Levi: Put Up or Shut Up

Did I not tell you that CBS would kiss his butt? Well, okay I didn't say it here, but I said it on C4P the other day.

I'm speaking, of course, of Levi's interview on CBS (part 1) this morning. Yes, there will be a part 2.

I think I saw this coming, I may not have known that I saw it coming, but I think I saw it coming.

When I first heard the news that Bristol and Levi had broken up, my initial reaction was, "Oh, no. Please let them patch this up and let nobody get hurt." Even if that "patching" didn't involve actually getting back together. I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I think I sensed a vulnerability in Levi. He was ripe for the picking.

And he's been picked; oh, boy, has he been picked.

This stuff about him during the election is a joke. Nobody cared about Levi. He was there as moral support for Bristol, and that's it. He just sat and stood there. Whoop de doo. There was no image, he was just there. After the convention I never thought twice about him. DURING the convention I never thought twice about him. It was never about him. Someone apparently convinced him it was.

Levi claims to have "huge" things he hasn't spilled about the Palins. That could be true. Listen, I don't doubt about 90 percent of what he says. I think he leaves out any and all context, but who isn't cherry picking facts these days?

The Palins are human. They do human things, like complain about their jobs and watch tv. I don't doubt that Bristol did a lot of the caregiving for Trig before Sarah resigned. Other magazines who did interviews at the Palin's house SAID that. The woman was the Governor of the State of Alaska. She was busy. Nobody rags on the man for leaving his wife to do the majority of the child rearing while he's out being the Governor or what have you. Why are we throwing a conniption fit if Todd does the majority of the child rearing? What's the problem?

The stuff about "she never hunts or fishes." Again, Governor! Listen, I like to ride horses, but that doesn't mean I do it every single day. I do it maybe once a year, if that. But I still like to do it. Sarah Palin was a working mother of five with a husband with a job thousands of miles away. I doubt she went fishing every other day.

That's what I mean when I say that I think Levi is being factual, but not necessarily truthful, because there's no context.

As for Todd and Sarah supposedly not liking him - Dude, you knocked up their daughter. Be thankful they didn't shoot you. Also, you broke up with their daughter. That's just plain old awkward.

See, I think Levi got hurt. Couple that with the voices around him that are anti-Palin, a desire for revenge, a chance to make money, and voila - one ruined life coming up.

As for the stuff he's supposedly holding back that he won't spill:

Listen, Levi, either spill it all or quit talking about it. Either leave Sarah Palin alone or drive the knife in deep.

No more of this middle stuff; make up your mind. If there really is something nefarious that went on, we need to know about it. But put up or shut up.

Set your TIVO's! Not.

Levi will be on the CBS Early Show Wednesday morning.

So, Bristol dumped Levi's butt and he got bitter. He finally caved to all of the media outlets who were banging down his door asking to him to, quote - "dish the dirt on the Palins." He went on Tyra and some others, and that probably sealed the deal for Bristol. No way she was ever taking him back. Levi had nothing to lose after that. Might as well just cash in.

At first he didn't say anything too awfully terrible. Those first couple of interviews before Rex and Tank got a hold of him are probably the truest picture of Levi. Of course his sister was an influence on him at that point. His sister is obviously out for the money. Speaking of credibility, in her first interview with Star Magazine, Mercedes said that Bristol wasn't going to high school and wouldn't graduate. Which begs the question: when can't you trust the word of a Johnston?

(That was sarcasm, by the way.)

Levi is milking the system for whatever it will give him. What's pathetic is that the system is willing to give him anything.

I think he honestly got hurt in the initial onslaught of a break-up, a break-up in front of the media no less. Then his dad left home, and his mom got thrown in jail. Having burned any possible bridge to the Palins, he was left adrift, until Rex and Tank showed up like knights in dingy, oversized armor.

For Levi, it's a combination of his personal life falling apart, falling in love with the attention he was getting, and realizing that he could make some bucks off of this. That's what he's doing now in this CBS interview. He's saying, "I've got some information...how much are you willing to give me for it?"

Yes. How much are you willing to give the kid to tell you Sarah also made him get her a Big Mac at McDonalds?

For his handlers, it's an agenda against the Palins. These are the people who have poisoned his mind to the point of hardening his soul. According to Levi, he sees now that the Palins are fake and out to bash him.

And what exactly has Sarah Palin been saying about him? Have you seen any press releases about Palin bashing Levi lately? The only thing he could possibly be talking about is her book. Has Levi been rushed an early copy?

Who are those who are telling him what Palin's really saying about him? Well, one is a guy who has never met Sarah Palin, but won't go so far as to say she's not evil. The other is a dude who claimed during the 2008 election that Palin "had no use for black people." Very objective sources, Levi. I'd venture that person #2 - Rex Butler, like person #1 - Tank Jones, has never met Sarah Palin either, yet he apparently knows her so well.

These two guys smell money, and they smell a chance to help out Obama by putting a few dents into Sarah Palin. That's all it is.

For Levi's handlers, it's a matter of distraction. Whenever Sarah does anything, they throw Levi into the mix, even when it has nothing to do with him, to say: "Wooohoo! Look over here! I'm saying bad things about you! Your marriage is falling apart! You never hunt or fish! You're a bad mother!"

It's a distraction. It's annoying as all get-out, but it means nothing. It's just to try to get the Palins off stride and off course. I can talk about it because I've got nothing to lose. The Palins and anyone politically connected with them should stay away from this because going near it will play right into the enemy's hands.

Always remember: Levi's just a puppet; Rex and Tank pull his strings. Oh, well. What does he care? He's getting at least $20,000 out of the deal. Principles be hung.

Next up for Levi? Probably some kind of gay porn. Isn't that fabulous?

Second Civil War - Stand With Sarah

Or as Glenn Beck would call it, "The Civilest of Wars." No physical casualties (hopefully), just ideas, power, and a whole lotta money.

The first Civil War began long before the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter was just the culmination of a conflict that had been raging elsewhere for decades.

I figured out a few years ago while doing research in college that our elections were basically rigged. The candidates are chosen by a party machine. Nobody but the candidates from the two parties stand a chance of winning, so we have no choice but to vote for the choice of the machine.

It's not the people choosing who they want; it's the Party Boys. More specifically, those who fund the Party Boys.

So I figured this out, but there was nothing to be done about it. Status quo was the watchword of those days. It took eight years of George W. Bush and a candidate who's first spoken word was probably "Change" to get the country to the point where we're ready for something truly revolutionary. The underground struggle between progressivism and our founding principles has been going on for decades; it is now coming to the surface.

We have woken up.

But neither side is going anywhere. So what now?

I don't think the solution is a third party, although that is an option. But eventually that third party will get corrupt too. And I hesitate to call the party the "Conservative Party" because conservatism should live beyond any party label.

Any political structure will eventually become corrupt, and when the "Conservative Party" structure got corrupt it would drag the conservative brand down with it.

I also doubt Glenn Beck's idea that Sarah will run on a third party ticket. She might run as an Independent, but like I've said, I tend to think she'll run as an "R," but an "R" in name only. A conservative first and foremost. But we'll see. Anything is possible at this point.

The following is an article by tbascom. Read the whole thing:

Sarah Palin’s Call To Arms

Sarah Palin has come out for the Conservative Party candidate in upstate New York’s 23rd Congressional District. Newt Gingrich thinks that’s a formula for Democrat Party control of the national government. She’s inclined toward the view that the Republican Party has drifted too far from its foundations, and that the public is more inclined to vote for the Democrat candidate than the “Democrat Lite” candidate. He says the factions in the Republican Party have to find common ground or be permanently relegated to the sidelines.

I increasingly side with Palin. The McCain Presidential run really did teach the lesson that the Republican base is not interested in voting for the modern notion of a centrist Republican – which is pretty far from our founders’ vision of the commonwealth. But despite the fact that the McCain campaign was languishing in the weeks leading up to the Republican convention, and was only invigorated by the selection of Palin as the Vice Presidential candidate, not even McCain seems to have learned the lesson or faced the fact that without Palin he would have been killed in the election.

That’s why the Democrats are so eager to destroy her. They know what Republican leaders don’t seem to have figured out (or have figured out, but don’t want to acknowledge): Sarah Palin is the kind of person Republicans, and perhaps Americans generally, want to elect. I suspect that if Palin had been at the top of the ticket, the election would have been significantly closer than it was, or a narrow win for the Republicans.

I’m Getting Positively Rebellious

The issue is that the political scene has moved significantly to the left over the last 30 years, and many traditional (not conservative, but traditional) Americans don’t think either party reflects original American values and standards. Add to that the rampant corruption – which we expect from Democrats, who make a virtue of denying traditional moral standards, but don’t want to tolerate in Republicans – and the fact that recent Republican administrations have tended in the same direction the Democrats have now embraced without restraint, and the reasons to support run-of-the-mill Republicans dwindle.

Bill Clinton’s lesson was that personal immorality doesn’t matter if your public morality is politically correct. Democrats swallowed that line wholesale; Republicans are learning the benefits of divorcing personal standards from public standards. But this is nothing more than the “do as I say, not as I do” attitude that’s currently running Washington DC, and that creates two worlds – one that allows people with political power and position to ignore common morality and even the law while the rest of us are forced to buckle under ever-tighter controls. Ordinary people increasingly don’t like that. We are getting positively rebellious.

Gingrich supports the New York Republican candidate on the basis that she is local to the district and won the local party votes. The Conservative candidate is from outside the district; an interloper who launched a third-party bid when he failed to place in the Republican Party votes. Palin, by contrast, is focused on the Conservative Party candidate because he is overtly conservative on both social and economic issues, while the Republican candidate is relatively liberal on social issues and moderately conservative on economic issues. Gingrich is pursuing pragmatic political considerations; Palin is pursuing ideological political considerations.

It’s My Freedom, Even When I Use it Stupidly

I think the real divide emerging in America is not between Republican and Democrat, but between those who champion the Constitution as written, and those who are willing to compromise the Constitution to win elections and find common ground with politicians who are actively destroying the intentions and original meaning of the Constitution in order to engineer society in their own image. In other words, the battle is between those of us who have come to see that when we begin to water down the standards of the Constitution we create the conditions that let others wash it away, and those who think the Constitution is out of phase with the temperament of the country and the world.

The Constitution has always been out of phase with the temperament of the world. It is a radical document that enshrines a very revolutionary notion of what it means to be human – a view no government has ever liked because its prime directive is to limit the power of government and governors. Time has not made the US Constitution more loved by tyrants and would-be tyrants, but less. It is not cherished by those who think they have some special knowledge, wisdom, or mandate to tell their neighbors how to live. The Constitution has never and will never be loved by those who think individuals are stupid and need shepherds.

But freedom, a friend once said, is the ability to make stupid decisions.

Think about that. If the government says you cannot drink sugar-sweetened colas, eat too many potato chips, spend too much time on your couch; if the government says you have to buy health insurance, you must control your weight, you have a civic duty to pick up roadside trash – you are not free.

Does that mean it’s “good” to eat poorly or ignore the environment? No, I don’t think so. It does mean, however, that it’s “good” to be able to make dumb choices. I’m fine with educational campaigns geared toward convincing people to be kinder to their bodies and the earth; I am not fine with even gentle coercion to exercise more or volunteer time to police the environment. And these days, even Republicans are buying the argument that people must be at least “incentivized” to make decisions more responsible to the community.

That’s the problem. I want to elect politicians who reject efforts to whittle down the safeguards the Constitution affords to individuals to make stupid personal choices. Because only when we are free to make dumb choices are we free to make smart choices. When the freedom to make bad decisions is circumscribed, so is the freedom to make good decisions.

Which is exactly the dilemma facing doctors and patients under the proposed national health care bill. Doctors will be denied the freedom to make decisions about what tests and treatments are good for patients. The rationale is to prevent doctors from making decisions that are “bad” because they are not always necessary. Doctors will be forbidden to recommend a patient spend more money on more tests that might be able to reveal a cause of ill-health because retroactive analysis shows that in similar situations those tests were either not necessary or not instructive.

That means that individuals will no longer be free to make decisions about what tests and treatments they want to try because someone else has decided that in too many cases people who take those tests or engage in those treatments don’t get the desired outcome, or don’t get a benefit some third party has determined is worth the cost.

Excuse me: that’s nobody’s business but mine. In the end, I am free to follow or ignore even my doctor’s advice and to spend whatever I want to spend on my health care – or I am not free. If the government requires me to get vaccinated, or forbids me to try some treatment, or denies me the right to spend more than my neighbor on my health care, I am no longer in control of my life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness.

The Second Civil War Is Already Here

The promise of the Conservative Party candidates is that they will honor the sentiments behind the establishment of the Constitution. It’s yet to be proven that they will, but it’s too obvious that too many Republican leaders are too willing to let the Democrats set the agenda. And that’s not good for either the Constitution or the autonomy of the individual.

So far, Republican leaders seem more interested in maintaining some semblance of common ground than in recognizing the plain fact that the current federal government leadership has not merely abandoned the Constitution’s limits on government, but is overtly and aggressively dismantling it.

This is a denial of reality. The reality is that the current President and Congressional leadership, along with most of the Senate and House Democrat representatives, are going along with the destruction of the uniqueness of the United States. For Republicans to keep acting like there’s some ground for mutual respect is a lot like Chamberlain thinking he could form a mutually-beneficial compact with Hitler.

The fact is that we are already engaged in a civil war. It is not being fought with guns and knives, but the U.S. is under attack. And the enemy is within. Our neighbors, our family, our friends are lined up on one side or the other, and only the Democrat/Liberal “progressives” are on the attack. The Republican/Conservative “traditionalists” are still hoping for a reasoned discussion leading to a restoration of American tradition. We want to avoid open hostilities while they savagely attack and attempt to destroy us and our non-compliant leaders – like Palin.

As we who value the Constitution see it slipping away under Democrat government and a combination of compliance and inadequate opposition from Republican leadership, the promise of a third party becomes more appealing. I have only recently been willing to entertain the move to a third, Constitutionalist, party.

A third party is, I think, the alternative to an impending choice between physical slavery and physical combat. Rather than take up arms, let’s take up the legislative and ideological battle: let’s support candidates who are not hesitant to speak up about the divide between liberalism and republicanism (as the founders meant the term).

Let’s support true Conservatives who will champion the priority of the individual, who will reduce the size and scope of federal government, who will enjoin Americans to once again become stand-up persons of high moral character, people who are equipped and prepared to look out for their own happiness, rather than expect some outside agency to satisfy their wants and needs.

Call Me a Traditional American Revolutionary

In the case of New York State’s 23rd Congressional District, I don’t know whether the Conservative Party candidate is that kind of person. But I do know Sarah Palin, and while I do not agree with her in all things (what two people do?), I fundamentally trust her. And I trust the fact that the Democrats and progressives, as well as the liberal wing of the Republican Party, want to marginalize or destroy her. I am not willing to give her my unqualified allegiance, but I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. And I appreciate that she is willing to break with the Republican Party on principle.

When she left Alaska’s governorship, Palin said she would support candidates she believes in regardless of party because the future of the country is a higher value than the future of the Party. Here she is acting on it. I say kudos. And I say it is time we each put the country ahead of Party, put pragmatic politics aside – that way has led us into too close an alignment with the destructive forces in our country. It is time to stand on principle.

Principle might lose in the short term, but political pragmatism is already losing. In the current climate, being a political pragmatist is to cooperate with your enemies in your own destruction. It is suicidal. I’m ready to die to the present in order to be reborn as a real American idealist – a revolutionary idealist re-embracing the revolutionary idealism that birthed our country.

Call me a traditionalist, because I strive to be a true traditionalist; an original American traditionalist. But even if you use the term as a sneer, I will wear it with pride. There is no higher patriotism, in my opinion, than taking up the tradition of America’s founding revolutionaries.

From now on, I want to champion American revolutionary values: the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of individual happiness. I want to champion the rejection of monarchy, centralized government, and collectivist thinking. And I don’t want to vote for the more “collectivist-lite” candidate, but the most traditionalist-revolutionary. And if the Republican Party is not going to champion republicanism as our founders meant the term, I am not going to support the Republican Party.

I’d rather go down fighting for what’s right than continue living on my knees, begging Obama, the Democrats, liberal progressives, and waffling Republicans to leave me some of my God-given and Constitution-guaranteed freedom.

Sarah has stepped forward. She might not always be right in particular choices, but at least she is standing in the breach and pointing forward by pointing us back to our proud tradition and values. We need to get off our knees and stand with her, where we will take some shots but have the opportunity to give as good as we get.

It’s time and past time to raise Patrick Henry’s banner: Give me liberty, or give me death!

Only Sarah Palin Can Beat Barack Obama

We have to fight fire with fire. Nobody else can rival Obama for star power and grassroots committment. Obama is an unconventional politician; Sarah Palin is an unconventional politician. You're not going to pit a Romney against the Chicago Machine and get anywhere. You're sure not going to get anywhere with a Huckabee or a Pawlenty. Palin is the only real chance. Maybe she won't be able to pull it off either, but she's the only shot we've got.

Ever since she burst onto the scene in Dayton, Ohio, we have known that she is Obama's rival. The two worldviews of extreme leftism and the philosophies of our founding fathers collide in Obama and Palin. The political world will not be satisifed until these two go head to head and one comes out the final winner.

It's time to decide: will we stay by our founding principles, or abandon them once and for all?

That is the real decision. It was made in part in the election of 2008, although not completely because people didn't really know what they were getting into. By 2012, they will, and we can have the real showdown.

Anything short of that showdown will delay history. Obama vs. Palin - it needs to happen.

We all know this. We knew it on August 29, 2008. That's why the focus was all on Palin. Everybody forgot about John McCain. We all knew instinctively that this hockey mom was Obama's true nemesis. That's why the media and all the big-spending lefties threw all the weight they had into delaying that contest. "Must destroy Sarah Palin! Must not let her go up against The One!"

But they cannot hold back history forever. Something was set in motion in that gymnasium, and it will not be complete until years from now. We know this. We feel it in our inner core. The paradigm has shifted. Everything else is just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up with that shift.

Down With the GOP

This is why the Republican Party will die. Unless we get rid of the GOP establishment that eats us instead of eating the enemy, the party is over. Will a new party take it's place? I don't know. Maybe we'll go to a post-party system where votes are cast based on values and principles and ideas rather than on who the party heads tell us we can vote for. All I know is that I've had enough of this garbage:

GOP Campaign Calls Upon Conservative Hoffman To Drop Out, In Wake Of Poll With Him Up :

In a press release sent out by the Dede Scozzafava campaign, the moderate Republican running in the three-way special election, several GOP state legislators call upon Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman to drop out of the race -- and declare that a new poll from the pro-Hoffman Club For Growth showing him ahead is false:

"Doug Hoffman must do the right thing and drop out of this race right now," said Assemblywoman Janet Duprey. "This is a campaign for Congress -- not an audition to be a talking head on a cable news program. Doug Hoffman doesn't live here, he doesn't understand our local issues and, regardless of his campaign's theatrics and false polls, he knows he is completely unelectable.

Make no mistake about it -- Doug Hoffman is a spoiler, and by staying in this race he will jeopardize a seat the Republican Party has held here since the Civil War. It's high time that Hoffman puts the good of this community over his personal ambition and endorses our Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava," she concluded.

Hoffman spokesman Rob Ryan gives us this comment: "This just proves many Republicans don't know how to read polls or sense the groundswell of support that's taking place in the district. Dede Scozzafava is the spoiler in this race, because she's so liberal. Doug Hoffman will be the next Congressman, because Republicans from throughout the district will vote for him on election day."

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Enough. Enough, enough, ENOUGH! No more! No more of party hacks telling us, the voters, We the People, who are supposed to decide who we want to represent us, telling us who we should and shouldn't be able to vote for. A pox on both your houses!