Moonhowlings

The West Wing Blog csan now be found at www.whitehouse.gov/blog

According to the Washington Post:

You didn’t see this on CNN or Fox News or NBC: President Obama awkwardly introducing Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, to the Netherlands’ prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, at the recent nuclear security summit. “You know, uh, you’ve met Jan?” the president says tentatively as the other world leaders stand aside like shy kids at a dance.

Or this: Obama, playfully doing his best impression of Muhammad Ali, throwing mock punches into the midsection of a costumed Easter Bunny following the White House Easter Egg Roll.

You didn’t see it on the networks because the behind-the-scenes video was only available on “West Wing Week,” the Obama administration’s new video blog. The six- to seven-minute compilations, which appear each week on the White House’s Web site (http://www.whitehouse.gov) and on such video-sharing sites as YouTube, offer what a narrator on each segment calls “your guide to everything that’s happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

The West Wing blog will show video not shown by the major cable networks or nightly news that gives a bird’s eye view of what’s really going on behind the scenes.

In this video, President Obama talks with Americans about why the Wall Street reform is important to anyone who has ever used a credit card, gotten a loan, bought a car or a house, uses an ATM, has a checking account, etc. He talks to ordinary Americans who just might not have a private political agenda:

Greg Letiecq interviews with ‘Sarge’ on the Jeff Fargas Show. Sarge is out in Arizona.

The show takes callers and Elena calls to throw in the other side of the story.

The podcast will appear. It takes about a minute. You will want to chose the May 8 if it isn’t chosen for you.

Sorry folks, it isn’t pretty but I got it here…sort of.

CLICK HERE FOR THE SHORT VERSION

I am going to suggest a blog for Conservatives.  It belongs to a friend of mine, Bill.  The name of the blog is:

                                 Bill 4 Dog Catcher       (See Bill’s logo)

 and it’s on our blogroll.  Now why would I want to introduce people to another blog?  Bill 4 Dog Catcher  isn’t your average blog. It is honestly a conservative blog the way I remember conservatives used to be.  The extremists haven’t hi-jacked Bill or his conservative values.   Bill has a section( page) on his blog, If I were Dog Catcher.  I would be hard pressed to find much to disagree with in the abstract.  If I were a plagiarizer, I could go lift his words, and plant them here on a page as my own, quite comfortably.  In reality, in talking with Bill, he and I aren’t too far apart either. 

Read more…

In today’s edition of the Washington Post entitled – Prince William’s Mothers of Dissension, an article about Stay-at-Home Mom’s, featuring Elena, myself and Katherine Gotthardt with quotes from Kris Nohe as well. Honestly, I started to doubt whether this story would ever appear, you can tell by the photos, which were taken in the early fall that this story has been in the making for quite some time.

In just a few days the blog – Raising Kaine will cease to exist.  It’s definitely a very sad end to an era.  Often in my internet browsing, I have landed there and over time have been impressed by its content.  On a personal note, Lowell Feld has provided me with invaluable advice on several occassions.  I would like to express my sincere appreciation for his contributions to the online blogging community and wish him continued success in all his future endeavors.

Just finished reading Mexicans Without Borders Asks For Your Money which comments on an article in DC IndyMedia where John Steinback asks for donations and Greg Letiecq suggests those that do would be guilty of ‘aiding & abetting’.

As Christians are we to deny food & clothing because we fear some recipients might not have a social security number? Absolutely not. Do the righteous thing, and don’t let anyone discourage you from doing otherwise.

Please contemplate Matthew 25: 34-46 which reads:

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

For those unfamiliar with Chris Royse, he ran an unsuccessful campaign against Frank Principi for the vacated Woodbridge Supervisor seat during the 2007 election. (This video shows him addressing the BOCS on 7-10-07). In this letter to the editor he perhaps purposely misrepresents Principi’s pro-life stance. One needs to ask themselves Royse’s motivation for doing so. Presumably he wants to keep his name in the public domain because he anticipates another candidacy for public office. In short, a blatant attack on elected officials masked as a ‘christian’ holiday greeting is in extremely poor taste and should be remembered as such for a long time to come.

Here’s the letter:

This time of year is special to Christians as Christmas is the celebration of the birth of our savior Jesus Christ.

Birth and life are very important concepts to Christians, and in particular Catholics.

We are commanded by the Pope to love and protect the unborn since God sent his only son to be born, raised and crucified among us.

This year, shortly after Christmas, we will inaugurate President-elect Obama who has publicly referred to pregnancy as “punishment,” and we will see his local followers, Congressman-elect Gerry
Connolly and Woodbridge Supervisor Frank Principi — both Catholics who support pro-choice agendas in direct violation of the Church’s teachings — continue on their path of supporting the destruction of
human life.

This holiday season, a season which includes the celebration of birth, I request that leaders throughout the Arlington Diocese call on Connolly and Principi to stop their hypocrisy and to consider denying them communion until they realign themselves with the teachings of our church.

As Jesus taught us in Matthew 23:12 “and whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted,” Christmas is the perfect time for the humble unborn to be exalted and
those local “leaders” who exalt themselves by publicly defying their own faith to be humbled.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.

CHRIS ROYSE
Woodbridge

Not sure what it all means, but definitely the number of unique visitors is steadily increasing. It isn’t even the middle of the month and it appears we could add an additional 1,000 unique visitors over last month’s numbers. By the way, that would be the greatest single month increase since our inception!

Congratulations to Moon-howler and all our regular contributors. Undoubtedly we have an intelligent and considerate forum which is already exceeding traffic from blogs that have been around for many years.

Problem Solved. There’s been much discussion about what was happening at http://www.tooconservative.com and not any answers until now. NoVaTownHall has the scoop at http://novatownhall.com/2008/09/30/too-conservative-still-off-the-air/. Honestly, I was more than a little concerned that I was banned from viewing the site.

Live, from New York, it’s Saturday Night Live!!   Here’s Tina Fey again this week, at her finest. This UVA grad has gone far.

Has SNL gone too far or was fun poked at all concerned?  Was fun poked at us, the public?  Why is some political satire ok and some not ok?

Nativist Republican Operative Greg Letiecq Continues His Witch-Hunt in a Desperate Attempt to Distract the Public from the Reality of the Immigration Resolution’s Disastrous Failure.

As national economic news worsens, Prince William County residents are coping with the an $11 Million Dollar “Immigration” policy that is hampering our local economy at a time when we can least afford it. Add to this the fact that last Tuesday’s highly anticipated Immigration Report from Chief Deane revealed some shocking indicators of how poorly our local “Immigration” policy is serving us. Trust and confidence in our county government and our police force are at all time lows according to our Citizen Satisfaction Survey. And, only 1.6% of the crime committed in Prince William County is committed by undocumented individuals. And, as shown in an earlier thread, in return for our $11 Million Dollar “Immigration” policy, we are seeing many of those we do apprehend return to the county after a brief trip through our federal system.

Perhaps this is the reason Greg Letiecq is pretending to be outraged about Liz Barnes and Craig Gerhart receiving a salary, and Eric Byler, an award-winning filmmaker, not receiving a salary as a VOLUNTEER for the Obama campaign (one among millions of Obama volunteers across the country).

His whining about Byler’s weekend volunteer activities is truly laughable.  Long before he earned himself a place in the halls of nativist fame, Greg was known in the county as a conservative Republican operative.  On his blog, he is trying to create a faux scandal over the entirely appropriate actions of some of the best civil servants in our county to try to distract us from the real scandal.

Here’s the real scandal: an extremist, nativist, hate group — led by Republican operatives — posing as a grassroots “issue advocacy” organization used insidious tactics to ram through our county an economically disastrous and racist policy with “help” from FAIR, a national organization classified as a hate group by Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center.  Surveys and reports about the Prince William experiment — more are forthcoming from think tanks and universities — are confronting us with that reality.  And Greg is waving his arms in desperation “don’t look there…look over here!” It’s a pitiful sight.

Greg L said on 19 Aug 2008 at 12:37 am:
Monticup, I understand your frustration and outrage, but try to refrain from characterizing all illegal aliens as nascent criminals. Some are, but it would appear that they’re a pretty small minority. With somewhere around 12 million illegal aliens in the US by conservative estimates, if they were all predisposed to criminal behavior we’d be far worse off than we are. There are about 300,000 illegal aliens in Virginia, and we certainly don’t have a crime explosion that such numbers would create.

A big problem however is that of those 300,000 we have no idea who they are. Among them are certainly some of the worst folks you could imagine from both a crime and a national security perspective. In order to ensure these bad actors aren’t present, the lawful deportation of as many illegal aliens as possible is a way to ensure we remove those who pose the most significant threat as well as (perhaps more significantly) discourage other bad actors from unlawfully entering the country.

If we cannot control our borders, we are no longer a sovereign nation, and our democracy is in grave peril. As we seek to do so, we have to be certain that what we ask for is reasoned and responsible. We can’t do that very well by saying all illegal aliens are invariably rapists and murderers without undermining our arguments. There’s enough provable and unambiguous data out there to support our arguments without stretching so much, and in ways that can become counterproductive.

We have to maintain a higher standard than anyone else, and while it might not be fair, that’s just how it is. Let’s do our best to be better than those arguing the other side.

Acutally, it’s almost refreshing to see Mr. Leteicq make this kind of statement. It’s in sharp contrast to his infamous ‘Dog for Sale’ thread. Apparently he is coming to the realization that in order to be considered a rational voice in the immigration debate he can no longer permit the previously employed rhetoric and mischaracterizations of all ‘illegals’ as being rapists, murderers etc… To what extent this transformation is a result of our efforts might never be known but I feel confident that we have contributed to forming the terms of this discussion. Congratulations to everyone for their continued participation.

Reposting of Rules as a reminder, we are more than willing to discuss issues; however continued personal attacks will result in permanent banning.

Here’s how the blog works -

• First time commenters are held in moderation and need prior approval.
• Comments with 3 or more links are held in moderation and need approval, this is used for filtering spam.
• Personal attacks are strongly discouraged and could result in permanent banning.
• Users can be put into moderation for extra supervision but thus far none have been censored but it does mean that your comments might not be immediately viewable.
• International ipaddresses will be blocked from viewing the site as many spam originate from these locations.

‘Censored’ List as of 05/05/08 -

1. Steve Thomas’ home address – REMOVED
2. Name of School where Supervisor’s children attended. – REMOVED
3. Elvis/Chameleon/Ching – BLOCKED

According to the Inside Nova, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, R-11th, who once hoped to be the Republican nominee for Senate, will not attend this weekends nominating convention in Richmond. From the chatter on the local conservative blogs it appears that Marshall has a lock on the nomination. Apparently, Gilmore’s more centrist stance which would actually help win him the election has been shunned. Of course, this approach will backfire in November and Mark Warner will win the Senate seat but the Republican Party will maintain their ‘principles.’

So anyways, it will be interesting to see what transpires today at the Convention.