by Tom Sears
If you really want to become depressed, read the entire section. Can you imagine the new levels of bureaucracies being created? It would make Hillary’s earlier national health care plan look like a form 1040 EZ tax return.
These politicians are clearly not acting on behalf of the American citizens and the United States. Do you really think they are in tune with what the vast majority of Americans want? We sent them to Congress to represent us. Instead of doing this, they are thumbing their noses at us and pursuing what is best for their own selfish, political interests. I hope we remember this come the 2008 elections, but our “representatives” are probably betting that we won’t.
To conclude, picture Osama, in some cave or spider hole, laughing his derriere off. All he has to do is get his terrorists across a very porous border (don’t count on the fence being even attempted or finished), get them issued two documents showing that they were here prior to January 1 (easier than underage drinkers getting false IDs), come up with $3,000 per jihadist (from Middle East oil money), and get them through the 24-hour background check done by a severely understaffed ICE staff. Comforting thought, isn’t it? Who is to be held ultimately responsible?
Huckabee is Complete Conservative
I told myself that I wouldn’t take all the political campaigning seriously until the
first of next year.
It bothers me that the candidates can give us only two years of effort before they start putting their interests first on their priority list. I thought we elected these people to give us dedicated service for a full six years.
A classic example is when the New York downstate liberals got Hillary re- elected in 2006. She immediately went into campaign mode and pretty much forgot what her responsibilities really were.
Of course, she only considered New York to be important for her political ambitions from the start. She had no chance of being elected had she run in her legitimate home states of Arkansas and Illinois.
The drooling, left-leaning liberal state of New York welcomed her with open ideological arms. Can anyone tell me what she has done of significance for our state, especially since she got re-elected? Photo-Ops don’t count.
To a lesser extent, most candidates of both parties are behaving the same way, putting self-interests first over those of the country.
But I digress. I have to admit I cheated and watched the rerun of the latest Republican debate on the Internet. I tried very hard to avoid all the posturing and positioning of the early campaign process, but I eventually succumbed to the temptation.
As I expected, I learned nothing new listening to Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Tommy Thompson. Giuliani and McCain have some strengths but are too liberal on a lot of social issues. Mitt Romney looks very presidential but he has changed his position on too many issues. I thought the only way we could get a truly conservative candidate was to get Newt Gingrich or Fred Thompson into the race.
But then I got a very pleasant surprise when I listened to and looked into Mike
Huckabee’s candidacy.
He is a person with true conservative convictions, both economic and social. He has not been afraid to clearly state and stand by his convictions. He is not a poll- sniffer and does not waiver depending on the audience he is addressing.
As I said earlier, he is a conservative’s conservative. He was governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007, and prior to that he was a practicing Southern Baptist Minister from 1980 to 1985.
He, as we all shouldn’t, makes no apology for his faith. He had a great quote, “My faith does affect my decision process. It explains me.” Very refreshing.
Here is something scary for the primordial soup believers, those who think that our forbearers climbed out of this ancient pre-biotic soup, or mud pit and, by accident, turned into the advanced beings we are now. Huckabee does not believe in evolution. Again, very refreshing.
He is a pro-life candidate and thinks public funding of abortions should be eliminated. At the same time, he does support, hesitantly, the death penalty.
Yes, there is no conflict between these two opposing beliefs of life and death.
Yes, there is very logical reasoning to differentiate the two beliefs.
On the domestic front, he favors not more government but more efficient government. A logical extension of this is to respect the 10th Amendment and strengthen the states’ powers.
One of my favorites is that he wants to implement the Fair Tax system. It is not even close to the flat tax principle and was a topic of one of my very early columns.
It’s great to see support for this concept growing. A great book to read is “The Fair Tax Book” by Neal Boortz and John Linder. After reading the explanations and logic behind its concepts, it would be hard not to become a supporter of the fair tax.
He supports a strong military, private gun ownership, and becoming energy independent through the development of alternative fuels and a more open policy of domestic oil exploration. He is at the same time very environmentally sensitive but not to the point of destroying ourselves economically to achieve impossible (and suspect) goals.
He is critical of President Bush’s war strategy and thinks we should have adopted the “Powell Doctrine” of winning through the implementation of overwhelming force.
He thinks that if we had 300,000 troops in-country from the beginning, they all would have been home safe by now after winning and exiting with an honorable conclusion.
There are many other positive qualities about this candidate, but I don’t have the space to enumerate them. His biggest disadvantages are the lack of name recognition and fund raising capabilities.
After reading a lot about this candidate, I have sent in my contribution to his campaign; I hope all you fellow conservatives will do the same. He gives us all a very positive choice.
Face Facts on Enemy Combatants
Earlier this month, a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel, located in Richmond, Virginia, ruled that the Bush administration couldn’t continue to hold Ali al- Marri, a Qatari citizen and a legal U.S. resident, in military detention indefinitely without charging him with a crime.
As expected, the hate-Bush crowd had a field day. “Another sweeping repudiation of the administration’s strategy of treating suspected terrorists like enemy soldiers rather than like criminals,” stated an ACLU representative.
“A major setback,” “a severe rebuke,” “a victory for the Constitution,” and on
and on, ad nauseam.
First, these people shouldn’t start partying quite yet. As I said above it was a
panel of three judges making this decision, and the decision was only 2-1.
The U.S. attorney general has already asked the full 4th Circuit Court to review the decision. This means 15 judges, rather than 3, will be looking at the facts of the case. Legal authorities predict that it will end up in the Supreme Court.
Also, let’s look at the false accusations that President Bush has misused his power to declare a U.S. citizen an enemy combatant.
Remember how after the Patriot Act was passed, all those Chicken Littles cried how armed men in black suits, wearing black sunglasses, and driving black limos were going to break into citizens’ homes by the thousands, tearing them from their crying families and that they would disappear forever?
How many times has it happened? Maybe four, no more than five times. Wow, what blatant disregard for our Constitution. And who were these innocent victims?
First came little Johnny Walker Lindh. He was an easy one. He was the U.S. citizen captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan while attempting to kill Americans.
Briefly (unfortunately) held by the military, he was luckily (for him) convicted in federal district court and sentenced to 20 years. He should have been held by the military, bled for information and then, under the Unified Code of Military Justice, hung for treason.
Next came Yaser Eser Hamdi who was born in Louisiana (his only claim to U.S. citizenship) but
grew up in Saudi Arabia. He was another one captured in Afghanistan, held at Guantanamo until his citizenship was discovered, and then transferred to a navy brig in South Carolina.
He lost all of his appeals. The case went to the Supreme Court, which agreed he could be held by the military but only if the administration gave him a fair opportunity to challenge its claims.
After we got all the valuable information from him, he had to renounce his American citizenship and was deported to Saudi Arabia. I’m sure his right to due process will be allowed there.
Then came Jose Padilla, a reputed gang member who was arrested in Chicago in 2004. All he did was train at a terror camp and for a while served at a Taliban camp in Afghanistan. He was accused of being part of a plan by Al Qaeda to explode a dirty bomb in an American city.
The same 4th Circuit Court mentioned above upheld Bush’s decision that he be labeled an enemy combatant and held by the military. Since the defense was ready to appeal to the Supreme Court, Bush had him transferred back to civilian control where he is on trial for aiding terrorism, costing us taxpayers much more money.
The civilian trial is still underway, and as of June 21 it was ruled that the prosecution could play a videotape of Padilla being interviewed by bin Laden.
Lastly, we have Ali al-Marri, the person mentioned at the beginning of this column. This gentleman was a trainee in one of bin Laden’s Afghanistan terror camps and even met with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
So there is the extent of Bush’s alleged misuse of constitutional authority.
Pretty reckless handling of the above “innocent civilians and residents.”
The reason for declaring an individual an enemy combatant is pretty clear: to keep the individual from performing additional acts of terror and to deny access to an attorney, which would severely limit the ability to acquire valuable information.
In one case an attorney was allowed for Sheikh Omar Abdell-Rahman- Lynne Stewart, a radical American activist attorney. She used her right to see the accused to pass along secret messages to his followers.
She was convicted of such charges, was disbarred, and is serving only a 28 month prison term. She could have, and should have, gotten life.
I wish I had more space to provide you with more facts. Maybe my next column will be used to give you more facts, not opinion. It all depends on what comes up between now and my next column deadline.
‘Fairness Doctrine’ Just Unfair
I almost had a column completed about the ongoing evolution debate but then the Democrat led Congress once again illustrated its total inability to lead.
In the first five-plus months of their leadership, Democrats have succeeded in bringing only 26 bills to the president. Of this number, 13 represented the naming of federal buildings and five simply extended existing laws that were expiring. The other 8 were bills that wouldn’t have passed without having to work in a bipartisan fashion.
The only way they got a major piece of legislation through, the minimum wage increase proposal, was by tacking it on to the bill that fully funded the troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even then the heavy-hitting Democrat leadership (Kennedy, Clinton, Boxer, Pelosi, Obama, et al.) put politics over principles and voted against the bill. As a matter of fact, 140 Democrats voted against one of their most important political promises. So much for their caring about the poor and the middle class.
What can they do? They can’t provide leadership because they have no vision for the country, and their constant harassment of the Bush administration is going nowhere.
So they started talking about reviving something called the “Fairness Doctrine.” Actually I have to take some of that statement back. There were enough sensible Democrats (equally split in the House) who pretty forcefully put this foolish issue back in the garbage can where it belonged.
This doctrine was originally enacted in 1949 to ensure that both sides of a controversial issue were guaranteed to be covered equally in the broadcast media. In 1949, there was not nearly the wide choice of media outlets to turn to as there is today, and radio dominated. Although a seemingly noble idea back then, it stifled political discussion and went against the constitutional right of free speech. The FCC finally recognized this when it abolished the doctrine in 1987. Actually, various related Supreme Court rulings caused them to make this decision.
So why is it even being considered again? After the crushing defeat of the immigration bill, influenced heavily by the public on their elected representatives (Democrat and Republican), the liberal, left-leaning Democrat leadership saw the impact that talk radio, overwhelmingly conservative, had in the arena of public debate. In a word, they were simply scared. Being used to having the liberal main stream media (print and major broadcasting networks) in their back pockets, they now had to confront the success talk radio was having in getting the conservative viewpoint across.
All the facts were against them. The top five talk shows were conservative and overwhelmingly successful. Their liberal counterparts, including Air America, were falling flat on their faces (and declaring bankruptcy). It simply proved that you had to have positive ideas people could relate to in order to succeed. The liberal left was only good at spewing negativity and defeatism, hence a minimum audience.
If a snobbish elitism approach is going to be taken, saying that talk radio listeners aren’t as politically astute, that strategy will fall on its face. According to a Pew Research survey taken in 2006, it was found that Rush Limbaugh’s audience came in second as far as having the most informed listeners. Only readers of politically related magazines were ranked higher.
So the only strategy left to the liberals is the one they seem to always fall back
on. If they can’t win in the marketplace of ideas, regulate the marketplace.
I’ve got some more good news. We are not only winning the talk radio battle. We are also winning in other fields. Fox News gets consistently higher ratings than the liberal leaning cable news network alternatives. Katie Couric is continuing the fine job Dan Rather did, and CBS News is being taken less and less seriously as time goes on.
There is more good news that I briefly touched upon in an earlier column. There were only 4 major newspapers that grew in readership from 2002 to 2006. Three were conservative op-ed dailies (The Wall Street Journal, New York Post and the Washington Times) and the fourth, USA Today, was labeled neutral. All seven of the leading liberal papers declined in readership, in some cases by 10 or more percentage points (The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Houston Chronicle, and Newsday).
So my conservative friends, even though George W. Bush is unfortunately looking less like Ronald Reagan and more like Jimmy Carter every day, and some of our Republican friends are disappointing us, the facts and trends are on our side. We are winning. We have to work especially hard to make sure that the 2008 elections put us and our country back on the right track.
Plame Kept Changing Her Story
Well, it looks like Valerie Plame’s 15 minutes of fame is just about up. A U.S. District Court judge simply dismissed her lawsuit against Bush, Cheney, Rove and Libby.
Unfortunately, we will probably have to suffer through one more appeal from her, but if she wants to spend more money on legal fees, go for it.
Joe and Valerie Wilson are mere political hacks. They were used by the Bush haters to desperately sling enough mud at the Bush administration to get something, anything, to stick, and all they were able to do was to defame an innocent man. They must be proud.
I only hope that Scooter Libby has a chance to go on the offense once his successful appeal is concluded.
Valerie gave conflicting stories when testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee. When asked if she, and not Dick Cheney, suggested that her husband be sent on a fact-finding mission to Niger, she first said she didn’t, then she said she couldn’t recall, and then there was the inconvenient internal CIA e-mail that quoted her as say
ing her husband “may be able to assist.”
Her husband, Joe, has plenty of conflicting statements also. As a matter of fact, he is even lower than she is.
So after all this wasted taxpayer money, what came out of the process? Scooter Libby was convicted of obstructing justice and lying to a grand jury for allegedly leaking the identity of Valerie Plame.
I agree they were serious offenses, but the penalty certainly didn’t fit the crime. He was assessed a $250,000 fine, received 2 years probation, will probably be disbarred, and got a 30 MONTH prison sentence.
Give me a break. Sandy Berger, former national security advisor, removed sensitive classified documents from the National Archives by stuffing them in his pants and socks, hid them at a nearby construction site, later took them home, and even destroyed some of them.
He admitted to doing so after first denying that he did in fact steal the documents. His penalty? A plea bargained $50,000 fine, 100 hours of community service, and having his security clearance lifted for three years!
If someone can’t see the inconsistency here, they should seek out a mental
health care provider immediately.
So Scooter, former chief of staff for Vice President Cheney, was prosecuted for what? No crime was committed since Valerie was no longer classified as being covert. How can you lie about something and obstruct justice when no crime took place?
