For years the Republican Party and the followers of such have
espoused disdain for the United Nations. It was George the elder which
proclaimed a "New World Order" would come into being and at the helm
would be an organization known as the United Nations.
Clinton follow suit as invasions and military actions under the guise of the United
Nations were used to stop "ethnic cleansing" and "warlords" from government over throws.
Bush the younger not having found massive catches of WMD's now uses UN resolutions for our invasion of Iraq and what is known as the "War on Terror".
Sorry people Art. IV Sec. IV of the constitution says it quite simply, The
federal government is charged with the defense of our nations borders and allowing groups of individuals and individuals alike to be given the key to the country is quite irresponsible. Of the 19 hijackers(if you believe the "official" government story)how many were still over here after their VISA's expired??
By Tom DeWeese
November 24, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
My first reaction was “this is a joke.” However upon a second and then a
third reading of the letter in my hand it became clear the invitation
was legitimate. “It is with great pleasure that I extend an invitation for you to speak at the Cambridge Union (the debating society of Cambridge University, England) this Michaelmas term.” It was signed by Luke Pearce, President of the Union.
Founded in 1815, the Cambridge Union is a near 200 year-old debating society that stands as a “vibrant center of debate and free speech in British intellectual
life.” It has played host to Anthony Eden, Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. Economist John Maynard Keynes was one of the Societies’ presidents. An incredible list of political, cultural and religious leaders have spoken there, including Ronald Reagan, Professor Stephen Hawking, the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu.
Now the invitation came to me to debate the issue of the United Nations. Said the letter of invitation, “As a political activist for over two decades and now the president of the American Policy Center, you would bring experience and insight to this debate. Cambridge students would be honored to listen to you speak in proposition of the motion,” The motion we were to debate was, “This House believes the United Nations is a dead loss.”I couldn’t agree more and after a few moments of consideration of what I was about to do, accepted the invitation.
Rules of the debate process call for six participants, three arguing for the
proposition, three in opposition. I was actually on the side of the proponents, arguing a kind of double negative = yes, I am opposed to the UN.
Each participant is to speak for approximately ten minutes, giving an opening statement. Four participants present their opening statements, and then the floor is opened to a series of two-minute speeches from the audience. Finally, the last two
participants, one from each side, give a ten-minute summation. During the speeches, any participant or member of the audience may interrupt a speaker with “Point of Information” and they may then make a point or ask a question of the speaker. However, it is entirely up to the speaker whether to allow the interruption. He can simply say no to the Point of Information.
Just prior to my leaving for the UK, I learned who the other participants were to be. On my side, speaking against the UN was Ted Knight, a UK labor leader (I came to learn he was a major Leftist leader known as “Red Ted”; and SimonTisdall ,
Assistant Editor of The Guardian and a foreign affairs columnist. Speaking for the opposition and in support of the UN were Lord DavidHannay, Former UK Ambassador to the UN and a member of the House of Lords; Salil Shetty, Director of the UN’s Millennium Campaign; and Simon Hughes, President of the UK’s Liberal Democrats and a Member of Parliament.
The
night of the debate began with the participants meeting over a formal
dinner. I actually found “Red Ted” very engaging. This was also his
first appearance before the Society. I was informed that my
presentation was to be first. Said Red Ted, “Then I shall see how you
do!” During the dinner I also found myself sitting next to Mr.Shetty. We had a brief moment to talk before heading into the debating chamber.
We
marched into the historic debating chamber behind the secretary of the
Cambridge Union Society, who was wearing a traditional top hat. There
was thunderous applause from the four hundred students and Union
members who filled the impressive leather seats or jammed the balcony
above us. Union President Luke Pearce quickly got down to business by
introducing me, coming “all the way from theUnited States.
I
walked up to the historic front table where two wooden boxes were
placed (one for each side). Speakers stand behind or beside them to
make their 10 minute opening remarks. As I worked through my
presentation, there were actually gasps from the audience. Apparently
few had heard such hard hitting attacks on the UN (a full copy of my
opening remarks can be found elsewhere in this report). Suddenly shouts
of “point of information” could be heard from several locations in the
audience. I denied them. I continued with my assault. Finally, LordHannay
shouted, “surely the gentlemen will yield?.” I briefly relented and he
attacked my assertion that the UN meddled in individual sovereign
affairs of nations. I held my ground, finished my remarks, accepted a
couple of questions and then sat down. I had made it through.
From
that point on, the debate became an all out attack on the United
States. I had expected it, being the “token Yank,” and considering my
remarks had set a strong tone. What became obvious, however, was that
the debatewasn ’t three to three, rather it was five to one. Ted Knight
gave an impassioned address, but I still have no idea what his
opposition to the UN was, except hedidn’t like how it was run. Simon Tisdall, the final speaker for “our side” openly admitted he didn’t oppose the UN, he just didn’t like the United States running it. Lord Hannay
seemed bored with the whole proceeding, having to deal with the
peasants. Simon Hughes played to the anti-US flavor of the crowd, as he
took twenty five minutes to rebut what I took ten minutes to say.
Reform was their only answer. None addressed my position on property
rights. LordHannay
actually denied the UN had any interest in global governance. I took
hit after hit as the audience attacked the Bush Administration and !
the Iraq war.
As
the debate ended, each member of the audience was instructed to pass
through one of three doors. One was marked Noes for those who disagreed
with me and the house proposition. One marked Yeas, for those whodidn
’t think the UN was a dead loss. And the center door was for those who
abstained from any opinion at all. Speakers and audience retired to the
Union bar to await the results. Itwasn ’t good: 361 noes, 33 ayes and
15 abstentions. I was soundly defeated, but not bad, I thought,
considering it had been five against one.
However, something
much more important was about to happen. I was the only speaker who
stayed after the tally was announced. About 200 students stayed as
well. Over the next two hours I fielded sincere questions about my
stand on property rights. They earnestly asked me, “you really don’t
believe in redistribution of the wealth?” “No,” I said, “It’s theft.”
As I explained how it takes ownership of property to create wealth, and
that’s how we have done it in America to make us the richest nation or
earth, several openly responded that my positions were “an interesting
concept,” and they wanted to know where they could learn more.
I
came to Cambridge to debate what I consider to be the deadliest force
on earth the UN. Perhaps I left a small spark of an idea which will
burst forth into a light to help show the way to freedom for some of
the brightest students I have ever met.
OPENING STATEMENT BY TOM DEWEESE BEFORE THE CAMBRIDGE UNION SOCIETY CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY
October 26, 2006
“This
House believes that the United Nations is a dead loss” It is reasonable
that honest, compassionate people seek a means for governments to come
together to discuss and air their differences. It is also reasonable
that honest, compassionate people should desire some way to voluntarily
pool resources to provide charitable aid to those who are starving or
are victims of natural disaster.
Indeed this is the image of the
United Nations that has been sold to the world since its inception. It
is not, however, the reality. The world is in chaos and, quite frankly,
it’s the UN’s fault. It gives validity to zealots and petty bigots. It
helps to keep tyrannical dictators in power. It gives a voice to
international terrorists.
Delay. Negotiate. Recommend. Study.
Reconsider. Do nothing. This is the game the UN has played in nearly
every international crisis. It is the reason North Korea remains a
threat after 50 years.
It is the reason Zimbabwe’s murderous
Robert Mugabe is able to steal his election and then steal the land of
white property owners, drive the nation intoeconomic ruin and
starvation without an international protest, boycott, or sanction.
Instead, Mugabe is given a voice in the UN’s Sustainable Development
conference in South Africa.
It is the reason why the Chinese
government is able to ignore UN rules not to its liking -- while
growing as an international military and economic threat. And it is the
reason why a terrorist nation like Syria can be given a seat on the
UN’s Human Rights Council.
The United Nations, internally, is a
mess. It now finds itself buried under scandals. It has Oil-for-Food
scandals. Smuggling scandals. And theft scandals. Peace keeping
missions actually bring fear to the local citizens they are supposed to
protect. Rob, rape and pillage seem to be the UN’smodus operandi.
How
can we be surprised by such revelations? Who has the power to oversee
and control its actions? The people don’t vote on UN actions. The media
has little access behind the scenes. Who audits the accounting books?
Of
course, even its supporters will readily agree that such problems
exist. They are quick to jump in and call for “reform.” However, when
talking reform, one must be very careful of what the word may means.
UN
reports on reform don’t indicate a simple desire to plug holes in UN
spending -- or to clear up scandals. Quite the contrary. According toKofi Annan
, Maurice Strong and many others, reform means global governance. Since
its inception, the UN has advocated the desire to eradicate sovereign
nations -- while imposing what it calls “world-mindedness.”
A
1949 UNESCO document said, “…nationalism (is) the major obstacle to the
development of world-mindedness.” In the 1990’s, Maurice Strong said,
“it is not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by
individual nation/states, however powerful.”
There in lies the
true goal of the United Nations. And that belies its public image of
simply a place where nations may come to air their differences and act
responsibly. Instead, the UN is openly working to gain power for itself
in order to become independent and supreme over its member nations.
To do that it needs the power to tax. On September 19th
plans were approved to begin the creation of a global tax, mostly
through airline tickets to help pay for the treatment of aids. They of
course euphemistically call it a contribution.
There are several
other tax schemes on the UN wish list, including a carbon tax on Co2
emissions, a currency tax on transactions of foreign currency
exchanges, and taxes on the Internet, to name a few. If the UN gains
the power to tax and the enforcement power necessary to collect them,
then the UN will become an unstoppable force in the world. A monster
free of its chains.
And, of course, the UN wants its own
military. It already has its own court. These three things, the ability
to collect taxes to provide near unlimited funds from independent
sources; the ability to enforce its will with a military force; and a
court system to impose its own brand of justice, are all that is
required to create a government.
Imagine a world run by the
justice of China, with the economics of Cuba and the military might of
the United States. Such is the world of the future under United Nations
global governance. Public relations propaganda aside, clearly, the
United Nations wants to be much more than a place where nations can
come together to air their differences under a voluntary membership
association.
The truth is, today, fifty years after the
inception of the United Nations, the international community is a
dangerous place. Today the world has more wars, more poverty and more
suffering that anytime in human history.
Obviously, the United
Nations is irrelevant as a body to deliver world peace. Just as
obviously, the UN is more interested in meddling in the sovereign
affairs of nations, seeking to impose its own agenda over development,
production and what it calls social equity in a drive to set itself up
for global governance.
Using images of dire environmental
emergencies or life-threatening diseases or starving children, the UN
promotes an agenda which really seeks to redistribute the world’s
wealth. Its only answer is government control - and confiscation of
individual wealth and property. Nowhere is there mentioned in a single
UN document that I have read an advocacy for the right to own private
property.
In fact, quite the opposite is the case as nearly
every UN document, report, working paper, program, treaty, protocol,
declaration and resolution is dedicated to the confiscation,
redistribution, regulation and tax of someone’s property.
And it
is a fact that the inability to own private property creates poverty.
It is also a fact that confiscation of private property never helps to
eradicate poverty. It is bad economic policy. Yet that is the UN’s only
solution to the massive suffering throughout the world. Take it from
one source to give to another. And that, I contend, is the very root of
the suffering not the solution.
The UN was wrong from its very
beginning and wrong now because it has always sought to interfere with
national sovereignty rather than to provide a unique forum to help keep
the peace. That is why the UN is a dead loss. It should be tossed on
the trash heap of history so that we may start over and create an
honest enterprise that seeks to help nations, not eradicate them.
The
United Nations is not “dysfunctional” as some “reformists” have
claimed. It is a criminal enterprise in which no moral nation should
ever participate, let alone perpetuate.
© 2006 Tom DeWeese - All Rights Reserved
Tom DeWeese is president of the American Policy Center and Editor of The DeWeese Report , 70 Main Street, Suite 23, Warrenton Virginia.
(540) 342-8911E-Mail: apcmail@americanpolicy.org
Website: www.americanpolicy.org
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Friday, November 10, 2006
Election Day v. Veterans Day: A tale of two oaths
“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. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” —John Stuart Mill
PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE
It is no small irony that Election Day and Veterans Day fall in the same week.
Veterans and elected officials all have one thing in common: Upon entering service, both took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”
On 1 June 1789, the first law enacted by Congress was statute 1, chapter 1: an act to regulate the time and manner of administering certain oaths. It established the oath that all civilian and military officials take before entering into the service of our nation. Our Founders understood that the security of the Republic depended on leaders who would honor and uphold constitutional rule of law, lest the Republic would dissolve into a democratic state ruled by men.
Notably, the oath mandates the support and defense of our Constitution , a document revered not only for its timeless precepts, but for its crisp and clear language. The oath refers to our Constitution precisely as it was ratified, not the so called “living constitution” rewritten by judicial activists, who populate what Thomas Jefferson predicted would become “the despotic branch”.
Veterans support and defend our Constitution with their lives, while most elected officials debase it with all manner of extra-constitutional empowerment of the central government, and forced income redistribution to benefit the constituency groups which re-elect them. That is to say, while veterans have nobly honored their oath, most elected officials have disgracefully violated the same.
In recent months, we have been swamped with ugly politics. This week, we saw the whirlwind that an ostensibly conservative political party reaps when it abandons its oath of office and platform. If Republicans thought they could retain majorities in the legislative branch by offering themselves as the lesser of two evils, they were sorely, grossly, terribly mistaken. They overestimated conservative tolerance for those who desert their oaths.
Manage Subscription -- Change your e-mail address, select editions and formats, view recent archives, send comments or unsubscribe
By contrast this Veterans Day, consider the story of one American who never violated his oath. That American is my friend and Patriot mentor, Col. Roger Ingvalson.
Roger was born in Austin, Minnesota, in the era between the World Wars. He was an all-American kid, attending local schools and then the University of Minnesota. He joined the Air Force in 1950 and earned his wings in 1953. He married Jacqueline in 1959, and they had one son. He spent the next nine years as an operations officer for fighter squadrons around the world.
In 1968, Roger was flying the F-105D with the 34th Tactical Fighter Squadron out of Korat Royal Air Force Base, Thailand. The air war over Vietnam was in its third year, and the pilot casualty list included Roger’s wingman and best friend, Wayne Fullam, who was shot down in late 1967.
On 28 May, Roger took off on his 87th combat sortie, leading a mission to destroy a bridge in North Vietnam. (Roger notes lightheartedly today that it is very important to keep the number of mission takeoffs and landings equal.) With 1600 hours in the F-105, he was confident that this mission would be a success. As he pulled off the target, an air controller requested that he hit an enemy truck convoy nearby.
Roger’s tactical preference was for high speed and low altitude engagement in order to assure accuracy. At about 0900, he located the convoy of Soviet-built trucks near Dong Hoi and rolled in at more than 500 knots. At 50 feet above the hard deck, he fired a long 20mm burst into the convoy.
Moments later, Roger recalls, “I heard and felt an explosion and my cockpit immediately filled with smoke. I hit the afterburner to gain valuable altitude, then pulled the canopy ejection handle to get rid of the smoke. I rocketed up to about 600 feet before my aircraft went into an uncontrollable roll. I pulled the ejection seat handle and squeezed the trigger. As I was catapulted out of the burning aircraft, the wind blast knocked me out, and I didn’t regain consciousness until just prior to landing on a dried out rice paddy.”
Give John Kerry the brilliant rebuttal he deserves with this bumper sticker memo from ’Irak!’
As he hit the ground, Roger’s first reaction was to feel for broken bones. “With 15 years of fighter-aircraft experience, I was fully aware of the fact that there is very little chance of survival during an emergency ejection at high speed and low altitude, without a multitude of injuries. To my amazement, I had no broken bones or other injuries.”
Roger had regularly attended church for 40 years, but he says his relationship with his Savior really began when he realized he had survived the ejection. He prayed and gave thanks as his would-be Communist captors were running toward him.
For the next 1,742 days, Roger endured torture, starvation, desolation, disease and one stretch of 20 months in strict solitary confinement.
Three years into his horrendous internment, Jane Fonda showed up in Hanoi to collaborate with Roger’s captors. She starred in a propaganda film purporting that American POWs were being treated humanely. Roger and other POWs were shown that film repeatedly in an effort to further break their spirit. Hanoi Jane even posed for photographs on an NVA anti-aircraft gun near his prison. She boasted of the civil unrest being fomented back home by leftists like her friend John Kerry who “aided and abetted the enemy” by accusing American service personnel in Vietnam of all manner of atrocities.
Roger received devastating news in late 1971, when he was told by his captors that his wife, Jackie, had died months earlier from complications related to multiple sclerosis. Roger recalls, “During the three years since capture, I had continually dreamed of her in a crippled condition. Then the night after receiving the tragic news, I had another dream of my dear wife—this time she was in perfect health, just like the day we were married. She had gained the victory from suffering and sin; whereas, I gained the peace of knowing that she was in heaven.” (His 13-year old son was taken in by Jackie’s parents.)
On 14 March 1973, after nearly five years of brutal incarceration, Roger and his fellow POWs, including future Senator John McCain, departed for Clark Air Base in the Philippines. There, for the first time in half a decade, he was given medical aid, wholesome food and clean clothes. “The Lord sustained me through 1,742 days of tragedy; nevertheless, I count my blessings. I was set free by the North Vietnamese Communists but had already been fully liberated by Jesus Christ.”
Col. Roger Ingvalson retired from the Air Force a couple of years after his release. His decorations included the Silver Star, a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Legion of Merit, the DFC with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters, the Air Medal with 6 Oak Leaf Clusters, and the POW Medal.
However, the most remarkable chapter in this Vietnam Vet’s story was yet to be written.
Upon his return to the United States, Roger married the widow of Wayne Fullam, his wingman and best friend, and they raised their combined family of four sons together. After returning to his wife’s hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Roger spent the rest of his career in prison ministry.
To Roger, and all our fellow Patriots who have served their nation with courage and great sacrifice, we offer our heartfelt gratitude. You have honored your oath to “support and defend,” as do those on the frontline in Iraq today. You have kept the flame of liberty, lit by our Founders, burning bright for future generations.
In 1918, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month marked the cessation of World War I hostilities. That date is now designated in honor of our veterans, and a focal point for national observance is the placing of a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.
Let us never, ever forget.
(On a personal note: It is somehow fitting, that in final edit on an essay honoring veterans this morning, I received word that my Uncle Ted—a Naval Aviator and my father’s wingman in World War II, passed away. Farewell to another Patriot Veteran of the Greatest Generation. He was one of my heroes, a gentleman who always had a smile and a great story. Thank you, Uncle Ted, for introducing your sister to my father!)
PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE
It is no small irony that Election Day and Veterans Day fall in the same week.
Veterans and elected officials all have one thing in common: Upon entering service, both took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”
On 1 June 1789, the first law enacted by Congress was statute 1, chapter 1: an act to regulate the time and manner of administering certain oaths. It established the oath that all civilian and military officials take before entering into the service of our nation. Our Founders understood that the security of the Republic depended on leaders who would honor and uphold constitutional rule of law, lest the Republic would dissolve into a democratic state ruled by men.
Notably, the oath mandates the support and defense of our Constitution , a document revered not only for its timeless precepts, but for its crisp and clear language. The oath refers to our Constitution precisely as it was ratified, not the so called “living constitution” rewritten by judicial activists, who populate what Thomas Jefferson predicted would become “the despotic branch”.
Veterans support and defend our Constitution with their lives, while most elected officials debase it with all manner of extra-constitutional empowerment of the central government, and forced income redistribution to benefit the constituency groups which re-elect them. That is to say, while veterans have nobly honored their oath, most elected officials have disgracefully violated the same.
In recent months, we have been swamped with ugly politics. This week, we saw the whirlwind that an ostensibly conservative political party reaps when it abandons its oath of office and platform. If Republicans thought they could retain majorities in the legislative branch by offering themselves as the lesser of two evils, they were sorely, grossly, terribly mistaken. They overestimated conservative tolerance for those who desert their oaths.
Manage Subscription -- Change your e-mail address, select editions and formats, view recent archives, send comments or unsubscribe
By contrast this Veterans Day, consider the story of one American who never violated his oath. That American is my friend and Patriot mentor, Col. Roger Ingvalson.
Roger was born in Austin, Minnesota, in the era between the World Wars. He was an all-American kid, attending local schools and then the University of Minnesota. He joined the Air Force in 1950 and earned his wings in 1953. He married Jacqueline in 1959, and they had one son. He spent the next nine years as an operations officer for fighter squadrons around the world.
In 1968, Roger was flying the F-105D with the 34th Tactical Fighter Squadron out of Korat Royal Air Force Base, Thailand. The air war over Vietnam was in its third year, and the pilot casualty list included Roger’s wingman and best friend, Wayne Fullam, who was shot down in late 1967.
On 28 May, Roger took off on his 87th combat sortie, leading a mission to destroy a bridge in North Vietnam. (Roger notes lightheartedly today that it is very important to keep the number of mission takeoffs and landings equal.) With 1600 hours in the F-105, he was confident that this mission would be a success. As he pulled off the target, an air controller requested that he hit an enemy truck convoy nearby.
Roger’s tactical preference was for high speed and low altitude engagement in order to assure accuracy. At about 0900, he located the convoy of Soviet-built trucks near Dong Hoi and rolled in at more than 500 knots. At 50 feet above the hard deck, he fired a long 20mm burst into the convoy.
Moments later, Roger recalls, “I heard and felt an explosion and my cockpit immediately filled with smoke. I hit the afterburner to gain valuable altitude, then pulled the canopy ejection handle to get rid of the smoke. I rocketed up to about 600 feet before my aircraft went into an uncontrollable roll. I pulled the ejection seat handle and squeezed the trigger. As I was catapulted out of the burning aircraft, the wind blast knocked me out, and I didn’t regain consciousness until just prior to landing on a dried out rice paddy.”
Give John Kerry the brilliant rebuttal he deserves with this bumper sticker memo from ’Irak!’
As he hit the ground, Roger’s first reaction was to feel for broken bones. “With 15 years of fighter-aircraft experience, I was fully aware of the fact that there is very little chance of survival during an emergency ejection at high speed and low altitude, without a multitude of injuries. To my amazement, I had no broken bones or other injuries.”
Roger had regularly attended church for 40 years, but he says his relationship with his Savior really began when he realized he had survived the ejection. He prayed and gave thanks as his would-be Communist captors were running toward him.
For the next 1,742 days, Roger endured torture, starvation, desolation, disease and one stretch of 20 months in strict solitary confinement.
Three years into his horrendous internment, Jane Fonda showed up in Hanoi to collaborate with Roger’s captors. She starred in a propaganda film purporting that American POWs were being treated humanely. Roger and other POWs were shown that film repeatedly in an effort to further break their spirit. Hanoi Jane even posed for photographs on an NVA anti-aircraft gun near his prison. She boasted of the civil unrest being fomented back home by leftists like her friend John Kerry who “aided and abetted the enemy” by accusing American service personnel in Vietnam of all manner of atrocities.
Roger received devastating news in late 1971, when he was told by his captors that his wife, Jackie, had died months earlier from complications related to multiple sclerosis. Roger recalls, “During the three years since capture, I had continually dreamed of her in a crippled condition. Then the night after receiving the tragic news, I had another dream of my dear wife—this time she was in perfect health, just like the day we were married. She had gained the victory from suffering and sin; whereas, I gained the peace of knowing that she was in heaven.” (His 13-year old son was taken in by Jackie’s parents.)
On 14 March 1973, after nearly five years of brutal incarceration, Roger and his fellow POWs, including future Senator John McCain, departed for Clark Air Base in the Philippines. There, for the first time in half a decade, he was given medical aid, wholesome food and clean clothes. “The Lord sustained me through 1,742 days of tragedy; nevertheless, I count my blessings. I was set free by the North Vietnamese Communists but had already been fully liberated by Jesus Christ.”
Col. Roger Ingvalson retired from the Air Force a couple of years after his release. His decorations included the Silver Star, a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Legion of Merit, the DFC with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters, the Air Medal with 6 Oak Leaf Clusters, and the POW Medal.
However, the most remarkable chapter in this Vietnam Vet’s story was yet to be written.
Upon his return to the United States, Roger married the widow of Wayne Fullam, his wingman and best friend, and they raised their combined family of four sons together. After returning to his wife’s hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Roger spent the rest of his career in prison ministry.
To Roger, and all our fellow Patriots who have served their nation with courage and great sacrifice, we offer our heartfelt gratitude. You have honored your oath to “support and defend,” as do those on the frontline in Iraq today. You have kept the flame of liberty, lit by our Founders, burning bright for future generations.
In 1918, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month marked the cessation of World War I hostilities. That date is now designated in honor of our veterans, and a focal point for national observance is the placing of a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.
Let us never, ever forget.
(On a personal note: It is somehow fitting, that in final edit on an essay honoring veterans this morning, I received word that my Uncle Ted—a Naval Aviator and my father’s wingman in World War II, passed away. Farewell to another Patriot Veteran of the Greatest Generation. He was one of my heroes, a gentleman who always had a smile and a great story. Thank you, Uncle Ted, for introducing your sister to my father!)
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Top 10 States With the Worst Business Tax Climates for Fiscal Year 2007
Is it any wonder that most of these states vote democratic in the state elections.
Posted Oct 24, 2006
Ranked by the Tax Foundation
Every year the Tax Foundation publishes its “State Business Tax Climate Index,” which, according to foundation, “ranks how ‘business friendly’ the 50 state tax systems are, providing a roadmap for state lawmakers concerned with keeping their states tax competitive. . . . Keeping a state competitive in today’s global market can be difficult, but there is one factor lawmakers have direct control over: the quality of state tax systems. The index measures how well a state’s tax system encourages investment by maintaining a broad tax base and low rates.” Below are the 10 states that came in at the bottom of the Tax Foundation’s FY 2007 index, along with their FY 2006 ranking.
10. Minnesota
FY 2006 Rank: 12
9. Maine
FY 2006 Rank: 8
8. Iowa
FY 2006 Rank: 7
7. Nebraska
FY 2006 Rank: 6
6. California
FY 2006 Rank: 9
5. Vermont
FY 2006 Rank: 5
4. New York
FY 2006 Rank: 2
3. New Jersey
FY 2006 Rank: 3
2. Ohio
FY 2006 Rank: 4
1. Rhode Island
FY 2006 Rank: 1
Posted Oct 24, 2006
Ranked by the Tax Foundation
Every year the Tax Foundation publishes its “State Business Tax Climate Index,” which, according to foundation, “ranks how ‘business friendly’ the 50 state tax systems are, providing a roadmap for state lawmakers concerned with keeping their states tax competitive. . . . Keeping a state competitive in today’s global market can be difficult, but there is one factor lawmakers have direct control over: the quality of state tax systems. The index measures how well a state’s tax system encourages investment by maintaining a broad tax base and low rates.” Below are the 10 states that came in at the bottom of the Tax Foundation’s FY 2007 index, along with their FY 2006 ranking.
10. Minnesota
FY 2006 Rank: 12
9. Maine
FY 2006 Rank: 8
8. Iowa
FY 2006 Rank: 7
7. Nebraska
FY 2006 Rank: 6
6. California
FY 2006 Rank: 9
5. Vermont
FY 2006 Rank: 5
4. New York
FY 2006 Rank: 2
3. New Jersey
FY 2006 Rank: 3
2. Ohio
FY 2006 Rank: 4
1. Rhode Island
FY 2006 Rank: 1
Top 10 States With the Best Business Tax Climates for Fiscal Year 2007
The residents of these states should be proud
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Every year the Tax Foundation publishes its “State Business Tax Climate Index,” which, according to foundation, “ranks how ‘business friendly’ the 50 state tax systems are, providing a roadmap for state lawmakers concerned with keeping their states tax competitive. . . . Keeping a state competitive in today’s global market can be difficult, but there is one factor lawmakers have direct control over: the quality of state tax systems. The index measures how well a state’s tax system encourages investment by maintaining a broad tax base and low rates.” Last week, we published the 10 states with the worst business tax climates. Below are the 10 states that came in at the top of the Tax Foundation’s index, along with their FY 2006 ranking.
10. Oregon
FY 2006 Rank: 10
9. Delaware
FY 2006 Rank: 9
8. Montana
FY 2006 Rank: 8
7. New Hampshire
FY 2006 Rank: 6
6. Texas
FY 2006 Rank: 7
5. Florida
FY 2006 Rank: 5
4. Nevada
FY 2006 Rank: 4
3. Alaska
FY 2006 Rank: 3
2. South Dakota
FY 2006 Rank: 2
1. Wyoming
FY 2006 Rank: 1
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Every year the Tax Foundation publishes its “State Business Tax Climate Index,” which, according to foundation, “ranks how ‘business friendly’ the 50 state tax systems are, providing a roadmap for state lawmakers concerned with keeping their states tax competitive. . . . Keeping a state competitive in today’s global market can be difficult, but there is one factor lawmakers have direct control over: the quality of state tax systems. The index measures how well a state’s tax system encourages investment by maintaining a broad tax base and low rates.” Last week, we published the 10 states with the worst business tax climates. Below are the 10 states that came in at the top of the Tax Foundation’s index, along with their FY 2006 ranking.
10. Oregon
FY 2006 Rank: 10
9. Delaware
FY 2006 Rank: 9
8. Montana
FY 2006 Rank: 8
7. New Hampshire
FY 2006 Rank: 6
6. Texas
FY 2006 Rank: 7
5. Florida
FY 2006 Rank: 5
4. Nevada
FY 2006 Rank: 4
3. Alaska
FY 2006 Rank: 3
2. South Dakota
FY 2006 Rank: 2
1. Wyoming
FY 2006 Rank: 1
Sunday, October 29, 2006
The two major party candidates are both eminently qualified for the job.
this is actually quite funny as the news leader points out how much the majority party candidates are alike, then they turn around an endorse the lessor of the two evils.
pitifull
Tom Martz
candidate for the 139th
Talent is right choice for Senate
For all the negativity and outside national interest obscuring Missouri's race for U.S. Senate, one fundamental truth stands out to us.
Election 2006 Online Resource Guide
Republican Jim Talent has had a distinguished career as a state legislator, a member of Congress, an educator and lobbyist and, for the past four years, a U.S. senator.
Democrat Claire McCaskill, too, has risen from the ranks as a state legislator, a county prosecutor and state auditor. We endorsed her when she ran for governor two years ago because of the experience she would have brought to the job.
We endorsed Talent when he ran for Senate for the same reason.
So who do we choose this time?
Our choice is Talent.
We think he's a better fit for the job. We believe he's done nothing in the past four years to disqualify him from our continued support. And we believe his views are most in line with southwest Missouri voters.
The campaign
Make no mistake, this is a neck and neck race. In meeting with both candidates and analyzing their debate performance, we found plenty to like and dislike about both Talent and McCaskill. What we didn't like about the campaign is that because it became such a national race, with outside money pouring into Missouri by the millions, we believe two good people lost touch with some of the values that made them successful in Missouri politics.
McCaskill embarrassed herself with her statement about President George W. Bush letting the victims of Hurricane Katrina die because they were poor and black. Talent hit below the belt with an advertisement that called his opponent a liar and a cheat.
We hear from voters that they're disgusted by such behavior. But in that regard, Missouri's race is not much different than other big-time races on a national stage, and negative campaigning isn't a voting issue in our minds.
The war
The reason this is such a close race is that when it comes to the big issues, there is much less separation between McCaskill and Talent than either candidate would like you to believe. (Some would suggest that's a reason to vote for Progressive Lydia Lewis or Libertarian Frank Gilmour. We don't think either is qualified for the job, but, to be fair, their views are in stark contrast to the principal two candidates). Let's start with the war. Talent voted for it, and McCaskill says she would have, too. Talent voted for the compromise torture/military tribunal bill, and McCaskill says she would have, too. Talent says he doesn't expect U.S. troops to be in Iraq four years from now; McCaskill says she wants them out in two, "give or take."
While many voters would like this election to be a referendum on the war, if it is, the primary difference between the two candidates is that Talent refuses to support a deadline for withdrawal and McCaskill does. On that issue, we think Talent has it right.
There's no doubt that the Bush administration has mishandled the war. On that, Republicans and Democrats agree. And Talent deserves criticism for voting in lock step with the president on this issue. But when asked about the future of the battle, both candidates argue similar points, that troops should be withdrawn at some point in the next couple of years. We agree that setting an arbitrary date is the wrong move militarily. We're confident that no matter who wins this race, pressure will build for Bush et al. to change course and develop a plan for getting our troops home safe.
Other issues
Looking at the other issues, the candidates also argue similar positions.
Both claim to be in favor of a fence at the Mexican border and tougher enforcement of illegal immigration laws, particularly against employers.
Both are in favor of ethanol subsidies, and, frankly, we disagree with them on that position.
Both claim to be fiscally conservative, and, again, we don't think either the Democrats or Republicans can make that claim anymore with a straight face.
On the issue of stem cell research, we find ourselves in disagreement with both of the candidates. We share Talent's disapproval of Amendment 2, though we have different reasons. And we think McCaskill is wrong to disregard the damage to Missouri's constitution the amendment will have if it passes.
One of their primary disagreements is over an issue that we highlighted the last time we endorsed Talent for Senate. He's a big proponent of health-care consortiums for small business. He continues to push that fight at the national level despite opposition from the Democratic Party. We believe such health-care consortiums have the potential to help turn the tide against the rising health-care premiums that hit all of our pocketbooks. That issue is important to southwest Missourians, and it helps tilt the race in Talent's favor.
The future
In the end, we think Talent's steady approach to the Senate is best for Missouri. What he lacks in McCaskill's passion he makes up for in his thoughtful approach to issues. Ultimately, we find both candidates to be moderate voices, but Talent has proven his ability to work with Democrats on key issues in his four years in the office.
We don't blame him for voting with his president anymore than we would blame McCaskill for voting with a Democratic president.
That's the nature of politics. But Talent has succeeded in being bipartisan on issues of importance to Missouri.
The nature of a difficult campaign has forced him to refine positions, and we have McCaskill to thank for that. It's why tough campaigns are better than no campaigns at all.
If Talent is re-elected, we hope he hears from the voters who want clear answers on the war, not more "stay the course" rhetoric. We hope he finds the votes he needs to pass a health-care consortium law.
Ultimately, this race is going to be a nail-biter come election night.
For voters who have yet to make up their minds, we suggest Talent is the best candidate for southwest Missouri.
pitifull
Tom Martz
candidate for the 139th
Talent is right choice for Senate
For all the negativity and outside national interest obscuring Missouri's race for U.S. Senate, one fundamental truth stands out to us.
Election 2006 Online Resource Guide
Republican Jim Talent has had a distinguished career as a state legislator, a member of Congress, an educator and lobbyist and, for the past four years, a U.S. senator.
Democrat Claire McCaskill, too, has risen from the ranks as a state legislator, a county prosecutor and state auditor. We endorsed her when she ran for governor two years ago because of the experience she would have brought to the job.
We endorsed Talent when he ran for Senate for the same reason.
So who do we choose this time?
Our choice is Talent.
We think he's a better fit for the job. We believe he's done nothing in the past four years to disqualify him from our continued support. And we believe his views are most in line with southwest Missouri voters.
The campaign
Make no mistake, this is a neck and neck race. In meeting with both candidates and analyzing their debate performance, we found plenty to like and dislike about both Talent and McCaskill. What we didn't like about the campaign is that because it became such a national race, with outside money pouring into Missouri by the millions, we believe two good people lost touch with some of the values that made them successful in Missouri politics.
McCaskill embarrassed herself with her statement about President George W. Bush letting the victims of Hurricane Katrina die because they were poor and black. Talent hit below the belt with an advertisement that called his opponent a liar and a cheat.
We hear from voters that they're disgusted by such behavior. But in that regard, Missouri's race is not much different than other big-time races on a national stage, and negative campaigning isn't a voting issue in our minds.
The war
The reason this is such a close race is that when it comes to the big issues, there is much less separation between McCaskill and Talent than either candidate would like you to believe. (Some would suggest that's a reason to vote for Progressive Lydia Lewis or Libertarian Frank Gilmour. We don't think either is qualified for the job, but, to be fair, their views are in stark contrast to the principal two candidates). Let's start with the war. Talent voted for it, and McCaskill says she would have, too. Talent voted for the compromise torture/military tribunal bill, and McCaskill says she would have, too. Talent says he doesn't expect U.S. troops to be in Iraq four years from now; McCaskill says she wants them out in two, "give or take."
While many voters would like this election to be a referendum on the war, if it is, the primary difference between the two candidates is that Talent refuses to support a deadline for withdrawal and McCaskill does. On that issue, we think Talent has it right.
There's no doubt that the Bush administration has mishandled the war. On that, Republicans and Democrats agree. And Talent deserves criticism for voting in lock step with the president on this issue. But when asked about the future of the battle, both candidates argue similar points, that troops should be withdrawn at some point in the next couple of years. We agree that setting an arbitrary date is the wrong move militarily. We're confident that no matter who wins this race, pressure will build for Bush et al. to change course and develop a plan for getting our troops home safe.
Other issues
Looking at the other issues, the candidates also argue similar positions.
Both claim to be in favor of a fence at the Mexican border and tougher enforcement of illegal immigration laws, particularly against employers.
Both are in favor of ethanol subsidies, and, frankly, we disagree with them on that position.
Both claim to be fiscally conservative, and, again, we don't think either the Democrats or Republicans can make that claim anymore with a straight face.
On the issue of stem cell research, we find ourselves in disagreement with both of the candidates. We share Talent's disapproval of Amendment 2, though we have different reasons. And we think McCaskill is wrong to disregard the damage to Missouri's constitution the amendment will have if it passes.
One of their primary disagreements is over an issue that we highlighted the last time we endorsed Talent for Senate. He's a big proponent of health-care consortiums for small business. He continues to push that fight at the national level despite opposition from the Democratic Party. We believe such health-care consortiums have the potential to help turn the tide against the rising health-care premiums that hit all of our pocketbooks. That issue is important to southwest Missourians, and it helps tilt the race in Talent's favor.
The future
In the end, we think Talent's steady approach to the Senate is best for Missouri. What he lacks in McCaskill's passion he makes up for in his thoughtful approach to issues. Ultimately, we find both candidates to be moderate voices, but Talent has proven his ability to work with Democrats on key issues in his four years in the office.
We don't blame him for voting with his president anymore than we would blame McCaskill for voting with a Democratic president.
That's the nature of politics. But Talent has succeeded in being bipartisan on issues of importance to Missouri.
The nature of a difficult campaign has forced him to refine positions, and we have McCaskill to thank for that. It's why tough campaigns are better than no campaigns at all.
If Talent is re-elected, we hope he hears from the voters who want clear answers on the war, not more "stay the course" rhetoric. We hope he finds the votes he needs to pass a health-care consortium law.
Ultimately, this race is going to be a nail-biter come election night.
For voters who have yet to make up their minds, we suggest Talent is the best candidate for southwest Missouri.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Schoolcraft is best choice in 139th District
how typical of the SnL to leave me out of the whole article. I went in early to my appointment and also allowed an individual from the community sit in during my interview process. I answered all of Brian Lewis's questions of course the way he was scribling the answers down I should've known something was up. I had never anticipated receiving the nomination however the part written about Shane Schoeller looks like it came from one of my blogs on the subject.
The least they could've done was to include me in the coverage since I filed paperwork up in Jeff City to have my name placed on the ballot.
I'm Tom Martz the unknown Libertarian candidate for the 139th district a vote for me goes toward stemming the tide of socialism in MO.
Real-life experience makes difference.
Voters in the 139th District have a choice between two candidates with distinct differences.
They can vote for a candidate who has learned the ropes of the legislative process by working for elected officials most of his adult life.
Or they can vote for a candidate who has learned the ropes of life by attending the school of hard knocks.
One candidate, Republican Shane Schoeller, has quite the political pedigree, having worked for John Ashcroft, Roy Blunt and Matt Blunt.
The other candidate, Democrat Jamie Schoolcraft, is a paramedic and volunteer firefighter who has been politically active since he was a teenager.
Both candidates are smart, understand the northern Greene County district and would be worthy replacements for outgoing Rep. Brad Roark.
Both men would be conservative in their approach to issues.
Both make faith a central point of their campaigns.
But of the two of them, Schoolcraft, we believe, has more potential to be a strong, independent voice who can truly make a difference in Jefferson City.
Where Schoolcraft rises above Schoeller is in his real-life experience, his firm opposition to school vouchers and in his creative approach to dealing with health care.
Schoolcraft is firmly in the anti-vouchers camp, and he understands particularly how passing pro-voucher legislation could hurt small school districts such as those in northern Greene County. "Our district is proud of their public schools," Schoolcraft says. "The schools are the lifeblood of our communities."
Schoeller tries to walk a tightrope on vouchers, suggesting that in certain school districts — though not those in Greene County — they might work. His approach, however, is problematic, and we believe the best position is total opposition to the concept.
On health care, Schoolcraft has a specific proposal to remake the Medicaid system that involves the sort of public-private partnership that is likely in the ballpark of what the Republican majority will recommend early next year. The plan would take the state out of the medical micromanaging business and create a more direct patient-insurance company relationship among those on state-funded insurance. It's an idea worth pursuing.
Mostly, we give Schoolcraft the nod because while Schoeller has a firm grasp of the legislative process, we believe the Democrat's real-life experience gives him more independence and a better capacity to make the tough decisions. He's seen people at their most vulnerable and knows how to keep them in mind when he's in the Capitol making legislative decisions. As he says, he's "not your average Democrat."
When he was 16 years old, Schoolcraft helped found a booster club in Bois D'Arc that raised money for tornado warning sirens. His entire young life has been marked by public service, as a teacher, paramedic and volunteer.
Voters in the 139th should help him continue his life of public service by electing him their state representative.
Decision 2006
Today's races: 139th District Our vote: Jamie Schoolcraft
The least they could've done was to include me in the coverage since I filed paperwork up in Jeff City to have my name placed on the ballot.
I'm Tom Martz the unknown Libertarian candidate for the 139th district a vote for me goes toward stemming the tide of socialism in MO.
Real-life experience makes difference.
Voters in the 139th District have a choice between two candidates with distinct differences.
They can vote for a candidate who has learned the ropes of the legislative process by working for elected officials most of his adult life.
Or they can vote for a candidate who has learned the ropes of life by attending the school of hard knocks.
One candidate, Republican Shane Schoeller, has quite the political pedigree, having worked for John Ashcroft, Roy Blunt and Matt Blunt.
The other candidate, Democrat Jamie Schoolcraft, is a paramedic and volunteer firefighter who has been politically active since he was a teenager.
Both candidates are smart, understand the northern Greene County district and would be worthy replacements for outgoing Rep. Brad Roark.
Both men would be conservative in their approach to issues.
Both make faith a central point of their campaigns.
But of the two of them, Schoolcraft, we believe, has more potential to be a strong, independent voice who can truly make a difference in Jefferson City.
Where Schoolcraft rises above Schoeller is in his real-life experience, his firm opposition to school vouchers and in his creative approach to dealing with health care.
Schoolcraft is firmly in the anti-vouchers camp, and he understands particularly how passing pro-voucher legislation could hurt small school districts such as those in northern Greene County. "Our district is proud of their public schools," Schoolcraft says. "The schools are the lifeblood of our communities."
Schoeller tries to walk a tightrope on vouchers, suggesting that in certain school districts — though not those in Greene County — they might work. His approach, however, is problematic, and we believe the best position is total opposition to the concept.
On health care, Schoolcraft has a specific proposal to remake the Medicaid system that involves the sort of public-private partnership that is likely in the ballpark of what the Republican majority will recommend early next year. The plan would take the state out of the medical micromanaging business and create a more direct patient-insurance company relationship among those on state-funded insurance. It's an idea worth pursuing.
Mostly, we give Schoolcraft the nod because while Schoeller has a firm grasp of the legislative process, we believe the Democrat's real-life experience gives him more independence and a better capacity to make the tough decisions. He's seen people at their most vulnerable and knows how to keep them in mind when he's in the Capitol making legislative decisions. As he says, he's "not your average Democrat."
When he was 16 years old, Schoolcraft helped found a booster club in Bois D'Arc that raised money for tornado warning sirens. His entire young life has been marked by public service, as a teacher, paramedic and volunteer.
Voters in the 139th should help him continue his life of public service by electing him their state representative.
Decision 2006
Today's races: 139th District Our vote: Jamie Schoolcraft
Ohio Court Rules BSL Unconstitutional
score one for the freedoms and rights of all individuals for once.
[Tuesday, March 07, 2006]
The Sixth District Court of Appeals in Ohio handed responsible dog owners a monumental victory last week when it ruled that local and state breed-specific "vicious" dog laws were unconstitutional. In a 2-1 decision, the Court held that Toledo Municipal Code 505.14a. (limiting ownership to one "pit bull" per household) and Ohio Revised Code 955.11 and 955.22 (failure of pit bull owner to provide liability insurance) violated several constitutional rights, including the right to due process. The Appellate Court held, just as the Ohio State Supreme Court did in 2004, that such laws do not provide owners with an opportunity to appeal a "vicious" dog finding before being penalized or charged with non-compliance, thereby violating their right to be heard and to defend their property.
The Appellate Court went on to declare these laws unconstitutional for two other reasons, both of which are extremely significant to those who have argued against breed-specific legislation for many years. First, the Court ruled that the laws violated an owner's right to equal protection since there is no rational basis to single out pit bulls as inherently dangerous. It stated that breed-specific laws "have in the past been enacted based on outdated information that perpetuates a stereotypical image of pit bulls." The Court found no new evidence to prove that these breeds are any more dangerous than others. Regulating or limiting pit bull ownership was therefore "arbitrary, unreasonable and discriminatory."
A final important ruling was the Court's determination that these breed-specific laws were unconstitutionally vague due to the fact that there is no accurate way to properly identify a pit bull. "Based on the facts presented," wrote Judge William Skow, "we conclude that the subjective identification of pit bulls may often include both non-pit bulls or dogs which are not vicious, to the extent that an ordinary citizen would not understand that he was breaking the law and which would result in the occurrence of arbitrary arrest and criminal charges."
For years, the American Kennel Club, many animal organizations, and countless responsible dog owners have opposed breed-specific laws in favor of reasonable, enforceable dangerous dog laws that hold all owners responsible for their dogs' behavior, regardless of breed. The Court's ruling last week supports those arguments, and AKC applauds its decision. Although the City of Toledo has indicated it will appeal, this case will hopefully serve as a precedent for legislators in their future efforts to address dangerous dog issues in their communities and states.
[Tuesday, March 07, 2006]
The Sixth District Court of Appeals in Ohio handed responsible dog owners a monumental victory last week when it ruled that local and state breed-specific "vicious" dog laws were unconstitutional. In a 2-1 decision, the Court held that Toledo Municipal Code 505.14a. (limiting ownership to one "pit bull" per household) and Ohio Revised Code 955.11 and 955.22 (failure of pit bull owner to provide liability insurance) violated several constitutional rights, including the right to due process. The Appellate Court held, just as the Ohio State Supreme Court did in 2004, that such laws do not provide owners with an opportunity to appeal a "vicious" dog finding before being penalized or charged with non-compliance, thereby violating their right to be heard and to defend their property.
The Appellate Court went on to declare these laws unconstitutional for two other reasons, both of which are extremely significant to those who have argued against breed-specific legislation for many years. First, the Court ruled that the laws violated an owner's right to equal protection since there is no rational basis to single out pit bulls as inherently dangerous. It stated that breed-specific laws "have in the past been enacted based on outdated information that perpetuates a stereotypical image of pit bulls." The Court found no new evidence to prove that these breeds are any more dangerous than others. Regulating or limiting pit bull ownership was therefore "arbitrary, unreasonable and discriminatory."
A final important ruling was the Court's determination that these breed-specific laws were unconstitutionally vague due to the fact that there is no accurate way to properly identify a pit bull. "Based on the facts presented," wrote Judge William Skow, "we conclude that the subjective identification of pit bulls may often include both non-pit bulls or dogs which are not vicious, to the extent that an ordinary citizen would not understand that he was breaking the law and which would result in the occurrence of arbitrary arrest and criminal charges."
For years, the American Kennel Club, many animal organizations, and countless responsible dog owners have opposed breed-specific laws in favor of reasonable, enforceable dangerous dog laws that hold all owners responsible for their dogs' behavior, regardless of breed. The Court's ruling last week supports those arguments, and AKC applauds its decision. Although the City of Toledo has indicated it will appeal, this case will hopefully serve as a precedent for legislators in their future efforts to address dangerous dog issues in their communities and states.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Pit bull registrations push past deadline
Just a group of animal lovers that have been swept up in the political firestorm which has led to an unjust end. mans best friend has now been micro-chipped, tagged, muzzled, and put out to pasture within a closed in kennel. Sad really because I know some of these individuals and have met there dogs. I have a ferret that is more vicisious then the Rushing's dog and it irritates me to no end they are being treated like convicts because they own an animal which some people have turned into an unreliable breed.
Let's jail the owner not the animal which has been neglected or trained to defend to its death or someone elses.
Wake up people it is only a matter of time before this list grows to include Doberman Pinchers, German Shepherds, Chows, Rottweilers and rumor has it Labs. Lets not forget the Dalamation which has shown tendencies to be aggresive.
Should we talk about Siamese cats next??
Remember this valuable lesson if you learn nothing else today:
When you ask government to impose your values upon others, you wind up with government imposing someone else's values on you.
I'm Tom Martz the only candidate in the 139th which will fight to defend YOUR rights.
Owners keep up complaints that city keeps them on too short a leash.
Jane Huh
News-Leader
Jose Arroyo on Monday joined about 50 others in registering their pit bulls after the city ordinance deadline, bringing the total tally up to 255.
Arroyo registered his 6-year-old pit bull, Kane, to comply with the new rules regulating pit bull ownership in Springfield.
But on the other side of the law, at least 21 tickets have been issued to Springfield dog owners since Oct. 16, when the ordinance went into effect.
As the second week of enforcement begins, the volume of complaints and concerns seem to have "settled down a lot," said Ron Boyer, assistant health director.
But, "those who are not registered are still at risk for getting ticketed," Boyer warned.
The city registers the dogs at the Springfield Animal Shelter near Kansas Expressway and Norton Road.
According to the city, an estimated 4,000 pit bulls live in Springfield. The figure is based on a formula using national statistics.
Dog owners who get ticketed for not registering their pit bulls can face fines of up to $1,000. With permission from municipal court, the city can confiscate unregistered pit bulls found at large.
At the city's animal shelter, there are already half a dozen pit bulls given up by the owners. As a result, the shelter has maxed out its capacity to take any more pit bulls.
Shelter employees put pit bulls in separate pens. Other dogs can be grouped.
Randy Barnts, animal control supervisor, said those dogs may be euthanized as early as today to make more room for other pit bulls that the officers pick up.
The owners who gave up their pit bulls to the city were told that giving up the dogs could result in euthanization.
"We tell them that upfront," Barnts said.
Owners who want to give up their dogs to the city for no charge can still contact the health department.
While there have been some reports of pit bulls getting dumped outside the city limits, the Springfield-Greene County Health Department cannot do anything about it.
No effective date has been set for a proposed Greene County ordinance that would give the city's health department legal authority to pick up free-running nuisance dogs outside Springfield limits, Boyer said.
Besides Barnts, there are seven animal control officers and two full-time shelter employees who are responsible for maintaining the pound and euthanizing animals.
The ordinance has at least two pit bull dog owners still fuming.
Last week, Joshua Hunter contacted local media outlets to express his opposition to the ordinance — in particular, its requirement to keep pit bulls in a fenced-in enclosure with a top and an opening latch. Hunter has registered his dog with the city.
The ordinance requires pit bull owners to keep their dogs inside an enclosure if they are outside and unattended for a long period of time, Barnts said.
Brian Rushing, who also has registered his dog with the city, emphasized that he and Hunter realize that the animal control officers are doing their job. But Rushing said he feels the city is treating him like a criminal for having a pit bull.
"You can't violate everybody's rights for the few bad apples," Rushing said. "That's what's upsetting people like me. We went through the trouble of training our dogs, we went through the trouble of being responsible, and we're being treated like criminals."
Arroyo shared those sentiments Monday after his dog, Kane, was registered and microchipped.
He said could never give up Kane, which he raised since it was "a little pup."
Arroyo said he considers himself lucky for being able to foot the cost associated with compliance.
"I call (this law) discrimination against pits," Arroyo said. "I think all animals are equal. It's how you raise the animal, really."
Let's jail the owner not the animal which has been neglected or trained to defend to its death or someone elses.
Wake up people it is only a matter of time before this list grows to include Doberman Pinchers, German Shepherds, Chows, Rottweilers and rumor has it Labs. Lets not forget the Dalamation which has shown tendencies to be aggresive.
Should we talk about Siamese cats next??
Remember this valuable lesson if you learn nothing else today:
When you ask government to impose your values upon others, you wind up with government imposing someone else's values on you.
I'm Tom Martz the only candidate in the 139th which will fight to defend YOUR rights.
Owners keep up complaints that city keeps them on too short a leash.
Jane Huh
News-Leader
Jose Arroyo on Monday joined about 50 others in registering their pit bulls after the city ordinance deadline, bringing the total tally up to 255.
Arroyo registered his 6-year-old pit bull, Kane, to comply with the new rules regulating pit bull ownership in Springfield.
But on the other side of the law, at least 21 tickets have been issued to Springfield dog owners since Oct. 16, when the ordinance went into effect.
As the second week of enforcement begins, the volume of complaints and concerns seem to have "settled down a lot," said Ron Boyer, assistant health director.
But, "those who are not registered are still at risk for getting ticketed," Boyer warned.
The city registers the dogs at the Springfield Animal Shelter near Kansas Expressway and Norton Road.
According to the city, an estimated 4,000 pit bulls live in Springfield. The figure is based on a formula using national statistics.
Dog owners who get ticketed for not registering their pit bulls can face fines of up to $1,000. With permission from municipal court, the city can confiscate unregistered pit bulls found at large.
At the city's animal shelter, there are already half a dozen pit bulls given up by the owners. As a result, the shelter has maxed out its capacity to take any more pit bulls.
Shelter employees put pit bulls in separate pens. Other dogs can be grouped.
Randy Barnts, animal control supervisor, said those dogs may be euthanized as early as today to make more room for other pit bulls that the officers pick up.
The owners who gave up their pit bulls to the city were told that giving up the dogs could result in euthanization.
"We tell them that upfront," Barnts said.
Owners who want to give up their dogs to the city for no charge can still contact the health department.
While there have been some reports of pit bulls getting dumped outside the city limits, the Springfield-Greene County Health Department cannot do anything about it.
No effective date has been set for a proposed Greene County ordinance that would give the city's health department legal authority to pick up free-running nuisance dogs outside Springfield limits, Boyer said.
Besides Barnts, there are seven animal control officers and two full-time shelter employees who are responsible for maintaining the pound and euthanizing animals.
The ordinance has at least two pit bull dog owners still fuming.
Last week, Joshua Hunter contacted local media outlets to express his opposition to the ordinance — in particular, its requirement to keep pit bulls in a fenced-in enclosure with a top and an opening latch. Hunter has registered his dog with the city.
The ordinance requires pit bull owners to keep their dogs inside an enclosure if they are outside and unattended for a long period of time, Barnts said.
Brian Rushing, who also has registered his dog with the city, emphasized that he and Hunter realize that the animal control officers are doing their job. But Rushing said he feels the city is treating him like a criminal for having a pit bull.
"You can't violate everybody's rights for the few bad apples," Rushing said. "That's what's upsetting people like me. We went through the trouble of training our dogs, we went through the trouble of being responsible, and we're being treated like criminals."
Arroyo shared those sentiments Monday after his dog, Kane, was registered and microchipped.
He said could never give up Kane, which he raised since it was "a little pup."
Arroyo said he considers himself lucky for being able to foot the cost associated with compliance.
"I call (this law) discrimination against pits," Arroyo said. "I think all animals are equal. It's how you raise the animal, really."
Monday, October 23, 2006
Do Tax Cuts Cost the Government Money?
far to often the media and those that live off the system have portrayed a tax cut as something BAD. I might mention the government should provide only one service of which we should be billed for, The cost of the defense of this nation should be shouldered by ALL that reside within the border.
As an ex-military person I have no regrets for my service except during my term of service just like now I am taxed on the very income I was earning to defend this nation. I don't believe ACTIVE members of the military should be taxed to help pay their own salary. It is quite an oxymoron but then why don't we charge them to purchase the bullets as well?? I will have others that will suggest that police officers, firefighters, teachers, and probably government workers should receive the same treatment, however my opinion on that matter is easy to explain. I don't need the police to defend my household or me personally, most generally they get there after the fact anyhow. I don't need the firefighters to help me put out my house fire most generally they would tell me to leave if I'm battling one anyhow. As far as teachers go we home schooled and had no need for government education nor the teacher which is paid to do the teaching.
I do however need the military to defend the borders of this nation and to keep it secure from attack, something our current crop of politicians haven't done.
I'm Tom Martz libertarian candidate for the 139th district and I offer you a voice in Jeff City not just the same old warn out record.
October 23, 2006
Whenever tax cuts are discussed in Washington, the media and most politicians use the phrase, cost to government. How much will this tax cut cost the government? we are asked, as though some crime is being contemplated when we consider reducing taxes. The American people have every right to fund the federal government at whatever level they deem acceptable, and if they choose-- through their elected representatives-- to reduce that funding level, they are not somehow injuring the government. If Congresses passes a new law that results in you paying $1000 less in taxes next year, have you taken something from the government that rightfully belongs to it? Or has the government simply taken less from you?
You don't cost the government money, the government costs you money!
Of course it's reasonable to demand that politicians cut spending when they cut taxes. That's the definition of real fiscal conservatism: government should not take too much from the private economy in taxes, but neither should it spend too much and run up deficits. That's why I vote against the wasteful appropriations bills that relentlessly increase federal spending year after year.
I reject the notion that tax cuts harm the economy. The economy suffers when government takes money from your paycheck that you otherwise would spend, save, or invest. Taxes never create prosperity. Private-sector innovation and productivity are the engines that drive our economy, regardless of what politicians tell us.
Tax reduction is my first priority in Congress. The reality is that most working Americans lose about half of their incomes to federal, state, and local taxes. Tax Freedom Day, representing the portion of the year you must work to pay for government at all levels, is roughly June 1st for most Americans. Imagine all of your hard work this year between January and the end of May going to the government!
One tax in particular should be eliminated as soon as possible-- the tax on Social Security benefits. Those benefits were never taxed between the 1930s and 1984. Treating them as taxable income represents nothing more than a trick to reduce Social Security benefits by stealth. I supported legislation that successfully repealed a 1993 tax increase on benefits, and my own bill, HR 180, would go further and eliminate all taxes on Social Security. Our seniors paid taxes throughout their working lives to fund the Social Security system, and it is immoral to tax them again on their benefits.
Various other taxes also must be reduced. Capital gains taxes are terribly counterproductive, punishing those who save and invest. Payroll taxes impose a tremendous compliance burden on businesses, especially smaller entrepreneurs who cannot hire an accounting department. Federal gas taxes should be slashed to provide taxpayers relief at the pump. Most importantly, federal spending must be dramatically reduced so that all Americans can go back to working for themselves instead of working to pay their taxes.
As an ex-military person I have no regrets for my service except during my term of service just like now I am taxed on the very income I was earning to defend this nation. I don't believe ACTIVE members of the military should be taxed to help pay their own salary. It is quite an oxymoron but then why don't we charge them to purchase the bullets as well?? I will have others that will suggest that police officers, firefighters, teachers, and probably government workers should receive the same treatment, however my opinion on that matter is easy to explain. I don't need the police to defend my household or me personally, most generally they get there after the fact anyhow. I don't need the firefighters to help me put out my house fire most generally they would tell me to leave if I'm battling one anyhow. As far as teachers go we home schooled and had no need for government education nor the teacher which is paid to do the teaching.
I do however need the military to defend the borders of this nation and to keep it secure from attack, something our current crop of politicians haven't done.
I'm Tom Martz libertarian candidate for the 139th district and I offer you a voice in Jeff City not just the same old warn out record.
October 23, 2006
Whenever tax cuts are discussed in Washington, the media and most politicians use the phrase, cost to government. How much will this tax cut cost the government? we are asked, as though some crime is being contemplated when we consider reducing taxes. The American people have every right to fund the federal government at whatever level they deem acceptable, and if they choose-- through their elected representatives-- to reduce that funding level, they are not somehow injuring the government. If Congresses passes a new law that results in you paying $1000 less in taxes next year, have you taken something from the government that rightfully belongs to it? Or has the government simply taken less from you?
You don't cost the government money, the government costs you money!
Of course it's reasonable to demand that politicians cut spending when they cut taxes. That's the definition of real fiscal conservatism: government should not take too much from the private economy in taxes, but neither should it spend too much and run up deficits. That's why I vote against the wasteful appropriations bills that relentlessly increase federal spending year after year.
I reject the notion that tax cuts harm the economy. The economy suffers when government takes money from your paycheck that you otherwise would spend, save, or invest. Taxes never create prosperity. Private-sector innovation and productivity are the engines that drive our economy, regardless of what politicians tell us.
Tax reduction is my first priority in Congress. The reality is that most working Americans lose about half of their incomes to federal, state, and local taxes. Tax Freedom Day, representing the portion of the year you must work to pay for government at all levels, is roughly June 1st for most Americans. Imagine all of your hard work this year between January and the end of May going to the government!
One tax in particular should be eliminated as soon as possible-- the tax on Social Security benefits. Those benefits were never taxed between the 1930s and 1984. Treating them as taxable income represents nothing more than a trick to reduce Social Security benefits by stealth. I supported legislation that successfully repealed a 1993 tax increase on benefits, and my own bill, HR 180, would go further and eliminate all taxes on Social Security. Our seniors paid taxes throughout their working lives to fund the Social Security system, and it is immoral to tax them again on their benefits.
Various other taxes also must be reduced. Capital gains taxes are terribly counterproductive, punishing those who save and invest. Payroll taxes impose a tremendous compliance burden on businesses, especially smaller entrepreneurs who cannot hire an accounting department. Federal gas taxes should be slashed to provide taxpayers relief at the pump. Most importantly, federal spending must be dramatically reduced so that all Americans can go back to working for themselves instead of working to pay their taxes.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Election judge banned from polls for double voting
this story got much more attention then the double voting Mayor Kathy Taylor of Tulsa,OK but then again she is a democrat.
The Associated Press
Maplewood — A veteran Republican election judge will not be allowed to work at the polls Nov. 7 after acknowledging he illegally cast two absentee ballots.
St. Louis County Election Board Chairman John Diehl said the man — the second judge caught double-voting this year — was elderly and told election officials that he hadn't meant to vote twice. Diehl declined to identify the judge.
County election officials took the action Friday after the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called inquiring about a tip.
Diehl confirmed the tipster's account, that the judge cast one vote before and a second vote after an Oct. 9 election-judge training class at the county Election Board's headquarters in Maplewood.
Diehl said that the Election Board learned of the man's actions Oct. 10 and was planning to confront him.
"He has worked for us for a while," Diehl said. "We don't believe it was an intentional or devious act."
Diehl said evidence of the man's double voting will be turned over to county prosecutors, who will decide whether to take legal action.
People convicted of voting more than once face a minimum fine of up to $2,500 and a maximum penalty of five years in jail.
They also permanently lose their right to vote.
The election board previously turned over evidence involving a Democratic election judge who was fired over the summer after officials determined that judge had illegally cast two absentee ballots for the Aug. 8 primary.
Diehl said the board has not been told of any action in the earlier case.
Diehl said an unexpectedly high number of absentee voters are casting ballots for a midterm election.
"The line is out the door," Diehl said, referring to the board's office in Maplewood.
So far, almost 5,000 absentee ballots have been cast by mail or in person in St. Louis County, election officials said.
Missouri voters can cast absentee ballots for reasons that include being disabled or expecting to be away from home on Election Day.
The Associated Press
Maplewood — A veteran Republican election judge will not be allowed to work at the polls Nov. 7 after acknowledging he illegally cast two absentee ballots.
St. Louis County Election Board Chairman John Diehl said the man — the second judge caught double-voting this year — was elderly and told election officials that he hadn't meant to vote twice. Diehl declined to identify the judge.
County election officials took the action Friday after the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called inquiring about a tip.
Diehl confirmed the tipster's account, that the judge cast one vote before and a second vote after an Oct. 9 election-judge training class at the county Election Board's headquarters in Maplewood.
Diehl said that the Election Board learned of the man's actions Oct. 10 and was planning to confront him.
"He has worked for us for a while," Diehl said. "We don't believe it was an intentional or devious act."
Diehl said evidence of the man's double voting will be turned over to county prosecutors, who will decide whether to take legal action.
People convicted of voting more than once face a minimum fine of up to $2,500 and a maximum penalty of five years in jail.
They also permanently lose their right to vote.
The election board previously turned over evidence involving a Democratic election judge who was fired over the summer after officials determined that judge had illegally cast two absentee ballots for the Aug. 8 primary.
Diehl said the board has not been told of any action in the earlier case.
Diehl said an unexpectedly high number of absentee voters are casting ballots for a midterm election.
"The line is out the door," Diehl said, referring to the board's office in Maplewood.
So far, almost 5,000 absentee ballots have been cast by mail or in person in St. Louis County, election officials said.
Missouri voters can cast absentee ballots for reasons that include being disabled or expecting to be away from home on Election Day.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Egregious Earmark of the Week:
you'll notice that only 31 votes against this type of spending and by the way Mr. Bush signed it into law. Conservative administration my @$$.
The flow of the status quo continues. I would bet my lunch money that Rep Paul(TX), Rep Flake(AZ), and Rep Pence(IN) all voted against this type of wasteful spending.
Taxes & Spending
$100,000 to Fix Orange Show Stadium
by Rep. Jeff Flake
Posted Oct 18, 2006
Earmark Reform: Conservatives Await Next Steps
Pork for Defense
How Much Is a Year of Life Worth?
Egregious Earmark of the Week:
$100,000 to Corona, Calif., Old City Hall
Rep. Jeff Flake (R.-Ariz.) has spotted this week's egregious earmark buried in the Transportation-Treasury-HUD appropriations bill (H.R. 3058) for fiscal year 2006.
The noteworthy pork project comes to the grand total of $100,000 allotted to the city of San Bernardino, Calif., for making renovations to the National Orange Show Stadium.
"When is Congress going to have the juice to say 'no' to squeezing taxpayers?" said Flake.
The House passed the bill with a vote of 392-31 and the Senate sent it through without one vote of opposition. It was signed into law by President Bush on November 30, 2005.
Mr. Flake represents the 6th District of Arizona in the U.S. House of Representatives. He serves on the Committee on the Judiciary, the Committee on International Relations and the Committee on Resources.
The flow of the status quo continues. I would bet my lunch money that Rep Paul(TX), Rep Flake(AZ), and Rep Pence(IN) all voted against this type of wasteful spending.
Taxes & Spending
$100,000 to Fix Orange Show Stadium
by Rep. Jeff Flake
Posted Oct 18, 2006
Earmark Reform: Conservatives Await Next Steps
Pork for Defense
How Much Is a Year of Life Worth?
Egregious Earmark of the Week:
$100,000 to Corona, Calif., Old City Hall
Rep. Jeff Flake (R.-Ariz.) has spotted this week's egregious earmark buried in the Transportation-Treasury-HUD appropriations bill (H.R. 3058) for fiscal year 2006.
The noteworthy pork project comes to the grand total of $100,000 allotted to the city of San Bernardino, Calif., for making renovations to the National Orange Show Stadium.
"When is Congress going to have the juice to say 'no' to squeezing taxpayers?" said Flake.
The House passed the bill with a vote of 392-31 and the Senate sent it through without one vote of opposition. It was signed into law by President Bush on November 30, 2005.
Mr. Flake represents the 6th District of Arizona in the U.S. House of Representatives. He serves on the Committee on the Judiciary, the Committee on International Relations and the Committee on Resources.
Conservatives Will Regret Putting Dems in Power
Once more we have a pontificator that astounds us with a prediction that says if you stay home and don't vote republican you have elected a democrat. I'm so sick and tired of this political posturing.
I wonder if baseball fans would only like to be able to watch the NY Yankees playing the Florida Marlins every game during baseball season ands then again for the World Series???
How about Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. racing every NASCAR race with only them on the track??
The Pittsburgh Steelers playing the Seattle Seahawks for 16 weeks straight then the 3 playoff games and then again for the Super Bowl??
I would bet viewership and fan attendance would drop drastically in a matter of weeks except for the HARDCORE fan, of which even they would get bored with it. However in politics we have the exact stupidity going on, republicans and democrats, democrats and republicans. They have become the same side of a coin and they have made it so only they get media attention. I wonder if the Marlins would like it if the Yankees received all the draft choices??
The McTalenskill infomercial here in MO was a classic example. 4 candidates, 2 of which were ALLOWED on the podium to voice their opinion. In the sporting world dynasties come crumbling down every few years so they can be rebuilt. In politics when the political parties control the news media and every media outlet viewed by the mindnumb masses those that could possibly challenge the dynasties aren't even allowed to be on the playing field.
I'm Tom Martz the best candidate for the 139th district in MO.
secure your freedoms by voting Libertarian
October 18, 2006
By Tony Blankley
John Stuart Mill once famously called the British Tories "The Stupid Party." From time to time since then, the Tory's American cousin, the Republican Party, has also earned that moniker. Now may be one of those moments. If current polls and anecdotes are to be believed, there may be a million or two conservative Republicans who are planning to not vote this November.
Of course, Mill also said, "A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but also by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury."
Apparently, these anticipated conservative non-voters are annoyed with Republican imperfection. They are disheartened, disappointed, disillusioned, distempered, and dismal -- and thus plan to dis the party that better advances conservative principles in government.
They appear to have fallen victim to the false syllogism: 1) Something must be done; 2) not voting is something; therefore, 3) I will not vote. Of course the fallacy of the syllogism is that the second category could be anything. For example, No. 2 could as well read "eating dog excrement is something."
I rather suspect that they will feel about the same afterward, whether they chose the non-voting option or the scatological one. They are both equally illogical -- and repulsive -- and would deserve the moniker "Stupid."
Here are some telltale signs of the sort of person who would vote (or not vote) to cause the election of a party that would act to defeat every value and interest he holds dear (merely because the party that will at least try to advance most of those issues has not done as well as he might have hoped):
1) When offered by a car dealer 25 percent off on a car, he insists on paying the full factory-recommended retail sticker price -- because he is damned if he will accept 25 percent when he deserves 30 percent off.
2) When the prettiest cheerleader asks the nerd to take her to the prom, he turns her down -- just because he can.
3) When stopped for doing 70 in a 65 zone, he tells the trooper that's not possible because he had the cruise control set on 90 -- he just resents being falsely charged.
4) When diagnosed with a serious illness, he promptly cancels his medical insurance -- in order to save the cost of premium payments to help pay for the upcoming hospital stay.
A conservative would have to be just that stupid to stay home on Nov. 7. I have heard it put around that the Republicans need a couple of years in the wilderness to regain their conservative bearings.
While turning over the Congress to the Pelosi/Kennedy mob for even two years would be recklessly irresponsible -- particularly during a dangerous war-- there is no assurance the wilderness years would last only 24 months.
In 1954, the Democrats, led by the great Sam Rayburn, retook the House after control had seesawed back and forth for 10 years (1944-Democrat; 1946-Republican; 1948-Democrat; 1950-Democrat; 1952-Republican; 1954-Democrat)
Sam Rayburn (one of the shrewdest politicians ever to play the game) was so sure that the Republicans would take back the House in the Eisenhower re-election year of 1956, that when he became Speaker after the 1954 election, he didn't even bother to move his furniture back to the better office suite occupied by Joe Martin (the Republican Speaker who returned to Minority leader status after the 1954 Republican loss.) They decided to keep their previous office spaces rather than go through the bother of moving across the hall.
As it turned out, the Republicans didn't re-take a majority of the House for 40 years (The Gingrich-led election of 1994). So for 40 years the Republican minority leaders got to keep the better office space (that looked out over the majestic Washington Mall), while the Democratic Speakers for 40 years got a view of the parking lot.
I don't care who has the better office space in the future, but any conservative ought to be very concerned about who has the political power in Washington. The Democrats have virtually promised to scandalize the Republican administration (with subpoena and impeachment-seeking oversight hearings) for the next two years -- in preparation for defeating the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.
Moreover, every Democrat who beats a Republican in three weeks will have two years to feather his or her nest, and use the powers of incumbency to defeat his 2008 Republican challenger.
Even more important, in a closely fought 2008 presidential election, every extra Democratic incumbent senator, congressman and governor makes it just a little more likely that the Democratic presidential candidate may win that district or state. All those freshly tuned new Democratic machines will help get out Democratic Party votes for the top of their 2008 ticket.
This current conservative petulance -- if it actually occurs on Nov. 7 -- will increase the chances of electing Hillary, or worse (if such a thing is possible) in 2008.
There is no rational policy or political basis for conservatives not voting. I'm not sure the country can take the current Democratic mob in power for long.
A realist once observed that the history of mankind is little more than the triumph of the heartless over the mindless.
The Democrats are obviously heartless. Conservatives must guard against falling into the category of the mindless. Ignore your heartfelt peevements, use your brains and vote.
Copyright 2006 Creators Syndicate
I wonder if baseball fans would only like to be able to watch the NY Yankees playing the Florida Marlins every game during baseball season ands then again for the World Series???
How about Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. racing every NASCAR race with only them on the track??
The Pittsburgh Steelers playing the Seattle Seahawks for 16 weeks straight then the 3 playoff games and then again for the Super Bowl??
I would bet viewership and fan attendance would drop drastically in a matter of weeks except for the HARDCORE fan, of which even they would get bored with it. However in politics we have the exact stupidity going on, republicans and democrats, democrats and republicans. They have become the same side of a coin and they have made it so only they get media attention. I wonder if the Marlins would like it if the Yankees received all the draft choices??
The McTalenskill infomercial here in MO was a classic example. 4 candidates, 2 of which were ALLOWED on the podium to voice their opinion. In the sporting world dynasties come crumbling down every few years so they can be rebuilt. In politics when the political parties control the news media and every media outlet viewed by the mindnumb masses those that could possibly challenge the dynasties aren't even allowed to be on the playing field.
I'm Tom Martz the best candidate for the 139th district in MO.
secure your freedoms by voting Libertarian
October 18, 2006
By Tony Blankley
John Stuart Mill once famously called the British Tories "The Stupid Party." From time to time since then, the Tory's American cousin, the Republican Party, has also earned that moniker. Now may be one of those moments. If current polls and anecdotes are to be believed, there may be a million or two conservative Republicans who are planning to not vote this November.
Of course, Mill also said, "A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but also by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury."
Apparently, these anticipated conservative non-voters are annoyed with Republican imperfection. They are disheartened, disappointed, disillusioned, distempered, and dismal -- and thus plan to dis the party that better advances conservative principles in government.
They appear to have fallen victim to the false syllogism: 1) Something must be done; 2) not voting is something; therefore, 3) I will not vote. Of course the fallacy of the syllogism is that the second category could be anything. For example, No. 2 could as well read "eating dog excrement is something."
I rather suspect that they will feel about the same afterward, whether they chose the non-voting option or the scatological one. They are both equally illogical -- and repulsive -- and would deserve the moniker "Stupid."
Here are some telltale signs of the sort of person who would vote (or not vote) to cause the election of a party that would act to defeat every value and interest he holds dear (merely because the party that will at least try to advance most of those issues has not done as well as he might have hoped):
1) When offered by a car dealer 25 percent off on a car, he insists on paying the full factory-recommended retail sticker price -- because he is damned if he will accept 25 percent when he deserves 30 percent off.
2) When the prettiest cheerleader asks the nerd to take her to the prom, he turns her down -- just because he can.
3) When stopped for doing 70 in a 65 zone, he tells the trooper that's not possible because he had the cruise control set on 90 -- he just resents being falsely charged.
4) When diagnosed with a serious illness, he promptly cancels his medical insurance -- in order to save the cost of premium payments to help pay for the upcoming hospital stay.
A conservative would have to be just that stupid to stay home on Nov. 7. I have heard it put around that the Republicans need a couple of years in the wilderness to regain their conservative bearings.
While turning over the Congress to the Pelosi/Kennedy mob for even two years would be recklessly irresponsible -- particularly during a dangerous war-- there is no assurance the wilderness years would last only 24 months.
In 1954, the Democrats, led by the great Sam Rayburn, retook the House after control had seesawed back and forth for 10 years (1944-Democrat; 1946-Republican; 1948-Democrat; 1950-Democrat; 1952-Republican; 1954-Democrat)
Sam Rayburn (one of the shrewdest politicians ever to play the game) was so sure that the Republicans would take back the House in the Eisenhower re-election year of 1956, that when he became Speaker after the 1954 election, he didn't even bother to move his furniture back to the better office suite occupied by Joe Martin (the Republican Speaker who returned to Minority leader status after the 1954 Republican loss.) They decided to keep their previous office spaces rather than go through the bother of moving across the hall.
As it turned out, the Republicans didn't re-take a majority of the House for 40 years (The Gingrich-led election of 1994). So for 40 years the Republican minority leaders got to keep the better office space (that looked out over the majestic Washington Mall), while the Democratic Speakers for 40 years got a view of the parking lot.
I don't care who has the better office space in the future, but any conservative ought to be very concerned about who has the political power in Washington. The Democrats have virtually promised to scandalize the Republican administration (with subpoena and impeachment-seeking oversight hearings) for the next two years -- in preparation for defeating the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.
Moreover, every Democrat who beats a Republican in three weeks will have two years to feather his or her nest, and use the powers of incumbency to defeat his 2008 Republican challenger.
Even more important, in a closely fought 2008 presidential election, every extra Democratic incumbent senator, congressman and governor makes it just a little more likely that the Democratic presidential candidate may win that district or state. All those freshly tuned new Democratic machines will help get out Democratic Party votes for the top of their 2008 ticket.
This current conservative petulance -- if it actually occurs on Nov. 7 -- will increase the chances of electing Hillary, or worse (if such a thing is possible) in 2008.
There is no rational policy or political basis for conservatives not voting. I'm not sure the country can take the current Democratic mob in power for long.
A realist once observed that the history of mankind is little more than the triumph of the heartless over the mindless.
The Democrats are obviously heartless. Conservatives must guard against falling into the category of the mindless. Ignore your heartfelt peevements, use your brains and vote.
Copyright 2006 Creators Syndicate
Friday, October 13, 2006
comparing records
Shane Schoeller:http://www.electschoeller.com
"Shane's professional background encompasses Missouri state and federal politics focusing on grassroots organization and fundraising. After graduation from college he has had the opportunity to engage his efforts in both political campaigns and officially elected offices. He has worked in the campaigns of Ashcroft for Senate in 1994 as a field representative, Bob Dole for President in 1996 as political director for Southwest Missouri and Blunt for Congress as the campaign coordinator. These opportunities allowed him to then go on to work in an official role as a field representative for Senator John Ashcroft and Senator Kit Bond, Legislative Assistant for Congressman Roy Blunt, Chief Administrative Aide to Secretary of State Matt Blunt and Chief of Staff to Speaker Pro Tem Rod Jetton in the Missouri House of Representatives who is now the Speaker of the House. In these various capacities Shane organized grassroots campaigns and political rallies, helped in the drafting of legislation and directed legislative services."
Jamie Schoolcraft:http://electschoolcraft.com
"There are five things that a representative should try to ensure for everyone they represent. Affordable health care, a quality education, a good paying job, shelter, and food. As your State Representative, I would fight everyday to ensure that everyone in the 139th and across the state has these essential tools to be a productive member of society. Most of the elected officials do not know what it is like to be poor and to struggle to meet the bills. I remember what it is like and I won't forget. I will think of those struggles every time before I vote."
"I don't believe in handouts. I believe in empowering everyone to lead the life that we all dream of. You and I together can make a difference. We can change the lives of thousands of Missourians who feel they are facing insurmountable odds. We can truly make life better for those around us. It is going to be a long hard road but we will prevail. Thank you so much and God bless."
Tom Martz:
I cut the previous paragraphs for a reason of which should be self evident once you visit the websites. Mr. Schoeller tries to portray himself as a non political person, however he has years of being in the trenches so to speak. This compliance will bid well for him in the party once he is elected. Any ideas he has of changing Jefferson City will evaporate quickly.
Mr Schoolcraft is endorsed by all the various democratic strongholds so to post these is only citing the obvious. I'm not aware of any union organization that doesn't support a democrat. In the above paragraphs he says he doesn't believe in handouts however in the paragraph prior he espouses a belief that makes me cringe. "There are five things that a representative should try to ensure for everyone they represent. Affordable health care, a quality education, a good paying job, shelter, and food."
Sounds to me like Jaime can't figure out which side he is on less government or more government.
I'm a business owner here in Springfield and have been for the last eight years. When we first moved to Missouri we settled down in Willard for the first couple of years. It was a nice area but the cost related to housing and the like was a little out of line with the average income in this area.
We relocated to Springfield and decided to purchase a home on the north end of town.
I represent the unspoken here in the 139th, these are the people that are fed up with not only with politicians but of government all together. I was a strong supporter of getting the city of Springfield audited and worked on the weekends gathering signatures to make sure the hardworking taxpayers of this city had a voice.
I am the ONLY candidate that will work tirelessly to ensure government takes the proper steps to SHRINK in size. Every industry in America has lay-offs except those in government and those funded by government. It is time that government become more in line with those that support the leviathan.
I'm pro-life, pro 2nd amendment, pro homeschooling(I want to see a deduction to compensate for the cost of this equal to the amount per student in government education). I'm pro business and support the community with volunteering on a street clean-up and a stream clean-up. Volunteering to help the community in which I live, not having government force some clean-up organization down my throat.
Tom Martz
139th state representative candidate
"Shane's professional background encompasses Missouri state and federal politics focusing on grassroots organization and fundraising. After graduation from college he has had the opportunity to engage his efforts in both political campaigns and officially elected offices. He has worked in the campaigns of Ashcroft for Senate in 1994 as a field representative, Bob Dole for President in 1996 as political director for Southwest Missouri and Blunt for Congress as the campaign coordinator. These opportunities allowed him to then go on to work in an official role as a field representative for Senator John Ashcroft and Senator Kit Bond, Legislative Assistant for Congressman Roy Blunt, Chief Administrative Aide to Secretary of State Matt Blunt and Chief of Staff to Speaker Pro Tem Rod Jetton in the Missouri House of Representatives who is now the Speaker of the House. In these various capacities Shane organized grassroots campaigns and political rallies, helped in the drafting of legislation and directed legislative services."
Jamie Schoolcraft:http://electschoolcraft.com
"There are five things that a representative should try to ensure for everyone they represent. Affordable health care, a quality education, a good paying job, shelter, and food. As your State Representative, I would fight everyday to ensure that everyone in the 139th and across the state has these essential tools to be a productive member of society. Most of the elected officials do not know what it is like to be poor and to struggle to meet the bills. I remember what it is like and I won't forget. I will think of those struggles every time before I vote."
"I don't believe in handouts. I believe in empowering everyone to lead the life that we all dream of. You and I together can make a difference. We can change the lives of thousands of Missourians who feel they are facing insurmountable odds. We can truly make life better for those around us. It is going to be a long hard road but we will prevail. Thank you so much and God bless."
Tom Martz:
I cut the previous paragraphs for a reason of which should be self evident once you visit the websites. Mr. Schoeller tries to portray himself as a non political person, however he has years of being in the trenches so to speak. This compliance will bid well for him in the party once he is elected. Any ideas he has of changing Jefferson City will evaporate quickly.
Mr Schoolcraft is endorsed by all the various democratic strongholds so to post these is only citing the obvious. I'm not aware of any union organization that doesn't support a democrat. In the above paragraphs he says he doesn't believe in handouts however in the paragraph prior he espouses a belief that makes me cringe. "There are five things that a representative should try to ensure for everyone they represent. Affordable health care, a quality education, a good paying job, shelter, and food."
Sounds to me like Jaime can't figure out which side he is on less government or more government.
I'm a business owner here in Springfield and have been for the last eight years. When we first moved to Missouri we settled down in Willard for the first couple of years. It was a nice area but the cost related to housing and the like was a little out of line with the average income in this area.
We relocated to Springfield and decided to purchase a home on the north end of town.
I represent the unspoken here in the 139th, these are the people that are fed up with not only with politicians but of government all together. I was a strong supporter of getting the city of Springfield audited and worked on the weekends gathering signatures to make sure the hardworking taxpayers of this city had a voice.
I am the ONLY candidate that will work tirelessly to ensure government takes the proper steps to SHRINK in size. Every industry in America has lay-offs except those in government and those funded by government. It is time that government become more in line with those that support the leviathan.
I'm pro-life, pro 2nd amendment, pro homeschooling(I want to see a deduction to compensate for the cost of this equal to the amount per student in government education). I'm pro business and support the community with volunteering on a street clean-up and a stream clean-up. Volunteering to help the community in which I live, not having government force some clean-up organization down my throat.
Tom Martz
139th state representative candidate
Monday, October 02, 2006
HOBSON’S CHOICE
Although this is the current state of affairs over in England, I believe after reading this article many will recognize the foundation exist right here in the U.S.A. except we only have two national parties that receive attention. The third national party has yet to figure out a way to get out of the corner that most media types have painted it into.
The party of personal responsibility and fiscal constraints on government is the Libertarian Party and those members that try to unseat the monopoly two.
The three main parties go to great lengths to convince us that they are totally different and that only they have the ability to look after the country properly. The Tories tell us that they will promote efficient small government and minimise the tax burden, the Labour party tell us they will provide for the weak and protect public services and the Liberal Democrats tell us they will protect the rights of the individual. Seems ideal, we have a Capitalist party, a Socialist party and a Liberal party, what more could we possibly ask for?
However if we take a closer look we find that not only are they prepared to sacrifice their principles at the drop of a hat, but that they will also adopt identical policies if they think it will help them at the polls. Our hard won democracy is therefore reduced to what goodies each party can offer and the more difficult issues are collectively ignored:
Labour: Well-meaning but a certain route to destruction
The Labour party is rooted in a public sector mentality: well-meaning and virtuous ideas which are self-defeating. Its activists want to see more spending on health, education and welfare. They want higher salaries for public sector workers and more rights in the workplace. Above all, they want to tax the rich and redistribute resources to the poor. All of which probably seems like a good idea to large number of people. However, the politics of envy is no solution and any democratic country which has gone down this path has suffered economic disaster leading to even worse conditions for the poor and fewer resources for public services.
Tony Blair is careful not to advocate this route explicitly but he allows Gordon Brown to accomplish it by stealth: a bit more tax here, a bit more regulation there, all tempered with empty promises to reform the public services. Above all, Blair understands power. The immediate electoral benefits of such policies matter far more to him than the implications for our economy or our society in years to come. He takes the same attitude to the European Union: the personal kudos he gains by going along with his fellow European leaders far outweighs the economic decline and loss of self-government that such plans will inevitably entail.
The ‘Old’ Labour of the activist base and the ‘New’ Labour of Mr. Blair thus lead to the same place. On the surface the Labour message is appealing but if we are genuinely concerned about the future of our country and its people we need to face people with reality rather than empty promises.
We must realise that we will become a third-rate economy with a dysfunctional society and a shell of a government unless we look beyond New Labour spin. Tory prime minister Harold Macmillan in the 1950s claimed that we had “never had it so good” at the very time that we were first starting to fall behind our competitors. Labour spin-masters are now simply copying what their Tory predecessors started.
The Conservatives: Slower perhaps but an equally certain route to decline
The Conservative party has become steadily more inclined to adopt the fashions of the day. This may get them votes but it prevents them attempting the far-reaching changes that our society needs. Despite espousing sound values that resonate with people on many issues, history shows that the Conservatives will always compromise our future for political gain.
After the war the Conservatives persevered with Labour’s welfare agenda, resulting in so-called ‘Butskellism’ (named after the consensual views of the Conservative minister Rab Butler and Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell). The seeds of the three day week, the 1970s stagflation, the IMF crisis and the ‘Winter of Discontent’ were all sown in the welfare state policies of the post-war era. In the post-Suez tunnel vision that afflicted British foreign policy in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Tories saw ‘Europe’ as the answer to our problems. While the Conservative party is now critical of the EU it was they who took us into the EEC and subsequently signed the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty.
During Margaret Thatcher’s time as prime minister the complacency and state corporatism that she inherited was for once challenged. However, many social problems were not addressed and the Conservative establishment soon reasserted itself. In recent years the party has reverted to its post-war role of accepting the apparent consensus and promising not to stray from it too fundamentally.
In short, the Conservatives – if we can believe their promises – will tax slightly less than Labour, will try to spend the money a little more wisely and will be a bit tougher with the EU. In other words, they may slow down our decline but they will not reverse it.
The Liberal Democrats: Oh Dear !
And what can we say of the Liberal Democrats, except that they are certainly not liberals and are quite unconvincing as democrats. They can not be compared to the classical liberals of the nineteenth century who believed in a progressive and free society built on shared values, self-restraint and personal responsibility. Today’s so-called liberals feed on the group rights culture and a high tax and spend philosophy that pays lip service to economic viability. And not only does parliamentary democracy not figure highly in their plans, Westminster would almost be irrelevant in the Liberal Democrat world of multi-tiered layers of government doing the bidding of the EU and the UN. If the Liberal Democrats ever became anything more than a protest vote then they would undoubtedly cause great damage.
Conclusion:
The present choice for the voter is indeed a poor one. All three parties have polished their vote catching skills at the expense of principled leadership and each party, in its own way, has given in to the view that Britain is and will remain an irrelevance in the bigger picture. None of the parties can tell us how to stop our domestic decline and none of the parties can tell us how to measure up to world class economies.
So who is to blame ?
Although there is growing distrust of politicians it is matched in equal measure by apathy and self interest. Voter turnout may be falling but this does not prevent the usual suspects from using the same old tricks to win elections. Although many people realise that the unremitting breakdown in our self-reliance, our skills and our society cannot continue indefinitely, a significant number apparently could not care less. At the end of the day we can hardly criticise politicians for reverting to spin if we are prepared to accept it. Despite all the evidence of our decline, it sometimes seems that we do not press our politicians too hard in case we might not like the answer. It will only be when we demonstrate our willingness to listen to the plain truth about what needs to be done to get our country back on the rails, that our politicians will at last pluck up sufficient courage to put their cards on the table.
The New Party has no wish to denigrate the efforts of those politicians who are doing the best they can to help their country. We are simply pointing out that our so-called “adversarial” system no longer functions properly as the main political parties have all resorted to politically expedient policies and spin to avoid confronting the electorate with too many of life’s harsh realities.
The party of personal responsibility and fiscal constraints on government is the Libertarian Party and those members that try to unseat the monopoly two.
The three main parties go to great lengths to convince us that they are totally different and that only they have the ability to look after the country properly. The Tories tell us that they will promote efficient small government and minimise the tax burden, the Labour party tell us they will provide for the weak and protect public services and the Liberal Democrats tell us they will protect the rights of the individual. Seems ideal, we have a Capitalist party, a Socialist party and a Liberal party, what more could we possibly ask for?
However if we take a closer look we find that not only are they prepared to sacrifice their principles at the drop of a hat, but that they will also adopt identical policies if they think it will help them at the polls. Our hard won democracy is therefore reduced to what goodies each party can offer and the more difficult issues are collectively ignored:
Labour: Well-meaning but a certain route to destruction
The Labour party is rooted in a public sector mentality: well-meaning and virtuous ideas which are self-defeating. Its activists want to see more spending on health, education and welfare. They want higher salaries for public sector workers and more rights in the workplace. Above all, they want to tax the rich and redistribute resources to the poor. All of which probably seems like a good idea to large number of people. However, the politics of envy is no solution and any democratic country which has gone down this path has suffered economic disaster leading to even worse conditions for the poor and fewer resources for public services.
Tony Blair is careful not to advocate this route explicitly but he allows Gordon Brown to accomplish it by stealth: a bit more tax here, a bit more regulation there, all tempered with empty promises to reform the public services. Above all, Blair understands power. The immediate electoral benefits of such policies matter far more to him than the implications for our economy or our society in years to come. He takes the same attitude to the European Union: the personal kudos he gains by going along with his fellow European leaders far outweighs the economic decline and loss of self-government that such plans will inevitably entail.
The ‘Old’ Labour of the activist base and the ‘New’ Labour of Mr. Blair thus lead to the same place. On the surface the Labour message is appealing but if we are genuinely concerned about the future of our country and its people we need to face people with reality rather than empty promises.
We must realise that we will become a third-rate economy with a dysfunctional society and a shell of a government unless we look beyond New Labour spin. Tory prime minister Harold Macmillan in the 1950s claimed that we had “never had it so good” at the very time that we were first starting to fall behind our competitors. Labour spin-masters are now simply copying what their Tory predecessors started.
The Conservatives: Slower perhaps but an equally certain route to decline
The Conservative party has become steadily more inclined to adopt the fashions of the day. This may get them votes but it prevents them attempting the far-reaching changes that our society needs. Despite espousing sound values that resonate with people on many issues, history shows that the Conservatives will always compromise our future for political gain.
After the war the Conservatives persevered with Labour’s welfare agenda, resulting in so-called ‘Butskellism’ (named after the consensual views of the Conservative minister Rab Butler and Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell). The seeds of the three day week, the 1970s stagflation, the IMF crisis and the ‘Winter of Discontent’ were all sown in the welfare state policies of the post-war era. In the post-Suez tunnel vision that afflicted British foreign policy in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Tories saw ‘Europe’ as the answer to our problems. While the Conservative party is now critical of the EU it was they who took us into the EEC and subsequently signed the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty.
During Margaret Thatcher’s time as prime minister the complacency and state corporatism that she inherited was for once challenged. However, many social problems were not addressed and the Conservative establishment soon reasserted itself. In recent years the party has reverted to its post-war role of accepting the apparent consensus and promising not to stray from it too fundamentally.
In short, the Conservatives – if we can believe their promises – will tax slightly less than Labour, will try to spend the money a little more wisely and will be a bit tougher with the EU. In other words, they may slow down our decline but they will not reverse it.
The Liberal Democrats: Oh Dear !
And what can we say of the Liberal Democrats, except that they are certainly not liberals and are quite unconvincing as democrats. They can not be compared to the classical liberals of the nineteenth century who believed in a progressive and free society built on shared values, self-restraint and personal responsibility. Today’s so-called liberals feed on the group rights culture and a high tax and spend philosophy that pays lip service to economic viability. And not only does parliamentary democracy not figure highly in their plans, Westminster would almost be irrelevant in the Liberal Democrat world of multi-tiered layers of government doing the bidding of the EU and the UN. If the Liberal Democrats ever became anything more than a protest vote then they would undoubtedly cause great damage.
Conclusion:
The present choice for the voter is indeed a poor one. All three parties have polished their vote catching skills at the expense of principled leadership and each party, in its own way, has given in to the view that Britain is and will remain an irrelevance in the bigger picture. None of the parties can tell us how to stop our domestic decline and none of the parties can tell us how to measure up to world class economies.
So who is to blame ?
Although there is growing distrust of politicians it is matched in equal measure by apathy and self interest. Voter turnout may be falling but this does not prevent the usual suspects from using the same old tricks to win elections. Although many people realise that the unremitting breakdown in our self-reliance, our skills and our society cannot continue indefinitely, a significant number apparently could not care less. At the end of the day we can hardly criticise politicians for reverting to spin if we are prepared to accept it. Despite all the evidence of our decline, it sometimes seems that we do not press our politicians too hard in case we might not like the answer. It will only be when we demonstrate our willingness to listen to the plain truth about what needs to be done to get our country back on the rails, that our politicians will at last pluck up sufficient courage to put their cards on the table.
The New Party has no wish to denigrate the efforts of those politicians who are doing the best they can to help their country. We are simply pointing out that our so-called “adversarial” system no longer functions properly as the main political parties have all resorted to politically expedient policies and spin to avoid confronting the electorate with too many of life’s harsh realities.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Senate candidates:(monopoly two) Shoot straight
Well come on New Leader give the people some credit and give them some coverage of the "OTHER" two candidates in the race as well. Yes it is true that the monopoly two will spend money like it is going out of style to get *s*elected. Many believe as I that money is what is wrong with politics.
Why would anyone spend 3 million or so dollars to gain employment in a position that only pays less than 200K? POWER over the people.
Once again the SNL gives half a story, but hey they are consistent.
I'm Tom Martz Libertarian candidate for the 139th district, the only clear voice for the people of northern greene county.
Negative campaigns not worthy of Ozarks.
Maybe Jim Talent and Claire McCaskill think we Ozarkers are just dumber than a pile of rocks.
The two candidates for U.S. Senate say that we're important to their race. There are a lot of us and, well, for the most part, we like to vote. We're generally a conservative bunch, some of us coming from farms and far-away places tucked away in hollers. Both candidates seem to think that they're a lot like us.
So, why are they treating us like a bunch of darn fools? Maybe that's what happens when deep-pocketed fellas in fancy suits from the East Coast take over campaigns of good folk.
McCaskill started the silliness when she tried to make Talent look bad for taking money from that big chicken outfit in Arkansas, Tyson. We're not sure why that's such a big deal. Tyson, Wal-Mart, all of those big companies, they provide jobs in our communities. We're a hard-working people, and we don't care much who's signing our paycheck as long as we're paying our bills. The way we figure it, if the Tyson folks want to give Talent money, he shouldn't say no. Frankly, neither should McCaskill, which is why she had asked them, too.
But Talent is the one trying to pull the wool over our eyes these days.
He's been running a flashy television ad in our part of the world that makes McCaskill look like she's against God, apple pie and probably pickup trucks as well. The ad starts by saying that Howard Dean, that screaming liberal Democrat from one of the New England states next to where the Kennedys live, is McCaskill's hero. It's true, she said that. But she was talking about campaign finance reform. She said the way Dean raised a whole lot of money when he ran for president from small donations on the Internet is the sort of campaign she wishes she could run. She thinks that would be good for the nation, and, well, she's probably right. In that same interview, with a Kansas City columnist a few years ago, she said she wouldn't have voted for Dean for president.
But Talent's ad doesn't say all that. It figures we aren't interested in those details.
The ad also says that McCaskill's against terrorist surveillance, and, well, we just don't figure how anybody could be against that. Turns out that she just wants the president to follow the law, which is what a lot of newspapers said, too. Like most of us, she wants the president to keep an eye on the terrorists, even secretly, as long as he follows the provisions in law set out by Congress. A whole lot of folks in Talent's party suggested that he do the same thing — so did a federal judge.
We don't see how such a position makes McCaskill against terrorism surveillance. Sounds like a bit of a yarn to us, like that old story about daddy climbing up the tree and eating all them apples at one time. We like to tell stories like that around here, but we don't always believe them. Maybe Talent didn't get that message during one of his stops here. Neither, apparently, did McCaskill, based on her recent criticism of the president. She basically said that George W. Bush let those people die after Hurricane Katrina because they were poor and black. We've lived through a few disasters of our own around here, and we figure, Mother Nature doesn't discriminate. The president didn't seem to do a very good job after that big hurricane, but it seems to us it's because he put a horse trader in charge of the rescue effort, not because he didn't like black people.
So here we are in the Ozarks, with both candidates for this big Senate seat saying we're important to them, and yet they're talking to us like we're just plain dumb. We saw that ad where McCaskill's talking to her mama, and we suggest that somebody's mama ought to set both of these Missouri folks straight.
We aren't a homogenous population of simple-minded, uneducated hillbillies. We're a bright, articulate, engaged group of voters. Some of us are farmers; others are city dwellers and businesspeople. We care about the issues and we can see through the spin of campaign sound bites.
We don't care what your fast-talking friends from D.C. are telling you. If you want our votes, just give it to us straight.
Why would anyone spend 3 million or so dollars to gain employment in a position that only pays less than 200K? POWER over the people.
Once again the SNL gives half a story, but hey they are consistent.
I'm Tom Martz Libertarian candidate for the 139th district, the only clear voice for the people of northern greene county.
Negative campaigns not worthy of Ozarks.
Maybe Jim Talent and Claire McCaskill think we Ozarkers are just dumber than a pile of rocks.
The two candidates for U.S. Senate say that we're important to their race. There are a lot of us and, well, for the most part, we like to vote. We're generally a conservative bunch, some of us coming from farms and far-away places tucked away in hollers. Both candidates seem to think that they're a lot like us.
So, why are they treating us like a bunch of darn fools? Maybe that's what happens when deep-pocketed fellas in fancy suits from the East Coast take over campaigns of good folk.
McCaskill started the silliness when she tried to make Talent look bad for taking money from that big chicken outfit in Arkansas, Tyson. We're not sure why that's such a big deal. Tyson, Wal-Mart, all of those big companies, they provide jobs in our communities. We're a hard-working people, and we don't care much who's signing our paycheck as long as we're paying our bills. The way we figure it, if the Tyson folks want to give Talent money, he shouldn't say no. Frankly, neither should McCaskill, which is why she had asked them, too.
But Talent is the one trying to pull the wool over our eyes these days.
He's been running a flashy television ad in our part of the world that makes McCaskill look like she's against God, apple pie and probably pickup trucks as well. The ad starts by saying that Howard Dean, that screaming liberal Democrat from one of the New England states next to where the Kennedys live, is McCaskill's hero. It's true, she said that. But she was talking about campaign finance reform. She said the way Dean raised a whole lot of money when he ran for president from small donations on the Internet is the sort of campaign she wishes she could run. She thinks that would be good for the nation, and, well, she's probably right. In that same interview, with a Kansas City columnist a few years ago, she said she wouldn't have voted for Dean for president.
But Talent's ad doesn't say all that. It figures we aren't interested in those details.
The ad also says that McCaskill's against terrorist surveillance, and, well, we just don't figure how anybody could be against that. Turns out that she just wants the president to follow the law, which is what a lot of newspapers said, too. Like most of us, she wants the president to keep an eye on the terrorists, even secretly, as long as he follows the provisions in law set out by Congress. A whole lot of folks in Talent's party suggested that he do the same thing — so did a federal judge.
We don't see how such a position makes McCaskill against terrorism surveillance. Sounds like a bit of a yarn to us, like that old story about daddy climbing up the tree and eating all them apples at one time. We like to tell stories like that around here, but we don't always believe them. Maybe Talent didn't get that message during one of his stops here. Neither, apparently, did McCaskill, based on her recent criticism of the president. She basically said that George W. Bush let those people die after Hurricane Katrina because they were poor and black. We've lived through a few disasters of our own around here, and we figure, Mother Nature doesn't discriminate. The president didn't seem to do a very good job after that big hurricane, but it seems to us it's because he put a horse trader in charge of the rescue effort, not because he didn't like black people.
So here we are in the Ozarks, with both candidates for this big Senate seat saying we're important to them, and yet they're talking to us like we're just plain dumb. We saw that ad where McCaskill's talking to her mama, and we suggest that somebody's mama ought to set both of these Missouri folks straight.
We aren't a homogenous population of simple-minded, uneducated hillbillies. We're a bright, articulate, engaged group of voters. Some of us are farmers; others are city dwellers and businesspeople. We care about the issues and we can see through the spin of campaign sound bites.
We don't care what your fast-talking friends from D.C. are telling you. If you want our votes, just give it to us straight.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
RULE OF LAW (LAND OF THE FREE????)
How many people will say "well if your not doing anything illegal you haven't any thing to worry about"
Sorry folks this is happening to LAW ABIDING citizens. WAke up drink your coffee and get a clue. LAND OF THE FREE!!! INDEED!!!! HAHA yes we have more freedoms then MOST countries, however in the past 30 years or so they have been evaporating quite quickly.
RULE OF LAW
Wrong Door
By RADLEY BALKO and JOEL BERGER
September 2, 2006; Page A9
The Supreme Court ruled this June that evidence seized in an illegally performed "no-knock" police raid can still be used against a defendant. Though disturbing in its own right, Hudson v. Michigan touched on only a small part of a larger problem -- the trend toward paramilitary tactics in domestic policing.
Criminologist Peter Kraska estimates that the number of SWAT team "call-outs" soared past 40,000 in 2001 (the latest year for which figures are available) from about 3,000 in 1981. The vast majority are employed for routine police work -- such as serving drug warrants -- not the types of situations for which SWAT teams were originally established. And because drug policing often involves tips from confidential informants -- many of whom are drug dealers themselves, or convicts looking for leniency -- it's rife with bad information. As a result, hundreds of innocent families and civilians have been wrongly subjected to violent, forced-entry raids.
Last year, for example, New York City police mistakenly handcuffed Mini Matos, a deaf, asthmatic Coney Island woman during a pre-dawn raid. While her young son and daughter burst into tears, Ms. Matos's plea to use her asthma pump was ignored until an officer realized they entered the wrong apartment.
Home invasions can also provoke deadly violence because forced-entry raids offer very little margin for error. Since SWAT teams began proliferating in the late 1980s, at least 40 innocent people have been killed in botched raids. There are dozens more cases where low-level, nonviolent offenders and police officers themselves have been killed.
Last summer a SWAT team in Sunrise, Fla., shot and killed 23-year-old Anthony Diotaiuto -- a bartender and part-time student with no history of violence -- during an early-morning raid on his home. Police found all of an ounce of marijuana. This January a member of the Fairfax, Va. SWAT team accidentally shot and killed Salvatore Culosi, a local optometrist with no criminal record, no history of violence and no weapons in his home. Police were investigating Culosi for wagering on sporting events with friends.
Public officials are rarely held accountable when mistakes happen. The Culosi family has yet to be given access to documents related to the investigation of his death, including why a SWAT team was sent to apprehend him in the first place. More than a year after Diotaiuto's death, his family too has been denied access to any of the documents it needs to move forward with a lawsuit.
New York City provides perhaps the most egregious example of public officials' reluctance to rein in the excessive use of paramilitary tactics. Throughout the 1990s, the city's newspapers reported a troubling, continuing pattern of "wrong door" drug raids. In many cases, tactical teams raided homes based solely on uncorroborated tips from unproven informants.
Members of the city's Civilian Complaint Review Board cautioned that they were seeing increasing complaints of botched raids, but limited jurisdiction and bureaucratic turf wars prevented them from doing anything about it. The principal result of the CCRB's warnings was the creation of a special police unit for the sole purpose of fixing locks, doors and windows in cases where forced-entry searches were performed on the wrong premises. Civil rights attorneys warned that without more substantial changes, it was only a matter of time before an innocent person would be killed in a botched drug raid.
They were right. In 2003, acting on a bad tip from an informant, police mistakenly raided the Harlem home of Alberta Spruill, a 57-year-old city worker. The violence of the incursion literally scared Spruill to death; she died of a heart attack at the scene. The raid spurred public outrage, calls for reform, and promises from the city to change its ways. The NYPD published new guidelines calling for more reliability when taking tips from informants. The city also promised greater vigilance in conducting surveillance and double-checking addresses before a SWAT team was sent in.
But later, during the course of a lawsuit stemming from another, mistaken raid -- in 1992, on corrections officer Edward Garrison, his elderly mother and two young daughters -- the city declared that all of the post-Spruill reforms it had promised were merely discretionary, not enforceable in court, and could be revoked at will by any future mayor or police commissioner.
In any case, botched raids have not stopped. In 2004, police arrested a Brooklyn father of two in a drug raid and held him for six months at Riker's Island. In March of this year they dropped all the charges, conceding that he had been wrongly targeted. The man's lawyer called it the worst case of malicious prosecution she'd ever seen. Also in 2004, police mistakenly raided the home of Martin and Leona Goldberg, a Brooklyn couple in their 80s, when an informant provided bad information. "It was the most frightening experience of my life," Mrs. Goldberg later said. "I thought it was a terrorist attack."
The NYPD goofed again in 2005, when a SWAT team raided the Brooklyn apartment of the Williams family, instead of the targeted apartment on the same floor. Police continued to search the apartment even after it was obvious they were in the wrong home. This year, according to the CCRB, there have already been at least 15 mistaken raids.
A few cities, such as New Haven, Conn., and San Jose, Calif., restrict the use of SWAT teams to cases where a suspect presents an immediate threat. Denver dramatically cut back the number of "no-knock" raids conducted after a SWAT team shot and killed an innocent man in a botched raid in 1999, and follow-up investigations revealed severe deficiencies in the how police had obtained "no-knock" warrants.
But these examples are few and far between. Most of the country is moving toward more militarization, more aggressive drug policing -- and less accountability when things go wrong.
Mr. Balko is the author of "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America," published by the Cato Institute, where he is a policy analyst. Mr. Berger is an attorney representing the Williams and Garrison families and a former New York City Law Department executive.
Sorry folks this is happening to LAW ABIDING citizens. WAke up drink your coffee and get a clue. LAND OF THE FREE!!! INDEED!!!! HAHA yes we have more freedoms then MOST countries, however in the past 30 years or so they have been evaporating quite quickly.
RULE OF LAW
Wrong Door
By RADLEY BALKO and JOEL BERGER
September 2, 2006; Page A9
The Supreme Court ruled this June that evidence seized in an illegally performed "no-knock" police raid can still be used against a defendant. Though disturbing in its own right, Hudson v. Michigan touched on only a small part of a larger problem -- the trend toward paramilitary tactics in domestic policing.
Criminologist Peter Kraska estimates that the number of SWAT team "call-outs" soared past 40,000 in 2001 (the latest year for which figures are available) from about 3,000 in 1981. The vast majority are employed for routine police work -- such as serving drug warrants -- not the types of situations for which SWAT teams were originally established. And because drug policing often involves tips from confidential informants -- many of whom are drug dealers themselves, or convicts looking for leniency -- it's rife with bad information. As a result, hundreds of innocent families and civilians have been wrongly subjected to violent, forced-entry raids.
Last year, for example, New York City police mistakenly handcuffed Mini Matos, a deaf, asthmatic Coney Island woman during a pre-dawn raid. While her young son and daughter burst into tears, Ms. Matos's plea to use her asthma pump was ignored until an officer realized they entered the wrong apartment.
Home invasions can also provoke deadly violence because forced-entry raids offer very little margin for error. Since SWAT teams began proliferating in the late 1980s, at least 40 innocent people have been killed in botched raids. There are dozens more cases where low-level, nonviolent offenders and police officers themselves have been killed.
Last summer a SWAT team in Sunrise, Fla., shot and killed 23-year-old Anthony Diotaiuto -- a bartender and part-time student with no history of violence -- during an early-morning raid on his home. Police found all of an ounce of marijuana. This January a member of the Fairfax, Va. SWAT team accidentally shot and killed Salvatore Culosi, a local optometrist with no criminal record, no history of violence and no weapons in his home. Police were investigating Culosi for wagering on sporting events with friends.
Public officials are rarely held accountable when mistakes happen. The Culosi family has yet to be given access to documents related to the investigation of his death, including why a SWAT team was sent to apprehend him in the first place. More than a year after Diotaiuto's death, his family too has been denied access to any of the documents it needs to move forward with a lawsuit.
New York City provides perhaps the most egregious example of public officials' reluctance to rein in the excessive use of paramilitary tactics. Throughout the 1990s, the city's newspapers reported a troubling, continuing pattern of "wrong door" drug raids. In many cases, tactical teams raided homes based solely on uncorroborated tips from unproven informants.
Members of the city's Civilian Complaint Review Board cautioned that they were seeing increasing complaints of botched raids, but limited jurisdiction and bureaucratic turf wars prevented them from doing anything about it. The principal result of the CCRB's warnings was the creation of a special police unit for the sole purpose of fixing locks, doors and windows in cases where forced-entry searches were performed on the wrong premises. Civil rights attorneys warned that without more substantial changes, it was only a matter of time before an innocent person would be killed in a botched drug raid.
They were right. In 2003, acting on a bad tip from an informant, police mistakenly raided the Harlem home of Alberta Spruill, a 57-year-old city worker. The violence of the incursion literally scared Spruill to death; she died of a heart attack at the scene. The raid spurred public outrage, calls for reform, and promises from the city to change its ways. The NYPD published new guidelines calling for more reliability when taking tips from informants. The city also promised greater vigilance in conducting surveillance and double-checking addresses before a SWAT team was sent in.
But later, during the course of a lawsuit stemming from another, mistaken raid -- in 1992, on corrections officer Edward Garrison, his elderly mother and two young daughters -- the city declared that all of the post-Spruill reforms it had promised were merely discretionary, not enforceable in court, and could be revoked at will by any future mayor or police commissioner.
In any case, botched raids have not stopped. In 2004, police arrested a Brooklyn father of two in a drug raid and held him for six months at Riker's Island. In March of this year they dropped all the charges, conceding that he had been wrongly targeted. The man's lawyer called it the worst case of malicious prosecution she'd ever seen. Also in 2004, police mistakenly raided the home of Martin and Leona Goldberg, a Brooklyn couple in their 80s, when an informant provided bad information. "It was the most frightening experience of my life," Mrs. Goldberg later said. "I thought it was a terrorist attack."
The NYPD goofed again in 2005, when a SWAT team raided the Brooklyn apartment of the Williams family, instead of the targeted apartment on the same floor. Police continued to search the apartment even after it was obvious they were in the wrong home. This year, according to the CCRB, there have already been at least 15 mistaken raids.
A few cities, such as New Haven, Conn., and San Jose, Calif., restrict the use of SWAT teams to cases where a suspect presents an immediate threat. Denver dramatically cut back the number of "no-knock" raids conducted after a SWAT team shot and killed an innocent man in a botched raid in 1999, and follow-up investigations revealed severe deficiencies in the how police had obtained "no-knock" warrants.
But these examples are few and far between. Most of the country is moving toward more militarization, more aggressive drug policing -- and less accountability when things go wrong.
Mr. Balko is the author of "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America," published by the Cato Institute, where he is a policy analyst. Mr. Berger is an attorney representing the Williams and Garrison families and a former New York City Law Department executive.
clear proof the voters aren't paying attention
Once more the political spin machines try to cast a light of graciousness on the issue. The Republicans would WIN in a landslide if they weren't acting like Democrats(Iraq War not included). For years the Republicans have led many to believe they are the party of FISCAL responsibilty, as the Democrats gave all the candy away in the store.
POWER has corrupted absolutely in terms of earmarks, political paybacks, footloose contributions.
Will this change once the democrats take power in the HoR? NOPE
different party same agenda
It is time to BREAK-UP the established political monopoly with other parties controling the reigns.
I'm Tom Martz Libertarian candidate for the 139th district and I would appreciate your vote come November. In the words of Barry Goldwater "I'm a voice, not an echo"
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats enter the fall campaign with a clear edge in the high-stakes fight for control of the U.S. Congress, riding a wave of momentum that has them positioned to retake the U.S. House of Representatives and make significant gains in the Senate.
President George W. Bush's low approval ratings and public dissatisfaction with the
Iraq war, gas prices and the country's direction threaten Republican leadership in Congress and put Democrats within reach of victory on November 7, analysts said.
"I don't think the question any longer is can Democrats win control of Congress, it's can Republicans do anything to stop it?" said Amy Walter, House analyst for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report newsletter. "All the factors and issues are pushing so strongly against Republicans."
All 435 House seats, 34 of 100 Senate seats and 36 governorships are at stake in November's election, with Democrats needing to pick up 15 House seats and six Senate seats to reclaim majorities.
Strategists in both parties say the glum public mood has created a strong desire for change and given Democrats a big advantage at the traditional opening of the campaign season on Monday's Labor Day holiday.
"It's too late to fix the national mood -- it's not going to be fixed," said Republican pollster Frank Luntz. "The major issues are not playing well for Republicans this year, and Republicans are not playing well with America this year."
History is also with Democrats -- the party holding the White House traditionally loses seats in a president's sixth year. The modern exception was 1998, when public unhappiness over the Republican-led impeachment of President
Bill Clinton helped Democrats gain five House seats.
"This looks like a classic sixth-year election," said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, who called the president's low approval ratings, hovering at about 40 percent, "the single best indicator for any mid-term election."
A Democratic majority in even one chamber of Congress would slam the brakes on what is left of Bush's second-term legislative agenda and hasten his descent into lame-duck status in the final two years of his presidency.
It also would give Democrats an opportunity to hold hearings and investigate many of the administration's more controversial foreign, military and energy policy decisions.
Candidates around the country will spend Monday's Labor Day holiday marching in parades, shaking hands at fairs and laying the groundwork for the final two-month push to the November 7 election.
KEY BATTLEGROUNDS
About 40 House districts and a dozen Senate seats will be the key battlegrounds, and they will be flooded in the next two months with campaign cash and appearances by party big shots.
Democrats are in the strongest position in the House, analysts said, where nearly every endangered incumbent is Republican. Independent analyst Stuart Rothenberg projects a Democratic gain of 15-20 seats, while the Cook Report lists 17 House seats as toss-ups -- all Republican.
But Republican House campaign spokesman Carl Forti shrugged off predictions of a takeover.
"We're nowhere near as bad off as the experts would have you believe," he said, adding Bush's low ratings and public dissatisfaction with the Republican-led Congress would not determine House races.
In the Senate, Democrats are expected to pick up seats. But to win control they will need to bump off at least five Republican incumbents -- difficult but not impossible even under favorable conditions.
In recent polls, Democratic challengers led Republican incumbents Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, Conrad Burns in Montana and Mike DeWine in Ohio. Jim Talent in Missouri, Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island and George Allen in Virginia also face re-election struggles.
The open Tennessee seat of retiring Republican Senate Leader Bill Frist is also on the endangered list for Republicans.
Democratic incumbents Maria Cantwell in Washington, Debbie Stabenow in Michigan and Bob Menendez in New Jersey face potentially tough races, and Democrats must defend open seats in Minnesota and Maryland.
Many voters do not start paying attention until late in the campaign and many candidates only start spending heavily in September, giving the races plenty of chances to shift before the election.
Unexpected events, like the capture of al Qaeda leader
Osama bin Laden or a major terrorist strike, could quickly shift the political landscape.
"I'm a political realist. Can we win? Yes, but this is 10 weeks out and a lot can happen in 10 weeks," said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California.
POWER has corrupted absolutely in terms of earmarks, political paybacks, footloose contributions.
Will this change once the democrats take power in the HoR? NOPE
different party same agenda
It is time to BREAK-UP the established political monopoly with other parties controling the reigns.
I'm Tom Martz Libertarian candidate for the 139th district and I would appreciate your vote come November. In the words of Barry Goldwater "I'm a voice, not an echo"
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats enter the fall campaign with a clear edge in the high-stakes fight for control of the U.S. Congress, riding a wave of momentum that has them positioned to retake the U.S. House of Representatives and make significant gains in the Senate.
President George W. Bush's low approval ratings and public dissatisfaction with the
Iraq war, gas prices and the country's direction threaten Republican leadership in Congress and put Democrats within reach of victory on November 7, analysts said.
"I don't think the question any longer is can Democrats win control of Congress, it's can Republicans do anything to stop it?" said Amy Walter, House analyst for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report newsletter. "All the factors and issues are pushing so strongly against Republicans."
All 435 House seats, 34 of 100 Senate seats and 36 governorships are at stake in November's election, with Democrats needing to pick up 15 House seats and six Senate seats to reclaim majorities.
Strategists in both parties say the glum public mood has created a strong desire for change and given Democrats a big advantage at the traditional opening of the campaign season on Monday's Labor Day holiday.
"It's too late to fix the national mood -- it's not going to be fixed," said Republican pollster Frank Luntz. "The major issues are not playing well for Republicans this year, and Republicans are not playing well with America this year."
History is also with Democrats -- the party holding the White House traditionally loses seats in a president's sixth year. The modern exception was 1998, when public unhappiness over the Republican-led impeachment of President
Bill Clinton helped Democrats gain five House seats.
"This looks like a classic sixth-year election," said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, who called the president's low approval ratings, hovering at about 40 percent, "the single best indicator for any mid-term election."
A Democratic majority in even one chamber of Congress would slam the brakes on what is left of Bush's second-term legislative agenda and hasten his descent into lame-duck status in the final two years of his presidency.
It also would give Democrats an opportunity to hold hearings and investigate many of the administration's more controversial foreign, military and energy policy decisions.
Candidates around the country will spend Monday's Labor Day holiday marching in parades, shaking hands at fairs and laying the groundwork for the final two-month push to the November 7 election.
KEY BATTLEGROUNDS
About 40 House districts and a dozen Senate seats will be the key battlegrounds, and they will be flooded in the next two months with campaign cash and appearances by party big shots.
Democrats are in the strongest position in the House, analysts said, where nearly every endangered incumbent is Republican. Independent analyst Stuart Rothenberg projects a Democratic gain of 15-20 seats, while the Cook Report lists 17 House seats as toss-ups -- all Republican.
But Republican House campaign spokesman Carl Forti shrugged off predictions of a takeover.
"We're nowhere near as bad off as the experts would have you believe," he said, adding Bush's low ratings and public dissatisfaction with the Republican-led Congress would not determine House races.
In the Senate, Democrats are expected to pick up seats. But to win control they will need to bump off at least five Republican incumbents -- difficult but not impossible even under favorable conditions.
In recent polls, Democratic challengers led Republican incumbents Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, Conrad Burns in Montana and Mike DeWine in Ohio. Jim Talent in Missouri, Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island and George Allen in Virginia also face re-election struggles.
The open Tennessee seat of retiring Republican Senate Leader Bill Frist is also on the endangered list for Republicans.
Democratic incumbents Maria Cantwell in Washington, Debbie Stabenow in Michigan and Bob Menendez in New Jersey face potentially tough races, and Democrats must defend open seats in Minnesota and Maryland.
Many voters do not start paying attention until late in the campaign and many candidates only start spending heavily in September, giving the races plenty of chances to shift before the election.
Unexpected events, like the capture of al Qaeda leader
Osama bin Laden or a major terrorist strike, could quickly shift the political landscape.
"I'm a political realist. Can we win? Yes, but this is 10 weeks out and a lot can happen in 10 weeks," said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Role Reversal?
Role Reversal?
Remember when the Republicans would advocate smaller government and less federal spending?
Freshmen members were typically the most vocal proponents of limited government, as they often brought optimism and a strong ideology to Capitol Hill. After time, some of these GOP ideologues tended to succumb to the culture of Washington and lose their moorings. But this process usually took years.
Lately this phenomenon appears to be happening much more rapidly. Speaking about the recent explosion of pork-barrel spending, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) noted, “We’ve developed a culture, unfortunately, over a number of years where incoming freshmen are conditioned to believe that this is the only way to get reelected.”
Now, it seems even candidates for Congress are talking like inside-the-Beltway porkers. In a hotly contested race for an open congressional seat in Illinois, a “fiscally conservative” Republican is pledging to bring home the bacon if elected.
The Daily Herald said of Pete Roskam, “The 6th Congressional District GOP nominee said he’d support continuing the so-called practice of “earmarks” if elected to Congress to make sure projects like fixing the dangerous railroad crossing at Irving Park and Wood Dale roads continue to get funded.”
Meanwhile, Tammy Duckworth, the Democratic nominee for the Illinois congressional seat, has taken a strong anti-pork stance. She notes, “One of the easiest steps Congress can take to reduce the deficit and reform ethics is to immediately end the practice of earmarking.” Duckworth has even created an “Outrageous Earmark of the Week” section on her campaign website.
It sounds a lot like Congressman Flake’s “Egregious Earmark of the Week.” That is to say, she sounds a lot more like a fiscal conservative than the Republican candidate.
Native Illinoisan Ronald Reagan, who once vetoed a highway bill because it contained too many earmarks, must be spinning in his grave.
Remember when the Republicans would advocate smaller government and less federal spending?
Freshmen members were typically the most vocal proponents of limited government, as they often brought optimism and a strong ideology to Capitol Hill. After time, some of these GOP ideologues tended to succumb to the culture of Washington and lose their moorings. But this process usually took years.
Lately this phenomenon appears to be happening much more rapidly. Speaking about the recent explosion of pork-barrel spending, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) noted, “We’ve developed a culture, unfortunately, over a number of years where incoming freshmen are conditioned to believe that this is the only way to get reelected.”
Now, it seems even candidates for Congress are talking like inside-the-Beltway porkers. In a hotly contested race for an open congressional seat in Illinois, a “fiscally conservative” Republican is pledging to bring home the bacon if elected.
The Daily Herald said of Pete Roskam, “The 6th Congressional District GOP nominee said he’d support continuing the so-called practice of “earmarks” if elected to Congress to make sure projects like fixing the dangerous railroad crossing at Irving Park and Wood Dale roads continue to get funded.”
Meanwhile, Tammy Duckworth, the Democratic nominee for the Illinois congressional seat, has taken a strong anti-pork stance. She notes, “One of the easiest steps Congress can take to reduce the deficit and reform ethics is to immediately end the practice of earmarking.” Duckworth has even created an “Outrageous Earmark of the Week” section on her campaign website.
It sounds a lot like Congressman Flake’s “Egregious Earmark of the Week.” That is to say, she sounds a lot more like a fiscal conservative than the Republican candidate.
Native Illinoisan Ronald Reagan, who once vetoed a highway bill because it contained too many earmarks, must be spinning in his grave.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Let us NOT forget
14 years ago we were appalled with the show of force from the federal government, today many would welcome it.
Tom Martz
Massacre at Ruby Ridge
ATF agent I suspect few government officials realized in 1992 the widespread anger and resentment their actions in a remote area of Idaho would inspire. Randy Weaver and his family were just some more "troublemakers" who didn't like the multicultural cesspool and wanted to be left alone. They would be "taken down hard and fast."
While most of the American sheeple paid no attention to this atrocity, a substantial minority on both sides of the political spectrum were outraged and wouldn't forget. Now the story continues.
Please note that, damning as the Justice Department investigation is, FBI officials are now believed to have destroyed evidence to keep it away from investigators.
Don Black
The Wall Street Journal, June 30, 1995, p. A14.
Ruby Ridge: The Justice Report
By James Bovard
The 1992 confrontation between federal agents and the Randy Weaver family in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, has become one of the most controversial and widely discussed examples of the abuse of federal power. The Justice Department completed a 542-page investigation on the case last year but has not yet made the report public. However, the report was acquired by Legal Times newspaper, which this week placed the text on the Internet. The report reveals that federal officials may have acted worse than even some of their harshest critics imagined.
This case began after Randy Weaver was entrapped, as an Idaho jury concluded, by an undercover Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agent to sell him sawed-off shotguns.
While federal officials have claimed that the violent confrontation between the Weavers and the government began when the Weavers ambushed federal marshals, the report tells a very different story. A team of six U.S. marshals, split into two groups, trespassed onto Mr. Weaver's land on Aug. 21, 1992. One of the marshals threw rocks at the Weaver's cabin to see how much noise was required to agitate the Weaver's dogs. A few minutes later, Randy Weaver, Kevin Harris, and 13-year-old Sammy Weaver came out of the cabin and began following their dogs. Three U.S. marshals were soon tearing through the woods.
At one point, U.S. Marshal Larry Cooper "told the others that it was ['expletive deleted'] for them to continue running and that he did not want to 'run down the trail and get shot in the back.' He urged them to take up defensive positions. The others agreed.... William Degan ... took a position behind a stump...."
As Sammy Weaver and Kevin Harris came upon the marshals, gunfire erupted. Sammy was shot in the back and killed while running away from the scene (probably by Marshal Cooper, according to the report), and Marshal Degan was killed by Mr. Harris. The jury concluded that Mr. Harris's action was legitimate self-defense; the Justice report concluded it was impossible to know who shot first.
Several places in the report deal with the possibility of a government coverup. After the firefight between the marshals and the Weavers and Mr. Harris, the surviving marshals were taken away to rest and recuperate. The report observed, "We question the wisdom of keeping the marshals together at the condominium for several hours, while awaiting interviews with the FBI. Isolating them in that manner created the appearance and generated allegations that they were fabricating stories and colluding to cover up the true circumstances of the shootings."
After the death of the U.S. marshal, the FBI was called in. A source of continuing fierce debate across America is: Did the FBI set out to apprehend and arrest Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris -- or simply to kill them? Unfortunately, the evidence from the Justice Department report is damning in the extreme on this count.
The report noted, "We have been told by observers on the scene that law enforcement personnel made statements that the matter would be handled quickly and that the situation would be 'taken down hard and fast.' " The FBI issued Rules of Engagement that declared that its snipers "can and should" use deadly force against armed males outside the cabin.
The report noted that a member of an FBI SWAT team from Denver "remembered the Rules of Engagement as 'if you see 'em, shoot 'em.' " The task force report noted, "since those Rules which contained 'should' remained in force at the crisis scene for days after the August 22 shooting, it is inconceivable to us that FBI Headquarters remained ignorant of the exact wording of the Rules of Engagement during that entire period."
The report concluded that the FBI Rules of Engagement at Ruby Ridge flagrantly violated the U.S. Constitution: "The Constitution allows no person to become 'fair game' for deadly force without law enforcement evaluating the threat that person poses, even when, as occurred here, the evaluation must be made in a split second." The report portrays the rules of engagement as practically a license to kill: "The Constitution places the decision on whether to use deadly force on the individual agent; the Rules attempted to usurp this responsibility."
FBI headquarters rejected an initial operation plan because there was no provision to even attempt to negotiate the surrender of the suspects. The plan was revised to include a negotiation provision -- but subsequent FBI action made that provision a nullity. FBI snipers took their positions around the Weaver cabin a few minutes after 5 p.m. on Aug. 22. Within an hour, every adult in the cabin was either dead or severely wounded -- even though they had not fired a shot at any FBI agent.
Randy Weaver, Mr. Harris, and 16-year-old Sara Weaver stepped out of the cabin a few minutes before 6 p.m. to go to the shed where Sammy's body lay. FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi shot Randy Weaver in the back. As Randy Weaver, Mr. Harris, and Sara Weaver struggled to get back into the cabin, Vicki Weaver stood in the cabin doorway holding a baby. Agent Horiuchi fired again; his bullet passed through a window in the door, hit Vicki Weaver in the head, killing her instantly, and then hit Mr. Harris in the chest.
At the subsequent trial, the government claimed that Messrs. Weaver and Harris were shot because they had threatened to shoot at a helicopter containing FBI officials. Because of insufficient evidence, the federal judge threw out the charge that Messrs. Weaver and Harris threatened the helicopter. The Justice report noted, "The SIOC [Strategic Information and Operations Center at FBI headquarters] Log indicates that shots were fired during the events of August 22.... We have found no evidence during this inquiry that shots fired at any helicopter during the Ruby Ridge crisis. The erroneous entry was never corrected." (The Idaho jury found Messrs. Weaver and Harris innocent on almost all charges.)
The Justice Department task force expressed grave doubts about the wisdom of the FBI strategy: "From information received at the Marshals Service, FBI management had reason to believe that the Weaver/Harris group would respond to a helicopter in the vicinity of the cabin by coming outside with firearms. Notwithstanding this knowledge, they placed sniper/observers on the adjacent mountainside with instructions that they could and should shoot armed members of the group, if they came out of the cabin. Their use of the helicopter near the cabin invited an accusation that the helicopter was intentionally used to draw the Weaver group out of the cabin."
The task force was extremely critical of Agent Horiuchi's second shot: "Since the exchange of gunfire [the previous day], no one at the cabin had fired a shot. Indeed, they had not even returned fire in response to Horiuchi's first shot. Furthermore, at the time of the second shot, Harris and others outside the cabin were retreating, not attacking. They were not retreating to an area where they would present a danger to the public at large...."
Regarding Agent Horiuchi's killing of Vicki Weaver, the task force concluded, "[B]y fixing his cross hairs on the door when he believed someone was behind it, he placed the children and Vicki Weaver at risk, in violation of even the special Rules of Engagement.... In our opinion he needlessly and unjustifiably endangered the persons whom he thought might be behind the door."
The Justice Department task force was especially appalled that the adults were gunned down before receiving any warning or demand to surrender: "While the operational plan included a provision for a surrender demand, that demand was not made until after the shootings.... The lack of a planned 'call out' as the sniper/observers deployed is significant because the Weavers were known to leave the cabin armed when vehicles or airplanes approached. The absence of such a plan subjected the Government to charges that it was setting Weaver up for attack."
Mr. Bovard writes often on public policy.
Tom Martz
Massacre at Ruby Ridge
ATF agent I suspect few government officials realized in 1992 the widespread anger and resentment their actions in a remote area of Idaho would inspire. Randy Weaver and his family were just some more "troublemakers" who didn't like the multicultural cesspool and wanted to be left alone. They would be "taken down hard and fast."
While most of the American sheeple paid no attention to this atrocity, a substantial minority on both sides of the political spectrum were outraged and wouldn't forget. Now the story continues.
Please note that, damning as the Justice Department investigation is, FBI officials are now believed to have destroyed evidence to keep it away from investigators.
Don Black
The Wall Street Journal, June 30, 1995, p. A14.
Ruby Ridge: The Justice Report
By James Bovard
The 1992 confrontation between federal agents and the Randy Weaver family in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, has become one of the most controversial and widely discussed examples of the abuse of federal power. The Justice Department completed a 542-page investigation on the case last year but has not yet made the report public. However, the report was acquired by Legal Times newspaper, which this week placed the text on the Internet. The report reveals that federal officials may have acted worse than even some of their harshest critics imagined.
This case began after Randy Weaver was entrapped, as an Idaho jury concluded, by an undercover Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agent to sell him sawed-off shotguns.
While federal officials have claimed that the violent confrontation between the Weavers and the government began when the Weavers ambushed federal marshals, the report tells a very different story. A team of six U.S. marshals, split into two groups, trespassed onto Mr. Weaver's land on Aug. 21, 1992. One of the marshals threw rocks at the Weaver's cabin to see how much noise was required to agitate the Weaver's dogs. A few minutes later, Randy Weaver, Kevin Harris, and 13-year-old Sammy Weaver came out of the cabin and began following their dogs. Three U.S. marshals were soon tearing through the woods.
At one point, U.S. Marshal Larry Cooper "told the others that it was ['expletive deleted'] for them to continue running and that he did not want to 'run down the trail and get shot in the back.' He urged them to take up defensive positions. The others agreed.... William Degan ... took a position behind a stump...."
As Sammy Weaver and Kevin Harris came upon the marshals, gunfire erupted. Sammy was shot in the back and killed while running away from the scene (probably by Marshal Cooper, according to the report), and Marshal Degan was killed by Mr. Harris. The jury concluded that Mr. Harris's action was legitimate self-defense; the Justice report concluded it was impossible to know who shot first.
Several places in the report deal with the possibility of a government coverup. After the firefight between the marshals and the Weavers and Mr. Harris, the surviving marshals were taken away to rest and recuperate. The report observed, "We question the wisdom of keeping the marshals together at the condominium for several hours, while awaiting interviews with the FBI. Isolating them in that manner created the appearance and generated allegations that they were fabricating stories and colluding to cover up the true circumstances of the shootings."
After the death of the U.S. marshal, the FBI was called in. A source of continuing fierce debate across America is: Did the FBI set out to apprehend and arrest Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris -- or simply to kill them? Unfortunately, the evidence from the Justice Department report is damning in the extreme on this count.
The report noted, "We have been told by observers on the scene that law enforcement personnel made statements that the matter would be handled quickly and that the situation would be 'taken down hard and fast.' " The FBI issued Rules of Engagement that declared that its snipers "can and should" use deadly force against armed males outside the cabin.
The report noted that a member of an FBI SWAT team from Denver "remembered the Rules of Engagement as 'if you see 'em, shoot 'em.' " The task force report noted, "since those Rules which contained 'should' remained in force at the crisis scene for days after the August 22 shooting, it is inconceivable to us that FBI Headquarters remained ignorant of the exact wording of the Rules of Engagement during that entire period."
The report concluded that the FBI Rules of Engagement at Ruby Ridge flagrantly violated the U.S. Constitution: "The Constitution allows no person to become 'fair game' for deadly force without law enforcement evaluating the threat that person poses, even when, as occurred here, the evaluation must be made in a split second." The report portrays the rules of engagement as practically a license to kill: "The Constitution places the decision on whether to use deadly force on the individual agent; the Rules attempted to usurp this responsibility."
FBI headquarters rejected an initial operation plan because there was no provision to even attempt to negotiate the surrender of the suspects. The plan was revised to include a negotiation provision -- but subsequent FBI action made that provision a nullity. FBI snipers took their positions around the Weaver cabin a few minutes after 5 p.m. on Aug. 22. Within an hour, every adult in the cabin was either dead or severely wounded -- even though they had not fired a shot at any FBI agent.
Randy Weaver, Mr. Harris, and 16-year-old Sara Weaver stepped out of the cabin a few minutes before 6 p.m. to go to the shed where Sammy's body lay. FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi shot Randy Weaver in the back. As Randy Weaver, Mr. Harris, and Sara Weaver struggled to get back into the cabin, Vicki Weaver stood in the cabin doorway holding a baby. Agent Horiuchi fired again; his bullet passed through a window in the door, hit Vicki Weaver in the head, killing her instantly, and then hit Mr. Harris in the chest.
At the subsequent trial, the government claimed that Messrs. Weaver and Harris were shot because they had threatened to shoot at a helicopter containing FBI officials. Because of insufficient evidence, the federal judge threw out the charge that Messrs. Weaver and Harris threatened the helicopter. The Justice report noted, "The SIOC [Strategic Information and Operations Center at FBI headquarters] Log indicates that shots were fired during the events of August 22.... We have found no evidence during this inquiry that shots fired at any helicopter during the Ruby Ridge crisis. The erroneous entry was never corrected." (The Idaho jury found Messrs. Weaver and Harris innocent on almost all charges.)
The Justice Department task force expressed grave doubts about the wisdom of the FBI strategy: "From information received at the Marshals Service, FBI management had reason to believe that the Weaver/Harris group would respond to a helicopter in the vicinity of the cabin by coming outside with firearms. Notwithstanding this knowledge, they placed sniper/observers on the adjacent mountainside with instructions that they could and should shoot armed members of the group, if they came out of the cabin. Their use of the helicopter near the cabin invited an accusation that the helicopter was intentionally used to draw the Weaver group out of the cabin."
The task force was extremely critical of Agent Horiuchi's second shot: "Since the exchange of gunfire [the previous day], no one at the cabin had fired a shot. Indeed, they had not even returned fire in response to Horiuchi's first shot. Furthermore, at the time of the second shot, Harris and others outside the cabin were retreating, not attacking. They were not retreating to an area where they would present a danger to the public at large...."
Regarding Agent Horiuchi's killing of Vicki Weaver, the task force concluded, "[B]y fixing his cross hairs on the door when he believed someone was behind it, he placed the children and Vicki Weaver at risk, in violation of even the special Rules of Engagement.... In our opinion he needlessly and unjustifiably endangered the persons whom he thought might be behind the door."
The Justice Department task force was especially appalled that the adults were gunned down before receiving any warning or demand to surrender: "While the operational plan included a provision for a surrender demand, that demand was not made until after the shootings.... The lack of a planned 'call out' as the sniper/observers deployed is significant because the Weavers were known to leave the cabin armed when vehicles or airplanes approached. The absence of such a plan subjected the Government to charges that it was setting Weaver up for attack."
Mr. Bovard writes often on public policy.
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