All posts by Ross

2008 Election, Politics

Democrats Contract With America

While your party is in the majority, why are you not trying to FIX all that is broke instead of treading water (by launching investigation central) for the next year and a half, ganging up on the administration and investigating legal1 activity?

You are in the majority, what are you waiting for? Voters are anxious to learn of your positions on these issues and problems, as well as your proposed solutions. As an elected official, you are responsible for fixing things first, running for re-election and running against Bush are, or should be, secondary. How about writing your version of a contract with America on subjects important to Americans?

  1. War on terror and border security
  2. Immigration and border security
  3. Social Security
  4. Taxes, tax policies
  5. The economy and jobs
  6. Education
  7. Judiciary
  8. Energy
  9. Budgets and earmarks

The problem is Democrats running for national office tend to stay away from issues and run a campaign based on how bad the other guy is. It’s what they did in ’04 and ’06, and to this day. I can’t wait to see their reaction when they realize that Bush is not running for a third term.

Their problem is that the more the people know what their intentions are, the more people will reject their ideas. And one thing they don’t want is for the people to have a year and a half to review them or debate them. Preferring instead to fill the time with investigations/distractions and not trying to get anything else done. They seem satisfied, if not constrained, to try nothing until after the ’08 election. And if that isn’t a waste of time and money, I don’t know what is.  Which is all the more reason to demand they do something for the country instead of complaining about it.

1 Eight foot-dragging federal attorneys

2008 Election, Politics, Uncategorized, War On Terror

Democrats Soft On Terror

Set aside the Democrats’ claim to support the troops by bringing them home prematurely. This is worse. And when the left pretends to be insulted at the suggestion that they are soft on terror, show them this. The Democrats are not happy. They are not happy that they were not successful in killing the most effective anti-terror tools in the toolbox. This is what being soft on terror is, beginning with the notion that ‘enemy combatants’ be afforded constitutional protections, including lawyers at taxpayers expense (of course).

The Democrats‘ failure to rein in wiretapping without warrants, close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay or restore basic legal rights such as habeas corpus for terrorism suspects has opened the party’s leaders to fierce criticism from some of their staunchest allies — on Capitol Hill, among liberal bloggers and at interest groups.

A reminder to liberal bloggers and liberal interest groups . . .

to believe this

civil liberties

is to ignore this.

twin towers attack

Washington Post link.

related link: Free, but not free to kill.

War On Terror

Mookie Calls Cease Fire, For 6 Months

Mookie, Muqtada al-SadrHow is it that this guy has not already assumed room temperature? Muqtada al-Sadr is calling for a cease fire? Only because he’s about lost his grip. This, if we’ve learned nothing from Bora Bora, is not the time to let up.

Al-Sadr organized the Mahdi Army shortly after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Since then the Mahdi Army has become the most active and feared armed Shiite group, blamed by the U.S. for driving thousands of Sunnis from their homes in retaliation for Sunni extremist attacks on Shiite civilians.

2008 Election, Politics

Barack Obama Picks His Cabinet

No, he hasn’t yet. But what would an Obama Cabinet look like? Who would his first Supreme Court Justice pick be?

For Secretaries of Defense, State, Interior, Education, Labor, Commerce, and Treasury for example. Coming from a first-term Senator, having confidence in his choices would necessitate believing that he has surrounded himself with smart people. In this day and age, I would not be comfortable with a rookie in the number one spot dependent on everyone for everything. The word, and lack of, ‘gravitas’ comes to mind. I remember when that word was key in selecting a leader, don’t you?

Immigration, Politics, Race Relations

Geraldo On Sanctuary Cities

1 Comment

It finally happened, Geraldo answers. Geraldo spent a few minutes on H&C last week on the subject of sanctuary cities. He obviously supports the notion of sanctuary cities if you read the transcript of the show.Geraldo Rivera and Rep. Tom Tancredo on Hannity & Colmes, 8/22/07

Neither he nor Alan Colmes could grasp the argument that the murders of the three college students were preventable. Whereas all the other crimes that Geraldo and Colmes wanted to compare this crime to, was an attempt to shape the anti-sanctuary cities people as racists. The fact that they were illegal didn’t matter to them. But when it is preventable, it does matter.

It shouldn’t be hard to understand that, when an illegal alien enters the criminal justice system for a felony, the first 30 counts are not freebies. But had this thug been turned over for deportation when he committed his first felony, he would not have been in Newark to commit the execution-style murders of three out of four human beings, who just happen to also be American citizens.

But this is just what I expected from Geraldo if he were ever to talk to this subject. Geraldo has validated that now.

related: Geraldo Rivera’s Little Secret

Rep. Tom Tancredo and Geraldo Rivera Face Off

Media, Pensacola, Politics, Uncategorized, War On Terror

Welcome Home Soldier: Manny Alvarez

Pensacola welcomes home Army Major Manuel Alvarez from the Iraq/Iran border area. And Troy Manny Alvarez, 44, a Pensacola attorney, returned a few weeks ago after a year in Iraq and is back at work at the firm of Conroy, Simberg, Ganon, Krevans & Abel. He practices insurance defense and workers' compensation. Moon at the Pensacola News Journal interviewed Manny on making the transition from being in Iraq to being back at his law office. But along the way, Manny tells us what is bothering him now that he is back.

“You turn on the news and hear people say we’re losing the war, and that’s not true,” he said. “The people who are saying those things are scholars, politicians and talking heads who never spent a day doing

the job I did. It just disappoints me. I saw Iraqis killed, there are American soldiers killed. So when I hear the news media, it’s a slap to their faces.”

Alvarez said that the insurgency is weakening in Iraq. “The media don’t show that we’re eliminating a lot of insurgents,” he said. “We’re killing them wholesale. But all the media shows is our guys being killed.”

An immigrant himself, Alvarez knows first-hand what fighting for freedom is all about. What is disappointing is that there are too many Americans who don’t know that our freedom needs defending. Defending from Islamofascists and not George Bush.

Showing the measure of the man, a hero in my book, and a great American, Alvarez says this about how he does it . . .

Alvarez said there were close calls in Iraq “all the time,” and some of the Iraqi soldiers he worked and lived with lost their lives in battle, just as Alvarez was prepared to do. The premise I work with is that sacrifice is giving up something good for something better,” he said. “That’s what someone told me a long time ago, and I tried to remember that when times got difficult. You try to remember what moves you forward.

Pensacola News Journal link

2008 Election, Media, MRIOTD, Politics

Sen. Barack Obama Making Picks

Keeping to his apparent knack1 to be first to speak on a subject like working with ‘the other side of the aisle,’ Obama names some republicans he says he can work with. It also, with the media’s help, allows him to be the one driving the campaign. Making the rest respond to him.

Among the Republicans he would seek help from are Sens.Richard Lugar of Indiana, John Warner of Virginia and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Obama said.

His choices of republicans would not be mine, and take Arlen Specter (R-PA), please! But can you even begin to imagine what an Obama Cabinet would look like? Now there’s a scary thought.

Also at the same stump stop in affluent Key Biscayne, Florida, and qualifying for the most ridiculous item of the day, Obama said this . . .

Part of Washington’s problem is that President Bush has created a partisan atmosphere, he said.

Secretaries of Defense, Interior, State, Energy, Education. If he holds true to form, he should be naming these picks sometime next week. As much as I’d like to see him do that, it isn’t going to happen. If it does, he will be the one on defense, and it will be the beginning of the ending of his presidential aspirations for ’08 at the very least.

1 Attack our ally, nukes are off the table.