Category: Politics

With the June Primary less than a month away, you would expect that the political mud would to be slinging to and fro on the airwaves of every television and radio station in the State. However, with the exception of the gubernatorial race in the Democrat Primary there is silence. It is almost as if this is either a stealth election where the advantage is to the most grassroots organization that a candidate can muster or we are in such a state of secure incumbent districts that there are just no competitive electoral races in our area. Maybe it is a strange combination of both.

Since Democrats have more reason to get to the polls and make a choice for governor, it would seem that the two measures on the ballot both stand a good chance of passage. Both advocate the Democrat axioms of more indebtedness and taxation.

The first initiative is Proposition 81. This bond measure is for library construction and renovation. It offers the promise of increased literacy in exchange for 1.2 billion dollars in taxpayer money. This measure assumes that brick and mortar libraries like those thirty years ago will be the same for the next thirty years. Do you really believe that the library of 1976 will be unchanged by the year 2036? Dream on!

The next measure (Proposition 82) is the universal pre-school initiative that will be paid for by the wealthiest Californians. This scheme is being projected to generate 2.1 billion dollars annually in an economic vacuum. It is called a voluntary program for all four year olds. Yeah, sure! Compulsory for taxpayers now, compulsory for children later.

There are two fallacies with this initiative. First, those paying the tax get no benefit from this confiscatory initiative. Those who are taxed would likely never turn their four year olds over to the State. Secondly, there is no proof that there is any lasting benefit to children by taking pre-school. In fact, a recent study done at UC Davis proved that any benefit that could be had from pre-school was gone by third grade. I’m not going to say that no children would benefit from pre-school but the expectations attached to this program are exaggerated.

One fault with this type of hype is that advocates of a measure can claim anything they want without repercussions because ballot arguments are not legally binding. They can be well intentioned or bald-faced liars and they are safe from any recriminations for their claims. In the final analysis, those supporting or opposing a measure are both unelected and unaccountable to the voters. Let the voters beware!

One of the stupidest songs ever recorded has to be Imagine by John Lenin. It is a ballad about the creatures finally ridding themselves of the implications of the Creator and setting up a “Worker’s Paradise” on earth.

Only people running from the Cross of Jesus Christ seem to relate to this song. Like the proverbial vampires with no soul doomed to live in eternal darkness, the fans of Imagine have a common bond of despair in this life and no hope of anything better in the life to come.

In the midst of the generation that gave us Imagine, is a shrill voice screaming for attention. A woman with no core values, only pompous words designed for the itching ears of her immediate audience. Yes, it’s the junior Senator from New York State, madam carpetbagger herself, Hillary Clinton.

Hillary, the woman who would be President in 2008, has tried to explain her humble path to a political life. According to an article in Newsday, Hillary had other ambitions but due to her lack of physical ability, intelligence and a hostile men’s world, she ended up going to law school to find her path in the world.

According to the Newsday account, Senator Clinton first imagined herself becoming an Olympic Athlete but she couldn’t run fast enough. Then she tried to visualize herself becoming an astronaut but NASA said they don’t take girls. Then she dreamed of the medical field but she got “woozy” at the sight of suffering (except for unborn children being dismembered on the altar of choice which is the blessed sacrament of Liberalism). Mrs. Clinton also pictured herself as a mathematician or a scientist but she didn’t have the grades. As a last result she opted for law school.

Now she gets to impose her version of Lenin’s utopia on the rest of us. She too will feel our pain because she will be the cause of it. Thus proving that Those who can work, those who can’t pass laws to get even.

While there is little hope that the majority of Republicans in Congress will see the light, there are signs that they are at least beginning to feel the heat. Some are at last beginning to act as if Hugh Hewitt’s warning in Painting the Map Red has been heard in the halls of power.

Following the return this week from the Easter Recess, the Senate has started to move several languishing judicial nominees to a vote and allocated more money for border security. Congress is trying to get more energy production under way and once again is looking to end the “Death Tax”.

Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope that the GOP can turn things around. Their best advantage is the incompetence of the Democrats. As long as Democrats are motivated by hatred of President Bush and opposing every Republican idea without offering any of their own they are a doomed party. They have nothing to offer but fear itself. Doom and despair don’t win elections.

Republicans need to give their base an incentive to vote or many will just stay home this year. It looks like this reality is provoking some politicians to take action to energize the base. If Republicans would start acting like the majority party then they would make gains in this off year election.

Unfortunately, senators like McCain and the Northeastern liberal Republicans are the worst enemies of Republican victory in 2006. My hope is that if Republicans can do well enough this year, these Senators will no longer be able to hold the rest of their party hostage to their stupid socialist ideology.

Meanwhile, President Bush is making hopeful changes in the White House. The realities of illegal immigration are being brought to his attention. He seems to be getting closer to making borders more secure before implementing amnesty for illegals that are already here. His personnel changes in the White House seem like good moves.

The most discordant sign has been Republican efforts to try to blame oil companies for the high costs of gasoline instead of the Democrats for their obstructionist policies and idiotic environmental regulations.

Yesterday President Bush apologized to China’s President Hu Jintao for a three-minute outburst from a woman in the photo gallery calling for freedom from the Falun Gong religious sect in China.

Having lived through the shame of the Clinton administration and becoming a father a few years ago, I know that there are several different ways to parse the words “I’m sorry.” They range from “I’m sorry, please forgive me, it was all my fault” to “I’m only sorry that I got caught.”

I think the President meant I’m sorry for this breach of protocol. But I think Bush should have qualified the apology to say something about our nation being stronger for allowing differences of opinion. Suppose he said, “President Hu, we honor freedom of speech even when we might disagree with what is said. Unlike your government we won’t torture and kill this dissenter as a lesson to others.”

I think that President Bush missed a golden opportunity to call for
·  releasing religious and political prisoners
·  ceasing forced sterilization and abortion
·  stopping the harvesting of organs from prisoners for use in transplants
·  ending subsidies of Chinese currency to falsely prop-up their trade balance
·  halting the proliferation of arms to Iran, North Korea and other nations
·  suspending saber rattling and intimidation of Taiwan
·  lifting government restrictions on the Internet

The meeting with Hu seems like a wasted opportunity to reign-in the tyranny of the Chinese government.

The Southern Republican Leadership Conference held in Nashville over the weekend took a much-publicized “straw poll” of potential presidential contenders. Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, who bussed in many supporters, won the poll, but to the surprise of many, Mitt Romney, the governor of Massachusetts can in second.

Media darling and Republican Brutus of the Senate, John McCain had a poor showing. This so-called “Maverick” (apologies to James Garner) got spanked by the Republican base in this symbolic vote. The Senator—who is a legend only in his own mind—has no chance of winning anything nationally.

As a result of his strong showing, the issue that has again been raised is Romney’s religion. Romney is a member in good standing in the Salt Lake branch of the Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). Eric Hogue spent much of his program today on this topic.

Hogue’s basic question is will the Evangelical Base of the Republican Party support a candidate that is active in a non-Christian cult? No, he didn’t word his question this way but this is what he was looking to explore with his callers.

Other than to stipulate that I agree that the Mormons are not Christian because they deny the historic tenants of the Christian faith, Hogue asks a question worthy of analysis.

I think that much of Romney’s presidential effort will depend on what candidates are competitive in the early going and also on what baggage can be found during his time as governor of Massachusetts. Abortion and gay marriage will be high profile issues when people look at Romney.

If the traditional Republican Platform on social issues, Romney’s faith and his actions as governor are in agreement then he should be ok. However, if he could have stopped gay marriage from becoming implemented in Massachusetts or has any hypocrisy on the Life issue he will not get the support from the base that he needs to survive the primaries.

There are two practical questions that must be asked about any candidate but especially Romney; first, how would his policies as President compare to Ronald Reagan and George W Bush? Second, what type of people would Romney appoint if he is elected?

I would expect Romney to spend lots of time courting James Dobson and other evangelical leaders to either stay neutral in the primaries or support him because he is in agreement with them on issues like gay marriage, abortion and the Supreme Court justices. If Romney can make a case that he would be like an evangelical on social issues and act as a fiscal conservative then he just might pull this off.

1. While the Vice President will no longer be known as a straight shooter, the real question is was he leaning to the Right when he fired?

2. Did he have a campaign flashback and think he was in Cambodia?

3. When Dick Cheney says his beer is “Less filling”, don’t argue and say, “Tastes Great.”

4. If Dick Cheney has you in his sights, you’re in big trouble.

5. I bet young men will think twice before dating the Vice-President’s daughter now!

When can you tell that government is out of control? When government makes law abiding citizens into criminals just for going about their daily lives, the government has overstepped its rightful boundaries.

If you are a gun owner, smoker, motorcycle rider or other persecuted minority in California for doing something that is legal, you now have company. Every citizen in California has been made a criminal today. That’s right! Effective today, if you throw a dead AAA battery into the trash you are criminal. If you put a burned-out light bulb into a dumpster you are an evil doer. If you toss a disposable cell phone you are scum. So says the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (also called CalEPA).

A summary article can be found at the KCRA-TV website.

Other banned items include some tennis shoes made before1997, greeting cards that play music, freezers, washing machines, space heaters, radios and disposable lighters.

The real lessons to take from these Liberals are these:
  We cannot listen to terrorists talking on disposable cell phones but we can imprison them for tossing the phones into the trash when their calling minutes are expired.
  Our State legislature is more fearful of the batteries in my baby’s electronic toys than the possibility that thermonuclear weapons might be detonated in San Francisco or Los Angeles.

Eric Hogue was exploring the merits and shortfalls of California holding “mail-in” elections for the June primary and possibly other elections in the future. This idea is being floated in some recently introduced legislation that is expected to be debated later this year.

This idea is bad for a variety of reasons; some which exist now and others that could arise if the system is implemented.

Currently, once you register to vote as a permanent absentee voter, your ballot is automatically mailed to you in perpetuity or until the county clerk has some reason to drop you from the voter rolls.

This creates two problem areas. First, as with any other kind of voter registration, there is no requirement to prove citizenship or eligibility to vote. Secondly, your ballot can be disqualified and your vote may never be counted if someone at the county clerk’s office says your signature does not match the one on file from your voter registration card. This rule disproportionately impacts many senior citizens and results in many of their votes never being counted. If your ballot is disqualified for this reason, there is no requirement to notify the voter of a potential problem with their vote. Without such notification, the voter will continue to cast ballots which are subsequently disqualified.

A new area of abuse in the voting system should this proposal ever become law would be voters giving blank signed ballots to special interest groups in exchange for some perceived benefit to them or some group to which they have membership. The interest group would then punch the ballots and return them to the clerk’s office in their county.

Also, this proposal would allow illegal aliens, non-citizens and others without voting rights to be more insulated from any efforts to weed them off of the voting rolls.

If we want more voter involvement, a better way of doing that would be going to a system similar to Texas where they allow “early voting”. Early Voting is a system of consolidating precincts and allowing voting at a regular poling place several weeks before a scheduled election. The poling places are open five or six days a week to allow as many people as possible to vote.

The other reform worth looking at is having each county cross-check their voter rolls with other counties to remove duplicate registrations. This would require some type of state issued identification. This would be a step toward preventing such things as college students from voting twice (once at school and once at home) or people registered to vote at addresses where they no longer live from voting faithfully in every election.

Mail-in voting is just another opportunity to create more voter fraud in a state already full of tainted votes.