politics

Chris Knight's avatar

I’ve a nasty suspicion that this is only a taste of what’s barreling toward us…

So I was headed west down I-40 from a day trip to Raleigh (which I’ll be posting about tomorrow) this afternoon and around Burlington, I started flicking through radio stations.

And as I was going across the AM dial just after 5 p.m. I happened to catch some pastor preaching with all due exuberance and conviction that Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama is “the Antichrist”. This pastor also added that just as the Antichrist does not have “a single Christian ounce in his body” that Obama is going to Hell.

I checked the frequency. It was 880 AM. Which means it was a broadcast of WPIP, a radio ministry out of Berean Baptist Church in Winston-Salem.

Not that this really surprises me.

Apart from sporadic music, from sunrise to sunset WPIP’s broadcasting is pretty ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

This morning I started a new group on Facebook. It’s called: “I’m NOT Voting For ANY Candidate Who Runs A Negative Ad!”

It’s exactly what it sounds like: a group for people who are sick and tired of negative campaign commercials from political candidates.

The genesis for it came this morning, as I watched a seemingly non-stop torrent of commercials from this state’s gubernatorial candidates. I can’t recall any of the ads having anything upbeat and substantive to say about the candidates running them. They were all aimed toward tearing-down “the other guy”.

That’s when I decided that I wasn’t going to vote for anyone in North Carolina’s governor’s race. Unless there’s a candidate who hasn’t run any negative ads. And even then, I’d have to seriously study him or her before I could give my support. But if they’ve run a single negative commercial, that’s an automatic disqualification. ...

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I wish a lot more people could understand and appreciate the irony of this. I don’t have any love for the Iranian government, but for officials of our own to be this blatantly hypocritical doesn’t reflect well on us, either. From Reuters…

U.S. says Iran election results are ‘cooked’
Fri Mar 14, 2008 7:52pm EDT

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States, at loggerheads with Tehran over its nuclear program, cast strong doubt on the fairness of Iran’s parliamentary elections on Friday and said any outcome of the poll would be “cooked.”

“In essence the results are cooked. They are cooked in the sense that the Iranian people were not able to vote for a full range of people,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said of the poll.

Iranians voted on Friday in an election likely to keep parliament in the control of conservatives after unelected

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Chris Knight's avatar

Or to quote Scatman Crothers’s character in The Shining: “Just between you and me, we got a very serious problem with the people taking care of the place. They turned out to be completely unreliable assholes.”

To wit:

– Oil today hit $111 per barrel.

– $200 per barrel is possible, says Goldman Sachs.

– The value of the dollar is plummeting.

– We are now in a recession, according to most economists.

– Some are now saying that there is a “perfect storm” brewing for another full-blown depression.

– Next week will be the five-year anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War, with no end in sight. We have now been engaged in military operations in one small Mid-East country for far longer, with no clearly defined end-goal or even rationale for our presence there, than the United States fought in World

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Me calling into Star Talk on WGSR Star 39 a few nights ago…

I’ve voted in every election for as long as I’ve ever been able to be a registered voter. And more than that, I’ve gone the extra mile and run for public office. Nobody can ever accuse me of being an apathetic citizen.

But I mean it: as things stand now, I won’t be casting a vote for either the Democrat or Republican nominee for President this year. Because none of these people have demonstrated that they sincerely want to serve the American people.

Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. There is no excuse for it.

Not once did I vote for Bill Clinton, and not once did I ever vote for George W. Bush. The two worst Presidents in American history can never claim that I cast a ballot for them. ...

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“Mene, Mene, Tekel, Peres”

To those who think that today’s so-called “Super Tuesday” primary elections actually means something: Feh!

American politics is being told to pick between two separate cages of howler monkeys that are throwing handfuls of dung at each other.

Unless you are absolutely, beyond all doubt, convinced of a candidate’s worthiness to earnestly serve you in office, do yourself a favor and don’t bother to vote today if you’re in one of the primary states. Save your gas and money.

Because the fact of the matter is, America is so screwed-up by this point that the outcome of the election won’t make any difference....

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But when I say “watch”, I mean that I’m paying attention in my own fashion: only listening to it, with my back to the television screen, so that my mind tunes-in to what the candidates are actually saying, without any distraction from visuals.

And it must be said: in spite of Fox News doing its damndest to manipulate things, Ron Paul is kickin’ tail and takin’ names!

He just nailed something that I haven’t seen anyone touch: the fact that people like Saddam and Osama were at one time allies of the United States. We trained them, supplied them… and then they turned on us. And maybe, just maybe, if we did as Dr. Paul suggests and stop taking sides all over the world, this kind of thing wouldn’t be coming back to haunt us as often as it does....

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Ron Paul’s presidential campaign raked in more than $6 million across 24 hours yesterday. It was part of a “money bomb” coordinated by supporters outside of the official Ron Paul campaign (meaning this wasn’t something run by campaign executives… which makes it all the more impressive). The event was meant to tie-in with the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, and handily beats the record set for fundraiser that took place on November 5th (the “V for Vendetta” one)....

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I’m still going to run for United States House of Representatives.

But not right now.

No, I’m not “dropping out”. I’m still wanting to see if a regular American citizen can do this. But for the time being, the experiment is delayed.

Please understand something: I’ve been dead-serious about this all along. I filed to create the exploratory committee. The website was almost finished. Some other stuff was taking place behind the scenes too, that I’ve been busy with the past few days.

Looking back over the past week, it’s pretty darned amazing at what came together, so fast on this.

But there’ve been a few other developments too. Enough to make me realize that yes, the time is soon for this… but the time is not now. Not yet. And before people start sending in real money, this needs addressing.

A lot of people have wanted me to do ...

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I’ll do it.

Meaning: I am going to run for the United States House of Representatives from North Carolina’s 13th District. As a lot of people have been suggesting over the past year. And it will be as a Republican.

I am absolutely serious about this.

But I’m not entirely happy with what I’m going to have to do in order for this to be a legitimate thing. You see, per the twisted myriad of Catch-22s that is federal election law, it’s not feasible to have that amount of signatures on a petition just to see if you “should” run. Because in order to seriously consider running at all, you have to say that you are running… even though you don’t count as a real candidate until you’ve raised enough money.

I need to make that clear: I’m going to run but at the present time I am not...

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