Fortunately, there is an alternative. Tom Mullins is also running as a Republican to represent New Mexico, and unlike Adam Kokesh, he’s the real deal: a Reagan Republican who certainly has never paraded around in a Marine Corps uniform holding an upside-down American flag, defacing public property, or staging “die-ins” in Washington D.C. the way his opponent has.

I had the chance yesterday to speak with Tom about Adam Kokesh, as well as ask him a few questions about where he stands on the issues.

Cassy Fiano: What are your thoughts on Adam Kokesh’s anti-military activities?

Tom Mullins: I disagree with Adam’s positions regarding our military. I support Guantanamo Bay being open. We are not occupiers. Adam’s activities offend the many veterans, including my father, that I have met. We are not the world’s policeman. We have a volunteer military. Our military men and women deserve support from our elected officials and all members of the American public. I don’t understand how Adam’s actions are “Constitutional”. Adam is nothing more than an Internet Celebrity and a War Protester. I don’t believe New Mexicans agree with his views or his methods to share or voice them.

CF: What would you say the primary difference between yourself and Adam is?

TM: My faith, knowledge, experience, good listening skills, and my good judgment. My faith grounds me and I will stand for innocent life. My knowledge of the energy industry the most important industry in New Mexico is a big difference as well. My life experience growing up as a military brat, traveling around the country, putting myself through college working multiple jobs, building my business from scratch with hard work, perseverance, and luck, being a father of two wonderful girls and raising them, and serving my community. I have been paying my taxes, creating jobs and wealth, which allows our government to function. I don’t think Adam’s even held a job since leaving the Marine Corps.

My good judgment sets me apart. As an engineer, I solve problems. We have problems in Washington that need an Engineer’s skill set. I have the character, the competence, and the compassionate record of making good decisions. I think we are all defined by who we associate ourselves with. I am proud of my actions and my decisions. That includes who I have associated myself with. I don’t know if my opponent’s associates give confidence to the voting public. I ask that New Mexico voters get to know their candidates, their prior words and actions, as well as their associations. I am a grass roots candidate with my grassroots support from right here in New Mexico. I have not been anointed by the political elite. The short answer is that I am qualified to serve as a Congressman, and I don’t think Adam is qualified. He’s a great public speaker, I’ll give you that. So if you’re looking for an unqualified guy who looks pretty and can speak well, then Adam’s your guy.

CF: Do you feel that Adam is an electable candidate?

TM: No.

CF: What made you decide to run for office?

TM: I have never run for nor held public office. I have watched silently as our country is being destroyed. I became more active in the past few years… but became frustrated. When asked what I could do, I decided the most important thing I could do would be to take away the job of the person making these decisions and responsible for holding the executive branch accountable. This is personal. My children’s future and our nation’s future is at stake. I’ve already served as a Tea Party organizer, and now is the time for me to serve our country and New Mexico as its next Congressman.

CF: What would you say the most important issue facing the country today is?

TM: Jobs, economy, and energy. We need private sector jobs and affordable energy to fuel these jobs and our economy. Ben Ray Lujan, Jr. is living in a false utopia, and is out of touch with the citizens of New Mexico. I plan to reduce the size and role of the Federal Government to allow private sector companies to create private sector jobs. That is the solution. Allow for energy development which will allow for private sector manufacturing, which will create meaningful direct jobs and all the associated service industry jobs.

CF: If you were in office, would you have voted for the stimulus package?
TM: No to the stimulus and no to government bailouts.

CF: Would you vote for the health care bill?
TM: No.

CF: Do you approve or disapprove of the abortion funding in the bill?
TM: I disapprove of abortion funding. The government should not pay to murder innocent life. I will stand for innocent life at every opportunity.

CF: What is your position on energy? Would you support offshore drilling and drilling in ANWR?
TM: We need affordable energy. Yes, drill offshore and drill in ANWR (Sec 1002). Being a petroleum engineer and having constructed my own passive solar home. I understand energy. I support Nuclear, Solar, Wind, Natural Gas, Oil, & Coal. Nuclear energy due to its energy density will be our nation’s saving grace in the future. Natural gas is the fuel of now. It should be promoted. Rep. Lujan has voted against New Mexico’s important natural gas industry repeatedly.

CF: Would you support repealing DADT?
TM: I believe that our volunteer military must have standards. The commanders and leaders of our men and women in combat need to make this decision, not Congress. There is no right to the job to serve our nation. It is an honor and a blessing. It is a shame that we politicize this issue.

CF: What is your position on gay marriage?
TM: No to gay marriage. Marriage is sacred and is between one man and one woman. I support the Manhattan Declaration.

CF: And finally, why should voters vote for you instead of Adam?
TM: I am qualified to serve as our next Congressman. I will protect the Constitution, stop the out of control spending and bring common sense to Washington. I have no baggage in my past. I have made good decisions and judgments so far in my life. I believe past performance is a good indicator of future performance. I am a solid qualified candidate who can win this seat for the people of New Mexico. This is not about me. I want to serve them and have been blessed to be at this point in my life where I can serve them. Adam has made poor choices in the past and shown that he has bad judgment. When you put someone who makes poor choices and has bad judgment into office, I think you’ll find that the results will be at best chaotic.

CF: Tom, thanks for taking the time to talk with me.
TM: Thank you!

After speaking with Tom, I feel like the choice is obvious. The Roniacs have come out in full force for Kokesh listing all of his so-called “conservative” credentials, but what about his past? What about his anti-military and anti-American activities? What about his associations with Marxist, liberal, and communist groups? Even if he did somehow change his mind and see the light, so to speak, does that mean that we should just ignore all of that? The problems with Kokesh are problems that any rational American can’t just ignore. Tom Mullins is just as conservative, and frankly, seems much more genuine to me than Adam Kokesh. And unlike Adam, Tom Mullins doesn’t have a history of anti-American and anti-military activities in his background.

Help Tom Mullins defeat Adam Kokesh in the primary. Get the word out, and donate to his campaign. We need real representatives who love this country, not a false prophet claiming to fight for the Constitution.

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary, or follow her on Twitter!

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For the Independent Weekly of Durham, North Carolina, writer Sam Wardle proves that he hasn’t a clue how the phrase “religious extremist” is properly defined. But, I’d suggest that his confusion is endemic in the far left and proves to show why so many in the west don’t understand how to face and defeat the real religious extremism of radical Islam.

In a story about Representative Sue Myrick (R, NC) and her association with The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools as juxtaposed with her condemnation of radical Islam, Wardle sees no difference between a radical Islamist that might blow himself up with a suicide vest or cut off the head of a helpless captive and a Christian American that wants to use properly constituted law to have the Holy Bible used in the classroom.

Certainly you can disagree with having the Bible used as a text in the classroom, but to say that a person that does want the Bible in the classroom is no better than a terrorist is, well, just plain stupid. It is also intellectually vapid. Unfortunately, Mr. Wardle is all too representative of the vapidity of the left that so often comes to this intellectually dishonest conclusion.

Wardle reveals his hatred of all things Christian in his IndyWeek piece titled, “For Rep. Sue Myrick, Islamic moderates are extreme, Christian extremists are moderate,” wherein he equates Rep. Myrick to a religious extremist.

Wardle starts his piece straight on with an attack on Rep. Myrick:

Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) is one of North Carolina’s staunchest defenders from Islamic extremism. When it comes to Christian extremism, though, the record is more mixed.

Wardle says that Myrick’s “defense against Islamic extremism” itself borders on the extreme.

Those are pretty serious charges, of course. So what does Wardle show as his proof to bear out the finger wagging at Myrick? One of the first of Wardle’s accusations would take an Olympic gymnast’s back-bending performance to agree with. In short it is weak as heck.

However, Myrick’s concern over religious extremism seems relegated to practitioners of one religion. At the forum, she pointedly avoided applying the label of “terrorist” to Joseph Stack, the 53-year-old Texan who flew his airplane into an IRS building in Austin in February.

Whether Stack should have been termed a terrorist by Myrick or not is one question, but what it has to do with the subject of religion is anyone’s guess. Austin IRS building attacker Joe Stack had no connection to any religion whatever. He did not perpetrate his act of terror in the name of religion so Wardle’s usage of Stack as his religious foil for Myrick is insensible. But such is Wardle’s hatred for both Myrick and Christianity that any stretch is excused, apparently.

Then Wardle goes on the attack against The NCBCPS, a “right-wing evangelical group” in Wardle’s terminology. Wardle reports that the NCBCPS’ goal is to “bring a state certified (sic) Bible course (elective) into the public high schools nationwide.” He says that the group claims that it has gotten its curriculum in 532 schools in 38 states.

Wardle counters that success by revealing that this group’s school texts have been criticized as containing “shoddy research, factual errors and plagiarism.” Wardle also lays out all the other groups and Media outlets that have attacked the veracity of the NCBCPS’ offerings.

But one thing is completely missing from Wardle’s piece. Any actual “extremism.” Apparently just the fact that the NCBCPS wants to get its curriculum in a school is enough to be classified just as extreme as al Qaeda to one such as Wardle.

But implicit in the whole discussion (but only implied because Wardle does not say it) is the fact that if the NCBCPS did get its curriculum in schools in 38 states it must have done so through the legitimate process of appealing to school boards and having those schools agree to accept the program. In other words, the NCBCPS followed the same legal procedure that every other education advocate has followed.

Notice how the NCBCPS didn’t win over those schools by cutting off administrator’s heads, bombing public buildings, or killing students thereby using intimidation and violence to get its way. So, while this Christian group is certainly seriously active, to act as if they are somehow just as extreme as Islamic Radicals is idiotic.

But this is the empty logic that befalls the far left in this country. Any religion, all religion is classified as “extreme” to these people. No logic need apply.

(Originally posted at BigJournalism.com)

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The ostensible purpose is to prevent “discrimination” against homosexual children. Since most children are too young to be homosexual, the real objective must be something else — namely:

The purpose of this bill is not what is being stated, but is quite simply to mandate in public schools one acceptable viewpoint on the issue of homosexuality, using purported violence or harassment as the rationale, and the power of the feds as the hammer. … In summary, this is an attempt to promote sexual deviance and its expression and silence those who want to protect children from such corruption.

As with everything coming out of Washington lately, another goal is to weaken federalism and consolidate increasingly intrusive centralized power.

Federal governmental intrusion and sweeping new unregulated powers in what are local and state matters are proposed in this bill. Enforcement will primarily be through federal agencies, which will craft new regulations to back up this bill’s provisions with the President’s approval.

But the main point of the bill is to facilitate the brainwashing of small children with the progressive kakistocracy’s depraved sexual agenda, suppressing any speech deemed unsupportive of homosexual deviancy. As Jim Hoft puts it:

In other words, if you oppose radical sexual material detailing sex between first graders or promoting S&M but the Safe Schools Czar or some other official believes it is appropriate — tough. If you disagree with books romanticizing child rape or books with pictures of men having sex — tough. If you oppose weekend student-teacher seminars with fisting lectures and gay bar guides — tough. If government officials want to promote this in your child’s classroom then you’ll just have to get used to it.

On a tip from J. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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With much of his legislative agenda stalled in Congress, President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities.

I wonder when the left, and Obama, will pitch the same type of fit they enjoyed while Bush was president? I’ll get to that in a bit

Mr. Obama has not given up hope of progress on Capitol Hill, aides said, and has scheduled a session with Republican leaders on health care later this month. But in the aftermath of a special election in Massachusetts that cost Democrats unilateral control of the Senate, the White House is getting ready to act on its own in the face of partisan gridlock heading into the midterm campaign.

He is also considering the use of recess appointments. Didn’t he whine about those when Bush did the same? That said, something seems to be missing from his signing statements agenda

Mr. Obama has already decided to create a bipartisan budget commission under his own authority after Congress refused to do so. His administration has signaled that it plans to use its discretion to soften enforcement of the ban on openly gay men and lesbians serving in the military, even as Congress considers repealing the law. And the Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward with possible regulations on heat-trapping gases blamed for climate change, while a bill to cap such emissions languishes in the Senate.

Just like during a good chunk of his first year, his second year is going the same way, namely, he is still ignoring the economy and jobs, which are the top two priorities with the American people, as poll after poll after poll proves out. He is even planning a push on health care related issues through his Executive administrations.

After a bit in which the Times mentions that Obama has been critical over Bush’s use of signing statements, they mention

…but aides said last month that he still reserves the right to ignore sections of bills he considers unconstitutional if objections have been lodged previously by the executive branch.

Here’s a novel idea, one which apparently is eluding the Smartest Man On The Planet: do not sign the bill if it contains sections considered unconstitutional. Whip out ye olde Veto Pen, and send that puppy back.

As said and written ad nauseum, Obama is in way over his head. Furthermore, the notion that he cares little nothing about the plight of the American people has become crystal clear. Personally, I would not begrudge him the use of signing statements and recess appointments if he was at least engaged on the economy, but, at this time, he is divorced from reality, and caught up in his own little progressive world.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove

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A new report by the International Planned Parenthood Federation is advocating that children as young as 10 be given extensive sex education, including an awareness of sex’s pleasures.

This latest push to sexualize 10-year-olds provides yet another opportunity for moonbats to open fire on Christianity, which they once again equate with Islam. Complains the federally funded abortion mill’s report (PDF):

Young people’s sexuality is still contentious for many religious institutions. Fundamentalist and other religious groups the — Catholic Church and madrasas (Islamic schools) for example — have imposed tremendous barriers that prevent young people, particularly, from obtaining information and services related to sex and reproduction. Currently, many religious teachings deny the pleasurable and positive aspects of sex and limited guidelines for sexual education often focus on abstinence before marriage…

Understandably, since abstinence does not produce costumers, Planned Parenthood disapproves of it — even among children.

According to PP, their 10-year-old potential customers are “sexual beings” in need of “comprehensive sexuality education.” Therefore sex ed should present sexuality as a “positive force for change and development, as a source of pleasure, an embodiment of human rights and an expression of self.”

Michelle Turner, president of the Maryland-based Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, notes that once again progressives are trying to shove parents out of the picture, the better to impose their social engineering. Ed Mechmann, spokesman for New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, observes that PP is attempting to undermine traditional values — and that PP makes money selling contraception and abortion.

Remember when moonbats launched a jihad against Joe Camel for allegedly tempting children to become smokers? Maybe old Joe should be brought back to advance a cause liberals seem to believe in — indiscriminate premature sex. The sooner kids get started, the more abortions they can have — and that means more profit for Planned Parenthood.

On a tip from Mega. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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A funny thing happened after Adm. Mike Mullen called for gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military: A curious silence befell much of the right. If this were a Sherlock Holmes story, it would be the case of the attack dogs that did not bark.

Riiiiiiiight. Perhaps we are a bit more concerned with the escalating budget and deficit, along with the fascist agenda of people like Obama and Pelosi. Oh, and then there was that media focus on Justice Scalia (woops!) Alito and his mouthing of “not true” after Obama lied while attacking the Supreme Court. You didn’t bother discussing DADT, Frank, so, does that make you a bigot?

John McCain, commandeering the spotlight as usual, did fulminate against the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” But the press focus on McCain, the crazy man in Washington’s attic, was misleading. His yapping was an exception, not the rule.

Many of his Republican colleagues said little or nothing. The right’s noise machine was on mute. The Fox News report on Mullen’s testimony was fair and balanced — and brief. The network dropped the subject entirely in the Hannity-O’Reilly hothouse of prime time that night. Only ratings-desperate CNN gave a fleeting platform to the old homophobic clichés….

So, because it was a minor story, barely covered, that must mean that everyone on the right is a bigot. Hey, Frank, you do comprehend that Obama is still against gay marriage, right? When will you have an op-ed calling him a bigot?

The occasional outliers notwithstanding, why did such a hush greet Mullen on Capitol Hill? The answer begins with the simple fact that a large majority of voters — between 61 percent and 75 percent depending on the poll — now share his point of view. Most Americans recognize that being gay is not a “lifestyle” but an immutable identity, and that outlawing discrimination against gay people who want to serve their country is, as the admiral said, “the right thing to do.”

Oh. OK. So your first four paragraphs are refuted by your fifth. However, you are going to give it the old stupid try to still call the right bigots for failing to get all worked up. Hey, Frank, even lots in the lesbian and gay community on the left barely wrote about it. Does that make them bigots?

After that, we get a meandering blame of those silent righties, and Rich even manages to work in Bush and Rove, unsurprisingly. He also mentions the current lefty meme that this is akin to desegregation of the military (hey, Frank, you didn’t mention Robert Byrd’s racist remark about integration. Why’s that?) and integration of women, which is simply absurd. Look, I have no problem with gays. Do I approve of the lifestyle? I couldn’t care less. This is America, the land of freedom. Being gay or not gay means nothing to me. You live your life, I’ll live mine. Except, I do believe that they should be afforded equal rights. Which they have, mostly. Like Obama, I do not believe in gay marriage, but, I do believe in civil unions. If two people love each other, they should have the same right to be unhappy (:)) as heterosexual couples.

But, when it comes to the military, shouldn’t we ask those who are serving? Fifty one percent of serving military members are apparently bigots in Frank’s World, down from 63% in 2003. Only 30% favor gays serving openly. Quite a few military members I have spoken with are not against gays and lesbians serving, but, in sharing quarters, showers, and being out in the field. Capabilities are not being questioned, but, face it, men are uncomfortable being naked or in a state of undress in front of people who are interested in the same sex. Is that bigoted, or, human nature? Do you think women would be comfortable in mixed barracks, mixed showers, and serving in the front lines with men, who would, because of human nature, be scoping their bodies?

Anyhow, to wrap it up, since I am going long

…..Both (McCain’s) wife, Cindy, and his daughter Meghan have posed for the current California ad campaign explicitly labeling opposition to same-sex marriage as hate…

…Those opposing same-sex marriage are just as eager to mask their bigotry….

Rich manages to call the Prop 8 supporters, many of them who are Black and/or liberals, along with many Republican leaders, bigots. Searching, searching, searching….. No, nothing about Barack “I do not support gay marriage. Marriage has religious and social connotations, and I consider marriage to be between a man and a woman” Obama.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove

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Follow the play-by-play here.

For a full plate of resources and information on this important case, go here.

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After a run of setbacks at the state level, gay rights advocates will take the campaign for same-sex marriage into a federal courtroom on Monday, starting down a treacherous avenue that ends at a U.S. Supreme Court dominated by conservatives.

Two couples are asking Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker to rule that same-sex marriage is a right embedded in the Constitution, and that it was violated last year when California voters passed a ballot measure confining matrimony to members of the opposite sex.

Can anyone say what, exactly, that embedded right is? Like with so many things, rights just seem to appear somewhere in the Constitution out of thing air, but, no one can actually pin them down or highlight them in actual specific words. However, I can pin down a section which allows a State to enact laws such as Prop 8, where the Federal government needs to butt out, Amendment 10.

“From a conservative standpoint, people who wish to enter into the institution of marriage wish to enter into something that is the building block of our society, and that is itself a conservative value,” said Olson, who served as solicitor general under President George W. Bush.

But, marriage is a religious doctrine first and foremost which is about the joining of a Man and a Woman together under the Lord’s eye. And, let’s not forget, quite a few on the liberal side voted in favor of Proposition 8, which is the reason it passed.

Over at the NY Times, they actually allow Edwin Meese III to write an op-ed piece against this lawsuit

THE much-anticipated trial to determine the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 is scheduled to begin this morning in the case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger. What’s at stake in this case, filed in federal district court in San Francisco on behalf of two gay couples, is not just the right of California voters to reaffirm the definition of marriage as only between a man and a woman, but also whether marriage may be otherwise defined in any state.

What he is pointing too, of course, is the further erosion of 10th Amendment Rights. Anyhow, what is your opinion?

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It’s rare that we get such a clear picture of the ACLU.

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The birth mother of a 7-year-old Virginia girl must transfer custody of the child to the woman’s former lesbian partner, a Vermont judge ruled, adding that it seems the woman has “disappeared” with her daughter.

Vermont Family Court Judge William Cohen ordered Lisa Miller of Winchester, Va., to turn over daughter Isabella to Janet Jenkins of Fair Haven at 1 p.m. Friday at the Virginia home of Jenkins’ parents.

Now why would a Vermont judge want to give a woman’s birth daughter to her former lesbian lover?

Miller and Jenkins were joined in a Vermont civil union in 2000. Isabella was born to Miller through artificial insemination in 2002. The couple broke up in 2003, and Miller moved to Virginia, renounced homosexuality and became an evangelical Christian.

The culture war rages on — with only the good guys taking any casualties.

If Miller does not turn over Isabella, the most likely scenerio is that she would be held in contempt of court and a warrant would be issued for her arrest, said Cheryl Hanna, a professor of constitutional law at Vermont Law School.

As moonbattery continues to derange our civilization, look for jails to fill with people incarcerated for increasingly bizarre reasons.

On a tip from Muddypaw. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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