The Civil Rights Division encourages qualified applicants with targeted disabilities to apply. Targeted disabilities are deafness, blindness, missing extremities, partial or complete paralysis, convulsive disorder, mental retardation, mental illness, severe distortion of limbs and/or spine. Applicants who meet the qualification requirements and are able to perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation are encouraged to identify targeted disabilities in response to the questions in the Avue application system seeking that information.

It’s customary to make fun of Washington for shutting down completely at the slightest dusting of snow, but I think by the time you hit two feet of accumulation, it’s pretty understandable that stuff just isn’t going to happen here. Plus, it’s Saturday.

Unfortunately for anti-government activists, the DC shutdown will probably only last through Monday and thereafter the wheels of the State will continue to turn in their depressing fashion.

Those looking for salvation from the RNC are likely to be disappointed. I can’t agree with my colleague Karl’s optimism about the recent noise being made from the bowels of RNC officialdom about withdrawing support from candidates who don’t hew closely to the 2008 Republican platform.

Of course, the Republican party has been an unmitigated disaster to conservatism in America.

Just take a look at that platform that’s supposed to be the basis for ideological cleansing. Section One: “Defending Our Nation, Supporting Our Heroes, Securing the Peace.” Translation: maintaining the aggressive, expansionist foreign policy that has been at the heart of exploding government spending, the curtailment of civil liberties under a bipartisan national security state, and the unprecedented expansion of the military-industrial complex.

Meanwhile, vague platitudes about “reducing spending” and “reforming the budget process” serve as promises to tinker with, not demolish, the corrupt fusion of the State with corporate interests that has resulted in the wholesale robbery of trillions of taxpayers’ dollars by corporate elites — under the watch of Democrats and Republicans alike.

What would the consequence be of a successful purge of non-GOP-approved candidates? For one thing, the promising candidacies of such genuine anti-government figures as Rand Paul and Peter Schiff would have been strangled in their cribs.

Unifying behind “GOP values” would spell the end of reform, not the beginning, and would represent a betrayal of the grass-roots Tea Party phenomenon, constitutionalism, and traditionalist conservatism.  It comes down to this: You can’t be anti-government and pro-Empire. The cause of liberty won’t be furthered by strengthening the RNC leadership — instead, it must be overthrown.

The particulars are starting to appear less thrilling than Uncle Barry’s promises at first appeared at the SOTU.
For example: the second stimulus proposal appears to be simply another TARP for smaller banks, most of which only carry around 80% debt (as compared to the Big Boys, who carry around 92%). The small banks don’t want it, and they will sit on it rather than loan it, just like the Big Boys did. Anyone out there building a new high-rise because you got a loan in the past six months? Didn’t think so. Neither will anyone be financing all new office furniture, office equipment, tools, raw materials like wire or PVC with any new loans from the new “stimulus.” Example 2: the hinted at nuclear power plant boom is apparently contingent on Republicans playing ball and voting for crap-and-tax, er, cap-and-trade. Sure, the two “could” be separated. And Uncle Barry might sprout a third arm and use it to reach across the aisle, too. Example 3: targeted tax cuts (which won’t work) attached to the dangling carrot of capital gains rate reductions. Along with those few select rate cuts are other rate hikes and permanent extensions of further entitlements for the dependent class in the form of “tax cuts” for people who never pay them to begin with (i.e., more spending under the moniker “tax cut.”) Aren’t words wonderful things, Humpty-Dumpty?

Republican and Conservative Leaders and Activists:

At its Winter Meeting last week, the Republican National Committee adopted an important and historic resolution “concerning party support for candidates.” Sponsored by Bill Crocker of Texas, the unanimously-adopted resolution calls on all Republican Party leaders “to carefully screen” all candidates and to “determine that they wholeheartedly support the core principles and positions of the Republican Party as expressed in the Platform” and urges that “no support, financial or otherwise, be given to candidates who clearly do not support the core principles and positions of the Republican Party as expressed in the Platform.” The text of the resolution can be found here:

RNC resolution concerning party support of candidates – - POLITICO.com

This is the first time that the RNC has taken steps to ensure that Republican candidates are faithful to the Republican Platform. It empowers the RNC Chairman to consider the positions of candidates on issues and to deny funding to those candidates who are clearly out of the mainstream of our Party.  As Mr Crocker said after the resolution’s adoption: “No more Scozzafavas, please. No more Specters, please. No more Chafees, please.”

State and local Republican parties, the National Republican Congressional Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee are independent organizations and the resolution is not binding on them. The RNC, however, is calling all Republican leaders to follow the RNC lead.  After all, what each of us does effects everyone.

With the adoption of the Platform Fidelity Resolution, I withdrew from consideration the Reagan Resolution and the Accountability Resolution, since the Platform Fidelity Resolution accomplish[es] our goal of demonstrating that this party is serious about standing for our principles, so that disaffected conservatives, such as tea party members, will be comfortable working with us in defense of freedom, and gained widespread support. See RNC Passes Compromise On ‘Purity’ Resolutions | TPMDC For additional accounts of this historic action by the RNC see the Washington Times

GOP leaders adopt litmus test of values for candidates – Washington Times and the AP

GOP Adopts Platform Test For Republican Candidates : NPR

As one of the disaffected former Republicans, I hope this ushers in a new commitment to the values of limited government and traditional social values. Now let us hope that the NRCC and NRSC will follow suit and those who are subsequently elected govern according to those traditional principles. I give kudos to the RNC leadership for this resolution.

No, Rep. Skelton, the White House did not lose its way; its way, as carefully guarded by Rahm Emanuel and the rest of the crew, was on full display during President Obama’s speech. You see, the White House ran a campaign to accomplish only a few things. Primarily, they ran to keep the powers in the Federal Reserve and globalist banking interests untouched: and yesterday’s Senate confirmation of Bernanke, along with steadfast support of Tim Geithner and his policies, accomplished that. Secondarily, they ran to keep the moneyed interests in the defense industries flush with cash and fresh battlegrounds: the ramp-up in Afghanistan and the sabre-rattling about their next war in Iran accomplished just that. Thirdly, they ran to hand off the responsibility for fomenting a leftist revolution to Democrat-controlled Congressional Houses: President Obama slapped them in the face and subsequently cajoled them into trying harder to do just that with his call “To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve problems, not run for the hills.” He said, “Don’t walk away from reform. Not now. Not when we are so close. Let us find a way to come together and finish the job for the American people. Let’s get it done. Let’s get it done.” You must understand that the President is a short-term law professor who made his bones in that bastion of honesty and good-government, Chicago politics. His king-maker was Teddy Kennedy. Need I say more? If Kennedy hadn’t put his considerable political weight behind Obama, he would be facing a tough reelection battle as the junior Senator from Illinois begging President Hillary Clinton to campaign for him when the time came. That Hillary Clinton is both meaner and perhaps slightly more in control of her temper than the loathsome John McCain is not seriously in question; what is is whether McCain would have folded up the tent and joined her ticket as the VP. But I digress.

No, Ike, the White House did not lose its way at all. They still have you to blame. They are counting on you and the caucus to come through. They have no intentions of leaving the radicalism of “health care” “reform” aside. They have no inclination to make banking and finance more “transparent.” They have no desire to end the wars. They have made that plain; besides, peace is not in their revolutionary make-up. Marxism, whether overtly Leninist or the covertly Alinskyite variety (which merely deceptively masks its nature by denying it), depends upon struggle, upheaval, tension, division, and conflict. It is only natural that they would pretend to appeal to the masses of us who clamored for an end to war. It is only natural that they are disappointing us. I point only to Robert Gates, that unctious holdover from the odious wing of the last administration, as proof. The White House has its dupes making “gaffes” which fill up news cycles (Chris Matthews’ “I forgot he was black”) and distract from their strategic retreats (“rethinking” the location and venue of the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial), but they are going about their business unabated.

You’ll see, Ike. Why, the Orlando Sentinel just reported a few days ago that Obama made NASA scrap the Constellation program and the Ares rockets so as to refocus the agency’s attention on “climate change.” Guess who stand to make billions (trillions? Dare I say it in this day when superlatively large descriptors fail to come to mind? I do.) from the “climate change” scam? That’s right, Ike. All those “lobbyists” from K Street that the President “really let have it.” Uh huh. Sure. I believe he meant that about as much as I believe he meant “more nuclear power” and “drill here, drill now” and “we need tax cuts” and a “three year freeze” on spending. The President had them on speed dial to invite them to a “not-for-the-press” conference call literally the morning after purportedly taking them to task. And as for calling on Republicans to “work together with us” or whatever phraseology the Dear Leader used, he knows very well that Snowe, Graham, and McCain (the “deficit hawk,” ha ha) are already in line for “health care reform,” “immigration reform,” and “deficit reduction” (in that order, and then some). God only knows what other deals they have already lined up for a year or two down the road. The White House, contrary to the so-called “conservative” media, wasn’t surprised by Coakley’s loss. Nor was that an actual set-back. No, “there will be a bill,” as Nancy said. It will have a “public option” (I can hear it now: a “public partnership run for us by private insurance companies”) and it will force exorbitant costs onto the businesses Obama said he wants to stimulate. (A rather disquieting analogy springs to mind at that word, but it is apropos.)

Oh, Ike. What saps they took us for! Took you for! Unless, of course, you’re also doing a little sap-taking, there, Ike.

Now, it’s perfectly reasonable for Clinton to protest China’s hacking of American companies’ networks, using them to spy on Chinese users’ communications, and the theft of their intellectual property. But it’s another thing altogether to invoke cold-war rhetoric in an explicit call to undermine foreign governments:

Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world’s networks. They’ve expunged words, names, and phrases from search engine results. They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech. These actions contravene the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which tells us that all people have the right “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” With the spread of these restrictive practices, a new information curtain is descending across much of the world. And beyond this partition, viral videos and blog posts are becoming the samizdat of our day.

While it’s unclear what this speech signifies beyond escalating rhetoric, it seems that Hillary is trying to enlist American companies to protest or undermine foreign governments’ Internet policies, á la Google’s stand in China.

This goes to show that despite the neocon characterization of Obama as some sort of a fuzzy-headed dialogue-with-your-enemies conciliator, his administration is actually in thrall to the same the democratist ideology that characterized the Bush years. Sorry, but Web censorship and surveillence in China from seeing is surely outrageous to right thinking people the world over, but it’s not anything close to a core American national security interest.

Am I some kind of apologist for the Chinese dictatorship, or something? No, I’d like nothing more than to see China’s government undermined and thwarted at every turn by Chinese dissidents and their supporters all over the world. The Chinese aren’t stupid, and they’re figuring out ways to circumvent the Great Firewall. They also continue to use traffic anonymizers such as Tor despite their government’s attempts to suppress them, and we — as private individuals — can help them by supporting such projects with our time and money.

And if Hillary is so keen on using her position to protect individuals from the arbitrary whims of the national-security state, there’s plenty that she can do right here at home.

If she’s so worried about Internet surveillance, maybe she should find out what’s going on with that secret room in San Francisco that AT&T built to route all if its Internet traffic and phone calls through to NSA spies.

If she’s worried about China looking at its dissidents’ e-mail, maybe she should focus on how the NSA “routinely examined large volumes of Americans’ e-mail messages without court warrants,” a program that was “still in operation” as of June 2009.

Or she could make some noise about the FBI, which couldn’t even be bothered with creating the self-issued subpoenas provided for under the Patriot Act when snooping on thousands of Americans’ phone records.

If she’s so exercised about civil liberties, maybe she could call on Obama to make sure that new government powers under the Patriot Act are only used for terrorism investigations. Or better yet, she could call for its repeal.

Finally, if Hillary is worried about openness in government, maybe she should call for an official investigation of the three Guantanamo prisoners who were apparently tortured to death by their interrogators, and whose deaths were passed off as suicides.