Alabama Pundit

2008-07-24T11:57:00.003-05:00

Here it is: "Building a Religion before it gets completely censored by YouTube.
H'tip to Glenn and CakeSecret.

2008-02-19T10:59:00.005-06:00

House GOP leaders stuck to the status quo and gave the open seat on the Appropriations Committee to Alabama's Jo Bonner instead of Jeff Flake. Anyone unfamillar with Rep. Flake's dislike for earmarks can read up on him here. As the WSJ points out, Rep. Bonner had less seniority that Rep. Flake ( 3 terms compared to 4) and seems comfortable with the growth in earmarks over the past few years.

In a study of 50 votes to strike earmarks from bills, Rep. Bonner voted against all but one. In contrast, Rep. Flake voted to get rid all 50 of them.
Among the earmarks Mr. Bonner voted to keep were the Charles Rangel Center for Public Service ($200,000) at City College of New York, a fake prison in Kansas ($100,000), and $150,000 for the American Ballet Theater in New York City.
Its hard to win a battle over earmarks when you keep shooting yourself in the foot.

2008-01-17T20:12:00.000-06:00

Some Random thoughts on Romney.
Ann Coulter's quasi endorsement of Mitt Romney for President inspired me to think about Mitt's favorable attributes. Ann didn't exactly endorse Mitt as she dismissed all the other candidates. This is not an endorsement.
General Election Mitt:

takes away any Democrats' absolute moral authority on healthcare. 95% of voters won't know anything about his Massachusetts Plan but that he got it done in Massachusetts and it appears to be working.
He wins the values and family issues hands down. The Clinton,Obama,or Edwards campaigns don't want to fight that fight. Squeaky clean Mitt, the consummate family man with stables of family verses Hill and Bill's Wild Ride, adolescent pot smoking, and rumors of cheating on a cancer-stricken wife. It didn't hurt W. in 2000 that Bill presided over one of the most amoral presidencies of the 20th century. It will help Mitt.
is stuck with his campaign promises. As Peggy Noonan put it, "everybody has the right to change their mind once." Romney has once and therefore he is now painted into a corner on abortion. Due to his campaign rhetoric, he has no room to back away from supporting Pro-life issues and taking a strong stance on illegal immigration. During the general watch the 527s come out and paint Mitt as anti-choice. There is no better way to endear yourself to the conservative community than to be attacked by the likes of NARAL.
becomes the political version of Lee Iaccoca. The competent JD/MBA grad with a history of turnarounds ( Olympics, Bain, and various business ventures). He also refused to give up on the possibility of jobs returning to Michigan and the voters rewarded him. Replace Michigan with the entire U.S. (high taxes, job loss, and failing industries) and Mitt is the man for CEO of the United States.

2008-01-17T19:41:00.000-06:00

I received my "Sessions" bumper sticker today.
Senator Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, is up for election this fall and his campaign is staging a Bumper Sticker Blitz on January 19. Supporters are encouraged to adorn their cars with "Sessions" bumper stickers this Saturday. At this time, stickers are only available to Alabama residents. You won't get your sticker in time for the blitz but you can still request them here. Come on folks, let's show support for the Senator who lead the fight against the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, or Amnesty bill last spring and as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee is a leader in the fight to get conservative judges like John Roberts and Samuel Alito confirmed.

2008-01-17T19:20:00.000-06:00

An email I received concerning the South Carolina Primary from South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint contains the following passage:

"Washington experience is the problem, not the solution. We cannot afford to have a President who has fought for amnesty for illegal immigrates, voted against the Bush Tax Cuts, and curtailed our First Amendment rights in the ill-conceived campaign finance legislation. I urge you to watch this video about the qualities I believe our next President must possess in order to revive the Reagan Coalition. We've come a long way since 1994. But all of our hard work will be in vain if we fail to make the right decision in the voting both this Saturday."

Doesn't take a genius to figure out that DeMint is not supporting his Senate colleague,John McCain. Kinda makes me wonder how many Republican Senators are supporting Senator McCain? Amnesty proponent Lindsey Graham doesn't count and neither does Independent-Democrat Joe Lieberman. By the way, Senator DeMint is on record supporting Governor Romney.

2008-01-16T11:55:00.000-06:00

The Human Expense of a Single-Payer Health care System

Critics love to point out the dismal state of healthcare in the U.S. Currently, most patients in our country are covered by private insurance and the rest receive government assistance. I disagree with their critique. The majority of foreigners who travel abroad for surgeries and major treatments, come to the U.S. If not the patients, then the doctors come to the US to be trained in our schools and hospitals so they can return home and provide quality healthcare. These reports tend to overlook the quality of immediate treatment which is something we have in the US.
The Daily Mail (U.K.) reports that more than seven million patients have been unable to see an NHS dentist for almost two years. The biggest road blocks in the way of them receiving dental care is not money but access. I think it is interesting that in order to get moderately good dental care, a majority of those surveyed chose to get private insurance and forgo the taxpayer funded system. I don't think John Edwards plan will even let you do that. Edwards plan proposes withholding of tax refunds and garnishment of wages for Americans who don't sign up for his plan.

The charity's survey of 1,800 people, carried out by Ipsos MORI, found that lack of access was the most common reason for not seeing an NHS dentist, along with not needing treatment. ...It(the survey) cited the case of a low-income pensioner given emergency dental treatment in a hospital in North Yorkshire then told to get further treatment from one of two local NHS dentists both of whom have 12-month waiting lists. Citizens Advice said the findings suggested 7.4million people had tried and failed to see an NHS dentist, with around 4.7million seeking private care instead and 2.7 million going without treatment altogether.

2008-01-16T11:05:00.000-06:00

A Little Housekeeping
If anyone has noticed, I removed the RedState feed from the left side of my blog. The feed is designed to give blogs in Alabama the recent posts of other Alabama blogs. Currently it has been taken over by a blogger whose blog consists of nothing but support for a particular candidate, which I will not name. This blog has nothing to do with Alabama. The constant posting by this particular candidate/blogger pushes other Alabama blogs out of the feed ( each post is put into a queue from which it then appears in the feed).
If you would like to add or see the RedState blog feed for Alabama you can find it here. I will gladly add the RedState feed if the above blog is absent.

2008-01-15T22:47:00.000-06:00

MAKE IT FLAKE.

In the House of Representatives, there is no stronger ally in the war against Pork than Representative Jeff Flake. Flake is known for proposing amendments stripping House members of their most prized possession, Pork. Often this involves, Flake, standing alone on the House floor like a gunfighter in the Old West,facing off against the purveyor of another egregious earmark. Some examples here.
Flake is on a mission to save the taxpayers' money,one earmark at a time while restoring the name brand of the GOP. Since 1994, the number of earmarks in appropriation bills has tripled.
It just so happens there is a Republican seat available on the House Appropriations Committee. To quote the guys at RedState: "

The Republican leadership has a great opportunity to prove that it is serious about earmark reform and a conservative approach to spending. It’s time to put some action behind their rhetoric...Our party needs Jeff Flake as the face for reform on the influential Appropriations Committee. He is also one of the few men who could change the committee instead of the committee changing him."

To show your support for this Porkbuster, contact your Representative and let them know you take a hard-line against pork-barrel spending and they should too. They can start by appointing Jeff Flake to the Appropriations Comm.
CLICK HERE TO SEND A FORMATTED E-MAIL TO HOUSE LEADERS

Don't believe me? Read the following :
Approps Seat Tests the GOP on Spending - Jackie Kucinich, The Hill
GOP Bloggers Fight For Rep. Flake - Danny Glover, Beltway Blogroll
Flake for Appropriations - Phil Kerpen, National Review
Fight to Put Flake on Appropriations - Amanda Carpenter, Townhall.com
House Appropriator Wants Flake on Spending Panel - J. Kucinich, The

2008-01-13T11:29:00.000-06:00

I will vote Dem before I vote Huck.

I am joining the ranks of other conservative bloggers in announcing that if Huck is the Republican nominee for President then I will vote for a Democrat before I vote for Huck.
Ace of Spades
Not that what one blogger thinks matters that much, but if Huckabee gets the nomination, I'm voting Democratic. It's not just an idle threat; I just won't vote for him and in fact won't even vote third party or stay home. I'll vote for the Democratic candidate, even Hillary. I won't be a party to selling out everything the party is supposed to stand for to a liberal ideology. If we're going to have eight years of liberal rule, I'd rather the Democratic Party be governing, so at least they can take the blame. (my bold)
Dan Riehl:
That Presidential "R" in 2008 will stand for nothing I believe in. The guy is slick but doesn't even look competent. And if Republican primary voters are that stupid, they deserve to lose next Fall. To pass over McCain, Thompson, Romney and Giuliani ONLY because someone's slick and a Jesus Freak, which makes him your average televangelist - forget it.
American Pundit:
Between his lack of knowledge on the NIE, his supporting of tuition funding for illegal aliens, his tax policies, his stance on Gitmo, his stupidity regarding AIDS patients, his pardoning people just ’cause, his ignorance on U.S.-Cuban relations and his flip-flop on the trade embargo, I just can’t bring myself to support him.
Born Again Redneck:
I would rather see Hillary be blamed for not vetoing Congress' tax increases, for screwing up in Iraq, for introducing socialized medicine and for expanding entitlements to the point of creating a womb to tomb welfare state. Huckabee will do all that and maybe even worse and the GOP will be blamed for the economic catastrophe that will result and the increase in terrorism.
Conservative Belle:
I liked Mike Huckabee, but after examining his record more closely and listening to him, I've decided he is the WRONG man to lead our nation. Why? Because I believe there are other Republican candidates who seek God's wisdom daily but are just not overt and in your face about it. Because I believe there are other candidates who believe that Americans are capable of being responsible for their own lives and do not need the federal government to intervene on our behalf (i.e., Nanny State). Because I believe there are other candidates who don't just speak rhetoric about homeland security but have substantial plans and the ability and will to implement them. Because I believe there are other candidates who don't just pay ignorant lip service to foreign policy issues but have a real understanding of the threats to the West and the ability to communicate properly exactly how America intends to act upon those threats. Because I believe there are other candidates who have a reasonable grasp on the economic issues, including the massive entitlement program spending problem and the ability to use a veto pen. And because Mike Huckabee has absolutely ZERO foreign policy experience in a time that our nation needs it most. (my bold)
Rick Moran:
I believe him (Huck) to be a shady operator who, as Levin points out, uses religion as a club against his opponents while setting himself up to be a “superior Christian” to the other candidates. The mindless enthusiasm for this “populist” only shows that the religious right is not ready or worthy to lead any party that purports to represent a polyglot collection of neocons, Main Street, Traditional, and economic conservatives.
I know that many social cons do not support Huckabee and are supporting other candidates who also espouse socially conservative positions. I have no problem with that whatsoever. Those other candidates are not using their religion as a wedge issue in order to maximize their support among one faction or another in the conservative movement. Huckabee, on the other hand, sees his only chance at success in breaking the party and the movement by throwing his weight around as a “Christian leader” while feeding the resentment and paranoia of some evangelicals who think opposition to his candidacy is the result of his religion.

As one of Ace's commenter's said,"the presidency is not an internship."

2008-01-12T15:54:00.000-06:00

I heart Huckabee. NOT!!

In lieu of constantly posting on Mike Huckabee's populism, ethics violations, or questionable commutations. There is also room for his illegal immigration policy ( or lack thereof), his Foreign Affairs article gaffs and misquotes,and his choice of Ed "I would like to punch Romney's teeth out" Rollins for a campaign manager despite his lack of experience running campaigns). I do not mind him accusing the Bush administration of having a ,"bunker mentality", it is the fact that he attributed a quote in the article to Sun Tzu when it obviously came from Michael Corleone in the Godfather that really bothers me.

What started as a short post on Huckabee has snowballed and I will need several posts to mesh it out. I will post this letter from a political evangelical in Arkansas to Hugh Hewitt regarding his feelings towards his former Governor. David Thompson lists the following detailed reasons why he and other conservatives cannot support Huckabee:

Governor Huckabee did lasting damage to the Republican Party and conservative movement in Arkansas.
Governor Huckabee's non-stop clemencies continually hindered the work of criminal prosecutors and miffed Republicans
Governor Huckabee's pattern was to ignore immigration laws, often in the name of Christianity.
Governor Huckabee was no friend to fiscal conservatives in Arkansas.
Huckabee left a long trail of ethics questions while Governor of Arkansas
Huckabee's education record shows him to be an advocate of the "status quo.
Huckabee has very little support for his Presidential bid here in Arkansas.

Each point is backed up with examples and links to newspaper articles. I recommend all conservatives considering voting for Huckabee read this to see what they are really getting in Huckabee: Bill Clinton-lite,or worse, Jimmy Carter.

2007-12-19T14:26:00.000-06:00

Latest video from the NRSC. "On the first day of Christmas,the liberals gave to me......" Check out the lungs on the girl singing, " Hillary's Woodstock Museum. H'tip to MM. Expect light blogging during the Holidays and to all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

2007-12-19T13:37:00.000-06:00

Condoleezza Rice and Senator Richard Lugar (IN) propose a civilian corp to help the military with post-war stabilization and reconstruction. In their own words, the Civilian Reserve Corps are "essential for our national security, and the Senate should authorize the creation of the corps. Over the past decade and a half, the United States has learned that some of the greatest threats to our national security emerge not only from the armies and arsenals of hostile nations but also from the brittle institutions and failing economies of weak and poorly governed states."

Credit belongs to Thomas PM Barnett for keeping the idea of a Civilian Reserve Corp (or SysAdmin in his vernacular) in the public dialogue but the idea has been mentioned in the Summary of National Security Strategy 2002 and again by President Bush in the 2007 SOTU. Wikipedia credits former Supreme Allied Commander and 2004 Presidential candidate, Wesley Clark with a similar proposal during the 04' campaign. I find Clark's plan to be heavy on the domestic front (how do repealing the tax cuts fit into the plan?) I recommend Dr. Barnett's System Administrators (SysAdmin) for the direction the Civilian Reserve Corp should take.

2007-12-19T13:26:00.000-06:00

JibJab's review of 2007. You can also go to their website and put your face in sendable Holiday cards and videos.

A JibJab Year in Review

2007-12-12T17:14:00.000-06:00

"Bush Surging, not fading, as tenure's end nears", a column in TheHill.com by former Cheney deputy assistant and former special assistant to President Bush, Ron Christie. Mr. Christie lays out the case that President Bush's policies have reached fruition in the past few days. Here are some examples:

Economic Growth

New data released last week showed that America added 94,000 jobs in November 2007 — capping a remarkable 51 straight months in which jobs have been created in our economy. Despite partisan claims that the economy is soft, more than 8.3 million jobs have been created since August 2003 and unemployment remains low (4.7 percent). America remains open for business.

Stem cells

the president’s resolve and strength to draw a moral boundary line to protect innocent unborn life has been vindicated. scientists announced last week they could produce an embryo-free way to produce genetically matched stem cells. OR
the president’s decision to draw a bright moral line against destroying human life while providing federal dollars for the first time to stimulate stem cell research has proven successful. The silence in the media about this remarkable development has been deafening.

Iraq

the central government of Iraq has reached its 2007 budget revenue target of $30.2 billion,derived mostly from oil revenues.
Lt. General Ray Odierno has reported that the has been a 23-week decline — nearly six months — in insurgent deaths and attacks upon Iraqi civilians.
In Mosul, the airport opened for the first time in 14 years for commercial aviation flights. In a region of the country long associated with violence, Iraqi Airlines is now open for business

"Political stability long thought to be an elusive dream is becoming a daily reality across Iraq.From the surge in Iraq, vindication with his stem cell position and strong economic development on the home front, President George W. Bush has hit his stride and is surging rather than limping into his last year in office. For those who have counted him out, the president remains resolute, perhaps comfortable in the knowledge that history, rather than bitter partisans in Washington, will favorably reflect on his two terms in office for waging an effective war against terrorism while demonstrating capable stewardship and remarkable domestic accomplishments during a time of war."

I would add that President Bush's newly found veto pen has given the Republican party an opportunity to become the budget hawks they used to be. He has only used it 7 times in as many years. Today, he vetoed the latest S-CHIP bill for the following reasons:

"This bill does not put poor children first, and it moves our country's health care system in the wrong direction," Bush's statement said. "Ultimately, our nation's goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage, not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage."

2007-12-12T15:48:00.000-06:00

Mitt Romney picks up a needed endorsement from National Review. With Huckabee nipping at his heels and threatening to derail his early primary strategy, this endorsement carries a lot of weight with those in the conservative movement. Hint: George W. Bush is not a conservative. The crux of National Review's argument can be founded in the following passage;

"Uniting the conservative coalition is not enough to win a presidential election, but it is a prerequisite for building on that coalition. Rudolph Giuliani did extraordinary work as mayor of New York and was inspirational on 9/11. But he and Mike Huckabee would pull apart the coalition from opposite ends: Giuliani alienating the social conservatives, and Huckabee the economic (and foreign-policy) conservatives. A Republican party that abandoned either limited government or moral standards would be much diminished in the service it could give the country."

NR thinks that Fred and McCain are solid conservatives but that Romney's executive skill exudes,"competence", which is much needed following the debacles that were Katrina, Harriet Meyers, and the Department of Justice during the Bush Administration. I agree with Lee at A Bama Blog on the reason Fred failed to earn National Review's endorsement despite being the most "consistent conservative." I think Fred or McCain have both made their case for V.P. I think a Southerner with foreign policy experience on the ticket would help a Northeastern governor in the general election.

2007-12-11T11:22:00.000-06:00

Support the Troops during the holidays. FreedomsWatch has a list of over a dozen non-profits who will be sending packages to the troops this holiday season. The American Red Cross will take Christmas cards, phone cards, CDs & DVDs and individual packets of candy, gum, etc to our wounded soldiers at Walter Reed, use the following address; American Red Cross,Walter Reed Medical Center, 6900 Georgia Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20307-5000.

In order to send a digital holiday card to the troops, you may visit CNN's Web site to create your personalized message. CNN will air selected cards on Headline News, please click here for more details.
You may also send holiday cards to the troops at various military hospitals by sending your greetings to E.D. Hill's Operation Holiday Thanks:
Operation Holiday Thanks
c/o E.D. Hill
Fox News Channel
1211 Sixth Avenue
17th Floor New York, NY 10036

2007-12-11T10:55:00.000-06:00

Ag Commissioner Ron Sparks signs his Alabama political death warrant. Sparks has joined the Hillary Clinton as Co-Chair of Rural Americans for Hillary. Rumors flew last year about a possible Sparks run against Jeff Sessions for Senate in 2008. A lot of people have been headed to HRC's camp lately (The Alabama Democratic Conference, the black wing of the state Democratic Party, endorsed New York Sen. Hillary Clinton in October), but how popular is she in Alabama?

Pollster has her losing to 4 of the top 5 Republicans in the general election.
Rasmussen & Fox Television Stations Inc have her being defeated by McCain, Rudy, and Fred. She ties with Romney. Coincidentally, two-term Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, would handily defeat Democratic candidate Vivian Sessions 62 to 30 percent, the report said. Sessions would receive 90 percent of the Republican vote and more than a fifth of Democratic voters.
Clinton has a very favorable rating of 27%, somewhat favorable 18%, somewhat unfavorable 11%, very unfavorable 41% and 3% are undecided in Alabama.

Notice the difference in the very favorable and very unfavorable ratings. I read once where James Carville would not work for a candidate if there was more than a 15 pt spread between the two. HRC is right at 14% in Alabama. These were the newest polls I could find. Survey USA reflects the same results as the above polls.

2007-12-10T14:48:00.000-06:00

PAYGO goes away?

An article in yesterday's WSJ proclaims the end of the line for the Democratic attempt to implement PAYGO regulations. In theory, Pay As You Go is a great way to control spending. In budgeting, the term PAYGO refers to the requirement that newly proposed expenditures (spending) or tax cuts must be accompanied by commensurate increases in revenue(taxes) or a reduction elsewhere in the budget.

The system was reestablished as a budget rule on January 4th 2007 by the 110th Congress. Remember this: "Democrats are committed to ending years of irresponsible budget policies that have produced historic deficits. Instead of compiling trillions of dollars of debt onto our children and grandchildren, we will restore pay-as-you-go budget discipline."--Speaker Nancy Pelosi, December 12, 2006.

Fast forward to last Thursday night (88-5).WSJ: "Senate Democrats gave up on "paygo," as it's called, when they realized they lacked the votes to offset the $50.6 billion cost of protecting more than 20 million middle-class taxpayers from getting whacked by the Alternative Minimum Tax this year. They've spent the year floating all kinds of tax increases to make up the difference. But in the end they passed an AMT relief bill without a penny to pay for it. Paygo is now pay gone."

According to The Heritage Foundation, .." entitlement programs that are scheduled to increase by 42 percent (after inflation) over the next decade, Congress has passed legislation adding an additional $179 billion. (See Table 1.) These bills would expand government, weaken the private sector, and raise the cost of government to the taxpayers. Each embodies bad policy even without any budget gimmicks. The main legislative vehicles are the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), college student financial aid, terrorism risk insurance, and farm subsidies."

2007-12-10T13:54:00.000-06:00

I recently found a cool Internet publication called the Patriot Post. I signed up to receive their thrice-weekly emails and have used several portions of them on my blog. Sign up, you won't be disappointed.
"The Conservative Journal of Record," can be summed up briefly in the belief that individual liberty, the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and the promotion of free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values can only be secured through the exercise of individual rights and responsibilities as ordained by God and established by our nation's Founders in our Declaration of Independence and its subordinate guidance, our Republic's Constitution.

2007-12-10T13:40:00.000-06:00

The hypocrisy of the Democrats on Iraq put in historical perspective. This is a prime example of most politicians in general. So eager to seek favor with the public, they will jump on any popular idea that comes along. There is more at RedState. The video that was here has been taken down but can be found in the comment section of the RedState link or in the GOP multimedia center.

2007-12-07T11:28:00.000-06:00

Sen. Richard Shelby receives acclaim from DC Cabbie

H'tip to Mary Orndorff.

The "Mad Cabbie" from our nations capitol had some good things to say about our state's senior Senator. On his blog, Diary of a Mad DC Cabbie, he wrote this:

But I can tell you who the most polite law maker I had in my cab, drum roll please: That would be the gentleman from the great state of Alabama Richard Shelby! Yes this dude was always nice to me and next time he'sup for re-election I think I am moving to Alabama just to vote for him. I used to pick him up in Georgetown and drive him to the Russell Senate Building and we carried on with great political conversation, even though I don't like his republican party I still enjoyed the 15 minutes ride and on top of that he over tipped the sh** out of me.

2007-12-07T11:00:00.000-06:00

Friday Thoughts
John Stuart Mill wrote,
“[W]ar... is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.”

Mill added, “A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.”

2007-12-06T10:56:00.000-06:00

New blogs covering Birmingham

I recently discovered two blogs covering the Birmingham area. The Terminal- Birmingham is a clearing house for local news, events, and the opinions of Andre` Natta. I particularly like the Real-Time traffic monitor on the home page. The major news pieces are links to MyFoxAL.com but the best part is the intimate knowledge (and pictures) of events and locales in town. The worst part is the unabashed support of Larry Langford's policies.

BirminghamDome.com is a blog in support of bringing a dome stadium to the Magic City. I question the timing and appearance as this blog seems to have been started on December 1, 2007. I believe the two are operated by the same person. According to this blog, a dome stadium will cure all that ails the city of Birmingham. If Birmingham builds a dome stadium then magically the schools will be better, crime and blight will disappear, and businesses will flourish again. I expect BirminghamDome to offer some neutral alternatives or specific policies about the Dome rather than the generalities in which this proposal was sold to the public.

I am also pleased to read a post on Mayor Langford by Punditry by the Pint. For a while I thought I was the only dissenting voice to the Dome proposal. I felt like Will Ferrell's character(Mugatu) in Zoolander when he said [about Zoolander's look], "Doesn't anybody notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!

2007-12-05T17:34:00.000-06:00

Birmingham's new Dome or Doom? Part II.
continued from an earlier post. Don't assume that the following thoughts are all my own. My thoughts were formed from an article from Policy Studies Review,Spring 1998 by Andrew Zimbalist. Click here to see a Google Search of the Zimbalist article. I am not through reading all of them but I hope to go through all the articles which cite this one in order to broaden my views on the economic impact of stadiums and domes on a city.
"Dozens of studies have been performed by consulting firms under contract with the affected city or team. Predictably, most of these studies have concluded that there would be a substantial, positive impact from adding a sports team. There are several methodological difficulties with these studies."(Zimbalist) Here are some of them.

They [the studies] do not sufficiently account for the difference between new and diverted (or gross and net) spending. In other words, the studies aren't conscious of the fact that people have a finite amount of their income to spend on entertainment.If they spend $100 to attend a sporting event, that means they will have $100 less to spend on movies, shopping, and restaurants. "The dollar spent at sports events usually replaces the dollar spend elsewhere in the local economy. The spending impact is practically nil."
The main source of net spending is out-of-town visitors to a ballgame.This number is practically small for professional sports teams. It consists of the visiting teams and out-of-town media. Most of this will be offset by road trips by the local team and media. I would like to add that the employees attracted to new jobs at a dome stadium will be seasonal and part-time at best.
The economic impact is often exaggerated by assuming that an unrealistically large share of executive and player salaries remains in the local economy. The more a team's owner and its players live and spend their income in the host city,the larger the economic impact. Last I checked, minor league teams didn't pay much more than the local Post Office and I have never seen a study on the economic impact of postal employees.

2007-12-05T14:32:00.000-06:00

New WebVideo from Rep. Eric Cantor's Blog.

One year ago, when they took control of Congress, House Democrats made many promises. Most of all, Democrats promised you that they were ready to govern – over the past year it has become all too clear that they have let you down.
Take a moment to watch our latest web video, which highlights the performance of House Democrats over the past year. With an 11 percent approval rating, the lowest in recorded history, it’s no wonder that Speaker Pelosi recently remarked, "I know that Congress has low approval ratings, I don’t approve of Congress, because we haven’t done anything."

2007-12-05T13:20:00.000-06:00

Birmingham's new Dome or Doom?

While doing some thinking about the Magic City's newest grand idea of doubling business license fees and increasing taxes to build a dome, I recalled a policy paper I read in graduate school concerning the economic impact of domes and professional sports teams. The paper I am relying on is, "The Economics of Stadiums, Teams, and Cities" by Andrew Zimbalist. It isn't the exact same situation as Birmingham but some of the findings can be transferred. The journal can be downloaded here and a summary can be read here. The words of the author:

"It is a common perception that sports teams have an economic impact on a city that is tantamount to their cultural impact. This is wrong. In most circumstances, sports teams have a small positive economic effect, similar perhaps to the influence of a new department store."

Individual sports teams are not big business. The average NFL team in 1994 grossed $65 million. Compared to the 1993 Effective Buying Income of $21.1 billion for metropolitan St.Louis. The gross of an NFL team would just account for 0.3% of St. Louis's EBI, 0.6% of Jacksonville, Florida, and 0.05 of the EBI of New York City.
Studies have shown that most public stadiums do not cover their own fixed and operating costs. Quirk & Fort estimated an average public stadium subsidy (net fiscal cost) of $6.8 million and conservatively projected in excess of $500 million in government subsidies to all professional sports teams in the same year. Operating and debt service deficits mean that city or state governments will have to levy additional taxes. Higher taxes in turn, discourage business in the area and reduce customer expenditures, setting off a negative multiplier effect.
Virtually all independent economic research has confirmed a diminutive or negligible economic effect from the relocation of a sports team in a city. For instance, Baade and Dye looked at nine cities over the period 1965-83 and found that no significant relationship between adding a sports team or a new stadium and the city's economic growth. In fact, they found that in 7 out of the 9 cities, the city's share of regional income declined after the addition of a new sports team or the construction of a new stadium. Baade recently updated this study to include 36 areas over a 30 year period and found that in no cases did a new stadium have a statistically significant, positive economic impact on the city's growth and in 3 cases it had a negative impact. Arthur Johnson studies 15 cities that host minor league baseball teams and concluded that:"The economic impact of a minor league baseball team is not sufficient to justify the relatively large public expenditure necessary for a minor league baseball team."

TO BE CONTINUED

2007-12-05T12:39:00.000-06:00

More chinks in current S-CHIP bill or H.R. 3963.

A new study by the Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector demonstrates how the new S-CHIP bill increases illegal immigrants access to Medicaid and undermines the Welfare Reform Act. Michelle Malkin takes the finding a step further,and I agree, that even though the bill contains a category (Title VI Section 605) entitled, " No Federal Funding for Illegal Aliens," there's no provision written into the bill to check the citizenship status of applicants for the S-CHIP program. Essentially, Section 605 is a red herring the Democrats can point to and say the bill doesn't give benefits to illegal aliens. Nevermind that the rest of the bill relaxes identification procedures for S-CHIP Rector's analysis points out that HR 3963:

weakens the evidentiary and document standards governing entry into the Medicaid program, thereby making it easier for illegal immigrants to fraudulently obtain benefits; and
overturns the limitations on immigrant use of Medicaid enacted in the 1996 welfare reform law by gutting the administrative procedures used to determine immigrant eligibility, thereby readily permitting immigrants to receive benefits for which they remain legally ineligible.

Remember that under current law, illegal immigrants are eligible for:

emergency medical services funded through the Medicaid program but are not eligible for normal benefits through Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP).
In addition, according to the provisions of the 1996 welfare reform law, legal immigrants are not eligible for normal Medicaid and S-CHIP benefits for the first five years they reside in the United States.

2007-12-04T12:19:00.000-06:00

Senate staffer caught in attempted tryst with 13 year old and this time it is not a Republican.
According to Erick at RedState:
"How many networks will bring you this news. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) has/d a would be child molester on her payroll.
The fed's are accusing Maria Cantwell's scheduler, 28 year-old Mike McHaney, of arranging a three way with a 13 year-old boy. Luckily the third party in the three way got the police involved.
Were Mike McHaney a staffer for any one of the Republican Senators, the left and the media would be having a field day. But I won't hold my breath for that with this. Double standards and all that."

2007-12-04T12:14:00.000-06:00

Mona Charen's Smack-Down of "Heroic Conservatism"
If you thought Bill Clinton rewrote history, wait until you read Michael Gerson's book which is neither "heroic" nor "conservatism".

2007-12-04T11:45:00.000-06:00

Huckabee's Willie Horton

I have been waiting for this shoe to drop on Mike Huckabee. I should have know the MSM would wait until Huck stepped into the spotlight as he has in Iowa.
ACT 1:While awaiting trial for raping a 17 year old girl, masked men broke into Wayne DuMond's house and allegedly castrated him. Convicted in 1985, he was sentenced to life +20 years. When Clinton ran in 1992, the case drew a lot of attention due to the relation between the victim and then-Governor Bill Clinton A lot of people felt sympathy towards DuMond and felt he got a raw deal from the criminal justice system.

ACT 2: The girl is a distant cousin of Bill Clinton.DuMond's sentence had been set at life in prison, plus 20 years. In 1992, Clinton's successor in the Arkansas governor's mansion, Jim Guy Tucker, reduced that sentence to 39 years, making DuMond eligible for parole. When Huckabee became governor in 1996, he expressed doubts about DuMond's guilt and said he was considering commuting his sentence to time served. After the victim and her supporters protested, Huckabee decided against commutation. But in 1997, according to the Kansas City Star, Huckabee wrote a letter to DuMond saying "my desire is that you be released from prison." Less than a year later, DuMond was granted parole. Huckabee's office denied that the governor played a role in the parole board's decision, but there was evidence (exhaustively detailed here) to contradict that claim.
ACT 3:DuMond's release was delayed because a number of states did not want to take him in, but he left prison in 1999 and ended up in Missouri. Not long after he arrived, he was arrested again - this time for sexually assaulting and murdering a woman named Carol Sue Shields. DuMond was also the leading suspect in the rape and murder of another woman. He was convicted of murdering Shields and died in prison in 2005.

2007-12-04T10:30:00.000-06:00

Birmingham: A case study in poor leadership.

BACKGROUND: The sales tax increase, to last six years, is part of new Birmingham mayor Larry Langford's plan to generate $72 million annually to support initiatives including a domed stadium, mass transit improvements and an enhanced police department. The mayor proposes increasing the sales tax by one cent on the dollar and doubling business license fees to pay for his projects. Langford and the City Council met for more than two hours, mostly listening to owners of auto dealerships who said raising the sales tax by one cent on the dollar would make it harder for them to compete with dealers in surrounding cities and would put some out of business. An increase in taxes and business fees can make or break a car dealership especially in a region such as Birmingham. Why pay the extra money to the city when you can move just a few miles, pay less taxes, worry less about crime, and be in a modern, cleaner environment. As you can read below the mayor doesn't mind chastising the businesses he wants to fund his new Visionland. More on VisionLand.

MAYOR: to a legitimate concern of the city's car dealers: "It's not going to last forever. Suck it up with us just one time."
Councilwoman Valerie Abbott argued for the dealerships. Abbott said the smaller increase (.33% instead of 1%)would maintain the dealerships' competitiveness.
MAYOR: "That makes absolutely no sense at all,"

Ray Ingram, owner of East Lake Auto Sales, said he feared doubling his business license fee would be enough to put him out of business. Ingram said the license increase hurts small businesses like his the most. He said he pays about $10,000 a year for a business license and would pay $20,000 under the mayor's plan.
MAYOR RESPONSE: {he once sold cars} and knows that dealers make "a lot more money selling used cars than you do new cars."

Langford earlier had called for creating a Birmingham Rail and Transit Authority to handle the new transit money ($17 million), rather than turning it over to the BJCTA. But he said Monday that such details can be addressed later.
MAYOR: "At this point I don't know," he said after the meeting. "At this point I don't care."
The most important thing is for the council to approve the plan and handle the technicalities later, Langford said.

The mayor ran on a platform of "Change." These changes included a domed stadium. Why and for whom, nobody knows. The mayor just thinks we need it "to move forward." As head of the County Commission, Langford developed a reputation for having things his and only his way. The lack of want of details for the transit authority is a bad sign. The better scenario is to handle the details first and then proceed according to plan. Ask Hillary Clinton what happens when you set out to institute a plan and then plan the details in secret later.
He has been called bull-headed and to that I would add, callous. The above exchange highlights how not to respond to concerns from the people he was elected to represent. One should not respond with personal insults or immediate dismissals of ideas from others as done here. There is not one hint of compassion or empathy coming from the mayor to the car dealers who are actually doing Birmingham a favor by staying within the city limits. The attraction to move into neighboring areas is immense. I am afraid that additional taxes and fees will be "the straw that broke the camel's back." If this happens there will only be one man to blame.

2007-11-26T11:12:00.000-06:00

Light posting this week. I will be traveling for a few days so here is some interesting reading.

Air Mobility Command passed a major milestone Nov. 19, when an AMC aircraft flew the command's one millionth sortie since September 11, 2001. The landmark flight was a C-17 mission flown to Manas Air Base, Kyrgyzstan. The crew was from the 62nd Airlift Wing's 10th Airlift Squadron, McChord AFB, Wash.

Other mobility facts: - About every 90 seconds a mobility aircraft lifts off somewhere in the world.- Since Sept. 11, 2001, AMC tankers have passed nearly 1.2 billion gallons of fuel to U.S. and allied aircraft.- AMC airlift is keeping about 12,000 people and almost 5,000 trucks off Iraqi roads each month, helping to defeat the enemy's IED strategy. - AMC aircraft are responsible for transporting the nation's senior leaders, including the president. - AMC is rushing about 12 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles to Iraq and Afghanistan every day. The command has delivered more than 1,000 MRAPs. - AMC aeromedical crews provide timely airlift and medical care to their fellow warriors, rapidly moving injured service members from the battlefield to the U.S.

HRC's buying of political endorsements with the promises of money and ambassadorships.
"The tragedy of the Commons", 1st Thanksgiving style by John Stossel.
Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz on the Democrats and Waterboarding. Dershowitz is always interesting because he is a liberal who is a strong supporter of Israel, he wrote a book on pre-emptive warfare and is a supporter of torture in the "ticking time bomb" scenario.
There is no way to understand the nexus of the world, globalization, and foreign policy without reading Thomas PM Barnett's blog. It's a must-read for this international affairs neophyte. There is a new video of the Pentagon's New Map brief up at TED. I am on a international affairs, strategy, and military reading kick lately. Please feel free to recommend books to me. For Christmas, I will take the C-SPAN video.

2007-11-26T10:40:00.000-06:00

Remember Mike Spann, Nov. 25,2001

On this date the Alabama native was killed in a prison uprising, becoming the first American killed in the invasion of Afghanistan. Most people will remember him as the CIA operative who was interviewing John Walker Lindh moments before the prison uprising that took Mike's life.

JunkYardBlog wrote "Mike Spann's Ballad." MSNBC has a transcription of the exchange between Mike and the "American Taliban." Michelle Malkin takes Esquire to task for a piece about Lindh entitled, Innocent."

2007-11-21T10:30:00.000-06:00

Showdown at the D.C. Corral

After the Supreme Court's decision to review a lower court's ruling that overturned the District of Columbia's gun ban, you can expect all of the MSM's eyes to be focused on guns and the 2nd Amendment. They waited until now to give any coverage to Students for Concealed Carry on Campus even though the group was created shortly after the Virginia Tech disaster.

The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution provides that "a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Does that prevent the federal government (of which DC's government is a part) from banning private ownership of firearms, as the DC law essentially does? That is the questioned asked by Glenn Reynolds, professor of law at the University of Tennessee and author of Instapundit, in a recent op-ed.
From the left we have a NY Times editorial expressing their opinion that the Supremes disregard the 2nd Amendment: "The hope, which we share, is that the court will rise above the hard-right ideology of some justices to render a decision respectful of the Constitution’s text and the violent consequences of denying government broad room to regulate guns. The fear is that it will not."

The Washington Times approaches the case from a different view: "The question the court will address, probably starting in March, is "Whether [the laws] violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?" The answer should be "a resounding yes says the Washington Times.

For me, I need only look at the Second Amendment: The Bill of Rights lists individual rights given to us by the founders to protect us from an overbearing, oppressive central government. That takes care of the first half of the amendment. The second half states,"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." What is all the discussion about? The DC gun ban is contrary to the Second Amendment, it infringes on individual rights and liberty by prohibiting the ownership of handguns and requiring that all long guns be kept unloaded and locked away, leaving them virtually impotent. I hope the Court does exactly what the NY Times editorial states and "render a decision respectful of the Constitution's text." For a good article on the Second Amendment read "A Nation of Cowards."

2007-11-21T10:00:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving To All.

"Tomorrow being the day set apart by the Honorable Congress for public Thanksgiving and Praise; and duty calling us devoutly to express our grateful acknowledgements to God for the manifold blessings he has granted us, the General... earnestly exhorts, all officers and soldiers, whose absence is not indispensably necessary, to attend with reverence the solemnities of the day.” George Washington (December 17, 1777).

I had the first of many Turkey dinners on Sunday. I will be traveling a good bit and thus my blogging will be light during the Holidays. I will leave you with some links to amuse yourself.

As I travel, I will wish I had the new Kindle from Amazon.
Watch Laura Ingraham hold her own against this anti-American hippie wannabe.
Is Huckabee for real? This article in the Washington Post proves he is in Iowa.
Cool time lapse photography of the Packers-Vikings game.

2007-11-20T10:48:00.000-06:00

The AEA-not for kids? Brian @ Flashpoint has an excellent post that repeats most of my problems with the Alabama Education Association or as I like to call it, "the closest thing to socialism we have in Alabama." According to the AEA, everyone must be paid the same regardless of competency or test scores. Who cares if the children are failing, we had better get my annual raise.
It is a shame that when somebody like Bradley Byrne tries to improve our educational system, they are met with so much hostility just so a few crusty old men can hold on to what they got at the expense of ill-educated kids and a busted budget.

2007-11-20T10:11:00.000-06:00

New Study on Income Equality & Mobility from the Treasury Department.

Treasury studied the income of 97,500 filers between 1996- 2005. The overall finding of the study is the same as similar studies done on income mobility in the 1990s and 1980s. To quote the Wall Street Journal's analysis: “The basic finding of this analysis is that relative income mobility is approximately the same as in the last 10 years as it was in the previous decade.” The report also lets the air out of the populist political theories of "The War on the Middle Class" or "The Two Americas." I have seen John Edward's America and it looks nothing like mine.
Other key highlights:

Nearly 58% of filers who were in the lowest income group in 1996 had moved into a higher income group by 2005.
25% moved into the middle or upper-middle groups. 5.3% made it into the highest quintile.
Of those in the 2nd lowest quintile, nearly 50% moved into the middle quintile or higher and only 17% had moved down.
Full-time workers in the lowest quintile saw their incomes increase by 90.5% in the decade studied.

During the same period the top 1% of filers experienced a loss in income of 25.8%. All other income groups experienced a gain in income ranging from a high of 90.5% to a low of 10%. The WSJ reports: The key point is that the study shows that income mobility in the U.S. works down as well as up--another sign that opportunity and merit continue to drive American success, not accidents of birth. The "rich" are not the same people over time."

"Also encouraging is the fact that the after-inflation median income of all tax filers increased by an impressive 24% over the same period. Two of every three workers had a real income gain--which contradicts the Huckabee-Edwards-Lou Dobbs spin about stagnant incomes. This is even more impressive when you consider that "median" income and wage numbers are often skewed downward because the U.S. has had a huge influx of young workers and immigrants in the last 20 years. They start their work years with low wages, dragging down the averages."

2007-11-20T09:44:00.000-06:00

A Growing Economy Has Boosted Tax Receipts & Cut The Deficit.

Those aren't my words but the words from a White House Press Release from October 11. Among the facts from the OMB and Treasury are:

the deficit declined by $250 billion in the past 3 years.
In February the Federal budget deficit for 2007 was projected to be $244 billion. Today's numbers show that the actual budget deficit is now just $163 billion.
As a percentage of the economy (1.2%), the deficit is now lower than the average of the last forty years.
This year tax revenues grew by $161 billion to reach $2.568 trillion, the highest level of Federal revenues ever recorded. That's an increase of 6.7 percent. And it builds on the 14.5 percent and 11.8 percent increase in revenues during the last two years.

Hint: projections are done years in advance are almost never accurate. It is heartening to see them moving in the right direction. Once again, the tax cuts are working. The White House is promoting the fact that tax relief plus spending restraint promotes economic growth. Only took them 7 years to figure that out.

The U.S. economy is in its 6th year of sustained growth
Since August 2003, the economy has added more than 8 million new jobs for 49 straight months of growth.
The national unemployment rate is at 4.7 percent, low by historical standards.

This press release is from early October and if you read between the lines it's easy to see that the WH was already preparing for a budget battle over entitlement spending by Congress.

2007-11-19T18:44:00.000-06:00

Birmingham, Alabama's largest city is fighting a multi-front battle.

Birmingham was just named the nation's 6th most dangerous city for the 2nd straight year. Through Sunday, there have been 79 homicides in Birmingham this year. There were 109 homicides in 2006.
Birmingham City Schools were recently described as "abjectly failing" by an educational think tank.
Businesses are leaving the Magic City (Saks, Parisians) and heading for the vibrant suburbs offering safety, and better education.

To combat these problems the newly crowned mayor has decided that his first order of business is going to be a 1% sales tax increase and to double the cost of business licenses. That is not the way to go if you need to attract and keep businesses. You don't punish them for doing business in your city, you reward them. Not to mention that an increase in sales tax is regressive and will depress sales leading to lesser revenues than estimated. Too often the governing body then raises taxes again to gets the same result. Also on the agenda is a plan to buy laptops for all children in grades 1-8 and to provide college scholarships for all graduates of Birmingham City Schools.

Larry Langford was elected Fairfield mayor in 1988. He successfully won tax increases in 1990 and 1996. He was elected Jefferson County Commission president in 2002 and persuaded the commission to raise the county's sales tax by 1 cent in 2004 for capital spending by county schools. (Data from Birmingham News) Some of Langford's previous business dealings have caught the eye of the Securities & Exchange Commission.

The mayor's proposal is aimed at generating revenue to build a domed stadium. Nobody can say who will play there or perform there but the mayor is going full speed ahead with his plan. He has also budgeted $1 million dollars for each of the 15 city councilmen and women to be used at their discretion. It sounds more like a payoff to me. At the very least you could say I am very skeptical of the new plan. The CEO of Alabama Power,a division of Southern Company, has been a vocal supporter of the dome stadium. Probably because if it fails he won't lose a dime and if it succeeds his company will be supplying power to a new stadium for years to come. He cannot lose.

2007-11-19T18:06:00.000-06:00

I was scammed this week but it's OK.
The bait arrived in the form of a forwarded e-mail giving directions on how to send Christmas cards to the troops at Walter Reed. Christmas cards, wounded soldiers alone for the Holidays, months of recovery; I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Having spent most of last Fall in the hospital myself and knowing how frustrating it can be, I felt this was a great way to show support and provide comfort to our troops. I forwarded ( i hate forwards) the e-mail to all my friends and family(so do my family and friends).

Today, I was sent a link to Snopes describing the exact same e-mail I had received. The kicker is that the post office will not accept mail addressed to, "A Recovering American Soldier" because of security purposes. Duh, I felt like such a rube. I had been had. Fortunately, Snopes listed several organizations that provide assistance to recovering soldiers and to pay for my stupidity, I will be donating to these worthwhile organizations. I can't donate to the magnitude of the "Harry Reid smear letter" but I can do my part. I encourage you all to do the same.

2007-11-19T17:22:00.000-06:00

The Politics of Planting via Hot Air.
It is no wonder most people distrust the media and politicians. It turns out that most of the people Wolf Blitzer called, "undecideds" in last week's CNN debate were former Democratic operatives and interns, and leaders of interest groups sympathetic to the Democratic Party. I can understand the argument that the questioners maybe undecided about their choice of Democratic candidate so why not say "Undecided Democratic voters" instead of giving the illusion that the questioners were on the fence between voting Republican or Democrat.

Also what's with the prescreened questions. Wasn't this the "YouTube- You Ask the Questions" debate? I guess prescreening prevents candidates from having to answer the tough questions like,"Boxers or Briefs" or "Brooks Brothers or J. Press." People are sick of politics and we are still a year out. The same goes for the Republican debate on Wednesday. I will be watching you CNN. I beg you, no more softballs please. This post sounds too much like something from the Huffington Post or Kos. Enjoy!!

2007-11-10T15:45:00.000-06:00

Questions plague Clinton Campaign in Iowa
Tuesday,Nov 6-After her speech, Clinton accepted questions. But according to Grinnell College student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff ’10, some of the questions from the audience were planned in advance. “They were canned,” she said. Before the event began, a Clinton staff member approached Gallo-Chasanoff to ask a specific question after Clinton’s speech. “One of the senior staffers told me what [to ask],” she said.

Clinton campaign also denied the practice of planting. “It’s not a practice of our campaign to ask people to ask specific questions,” said Mark Daley, Clinton’s Iowa Communications Director. But when directly asked if his statements meant that planting does not occur in the Hillary campaign, Daley could only say, “to the best of my knowledge.” “[Planting] is not something that is encouraged in our campaign,” he said.

Saturday, November 10th in SIOUX CITY, Iowa — Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s campaign admitted Friday that it planted a global warming question in Newton, Iowa, Tuesday during a town hall meeting to discuss clean energy. Clinton campaign spokesman Mo Elliethee admitted that the campaign had planted the question and said it would not happen again. "On this occasion a member of our staff did discuss a possible question about Senator Clinton's energy plan at a forum,” Elliethee said.

A reasonable question might ask,"Why the 4-day gap between being caught planting and admitting your Iowa Communication lied? Is this common practice on a campaign? Is it true that people don't pay attention to the news over the weekend and the admission that the Clinton campaign lied would not make as big a splash on Saturday morning? Or does this again bring up feelings of distrust and deceit from the Clintons in the 90s? It's up to the voters to decide. It feels like the 90s: OJ is on trial and Clinton's running for President.

The Edwards campaign continues to entertain me with this statement,"“It’s what the Clinton campaign calls the politics of planting.” Remember the Edwards campaign released, "The Politics of Parsinging" video last week. Joe Trippi, you magnificent b____d.

2007-11-10T15:14:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow is Veterans Day. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs says that Veterans Day is largely intended to thank veterans for their service, to acknowledge that their contributions to U.S. national security are appreciated, and to underscore the fact that all those who served - not only those who died - have sacrificed and done their duty. Veterans Day is celebrated the same day as Armistice Day, which is the anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended WWI in 1918. The major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Read President Bush's well-written and appropriate Veterans Day proclamation here.

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." ---George Orwell. Let us never forget their sacrifice yet always remember to give thanks to our veterans whom have given so much for our country. God Bless the U.S.A.
Remember their sacrifice. Video courtesy of the NRSC.

2007-11-08T13:50:00.000-06:00

Militant Group Is Out of Baghdad, U.S. Says- Good news from Iraq in the New York Times(eveen if it was on A19), hell must be freezing over.

BAGHDAD, Nov. 7 — American forces have routed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Iraqi militant network, from every neighborhood of Baghdad, a top American general said today, allowing American troops involved in the “surge” to depart as planned.

Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., commander of United States forces in Baghdad, also said that American troops had yet to clear some 13 percent of the city, including Sadr City and several other areas controlled by Shiite militias. But, he said, “there’s just no question” that violence had declined since a spike in June.

“The Iraqi people have just decided that they’ve had it up to here with violence,” he said, while noting that their demands for electricity, water and jobs have intensified. Hundreds, if not thousands, of displaced families are returning to their homes, but a majority of them are still afraid to go back to neighborhoods now segregated by sect. “Clearly,” General Fil said, “it will take some time for Baghdad to restore itself to what it was.”

He said that if 2007 was the year of security, 2008 would probably be “a year of reconstruction, a year of infrastructure repair, and a year of, if there’s going to be a surge, a year of the surge of the economy.”

2007-11-08T13:12:00.000-06:00

Alabama's Dumbest Criminals

Two men, at least one of which was believed to be armed with a gun, went inside the restaurant about 12:45 p.m. and demanded money when the restaurant was filled with the lunch crowd

Who robs a restaurant during lunch? Seriously? Who robs a restaurant with a BB gun? Who robs a restaurant that is full of witnesses in a building with walls made entirely of windows. Apparently that's how these 3 guys roll. They didn't even make it a mile before being stopped and arrested. They had to learn the hard way that a late-model red Ford Mustang doesn't blend in that well when you are leaving the scene of a crime that was witnessed by 30 people.

Someone placed a 911 call during the robbery, which allowed the information to be broadcast immediately, while the men still were inside the restaurant.

2007-11-08T12:34:00.000-06:00

"He Hates These Cans."Another movie quote applicable to the S-CHIP debate. Anytime there is a debate over health insurance, the standard line used against opponents of the bill is, "They Don't Care About The Kids." It is just as stupid and silly as when Steve Martin used it in _____(bonus points if you can name the movie).

On Tuesday, Oregon voters overwhelmingly (3-2) voted against Measure 50 which would have made their children's health plan universal. Let's look at the plan and see if we can learn anything from its failure. The plan would have:

broaden eligibility for Oregon's "Healthy Kids" S-Chip program to 300% of the federal poverty level.
allowed all families to opt in, regardless of income, though higher earners wouldn't get subsidies.
paid for the expansion with cigarette taxes, which would increase to $2.02 from $1.18 a pack

Sounds familiar, right. You think that Oregon would have learned something from the S-CHIP disaster proposed by Congress this year. They didn't. The legislator who initially proposed the measure blames it on Big Tobacco. What is interesting is the comments section below the story. Most of the comments I read were concerned about the same things most Conservatives were about S-CHIP; taxing vices, higher taxes, and paying for health insurance for the middle class. Here's more Portland,Oregon coverage and in the StatesmanJournal.

2007-11-08T12:10:00.000-06:00

Reason #378 I hope the Democratic nominee is Hillary

According to the latest RCP Averages Fred, Giuliani, and McCain are all within 7, 4, and 5 points respectively, of the Democratic front runner.
If you compare Romney vs. Clinton, the RCP Average puts Clinton ahead by 11 points. Just something to think about.
If you look at Fred, Rudy, and McCain vs. Edwards and Obama they are competitive and sometimes come out on town as is the case of Rudy vs. the Breck girl (Edwards).

Just something to think about when considering the "electability" aspect of each candidate. Right now, a vote for Mitt is a vote for GOP suicide. Kinda like Bob Dole in 1996. Dole is a war hero, a great man and legislator who waited his turn but looking back there is no way he could compete again Bill Clinton.

2007-11-07T12:37:00.000-06:00

Harri Ann Smith receives support in run to replace Terry Everett

State Sen. Harri Anne Smith, R-Slocomb, said Tuesday that she has received the unofficial backing of a group of Wiregrass business leaders and plans to run for Congress. Houston County Commission Chairman Mark Culver, an active Republican, said he believed Smith would be a strong candidate for the Republican nomination. “I think she will be an excellent candidate. She’s very electable and certainly a good campaigner, somebody the entire Wiregrass (AL-2) can get behind and hopefully the entire district.”

I am not too familiar with Smith but anyone who voted against the 62% pay raise the legislature voted themselves has got my vote. She is also one of the few legislators who aren't "double-dipping".
Hat tip to Doc, who was been following this for some time now.

2007-11-07T12:05:00.000-06:00

It is not too late for a Republicans Rally
In a follow up to my post,"GOP can win on Illegal Immigration." Michael Barone again addressed the subject in his latest column, "Wavering Republicans" He studied a focus group this past week and here is what he learned;

Many of these voters raised the issue of illegal immigration and were genuinely outraged by the large number of illegals in the United States and by weak enforcement (or non enforcement) of the law at the border and at workplaces. There was some clear condemnation of Bush here. At the same time, there was nothing to indicate that these attitudes were motivated by a dislike or prejudice against Latinos; to the contrary, one or two participants pointed out that illegal immigrants were hard
workers.

These voters were solidly arrayed against Hillary Clinton and also against her leading Democratic competitors Barack Obama and John Edwards. Indeed, they showed considerably more unambivalent vehemence in opposing Clinton than they showed in expressing support for any of the Republican candidates. So far during this cycle we have seen that the Democratic candidates are raising more money, generating more volunteers, getting more press coverage (of course, that reflects the press's biases to at least some extent)—all signs that the balance of enthusiasm favors the Democrats more next fall than it did the Republicans in 2004. The vehemence of these Republicans' opposition to Clinton suggests there's at least a possibility that enthusiasm on the Republican side may increase if and when she clinches the Democratic nomination.

The Republicans in the focus group are still undecided about their Presidential choice but there are 2 issues which can galvanize them: Illegal immigration and Hillary Clinton. I call the latter the "ABC factor" or Anybody But Clinton.

2007-11-07T11:26:00.000-06:00

Trouble At Home for Dirty Harry

The Las Vegas Review-Journal poll showed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's Unfavorable rating had moved past the 50 percent mark -- 51 percent, to be precise. His favorable rating was 32 percent, 2 points lower than embattled, lame duck President George W. Bush. The Review Journal's Sherman Douglas on Reid:

Let me spell out Harry's problem. No one can win a statewide race in Nevada on a platform that appears anti-military, anti-family, anti-marriage, anti-religion, anti-free speech, pro-illegal
immigration, pro-abortion, and pro-taxation. While Harry isn't all of that personally, he clearly projects elements of them all when he's doing the bidding of his party on the national stage. -(It also doesn't help Harry's numbers when he foolishly attacks Rush Limbaugh, only to have the conservative radio talk show host lash back in a brutally effective rebuttal for the entire nation to
hear.)

Does anyone know what the last Democratic Majority Leader in the Senate is doing now? He is not in the Senate. Tom Daschle was the figurehead for the left wing of the Democratic Party and defeated by young buck John Thune. While was Majority Leader, Daschle marched too far to the left and alienated the conservative citizens of South Dakota. Reid isn't up for re-election until 2010 but that gives him plenty of air time standing next to Nancy Pelosi explaining their views on impeachment, illegal immigration, and Rangel's "mother of all tax plans",the better for the GOP. Don't forget Harry's greatest hits; "We killed the Patriot Act" and "The war is lost."
To refresh your memory, here is what happened to the Patriot Act.

2007-11-06T16:09:00.000-06:00

The Gift That Keeps On Giving
The Democrats running for the highest office in the land keep providing much needed fodder for the GOP. First, it was Hillary's non-response during the debate. Of course this is a move to pacify the far left wing of the Democratic Party. Move On and Code Pink were pissed enough when Nancy said impeachment was "off the table. Her statement caused media whore Nancy Sheenhan to vow to challenge Pelosi for her San Francisco seat if Nancy didn't bring articles of impeachment against Bush Cheney. This move is clearly a feint by a no shot President to please the left-wing.
Dennis Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment for Vice President Cheney for high crimes and misdemeanors. Evidently his high crime was believing intelligence from no less than 3 foreign intelligence agencies. According to sources, Republicans changed their votes to kill the measure and force the Democrats to take a position on impeaching the Vice President.
Republican lawmakers and aides credited Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) for coming up with the idea.
-Update at 4:30 p.m. ET:

Perhaps we should pause to explain. When most Republicans unexpectedly -- and on orders of GOP leadership, the AP is reporting -- switched sides and voted against tabling the measure, they essentially forced Democrats to keep talking about it on the floor. Tabling the measure would have killed it.
Debate over Cheney's impeachment is in direct opposition to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's wishes. She has repeatedly said an impeachment of Cheney or President Bush is off the table. Thus, failing to table this measure is a essentially a jab in Pelosi's ribs.

The White House struck back at the do-nothing Congress;

"It is one thing for Congressman Kucinich to use this political ploy in his presidential campaign. It is another thing to do so on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Democrat-led Congress still has not sent the President a single appropriations bill. It's time to do so, our troops are waiting," Cheney spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said:

"This Congress has not sent a single appropriations bill to the presidents
desk this year... yet, they find time to spend an entire work period on futile
votes to impeach the vice president or to pass contempt citations against the
president's chief of staff and former counsel," referring to House efforts to
issue citations to former White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former counsel Harriet Miers for failing to respond to subpoenas.

2007-11-05T19:35:00.000-06:00

GOP Can Win on Illegal Immigration

Illegal Immigration is the only issue all Republican candidates can agree on. Even John McCain has backed away from his support for the failed "comprehensive immigration reform" package. At this moment the Republicans in the Senate are more willing than their Democratic counterparts to listen to the majority of Americans whom prefer enforcement first, even at the risk of offending portions of the Hispanic community. Look at the numbers on this CNN poll from 10/12-14 and even an idiot like me can see that this issue is a political goldmine.

"Would you like to see the number of illegal immigrants currently in this country increased, decreased, or remain the same?" Increased= 7% _____Decreased=69%_____Same=22%
"Do you think state governments should or should not issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants?"
.Should=23% ___Should Not =76% ____Unsure = 1%

Never has the Democratic murky position on illegal immigration or giving licenses to illegals been more clear than in Hillary Clinton's muddled flip-flopping' answer to Tim Russert's question of whether or not she agreed with Gov. Spitzer's plan to give licenses to illegals. Those questions aren't going away and all candidates will have to state their position clearly. Don't expect other Democrats to lay off Hillary's non response. Contrast these two polls;

One asked voters to pick two from a list of seven problems that explained "why the country is going in the wrong direction." The survey found that among independent voters, 40 percent -- by far the largest group -- picked this option: "Our borders have been left unprotected and illegal immigration is growing."
A major USA Today/Gallup poll review of where things stand a year before the election included a basic question which asked Americans “Looking ahead to next year’s presidential election, what will be the most important issues that you will take into account when deciding whom to vote for?” Only 2% of Democrats say that immigration issues are among the most important issues they will take into account when deciding on whom to vote.

I will be quite content with Democrat's ignoring this issue. Michael Barone wrote in a recent column stating that October 2007 may be the month that immigration becomes a key issue and a permanent fixture in presidential politics.

"The last several Democratic nominees could have said that they're just taking the same position as their Republican opponent. The 2008 nominee won't be able to say the same of hers or his (unless McCain gets the nod)."

"Which leaves Democratic politicians and political candidates out on a pretty flimsy limb. Most of them reflexively back a comprehensive bill, and some of them (like Bush and a number of Republicans backing such a bill) have dismissed opponents as racists. Most Democrats have also been backing bills extending various benefits to illegal immigrants, like the Dream Act for college education for illegals brought over as children. There are appealing arguments for such bills. But most voters reject them. And most voters certainly reject driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. That was one of the issues that led to the recall of Gov. Gray Davis in California in 2003.

E.J. Dione touched on the issue in a column entitled "Dems Face Immigration Dilemna":

In the short run, Clinton's exquisite calibration of her positions was the issue. But her debate jitters reflect a deeper worry among Democrats that Republicans are ready to use impatience with illegal immigration to win back voters dissatisfied with the status quo.
The issue is especially problematic because efforts to appease voters upset about immigration -- including a share of the African-American community -- threaten to undercut the Democrats' large and growing advantage among Latino voters. For Republicans, the issue is both a way of changing the political subject from Iraq, the economy and the failures of the Bush presidency, and a means for sowing discord in the Democratic coalition.

2007-11-05T16:22:00.000-06:00

ABC manufactures news in Birmingham while media calls it a "social experiment

ABC is doing a social experiment in Birmingham, Alabama that includes having same-sex couples show affection for each other in public, according to Birmingham police department sources. ABC was working on a week-long project to see how people would react to things like public displays of affection by gay and lesbian couples. It's funny how the merchant and the police officer call it a "project", not news.

This incident is laughable on so many levels. Michelle Malkin is on it with some history of ABC's "project."First, it is apparent that ABC's news shows are so bad they have to create what they call news to get people to watch their station. Read what UA Professor Gary Copeland said about ABC's "project" Gary A. Copeland, professor and chairman of the telecommunication and film department at the University of Alabama, said

such types of "gotcha" situations are not news and what ABC is doing doesn't have any of the features one would expect in a controlled experiment. He added that what the show is really doing is trading the embarrassment of other people for the story....."Not everyone who came by (will make) the show," he said of passersby. "They picked out the people they wanted to use in the show." "This is not some breaking news that will radically change the nation," he said. "This is just a piece that will attract the curiosity of viewers. And it could just as easily perhaps be done on an entertainment show like `World's Greatest Bloopers,'" he said.

Secondly, ABC's research into the location where they are staging this "project" is non-existent. The area is fairly well-known for homosexual activity.See here and here. Birmingham is the metropolis for Alabama. Did ABC think they could drive to Alabama, set up shop and the biggots would come running. Birmingham is the largest city, well-known for business and the arts and it would not be surprising to most to see a homosexual couple in town. This is the bustling urban center of Alabama So forget about any stereotypes that include overalls,bare feet, or waterhoses. Not that ABC will not find at least one ignorant hick to fulfill their blue state bias but because it happened in Alabama,that proves what redneck, backward hicks we are.

Take the word of the following concerned real people:
James Little, president of the Five Points Merchants Group, said

"Five Points is a diverse, urban, laid-back and open-minded area where people of
all cultures, races, and backgrounds interact. He said if the Birmingham segment is negative, it would destroy the work the merchants, residents and property owners have done to create a positive reputation for their area."

He said that besides filming gay couples, the crew had a girl running up and down the sidewalk in her pajamas as if she was crazy. "They were trying to create an image that does not exist," he said.

Kris Childs, owner of a Southside optical shop called iiis, said she was also concerned.

"If their motive is to make it look like people are going to have a bias against gay couples, we're not like that," she said. "This is misrepresentation to deliberately stage something and make it appear how they want to make it appear. We embrace everybody."
Two off-duty Birmingham police officers, who stood by both days to keep order, said they saw few people react to the scenes, but that some people did do double takes.

2007-11-04T19:22:00.000-06:00

Referendum C in Colorado.

In 1992. 53% of Colorado voters voted to place a TEL or Tax and Expenditure Limitation on state and local spending. Fashionably called TABOR,Colorado's Taxpayer Bill Of Rights was America's most stringent TEL. TABOR had three primary components:

All tax increases had to be approved by taxpayers.
Existing TELs could not be weakened without taxpayer approval.
Colorado's TEL limited growth in expenditures (spending) and revenues to the inflation rate plus population growth. It mandated that all revenue collected over the limit be refunded to taxpayers. TABOR established a low rate of budgetary growth and mandates immediate refunds of surplus revenues.

In other words if the legislature wanted to spend over a certain amount, they had to ask the public for permission first. Any surplus was refunded to taxpayers. Between 1997-2007, CO taxpayers received over $3.25 billion in tax rebates and a reduction in reduction in the state income tax rate from 5 percent to 4.63 percent.[9]. from the state. For a family of four, that is an extra $3,200 in their pocket. TABOR was passed through citizen initiative and there is some evidence that initiatives passed by interest groups and citizens are stronger forms of TELs. Sounds great, right.

Two years ago Colorado voters narrowly approved Referendum C which will allow the state to keep and spend $3 billion in surplus taxes instead of refunding it to taxpayers. For more on the tax increase see this Colorado organization; TAX INCREASE

Michael J. New describes Colorado's economy this way;

Colorado residents are enjoying some good times economically these days.
Unemployment is down, income growth is up, and tax receipts are soaring. In
fact, tax receipts grew by a whopping 13 percent in fiscal 2006. During the
1990s, Colorado taxpayers could look forward to tax relief during such times of
prosperity. This is because the Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR)
required that all surpluses over its tight revenue limit be immediately rebated
to taxpayers. In fact data from the Office of State Planning and Budgeting indicate that the legislature appropriated over 800 million dollars above the TABOR limit in both 2006 and 2007. This means that the average Colorado taxpayer has missed out on 910 dollars in tax rebates during the past two fiscal years

Colorado's economy grew faster than the national average after TABOR. Regrettably, Amendment 23 put K–12 education spending on autopilot and walled it off from the rest of the budget, putting other vital programs at odds with education. Sounds an awful lot like the separation of Alabama's General Fund and Education Fund. Tax cuts = more money in your pocket, less government growth, and an increase in tax revenue. Where have we seen this before.Maybe here?

2007-11-04T15:26:00.000-06:00

Debate on Torture,waterboarding, and the AG.

The Democrats injected torture into the debate as a red herring against the confirmation of Judge Mukasey as our new Attorney General. Mukasey was given broad support from Republicans and Democrats like Dianne Feinstein before and after the political theater started. Sen. Schumer issued a statement Sunday evening saying Mukasey could become "a consensus nominee": "

While he is certainly conservative, Judge Mukasey seems to be the kind of nominee who would put rule of law first and show independence from the White House, our most important criteria. "For sure we'd want to ascertain his approach on such important and sensitive issues as wiretapping and the appointment of US attorneys, but he's a lot better than some of the other names mentioned and he has the potential to become a consensus nominee."

If the question about his confirmation is really over waterboarding (or is it a "Wink,Wink" thing between the nominee and the Senate) then let's have an adult debate about waterboarding and Judge Mukasey's opinion keeping in mind these points:

Do we want the entire world to have the advantage of knowing our interrogation methods?

ABC News has already broadcast the six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" instituted in mid-March 2002. Their investigation revealed that only 3 have been waterboarded by the CIA. Quite frankly, the enhanced techniques are pretty weak. Throw in an "Indian burn" and the techniques described bear a striking resemblance to Boy Scout camp. I wouldn't be too scared knowing the worst thing that could happen to me is I get my shirt collar ripped or a belly slap.

Do we expect Iran, North Korea, the Taliban, or al-Queda to follow in our footsteps if we publicly outlaw "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" as John McCain and Colin Powell have suggested?

It is my opinion that the enemy we currently face will be undeterred by our adherence to the Geneva Conventions. An excellent book that details the years of training that interrogators go through develop the discipline to effectively match wits with Taliban and al-Queda for uninterrupted 24-hour shifts at a time to collect information bit-by-bit is "The Interrogators" by Chris Mackey (fictional name). The author makes the point that his team got less sleep than the terrorists because they had formal duties on top of interrogations

Does the Attorney General have a say in interrogation techniques or is the prohibition on torture a statutory issue? or Do the professionals of the CIA, Army,etc. have time to clear their methods through a lawyer in DC?

Interestingly, when the harrumphing senators who accuse Mukasey had a chance, twice, to specifically proscribe waterboarding, they passed on it. They could have done so in both the Detainee Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Instead, they passed the buck, settling on opposition to "cruel, human and degrading" practices.

Rather than buying into what Dick Durbin and Patrick Leahy say about the Judges' answers to their let's educate ourselves by looking at what the Judge said. Specifically, on the subject of waterboarding, Judge Mukasey wrote:

I do know ... that waterboarding cannot be used by the United States military
because its use by the military would be a clear violation of the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA). That is because waterboarding and certain other coercive interrogation techniques are expressly prohibited by the Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation, and Congress specifically legislated in the DTA that no person in the custody or control of the Department of Defense (DOD) or held in a DOD facility may be subject to any interrogation techniques not authorized and listed in the manual."

Waterboarding is clearly against the law for the American military. Waterboarding is clearly prohibited by the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Convention. It was again prohibited by the Detainee Treatment Act, which only covers military interrogations.

A powerful politician said this about torture and the "ticking bomb" scenario:

;"In the event we were ever confronted with having to interrogate a detainee with knowledge of an imminent threat to millions of Americans," then the decision to depart from standard international practices must be made by the president, and the president must be held accountable."

That politician was none other than Hillary Clinton.

2007-11-02T13:21:00.000-05:00

The Politics of Parsing from Redstate.
Clarifying HRC's position(s) from the debate the other night. You can guarantee this will be used in the general. I must give credit where credit is due, this video was originally put out by the Edwards campaign, then posted by Stop Her Now and then to Redstate

2007-11-02T13:10:00.000-05:00

It's Friday, I have been lazy all week so here's a link to a cool video on globalization.

glumbert - Shift Happens

2007-11-02T12:48:00.000-05:00

SCHIP Part II cont.

Michelle Malkin has the latest roll call on the Senate passing 64-30 another version of the children's health insurance program which will be vetoed by the President.

The Senate acted after the bill was approved by House of Representatives last week in a 265-142 vote that was short of the two-thirds majority needed to overturn a veto by Bush. Bush vetoed an earlier version of the bill that the House last month failed to override. The bill would provide $60 billion in funding for the program over five years, compared with the current $25 billion five-year funding level. The tobacco tax increase, raising the tax on cigarettes by 61 cents to $1 per pack, would cover the added cost.

Senator Jim DeMint applauds the benefits of a compromise bill offered by Mel Martinez.

Rather than expand the government-run SCHIP program to cover middle-income children in homes making more than $80,000 a year (which will include over 70% of America's children), our plan reauthorizes SCHIP to ensure poor children continue to receive health care. The plan goes further to tackle the problem of the uninsured by providing a tax credit to middle class families for their children's health insurance.
This would allow families to purchase health plans for their kids that they choose, rather than being handed a one-size-fits-all Washington-run plan.
Another benefit of this approach is that unlike the Democrat's SCHIP proposal, our plan would not force children off private insurance and onto government plans. By turning patients into shoppers we will inject more choice and competition into the health care market resulting in more competitive prices for health care premiums. All told, the tax credit approach provides health care to 10.5 million children whereas the Democrat SCHIP plan forces 1.2 million kids onto government rolls. Through this innovative and (free market)approach we offer better coverage to far more.

2007-11-02T12:23:00.000-05:00

The Top 100 Most Influential Conservatives & Liberals in the U.S.

As rated by the The Telegraph of U.K. The list is interesting but is 2008 Presidential candidate heavy. Four of the of top 20 conservatives are Presidential candidates. On this side of the pond, a lot of folks would find it difficult to find 4 candidates that fit their definition of a conservatives in the entire Republican field. The paper also equates party loyalty with either a conservative or liberal philosophy. The top 20 on the liberal side are not pols or experts but interest group organizers, or wives of Presidential candidates. The top 20 Conservatives are mainly 1st round draft picks for the next Republican administration. The paper adopted this formula; anything right of centre = Conservative; left of centre = Liberal. Makes you question where the centre is. The selection process includes this caveat;

When in doubt, we have leant towards those
likely to be most influential in the future rather than those whose careers and
impact lies in the past. But some historical figures cast such a long shadow
that it would have been perverse to have excluded them.
Feel free to list your top 5 most influential (living and nonliving)
conservatives.

2007-10-30T14:13:00.000-05:00

Judging from the comments and emails I have gotten, I think most of the readers of this blog fall into the 59 percentile. h'tip to HOT AIR. Background on DREAM Act here.

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey
found that only 22% of voters support the proposal introduced
by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). The Dream Act would have given legal status to
children of illegal aliens who complete two years of college or military
service. That low level of support is very similar to support for the
“comprehensive” reform measure that failed in June.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of all
voters oppose the Dream Act concept. Republicans oppose it by a 5-to-1
margin and unaffiliateds are opposed by a 3-to-1 margin. Democrats are a bit
more evenly divided—49% opposed and 31% in favor—but Nancy Pelosi’s party
certainly doesn’t provide a base of support for the Dream Act.

2007-10-30T13:58:00.000-05:00

Author, Alabama native, to be honored at White House.

The White House on Monday announced the recipients of the 2007 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest US civilian honor, including a Cuban dissident, Liberia's president, and a beloved US author, Harper Lee. The ceremony will take place on November 5th at the White House. I wonder if Ms. Lee will show up. She has recently forgone her reclusive ways of the past to actually appear in public and accept awards from the University of Alabama. Lee is of course,the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of "To Kill A Mockingbird." See my thoughts about Ms. Lee and her work from this earlier post.

The other five winners include the 1992 Nobel economics prize winner Gary Becker; Human Genome Project leader Francis Collins; US civil rights leader Benjamin Hooks; former House Foreign Affairs committee chairman Henry Hyde; and groundbreaking television executive of C-SPAN, Brian Lamb.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom, established in 1963, is awarded for an honoree's "especially meritorious contribution" to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, or for their accomplishments in the areas of culture or "other significant public or private endeavors."

2007-10-30T10:46:00.000-05:00

SCHIP Fun. "You know, for kids."
(bonus points if anyone can tell what Coen Bros. movie that line came from) Hat tip to HOT AIR.

This SCHIP never ends. Ridiculously apparent item of the day= a children's health bill dependent on an increase in tobacco use. Only our Congress. More people smoking = more people needing medical care. What could go wrong? The Heritage Foundation has a list of problems associated with making this bill dependent on smokers. The most obvious is that the Surgeon's General have been trying to get people to quit smoking since 1960. The others are;

tobacco tax disproportionately burdens low-income Americans, lacks long-term stability, and ultimately results in significant shifting of health care costs onto others.
With the number of smokers already declining, a tobacco tax would further reduce the number of smokers, thereby eroding the funding source.
To produce the revenues that Congress needs to fund SCHIP expansion through such a tax would require 22.4 million new smokers by 2017.

Check out the Heritage charts, they are really cool.

2007-10-30T10:28:00.000-05:00

Maxim magazine releases list of the "World's Unsexiest Women"
Here are the Top Five;

Sarah Jessica Parker
Amy Whinehouse
Sandra Oh
Madonna
Britney Spears -Contributing to Brit’s “unsexiness,” the magazine cites her two kids, two ex-husbands, a slight weight gain and “losing the ability to perform.”

I don't know how many are on the entire list but the critiques of the women are brutal. Maxim is known for risque layouts and usually aims for listing the World's Sexiest Women; publishing this list seems cruel and unusual.

2007-10-29T13:33:00.000-05:00

English the official language of Alabama? No, not really, says court.

A sharply divided (5-4) state Supreme Court on Friday ruled that although Alabama's Constitution makes English the state's official language, it does not restrict offering driver's license tests in other languages. Amendment 509 requires that English be the official language of Alabama overwhelmingly passed through referendum in 1990.

Riley's attorney argued to the Supreme Court that by giving the test in a
person's native language, it would help them more easily assimilate into a
community and gain access to education and jobs.

This is the dumbest argument I have ever heard. It is true only if the communities, education, and jobs were also given in a person's native language. But they are not. This is America, these things they are given in English. This requirement works to the detriment of immigrants by not making them assimilate into our country. In my humble opinion we are doing a disservice by not asking that immigrants learn English. English must be learned in order to be successful in America and the world. English is the global language of business and we are not doing anybody any favors by making their lives easier in the beginning. Another problem is that this ruling creates a slippery slope for all signage and literature in the state. What's next? A suit to change all traffic signs into the metric system and the Spanish language?

In a concurring opinion, Smith wrote that although Amendment 509 guarantees English as Alabama's official language, "it does not expressly require that all government business be conducted in English." What the hell good is it? How toothless is our constitution when words like "official" don't mean anything. Webster's defines "official' as prescribed or recognized as authorized i.e.an official language.

In his dissent, Bolin said driver's license tests are possibly the most common experience where the state and its citizens interact.
"If state officials truly are to maintain English as 'the official language' of this state, can it seriously be questioned but that the state should communicate with its citizens in English, at least where there is no compelling reason for it not to do so?" he said. Amen, brother.

2007-10-29T13:02:00.000-05:00

More leaks coming from House Judiciary Committee than White House?

The committee had set up a form on the committee's website for people to blow the whistle privately about abuses in the Department of Justice. Although the panel said it would not accept anonymous tips, it assured those who came forward that their identity would be held in the "strictest confidence."
But in an email sent out today, the committee inadvertently sent the email addresses of all the would-be whistle blowers to everyone who had written in to the tipline. The committee email was sent to tipsters and whistle blowers who had used the website.
The mistake happened when the email addresses were put in the "To" field instead of the "Bcc" field. The Committee has been a leaky faucet of sorts concerning supposedly confidential information and the A-USA investigations. I don't think her testimony is seen as valueable for either Democrats or Republicans. Neithe side can figure what to make of it. I sure can't.

The chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee has written a letter to
Alabama lawyer Jill Simpson, apologizing for the way a 143-page transcript
of her interview last month with committee staff was released to the
public.Simpson said Friday that she had an agreement with committee
officials that she would be notified before the statement was released. In the
statement, Simpson told attorneys for Democrats and Republicans on the committee about her claims that Republicans had political motivation for the investigation
and prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.

The transcript was released to some Alabama reporters by the committee's Republican counsel.
But in a statement Friday, ranking Republican member Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said Time magazine had already obtained a copy of the transcript before the release to Alabama reporters. "Any accusation of a 'leak' of the transcript after it was in the public domain and in the hands of Time is disingenuous and without merit," Smith said in the statement.

Jill Simpson of Rainsville also told congressional staff that she spoke at different times over several months with Siegelman, his supporters and Gov. Bob Riley's political opponents before deciding to write the May 21 affidavit used to promote a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing on the prosecution of Siegelman and his co-defendant, former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy. Both are now serving prison terms.

2007-10-27T12:02:00.000-05:00

Hollywood vs. the War

Just backing up what I touched on in the last post. Michelle Malkin has written here and here on the contrast between Hollywood today and now. Even athletes like Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams left behind relatively cushy jobs to join the service. Chef Julia Child worked for the OSS (the Navy turned her down because she was too tall at 6'2). Here's a complete list. Notice all the athletes, writers, and actors.

Hollywood celebrities of the past didn't just play soldiers in front of the
cameras. They volunteered to put their lives on the line for America. Clark
Gable joined the Army Air Corps at 41, became a B-17 air gunner, and earned the
Air Medal and Distinguished Flying Cross. Jimmy Stewart led B-24 bombing raids
over Germany. They both appeared in pro-America documentaries, produced by the military-operated First Motion Picture Unit, when not in combat. Director Frank
Capra made films for the U.S. government, including the seven-part Why We Fight
(1942-44). Big-band leader Glenn Miller led the U.S. Army Air Force band in
Europe and died for his country when his plane went down in the English Channel.

2007-10-27T11:17:00.000-05:00

WSJ Interview with "Lone Survivor" Marcus Luttrell.
On Monday Lt. Michael Murphy was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor
I have no military background so I wouldn't try to understand what military life is like or what they go through on a day-to-day basis. I always felt I could understand what Eric Bana's character says at the end of Black Hawk Down. After making it back to the stadium, he is telling Josh Hartnett's character why he does it. His friends say he must like killing people or that he is 'some kinda war junkie." Bana says," I just smile because they won't understand, it's about the guy next to you."The same can be said for family, close friends, and even not so close friends when they need your help. From the outside looking in, you cannot understand and from the inside looking out, you can't explain it.

"All I wanted to do was stop talking" about what happened in Afghanistan, Mr. Luttrell says, "and now I'm neck-deep in it." Another frustration is the inadequacy of words to convey the experience. "I can sit here and tell you that I got into a gunfight," Mr. Luttrell says, "but you can't put it into words. Your heartbeat doesn't raise, the hair on the back of your neck doesn't stand up when
I tell you that. When you're out there--the stuff we get into--people get sick.
You get so scared, you urinate on yourself. That's fear."

In the months following the mountain fight, queries from family and friends about the gun battle and debriefings following inaccurate news reports (such as one announcing his death) on the incident became such a distraction, Mr. Luttrell says, that it was difficult to concentrate on his SEAL duties.

"Normally I wouldn't talk about any of our operations. This one wouldn't leave me alone," he says. "It kept banging on my door and I had to do something about it." The solution, he thought, would be to set the facts down in print so that they would be on the public record. Then maybe he could move on.

If you look around and see all the movies Hollywood has created (because they are fiction) lately and they are mostly despicable, garbage picking at worst stories out there: Redacted, Rendition, Lions for Lambs and the one Tommy Lee Jones was in. America knows this and they don't care and they don't go see these movies. Stories like Mr. Luttrell's and Mike Murphy's are more in line with America's sense of respect and view of the Armed Forces. We may not all agree on everything but we'll be damned if we pay to let some voyeur in a director's chair bring down our fighting men. When will Hollywood ever learn.

Hollywood, he says, has no idea what war is like. That's why he's wary of negotiations currently under way to film "Lone Survivor." If it happens, he says with the trace of a grimace, he'll probably "go out there and help," otherwise it might turn into "a love story" or a special-effects extravaganza with "people spinning from wires, which it wasn't. It was about death and people dying."

It should be noted that Mr. Luttrell is giving away his income from "Lone Survivor," reportedly putting it in a trust to aid military charities and the families of the dead soldiers, although now he says simply: "I'm in control of it so it goes to the right places."

2007-10-26T15:36:00.000-05:00

Week in Review

New docs provide further questions on the integrity of TNR "Shock Troops" author and article.
S-CHIP Part II
DREAM Act defeated.
Judge Southwick is finally confirmed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Fred Thompson sums up the judge's qualifications;

His opponents do not question Judge Southwick’s qualifications to sit on the federal appeals court. Indeed, they cannot. Judge Southwick served on the Mississippi Court of Appeals from that court’s very inception in January 1995 through December 2006. Prior to serving as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Division, from 1989 to 1993, he was in a general civil private practice for 12 years. He’s taught law as an adjunct professor at Mississippi College School of Law since 1998. He’s also served his country in Iraq, fulfilling his National Guard duty as Deputy Staff Judge Advocate from August 2004 to July 2005, and then as Staff Judge Advocate until January 2006. Even the American Bar Association, which often treats conservative judicial nominees unfairly, unanimously gave Judge Southwick the institution’s highest possible rating.

Cloture vote 62 yeas. Final vote 59 yeas. The Ds from red states who voted no (and also voted no on cloture):
Up in 2008:Landrieu (D-LA)Baucus (D-MT)Rockfeller (D-WV)
Not up in 08:Casey (D-PA)Nelson (D-FL)Reid (D-NV)Webb (D-VA)Tester (D-MT)Salazar (D-CO) (but voted yes on cloture).

Rangel releases "the mother of all tax increases." Via Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Jim McCrery: This is the largest individual income tax increase in history. The bill will add a 4% surtax on Americans earning more than $150,000 a year ($200,000 for couples). That is on top of the scheduled expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. So, under Democrats’ plan, over the next few years, the individual income top tax rate in the United States will rise from 35% to 44%. See below for more commentary on the proposal:

Raisign taxes is an accomplishment?- Rep. Patrick McHenry
Larry Kudlow
WSJ Editorial

2007-10-25T22:01:00.000-05:00

The S-CHIP hits the fan part II? or III?
background here.

via Michelle Malkin.
The House passed a revised children’s health proposal Thursday,265-142, but not by the two-thirds margin that supporters will need if President Bush vetoes the measure as promised. The vote is still 7 shy of overcoming a Bush veto. 14 GOPers were unavailable to vote, a majority of those were in Southern California tending to their districts. GOP leadership questioned the timing of the vote with so many our of town. The rumors are that supporters of the bill had bough air time and ads aimed at GOPers who were in shaky districts and the vote had to take place today for those ads to be effective.

2007-10-25T21:06:00.000-05:00

Earmarks or Providing Health Insurance to Children?

That is the question asked by Senator Tom Coburn when he proposed an amendment on Tuesday that would have barred the use of funds for earmarks within the Labor-HHS appropriation until all children under the age of 18 were covered by health insurance. Guess how the vote went. The Senators voted overwhelmingly (68-26) not to give all children health insurance to children but to make sure all their pet projects were still in place.Here is the roll. Most of those who voted against the motion to table or support Coburn's amendment were Republicans save Clare McCaskill and Russ Feingold. The statement of purpose of Coburn's bill amendment states, "To require Congress to provide health care for all children in the U.S. before funding special interest pork projects."

This is a tiny little amendment that says a lot about the priorities of members of the U.S. Senate. I honestly think that the Senate has forgotten that the money they spend on Hippie Museums and other pet projects has to come from somewhere, or more accurately someone.

Senator Jeff Sessions voted in favor of Coburn's amendment but Alabama's' other senator I am ashamed to say voted to table (or against) the amendment living up to his reputation as Citizens Against Government Waste's Porker of the Month. Since October 1, the senator has issued 16 press releases, of which 11 related to earmarks. Ironically, his first press release of the month was to announce the introduction of a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. Talk about covering your bases. I feel like writing my Senator and asking him to name a building or maybe even a tree after me.

2007-10-24T15:04:00.000-05:00

The South Rises

An excellent article by Ed Lasky from The American Thinker telling me what I already knew about the South. A few excerpts:

The top 10 states in terms of generosity per capita are all Southern states. New Hampshire, Massachusetts (Kennedy -land), New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Connecticut are at the bottom of the barrel.

On the South's propensity towards religion;

Evangelicals who attend religious services weekly, when compared with average Americans, are less likely to cohabit as young adults (1% versus 10% of other young adults), to bear a child outside of wedlock (12% versus 33% of other moms), and to divorce (7% versus 9%) and are likelier to be happier. Frequent churchgoers have an average 9 percent higher income than those who do not attend church, are less likely to be on welfare, and live longer.

Patriotism;

Our Army is composed of volunteers and to a disproportionate extent they hail from the South. The South accounts for 40 percent of all Army officers. The Defense Department has found that their efforts to recruit volunteers from Northern states are so fruitless that it has been shutting down offices throughout the region.

Creativity and Growth;

FedEx (Memphis) was a revolutionary company that has transformed transportation and business logistics in America. Wal-Mart (Bentonville,AR) has been a pioneer in bringing low prices to the American consumer and has immeasurably benefited the lifestyles of Americans, especially lower income people; Tyson Foods, Sanderson Farms, Smithfield Foods, Cal-Maine Foods (the number one egg producer in the nation); innumerable soybean farmers are protein factories that have fed America and are feeding the world (and helping our balance of payments). America's largest bank, Bank of America, is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina

2007-10-24T14:50:00.000-05:00

DREAM Act Defeated 52-44

3/5 vote required to invoke cloture.Hot Air has the roll. Pleased to say that Alabama Senators Sessions and Shelby voted Nay. Thanks to Michelle for the update and reader Greg for the photo shop.

2007-10-23T12:22:00.000-05:00

The Farm Bill

The Senate and the House are expected to soon finish haggling on final details of the five-year, $286 billion farm bill, with the measure possibly reaching President Bush's desk by the end of this week. I urge a swift veto for these reasons;

Most of the subsidies go to corporations and wealthy socialites, not actual farmers.

As the Environmental Working Group’s priceless Farm Subsidy Database reveals, philanthropist Mark Rockefeller received $228,350 in conservation subsidies between 2001 and 2005 for his Idaho farm. His brother, banking legend David Rockefeller, scored $29,615, thanks to his Hudson Valley farm. Edgar Bronfman Sr., former CEO of the now-swallowed Seagram spirits company, distilled $17,455 in taxpayer-funded farm subsidies between 2003 and 2005.The country's 4th largest recipient, The Arkansas’s Department of Corrections locked up $1,966,597 in government greenbacks between 2003 and 2005.

The Rockefellers and Bronfman are just three of the 562 New Yorkers EWG identified as urban farmers who Washington supported between 2003 and 2005. These New Yorkers included: Nevitt Nugent Jenkins: $1,647 Brock Seawell: $2,939 Leonard “Lipstick Mogul” Lauder: $3,015 Grant Thornbrough: $29,523 Norman Champ III: $127,114.

Its fiscally irresponsible to force taxpayers to pay these estates to grow ( or in some cases, not to grow) crops.

Heritage Foundation fiscal affairs analyst Brian Riedl calculates that these boondoggles cost a typical American family $322 in taxes annually. Farm programs often hike crop prices, artificially boosting grocery bills.

The Farm Bill produces a gross violation of basic free-market principles.

The USDA began subsidizing farmers during the Great Depression. It was a move to save half the country's livelihood and entire food source. Nowadays, farmers, which make up a substantially smaller portion of our economy, choose what to grow based on what is subsidized, not what will fetch the highest price at market. The 2007 version, like its predecessors, retains a complex system through which corn, wheat, soybean, rice and cotton growers concentrated in a handful of Southern and Midwestern states receive billions through price guarantees and direct subsidies. Pelosi says that because subsidies will now be extended to some new fruits and vegetables, this is an improvement. No sale. Government subsidies have no place in an industry that racks up billions in profits.

I imagine the proliferation of subsidies has a lot to do with politics. The Iowa primary can make or break a Presidential candidate. The support of Iowans is largely tied to a candidate's support for corn subsidies. Nobody would make it out of Iowa alive if they attempted to discontinue corn subsidies to farmers. The political solution is thus more complicated than the policy solution. Last I heard, the ethanol business was doing pretty good and it shouldn't take a government subsidy to grow and sell it for profit. (See ethanol fuel in Brazil) If a producer can't make a profit then the farmer will choose to grow another product or find efficient and innovative ways to cut production costs and thus make a profit off his time/work/creativity. If an agricultural product can't make it on its own without subsidies then it should not be grown.

2007-10-23T11:28:00.000-05:00

The DREAM Act lives on (hat tip to Dinton)

Yes,we thought it was dead when Dingy Harry pulled it from a DoD authorization bill.
Last night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) filed to invoke cloture on a motion to use Senate Rule XIV to bring S. 2205, Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin’s (D-Ill.) new stand-alone DREAM Act amnesty bill, to the Senate floor without ever having been debated in committee. The cloture vote, for which 60 YES votes are necessary to prevent a filibuster on the measure, is set for Wednesday, October 24.

The DREAM Act grants instant amnesty to any alien who can demonstrate that he/she:

has maintained continuous presence in the United States for five years and was not yet 16 years old upon initial entry, but is no older than 30 years of age;
is of "good moral character" and is not inadmissible or deportable on certain criminal grounds or on the basis of being a risk to national security; and
has been admitted to an institution of higher education, has attained a high school diploma, or has obtained a GED in the United States.

Wait,there is more under this bill, once an alien files an application for amnesty,

the Federal government would be prohibited from deporting him.
Federal officers would be prohibited from either using information from the application to deport the alien or sharing that information with another federal agency, under threat of up to $10,000 fine.
Consequently, an alien's admission that he has violated Federal immigration law could not be used against him – even if he never had any chance of qualifying for the DREAM Act amnesty in the first place.
The DREAM Act also would make illegal aliens eligible for Federal student loans and Federal work-study programs – another benefit that law-abiding foreign students cannot receive – all at taxpayer expense.

Please tell me how the government has any way of verifying that someone met the first requirement. DHS let a man with drug-resistant TB cross the border 76 times before taking 6 weeks to notify its own border security. What makes you think that DHS can verify whether or not someone had not reached the age of 16 before entering our country. What exactly is the definition of "good moral character"? What I consider good moral character is not illegally entering a country in the first place but Senators Reid and Durbin will let the government decide for us. Government is never the answer. Basically, all illegal aliens have to do to meet these requirements is walk into an office and signing a form saying they meet the requirements.

MICHELLE MALKIN brought up another ramification regarding fairness if this bill is signed into law.

"An illegal alien who applies for this nightmare of an amnesty would be
allowed to count his years under “conditional” green card status toward the five
years needed for citizenship. On top of that, the illegal alien could claim
“retroactive benefits” and start the clock running the day that the DREAM Act is enacted. In combination, these two provisions would put illegal aliens on a high-speed track to U.S. citizenship, moving from illegal alien to U.S. citizen in as little as five years. Lawfully-present aliens, meanwhile, would have to continue to follow a slower path to citizenship."
Alabama Senators Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions are on the record opposing this bill
UPDATE: Send a FAX to your representative and ask them to oppose the DREAM Act Amnesty

2007-10-22T13:38:00.000-05:00

A Convenient Lie? (H'tip to Hot Air)

John Stossel takes on Al Gore in this 20/20 segment.In order to shoe how PC I can be here's a link to a WPost article which describes a "Day After Tomorrow "scenario caused by global warming: "Greenland's moving glaciers pick up speed, likely bringing in this century the first three feet of a possible 23-foot rise of the seas that would ultimately inundate New York City and South Florida and drive millions of people from low-lying areas of Asia." Well at least that will cure our drought.

2007-10-22T13:06:00.000-05:00

Jindal wins

U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal easily defeated 11 opponents and became the state's first nonwhite governor since Reconstruction, decades after his parents moved to the state from India to pursue the American dream.
Jindal, a 36-year-old Republican, will be the nation's youngest governor. He had 53 percent with 625,036 votes with about 92 percent of the vote tallied. It was more than enough to win Saturday's election outright and avoid a Nov. 17 runoff.

Jindal, who takes office in January, pledged to fight corruption and rid the state of those "feeding at the public trough," revisiting a campaign theme. "They can either go quietly or they can go loudly, but either way, they will go," he said, adding that he would call the Legislature into special session to address ethics reform. Political analysts said Jindal built up support as a sort of "buyer's remorse" from people who voted for Blanco last time and had second thoughts about that decision. Blanco was widely criticized for the state's response to Hurricane Katrina and she announced months ago that she would not seek re-election.

GOP focuses sights on Sen. Mary Landrieu in2008--Currently, usage of the Internet is tax free. Last night, Republicans offered S. 2128, the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act, on the floor of the U.S. Senate. The bill would permanently extend the current ban on taxingthe Internet.Mary Objects: After Republicans asked the Senate to consider the bill, Mary Landrieu stepped up to voice objection, the second time she has objected to a permanent ban.

2007-10-22T12:31:00.000-05:00

Debate Highlights

If you missed it, here is a good live blog, video clips, and commentary.

All of the candidates looked sharper, their digs at each other were a bit harsher. They are still fighting over who is the most conservative. At one point, the debate turned into a "Who can Bash HRC the hardest." Bad decision FOX, no wonder she won't come on your network for a debate. If you missed it here is what you need to know to survive at the water cooler;

McCain on the Hippie museum I brought up here "Hillary tried to get a million dollars for the Woodstock museum. I understand it was a major cultural and pharmaceutical event. I couldn't attend. I was tied up at the time." thanks to RedState and Jim Geraghty.
In allusion to President Bush's "I looked into Putin's soul" statement, about which he said, "I looked into Putin's eyes and saw three letters: K...G...B."
Best lines of his campaign so far.

2007-10-22T11:27:00.000-05:00

The Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility

Anytime I see universities teaching "ethics" or social responsibility it makes me think twice. It think about the Democrats running the "most ethical congress ever" and Lynne Stewart sitting on an ethics board at a symposium at Hofstra Law. Stewart defended Abdel Rahman or "the blind sheik" who was convicted of planning multiple terrorist attacks in New York City in 1996 . Stewart was disbarred and convicted of conspiring to defraud the United States government, conspiring to provide and conceal material support to terrorists, providing and concealing that support, and making false statements yet Hofstra had this former radical and conduit for terrorists as a lecturer at an ethics seminar.

So anyway I was gloating over my alma mater's victory over Tennessee this weekend when I noticed this announcement for the final round of the Moral Forum. The issue at hand is whether Congress should pass the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act. (which I blogged about here ) Their website states that the DREAM act would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who entered the country before they turned 16 and have lived in the United States for at least five years. The students would be granted a six-year provisional legal status during which they must attend college (for two years) or serve in the military for at least two years before being eligible for citizenship.

I become even more skeptical of my alma mater's when I read the purpose of Moral Forum :"Moral Forum seeks to help students distinguish between making reasoned judgments about the moral legitimacy of views as opposed to being intolerant and disrespectful toward individuals or cultural groups." So according to this statement if you are against the rewarding illegal aliens for wrong behavior then you are being intolerant or disrespectful towards individuals or cultural groups. I don't like this line of reasoning and I will be following up on it.

2007-10-19T17:14:00.000-05:00

It has been a good week for conservatives.

The President's veto of the expansion of the SCHIP program was upheld.
Porkbusters Jon Kyl and Tom Coburn successfully defunded a $1 million dollar earmark for the Bethel Performing Arts Center or the Woodstock Museum in New York. The sponsors of the earmark were Sen(s). Clinton and Schumer whom received $29k from the proposed recipients of the earmark. The $1 mil was transferred it to the Maternal and Child Health block grant program.
Harry Reid eats crow on the Senate floor over the success of the E-Bay auction of his "smear letter" to Rush Limbaugh. Bottom line, The Marine Corps- Law Enforcement Foundation receives just over $4 million dollars in charitable donations.

2007-10-19T16:11:00.000-05:00

Why is Moonshine Illegal ?
(H/tip to Slate)
You buy the ingredients and put in the time and effort to create something of value out of a sugar mash but yet in the eyes of the government you have broken the law. In the business world creating something out of nothing is called entrepreneurship. I even learned how to make it in my high school chemistry class. This whole brouhaha comes down to one thing: money. It seems the government's main beef with bootleggin' is that it deprives the government of an opportunity to dip their hands in your pockets or to tax you.

Uncle Sam takes an excise tax of $2.14 for each 750-milliliter bottle of 80-proof spirits, compared with 21 cents for a bottle of wine (of 14 percent alcohol or less) and 5 cents for a can of beer.

Government prosecutors point out that moonshine poses serious health risks, including heavy-metal toxicity. So, how dangerous is it? There's no inspection of the manufacturing process, so quality—and levels of contamination—vary.

In 2001,Representative Stupak introduced a bill To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow distilled spirits to be produced in dwelling houses, other connected structures, and certain other premises. It received one vote and thus, never made it out of Committee.

2007-10-19T16:02:00.000-05:00

Fall Friday Funny
This is from Peggy Noonan's column today, "Sex and the Presidency." The whole column is great as always but this line concerning Hillary Clinton hits the nail on the head; She is the smile on the Halloween pumpkin that knows the harvest is coming. She's even putting a light inside.

2007-10-18T13:53:00.000-05:00

House votes to sustain SCHIP veto.

First off, I am proud that all 5 Republicans from the Alabama delegation voted to uphold the veto. Only the Democrats, Artur Davis and Bud Cramer voted to override. Republicans stood firm against moving American in the direction of socialized medicine today, voting 273-156 to sustain President Bush’s veto of the $35-billion expansion of SCHIP. Michelle Malkin has an excellent recap of today’s events and Ed Morrissey of Captain’s Quarters blogged about the debate from start to finish. Today at 3 p.m. Republicans will unveil their alternative.

I expect the Republican alternative to be the first step towards a compromise. Apparently there was no discussion of a compromise between party leaders the first time. Then we will see how much the Democratic leadership wants to back down. They outright lost this round. Any new bill or compromise is another win for Republicans including President Bush and thus a loss for excessive spending, middle-class entitlements, and liberal policies. I choose to ignore the fact that President Bush is a few years and many spending bills too late to the ideas of fiscal restraint, limited government, and the veto pen. At this moment I am just glad he finally came around.

2007-10-17T22:42:00.000-05:00

Newest Medal of Honor recipient
(Click photo to see video)

Lt. Michael Murphy, leader of Seal Team 10. For background on why he is being awarded the Medal of Honor see my earlier post on his fellow SEAL teammates and "lone survivor", Marcus Luttrell . NBC and Brian Williams really did a good job with this story. They even show some purported Taliban footage of the battle and snippets of an interview with his parents. This guy's story will be on the big screen one day.

2007-10-17T19:01:00.000-05:00

2 Things that are certain in life: Death and Taxes.

For the most part, we only have control over the tax part. As Congressional Democrats work on an overhaul of the tax system, one thing seems to be clear. There will not be any discussion or debate about repealing the Death Tax. Forget that those hit have already paid an income tax,property tax and of course sales tax. In 2011 the Death Tax takes over 50 percent of any inheritance over $1 million. Think about all the family farms in the Mid-West and the West. They basically have to give the government half of what they own. 50% is an awful lot to take from farmers who aren't exactly growing money to begin with.
In 2001, Congress voted to fully and permanently repeal the death tax in 2010. Due to arcane Senate budget rules, the death tax returns in 2011 in full force. With one stroke past Midnight, the death tax rate will climb from 0% to 55%. Estates worth more than $1 million—not much when homes, small businesses, and family farms are totaled—will face this tax.

The death tax "hasn't been part of the discussions," the aide said of the closely guarded "mother" of all tax reform bills being written by committee Chairman Rep. Charles B. Rangel, New York Democrat. Those two words in bold don't exactly give me that peaceful, easy, feeling.

Mrs. Pelosi said after House Democrats last week rejected a Republican bid to eliminate the death tax. "Whatever we take up on our taxation [policy] will be about simplification. It will be about fairness. It will be about strengthening the middle class."

Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican. "We believe it is fundamentally un-American to tax our citizens upon their death, while Democrats appear to believe this form of double taxation is a fundamental right of the federal government."

Mrs. Pelosi wants to talk about fairness. Take a look at this graph showing the average income tax rates from 1990-2005. A few observations

Tax rates on those with high incomes are far greater than for other Americans (that you already knew).. Folks at the top pay about 25% of their income in federal income taxes, which compares to less than 5% for half of the population at the bottom end.

For the top two groups, the tax rate in 2005 was about the same as 1990. Essentially, the Bush tax cuts just reversed out the Clinton tax increases on these folks.

The Bush tax cuts substantially reduced tax rates for people in every income group. Indeed, those at the bottom had the largest relative reductions in their tax rates.

Let’s compare average tax rates in 2000 to 2005. For the top group, the rate fell from 27.45% to 23.13%, a reduction of 16%. Now consider the middle-income “top 26-50%” group, for example. Their tax rate fell from 9.28% to 6.93%, a reduction of 25%.

Those at the bottom have paid little, and now they pay even less, due to legislation under both Clinton and Bush. Indeed, these data do not include the tens of billions of dollars sent to lower-income families as a result of the earned income tax credit, and thus it overstates taxes paid by the bottom group.

I’m for lower taxes for everyone, but I wish people would look at the actual data first before carping about the rich supposedly being specially favored by recent tax cuts.

2007-10-17T18:02:00.000-05:00

The SCHIP hits the fan tomorrow.

Michelle Malkin agrees with me and draws a line in the sand for House Republicans.

On Thursday, the House of Representatives will vote on a measure to override President Bush’s veto of a massive government-subsidized health-insurance entitlement expansion plan. I agree with the Democrats on one thing: This is indeed a “defining moment.”

Defining moment indeed: Who represents the truly needy? Who represents responsible taxpayers? Who represents future generations, who would be forced to send their hard-earned money to fund this hugetastic middle-class entitlement explosion? The GOP is already responsible for passing the obscene Medicare prescription-drug-entitlement expansion — the largest in the program’s history and the true costs of which were suppressed until after it became law.If Republicans don’t have the guts to torpedo the Democrats’ SCHIP Trojan Horse permanently, they deserve to lose their seats.
I agree, if we cannot stop this massive expansion, how will we ever stop HillaryCare 2.0?

Americans for Prosperity have an easy-to-use system to send e-mails to your House representative, urging them to uphold the President's veto of the $35 billion dollar expansion of SCHIP. Just click on the "Hello my Name is BIG GOVERNMENT" sticker off the homepage or follow this link.

The email is already written but you can edit it all you want. All you have to do is fill in a few blanks and your zip code and your representative will hear from you. If you are like me and don't know how to best get your opinion to your representative, this is the easiest, most passive way to let your opinion be known.

2007-10-16T12:11:00.000-05:00

SCHIP Vindication, thy name is this poll from USA Today.

52% agree with Bush that most benefits should go to children in families earning less than 200% of the federal poverty level — about $41,000 for a family of four. Only 40% say benefits should go to families earning up to $62,000, as the bill written by Democrats and some Republicans would allow.

52% of respondents say they have more confidence in Democrats to deal with the issue, compared with 32% for Bush.

55% are very or somewhat concerned that the program would create an incentive for families to drop private insurance. Bush and Republican opponents have called that a step toward government-run health care.

Taken together, the results show that while Bush may be losing the political battle with Democrats, he may be doing better on policy. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., said other polls have shown a much bigger edge for Democrats. "This debate is set up," he said. "It's set up about 10 million children or not." That's interesting Mr. Emanuel because I thought the debate was over providing health insurance to underprivileged kids, not middle-class kids, nor adults or illegal aliens. I will say it again, "We all want underprivileged kids to have health insurance and we think our plan does that more effectively than the Democrats." Of course you will have overwhelming support from the public if its "about the children." The nine-word poll-tested frame up soundbite may win the political battle but the best policy will win the war.

UPDATE: The vote to attempt to overturn the President's veto of the re authorization of SCHIP is scheduled for Thursday. Here is a refresher course: If the Congress overrides the veto by a two-thirds majority in each house (66 and 287), it becomes law without the President's signature. Otherwise, the bill fails to become law unless it is presented to the President again and he chooses to sign it. Two things to remember;

The children's health insurance bill originally cleared on a vote of 265-159. If all House members vote Thursday, an override will need 290 to prevail, an increase of 25 votes.

The 51 Republicans who voted against the bill last month averaged nearly 64% of the vote in their recent election. Many had vote totals in the 70% range, making them all but invulnerable from attack.

"I believe the Democrats fully believe they can exploit this" for political gain, said Rep. Mike Castle, a Delaware Republican who voted for the measure that Bush vetoed. An AP analysis suggests that individual Republicans who side with Bush might have relatively little to fear politically as election season nears. If you haven't yet contact your Congressman or Senator and urge him or her to hold their vote on this important bill.

2007-10-14T16:02:00.000-05:00

My published op-ed concerning SCHIP in the Birmingham News.

I did the best I could to keep my letter under the Editor's mandate of 200 words. Mine was ~230. There were 5 letters today about the President's veto of SCHIP, 3 for,2 against plus an article on the front page of the Commentary section entitled, "Kids' health insurance is a necessity." Once again, no one wants kids to go without health insurance. We just think there is a better, more effective way to do it. Click here to read my problems with SCHIP.

The News titled my letter,"A middle-class entitlement." See if you can tell the difference between my original letter, which is below, and what was published in the paper. Mistake? Accident? Typo? Attempt to soften my position? The paper says they will edit for brevity,spelling, and grammar. I doubt that was the case but I do know the Bham News is a regional paper owned by the New York Times.???

-- I write in support of President Bush’s veto of the reauthorization (H.R.976) of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). I believe the rhetoric in Sunday’s paper is misleading, unfair and I will state some facts in order to clear up any confusion about the President’s decision.
-- Initially, President Bush proposed increasing SCHIP funding by 20 %( $5 billion) and Senate Republicans proposed a 33% increase ($8 billion). Despite these increases, supporters of the veto have been branded as “unChristian, unsympathetic and kid-haters.” The “tax and spend” Democrats then passed a bill with a $35 billion expansion that includes illegal immigrants, adults, and families making up to 82k a year. Every dollar spent on immigrants and middle class adults is a dollar taken away from the poor kids SCHIP was designed to help.
--The GOP version of the bill returned to its original mandate, which is to provide insurance for underprivileged children. The Democrats bill would have taxed the poor and put future state revenues in jeopardy in order to pay for a middle class entitlement. I agree with the President that we should collect fewer taxes and provide insurance to those who really need it the most. Should a childless couple making $50k in Alabama pay higher taxes to provide insurance for a New York State couple making $82k when the Alabama couple is having trouble affording insurance themselves? I think not.

2007-10-13T21:06:00.000-05:00

The Real Band of Brothers

William Guarnere and Edward "Babe" Heffron do not consider themselves heroes.

Guarnere, 84, and Heffron, 84, are among the surviving members of the fabled Easy Company memorialized in the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers." To them, the real heroes are the men whose bodies stayed buried in that foreign soil and the mothers who sent their sons off to war, praying for a safe return.
It is so their sacrifices are not forgotten that Guarnere and Heffron have written "Brothers in Battle: Best of Friends," recently published by the Berkley Publishing Group.

"Sitting there in the plane, you wonder why you're up there," says Heffron. "You
could be home, but then when you land there, and you go through these villages
and you look at those people's faces ... now you know why we're here."

Sound familiar. I will bet a lot of our men and women in the ME would say the same. These men are the last of the "Greatest Generation." They made it through D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, the mistakes of Operation Market Garden, and finally up to Hitler's vacation home, The Eagle's Nest.Both men constantly wonder how it was that they survived the war and went on to such long prosperous lives, and they say they are left with a sense of war's random luck and of the responsibility to remember the men who were not so lucky. "They ain't never going to forgive you if you don't," says Heffron, pointing toward the sky.

2007-10-12T22:19:00.000-05:00

Hold your wallets, here comes Hurricane Rangel.

Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Democrat Charles B. Rangel is poised to introduce the “mother” of all tax reforms, the biggest and most expensive tax code overhaul since 1986. But what they don’t know is how the New York Democrat plans to pay the more than $1 trillion price tag. By "reform", he means raising taxes. There are several ideas in the article above but I will save you the trouble and tell you that most of them involve raising taxes, particularly on the rich. The Robin Hood "reform " package. The Democrat default position.

A modest proposal is that Rangel proposes a hike on capital gains which is currently at 15%, the highest in 50 years. The 1986 Tax Reform ( which can be read about in this behind the scenes book,"Showdown at Gucci Gulch") moved the cap gains rate to 28% and it has been progressively lowered during the Clinton and Bush years. Most likely they will patch the AMT and hopefully phase it out. After all it has been around since 1969. Maybe they will phase out Rangel too. I have to give him credit for two things. 1-longevity, even Castro gets a point on this one. 2- he is always on Sean Hannity's show battling' it out with Sean.

2007-10-09T15:08:00.000-05:00

Representative Tim Walberg (MI-7) in National Review on SCHIP

The Democratic legislation takes a program originally meant for children of low-income families and expands it to cover some families earning up to $83,000 and illegal immigrants, while moving millions of children from private health insurance to government programs.

In 2006, 118,501 children and 101,919 adults in Michigan received health care from the S-CHIP program. Incredibly, this means that 46 percent of Michigan’s funding allotment intended to give poor children health insurance actually went to cover adults.

The Wall Street Journal further described this problem in its August 9 editorial: “The bill goes so far as to offer increasing ‘bonus payments’ to states as they enroll more people in their SCHIP programs. To grease the way, the bill re-labels children’ as anyone under 25, and ‘low income’ as up to… $82,600 for a family of four.”

2007-10-09T10:21:00.000-05:00

My unpublished letter to Bham News on SCHIP (letters must be under 200 words)
I write in response to the editorials concerning President Bush's veto of the reauthorization (H.R. 976) of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) on Sunday's opinion page. In doing so, I will restate the old adage, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." I believe the rhetoric in Sunday's paper is misleading and unfair, and I will state some facts in order to clear up any confusion about the President's decision to veto H.R. 976.

It is nonsense to believe that President Bush does not care about children. Anybody who believes that well-trodden line is either ignorant or naive at best. The fact is that President Bush's budget proposed a 20%,or $5 million expansion in SCHIP. Senate Republicans proposed a 33% or an $8 million expansion. The "tax and spend" Democrats initially proposed a $50 million expansion. The Democrats and a few Republicans passed a $35 billion expansion that includes illegal immigrants,adults, children already covered by private insurance, and families making up to $83k a year Keep in mind that these prices are expansions and not the price to continue funding the program. Despite these increases, supporters of the veto have been branded, "unChristian, unsympathetic, and kid-haters." While the debate continued, President Bush quietly signed a bill to continue funding SCHIP until a compromise is reached.

The President's and my disagreement with the bill has more to do with the content of the bill than whether or not to provide health insurance to underprivileged children. The original mandate for SCHIP is to provide insurance to poor children, hence the "C" in the name. Lately states have been adding adults and 25 year old children to the SCHIP program. The administration can take the blame for this because they approved the adult waivers. The administration recently changed their policy to make states demonstrate they have covered 95% of underprivileged children in the state before they approve the addition of any adults to the program.

The administration is attempting to return SCHIP to its original purpose. The bill the President vetoed does not do that. It raises taxes on the poor to provide an entitlement to the middle class(some who already have health insurance) and relaxes the identification procedures so that it is easier for illegal aliens to receive funds. Should we collect more taxes to subsidize the middle class or fewer taxes and subsidize only those who really need help. Think about it this way- should a childless Alabama couple making 50k a year pay higher taxes to provide health insurance for a New York couple making $82k of income when the Alabama couple is having trouble affording health insurance themselves? Fewer taxes and no.

Another negative consequence from this bill is a phenomenon known as "crowd out." When the government provides health insurance, it encourages middle class families to to drop their private insurance and get on the government dole. When this happens, SCHIP is not providing insurance to more uninsured children but merely replacing the underprivileged with those who can afford insurance. So you see, this bill would not have necessarily covered more low-income kids.

The Democrats plan to pay for this expansion by raising tobacco taxes (big surprise, Democrats raising taxes). The proposed increase is a 61 cent per pack federal tax on cigarettes. A tax on tobacco to fund the excess spending is unfair to smokers, regressive, and will hit low-income people disproportionately harder than others. Since 2000, the average state tobacco tax has more than doubled from 42 cents to 92 cents per pack. A tobacco tax will not produce the revenues needed to fund such a large expansion in SCHIP. An increase in tobacco taxes also has the potential to reduce state and federal revenues. New Jersey made the news recently for being the first state to see revenue decline after a tobacco tax increase. Maine's tobacco tax revenue has come in an average of $800k lower than expected per month since January. A 61 cent per pack increase is expected to shrink state revenues by approximately $750k.

H.R. 976 is a step in the direction of a government run health care system. Government health care means fewer choices, less efficiency, and higher taxes for the consumer. By less efficient I mean similar to the Canadian or U.K. single-payer systems. In the U.K., most patients who have small strokes or TIAs are referred by their doctors to specialist clinics. Many wait several weeks before being treated. A study published recently found that if these patients were treated within 24 hours their risk of having a second more serious stroke in the next 3 months is cut by 80%. A friend of mine recently broke her ankle pretty bad and was taken to the ER in Canada. She said the nurses and doctors were nice but she never got to see an orthopedic doctor face-to-face. He just looked at her X-rays and told the ER doctor what to do. Did this save time? Yes. Is this better for the patient? Probably not. Luckily my friend was flown back home and was in an American O.R. within 24 hours. If you would like to pay higher taxes and give Washington DC and Montgomery control of your health care, go ahead. Just don't complain when you wait weeks to see a doctor and months for a procedure. Once health care is free, watch how expensive it becomes.

2007-10-08T16:05:00.000-05:00

The Brief in 3 parts.
The 3 YouTube videos below are an abridged version of the brief. A complete and more in depth version is available at CSPAN.

2007-10-08T15:31:00.000-05:00

Part (3 of 3)-"Winning the Peace"

2007-10-08T15:25:00.000-05:00

Part (2 of 3)of the Brief/ The Pentagon's New Map

2007-10-08T15:07:00.000-05:00

(Part 1 of 3) Thomas PM Barnett gives "The Brief"

2007-10-08T14:52:00.000-05:00

Senators Jeff Sessions, David Vitter, and Jim Demint, the few senators willing to stand up and fight against amnesty. Vote Sessions in 2008.

2007-10-03T19:37:00.000-05:00

RNC Chair to Step Down

Well technically he was co-chair. All the emails I have gotten from the RNC are from Co-Chair Mike Duncan. There was no way Sen. Martinez could do his job and serve as RNC chair at the same time. His support for the now-defunct Amnesty plan really cut him off at the knees and brought GOP fundraising to new lows. Martinez's approval ratings have plummeted in recent months. A Quinnipiac University poll released in July showed that only 38 percent of Florida voters approved of his performance as senator -- down 12 points in six months.

Names being floated for replacements are Newt Gingrich (Why ?), Michael Steele,Mitt Romney, Huckabee, and Rick Santorum. I am a big Steele fan myself.

2007-10-03T10:36:00.000-05:00

President Bush Vetoes SCHIP expansion.

I totally agree with his position, I just wish he had used the veto power more times in the past. And because I hate kids, especially those who can't afford health insurance,they are the worst(j/k). But I think we should get past the rhetoric and see what this new bill really does and you will see its faults and why Bush's' veto (only his 4th in 7 years) is correct. The new bill:

pays for insurance for adults. It already covers 670,000 adults. The new law will increase that.
makes illegal aliens eligible for free health insurance.
families making up to $83k/year are eligible.
proposes an increase of 35$ billion (Bush asked for an increase of $5 billion).
its paid for by a 0.61 per pack tax increase on tobacco.
The bearers of the tax will be the lower-class.
Essentially the government is robbing the poor (through taxes) to pay for a middle class entitlement.
Impact the economy,(i.e. jobs&revenues) of the states.
It is a tax increase.

States across the country are seeing budget gaps where they expected to see revenues.
Maine reported that cigarette tax revenue has come in on average $800,000 lower than expected per month since January. New Jersey made the news recently for being the first state to see revenues actually decline after Gov. Jon Corzine’s tobacco tax increase. All told, a 61 cent per pack tax increase is expected to shrink state revenues by roughly $750 million. Also, please lay off the smokers, it is their choice. That can't smoke anywhere in New York anymore.

Here is a list of the proposed taxes on tobacco in order to fund SCHIP:

cigars from 20.719% to 53% with a $3 per cigar cap;
cigarettes from 39 cents to $1;
cigarette papers from 1.22 cents to 3.13 cents;
cigarette tubes from 2.44 cents to 6.26 cents;
snuff from 58.5 cents to $1.50;
chewing tobacco from 19.5 cents to 50 cents;
pipe tobacco from $1.0969 to $2.8126; and
roll-your-own tobacco from $1.0969 to $8.8889

Realize that people have brains and can make decisions,harmful or not for themselves because that is my definition of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention IT'S A TAX INCREASE!

*EXTRA* Dr. Greg Mankiw is a professor of economics at Harvard University. In the interest of fairness he has opposing and agreeing viewpoints on the President's veto of the SCHIP bill.

2007-10-02T15:06:00.000-05:00

Lone Survivor......

Is the title of a book by Texan and former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell. It is the story of Operation Redwing, a recon operation in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan that went terribly wrong. Of the 4-man team sent to watch a Taliban commander, only Marcus survived. It is an amazing story of Hollywood proportions except that it is true. The first half of the book chronicles his journey of becoming a SEAL. His twin brother and he began training when they were 14 with a former Green Beret, Billy Shelton, who lived nearby.

Once in place, the foursomes' position is discovered by 2 adult goat herders and a teenage boy. The group secures the men and debates whether they should kill the men on the spot or let them go. He calls his decision to let them go, ""It was the stupidest, most Southern-fried, lame-brained decision I ever made in my life to vote to let them go ... I actually cast a vote that I knew would sign our death warrant." Marcus doesn't think much of he rules of engagement crafted by lawyers at a desk in Washington. He knew the goat herder's would tell the Taliban where they were. It is not as if those nomads see camouflaged Americans armed with guns in the mountains everyday. They ultimately voted to let them go and about an hour later a size able Taliban force attacks them, killing Marcus's three teammates including his best friend and 16 servicemen in a rescue helicopter.(see more video of Marcus)

Wounded, almost dehydrated and still being chased by the Taliban, Marcus is found by a local Pashto tribe. After deliberating the tribe decides to take him in. Meaning their village will defend him to the death and they do. He is taken in, fed, dressed in Afghan clothes. The Taliban watched the village and even threatened to kill the wife and children of Gulab, the son of the village elder whom is Marcus's personal protector.

I have given away enough of the plot already. Let me just say that it is a painful tale of heroes, families and friendships, and sacrifice on the American and Afghan sides. It is similar to Operation Anaconda, though not as technical. "Lone Survivor" is told through Marcus's eyes with more heart than Anaconda. It is clear that Marcus wanted this book to be an homage to his fallen friends. A fast read. Once you start it is hard to put down even though you know the plot and that bad things are happening. "Lone Survivor' has very few pictures of Marcus. The majority of the pictures are of his friends,fallen comrades and their families. These pictures put faces on the brutal details Marcus describes, which is not always easy to take. Marcus and his team are real American heroes. see Washington Post article.

*UPDATE*- Here is an article about Marcus and the arbitrary nature of the ROE, "Death by rules of engagement."

*UPDATE*- Lt. Michael P. Murphy, Marcus's team leader and friend to be awarded the Medal of Honor, the first person to be awarded the Medal of Honor for the Afghanistan campaign and the first SEAL since Vietnam. Murphy is a native of Long Island, NY. Guess which paper was too busy kissing Al Gore's a** to even mention his honor. Murphy should have the Nobel Prize.

The three other members of Murphy's team -- Matthew Axelson, 25, and Danny Dietz, 31, who were both killed, and Marcus Luttrell, 32 -- have each been awarded the Navy Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor.

2007-10-02T14:32:00.000-05:00

"The Brief"

About a year ago I saw a lecture being given in C-SPAN by Dr. Thomas PM Barnett. I had never heard of him before this but his presentation blew my mind. I found out later that this presentation has been given over 500 times to approximately 30,000 government officials, think tank representatives, military officers, and opinion leaders. The presentation since then has simply been called,"history's most famous Pentagon briefing or simply, "The Brief." Dr.Barnett worked for the Secretary of Defense in the Office of Force Transformation and has since published two best-selling books( see left).

The brief is on the future of America's Armed Forces and the threats we face and how to deal with them. You can watch or order the brief here. Dr. Barnett can be read on daily basis at his blog. The "New Map" is the distinction between those countries who are connected (the"Functioning Core) to the rest of the world and those that aren't (the Non-Integrating Gap).

Sound complicated? It's not. I recommend the presentation to everyone. It is funny, visually appealing and easy to understand. In other words, it doesn't take a PhD in IR or a 4-Star general to recognize the validity of his claims and the effect they will have on the direction of US foreign policy and structure (i.e. The Department of Everything Else).

*EXTRA*- "The Peace Corps with Muscles" by Michael J. Trotten is a perfect example of SysAdmin duties described by Dr. Barnett in the brief. Dr. Barnett uses the terminology, the"peace corp with guns" instead.