar expressions of support for the principled stand taken by Boyle and fellow board members in their defense of the ethical integrity of the environmental movement here in the Hudson River Valley.

Boyle and 8 of the 22 Riverkeeper board members resigned from Riverkeeper, Inc. in protest of the hiring of William Wegner. For eight years Wegner operated a ring of smugglers who stole bird eggs directly from the nests of protected cockatoo species in Australia. Wegner and his ring then smuggled the eggs by air to the United States. Birds that hatched and survived were then sold for as much as $12,500.00 each. A federal judge accepted Wegner’s plea of guilty to charges of conspiracy and tax fraud and sentenced him to five years in prison. The judge also found that Wegner had attempted to obstruct justice by committing perjury at the trial of a co-defendant Wegner paid a $10,000.00 fine.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has stated that everyone deserves a second chance and notes that he himself had been given a second chance in that he had once been convicted of a drug offense.

We note, however, that Kennedy’s offense was essentially a victimless crime while Wegner’s offense was a crime against the environment, the people of Australia, the people of the United States and against the birds. In order to avoid detection during the flight, smugglers flushed newly hatched chicks down the plane’s toilet

Although Wegner has been convicted and served his sentence, nothing he or anyone else can do will correct the damage he has done or make his victims whole again.

Wegner’s prison sentence seems to have done little to improve his ethical sense. The resume Wegner submitted to Riverkeeper accounts for his period of incarceration without referring to the fact of the incarceration itself Wegner describes work he performed and omits the significant information that he performed this work while he was serving time as a prison inmate.

Kennedy overstepped his position as attorney for Riverkeeper when, in November of 1999, he hired Wegner. Boyle terminated Wegner after learning of the hiring and upon review of Wegner’s resume, court records and media accounts. The matter came to a climax at a board meeting on June 20th when Kennedy insisted that Wegner be rehired over Boyle’s objection.

While we hope Riverkeeper continues to work to produce changed human beings who think and act differently in regard to the Hudson River and all that pertains to it, we also recognize the primary mission of Riverkeeper is not the rehabilitation of Wegner or of those like him.

Sincerely,

Anthony Henry Smith
Fishkill

(for The Fishkill Ridge Caretakers)
(Fishkill Ridge Community Heritage, a separate organization, has also supported this letter from their beginning.)

I’d like to think that this is in part due to logistical desperation on McCain’s part due to him unexpectedly getting the GOP nomination after he was written off as a goner in the summer of ‘07. He grabbed whatever political talent was available, and found a bunch of tier2 Bush lackeys looking for their next job come 2009.

If in fact the battle for the GOP is lost (a defeat I’m not yet willing to concede), how well will the limited government movement last in the Democrat coalition? Now that the Democrats are in the same position the GOP was in 2000 (control of Congress and the Presidency) will we begin to see cracks in their coalition? I don’t see PA blue-collar union types being keen on supporting gay marriage. I don’t see the rent-seeking titans of industry (who have begun to switch their financial allegiance to the Democrats) happy with card-check legislation.

Or, will the GOP’s various factions re-unite once again to fight the (current) greatest of our lifetime to truth, justice and the American Way: President Barack Obama?

Will you be going to CPAC this year? It would make for a most excellent followup to the opening and closing chapters of your book. I hear it will be sponsored this year by Zoloft.

I am not trying to pander to anyone’s fear. I am merely trying to show any libertarian who is willing the listen the risk that face our most cherished beliefs.

Trillions of dollars of American wealth have been destroyed. Trillions of dollars of additional American wealth are at risk of being destroyed. This is going to create a great strain on our governement finances and thrust many individuals into a poverty that they have never known.

If Democrats are given unchecked political control, at every opportunity (and those opportunities will be numerous) the Democrats will show “compassion” to the poor while burdening the most productive members of society with taxes and regulations to curtail their economic freedoms. That is a recipe for economic disaster and a sure way to destroy the additional American wealth that is ar risk of being destroyed.

It is true that Republicans are not perfect in protecting economic freedoms, but they are better. And being better may be enough to help America survive this crisis. And, maybe, just maybe, if we libertarians support the Republican party in this crisis, we can get them to see how vitally important it is to the nations future that they become perfect in protecting economic freedoms.

All I have left to say to you Ryan Sager and any “libertarians” who share his point of view, keep fiddling Nero, Rome is burning.

Mormonism is not a cult, it is something we believe in. Yes, we have had our bumps on the road, yeah we’ve done stupid stuff, but we, like you, are human, we make mistakes. But that does not mean all Mormons are just like all the rest. Just because people are in the same group and have the same beliefs does not mean they are the same people, or do the same things, or act the same ways, or make the same mistakes. As a majority, Mormons try to follow good morals, and be a GOOD influence, at least all the ones I know. I really don’t know what would drive you to disrespect our sacred beliefs, but just because you can do it doesn’t make it right.

By this point, you probably think I am about to bear my testimony, I’m not. You probably don’t wish to hear it anyway, but I do ask you and anyone else to respect others beliefs. It may do you some good.

As for Colorado, I have several friends whose parents have been involved heavily in the state GOP for many years, but who have been pushed out by social conservative carpet-baggers. I don’t know that they’ve voted Democrat yet, but they are intensely unhappy that the native conservatism of the West has been forced out in favor of Alabama conservatism.

“As a libertarian committed to the defeat of John McCain, I’ll be pissed if we’re left with Hillary Clinton as our last, best hope.” - rs

Ryan,
How do you reconcile this position, as a libertarian who has also, in the past, acknowledged the value of divided government to limit the growth of the state?

The choice it 2008, is not Obama or Clinton vs. McCain. It is:

Obama (or Clinton) Pelosi Reid
-vs-
McCain Pelosi Reid

I am also not happy about McCain being the “last best choice” against a unified single party Democratic government with expanded majorities in both houses of congress and a real possibility of a filibuster proof 60 vote plurality in the Senate. Tell me why that is not worse than a McCain presidency?

Mormanism is a cult. Period.