Rules won't let me change some node properties I am trying to create a new rules component (action set) for publishing content that has been unpublished and I cant seem to set a few of the node properties. I will either use Flag or Rules Link to fire off the action set.

The main goal of changing these values is to basically reset the node as if it was just created, without having to make a new node and copy the field data over to the new node. 

A node should become unpublished then when it is made published again, it should behave if it was a new node that was just saved. Created date is set to "now". Marked as "is-new", etc...

I can't change the node:is-new setting to mark it as new content again.
I also can't change the node:created or node:updated properties to change the date it was either created or updated. I just get a error that says "The selected data property doesn't support writing."

Any thoughts or work arounds for this?
You appear to be attempting to break the rules regarding node creation.  You could probably do it by writing a module but why?

If all you want to do is have a fresh copy of a node with similar field values, consider using Node Clone which is a re-write of one that used to exist called "Edit As New", apparently.  Or maybe Replicate.