Republican Debate: No Runs, No Hits, No Errors

At some point, we'll get to the primaries and this seemingly endless debating will be a distant memory. For the moment, the debates serve as a sort of political batting practice, where home runs aren't scored and whiffs are quickly forgotten. Yesterday's hoorah was little different.

Scanning the headlines this morning, the mish-mash of statements about the candidates show only one clear loser: John McCain. McCain has almost been annointed the official afterthought of the campaign. Some headlines scream Thompson stinks, some say he won, some highlight Rudy and Romney's tax rift, but none include the Arizona Senator.

Only on CNN did he get a mention, and that came when the subject of immigration rolled around. The analysts were saying McCain has changed his tune. He could be singing clear pitch on that one and nobody will listen. McCain's credibility on immigration is about as solid as Hillary Clinton's on ethics in fundraising.

As for the other candidates, nothing was won or lost. No one was injured by a fastball on the knuckles. That's about as good as one can hope to achieve in batting practice.

Giuliani Closing Gap with Romney in New Hampshire

Rudy Giuliani has drawn to a statistical dead heat with Mitt Romney in New Hampshire. This is awful news for the Romney camp, who trail in national polls by a significant margin. It appeared obvious to most observers that Romney was playing for a "springboard effect" in Iowa and New Hampshire.

As Howard Dean proved in 2004, Iowa alone isn't enough. Both early return states are needed to capture momentum. On the other hand, if Giuliani can sandwich Fred Thompson's apparent South Carolina stronghold between New Hampshire and Florida wins, he'll be in the driver's seat on Mega Tuesday.

Add to that news that Pete Wilson has endorsed Giuliani in California, and a recipe for powerful momentum is brewing for the Mayor. No doubt Romney will double down and fight for the state in his own back yard. He has time to rebuild there, but the clock is ticking. I suspect that Fred Thompson, seeing no way to win there, would far prefer a Romney win over Giuliani to keep an equilibrium before the South can weigh in.

This should be an interesting developing story.

The Privatization of American Warfare - A Failed Idea

The latest round of rifts between the American military, the Iraqi government and private military contractors (formerly known as mercenaries), prods at the edges of a wider - and more disconcerting - issue: the privatization of American warfare. Setting aside partisan hyperbole and hand wringing, it is easy to see that such a trend is deleterious not only to democracy, but to foreign policy in general. The American tradition of shared risk and reward is being replaced by a monolithic political structure, insulated financially, politically and, perhaps, shielded morally from the electorate it was designed to serve. The trend belies a design for efficiency it seeks to achieve.

The easiest way to dig into the idea is to begin with what the military is designed to achieve. Its sole purpose is to defend the United States of America and its interests abroad. Those interests are - by virtue of democratic fiat - complex and difficult to anticipate from one administration to the next. Some administrations and congresses focus primarily on economic and political interests abroad. Others have a more idealized world view, seeking to export American ideas.

These interests are as fickle as the people who devise them.

The military, responsible for projection and protection of those interests, has a mandate for efficiency. What good is it to say we want nation "x" or dictator "y" contained, if we are unable to act on the idea with speed and real effect? How do we sustain economic growth and prosperity if our military consumes too much of our nation's resources? We don't. So the military is tasked with being efficient, small and technologically superior to achieve maximum effect at minimum cost. - Continues Below


F-22 Raptors

In ideal circumstances, this sort of military force is sufficient. However, we learn nothing from history if we do not learn that the ideal is rarely in any way associated with reality. In reality, political pressure to overachieve often places an unrealistic burden on a overextended military. One of the basic rules of personal economics is to count cost before making expenditures. It would be ideal to own the perfect house, best car and put one's children in the finest schools. The reality is that few can afford the largesse required to achieve that ideal.

If one transfers that analogy to geo-political behavior, the situation in which we are now immersed is too expensive for our budget. This is where the financial insulation I mentioned before becomes evident. Our government, carrying out a specific policy ideal in response to an unprecedented attack on New York and Washington D.C., has overextended. Our military, designed for peacetime efficiency and assymetric warfare, has been placed in a counter-insurgency situation featuring three hostile, heavily armed and foreign supported factions in Iraq.

That overextension has led to decisions to bring in mercenaries to fill gaps left by the depletion of military forces. Enter Blackwater Inc. - Continues Below



Before I go too far, I will concede that in times of national peril, mercenaries could be necessary for survival. However, they should be a last resort, after all other options are exhausted. At present, we haven't come anywhere near last resort options. So why are we employing mercenaries?

They are relatively cheap labor, in many cases even trained by our military.

Mercenaries aren't the only issue in our failure to share the financial risk here, we are. We are because we do not demand accountability for the cost of this war. We cannot rightly demand accountability because we are, collectively, refusing to become involved in the management of it. Instead, congress is debating useless resolutions with no meaningful effects, because we do not hold them accountable.

By we, I mean conservatives, not liberals. Liberals are loud and clear on wanting to leave Iraq now, even though it is only one front in a growing global war. Conservatives, on the other hand, hand wring and complain about failure, but refuse to pressure congress to take necessary steps to enhance the efforts of our military. And we sit idly and demand a win, without pressing for involvement.

Dennis Miller, to his credit, has forwarded the idea of war bonds to finance the war. That is a great idea, allowing the American people to obtain a direct stake and accountability for the effort. A loss is a financial loss for everyone, not a political inconvenience for a party. And with ownership comes oversight. If I'm invested in the outcome, I'll know what my congressman is doing.

The idea of war bonds isn't far-fetched. Why aren't we using them? I suspect that there is a large segment of the public sector that doesn't want the scrutiny. Instead, it would prefer to argue meaningless resolutions.

But we also touch on the second point of political insulation here, and the arguments in this debate span the width of opinions. Consider a draft. Begin with the military and one will find an organization adamantly against the idea. Going back to the purpose of being small and efficient, the military is dead set against conscription. It is a recipe for inefficiency and it costs a small fortune to train a soldier for the modern battlefield. The military attempts to choose the smartest and most adapted applicants, with an eye toward unit effectiveness and keeping costs down.

A draft also crystalizes public involvement. Of all of the ideas about which I am certain, I am most certain that a draft would bring a rapid end to the "Do Nothing" congress. With no choice but to be involved, American public opinion would become educated and involved. Shared risk for everyone lowers political insulation for the government, but is there any concept more uniquely American? We should be in this together, though we are not now.

I'll leave out any discussion of the corporate sector, not because I believe that they are faultless, but because I do not have the time to adequately describe their faults without sounding like a conspiracy theorist.

Which brings us to the final point of the government being somewhat shielded morally by the current arrangement. An all volunteer force makes for a great political argument. It allows for a projection of power with no risk to those who do not wish to be involved. This is dangerous to any democratic system. It encourages a lack of participation in the decision making process by the very people who may have to pay dearly for gross miscalculations. All the while, the government can proceed without the natural moral check of the will of the people, because the people are isolated from the human toll of the war.

Until we become involved as a group financially, personally and politically, we risk grave mistakes made on our behalf without our consent or input. And that's the upside of the analysis. Read Roman history for the downside.

Coattails Matter in 2008 - Rudy Giuliani's Appear Longest

In an election fresh off the 2006 Republican debacle, it will be important for the Republican candidate to be able to bring some new faces into congress should he win. According to a new poll by Democratic Pollster Celinda Lake, Republican Rudy Giuliani has a lead over the Democratic field in 31 house districts thought most vulnerable to the Democrats. 31, in this age of political parity, is a massive number of vulnerable seats. It will be curious to see if the same holds true with senate races.

If an incoming President can pull a new congress along with him, Republicans might be able to avert World War IV. If ever Republicans needed a candidate that had long coattails, this is the election.

New Hampshire Polling Good for Romney, Bad for Thompson

The latest polling numbers for New Hampshire show Mitt Romney in a solid first place position with thirty percent of the vote. Rudy Giuliani is within striking distance with twenty-three percent and John McCain has fourteen percent. Fred Thompson, suffering the effects of his late entry, has a paltry eight percent of the votes.

It is safe to say that he isn't going to get a free pass into the race.

The issue for Republicans is to figure out how to mold the party into a winning coalition in 2008. If each candidate carves a regional chunk out of the map, the winner will have to tie everyone back together to battle the Democrats. The concern with Thompson's candidacy is that he will leave a disaffected deep south, long a Republican stronghold, which could lower turnout in '08. If he does that, the party could be on the outs for 8 years or more.

That could be a reality if the winner can't finesse his position. That will take a good, seasoned politician to accomplish.

Giuliani Moving in on Romney Turf Thanks to Moveon.org

Whatever else may be true of the snivelling "Betray Us" ad that Moveon.org ran last week, on thing is certain: Rudy Giuliani is getting massive media exposure out of it and is moving on to the front burner in states that matter. Today's Des Moines Register has a feature about the war between Giuliani and Moveon.org. Giuliani wouldn't have had the campaign funds necessary to buy the goodwill that story will generate among conservative Iowans.

Ultimately, this election will narrow down the issues about which people care, and I suspect that protecting the United States from attacks by Jihadis and their cohorts will rank highly on the agenda. Giuliani, by standing front and center and defending the military, is scoring points on that count.

The other side of the coin is that by taking on Moveon.org, Giuliani is shifting the spotlight from Romney to himself in places like Iowa. It is safe to say that, in spite of the new dates for caucuses and primaries, Iowa and New Hampshire will still play important roles in establishing momentum. If Giuliani can knock off Romney in one or the other, his "Florida Firewall" may well work.

This latest controversy is a step in that direction.

The Clinton Health Care "Plan"

"It would make it mandatory for all Americans to have health insurance, much like drivers are obliged to carry auto insurance. There would also be tax credits to cap the amount of money families pay for coverage.

The proposal includes the expansion of Medicaid, the U.S. government-run health system for low-income Americans, and would require large companies to offer coverage to employees or pay into a government-operated pool of health funds." - Source

The Bill T World Peace "Plan"

"It would make it mandatory for all dictators to hold free and fair elections and to obey the will of their respective peoples."

Great. Now we have universal health care and world peace. Next we can work on getting Notre Dame a victory on the football field. On second thought, let's set reasonable goals and get them an offensive touchdown...

Clinton has no health care plan. She has a wish list.

Scathing Words About Fred Thompson

Dick Morris

Fox News Political Analysts Dick Morris and Eileen McGann aren't hunting jobs with the Fred Thompson campaign. In their analysis, Thompson is a "Political Light Weight", "Political Insider", has "Questionable Conservative Credentials" and "No Dough." They say all of that in headers, prior to their substantive criticisms.

Here are samples:

"The New York Times reported this week that in 1992, Thompson’s old law firm actually advised the lawyer for the Libyan terrorists who were charged with planting the bomb on Pan Am flight 103, which blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland. The firm was paid over $800,000 — that’s a lot of lawyering. The Libyans billed the firm for several hours for conferring with the lead attorney on the case. According to the firm’s lawyers, Thompson advised them on “jurisdictional” issues.

Translation: how to keep the terrorists from being extradited to stand trial.

At the time, Libya was refusing to extradite the suspects and the entire international community was outraged. It was then that the U.S. added Libya to the list of countries where there is state-sponsored terrorism. Ultimately, the suspects were extradited and tried in Scotland. One of them was convicted, while the other was acquitted. In 2003, Libya admitted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and agreed to pay $2.7 billion to the families of the survivors — no thanks to Fred and his law firm." - Emphasis added.

Or this nugget:

"Former Congressman Michael D. Barnes (D-Md) confirms that Thompson worked for the abortion rights group. He was employed by the same lobbying and law firm that Thompson worked for and he said he talked to Thompson “while he was doing it [lobbying for the group], and I talked to [De Sarno] about the fact that she was very pleased with the work he was doing for her organization.” He added: “I have strong, total recollection of that. This is not something I dreamed up or she dreamed up. This is a fact.” How odd that Thompson would have “no recollection.”

When Thompson first ran for the Senate in 1994, he checked a box on a questionnaire about abortion indicating that he believed that abortion “should be legal in all circumstances for the first three months.”

And when he ran again in 1996, he told the Christian Coalition that he “opposed” a constitutional amendment protecting “the sanctity of human life.” He wrote on the questionnaire “I do not believe that abortion should be criminalized. This battle will be won in the hearts and souls of the American people.”

With a Republican field of a pro-choice candidate (Giuliani), a recent convert to pro-life (Mitt Romney) and a former abortion lobbyist (Fred Thompson), the right wing doesn’t have much to choose from." - Read the full analysis here.

The facts don't bode well for Thompson under the withering scrutiny, not of the old media - which could serve as a rallying point - but with the conservative base. And it isn't simply the social conservatives who have trouble with Thompson. Fiscal conservatives don't much care for his spending record and traditional conservatives don't like his work to gag free speech with his unflinching work on McCain-Feingold.

The taint on Thompson is visible and will be hard for him to overcome.

No Shocker: Hillary Clinton Endorsed by Wesley Clark

General Wesley Clark

Possibly providing convenient cover for Hillary Clinton, following a week in which she called into question General David Petraeus, Wesley Clark has announced his support for the candidacy of his former boss' wife. Much like the issue with Giuliani yesterday calling Clinton onto the media carpet, this announcement has some points to ponder.

First, Clinton needs some military support after her walk along the precipice of the anti-war left. Having the former general post his support is useful, from an old media perspective.

Next, the timing of the announcement in the dead of a Saturday news cycle, shows that Clinton still has to respect the power of the anti-war left. In most elections, she would want a former general and national political figure to come out on a bright and shiny Monday morning, so the whole world could see a move toward the middle. That the General decided to roll out his support on a Saturday shows that the anti-war left has a firm hold on the imagination of the Democratic primary.

Finally, the General has essentially become the "utility military guy" for the Democrats. His support for Clinton, in spite of the fact that she hasn't strongly denounced her natural enemies - Moveon.org - for a lousy attack on the American commander in Iraq, shows that he has become more Democrat than General.

As an addendum, Hillary might use him for surrogate attacks on the anti-war crowd, or even as a buffer. However, most people won't pay too close attention to him and the Republicans will continue their complaints about the state of the Democrats and their anti-war supporters.

Nuts and Bolts: If Attacked, Americans want Giuliani, not Clinton

When it boils down to the basic elements, an attack on America, for instance, Americans would prefer to have Giuliani in the White House.

If one trusts him with one's life, surely one could trust him on taxes and education, right?

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Sides with Kucinich

Here's the easy way to determine that you're arguing a foolish position:

"Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday that US President George W. Bush had been defeated in his Middle East plans and would one day stand trial for "atrocities" committed in Iraq."

Dennis Kucinich has held the above position for quite some time. If you wake up tomorrow and discover an Ayatollah is forwarding your ideas, you might want to rethink them. Kucinich is as relevant to the presidential race as a unicyle is for mass transit, but he is a useful propaganda stooge for Jihadis. Nice to see them publicly embrace his ideas and expose them as the bunk they really are.

Thompson's Position Unclear

Human Events marks the first week of the Thompson candidacy with an essay about how he's positioned in the race. The Thompson supporters have surged him into second place nationally, but the foundation for his campaign is shaky. In the early states, he's not in good position. He's better off in other states, but that may not make much of a difference.

From the Essay:

"Did Thompson’s relatively late start in the race hurt him? It depends on where you are. In Virginia and Mississippi, for example, State Republican Chairmen John Hager and Jim Herring respectively told me that so preoccupied are Republicans in their states with state elections this fall that there is next to no discussion of the presidential race the following year. Indeed, in Virginia, the two likely Republican combatants for the Senate nomination, Rep. Tom Davis and former Gov. Jim Gilmore, have put off their own declaration of candidacies until after the all-important races for the state legislature in November. So a candidate announcing in September for a presidential race the following year has no problem."

On the one hand, Virginia and Mississippi are better hauls electorally than Iowa. On the other hand, position means everything in a Primary, and by the time they come into play, they may not matter. Thompson's "South Carolina Firewall" may not matter if the momentum is built up behind another candidate.

Then, the issues about perception work both for and against him:

"National pundits have also begun to fire barbs at the Thompson balloon as it begins to rise. In his column September 13th, Robert Novak complains that potential Thompson backers across the country “wanted to board the Thompson camapgin but were repelled by his gate-keepers”-- one of whom he identifies as longtime national GOP operative Mary Matalin. The same day, George Will’s Thompson commentary was even more devastating; in echoing liberal columnist Ruth Marcus, Will concluded that the former senator “is unfamiliar with the details of his own positions” and cites a rambling interview with radio hostess Laura Ingraham about his work to enact McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation."

While he has a contingent of "Fredheads" who have been in his corner, how many will be moving away from him if he's painted as THE insider candidate. Matt at Free to Choose has a blow-by-blow of the Will article and it is worth a read.

The point? Thompson has work to do. He may yet re-invent campaigning, but if he does, it may be costly. Does he have the bankroll to pull it off?

Barack Obama Embracing Carter's Foreign Policy

Thanks to Barack Obama, we get a new reminder this week that the stultifying futility of the Carter Era isn't so much a bane to Democrats as it is something that needs to be pulled out and dusted off when the party moves so far left that it can't see the middle anymore. It wasn't bad enough that the Democrats spent two days wavering between Moveon.org's attacks on Petraeus and the Democratic Senate Caucus' sudden military genius. Now Barack Obama has a new solution.

"Hey guys," he might have thought, "Let's do the Carter foreign policy plan again."

Yes, that Carter. The one who brought you the "Days in Captivity" count from Tehran. The one who single-handedly may have ruined Latin America for a decade. The one who brought the price of a barrel of oil up to par with the car it would fuel. The one so weak that the Soviets invaded Afghanistan without running it past the U.N.

Carter, who does much good as a workman for Habitat for Humanity, was an absolute disaster as a president. Of late, he's been working on cementing his legacy by comparing protecting civilians from suicide bombers to apartheid, giving Hugo Chavez a legitimate opportunity to beat protesters to death with a get out of jail free card from the U.N., publicly criticizing the current president (a big no-no) and being a general mouthpiece for every notion of surrender in the war against Jihad.

Now, Obama would like to re-invigorate his ideas with a fresh campaign. From the full story at Politico.com:

"Barack Obama is outlining his views on the Iraq war in a major speech Wednesday in Iowa, and bringing along a gray-haired source of foreign policy gravitas: Zbigniew Brzezinksi, Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, who says that Obama offers “a new definition of America's role in the world.”

With the gravity, though, comes a some baggage.

Brzezinski, 79, stepped into the crossfire this summer when he published an essay in the summer issue of the journal Foreign Policy, defending a controversial new book about the power of the “Israel Lobby” in American politics.

The book’s authors, Harvard’s Stephen Walt and the University of Chicago’s John Mearsheimer, thanked him for his “incisive defense.”

But the article inserted him into one of the most heated debates in America-Israel politics, a bitter dispute about whether the authors’ claims smacked of bigotry, whether their critics are – as Brzezsinksi put it — “McCarthyite.”

“It is a tremendous mistake for Barack Obama to select as a foreign policy advisor the one person in public life who has chosen to support a bigoted book,” said Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, one of the most visible critics of the Walt and Mearsheimer volume, titled “The Israel Lobby.” (Dershowitz has contributed to the campaign of Obama’s leading rival, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York.)"

The choice says far more about Barack Obama than it does about the has been Brzezinski. And the message is clear. A vote for Obama is a vote for futility.

Clinton Campaign Plagued by the Appearance of Malfeasance

Compared to the burgeoning Hsu Scandal, few things would register on the radar. But the latest news surrounding the Clinton campaign is disturbing in a different way. The Hsu scandal, which gives the Clinton campaign the appearance of being ethically lax, or potentially worse, incompetent, is an indictment of Hillary Clinton's apparent friendships.

The New Jersey scandal is a potential indictment of her political alliances.

"Passaic Mayor Sammy Rivera, 60, allegedly accepted $5,000 at a secret restaurant meet, offering to use his influence to name the dummy company Passaic's official insurance broker.

Rivera, a former cop with a checkered history, was also a featured member of Clinton's long list of campaign endorsements. He was on Clinton's Mayor's Council and her National Hispanic Leadership Council.

Clinton's camp, still red-faced from the embarrassing runner taken by fugitive fund-raiser Norman Hsu a day earlier, quickly booted Rivera from the campaign's committees.

"These are serious charges," campaign spokesman Blake Zeff said." - Emphasis Added

The charges against Rivera are serious. The charges that could potentially levelled at Clinton are equally serious. If it turns out that she is not involved in selecting with whom she allies, then she is negligent in keeping a smooth running and clean machine. If she is responsible, do we want a person in the White House that would readily associate with people like this?

Republican Debate: The Winner Is...

If you listen to Fox News, John McCain. Bunk. There was no winner because the debate is barely memorable, 2 hours after the fact. Mike Huckabee, an honorable guy himself, was making the name McCain synonymous with honor.

We are well aware of Senator McCain's military record, and those of us who value that sort of service and sacrifice are proud of him. But as has been covered too many times to recount, that service record doesn't translate into presidential material. In his defense, he's RIGHT ON THE SURGE. Romney did himself no favors hemming and hawing on the surge. Republicans, unlike wrong-headed Democrats, should be "all-in" on the surge. If Petraeus says it isn't working, our response should be: How many more troops do you need, General? Not, "Gee, it seemed to have been working, now it apparently isn't.

McCain's got that. Then again, so does Rudy Giuliani. He's all over it. And unlike McCain, Giuliani's right on Fiscal Discipline. McCain, for all of his laborious discussion of his record, is still a part of the problem in D.C.

Huckabee took the red meat of Ron Paul's war stance and went "pit bull" with it, but that's been done, so he didn't get high marks for it. Duncan Hunter is becoming more wonk-ish with each passing debate. Hunter knows his stuff and many would love to see him shaping up the Pentagon.

Tancredo is Tancredo, Brownback is, well, I'd prefer to use language befitting a general audience. Sure, he says the right things to get the social conservative vote, but he rings hollow.

So, the winner of the Republican Debate of September 5 is...

The bed. It was a sleeper. We've seen too many of these. Let's get the voting started and get moving. There are Democrats to defeat next November.

Ron Paul: Official Republican Punching Bag, or Laughing Stock?

The old saying goes, if you turn around and nobody is following, you're not leading. Ron Paul is a first rate Libertarian, and by many accounts, an excellent representative for the constituents in his district. But throughout the Republican debate of September 5, he was laughed at, and scorned by his fellow Republicans on stage.

Is that an indictment of his policy by Republicans? Yes. Republicans didn't give him a strong show of support at Ames and haven't shown much support in the polls. More than that, on the other hand, it is an indictment of his choice to be a Republican. The Republican party of 100 or 150 years ago is nothing like the Republican Party of today, and with good reason.

The United States isn't a nation on the far side of the Earth, removed by communication and travel barriers from its European roots. The United States of today is a nation immersed in the woes and good fortunes of the world. The trade and political structures of the modern world are complex and demanding. An isolationist plan is a plan for economic deprivation and political malaise.

If we don't lead, I don't know of another country that will. I've said repeatedly that Ron Paul's ideas on small government are appealing. But the price for them - abject defeat at the hands of Jihad - is prohibitively expensive. We will get killed with an isolationist policy.

That isn't hyperbole.

It's time for Ron Paul to pack the crates and head back to the Libertarian Party. He'd be well suited to lead them and the Quixotic crusade against the inevitable. He's not suited at all to lead a party who doesn't know whether it should mock him or shun him. The Libertarians will embrace him and he won't be missed on the Republican ballot.

Ames Iowa Straw Poll – Mitt Romney is on the Launch Pad

As mentioned yesterday morning, South Carolina’s switch of Primary dates has made this a race for organization. Mitt Romney will win that race 10 times out of 10. He’s sharp, well prepared and has a thorough game plan. When we consider that statement carefully, those are the qualities we need in a president as a war rages and the world stands at the precipice of chaotic upheaval.

Romney has demonstrated a skill in organization that makes his campaign the envy of the Republican race. And he has the cash and charisma to turn that organization into a threat to the Democratic front-runners.

Romney’s soft spots are curious and few. He’s been accused of animal abuse, flip-flopping on abortion (though I can’t understand how changing one’s mind constitutes a flip-flop, since a flip-flop would require changing one’s mind twice and arriving back at the original conclusion – another post for another day), being too programmed and being a Mormon. Last time I checked, he doesn’t deny being a Mormon. But the old media is asking stupid, bigoted questions, repeating false allegations about the religion and treating Mormonism like a crime, all the while using evangelicals as a shield.

I was raised among the Southern Baptists, and one of their preachers – not related to me, which is an important distinction given that my father and brother are Southern Baptist preachers – said that the only religious litmus test he had was that he wouldn’t vote for a Methodist representing New York. And I’ve heard my father dismiss the issue of Mormonism as well. So evangelicals that I know, and ones I’ve heard, have no religious problems with Mitt Romney. Then again, the old media never met a fact they couldn’t ignore if their agenda needed a fudge, I mean, nudge.

The animal abuse charge stems from an event that happened at a time when standards were different. That is, humans were more important than dogs and a case of Fido having bowel problems wasn’t cause for a special prosecutor. As for the flip-flopping, I have a new rule in life about every three or four days, and today’s new rule is that if Sam Brownback is vituperating about a candidate’s position, that candidate is likely to be right.

Senator Brownback’s pontification on the issue of abortion is just this side of reprehensible. He behaves as if those who were not born with pro-life views have no moral authority to address the subject. That sort of pig-headed bloody-mindedness only serves to splinter a party that will need all hands on deck to beat the Clinton machine in 2008. Brownback, attacking Romney incessantly, seems about as sincere as Hugh Heffner delivering a lecture on monogamy.

As for the too-programmed charge, I offer Barack Obama as a comparison point. Presidential Candidates have to offer opinion and insight on so many subjects that it is nearly impossible for one person to know them all. It is nice to think that a candidate has thought something through before speaking. Obama is probably wishing he had a few canned lines to fall back on after his last two weeks. At least he didn’t claim 10,000 people were injured or killed in the bridge collapse. We might have had to call the President of Canada and ask for help. Yes, he has made statements that foolish sounding.

Romney has earned a fortune in business ventures, turned around the fortunes of Salt Lake City (kept the Olympic hope alive), served as the chief executive officer of a populous state and has learned quickly on the campaign trail. Observers have noted his adaptability in many situations and have been impressed by his skill at quick assessment followed by decisive action. Those are the traits of a wartime president, and for those of you who still haven't completely grasped it yet, we're at war.

His social agenda will appeal to social conservatives who aren't running for president or in the extreme fringes. His fiscal policies are sound. He has a premium team around him, and most people will acknowledge that in this complicated age, a team is key to success.

My own personal gauge for whether or not I can support Romney is that the old media savage him at every opportunity. That's a very good sign for a Republican Candidate. Unlike John McCain, Romney gets hounded by the old guard of Washington's media elites.

Mitt Romney has put together a formidable campaign with a legitimate shot at the White House. He does have some weaknesses, but his strengths more than balance his sheet. Oh, and he has a commanding lead in Iowa at the moment, with many voters prepared to cast a ballot in his favor. That’s not a guarantee that he’ll win, but eight other candidates would love to be in his place. If that sentence sounds familiar, we might want to get used to it.

I have a feeling we’ll be hearing it often between now and January.

Ames Iowa Straw Poll – Rudy Giuliani Is Complicated

Polls show that Rudy Giuliani has a lead nationally, though he isn’t dominating the Republican primary. The old media has a hit piece or two on him a week, most recently his daughter was the target of a nasty shot through her “Facebook” ad online. His opponents take their shots as well, and he has a guy who hasn’t announced nipping at his heels.

He’s in a comfortable position for a New York mayor, so he knows the drill.

He’s stated he isn’t pushing for a good straw poll result, but his campaign has been running ads in Iowa and New Hampshire. I’ve asserted that, to an extent, he’s been playing possum (that is to play dead and surprise your opponent). The conventional wisdom says that the straw poll matters, and it looks as though the conventional wisdom is correct right now. So, if a voter is heading down to the straw poll, he has a task in sorting out how to vote with regard to Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani’s strengths are a strong stand on the war (he gets it because he was there on day one of the current phase), a strong position on fiscal responsibility and his ability to open the entire nation, including New York and California, up for Republican chances. His weaknesses are the social conservatives in the Republican party don’t like pro-choice candidates who’ve been seen in drag, his stance on gay civil unions further complicates his position with the social conservatives, he has a messy situation with his previous marriages and (my own personal beef) his views on gun control.

I could, and may produce an entire post at some point, go on extensively about how bad gun control is in relation to violent crime. Philadelphia doesn’t have liberal gun ownership laws, but it has a near record pace for murders in 2007. As I said, I could go on and on.

The issue for a voter considering Rudy Giuliani is either balance or priority. If the voter has a priority list of concerns, and Rudy Giuliani’s positions on the top of that list align properly, then the voter can vote for Rudy Giuliani. For instance, if my biggest concern is the war and my second consideration is fiscal discipline by the government, and I’m not too concerned with issues affecting social conservatives and I’m not a defender of the 2nd Amendment, I can easily vote for Giuliani. If my biggest concerns involve social issues and Giuliani holds views antithetical to mine, I have a problem voting for Giuliani.

The other route to a vote for Giuliani, and it is one that I endorse, is to balance his positions on a range of issues and see how the ledger works out for him. If the total of strikes against him is higher than strikes for, I vote appropriately. The same holds true in the other direction.

Now, both of those methods assume a one-on-one race with a candidate from the other party, and don’t factor in fellow Republicans who have a range of different positions on the subjects that matter to us. That’s the problem Rudy Giuliani faces in a primary. Unlike a race against a Democrat, this is a complicated contest with opponents who appeal to other Republicans.

Can Rudy Giuliani win that race? That’s a tough question that will be answered, I think, very quickly as Republicans use some form of calculus to figure him out. The straw poll is important, but I can’t figure out how he’ll do in it. Maybe I’m uncomfortable because I never was much enamored with calculus.

He’s a complicated candidate in complicated times. That will either sink his campaign or save him from the far corners of either party. We’ll know soon enough. Just not by Saturday night.

Romney on Rudy Giuliani's "Sanctuary" City

The NFL has a preseason, when the games don't matter and the primary goals are to learn the position assignments and not get hurt. Politics has a preseason with those same goals too, but it looks as though that preseason is ending and the Ames Straw Poll is the beginning of the regular season, when every game counts. Welcome to crunch time.

The first big hit was doled out by Mitt Romney, who says that Rudy Giuliani ran a "sanctuary city" for illegal aliens while he was the Mayor of New York. I expect we'll see more heavy hitting over the next two days and then the real tough stuff will start.

Giuliani, for the record, denies the charge.

Ames Iowa Straw Poll – Who the Heck is John Cox?

Here’s the story. I first saw Cox’s name in an article where Iowa Republican leaders were handicapping Saturday’s Straw Poll. He wasn’t mentioned once in the article, but his name appeared in the graphics. From what I can tell, he’s running for President.

You can find more information at his website.

I’d never heard of him, but he’s running. Seems like a waste of time and money, but that’s politics. If you have a chip, they’ll let you play a hand.

South Carolina Adds Tension to Already Seething Primary Schedule

It looks as though South Carolina will move its primary ahead of Florida's, keeping in sync with its "first in the south motto." No doubt candidates not yet in the race are relieved that a chance to build momentum exists before they hit the Giuliani turf in Florida.

This doesn't come as a big surprise and it shouldn't affect how campaigns are planning.

Ames Iowa Straw Poll – Duncan Hunter’s Experience Important

Duncan Hunter presents Republican voters with a certified dilemma. On the one hand, like many other second tier candidates, he lacks the money and national recognition to win the Republican nomination. On the other hand, his experience, knowledge, ability to precisely identify solutions, communications skills across party lines and his steadfast adherence to principles make him a formidable foe for any Democrat, if he could only win the nomination.

Congressman Hunter served with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam, attended law school and became a congressman in 1980. His record in congress is enviable and his leadership is strong.

Given the current state of international affairs, he has 4 areas of expertise that are vital:

His knowledge of the military and defense is without challenge. He knows what he is talking about, has insights few others have and has a firm grasp on what it takes to move us forward in the war in which we are engaged.

His knowledge of International Affairs is powerful and broad. Hunter was issuing information and warnings about a critical mass of trouble with China (a subject blogged extensively by Four Inch Heels of late) before most people were aware that problems existed. He recognizes that the dividend of strength is peace, not the other way around.

He’s rock solid on border security. Few of us could argue that a Hunter Administration would make great strides to secure the border and bring sanity to immigration issues.

He’s an economic conservative, careful to balance the needs of economic growth with the concerns of the American worker. We are at war and we need a strong economy to keep an army in the field and well equipped, but we also have to make sure that Americans can feed their families.

Duncan Hunter is a man who is a perfect fit for working to solve the problems we are experiencing in the world today. More importantly for political analysis, he can speak to groups across party lines. His first congressional victory was in a district that had a 2 to 1 Democrat majority. Given the chance, Hunter can unite people behind the ideas that America can appreciate: liberty, security, prosperity and hope.

Here is where I make my strongest distinction with regard to Duncan Hunter. Readers who have followed my posts on the Straw Polls will note that I’ve said that voting for a sure loser is a waste.

But if a voter were to remove emotion, polling data and probabilities, focus on the task at hand (winning the war and preventing global proliferation of nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorist regimes) and pick the candidate best suited to bring us to a successful conclusion, that voter would likely select Duncan Hunter.

Where Duncan Hunter is concerned, a vote is a Spartan acknowledgement of principle, and a voter who casts a ballot for Hunter can be forgiven for embracing hope and optimism. If he were to emerge Sunday morning in a strong position in the Republican primary, America would be better off than it was the day before. That’s a powerful reason to cast a ballot for a guy many don’t give a chance.

Ames Iowa Straw Poll – McCain Hanging on by His Fingertips

Anyone who has read my posts on John McCain know two things: First, I’m absolutely convinced that John McCain can and should lead on the war, and second, I think he’s not the guy to be in the White House. In the interest of fairness, I’ll recuse myself on Senator McCain in the Ames Iowa Straw Poll and make a couple of observations in general.

Senator McCain has stated he’s not participating in the Straw Poll, which is a good thing for him, since his campaign has had many problems of late. He didn’t stand a great chance of winning and Mayor Giuliani bowing out was a perfect opportunity to allow Senator McCain to regroup.

The other observation that I would forward is that the Senator is a complex and difficult political figure to understand. His stance on the war is robustly conservative, but his views on border security and immigration have drawn mixed to hostile reviews. Add to that his longstanding attempts to work on bi-partisan agreements on issues where many believe a firm stance would have better suited conservative interests, and a picture of a candidate emerges that not only defies explanation, but defies voters in the base.

That usually isn’t a strong selling point in primary politics.

Romney Working to Lower Expectations

Politico.com is running an excellent story about Mitt Romney and his work to bring down expectations ahead of Saturday's Ames Iowa Straw Poll. As pointed out here and across the political blogosphere, Romney's biggest liability in Iowa is the high expectations he's raised by running a strong campaign there, compounded by the Giuliani "possum" strategy. Giuliani says he isn't playing along, but don't think for a second that he wouldn't jump out in front of the nearest camera available if he did well Saturday.

The race is beginning to narrow and Romney, if he can lower expectations enough, can deal a mortal blow to many candidates on Saturday. Or, he can get hoisted on his on petard. That's a tough spot for any candidate, but double tough on a candidate who's battling a popular Mayor and a candidate or two who haven't announced.

Saturday is closer than Romney would like, I think.

"Jane Roe" Stumping for Brownback

From Lifenews.com:

"Continuing his theme of stressing his pro-life values, Republican presidential candidate Sam Brownback plans to feature pro-life advocate Norma McCorvey at the Iowa straw poll on Saturday. His campaign hopes it will help attract pro-life voters in a non-binding vote that could wind up eliminating one or more contenders.

McCorvey is the former "Jane Roe" of Roe v. Wade, the case that allowed virtually unlimited abortions. She has endorsed the Kansas senator in his bid for the GOP nod."

If one is going to be a single issue candidate, having the top lineup for that issue is important. A hit tip to Brownback for lining up a solid ringer, and a reminder that almost never do single issue candidates win.

Ames Iowa Straw Poll – Can You Support Ron Paul?

This piece is not written for the leftists who wouldn’t vote Republican if they were at gunpoint, but show up to cheer on Ron Paul on the single issue of the war. This isn’t for the internet crowd who only punch online poll buttons either. This piece is written for the voter who plans to vote for Ron Paul or is leaning that way. If you take the time to read this, I believe you will find a rational, consistent view of the issues and should have more information to help you with your choice.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was a Ron Paul fan in 1988, back in my post-liberal libertarian phase.

That was almost 20 years ago and in the interval I’ve read and learned much. And, I still like many of the ideas that Ron Paul forwards. The libertarian notions of personal choice, protection of private property and suspicion of entangling foreign alliances all deserve careful consideration. I think we’ve been trained to be quick with the “nanny” impulse, slow to rage over Supreme Court decisions gutting constitutional guarantees of property protection in the name of “economic development,” and utterly indifferent to the abject failure of the United Nations, the threat of a foreign court trying United States citizens for breaches of a non-codified and ubiquitous international law, as well as other growing international concerns.

Ron Paul holds these views.

He’s also come to understand the importance of controls on open borders – a completely contrarian position to the Libertarian ideal. His disdain for taxes is admirable and his views on life and privacy are consistent with a small government mindset. On many points, Ron Paul squares ideologically with another Ron; that is Ronald Reagan. However, ideology is not politics, it is a mindset. That’s an important distinction.

I do not question Ron Paul on his convictions. I believe that he believes in his agenda with every fiber of his being. In this age of Sam Brownback and John Edwards style politicians, a sincere man holding to principle is a pleasure to observe. This is another reason I think people find Ron Paul attractive as a presidential candidate.

But politics is not the art of the desirable, politics is the art of the possible. This maxim gives us much to consider as we weigh the Candidate Ron Paul against the Ideas of Ron Paul. Again, I will make no recommendation with regard to your vote; I am only offering ideas for consideration here.

Are Ron Paul’s ideas possible? Consider his statement that he’d get rid of the Internal Revenue Service. I can’t think of one person who would stand up and make a vigorous case to keep the IRS as is. Many people think it needs reform. Others even want to do away with the current tax structure and adopt new, fairer means for taxation.

But Ron Paul has said he’ll plow under the current system. Is that possible?

I don’t believe that it is. How many people would have to completely rearrange their lives to accommodate that idea? How many systems would collapse? The point is that we say we hate taxes, and heaven knows I do, but we don’t have the political will to radically alter the system to completely abolish the IRS.

So modest changes to the system could work to overhaul how we pay taxes. Even a massive change like a fair tax could work, if the road were paved with modest changes along the way. And remember to start picking the programs you’re willing to slash as the size of the government shrinks to pre-depression levels. I love that idea, but I know many oxen would be gored and many pet projects would be scrapped.

The point? As you peel at this onion, you realize how many layers of practical application would have to be reformed and how radically different the way we operate would be tomorrow.

That kind of change happens in segments, or at gunpoint, not with a signature on an executive order. So the idea sounds fine, but the practical applications sound unreasonable. As an anecdote, I listened to a question and answer session on the fair tax and heard one question about what would happen to the taxpayer’s mortgage interest deduction. We’re a long way from massive tax reform.

To back-step for just a moment, I think that having a voice in the debate for radical reforms is absolutely vital to democracy and governance. Ron Paul keeps needed pressure on the frontrunners, and if he can pick up enough votes, he’ll work wonders for the Republican platform. It would be nice to see deficit reduction and budget slashes back on the agenda.

Back to the point. Extrapolate the idea that reform comes in small doses and you’ll see the bigger picture. Would it be possible to make a massive retreat from Iraq? Sure, and it could even be orderly. Would we want it?

If you think oil is expensive now, wait until it falls into the hands of extremists on both sides. Yes, we could completely overhaul our economy, but that takes time. If you think the depression was bad, imagine a world where extremists control much of the energy supply.

And one can’t argue any other energy form would substitute immediately, because we’re talking massive capitalization to expand other options, with questionable profit margins due to insufficient research. A free market won’t even support overnight changes to the structure of the market. By the way, we don’t have a 100 percent free market, so that would be another point of controversy.

All this and we haven’t even touched the morality of preparing an entire nation for wholesale slaughter at the hands of extremists, the abandonment of long time allies and the potential national dilemma posed by a world beating at the door to get in.


Israeli School Children Duck During Qassam Rocket Attack

As I’ve outlined here, Europe is on the precipice of social collapse. Four Inch Heels has outlined the growing totalitarian alliance between Russia and China and some other bad actors. Even Latin America is falling for the old arguments of socialism and tyranny as a means to a happy end for the locals – which, for any student of history, is a tiresome and mind-numbing development.

So we have the realistic versus the unrealistic. We would abandon our own self-interest to radically change our system so fast. Another lesson from history is that progress changes everything. In our case, technology alone has made it impossible to strictly apply the constitution to every scenario. Would the framers of the constitution want us to ignore a spreading al-Qaeda threat in cyberspace because we didn’t want bulk raw data collected for the sake of a potential threat (not even actual in most cases) to privacy?

So, we’re back to square one. What do we do? Do we vote for an ideal or a plan? That’s the question supporters of Ron Paul must answer. The idea is attractive in some cases and frightening at the same time. Is that fear based in reason or emotion?

Here’s a better framing of that question. Is your support for the ideal based in reason, or in a visceral reaction to so many things wrong in America today?

Answer that and you’ll know whether to put your mark on the Ron Paul line of the ballot.

Ames Iowa Straw Poll – Mike Huckabee as an Option

I could summarize much of what I know about Mike Huckabee in one sentence. Mike Huckabee is an honorable man with good ideas for America on many points like taxes and reduction in government, but isn’t capable of winning an election against a first tier Democrat.

When we consider that our main goal in choosing a candidate is winning, the previous sentence becomes an indictment against a vote for Mike Huckabee. If he were able to raise more money and had a higher national profile, he’d be in with the first tier.

He isn’t. That’s a shame and that’s the way it is.

Ames Iowa Straw Poll – Why it is Foolish to Vote Tancredo

First, he’s not going to win. He won’t even come close. 40,000 people are expected to vote. Does anyone think Mr. Tancredo would be promising free tours of Capitol Hill if he thought he’d get 10 or 15 percent of that number? He’s toast.

In the event his inability to win doesn’t deter you, then at least let his hyperbole appeal to your common sense. When it does, you’ll find a new candidate. Right after yesterday’s debate, Tancredo was at it again – wanting to defend his idea to bomb Mecca.

He tossed this one liner out in the debate: "Yes, the State Department -- boy, when they start complaining about things I say, I feel a lot better about the things I say,…"

That, in a word, is stupid.

One can say that one feels better if the Democrats are against him, or even the Department of Defense (as Ron Paul might argue), but to lambaste State is to be oblivious to reality. First, the State Department is the caution button on the Presidential console. We invest money, time and expertise in diplomatic intelligence gathering so that the president doesn’t run around bombing tactically worthless (at best) or counterproductive (even worse) or catastrophically incorrect (at worst) targets.

Tancredo doesn’t get it, but he fills the shoes of Pat Buchanon, so he doesn’t have to. He’s there to represent the fringe. If a voter isn’t a certified member of the fringe, that voter doesn’t want to waste time flushing a vote for Tancredo.

If you want a reason to vote for him, how about a free tour of Capitol Hill? That’s the best option I can find, and I wouldn’t even want to take it. If I want the nutjob tour of the Capitol, I’ll call Senator Byrd’s office. At least that would be entertaining.

Ames Iowa Straw Poll – Why You Shouldn’t Vote for Tommy Thompson.

By now, you’ve noticed that I can’t even make a case for any of the participants I’m covering today. If I have to write a sentence explaining to you why you shouldn’t vote for Tommy Thompson, you should probably vote for Tommy Thompson. You’ll get precisely what you deserve, no more or less. Really.

Ames Iowa Straw Poll – A Vote Against Sam “John Edwards” Brownback

Sam Brownback has done for the Pro-Life movement what John Edwards has done for Poverty Advocacy, he’s made it a punchline. While his campaign was beavering away on beating Ron Paul on the Internet Poll, his words were irritating many of the party faithful in Sunday’s Republican Debate.

Brownback has come to represent a nasty, covert hack and slash “Life” advocate, using questionable tactics and ethics to advance a cause not threatened by anyone in the Republican race, including Giuliani. And with each sentence and facial expression, he reminds many of Edwards, with the glowing smile and piercing “used Yugo salesman” eyes masking an apparent contempt for the entire process. If we would just elect him and not make him pander, his actions suggest, we’d all be much happier.

And Brownback would lead the way to "utopia," one executive order at a time.

Aside from the too heavy polish, Brownback has an iffy voting record on a ton of other important subjects, a knack for overplaying a pander, has little administrative experience and has no chance of beating any of the Democratic front-runners. He’s trying to muscle his way into an echelon of politics too high for his charisma and depth.

A vote for Brownback is a mistake, and you won’t even get a free tour for it. Just thought you’d want to know.

The Ames Iowa Straw Poll Week Schedule

This is the big week for candidates and Saturday functions like NCAA Basketball’s Selection Sunday for the NCAA Tournament. The Major Players will move to the tournament and the minors will be sent home. Usually, a Cinderella story will sneak through.

I’ll be giving extensive coverage to the Straw Poll this week and I’ll focus on Republican candidates on each day.

Today, I’ll cover Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo and Tommy Thompson. Tomorrow, I’ll cover Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee. Wednesday, I’ll cover Duncan Hunter and John McCain. Thursday, I’ll cover Rudy Giuliani and Friday I’ll cover Mitt Romney.

Any breaking news will be covered in real time.

GOP Debate August 5, 2007 - You Didn't Miss Much

First Impressions:

Ron Paul gets the first and last word on Iraq. Uh, he doesn't represent too many in the party on that count. Why not give him the first and last word on health care, or taxes?

Tommy Thompson hasn't been asked his opinion this much since they woke him up to tell him that he was Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Could Tom Tancredo get more angry?

No big news from the big 2 plus 1 sorta big thanks to the media. Rudy Giuliani did well. Mitt Romney did well. We NEED John McCain in the senate leading on the war - PROVIDED HE PROMISES NEVER TO INVOLVE HIMSELF WITH IMMIGRATION AGAIN.

Sam Brownback reminds me of John Edwards. That's not a compliment.

Duncan Hunter looks tired. He's climbed a long way up the hill, but he's just overwhelmed by the money and media he can't get. He's a great guy and I'd love to see him heading up the DOD.

Mike Huckabee is an honest guy, but he'd do better in the senate than trying to run here. Pick up one of those Arkansas seats, Governor.

George Stephanopoulos will claim his questions were fair. Yeah, so what? It isn't just the questions that matter. Who one asks matters as much or more so. The voters say overwhelmingly that 3 or 4 candidates are in the hunt, but every time I look up, Tommy Thompson is answering a question.

That doesn't make sense and it is a clever way to slip a bias under the radar. Let's see the Democrats' debate feature Dennis Kucinich. No? Oh right, George will quiz them after the straw polls. Dennis may not even be invited.

So there's the first impression. Not much learned, no errors by the contenders. Can we please jettison the chaff now?

New Rule: No More Fred Thompson Posts Until He's In

I'm trying to be as objective and fair as I can be with the Republican presidential race. In making that attempt, I've noticed that it is patently unfair to only mention Fred Thompson in references to whether or not he's announcing. In the Blogosphere, Rudy Giuliani is pounded for his abortion stance. Mitt Romney is pounded for being too wealthy. John McCain is being generally pulverized for so many different offenses - real and imagined - that I actually feel pity for him, even though I'd never cast a vote for him.

The rest of the candidates have done the "man up" and taken their beatings fairly and squarely too. But Senator Thompson gets a pass because he's the "none of the above" guy right now. Hardly fair to keep giving him press for free, when he hasn't earned enough to buy it yet. The other candidates are struggling like mad to show well in the Ames Iowa Straw Poll, raise money to compete in primaries and Senator Thompson is getting a pass.

To me, that means one of two things:

1. He feels that he is above competing right now.

2. He's so well connected to inside the beltway money and machines that he doesn't need to compete right now.

Either way, I'm not going to give him the free space here. Note to the Thompson campaign - space in my sidebar is for sale.

So the new rule for this blog is that I don't mention Fred Dalton Thompson in any context, until he announces or gets out of the race. It is the only way I can maintain a fair balance in reporting. Thompson fans may vent their spleens in my comment section below, but my policy stands.

Ames Iowa Straw Poll Matters

From the Full Story at Real Clear Politics:

"When the results are in, the media will use the event, approximately five months before the state's caucuses in January, to judge the state of the field. As Little League coaches around the nation tell their players, it's not whether the candidates win or lose, it's how they play the game. But in this game, no one is going for the sportsmanship award.

The most pressing issue at hand for the ten candidates running for the Republican presidential nomination is managing expectations. For some candidates, meeting or beating those expectations is worth as much as a win in a primary. Failing to meet them, on the other hand, can severely damage a campaign."

It looks as though Rudy Giuliani was playing possum, trying to tamp down expectations from his supporters and raising the expectation of Mitt Romney's supporters. The goal might have been to make it where anything shy of a huge win for Romney was a loss. Now, Giuliani is back in and appears to be playing hard. Perhaps a scare from Ron Paul did wonders for his ambitions.

At any rate, the Ames Iowa Straw Polls matter, not so much to the public at large, but to the small segment of the public, like us, who spin the narrative. That means everyone should be playing to win, lest they be written out of the unauthorized biography. It will be tough for Giuliani to win this, but at least he sees the need to try. That's a win for Romney.

John Edwards Took It, Before He Gave It Back

John Edwards is in trouble again politically. It appears his campaign took money from “special interest groups.” The campaign now refunded the money to the people who donated. He took it, before he gave it back? Sounds like a familiar refrain.

The point in all of this is not Edwards’ hypocrisy. That’s as established as anything could be. The issue is our hypocrisy as a nation. Why shouldn’t a person be able to expend every dime they own to get a person elected? That choice is as American as apple pie.

But thanks to McCain-Feingold we don’t have that choice. Instead, we have a completely dysfunctional campaign finance system that makes it nearly impossible to tell who is supporting who and creates a screen to shield the identities of people who want to launch political attacks and forward their agendas with “soft” money contributions to third party attack dogs.

Not only does that harm the democratic process through dishonesty, it harms the ability of people to fully engage in the process. Is politics all about money? It is now. It wasn’t before. McCain-Feingold didn’t fix the problem, it complicated it. We should set out to repeal this bad law as soon as this election cycle ends.

A Good Case for Rudy Giuliani

Sometimes deduction is a superior method for arriving at a conclusion. I get the feeling that in many ways it may be useful for Republicans in this Presidential election cycle. Rudy Giuliani is getting some points in my book, not because of all of the great things I'm hearing about him, but for what I'm not hearing about him. This article in the Christian Science Monitor goes as far as discounting him as a candidate entirely.

That's a pattern I've noticed quite a bit lately. "Sure, he's leading in the polls and he's the top money getter, but he's not really going to win." Why not? When I hear the former mayor talk about fiscal policy, he not only makes sense, he scores far higher than anyone else in the field except for Ron Paul (who can't enact his policies in our current governmental system). Giuliani also says the right things about defense.

He's a well rounded candidate, with some fairly liberal social ideas. Does that disqualify him as a Republican candidate? He's promised to appoint strict constructionists to the court and has acknowledged his differences with the social conservatives under the Republican tent. If social conservatives are pushing litmus tests, then the party is truly dead and deserves to be thumped by the squishy and diametrically opposed to common sense Democrats.

Giuliani is a candidate that makes sense across a wide range of subjects and I'd be quite comfortable with him in the Oval Office. And, going back to deduction, I think the left fears him. The media is awfully quick dismissing a frontrunner and I don't think that's an accident. He could easily put a ton of blue states into play. The big question, that I've posited here before is how many red states does he bring into play?

Only the Republicans can say. I hope they speak a clear and decisive "none," if Rudy Giuliani makes the final cut.

Developing: Romney Backing Down on Straw Poll

From the Full Story at the Boston Globe via Associated Press:

"...He said he hopes to do well, but "we're not trying to overshoot dramatically." That means reducing the budget for the straw poll Aug. 11 in Ames and the number of supporters his campaign plans to bus in to the event.

In June, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Senator John McCain bowed out of the decades-old nonbinding contest. Romney has put great resources into preparing for the event, which now shapes up as a contest involving several lesser-known contenders."

If this isn't a feint, Romney has some big problems. It will be hard to back down on the Straw Poll after it was a focal point for his campaign. If he does decide to scale back, will he then be conceding defeat as Giuliani and McCain before him? This could become a big early story out of Iowa.

United States Embassy in Jerusalem?

“If George W. Bush wanted to send a signal to Hamas tomorrow morning, he could move the embassy to Jerusalem tomorrow…” So goes another great quote by Newt Gingrich that confirms my theory that he is most powerfully persuasive as an innovator, not administrator. His words underpin a commitment, too often unspoken, to the one democracy in the Middle East that Americans have long worked to preserve, but have occasionally left on the precipice alone. Gingrich understands that a core value of American foreign policy, overlooked by the more radical elements on the left, is a strong support of nations that engender and embrace the spirit of individual liberty and democracy.

But he also has a valid point. Why not move the embassy to Jerusalem? It would be a clear and unmistakable gesture of support for Israel, and a psychological blow to the radicals in Hamas and their weaker sister, Fatah al-Islam. It would also demonstrate our absolute disregard for arguments advanced with violence.

And what do we do about the objections?

1. It would harm the peace process. What peace process? The Palestinians elected Hamas, and they’ve done precious little to destabilize the radical elements within their ranks. Hamas is sworn to the destruction of Israel. Voting with hatred should be allowed as long as the price tag – in this case the loss of the West Bank and Jerusalem permanently – is paid in full.

2. It would destabilize the region. I think I can avoid too many words here. See: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan and Afghanistan. For those disinclined to accept reality, World War 3 has already begun. We should be trying to win it, not manage it.

3. It would harm our relations with other nations in the region. Bunk. Not a day goes by that the Saudi Regime doesn’t bow toward Mecca and thank Allah that the United States has a massive force between them and Iran. Turkey has to play nice, or else an independent and hostile Kurdistan appears on their Southern Border. We don’t need to be settling down with Iran and Syria until the Totalitarian Islamists go the way of every tyrant before them, and we won’t hear a peep out of Jordan for the same reason as the Saudis understand.

Will we move our embassy? Not likely, given our too cordial relationship with the funding agents for the Wahabbists who are trying to kill us. But we could make a gesture. We could make a public request to move our embassy and Israel could cordially decline it in the interest of peace.

The symbolic gesture would be even better, and less costly in money and lives, than the actual move for now. And the symbolism wouldn’t be lost on the killers who are causing this conflict to begin with, the radicals like Hamas and Hezbollah. Israel, suffering through its own crisis of confidence at present, would also be reminded that a great ally stands at the ready. Gingrich understands the power of those symbolic moves.

Do the rest of us?

Straw Poll Seeks 40,000 Ballots

The Ames Iowa Straw Poll is shooting for 40,000 ballots. 11 GOP contenders will be on the ballot and 8 will speak. This should get interesting.

We should remember a couple of things:

1. This is NOT a representative sampling. Ballots cost $35 each and the attendees are there as the result of their initiative. That means that we will find out which candidate has the best organization, with the exceptions of Giuliani (didn’t want to play along), McCain (says he didn’t want to play along, but probably couldn’t have if he did want to, which he said he didn’t) and Thompson, Fred Dalton, who isn’t even technically playing along at all right now.

2. This is stump theater at its finest, with the candidates putting the spin and polish on every detail to get an edge. This is can’t miss for political junkies. I will be at the Phillies Game on August 10 (because of a prior commitment to boo the Generalissimo), but will rush home afterward to get the ball rolling on getting the low-down on the Presidential race.

Here are the current Bill T odds on each candidate winning (I’ll update these each Friday):

Mitt Romney 6-5

Fred Thompson 2-1 (Thompson is at 2-1 because he really does represent “none of the above” at present)

Ron Paul 25-1

Duncan Hunter 35-1

Mike Huckabee 50-1

Sam Brownback 75-1

Tom Tancredo 100-1

Tommy Thompson 10,000-1

Rudolph Giuliani (No Line)

John McCain (No Line)

*Note: Jim whatever his name was has quit, I think. Not that it would have mattered.

So there we are. 3 weeks or so and the real race is on. Good riddance to training camp and we’ll be in the thick of it. I can’t wait.

Plame's Suit Dismissed

From the Full Story at the Washington Post:

"A federal judge yesterday dismissed a lawsuit filed by former CIA officer Valerie Plame and her husband against Vice President Cheney and other top officials over the Bush administration's disclosure of Plame's name and covert status to the media.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates said that Cheney and the others could not be held liable for the disclosures in the summer of 2003 in the midst of a White House effort to rebut criticism of the Iraq war by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The judge said that such efforts are a natural part of the officials' job duties, and, thus, they are immune from liability."

Great. Now can we go back to the minor details like winning a war against totalitarian Islamists? This is small beans politics, Plame got a book deal and fame and Scooter libby got the check. It's time to get back to important things and leave the theater behind.

Ron Paul Threatens Established Republican Order

What if Ron Paul Does Finish Second in Iowa? I proposed yesterday that a Ron Paul second place finish wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. It seems that Patrick Rufini beat me to the assessment by a few hours. The thought was blitzing my mind as I dozed off last night.

First, why would I believe Paul could stun observers? He was a former Libertarian presidential candidate, so he knows the ropes – as well as any candidate can know them from one cycle to the next – and how to run tight, efficient campaigns with low cash totals and core supporters ready to move over big obstacles to succeed. He also has a powerful internet campaign. Rufini asserts that “the internet is his campaign.” I disagree, and Rufini bears out my position by also asserting that Ron Paul will turn out big numbers from near and far.

The internet alone can’t turn out big numbers. Paul’s campaign may have an unorthodox structure, but it isn’t without organization. The big 3 would be well served to take a long look at what Paul is doing right in this regard. Plus, let’s not be so quick to brush aside the visceral appeal – unrealistic and impossible though the ideas may be in practical application – of Ron Paul’s views on small government and classical liberal foreign policy. That visceral appeal will illicit in some a visceral reaction that translates into votes.

All of this means that Romney’s boots on the ground and Giuliani and Thompson’s name fame may be negated by a hard core, bloody minded insurgency led by the Minister of Quixotic Affairs, Ron Paul. It isn’t that far fetched an idea and it isn’t foolish to say so.

Who gets stung most by this turn of events?

Start with Romney. Romney poured a good chunk of time and money into Iowa in the hopes of using it as a launch point to catch Giuliani in the polls. Now, with Giuliani folding his hand entirely and playing his cards like he’s going all in for Florida and mega Tuesday, Fred Thompson taking what appears to be a pass until the Fall and the McCain campaign in complete disarray, the Iowa Straw Polls may serve as little more than a referendum for which second tier candidates go on to play in the majors with Giuliani and Thompson.

With Romney’s numbers mired at 11%, he’s not a sure bet for first tier status. Anything short of crushing the field will be seen by many as a major setback for the former Massachusetts governor. His campaign is spending tons of money, he’s building a massive organization and all he has to show for it is a narrow victory over Paul? That’s a scenario that is likely leading to upset stomachs at the Romney headquarters.

My blogfather, Hugh Hewitt, insists that Paul is a “nutter” and his campaign is doomed to abysmal failure. I think so many being so quick to dismiss Paul lowered expectations to the point where a good showing against Romney may be all that is needed to break out the “messianic mantle” and prep the Paul supporters for a serious run.

But let’s also not let the big boys out of this unscathed. The last thing any of them wants is a hard core anti-war candidate on the stage when the big show begins. Giuliani, who was quick to pummel Ron Paul in the second debate, will be forced to deal with the likes of Keith “Sportscenter Hate Me” Olbermann and God’s gift to leftist punditry for the final debates heading to the general elections.

And what if we have a completely jumbled mess heading into the convention? What if Paul picks up a solid chunk of the “None of the Above” votes and has a brokering position on subsequent convention ballots? Do Giuliani and Thompson want to cut deals with Paul? I find it hard to believe either one savors a sit down with Paul in a convention side parlor – with or without Cuban cigars, which would be as legal as the day is long in Ron Paul’s perfect scenario.

Since I’m already way down the road of incredible speculation, I’ll add this: It may have seemed like a good idea to leave Romney holding the bag in Iowa, but I don’t think the big boys could’ve foreseen a serious Paul challenge. Now, for Giuliani to jump back in is impractical, Thompson may get in under the wire too late and the rest of the field isn’t sparking at all. Somewhere in all of this, the saying about counting chickens before they hatch has to be making sense.

But there is a flip side. Romney could crush everyone, which I believe would put the monkey firmly in the middle of Thompson’s back. Or, Ron Paul fights through and forces serious debate about the Republicans’ new found proclivity for huge government and spending sprees. Maybe the Paul influence would be a good thing for the long run. I wouldn’t rule that out either.

Looks like there isn’t much we can rule out these days. Maybe that’s just what the doctor ordered for a party pushing bad immigration bills and some within it calling for a return of the fairness doctrine. Since former sports guys loom large in the coming debate, I'd like to reference a perennial winner, not a sportcenter castoff. Bill Parcells always said about his football teams: “You are what your record says you are.” Maybe the Republican record of the past few seasons has the party faithful looking for a change of ownership or head coaching.

Am I making a mountain out of a molehill in claiming that Republicans could flock to Ron Paul? Would you rule that out? If so, pray hard for a big Romney win. Otherwise, August 12th may be more than you can handle.

No Haste to Write McCain Campaign Eulogy

From the Full Story at the Houston Chronicle:

"Republican political consultant John Weaver of Texas resigned Tuesday as chief strategist for presidential contender Sen. John McCain as part of a dramatic campaign shake-up that followed disappointing fundraising figures and sinking poll numbers.

Weaver's departure was part of a senior staff exodus that included campaign manager Terry Nelson as well as political director Rob Jesmer and deputy campaign manager Reed Galen.

The move by Weaver, a former executive director of the Texas Republican Party, was considered particularly significant because he was the architect of McCain's first primary bid for the White House in 2000 against George W. Bush that, while unsuccessful, helped define McCain as an appealing maverick."

Many are now proclaiming the McCain Campaign dead. My concern is that while I believe his campaign has been futile since the immigration bill was first used to batter the Republican base, he still has enough cred and pull with the Old Media to mount a serious Kamikaze threat to a campaign or two. All he needs to do is decide on a "scorched earth" strategy and he can insure that no Republican makes it to the White House.

That's a pity because his clarity on the war is vital to the party and he still has a contribution to make to the party on this issue and several others. But I think the longer he stays in the race, the more damage he will do to his influence and credibility. I also think it's possible that Fred Thompson is waiting in the wings to see how big a mushroom cloud rises from the McCain self-destruct.

Senator McCain still has a role in the Republican narrative, but it isn't at the top of the ticket. The sooner he grasps that, the better it will be for all Republicans.

1 in 4 Senior Positions at Homeland Security is Vacant

From the Full Story at Information Week:

"The chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security on Monday called vacant leadership positions within the Department of Homeland Security an "enormous security vulnerability."
U.S. Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., pointed to a staff report out this week that nearly one-quarter of the senior leadership positions in the Department of Homeland Security tasked with protecting the country from terrorist threats are vacant. In addition to the critical leadership vacancies, Thompson noted that the report finds an unusually high number of critical national security jobs at the department filled by political appointees.

"Homeland Security was bruised when the country learned that Michael Brown, an Arabian horse aficionado, was running FEMA," said Thompson in a written statement. "But what's worse than a Homeland Security organization with poor leadership is a homeland security organization with no leadership. Not just a national security concern, DHS's lack of leadership has triggered record-low employee morale, an immeasurable disservice to the hundreds of thousands of men and woman working on the front lines to protect our country.""

As for the grinding axes on political appointees, I rarely trust one party's account of the sins of the other. Sounds like a fresh coat of paint to me. But the vacant positions are of some concern. Either the Department of Homeland Security is vital to our security or it isn't.

If it is, then these vacancies are something that needs to be addressed immediately. If it isn't, then why are we funding the behemoth? I'd like to get some more details before I pass judgment and those details won't be on a democrat's report.

The country is without a major terrorist attack in almost six years, so I doubt that we're in a crisis, unless the vacancies are recent defections. What I mess we are waking up to daily in the old media. I'm beginning to wonder if some ideas are being manufactured in advance of 2008's election.

Republican Burnout: Senators Wrong on the War

From the Full Story at ABC News:

"ABC News has been told the White House is in "panic mode" over the recent defections of Republican senators on the president's stay-the-course policy in Iraq.

Senior Bush administration officials are deep in discussion about how to find a compromise that will "appease Democrats and keep wobbly Republicans onboard," a senior White House official told ABC News.

The official said the White House "is in panic mode," despite Monday's on-the-record briefing by White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, who played down any concern over the recent spate of GOP senators who have spoken out publicly in support of changing course in Iraq.

The Republican defections are seen as "a crack in the dike," according to the senior White House official, and National Security Adviser Steven Hadley is most concerned."

It really shouldn't be this hard to get it right as a Republican. But the constituency is back to square one on the war. It was bad enough we had to hold the line on immigration when a disastrous set of ideas were proposed. Now we have to convince Senators that the war is worth winning?

Here are the vitals:

- The Iraqis may be chiming in a bit too late. Suddenly, their parliament doesn't want us to leave. They should have been saying this loudly and clearly all along.

- The surge, which only 3 weeks ago reached full strength, is performing better than we expected. Why on earth should we bail out when things are beginning to go right for us?

- The Democrats, who seem to be willing to stop at nothing to hammer the war, are wrong about practically everything related to the war, so why join them? Do the Republican defectors think that somehow they can get ahead of the Democrats in surrender mode?

I don't know if the White House is in panic mode, but I do know that some senators have been publicly backing down on their support for our troops and the mission they now seem to be accomplishing. From all reliable accounts, Iraq is far better off now and the surge is working.

If you're a regular reader of the Bill T Blog, you've followed the series When America Quits by Four Inch Heels. This series outlines the plight of the Hmong people who were abandoned when we quit on Vietnam. The injustice of that decision on our part was grave.

We can't do it in Iraq. If the Republicans in the Senate do decide to quit on Iraq, then we don't deserve to be in the majority. Maybe the party is in a complete meltdown.

We need to begin to place pressure on the Senate again. And in the meantime, we need to find some real Republicans to replace the current batch of misfits bailing out on the most important issue facing us today.

Stumping Poverty: Edwards Seeks to Bury $1,200 Haircut

From the Full Post at The Stump:

"I do believe that Edwards is sincere in his message, and not merely making good campaign copy. It would be hard not to be after seeing the squalor many Americans live in.
The problem for Edwards is that he sees the proper response to poverty in America as the domain of the federal government and therefore having no connection with how he, himself lives. So comparisons of his poverty tour with his own house simply do not compute for him. He doesn't "get" it. Many of his fellow Democrats don't either.

Unfortunately for Edwards, much of America does connect personal responsibility as an answer to poverty. It's hard to explain but I'll try. For this section of America, what they see in Edwards is somebody who is perfectly content to live the high life for themselves and at the same time, help the downtrodden with Other People's Money, not their own." - [Emphasis Added]

Edwards is leaving the 28,200 square foot plantation to go rub elbows with the lowly poor. Sweet of him. Meanwhile, 28% of my paycheck goes to city, state and federal taxes and there isn't a 28,200 square foot living space anywhere near where I live.

How about I keep my money and the good Senator surrenders his private basketball court to a homeless shelter? I don't grudge rich people their money. I LOVE seeing the rich get richer. But I do grudge a poverty pimp his limelight minus the focus on the giant wart of hypocrisy buried under his mountain of makeup.

United States v. Ike Brown: More Detail

Sometime in July we will be reading more about the United States vs. Ike Brown, the case that according to Wan J. Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the United States Civil Rights Division, “was the first case filed by DOJ in which it alleges that whites are being subjected to discrimination in voting on the basis of their race.” (Voting Rights Act of l965) What will the parties see as “a curative remedy”?

The decision rendered by Judge Tom S. Lee ordered that within thirty days of the issuance of his decision that “the parties are to submit memoranda addressing what they believe would constitute a curative remedy in this case.” The decision was filed on June 29th. - PDF File

“A Moot Issue”

Natalie Chandler, writing in the The Clarion Ledger says,

"State Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Dowdy wants Ike Brown to resign as chairman of Noxubee County's executive committee, citing possible damage to the party because of a federal court ruling.

‘I have no intention of doing that, so that's a moot issue,’ Brown said Friday. ‘Anything that I control is a moot issue.’”

Judge Lee writes:

“The court is hesitant to find that Ike Brown, or any members of the NDEC has a specific racial animus against whites. Brown, in fact, claims a number of whites as friends.” (p. 17 of 104) I have not read the transcript of the trial, so I don’t know if “claims” means “has” or if Mr. Brown said “some of my friends are white.” NDEC is the Noxubee Democratic Executive Committee.

Mississippi History in Lee’s Decision

Judge Lee’s decision includes several passages about history in Noxubee County and Mississippi—in particular the history of the black population in voting, office-holding, education and economic condition. I am quoting large swaths of the decision and its short history of discrimination. These passages are in addition to the citation of cases relevant to the decision.

A Brief History:

At the time the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1964, there were no black elected officials in Noxubee County and only a small number of the county’s black population were registered to vote. This began to change when federal registrars came to Macon, the county seat, in 1968 to register voters. The year 1971 saw the county’s first black candidates on the ballot, and the first black elected official, Joseph Wayne, who won a seat on the Board of Supervisors.

Ike Brown first became involved in Noxubee County politics in 1977 when he worked in the campaign of William Dantzler, a black candidate for supervisor. At the time of the Dantzler campaign, Brown was living in Madison County but he eventually moved to Noxubee County in 1979 to help black candidate Reecy Dickson in her bid for election as superintendent of education. Dickson’s election to this countywide office, as defendants put it, was “the first major crack in the wall of white dominance in county elective offices.”

The 1980s brought a sea change in the political landscape of Noxubee County. More and more blacks were running for office and blacks began going to the polls in increasing numbers. Brown was active throughout these years in support of black candidates and the cause of blacks taking control, and as blacks steadily gained power, so did Brown gain influence in the black community. By the mid-1990s, blacks held the majority of elected positions in the county.

Defendants readily admit that Brown has been the most vocal, opinionated and controversial political figure in Noxubee County, and they do not deny that he has promoted a racial agenda. . . . p. 18-19 [The decision does say Voting Rights Act of l964.]

The Fifth Circuit has observed that “[a] history of pervasive purposeful discrimination may provide strong circumstantial evidence that the present-day acts of elected officials are motivated by the same purpose, or by a desire to perpetuate the effects of that discrimination.” McMillan, 748 F.2d at 1044.

While the Government argues that whites in Noxubee County have experienced a “recent” history of discrimination, the “history” to which the Government refers consists of the very practices that it claims in this cause to be the violation of Section 2. Defendants are correct that unlike black citizens, whites in Noxubee County have not experienced and do not bear the effects of a history of past purposeful official discrimination in such areas as education, employment and health, which hinder their ability to participate effectively in the political process. Nor, in the court’s opinion, are there in place voting procedures which tend to enhance the opportunity of discrimination against whites (other than those that are the subject of the Government’s complaint in this cause). There is no claim or proof that elected officials have been unresponsive to white citizens. And while the Government contends otherwise, there is scant evidence of a candidate slating process. p. 95

Note 68 As defendants note, it is blacks, not whites, who were the historical victims of discrimination and who continue to suffer the effects of that past purposeful discrimination.

Indeed, both the history of discrimination against blacks and its effects are well established. That history has been recounted numerous times, and will not be repeated here. Further, the record discloses manifest socio-economic disparity between the races in Noxubee County in all areas. According to the 2000 Census data, the median household income for black families in Noxubee County was $16,690; for white families $35,543. Of residents aged 25 and older, only 51.4% of the black population had a high school diploma, compared to 71% of the white population. Blacks aged 25 years and older only comprised 36.6% of the total population with a bachelor’s degree, as compared to whites, who comprised 63%. The percentage of black families below the poverty level was 89%, while for white families it was 9%.

As for racial appeals, defendants have sought to minimize the extent of racial appeals by Brown and others, but there is ample evidence that racial appeals are rather standard in Noxubee County. Black officials routinely urge black voters to “stick together,” and encourage voting along racial lines by appealing to racial prejudice. In addition to proof of Browns’s letter in the Macon Beacon claiming Eddie Coleman had engaged in discriminatoryroad paving practices, the Government offered evidence of public racial appeals by others, including a statement by Justice Court Judge Dirk Dickson at a NAACP candidates forum, stating that in voting, “blacks need to stick together,” a statement by the President of the Mississippi NAACP at a forum before the 2005 Macon city election that black candidates had “taken Shuqualak, the county, and Brooksville ... and now it was time to take the City of Macon”; and testimony by Larry Tate that one of his campaign slogans is “blacks need to stick together.” p. 97.

The Government points out that currently, only two of twenty-six elected officials in Noxubee Couty (7.7%) are white, notwithstanding that whites constitute 32.5% of the voting age population. Defendants, on the other hand, declare that this factor should weigh in their favor given that over the last twenty years, whites have tended to be over-represented in Noxubee County. What they mean, of course, is that some fifteen to twenty years ago, before black voters began fully exercising the franchise, whites held elected office in higher proportion than their voting age population. What is relevant, in the court’s view, is not white voters’ historical successes at the polls, but their more recent experience.

Having considered the Senate factors, the court remains convinced that Brown and the NDEC have administered and manipulated the political process in ways specifically intended and designed to impair and impede participation of white voters and to dilute their votes. As detailed above, defendants engaged in improper, and in some instances fraudulent conduct, and committed blatant violations of state election laws, for the purpose of diluting white voting strength. Although the extent of the abuses of the absentee ballot processes in Noxubee County by Brown and the NDEC is not known, the court is convinced there have been such abuses, that these abuses have been racially motivated, and that the result of these practices has been an infringement of the rights of white voters. The court is also persuaded that the result of this discriminatory administration of the voting process is the dilution of white voting strength. “The right to vote includes the right to have one’s ballot counted. This includes the right to not have one’s ballot diluted by the casting of illegal ballots or weighting of one ballot more than another.” Welch, 592 F. Supp. at 1557-1558 (citing Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 554-55, 84 S. Ct. 1362, 1377-78, 12 L. Ed. 2d 506 (l964). p. 99

The court does not doubt that similar discrimination against blacks continues to occur throughout this state, perhaps routinely. And it may be true, though the court makes no judgment about this, that the Justice Department has not been responsive, or fully responsive, to complaints by black voters. But the politics of the decision to prosecute this case, while foregoing intervention in other cases cannot be a factor in the court’s decision. p. 103

Money is Speech in Presidential Races

Want the definition of arrogance?

From CBS News Via The Nation:

"But grassroots activists should ask themselves a question about the money primary:

Why are the frontrunners raising so much money? Is it because they have the best ideas? The best bases of support?

Hardly. Clinton, who has been the strongest figure in the recent Democratic debates, is raising her money in big chunks from many of the same business interests that backed George W. Bush and other Republicans. Obama has a broader pool of givers, but the attraction seems to be his personal dynamism rather than his soft stands on the issues and his tepid debate performances — and he, too, is attracting a good deal of so-called "establishment" money." - [Emphasis Added]

The thrust of the essay is that money spoils politics. Here's a different thought: Money and politics are inseperable, and those who try hardest to decry money's influence are seeking an unfair advantage.

If we go with CBS, we take corporate and individual's rights to donate money out of the election process. That means that each candidate, from Tommy Thompson to Dennis Kucinich gets an equal share, even though their poll numbers are abyssmal. If we use the polls to determine shares, whose poll is most reliable? No such poll exists.

Money is an excellent guage for a candidate's strength. So what if the "establishment" backs a candidate for president? Maybe I like the "establishment." Maybe, on the other hand, I'll exercise my right to bash the "establishment" by pulling together a counter campaign in the grass roots.

Was CBS watching the immigration debate? The "establishment" received its final marching orders from a wildly diverse group of Americans who were set on stopping the bill. If money were all that mattered, we'd have 12-20 million new "z" Visa holders now.

No, CBS is showing us the egalitarian card. McCain-Feingold demonstrates the futility of trying to restrict speech. But CBS goes further. In this scenario, all candidates would be equally hamstrung and we, the little people, would wait with baited breath for Dan Rather types to tell us what each candidate thought, since the candidates couldn't afford to get their own message out. Sorry, that approaches my definition of political hell, a place I never want to be.

I also found it funny how the essay tied Clinton to Bush. I'm sure someone in the Clinton camp had an apoplectic moment at that connection.

In the end, removing ALL campaign finance restrictions, save those on foreigners, and providing good reporting on who's giving to whom would be a perfect case scenario. The First Amendment doesn't end at the purse. The Old Media Dinosaurs are thrashing as they lay bleeding out from the thousand cuts into their credibility. It's a hideous sight, but not unwelcome.

Maybe new technology and big money can clean up the schools next.

Is New Orleans Simply a Photo Op?

From the Full Story at the Chicago Tribune:

"... But palpable throughout the crowd, and across the rest of this city still slowly struggling back to its feet, was a growing sense of skepticism about the parade of presidential candidates from both parties who fly into New Orleans for a few carefully scripted appearances and then quickly depart, leaving little behind.

"Everybody's using us as a photo op to some degree," said Reuben DeTiege, 48, an Obama supporter who, like so many others here, lost his house to the floodwaters. "But the litmus test will be when we see [Obama] and the other candidates come here and hear what they will actually do for the African-American community."

By almost every measure, New Orleans remains hobbled by the Katrina disaster. The city's population is estimated at 262,000, less than 60 percent of its pre-Katrina level. Crime, much of it drug-related, has exploded—the city recorded its 100th murder of the year last weekend, marking it, on a per-capita basis, as the deadliest city in the nation. Suicides and other mental-health crises have skyrocketed. ..."

I don't know of anyone who's arguing that FEMA was efficient in lending a hand to New Orleans. On the other hand, New Orleans is also a poster child for the argument against dependence on the Federal Government. Dependence on Washington will not solve a regional problem.

What I find irksome is the tragedy siphoning for political gain. Democrats use New Orleans as an example of Republican malfeasance, as though a Democratic Administration would have suddenly cured all the woes of the Department of Homeland security and moved into rapid action to completely rebuild New Orleans in a year.

The problems in New Orleans are as much institutional as they are structural, and those types of problems require cultural fixes as much as money and materials. Look at the overwhelming reelection of Congressman "Cool Cash" Jefferson and you have a complete view of this city's problems. Then again, maybe the tragedy train of presidential candidates is a good picture of what's wrong with Washington too.

Jesse Jackson Rips High Court

On hanging out with anyone...
Left to Right: Al Sharpton, Michael Jackson, Jesse Jackson

It isn't fair that opportunities like this happen at six in the morning. No sooner had the first acrid sip of diet cola passed over my shocked taste buds, when I found this:

From the Full Column at the Chicago Sun-Times:

"A quarrelsome claque of five right-wing justices on the Supreme Court of the United States has abandoned the court's historic commitment to integration. These arrogant men scorned judicial precedent -- overturning the historic Brown vs. Board of Education without having the honor to admit it -- and ignored both history and today's reality. Outlawing voluntary local school district efforts to increase diversity in the schools, the court imposed court-ordered resegregation. Once more, men in robes stand in the schoolhouse door, only this time their robes are black, not white."

The rammifications of that paragraph take a moment to become clear. Jesse Jackson is comparing (albeit cliche for a visual opportunity - which, of course, is why he's destined to irrelevance in the long term) the Supreme Court to the Ku Klux Klan. I had to stop and think for a moment before I could begin whistling a happy tune through my freshly whetted lips.

This is monumental. This is an ocassion for joy. This is the best day I've had reading the newspapers since President Bush took office. I mean to gloat here when I say that this absolutely justifies (immigration stance and all) the election of this president. Not the Supreme Court decision, though from all indicators it was a good one, but the fact that the second highest ranked race-card-bully (we haven't heard from Al Sharpton, yet) has gone Klan in under 5 days.

I don't have a political rulebook, but if I did, somewhere in the beginning of the second chapter, there'd be a line that says: If Jesse Jackson is calling you a Klansman and you don't own a white hood, you're probably doing something right.

Oh what a beautiful morning! After years of trying to prop up the old ideas (which were absolutely relevant when Dr. King first began the fight against the true evils of racism and segregation in the United States) with more and deeper tortured logic, Jesse Jackson is going to be forced to join the rest of us in the Twenty-first Century. Let me be the first to offer a hearty welcome, oh, and you can leave the bitterness and spite at the door like the rest of us did.

You listening too, Al?

This is a beautiful day. I'm tired, but on the verge of a day off, the sun is shining and Jesse Jackson thinks the Supreme Court stinks. Happy, happy, joy, joy.

Pardon Me: A Political Guide

Marc Rich

This is a short one. The Rule: If you have enough cash and your crime doesn't involve body bags, you don't go to jail. That's the way it has worked for a while now in the United States. Scooter Libby was convicted and now he coughs up a quarter of a million dollars, makes a few speeches to civics classes and he goes home.

Whether or not he should have been prosecuted is irrelevent. That's the way the system works. Rich guys walking scott free is as American as apple pie.

While the Democrats are screaming foul play, they should pause and recall the latest beneficiary of their largesse. Marc Rich danced the night away at the first George Bush Inauguration and it wasn't because he was a fan of the new Republican regime. One of Bill Clinton's final acts in office was to give him a pardon for his crimes, which included trying to cut oil deals with Iran, even in the midst of the hostage crisis.

So, if those of you of the Democrat persuasion wouldn't mind terribly, would you please come down off your crosses and have a conversation with the rest of us about potentially resolving this with reform or, perhaps, an amendment? No? It's ok, I figured you wouldn't want to anyway. After all, your candidate is a shoo in for '08, right?

Wouldn't want to peave the person with potential for your pardon, would you?

Former Jihadi: Terror has Nothing to do with Foreign Policy

I will let the former Jihadi speak for himself without any personal comments added. The essay is truncated here. You can read the full essay at the link provided.

From the Full Column at the Daily Mail:

"When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network - a series of British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology - I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the Government for our actions, those who pushed this "Blair's bombs" line did our propaganda work for us. ...

...For example, on Saturday on Radio 4's Today programme, the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said: "What all our intelligence shows about the opinions of disaffected young Muslims is the main driving force is not Afghanistan, it is mainly Iraq."

I left the British Jihadi Network in February 2006 because I realised that its members had simply become mindless killers. But if I were still fighting for their cause, I'd be laughing once again. ...

...And though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslim across the world, what drove me and many others to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain and abroad was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary worldwide Islamic state that would dispense Islamic justice. ...

...the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a model of the world in which you are either a believer or an infidel.

Formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion: they are considered to be one and the same. ...

...Along with many of my former peers, I was taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief. ...

...But more than that, on a historically unprecedented scale, Muslims in Britain have been allowed to assert their religious identity through clothing, the construction of mosques, the building of cemeteries and equal rights in law.

However, it isn't enough for responsible Muslims to say that, because they feel at home in Britain, they can simply ignore those passages of the Koran which instruct on killing unbelievers.

Because so many in the Muslim community refuse to challenge centuries-old theological arguments, the tensions between Islamic theology and the modern world grow larger every day. ...

...If our country is going to take on radicals and violent extremists, Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims..." - [Emphasis Added]

Silence from the Thompson Campaign: Expectation Management

Any day now, Fred Thompson was scheduled to die on the cross and rise from the grave three days later to take away the sins of America. Friends were singing his praises and enemies were grumping about how he should get in the race. Then the enemies started singing his praises and Thompson disappeared from the media spotlight. Did he back off?

Nope. He's just dampening expectations a little before he assumes his role as messiah. Dean Barnett over at the Hugh Hewitt blog was playing Thompson up in a big way, and when a guy that sold on Romney begins to spout sugar coated Fred platitudes, it's a sure bet the opposition is rolling out the red carpet to the door at the wrong end of the firing range.

Am I being too obtuse? I'll spell it out.

Thompson wants people to forget about him for a few days before he announces. As it is, he's expected to save the Republican party from a twice-divorced New York social liberal, a hideous immigration gaffe and Democratic challengers raising the net worth of Bill Gates every 3 months. Yeah, the last one was overstatement, but if the Democrats call themselves the defenders of the working man one more time, I'm going to toss a troy ounce of garbage in their direction in protest.

Thompson will blunder and trip-up like everyone else does, but if the expectations are set at "Messiah," he won't be given the same breaks as everyone else. He's tamping those expectations down with a little silence right now. I expect we'll be hearing from him soon in a big red, white and blue style party crashing.

Until then, the silence won't even include crickets.

Democrat's Presidential Campaign Oozing Money as Obama Leads

From the Full Story at the Baltimore Sun:

"Opening a significant lead in the money primary, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama raised $32.5 million in the second quarter of 2007, eclipsing New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and other rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Clinton's aides announced earlier that she had raised $27 million in the second quarter of 2007. Her total would have set a record among Democratic presidential candidates for the same period in past campaigns."

John Edwards, with the useful assistance of Anne Coulter, even met his goal of 9 million. According to the Obama campaign, 154,000 people donated to his money total. That makes an average gift to his campaign come in at $211.00. Does anyone know of a cash strapped family in a tight economy that can spare $211.00 for a primary race?

Either the economy isn't as bad as Democrats are always making claims it is, or Obama has serious money behind him. With that in mind, the next time we hear the rhetoric of class warfare, we'll know what it's worth. $211.00 to be precise.

Democratic Debate Focuses on Wrong Solutions

The Democrats held another debate last night and focused on domestic problems. The usual suspects carried on with the usual rhetoric. I'll include a brief snip of the recap.

From the Full Story at the New York Times:

"For 90 minutes Thursday night, eight Democratic candidates debated before an audience made up largely of one of their party’s most reliable and liberal constituencies, African-American voters, and used the stage to urge a revitalization of domestic programs they said had faltered under President Bush.

They called for spending more on schools in poor neighborhoods to lower class sizes and raising salaries for teachers to prevent a drain of educators from inner-city schools. They called for rolling back tax cuts on the wealthy to pay for expanded health care and provide job training."

The Article continues to point out how the concensus was that America needs to spend more money to solve its problems. Roll back tax cuts and take the money from that to spend on schools and our problem goes away. Does it really?

I'll cite just a brief example of how wrong that idea really is. To do so, I'll use educational funding and reading results. The two sources I'll use are:

The 2005 Census Bureau's Report on Educational Spending [PDF] Page 10 and

The Nation's Report Card [PDF] Page 14

I'm certain more than a few will claim that I'm oversimplifying the problem, but I am responding directly to the notion that rolling back tax cuts for the rich and spending the money on education will solve our education problems. Money isn't the solution, accountability is. We can't buy accountability, we have to demand it and then follow through with oversight. In fact, when I hear that schools need more money, I automatically think that the unions are into the process again.

Looking at our examples above, I'll take the highest and lowest money totals, New York and Utah. New York spends $14,119 per student, or almost three times what Utah spends $5,257. Does that lead to three times better results?

Here's the reading report card (in percentages):

New York - 8% Advanced, 26% Proficient, 36% Basic, 31% Below Basic

Utah - 8% Advanced, 27% Proficient, 34% Basic, 32% Below Basic

That's roughly the same result. I don't have the time to break down all of the numbers on demographics, but immigrants per capita skews roughly equal and if one were to adjust for the cost of living, New York would still hold a higher spending position.

That means that spending doesn't cure educational woes, which brings us back to the Democratic debate. Old ideas about eliminating problems with money are tired and futile. We need new ideas focused on method and accountability. The Democrats can't say that because they are supported heavily by unions who represent teachers, not students.

Maybe we could find a party ready to look out for students before teachers. That's an innovative thought.

Brownback Voted for the Immigration Bill Before He Voted Against it

Here's a Kerry-esque Moment courtesy of Senator Brownback. From the Full Story at Boston.com via Associated Press:

"Republican presidential candidate Sam Brownback yesterday voted both for and against the immigration bill, explaining that he wanted to show his support for an overhaul but not President Bush's legislation.

When voting began on whether to advance the measure that would legalize millions of unlawful immigrants, the Kansas senator voted "yes." About 10 minutes later, Brownback switched his vote to "no."

"I wanted to signal that I support comprehensive immigration reform, but now is not the time, this is not the bill," Brownback said."

I'm almost positive the vote change had nothing to do with the number of calls flooding his office. It probably had less to do with someone mumbling "political suicide" in his ear. Nope, this 10 minute flip-flop was a principled move all the way.

A Case for Tony Blair's Legacy

From the Full Story at the Hudson Institute:

"Tony Blair exits laughing, beyond the reach of an electorate he betrayed by surrendering still another portion of British sovereignty after promising to consult the voters before doing so. If his decision to allow the EU to create a foreign minister ruffles too many feathers, well, let Gordon Brown tend to the smoothing.

Blair, meanwhile, is off to replicate his Northern Ireland success in the Middle East, courtesy of George Bush (who knows pay-back time when he sees it), work on his book, and tour the US speech circuit. Then, the man-at-loose-ends will present Nicolas Sarkozy with the bill for his perfidy – the presidency of the EU. To paraphrase Robert Bolt: It profits a man nothing to lose his soul for the whole world, but for Brussels? advertisement.

Gordon Brown will be the Prime Minister of one of 27 nations that are represented in the world by an EU foreign minister. That America will be less concerned about Britain’s views, and Brown more of a ceremonial than a substantive visitor to the White House, is mere frosting on Blair’s going-away-party cake, a getting his own back for the times when the Chancellor refused to tell his boss what was in the nation’s budget.

America, its reliable British ally replaced by an EU unable to find a few thousand more troops to send to Afghanistan, will find unilateralism increasingly attractive as Brown and his new EU masters pursue their “common foreign and security policy... actively and unreservedly in the spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity”. As for Blair, ’tis a pity he’s a, well, frantic seeker of the approval of his euro-colleagues, for he came into office with a foreign policy vision that, if implemented, would have positioned Britain for world leadership in the 21st century."

I found this to be an interesting read. There is a large segment of the British population that resists the idea of a European Union (some refuse the notion that they're Europeans). What will Tony Blair's legacy be fifty years from now?

I can't answer that question, but many people have strong opinions; one way or the other.

Gore leads in New Hampshire Dem Race

From the Full Story at Politico:

"A New Hampshire presidential poll by WHDH-TV and Suffolk University shows that local Democrats prefer Al Gore to any of the current contenders.

Hillary Clinton has a solid lead over the rest of the current Democratic field. The poll, released this afternoon, shows 37 percent of likely Democratic voters backing Clinton or leaning towards her. Barack Obama was at 19 percent, with both John Edwards and Bill Richardson at 9 percent.

Al Gore, however, could enter the race as the leader. When his name is added, Clinton loses more than a quarter of her support, while Gore is backed by 32 percent.

Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani lead the GOP field. The former Massachusetts governor is supported by 26 percent of likely GOP voters, with Giuliani slipping to 22 percent. John McCain and Fred Thompson are both at 13 percent, a major move backwards for McCain. Romney's support, which relies heavily on younger voters, is up 7 percent from a comparable poll in March, when he trailed Giuliani (37 percent) and McCain (27 percent)."

So Mr. Global Warming leads the Democrats outright, even unannounced. Frankly, the way this race is shaping up, nothing surprises me. More interesting to me is the McCain plummet.

I think that McCain's best hope to look like a triumphant leader capable of rallying presidential support went down in flames 46-53 today, and it may be the final straw for longsuffering supporters eager for a glimpse of good news. I suspect only die-hard loyalists will be with him during the long retreat.

The race is still young, but all indicators point to a roller coaster winter and tough spring for the contenders.

Edwards Now Fundraising Off of Coulter's Remarks

From the Full Story in the International Herald Tribune via Associated Press:

"Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards encouraged his supporters to donate to his campaign in response to "hateful" comments from conservative author Ann Coulter.

Edwards, the party's unsuccessful vice presidential nominee in 2004, made his first comments to The Associated Press on Wednesday in response to Coulter's suggestion that she wished he would be "killed in a terrorist assassination plot." His campaign cited her remarks in two e-mails and a telephone text message to supporters for donations, with the fundraising deadline on Saturday.

It's not the first time Coulter has given the Edwards campaign a financial boost. In March, she called Edwards a "faggot" and the campaign used video of the comment to help raise $300,000 (€223,250) before the end of the first quarter of 2007.

In the e-mails, the campaign asked supporters to send donations to defy her remarks and help Edwards meet his goal of raising $9 million (€6.7 million) in the second quarter. The first e-mail from campaign adviser Joe Trippi showed a clip of Coulter on ABC's "Good Morning America," where she made the comments on Monday.

If Edwards doesn't have a shrine to Coulter somewhere down on his country plantation, he should. He sould shorten the basketball court in his house (I didn't make that up) and put in a shrine to St. Ann, the patron saint of Edwards fundraising.

The more I read about this guy, the less I want him anywhere near children. He seems like the type who'd swipe their lollipops while he was giving them a kiss. And he's a presidential frontrunner?

Ugh. We need to turn off the telivisions and start reading again.

U.S. Lawmakers Seek Options to Prevent Islamic Radicalization

From the Full Story at VOA:

"Members of the U.S. Congress are seeking ways to prevent Islamic radicalization in the United States. Lawmakers are looking at the Netherlands' experience as an example. VOA's Deborah Tate reports from Capitol Hill.

At a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, chairman Joe Lieberman of Connecticut expressed the concerns of many lawmakers about the potential for Islamic radicalization in the United States.

"We in the United States cannot ignore the warning signs within our nation. Homegrown Islamic extremists have recently been arrested and accused of forming plans to attack in Fort Dix, New Jersey and in a separate case to set ablaze the underground fuel lines that feed JFK airport in New York," he said.

Lieberman's committee looked to the Netherlands for some advice, as that country has had experience dealing with the issue."

I hope, for our sake, they are looking at the Netherlands as "How NOT to deal with the problem." The Netherlands has a track record that includes painting compasses on the ceilings of jail cells to accomodate Islamists. If we follow the European model, we are doomed to a long struggle to prevent being overcome by Islamism.

I'll be watching this as it develops. I hope we draw correct conclusions and create solid plans that don't involve social and political capitulation to extremists.

Immigration Bill Vote Today and the Violence of Language

From the Full Story at Forbes via Associated Press:

"Conservative Republican senators and a handful of Democrats are trying to put a final knife in President Bush's plan for legalizing millions of unlawful immigrants."

1. I don't want anyone to put a knife in anything. I want security at the border.

2. "...legalizing millions of unlawful immigrants." - This is Drug War language, which I interpret as obfuscation of fact. We aren't talking about "legalizing" anything. I was under the impression we are attempting to solve a problem with people illegally entering and working in the United States.

3. When opponents begin to get the Israeli Language Treatment, that is, language so skewed as to prevent a reasonable reader from drawing a conclusion other than that the side being discussed is unreasonable and potentially dangerous, then it is time to brace for the worst.

One line of this report and we learn through imagery that says in uncertain and shifting terms that sociopaths are trying to put a knife in the hopes of poor, unlawful immigrants. Brace up for the onslaught. I smell big, powerful interests at work - powerful enough to begin to change the terminology of the debate in the old media. Whenever that happens, when news reporting begins to adopt the language of violence to describe opposition, it's a safe bet the pressure is on to close the deal for the monied interests.

I suspect that by day's end, we'll be listening to self congratulatory speeches from Senators proud of their new reform bill. Of course, things could change, but I'm not hopeful. Start looking around for Primary challengers ASAP.

President Bush Calls for Amnesty, Then Retracts Comments

From the Full Story at the Los Angeles Times:

"At every opportunity, President Bush has said — emphatically — that the legislation he favors to overhaul the nation's immigration laws does not provide amnesty to those in the United States illegally.

On Tuesday morning, he said it did, and his comment prompted a rare acknowledgment from the White House that the president had made a mistake.

Speaking to government officials and others in an auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door to the White House, Bush said: "You know, I've heard all the rhetoric — you've heard it too — about how this is amnesty. Amnesty means that you've got to pay a price for having been here illegally, and this bill does that."

What? It provides amnesty? That's what critics of the bill have been saying all along.

His words — never mind that they were an obvious mistake — began lighting up the blogosphere just as the Senate was about to vote on moving ahead with the immigration legislation. As soon as it became clear his errant language was making news, the White House press office moved to tamp down the mini-furor."

You know, I'm less worked into a lather over the amnesty half of this bill than I am about the apparent failure to address a legitimate worry about the state of our border security. I'd be much more comfortable with comprehesive reform if there were swarms of new Border Patrol agents graduating the academy every day and a legitimate effort to shore up both the border and the other points of entry (large ports) for all sorts of bad things and people.

So the president made a slip of the tongue, big deal. It's the slip of doing anything substantive at the border that makes me dislike his current policy, amnesty or not.

Giuliani Talks Tough On Terrorism

From the Full Story at the Baltimore Sun:

"Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani took his tough talk on security to a synagogue Tuesday, touting his support for Israel, promising to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and likening the threat of what he called "Islamic terrorism" to that posed by Nazi Germany.

The former New York mayor, who leads most national polls in the race for the Republican nomination, repeated a campaign pledge to keep America on the offensive against those who would harm it.

"If Europe had listened to Churchill in the 1930s and had confronted Hitler at a much earlier stage, there's no question lives would be lost," Giuliani told an audience of about 200 at a forum organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington. "But it would have been millions and millions and millions fewer lives."

Giuliani's remarks at B'nai Israel Congregation continued a theme he had outlined earlier in the day at a very different venue: Regent University, the conservative Christian college founded by televangelist Pat Robertson in Virginia Beach."

Looks like the Mayor has decided to deal with the Fred Thompson surge by siezing the initiative on the debate. For nearly two months, we've heard a non-stop chorus about Giuliani's marriages and views on social issues. I'm not sure whether or not he was getting a powerful innoculation, or his comeuppance for filling Senator McCain's shoes as the "outsider" and "Maverick" on many issues viewed through a different prism in much of the Republican base.

His use of Churchill is deft here, using the prewar prophet Churchill rather than the wartime resolute Churchill. That's insightful precisely because it illuminates a stance that we've not yet seen the worst of what may come, such as a nuclear Iran. This is where Giuliani is strong. I also believe he may be right.

Obama: Hillary Clinton Lacks Experience

From the Full Story at Forbes via Associated Press:

"Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama contends that former President Clinton can lead the nation on the first day but Clinton's wife - and Obama's chief rival - cannot.

In a jab, Obama said count out New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and just about anyone else, in being ready to assume the mantle of the presidency.

"The only person who would probably be prepared to be our president on Day One would be Bill Clinton - not Hillary Clinton," Obama told Monday night at a fundraiser in Chicago.

But Bill Clinton says his wife is the most prepared to lead.

"America is ready for change, and we need a president ready to lead on Day One," the former president wrote in a fundraising e-mail to supporters. He ticked through a list of issues the next president should be ready to lead on - ending the war in Iraq, improving health care, creating jobs and fighting climate change."

Can Obama beat Hillary Clinton? Most experts believe the nomination is hers to lose. What I find most interesting in this exchange is that Bill Clinton has become the club which Hillary will use to strike Obama. It's a decent strategy. Former President Clinton is well regarded on the left side of the African American community and will keep Hillary Clinton from going into the mud with Obama.

On the other hand, she has to be careful not to be seen as hiding behind her husband. Hillary Clinton has the trickiest road to election, but the team she's assembled makes her a formidable opponent, which is probably why Obama has gone at her early and often.

Republicans Cave on Immigration Fiasco

From U.S. News & World Report:

"Here they go again. The Senate is about to engage in another round of the seemingly endless fight over America's immigration laws. It's officially the members' second shot in the past month at pushing through a "grand bargain" piece of legislation that tries to give a little to every interest group while not entirely satisfying any of them. A compromise, they say."

Bi-partisan (adj.): 1. When two parties decide to work together to pillage taxpayers more efficiently while distributing political impact.

Madame President? Get used to it.

Robert Rector on "Amnesty Bill"

Robert Rector is live on The Dennis Prager Show. On President Bush:

He has "fractured the Republicans," and is "strongarming them." Bipartisanship is "truly stupid and dangerous." "The Republican Base is falling... collapsing."

This issue may be the final nail in the coffin of Republican Presidential ambitions if the Congress doesn't hone in on the base's objections and address them.

This is, in most people's minds, Senator McCain's baby.

Swept Away - McCain's Campaign Nearing the End

John McCain is being crushed. The effect isn’t like watching a man being hit by a runaway truck – though some would argue that’s precisely what the Fred Thompson Campaign is to McCain – it’s more like watching the steady flow of floodwaters beginning to wash away a house, down to the foundation. First the walls begin to crumble and then the roof collapses as debris spreads in the water.

Some pundits try to pin his woes on immigration, some say he’s too “Beltway” for flyover country and others claim his organization lacks the necessary components to run a vigorous campaign. His showing in Nevada is only the most recent disaster as this flood steadily flows toward a crest. And we see the cracks in the walls of his campaign as the waters rise. But why has Senator McCain begun to crumble?

Since there are no hard and fast facts that govern public opinion, only informed speculation will serve to highlight the problems. I think, based on numerous interviews I’ve read with “insiders,” repeated negative polling results and my own involvement (as outsider as it can get) in debates, that Senator McCain’s true weakness is the perception that he is more of the same. That perception doesn’t come from inside the Republican Party, it comes from the independents.

It seems obvious that from the beginning McCain’s strategy revolved around a general election play. He didn’t want to cozy up too closely with the Republican base. Nuts? Hardly.

That strategy might have worked in 2000, when he faced a battle with an upstart George W. Bush. The strategy, which almost worked, was to run a tight campaign without making too many mistakes and to keep good political distance from the social conservatives in the party. No doubt after years of fatigue with Oval Office sexualization, religious conservatives would have voted for any conservative who could stand straight and take nourishment without assistance.

McCain was wrestling with Al Gore from day 1, courting independents and making a broader case to the American public. We’ll come back to those independents. But the saavy Bush campaign turned the Republican primaries into a race to the base. That meant that those religious conservative votes counted in a big way. I believe that had McCain won the Republican primary, he would have drubbed Al Gore in a general election, something President Bush was incapable of doing because of the primary he ran.

Now, eight years after the fact, Senator McCain is running roughly the same strategy. Only his tactical error this time has been to miscalculate the base entirely. Instead of keeping a safe distance from the religious conservatives, he’s put security first conservatives at arm’s length as well. Fiscal conservatives have already declared for Giuliani or Romney, so McCain has no one left to court in the party.

Does the media still like him? Not so much, but he is a palatable conservative in some respects. He’s right on the war for security first independents who, consequently, mean less than nothing in a Republican primary. And leftists see him as a lesser of many evils.

But he’s lost his entire base. So as Fred Thompson barrels along with his non-candidacy, Giuliani shores up the center to left of the party and Mitt Romney consolidates the right, the house of McCain slowly crumbles.

Can he come back? There are many months between here and Iowa, but time isn’t Senator McCain’s enemy. Senator McCain’s mistaken view of his own party is his enemy. Republicans don’t want bi-partisanship and unity, they want Republican values to prevail and, if they don’t prevail, they at least want those values argued, defended and asserted. Senator McCain believes that some magic legislative silver bullet will drop the shape-shifting lot pretending to his rightful place.

He’s wrong. He should be leading in Nevada and he isn’t even placing or showing. He’s an also-ran in his own back yard. Nevada is only a symptom. John McCain is the problem. Can he come back?

Sure, but first he has to overcome his biggest obstacle, himself. I don’t think he can do it, because I think he’d argue that I’m completely off base. He’d be wrong. I’m a part of the base. The base isn’t happy, which brings us back to Senator McCain thinking I’m off base. It’s a vicious cycle and it’s hard to escape it. And unless Senator McCain does something drastic soon, he won’t.

He’ll never get to that independent vote he’s courting this time around, much like 2000. Tragically, the independent vote would likely abandon him in light of his “insider politics.” Even independents view close political ties with Senator Kennedy as peculiar for a “Maverick.” Assuming he got so far as to plead his case, independents would bring the roof of house McCain down as they flocked to other candidates (See Bloomberg) who have claimed the mantle of “outsider.”

His only somewhat realistic shot at this point is to pick off Romney and try to battle back into the race. His campaigns’ latest attacks have all focused on Romney. It looks as though those attacks are failing, given the Nevada numbers.

This leads us to my final analysis. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Senator McCain lay the political lumber to the Romney campaign until he’s economically and politically spent and then cozy up to the Thompson campaign with an endorsement. Will it have much impact? That isn’t likely, unless he somehow knocks Romney down in the process, narrowing the field to two. So for all the grief of two failed presidential runs, all Senator McCain has to show for it is a net effect of zero - politically.

He could, and should, take the high road and throw his weight behind another candidate without the negative attacks. To do that would allow him to retain his dignity and would make his endorsement worth more than the base value of the syllables it consumes. That would be a smart political play and worthy of a statesman. I’m hoping that Senator McCain would see it that way. Then again, I’m probably thinking like the base, which would put me off base in Senator McCain’s view.

It’s a tough situation, wouldn’t you agree?

Iraqi Soldiers, Police Help Close Torture Chambers in Baqouba

From Centcom

"BAQOUBA, Iraq - On day four of Operation Arrowhead Ripper, Task Force Lightning and Iraqi soldiers continued sweeping through Baqouba, Iraq, to root out al-Qaida in Iraq.

CF Soldiers worked shoulder-to-shoulder with the Iraqi soldiers and police officers in and around the city during the operations. Coalition ground forces and air support provided critical assistance in targeting and destroying al-Qaida operatives and their safe havens.

In the Khatoon neighborhood of Baqouba, ISF and CF discovered a building suspected of being used as a torture chamber. Ground forces observed various weapons, including knives and saws, inside the building as well as blood stains throughout the building. After securing the area, the building and its contents were destroyed by an attack helicopter armed with Hellfire missiles.

Also in Khatoon, CF destroyed two houses that contained 45 water heaters filled with homemade explosives, IED making materials and computer equipment. One of the houses also contained several booby trapped freezers.

Iraqi police were conducting security operations in and around the village of Khalis when Coalition attack helicopters from the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade and ground forces from 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, observed 15-20 armed men attempting to circumvent the IPs and infiltrate the village.

The attack helicopters, armed with missiles, engaged and killed 17 al-Qaida gunmen and destroyed the vehicle they were using.

Since the beginning of Operation Arrowhead Ripper, at least 55 al-Qaida operatives have been killed, 23 have been detained, 16 weapons caches have been discovered, 28 improvised explosive devices have been destroyed and 12 booby-trapped structures have been destroyed." - Emphasis Added

Drawing from the comments of Senator Harry Reid, we see another case of apparent misinformation: Post continues below


Senator Reid with Political Ally Hillary Rodham Clinton

"The unsettling reality is that instances of violence against Iraqis remain high and attacks on US forces have increased."

The "reality" appears to be far different than what Senator Reid is discussing. To be fair, Senator Reid decided that the surge was a failure before all of our operations had started, so it is possible that he misunderstood what was happening, or was basing his comments on incomplete information.

It could be possible that he plans to retract his hasty assertion now that the facts are proving it incorrect. Such a clarification of position would seem to be necessary based - from all information available - on the radically different reality from the one he described.

Iraqi Parliament Delays Vacation

From the Full Story at Iraq Slogger via VOI:

"Iraq's parliament, during a session on Saturday, decided to extend activities for one month as of July 1 until July 30 to finalize draft laws that need debates and voting.

"The parliament's decision came after voting over a proposal by the speakership board to finalize about 50 draft laws including the postponement of the constitution amendment committee's work and the draft law on oil," Wael Abdul-Latif, a member of parliament from the National Iraqi List, said.

Members of the Iraqi parliament were supposedly on a summer recess after the expiry of the current legislative term in accordance with the Iraqi constitution.

"The majority – 103 out of the 140 members who attended Saturday's session – have voted in favor of the decision to extend the parliament's activities," Abdul-Latif told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI)."

This story, too, addresses the apparently ill-informed and seemingly far too hasty comments of Senator Harry Reid, which include:

"The increase in US forces has had little impact in curbing the violence or fostering political reconciliation."

An overwhelming majority (103 out of 140) of Iraqi Lawmakers have decided to press forward with setting the country in order. Could this be a result of a spreading sense that Iraq is becoming safer and their work will now serve a vital purpose of moving the country forward.

The malaise in Iraq appears to be breaking up. Senator Reid would be well served with a retraction of his comments, before they seem more absurd than they seem now.

Film Freed: Muslims Against Jihad to Air Nationally (Updated)

FOX NEWS DUMPS FILM UNANNOUNCED

Fox has dumped this film with no explanation. See my blog frontpage for updates.

"Tune in this weekend, as FOX News Channel presents the documentary the Public Broadcasting System didn't want you to see.

It's a film about the difference between moderate Muslims and the radicals who want to kill us. It asks where are the moderate Muslims and why aren't they speaking out against the jihadists? And it was financed with $675,000 of taxpayers' money.

It was commissioned as part of the PBS series "America at the Crossroads" about the post 9/11 world, but PBS executives rejected it.

PBS claims the filmmakers were "alarmist, overreaching and unfair."

The filmmakers say they were censored because of liberal bias at PBS.

On a topic this important, we think you have the right to decide for yourself."

I have a feeling that more than a few notepads and TIVO's will be in action Saturday night at 9PM.

Axis of Right: 9-1 Bias in Media

From the Full Post in Axis of Right:

"I know that every news bureau has a mix of libs and conservatives, but in truth it certainly seems left-leaning overall (not shock to those of us who’ve followed politics most of our lives). It’s their prerogative and I don’t have any problems with that. My issue is that they pretend to be unbiased, when stories like these reinforce the conventional wisdom that many media sources are pushing a leftist agenda rather than just reporting the straight facts about what happened."

Read the full post about journalists supporting democrats financially 9 - 1.

Swiss Webmasters Guilty of Supporting Radical Islamists

From the Full Story at SwissInfo:

"Switzerland's Federal Criminal Court has handed down a guilty verdict on a couple accused of supporting radical Islamic organisations via internet sites.

The Tunisian man was sentenced on Thursday to six months in prison plus an additional 18 months suspended for supporting criminal organisations and inciting violence. His Belgian wife was given a six-month suspended sentence for aiding and abetting him.

This was the first time a court in Switzerland sentenced someone for supporting an Islamic terrorist organisation."

Europe is beginning to wake up to the fact that they are under siege. In Britain, The Council of Ex-Muslims launched yesterday. The backlash against radicals is becoming more pronounced.

Multi-culturalism is a complete failure. Some cultures, through violence, coercion and intolerance have proven themselves to be morally inferior. We shouldn't embrace them, we should demand that they join us in the modern era. Europe is getting this message. Hopefully they'll get it soon enough to have a Europe worth saving.

Censorship Named Fairness Doctrine

Center for American Progress:

"The new report — entitled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio” — raises serious questions about whether the companies licensed to broadcast over the public radio airwaves are serving the listening needs of all Americans."

George Orwell, Politics and the English Language:

"As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse."

Center for American Progress:

"Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management.

George Orwell, Politics and the English Language:

"As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. It is easier -- even quicker, once you have the habit -- to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don't have to hunt about for the words; you also don't have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious. When you are composing in a hurry -- when you are dictating to a stenographer, for instance, or making a public speech -- it is natural to fall into a pretentious, Latinized style. Tags like a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind or a conclusion to which all of us would readily assent will save many a sentence from coming down with a bump."

Center for American Progress:

"While progressive talk is making inroads on commercial stations, right-wing talk reigns supreme on America’s airwaves."

George Orwell, Politics and the English Language:

"Pretentious diction. Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun), objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate, are used to dress up a simple statement and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgements. Adjectives like epoch-making, epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old, inevitable, inexorable, veritable, are used to dignify the sordid process of international politics, while writing that aims at glorifying war usually takes on an archaic color, its characteristic words being: realm, throne, chariot, mailed fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot, clarion."

The cure for insomnia the Center for American Progress calls a Report, is full of examples.

So, I'll do what Orwell suggests and be to the point. The Center for American Progress makes claims that are wrong. They say that lack of regulation has made talk radio successful as a conservative format.

I believe that the Center for American Progress and other leftist and liberal groups want to stop other people from using the first amendment. Since they can't admit that they hate opposing points of view, they create wordy documents that are supposed to scare and impress us.

Talk radio reaches millions of listeners and not many of those listeners want to hear bad radio programming. Air America had access to all of America's major markets and not many people listened. This was because Air America was just bad, angry radio that nobody wanted to hear.

Alan Colmes, a self professing liberal, has a successful talk radio show because he can be funny and knows the business. He does not succeed because the right wing loves him. He succeeds because he produces decent radio shows.

If more liberal radio people made better radio shows, talk radio would reach millions more listeners each year. Unfortunately, after the Air America disaster, even most liberals are afraid that another experiment will stink up the airwaves.

The Center for American Progress is trying to push a bad idea to stifle free speech. Americans who love free speech should fight against them.

Hutchison and Cornyn: Lone Star Senators Draw Line on Immigration

From the Full Story at the Houston Chronicle:

"U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, who has been under intense pressure from the White House and Republican leadership to support a sweeping immigration overhaul, nevertheless announced today that she will vote against reviving the legislation when it returns to the Senate floor next week.

She was joined today by the state's other senator, Republican John Cornyn, who had been expected by the bill's supporters to take such a stance. They had aggressively lobbied Hutchison in hopes of adding her vote to the 60 necessary to revive the stalled legislation.

"I could not support (bringing the bill to a vote) in its present position," Hutchison, criticizing the legislation as amnesty for illegal immigrants, said today.

As No. 4 in the Senate GOP leadership, Hutchison is the highest-ranking Republican to break from her party on a domestic policy issue of signal importance to President Bush.

"Until major changes are made that reject amnesty and a more open, fair process emerges for debating one of the most crucial issues facing our nation, I cannot support this immigration bill," she said."

The lines are being drawn. I have to admire both Senators on this issue. The pressure on them must be intense and relentless. Making a declaration out of step with the party on this one had to have been tough.

On the other hand, not making this split puts one at risk of being dumped in with John McCain and Trent Lott - terrible company where the base is concerned - and alienating a good chunk of voters.

Do we need to do something about immigration policy? Of course. Millions of illegal immigrants are still here with no resolution to the problem. But the Republican Party made an awful calculation when they decided to try the Memorial Day Jam Down. The base came charging back, mad as could be and ready for a fight.

Maybe giving this some cooling time and coming back with a specific set of proposals to create acceptable legislation would be a good idea. Whatever else may be true, the rank and file aren't itching to jump on board with the party elite on this issue right now. I spoke with a guy who's calling family in Mississippi and asking if we have anyone who can knock Lott off the stump.

So Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn may be bucking the boss, but they're betting on the base and in this political climate, that may be the bet to move all-in. I hope the people in Texas are listening.

Greed or Green: Defenders of Wildlife Running Wild Over "Energy" Bill

From the Full Story at Opinion Journal:

"Their fury was unleashed in last year's campaign. By some estimates, a half-dozen environmental groups spent north of $3 million to get Mr. Pombo sacked. Defenders of Wildlife opened an office in his Stockton district, staffed with a dozen people, for that purpose. Since most of Mr. Pombo's constituents admired him for his environmental work, their tactic was character assassination. The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund (a 527) sent out mailings with the jaw-dropping suggestion that since Mr. Pombo didn't hold a hearing about supposed abuses in the Marianas Islands (a U.S. territory) that he supported "forced abortion," "child prostitution" and "sweatshop labor." Nowhere was the word "environment" even mentioned." - Emphasis Added

Forget baby wolves, it's the money, stupid. Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund has targeted its proposed victims for 2008. There is more to this story than the claims of "ties to big oil."

I suspect that there are other, more rational political ties, or reasons, to single out the 5 western lawmakers. Whatever the reasons, we can safely assume the earth's temperature has little to do with it.

Hard Copy - Obama India Memo Slams Clinton

Here is the actual memo:

Part 1

Part 2

HT: [Jerome Armstrong]

The Highlights:

"CAMPAIGN FUNDRAISING

Hillary Clinton Accepted Almost $60,000 In Contributions From Employees Of Cisco Systems, Which Laid Off American Workers to Hire Indian “Techies.” Clinton’s Presidential Exploratory Committee took $39,450 from Cisco employees during the first quarter of 2007. Cisco employees have also donated $18,900 to Clinton’s Senate committee between 1999 and 2006. Forbes reported, in a feature called “A Tale of Two Cities” that Cisco was laying off $60,000-a-year “techies,” while hiring new employees in Bangalore, India. “Cisco used only a few Infosys workers in Bangalore six years ago [in 1998]; [by 2004, it used] almost 300 contract staff, plus 550 full fledged employees in its own Bangalore office.” In 2006, Newsweek reported that “for Cisco, India is the new frontier, where it’s investing $1.2 billion to build a gleaming R&D campus that will employ 3,000 people."

"2006: Bill Clinton Has Guaranteed Payments “Over $1,000” From Yucaipa And Has Invested In Several Yucaipa Funds. Hillary’s financial disclosure report indicates that Bill Clinton has “over $1,000” in guaranteed payments from Yucaipa Global Holdings. Because the Clintons are not required to report the actual amount or any range of income that is more specific than “over $1,000” we do not know how much Bill has been compensated. Through WJC International Investments GP, Bill Clinton invests in Yucaipa Global Holdings and Yucaipa Global Partnership. The Yucaipa Global Partnership Fund “invests in securities of corporations that conduct significant operations in foreign countries.” Clinton reported interest income between $201-$1,000 from Yucaipa Global Holdings and between $1,001-$2,500 from Yucaipa Global Partnership Fund. [2006 Sen. Clinton Senate Financial Disclosure Report; 6, 8]"

The memo is long on facts but short on excitement. I'm not sure whether to chalk that up to Clinton exhaustion or the fact that almost nothing shocks me about Bill and Hillary Clinton anymore. Read them and you'll see a CV of a salesman and his wife.

Are the facts problematic? Sure, running for the White House, many could see them as a reason not to vote for Hillary. But there are more powerful bullets aimed at her candidacy than this. I think, perhaps, Obama reached too far on this one. He's on the money, but there isn't enough money to go around. If he's willing to keep hammering, and this is an opening shot, this memo will play as one of many and have a cumulative effect.

Otherwise, he's only made a mistake.

Fairness Doctrine: It'll Only Shift the Forum

""Our massive strategy was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue."

--Bill Ruder, Democratic campaign consultant and Assistant Secretary of Commerce, Kennedy Administration"

From the Full Story at Heritage:

"Rather than foster full and fair discussion of public issues, the real effect of the Fairness Doctrine was to discourage discussion of controversial issues of any kind. It's no coincidence that such media as talk radio--virtually non-existent while the rule was in place--flowered after its repeal. Rather than the vast wasteland of bland muzak-like discussion it was before, broadcasting-- especially radio--has become a platform for vibrant and controversial debate on countless issues.

The Fairness Doctrine was developed by the FCC over a long period, based on its broad authority under the Communications Act to regulate the airwaves. The rule was first articulated in 1949, when television was in its infancy and radio meant a handful of AM stations in each market. In its final form, the rule required broadcasters to "afford reasonable opportunity for discussion of contrasting points of view on controversial matters of public importance."

We always say we like free speech, but a good number of us despise it. I have no problems with opposing views. But I've noticed the "left," the hard core political correctness pushers, will do everything they can to stifle an alternative point of view.

Fortunately for all of us, Ron Paul is right on a serious point. The internet is rife with opportunities to explore alternate points of view. So, if the thought police want to crash the airwaves, so be it. Make radio as dead as the evening news for all I care. Live broadcasting on the internet doesn't require big brother's oversight because the public's airwaves aren't in play.

Don't follow? I listen to radio everyday as I work, but I don't have a radio at my desk. I listen on the internet at this link, and others. Streaming technology is more accessible than satellite radio.

The little gremlin of technology has torn the wheels off the carriage of government control. I'm sure the old guard would love to grab the internet as well, but they don't even understand it.

Does that mean I want the "Fairness Doctrine" to come back? Of course I don't. The absurdity of it, or misuse as demonstrated above, makes the idea beneath contempt for a libertarian mind. Forced equality is tyranny.

But I also know that the creative free minds who drive the debate will find a way to get through. Plus, we're only a few more power grabs away from an outright backlash against the fossils who want to keep us pinned in the Jurassic era of buying the government line, no matter where the line leads us.

We'll find a way to keep the tyrants at bay, one electron at a time if necessary. I hope it never becomes necessary.

Defenders of Wildlife: They Sued for What?

Reaching deep into the "I'm not making this up" files, and with the aid of concerned parties, I found this piece of history.

In 1992, the Supreme Court made a ruling against members of the Defenders of Wildlife. The members claimed that actions by the United States Government abroad served to threaten the habitats of endangered species. So they sued, seeking damages.

The Supreme Court ruled that they had no standing. This is directly from the Supreme Court's ruling:

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992)

"Respondents' claim to injury is that the lack of consultation with respect to certain funded activities abroad "increas[es] the rate of extinction of endangered and threatened species." Of course, the desire to use or observe an animal species, even for purely esthetic purposes, is undeniably a cognizable interest for purpose of standing. But the "injury in fact" test requires more than an injury to a cognizable interest. It requires that the party seeking review be himself among the injured. To survive the Secretary's summary judgment motion, respondents had to submit affidavits or other evidence showing, through specific facts, not only that listed species were in fact being threatened by funded activities abroad, but also that one or more of respondents' members would thereby be "directly" affected apart from their "`special interest' in th[e] subject."

With respect to this aspect of the case, the Court of Appeals focused on the affidavits of two Defenders' members - Joyce Kelly and Amy Skilbred. Ms. Kelly stated that she traveled to Egypt in 1986 and observed the traditional habitat of the endangered Nile crocodile there and intend[s] to do so again, and hope[s] to observe the crocodile directly, and that she will suffer harm in fact as the result of [the] American . . . role . . . in overseeing the rehabilitation of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile . . . and [in] develop[ing] . . . Egypt's . . . Master Water Plan. Ms. Skilbred averred that she traveled to Sri Lanka in 1981 and "observed th[e] habitat" of "endangered species such as the Asian elephant and the leopard" at what is now the site of the Mahaweli project funded by the Agency for International Development (AID), although she "was unable to see any of the endangered species"; "this development project," she continued, will seriously reduce endangered, threatened, and endemic species habitat including areas that I visited . . . [, which] may severely shorten the future of these species"; that threat, she concluded, harmed her because she "intend[s] to return to Sri Lanka in the future and hope[s] to be more fortunate in spotting at least the endangered elephant and leopard." When Ms. Skilbred was asked at a subsequent deposition if and when she had any plans to return to Sri Lanka, she reiterated that "I intend to go back to Sri Lanka," but confessed that she had no current plans: "I don't know [when]. There is a civil war going on right now. I don't know. Not next year, I will say. In the future." . . ."

Suing the United States Government for activities abroad endangering species? Setting aside whether or not those claims had any merit whatsoever (and I haven't read enough to say whether there was extensive threat perpetrated by American involvement - never let it be said I'm not fair), I see a symptom of a serious problem here.

Here's the Mahaweli project:

"Over 70 percent of the island's total energy consumption was satisfied by firewood, agricultural residues, and animal waste, mostly for household use. The country had no coal or petroleum deposits, and the only other indigenous energy source was hydropower.

In 1927 the Department of Government Electrical Undertakings, now called the Ceylon Electricity Board, took over the transmission of electricity throughout the country. Hydroelectric power came into use in 1951 with the commissioning of the Laksapana project in Central Province. Demand for power increased from approximately 20 megawatts in 1951 to nearly 73 megawatts in 1963, about 90 percent of which was met from hydroelectric sources. In the 1970s, the island increasingly came to rely on imported oil for the generation of electricity, but new hydroelectric capacity from the Mahaweli project in the 1980s reduced the importance of oil. In 1986 total installed capacity was 1,010 megawatts, of which 74 percent was from hydropower."

Read the first sentence again. "Over 70 percent of the island's total energy consumption was satisfied by firewood, agricultural residues, and animal waste, mostly for household use." So, the United States had, in fact, an opportunity to eliminate a considerable market for petroleum, cut back deforestation and provide a reliable source of energy. I haven't had a chance to do it yet, but I'd bet that if one ran projections of population growth and extrapolated deforestation for energy consumption and agricultural clearance, the impact on the ecosystem, minus a reliable source of energy, would have been staggeringly high.

All of this, and Defenders of Wildlife base their claim of standing on observation of wildlife being interupted [cognizable interest].

At the risk of bad pun, I suggest that the Defenders of Wildlife may just be an organization that has difficulty seeing the forest for all of the trees. Litigious activism is bad for democracy, but effective in driving up cost, which doesn't much matter, I suppose if I were to hypothesize, if one is in the extremely wealthy minority that can fly off to Sri Lanka for wildlife watching holidays.

New Media and the Immigration Bill

Hugh Hewitt has an excellent defense of New Media in his blog today - see it here.

"I am amazed that no reporter has followed up with either senator on the specifics of their complaint. Is it a particular host? Are they upset with the calls, letters and e-mails being generated, and if so, why? Do they believe any particular host is a bigot, and if so on what evidence? Or are they simply projecting their own anger at being unable to muscle a bill through on to talk radio and new media?" - Emphasis added

I'll second that question. This blog has presented fair and reasoned looks at all of the issues throughout this messy debate. Does it come through a Bill T prism? Of course it does. I'm not claiming objectivity 100% of the time.

I am, however, claiming that I will present an accurate account of goings on. When I saw two Old Media dinosaurs feeding on the corpse of the McCain Campaign on Television Sunday, I thought it odd that they were so condescending. Aside from a funny picture or two, I've been careful to separate the Senator from his politics. I respect the man, but have a difficult time squaring his positions. The Old Media guys were discarding him.

The Old Media doesn't get it any more. And depth? I'll put the Heels' investigative reporting in there with the best of them. Her work is painstakingly detailed and on point.

The issue is control. The Old Media no longer control the narrative, so the Old Establishment can't move as quickly as they'd like on hot topic legislation. That, as we have seen in the past month, is a good thing, and healthy for democracy.

Somewhere, James Madison is smiling, knowing that his best laid plans didn't go to waste, and Jefferson sits next to him, offering a toast for a free and independent press. Welcome to the New Media. The narrative is ours to lose. I won't discard it lightly.

As you read this, I'm already investigating potential problems with an environmental group and statements they made to the Associated Press.

If opposition to some ideas makes us a problem, so be it. I'll be the biggest problem I can be, from lede to summary. Count on it.

"Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain" Set for Thursday Launch

Full Story HERE:

"The Council will provide a voice for those labelled Muslim but who have renounced religion and do not want to be identified by religion.

Rights activist Maryam Namazie will be the voice of the organisation in this country. She said: “We are establishing the alternative to the likes of the Muslim Council of Britain because we don’t think people should be pigeonholed as Muslims or deemed to be represented by regressive organisations like the MCB. Those of us who have come forward with our names and photographs represent countless others who are unable or unwilling to do so because of the threats faced by those considered 'apostates' - punishable by death in countries under Islamic law. By doing so, we are breaking the taboo that comes with renouncing Islam but also taking a stand for reason, universal rights and values, and secularism. We are quite certain we represent a majority in Europe and a vast secular and humanist protest movement in countries like Iran.”

Nothing brings clarity faster than tyranny. These are people who know it firsthand. Did they Identify Blair, Bush or any other Western source for their problems?

Europe is either at a flashpoint for action against totalitarian Islam, or a tipping point for loss of liberty and freedom. We should continue to point to the people who are working for freedom in the Muslim world. They are fighting a noble battle against the worst the world has to offer.

Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund on Thin Ice? (UPDATED)

Yesterday, I posted on an Associated Press Article about the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund. Something about their comments and the article disturbed me.

On the one hand, their president, Rodger Schlickeisen, "insisted that the group just wants them to change their positions on global warming."

On the other hand, he also said said "We're looking to send a clear message that the American people won't tolerate representatives who continue to favor big polluters and their special interests..."

The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund is a 501 (c)(4) organization. When I first read the article, I thought it was a 527 PAC, and I even said the strategy sounds like a Swiftboat strategy. The problem is, a 501 (c)(4) organization can't do what a 527 can.

You can get a brief, but useful, thumbnail sketch of the differences - PDF from the Alliance for Justice website.

So the question is, what constitutes advocacy to the public for (or against) a federal candidate?

Does the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund have a list of the "big polluters and their special interests" from which they compare and contrast candidates? Who is on that list? Why are they on that list? What do any of the "big polluters" have to do with global warming (the centerpiece of the article)? What scientific evidence supports those claims?

The article asserts: "But the campaign is modeled on the tactics the groups used to defeat Pombo." Does the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund want the public to vote against or for candidates?

It appears to be a big mess and those are the big questions. Now to find some answers.

Update

Looks like I had a bad reference:

Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund has a segregated 527 account, which begs a new question. Is it ethical for someone to raise funds for a 501 (c)(3) and a 501 (c)(4) with a segregated 527?

This just keeps getting thicker.

Obama India Memo on the Money - Chicago Tribune

From the Full Article at the Chicago Tribune:

"I, too, am disappointed in Barack Obama over his handling of the "Punjab" memo.

Obama, our junior U.S. senator and a strong candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, has drawn fire from the political right and left for a sharp-elbowed piece of opposition research released by his campaign last week.

Under the provocative headline, "Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)'s personal financial and political ties to India," the three-page document attacks his leading opponent point-by-point for her allegedly too-cozy ties with businesses and business leaders who are profiting from the outsourcing of U.S. jobs to the Asian nation.

Critics called it "nativist" and "a racist, xenophobic hit," and the chairman of the United States India Political Action Committee sent a letter to Obama's headquarters in Chicago decrying the dissemination of "hurtful stereotypes."

What disappointed me, though, was not the memo, but Obama's retreat.

The Des Moines Register reported that Obama branded the memo "stupid" and "caustic" during a meeting Monday with that newspaper's editors and reporters. Though he didn't see the memo before it was released, he told the Register, "I take responsibility for it, as does our campaign. And we quickly apologized and are communicating that in various circles around the country."

Oh, humbug.

The memo, which you can read in full online at chicagotribune.com/zorn, is neither stupid nor caustic. In fact, it's numbingly detailed reading after the headline and zesty introductory paragraph -- lots of names, dates, dollar figures and footnotes."

I was ready to drop this and move on, but now I'm trying to dig up a copy of the memo and will sort it out as soon as possible.

Did the Federal Reserve Launder Money for North Korea?

From the Full Story at the American Enterprise Institute:

"Last week the New York Federal Reserve made what may go down as the most misguided move in the history of the Federal Reserve system. They laundered money for North Korea.

A painful flurry of hearings may soon be on the horizon. Last week a group of influential Republicans, including the ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether anti-laundering and counterfeit laws were broken. They may well have been.

Here is the back story.

Last February, North Korea approved a new version of the Clinton administration's framework for shutting its renegade nuclear reactor program. As part of the deal, the U.S. agreed to unfreeze $25 million at Banco Delta Asia, a Macao bank that has been a primary conduit to the outside world for North Korea.

This bank was formally determined by the U.S. Treasury to be a "primary money laundering concern." The Macao bank denies any wrongdoing. The U.S. doesn't allow such banks to do business in the U.S. Accordingly, reputable banks from Singapore to Russia won't do business with Banco Delta Asia. Even China refuses to do deals with the bank.

This U.S. action significantly impeded the ability of North Korea to wash illicit funds through the world financial system. If it sells a missile to Iran, it must take the payment in cash. If it deposits counterfeit money in its account, there is no easy way to get the money into the world economy.

The U.S. committed to unfreeze the funds last February, but didn't agree to let this pariah state resume its allegedly criminal banking activities. In other words, if North Korea wanted to, it could go to the bank, and withdraw the money physically and fly it back to North Korea."

The short story is that the Fed usually doesn't get involved in this type of transaction, especially in such complex political affairs. Also, the Fed shouldn't be involved specifically because it isn't supposed to be politically influenced.

I suspect there will be hearings on this and they might get ugly. If there was pressure on the Fed to do this, we need to know. Few organizations can affect ordinary life like the Fed can. Not to mention, if this precedent is set, it creates another level of complexity in foreign relations. That next level could have long-term deleterious effects on both the executive and legislative branches.

We could create, through fiat, a fourth arm of the government, a "back door" for thugs and tyrants to access U.S. financial markets.

Has it gone that far yet? No. But the possibility should be out of the question. Given this story, it isn't.

McCain Campaign: Close to the Ditch

From McClatchy:

"Thompson, a television actor and former Tennessee senator, topped Giuliani by 25 percent to 21 percent. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was next at 11 percent, followed by McCain at 7 percent and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 5 percent. Huckabee has gotten strong notices in the last two Republican debates. Twenty-eight percent were undecided."

Two points better than Huckabee? Granted it's only one state, but this was supposed to be McCain's turf. Looks like the "Straight Talk Express" may have run out of fuel.

Global Warming Believers Announce Targets for Negative Attacks

From the Casper Star Tribune via Associated Press:

"An environmental group that last year helped defeat conservative House Resources Committee Chairman Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., is taking aim at five more Western Republicans over global warming.

The lawmakers from California, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico have their "heads in the sand" about the dangers of climate change, the Defenders of Wildlife action fund charges in a radio and Internet ad campaign that began Thursday.

"We're looking to send a clear message that the American people won't tolerate representatives who continue to favor big polluters and their special interests," Defenders action fund president Rodger Schlickeisen said."

Want another great reason to ditch McCain-Feingold? The continued growth of negative campaigning isn't a result of McCain-Feingold, but it is aided by it. Politics is a nasty business, but why make it easier for nastiness to push to the top?

This is nothing more than the Swiftboat strategy a la global warming. It pushes elections closer to single issue referendums, which is bad for those of us who believe that the American political process can't afford any more "dumbing down." I didn't need the Swiftboat ads to draw the conclusion that Kerry was a hideous choice for President, and I don't want faith-based science attacking congressional representatives in the next election.

This is all bad for the democratic process.

French Elections: Wait and See

I find it difficult to get worked up one way or the other about French elections. The American point of view tends to try to align things either right or left, but the cultural differences between the U.S. and France are so complex that our analysis often leaves much to the imagination. I have a wait and see attitude on this one.

If France begins to push back against the violence and intimidation of the left and Totalitarian Islam, their elections were a success. Otherwise, it's "meet the new boss; same as the old boss."

Bad Religious Behavior in the United States

It is difficult to complain about Islamic silliness when some of our own candidates attempt to make hay on religious points.

From the Full Story at Forbes via AP:

"An aide to GOP presidential candidate Sam Brownback has been reprimanded for sending e-mail to Iowa Republican leaders in an apparent attempt to draw unfavorable scrutiny to rival Mitt Romney's Mormonism."

This is a clear case of the back bench trying to beat down a front-runner. It's also bad for Republicans.

It must clearly time to whittle the field down to four or so and move forward. Otherwise, the amateur hour might undermine Republican chances in 2008.

Obama not Winning Friends in India

From Obama's 'Pun'Jab' may turn his 'Macaca Moment' in India E News:

"If a 'Macaca Moment' put paid to Republican senator George Allen's presidential ambitions and Democratic aspirant Joe Biden's brush with Indian Americans left him a bit dunked, there is no saying how hard the ''Pun'Jab' would hit rising black star Barack Obama.

Obama, chasing Hillary Clinton in the race for Democratic nomination, apparently had no idea what it means to take a 'panga' with the Indians when his campaign suggested that the former first lady was more of a senator from Punjab."

The article continues:


The George Allen gaffe.

"The Obama memo, initially sought to be passed to the media on a 'don't tell' basis, accused former president Bill Clinton of investing tens of thousands of dollars in an Indian bill payment company, and Hillary herself of taking tens of thousands from companies that outsource jobs to India.

As the Indian community waited for Obama to respond to allegations that his campaign has been 'promoting hurtful stereotypes against the Indian American community', one wondered whether he would pay as heavy a price as Allen did for calling a Democratic Indian American campaign worker a 'macaca' or a monkey.

Or would he escape with a little rap on the knuckles as Joe Biden did after suggesting that one cannot visit a 'Dunkin Donut' shop in America without having a slightly Indian accent?"

I'm always careful to keep a short petard handy, in the event I'm hoisted by it. It really is a pity that Senator Trent Lott is spending all of his time bashing members of his own party these days. This would be a perfect opportunity for him to hang out with his Senatorial soul-mates and commiserate.

Oh well, there will always be more funerals, birthdays, campaign stops and award ceremonies to present opportunities to enrage the world.

W.H.O. on Global Warming: Slipping One in for the Team

On the ridiculous news front, the World Health Organization is now tossing references to global warming into its reports.

From the Full Story at SpiritIdia.com:

"Reducing environmental risks including pollution, unsafe water, ultraviolet radiation and climate change can save 13 million lives annually, the United Nations health agency said."

And just how important is "climate change" in their analysis?

"WHO found that in 23 countries, more than 10 per cent of de aths are due to just two environmental risk factors which include unsafe water, poor sanitation and hygiene and indoor air pollution due to solid fuel use for cooking."

"For we know that all things work together to prove global warming for those that are called to combat it." First Al, chapter 1 verse 1. Faith-based science: the perfect start to a Sunday morning.

Senator McCain on Offense, Claims of Desperation Rack Campaign

From the Full Story at Canada.com:

"Of all the insults that get hurled at a U.S. presidential candidate during the course of a long campaign season, few sting worse than attacks motivated more by pity than anger.

Just ask John McCain.

When the Republican senator from Arizona this week accused GOP rival Mitt Romney of flip-flopping on the abortion issue, the former Massachusetts governor brushed McCain off like an elephant swatting its tail at a nettlesome mosquito.

"The McCain campaign's motives are obviously born of desperation," Romney's press secretary said in a statement. "Their actions are both sad and unfortunate."

That any leading Republican candidate would blithely dismiss McCain seemed improbable just five months ago. But hardly a soul in the party batted an eye this time because Romney's remarks rang so true.

After waiting eight years for a second chance at the Republican presidential nomination, McCain and his famed Straight Talk Express - the moniker given his campaign bus - have officially hit the ditch."

I'm not writing them off yet, but the McCain camp looks to be in awful shape. From conceding Iowa to Romney, to being crushed in the polls at Thompson's entry, the news isn't good. I'm certain that few Republicans will soon forget the attempt at the immigration reform "jam-down."

If the campaign isn't yet in the ditch, it must be on the shoulder with wobbly wheels. I've said, and I'll repeat, it's only a matter of when, not if, McCain's campaign will throw in the towel.

Alito Signals Potential to Curb McCain Feingold

From the Full Story in the Washington Post: HT: [Drudge]

"The newest justice, who was protective of speech rights as an appellate judge, added that "some restrictions have been held to be consistent with the First Amendment, but it's very dangerous for the government to restrict speech."

Alito's vote is expected to be influential and perhaps decisive in two of the court's biggest cases concerning free-speech restrictions.

One is the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case in which the court is examining whether a principal violated the rights of a student who unfurled that message along a parade route across from the school. It's considered the most important student speech case to reach the court in decades.

And the court is also deciding a challenge to a part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that says corporations, unions and special interest groups may not name federal candidates in ads broadcast in the run-up to elections. A group called Wisconsin Right to Life says that is an unconstitutional infringement on free speech."

This is good news. Perhaps we'll have to dismantle Senators McCain's and Feingold's Frankenstein one piece at a time. This is also an achilles heel for Senator Thompson. At any rate, carving up the law is better than leaving it as is.

It will be interesting to see the arguments either way.

Primaries Changing: Washington Post

Are the changes in the structure of the primaries altering traditional American political strategies?

From the Full Story at the Washington Post:

"As they criss-cross the nation at a dizzying pace, Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are locked in a fast-track campaign that has forced frontrunners and the far-behind to rethink the traditional path to nomination seven months before a single vote is cast.

In prior campaigns, candidates fought for votes in Iowa and New Hampshire while largely ignoring the rest of the country based on a time-tested belief that wins in those two early states would slingshot them into contention. But now, with many large states moving their primaries to late January or early February, even the best-known and best-financed candidates are being forced to make tough tradeoffs."

The full article outlines the changes.

Each campaign brings innovations and alterations. I think we're beginning to see the far-reaching effects of McCain-Feingold, with candidates rushing to make up for loss of support through the law. Instead of focusing on the issues and campaigning, candidates are now playing a different game, struggling to get cash and barely touching on important themes.

On the other hand, it is likely that right now, 527's are gearing up for another round of "loophole lashings." Meanwhile, technology has shifted to create easy grass roots organizing. A good writer and a free blog can rally more support than a bad candidate can buy.

We should seriously look at repealing this bad law.

Washington Times: McCain Campaign on the Way Out

From the Full Story at the Washington Times

"Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign is showing signs of unraveling, with a continuing slide in the polls, voters' irritation over his support of what they called amnesty for illegal aliens and his decision to pull out of the Iowa straw poll.

Party fundraisers say potential McCain donors are hanging back while Republican voters register rage over the Arizona senator's backing of the immigration reform bill, which was sidetracked in the Senate last week.

The fundraisers say the party's base remains annoyed with Mr. McCain's refusal to say the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law was a mistake that hurt free speech and helped wealthy Democratic donors and that his initial opposition to President Bush's tax cuts was meant to endear him to independents and Democrats."

With a viable establishment option (see: Fred Thompson), the party may be backing away from the whistlestops of the "Straight Talk Express." It appears to be only a matter of time.

Immigration Reform: Tony Snow "Where's your G-spot?"

I'm going back into the "Not Making This Up" file for this post. What follows is the truth. I can't resist this subject. Sensitive readers should stop here.

A confession:

I probably appreciate more than most conservatives (with the exception of Senator McCain, for whom, on this subject, I have admiration), the value of foul language in both catharsis and making a point. That is, when it comes to cursing, I can hang in there with the best of them. Or worst, if you're of a different mind on the subject.



Last night, when Hugh Hewitt (Hugh, can we get a transcript? I ask, laughing) was pressing Tony Snow for details about immigration reform, Snow replied to a query about what would be done with "Where's your G-Spot?"

Now, I've sort of looked at Vice President Cheney as the grumpy fatherly type (though I must also confess that my father would sooner keel than drop an F-Bomb in public) when he's dismissed a Senator with a curt bite for unlawful carnal knowledge. And even the president has had his brushes with public decency.

But, in the interest of balance, using crude sexual mythology (or, fact, as some will attest) to make a point on immigration is, well, bush league. Sweet spot? OK. What's your deal breaker? Better. What will it take to get you to support the bill? Best.

Where's your G-spot? Don't have one, your honor, it's an anatomical thing. But hey, thanks for asking!

In defense of Snow, he's moved onto my internal analogy list. Now he's like the older cousin who hangs out behind the gym after school and smokes cigarettes and, gasp, can buy beer from the shady convenience store over on Gandy Blvd. I'm not sure that's where the president's press secretary wants to be on the analogy list, but that's where he is.

Anyway, I'm in so much trouble for this post. I'll stop now.

Irresistable Update:

Go to Google Blog Search and type in Tony Snow G-Spot. He's in some fascinating company. Yikes.

McCain Heckled While Defending Immigration Bill

From the Full Story at PE.com:

"Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., defended his support of a stalled immigration bill Tuesday, saying critics should read the legislation more closely before they call it inadequate.

"I'm happy to say that poll after poll shows that the majority of Americans support this approach. If you don't do anything, if you leave the status quo, then you've got silent amnesty," he said in an interview Tuesday. "They ought to look at our legislation very carefully, and I wish they would."

McCain, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, held a fundraiser lunch Tuesday at Café Sevilla in Riverside, where a small group of protesters gathered outside to criticize his position on illegal immigration and catch glimpses of him through the windows."

They also made signs and shouted through bullhorns at the windows. This isn't good news for the struggling McCain Campaign. Already sinking in the polls with the impending entry of Fred Thompson in the race, McCain doesn't need more bad press. Looks like he's uphill from here until he exits the race.

Fred Thompson: 6 Million Pound Gorilla?

Fred Thompson is making a bold play. He's essentially throwing the book back at the experts in the 2008 campaign (can we stipulate that he's in it now?). When challenged on his energy, he replies he doesn't "do frenetic." When challenged on not entering the race on the Bill Bennett show, he replied he was a "slow walking, slow talking country boy."

He has a few bags to unpack, like everyone else in the race, but he seems to be saying two things clearly:

1. I'm doing it my way (read: "Maverick", though I don't think anyone is jockeying to make themselves out to be the replacement for the "Straight Talk Express" these days) and

2. I'm not at the beck and call of "the insiders."

But there's also excitement generated from the sidelines, which he'd not be enjoying if he were in now:

From the Full Story in the Toronto Star:

"Republican guru and pollster Frank Luntz this week called Thompson the "6 million pound gorilla" in the Republican race, telling Fox News his double-digit support in a race he has not yet entered is not based just on ideological affinity, but by voters' convictions that they know the man.

He will immediately join a mix at the top of a wide-open race, joining former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Arizona Senator John McCain."

So, I'd say his candidacy is on track, but he's got some work to do laying down the groundwork for who he is. From all indications, he's happy to do it.

The big question now is: Who gets McCain's votes?

Fred Thompson in Statistical Tie with Giuliani

From the Full Story at the Los Angeles Times: HT: [Drudge Report]

"Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani holds first place in the survey, with support from 27% of the Republicans and independents who said they plan to vote in the party's 2008 primaries.

But Thompson, an actor who played a prosecutor on NBC's "Law & Order," runs just behind, with 21%. Indications are he will join the race within the next month."

The Mcain and Romney Campaigns are running in 3rd Place. It would be difficult to overstate the catastrophic effect of the immigration jam-down fiasco on the McCain campaign.

Again, I hope Senator McCain will bow out gracefully and act as a statesman. He could easily drag the party flatly into the mud with him in the MSM. If he does, it will only hurt his legacy, not the party. It isn't as though we're gathering news or views from the old media.

Romney has some work to do to get back into the hunt. The rest should go ahead and fold now. This is a 2 horse race with Romney needing a powerful burst to get back in. Everyone else are "also rans."

Chuck Hagel in Primary Fight?

From the Full Post at Hugh Hewitt's Blog:

"Nebraska is one of the most bright red states in the country, and it's unclear whether Fahey will run. Either way, it's difficult to see the political wisdom of national Republicans getting involved to save Hagel. This is Nebraska, not Rhode Island, so you don't need to nominate a particular type of Republican to win. And Bruning, the state's popular Attorney General, would have a better chance in the fall than Hagel, who has forever alienated the party's base. Ask Chafee and DeWine whether you can win without the base once Democrats smell blood."

After the immigration fiasco, there's enough blood in the water to attract sharks ocean-wide.

Google Earth: A Bi-partisan Solution to Voter Fraud?

So far, the reaction to google earth among my friends on both sides of the political divide has been something like: "It gives me the creeps." But I really believe we can make a purse out of this pig's ear.

After considering the uses of such a technology, one that rose to the front of my mind was that we could, both Democrats and Republicans alike who appreciate the rule of law, work together to cut down voter fraud. With a few keystrokes, we could identify every vacant lot, abandoned warehouse and empty dump site where "registered voters" are placed on the roles. We could secure lists of registered voters and search addresses on Google Earth.

With all of the claims of voter fraud, we could use Google Earth in a positive way to cut down on some of it. The drawback is that the images are dated, but if a person is searching a confined area, he or she could identify suspicious targets and then go and visually inspect them. This is a great opportunity for bi-partisan cooperation on a real problem.

Think about it.

Axis of Right: Scheming Shmeming, Dems Want YOU(r wallet)!

From Ryan at Axis of Right

"The Democrats have never met a tax that they didn’t like or a group they didn’t think about targeting. According to this Washington Post article, the Dems want to soften the blow of the Alternative Minimum Tax*** on millions of Americans. However, there’s a catch. To balance out the equation, 3 million people are going to be burdened with much higher taxes. Guess who? The wealthy!"

Get the full post at the link above.

McCain Campaign in the Ditch?

From the Full Story in Newsweek:

"Barack Obama cultivates an image as a politician whose appeal reaches across party lines. But even he might be surprised to learn that one of his biggest admirers works for GOP Sen. John McCain--a Republican rival for the presidency in 2008. Mark McKinnon, a senior media adviser to McCain--who led George W. Bush's ad efforts in 2000 and 2004, and remains one of the sitting president's closest friends--has told the McCain campaign that he would quit if Obama wins the Democratic nomination.

McKinnon, a lifelong Democrat until he decided to team up with Bush, developed a bond with McCain over their shared belief in the need to remain committed to the troops in Iraq. McKinnon helped organize McCain's last book tour and has traveled extensively with the senator, offering media advice to the candidate for much of the last year. But he wrote a memo to the campaign in January, explaining that he would quit if the general election pitted McCain against Obama."

The news for McCain is staggeringly bad these days. It may be time to toss in the towel and use what influence he has remaining to pick his surrogate. If he waits much longer, he'll be short on influence to assign.

A couple of quick points:

Nobody had as much political capital wrapped up in the immigration fiasco as McCain. - He was "all in" on the immigration bill, framing his debate discussion as the "guy who could reach across the aisle." It was a huge negative for him, now it's like concrete shoes as he tries to prove he can walk on the water of bi-partisanship.

The rumors of McCain's organization being disorganized were greatly understated. - It's unfair to the word "organization" to use it on McCain's campaign.

The jig is up. The question now is how long it will take the Senator to figure it out.