It would be almost fitting it Obama’s first term lived under the threat of terrorist actions from Iran; it would cement the final piece in the puzzle that patterns his failed presidency after Jimmy Carter’s.

“In light of the realization of the divine promise by almighty God, the Zionists and the Great Satan (America) will soon be defeated,” Khamenei said recently. Although similarly named, he is not to be confused with Carter Administration nemesis, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, who died in 1989. Khamenei was his successor.

One doesn’t hear from Khamenei often as he frequently prefers to speak through Iranian President Achmadinijad, who faithfully delivers such death-threats against the West. With the raising of his profile, one has to wonder if a future attack is imminent.

Unless you’re US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in which case you just throw up your hands and say, fatalistically, “You can’t overthrow them all.” Great attitude, St. Hillary! Next you’ll declare cd replication a bigger threat to western society than a nuclear Iran. Nice job.

Of course, next to Utah, Nevada boasts one of the most robust Mormon populations in America, so the victory should not come as a surprise. Romney is Mormon.

That said, if Romney ends up owing his victory to western-state conservatives and Mormons, it may bode well for a potential Romney presidency, pulling him to campaign and govern more to the right than he was able to as governor of Massachusetts. And that would be a good thing.

Only five states have spoken so far, and there are no signs that Gingrich, Ron Paul, or Rick Santorum plan to drop out any time soon. However, that’s healthy for the process; politics is not pro wrestling and does down operate under tap and die rules.

Why? Because although he has at times looked more conservative than other leading candidates, look who he was up against in the past: John McCain, Rudy Guiliani, Jon Huntsman, Mike Huckabee, and more. Against folks like that, even Barak Obama would seem like the more conservative choice.

The trouble is, when you contrast him against a real conservative like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, Paul Ryan, and more, he just doesn’t measure up.

But the people who decided to sit out are out, and the people who decided to run are running, and with Mitt Romney looking like he’ll win New Hampshire in a landslide, and leading in South Carolina, well… I hope for some upsets to extend the media attention on conservative solutions, but it’s pretty clear the Romney train is gonna run on time.

Newt Gingrich has been exposed for his limitations, the best candidate of them all – Herman Cain – has been driven out of the race, Rick Santorum has only been a Senator, Ron Paul is both insane and a liberal on foreign policy and 2012 Macys coupons have more value in a general election, and Rick Perry simply isn’t ready. No one else is viable.

So now comes the time where I’m gonna stop wishing for a late entry by Sarah Palin or some other dream candidate and get real: Mitt Romney’s not a perfect conservative, but so long as he doesn’t run to the left for the general election, there are things I can appreciate about him.

First, he’s been a governor. Second, he’s spent a good portion of his career in the private sector. And third, he’s not Barak Obama.

Okay. I think it’ll be an improvement. Now if only we can see him choose a genuine conservative as a running mate, rather than a RINO.

Paul’s foreign policy is worse than Obama’s, and he’s only been a Congressman. While he plays up the grassroots stuff a lot, he’s simply not a conservative.

Not only are his foreign policies dangerous, but he gives aid and comfort in his stances on pot legalization, gay marriage and more. Why is he a Republican, again?

Oh, that’s right. He’s from Texas and felt he needed the branding to win elections. But make no mistake about it: Paul’s a leftist.

But here’s the details.

Back in 2009, before Measure 66 took effect, the top individual income tax rate in Oregon was an already-hefty nine percent. Measure 66 allowed a “temporary” rate hike to 10.8 and eleven percent on individuals with incomes over $125,000, and married couples filing jointly with incomes over $250,000.

Occupy Portland would call those families “the top 1 percent.”

People who know better call them, “small business owners” and “employers.”

On January first, that “temporary” tax rate hike gets rolled back… to 9.9 percent. That’s still nearly a full percent higher than the original top marginal rate of nine percent. So, in essence, Oregon’s top income earners aren’t getting a tax cut, so much as a reduction in the amount of the tax hike enacted upon them under Measure 66.

Already, Salem politicians are scheming to invent ways to get those 10.8 and 11 percent rates back, failing to acknowledge that 9.9 is still more than the original rate.

Yet this punitive tax-rate attack on employers and job creators comes at a poor moment. The unemployment rate (as currently calculated) has dropped to 9.1 percent, the lowest rate since the Obama Administration came to power, but that rate fails to take into account those workers who have been out of work so long, they no longer qualify for unemployment benefits, or who have given up looking for jobs entirely because there are so few to be found.

According to some sources, the “actual” unemployment rate could be as high as 14 percent or more, and even higher among recent college graduates.

The real question is, will his youth make him more sane, or less sane, than his father? It’s too early to tell. One could only hope for a greater degree of sanity with the new regime. Then again, there’s that saying about the apple not falling far from the crazy tree.

Or words to that effect. All I know is, from all the intrigue that seems to be surrounding this change of power in North Korea, I wouldn’t want to be the one charged with giving the man new life insurance rates. Yikes.

Following flirtations with Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain, the anti-Romney forces of the Iowa GOP have latched onto Newt Gingrich and refuse to be thrown off. The most recent Gallup Poll has him up by four percent over Romney, who can’t break past a 25-percent ceiling in his support.

Rick Santorum is looking better and better.

That’s the only way to explain why the incumbent governor would defy the will of Oregon voters, who overwhelmingly approved the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1984, when he announced this week that he would not allow the death penalty to be carried out on Gary Dwayne Haugen, who had rejected all further appeals and was set for execution on December 6. Kitzhaber said he would disallow now only Haugen’s execution, but any other executions during the remainder of his term as Oregon governor, which expires in 2015.

Currently serving his third term in office, Kitzhaber had previously allowed two death penalty cases to be brought to execution in previous terms of office. Now, he’s decided to block the execution of Haugen and all other Oregon death row inmates during his term. Maybe he’s the recipient of Spine surgery Dallas-style? Hard to know. More likely, he just doesn’t care what voters think since he’s unlikely to run for a fourth term and won’t have to answer to voters for his actions.

Kitzhaber narrowly defeated former NBA star, Republican Chris Dudley, to win his third term a year ago. Kitzhaber, 64 currently, is probably unlikely to run again in 2014.

Whether one agrees with Kitzhaber’s insistence that he knows better than Oregon voters or not, what’s getting overlooked is what is in the interest of justice for Haugen’s victims.

Haugen was initially convicted of murder and sentences to life in prison in 1981, three years before Oregonians reinstated the death penalty by an overwhelming majority. His conviction was for the beating death of his ex-girlfriend’s grandmother, Mary Archer. Lovely guy.

Then, in 2007, he was convicted for the bludgeoning and stabbing death of a fellow inmate, David Polin, an act he committed with the help of one other inmate. Prior to being sentences to death, Haugen was a major rule-breaker in the prison system, and his state rap sheet includes the following:

“…in violation of Possession of Drugs four times, Drug Smuggling once, Contraband five times, Disrespect twice, Unauthorized Property once, Unauthorized Area once and Disobedience of an Order, three times. His last major rule violation was in 2006.”

With two violent murders and 17 major prison rules violations under his belt, one should not be distracted by his so-called “clean prison service record” since his transfer to death row; that’s more a result of the increased security on Death Row, and the decreased freedoms to be found there.

This is the man Governor Kitzhaber believes is undeserving of the ultimate penalty. This is the guy our graduate of the I Know Better Than Oregon Voters School of Law and Politics is willing to go to the mat for.

Decide for yourself, Oregon.

The overwhelming themes of the emails are that the scientists involved are more interested in concealing the underlying data they rely on, rather than transparency; that they view global warming as a political movement rather than unbiased scientific inquiry; and that the underlying science involved in the conclusions reached is weak, and depends upon a deliberate manipulation of the facts and data involved.

Some of the more scientifically damning emails were written by Peter Thorne, who will of course now be made a pariah by the movement at large, which will claim he was never “part of them.” Anyway, here’s a selection from emails attributed to Thorne:

“Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest …I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.”

Maybe some of these conspiratorial global warming scientists can get jobs from Algore when he invents Internet 4.0 and starts selling Earth In the Balance dashboard products.

Reality TV star and out-and-open homosexual Taylor Garrett, who stars in LOGO TV’s The A-List: Dallas, was “was punched to the ground and bloodied Friday night by someone vandalizing his car because he’s a gay conservative associated with conservative commentator Ann Coulter,” according to a report on The Daily Caller.

The beating came as he discovered someone defacing his car with the words “F*** Coulter!”

Said Garrett, ““The Democrats want me to live on their plantation as their slave, because I’m a gay person. And I refuse to do that.”

When he confronted the vandal, the man stood up and punched Garrett in the left eye before fleeing the scene. Garrett fell and was scraped up as well by some broken glass spread near his car.

It’s not the only time Garrett has been targeted by the left for being a conservative gay man; he recently had a rock thrown through his home window with an anti-conservative message attached; but the reports have drawn criticism from the left who are skeptical of his veracity.

“I would’ve thought people would have been a little more tolerant considering that our community advocates for tolerance, but it has been nothing but mean spirited attacks, especially after the Ann Coulter scene,” Garrett said. Explaining his lunch with Coulter, Garrett added he wanted to show people that “just because you don’t support gay marriage doesn’t make you a bigot, doesn’t mean you hate gay people, it just means you disagree on gay issues … The left has turned on anyone that might not agree with gay marriage, they have demonized them.”

For ages, Democrats claimed the GOP was racist for being “too white.” Then they were racist for not supporting their own black candidates like the moderate General Colin Powell. And now that an genuine conservative black candidate is emerging in the form of Herman Cain, who is the apparent front runner in most areas nationwide for the GOP presidential nomination, have Dems backed off their racism claims against the GOP?

Perish the thought.

Now, we’re racist because we do support a black candidate for president.

Dem strategist Karen Finney blathered on like so recently on MSNBC:

One of the things about Herman Cain is, I think that he makes that white Republican base of the party feel okay, feel like they are not racist because they can like this guy. I think he giving that base a free pass. And I think they like him because they think he’s a black man who knows his place. I know that’s harsh, but that’s how it sure seems to me.

She’s joined in similar sentiment by Democratic Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings, who uttered this hate-speech recently:

I think when [members of the Tea Party] can vote for a Herman Cain and hear him say the things that he says they feel like, ‘Well, you know, I can, I support this guy and…so it shows that I’m not racist and I’m supportive.

Wow… and here I thought Herman Cain was garnering support because of his specific policy solutions, such as his 9-9-9 plan on simplifying the tax code as a first step toward a Fair Tax system. Or that he’s a red-blooded conservative with solid ideas on what he’s do if elected to change the course of this country’s economy. Or maybe even that he is a guy who’s well-qualified for his leadership in the private sector as well as the public sector, even though he’s never run for elective office and can therefore run as a Washington outsider ready to reform government.

Nah, none of that counts. It’s just our racism again. I should have known. Thanks, liberals.

Perry, who drew frequent boos from the Las Vegas audience earlier this week, managed only 4 percent. Even Ron Paul won 10 percent there.

The debate victory, which most observers gave to Cain or Romney, was reflected in the poll results. As Perry continues to struggle, and Gingrich is far less popular nationwide than the Nevada result indicates, it appears that the conservative and Tea Party factions have finally found a candidate they can agree on; Cain is appearing to solidify himself as the “anyone but Romney” candidate.

Will that be enough to win the nomination? That depends on who supporters of former conservative and Tea Party darlings like Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann, migrate to after those candidates drop out of the race. Cain would seem the most natural choice.

Can Cain beat Obama? You know what? I bet a Cuban cigar he can. I think he’s the candidate Obama is least eager to face.