Packing Heat In New Orleans

Apparently that’s what Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) did. In explaining how a gun could have found its way into his assistant’s possession and be carried onto the grounds of the Russell Senate Office building, Webb seemed to say, ‘well hey, we had the gun because we had been in New Orleans over the weekend.’

Hear that Mayor Ray Nagin? The senator feels compelled to arm himself when visiting your fine city. He actually said it more like this in speaking of his staffer’s arrest:

‘I think this is one of those very unfortunate situations where, completely inadvertently, he took the weapon into the Senate yesterday,’ Webb added. The senator noted that he was in New Orleans from Friday until Monday. He speculated that the incident happened because three of his cars were moved because of the trip.

I don’t think it will do much for the city’s recovery when lawmakers are afraid to visit without the special protection of Smith and Wesson.

In a related post, there is a solution to the crime problem in N.O. I wonder if the mayor saw it?

CRS Refusing To Expose Earmarks

Daniel P. Mulhollan, the Director of the Congressional Research Service says the CRS “will no longer respond to requests from members of Congress on the size, number or background of [budget] earmarks.”  Lets stop here and review.  The Congressional Research Service is refusing to respond to requests by members of Congress for their service.

John Fund of the Wall Street Journal details the failed attempts of Sen. DeMint to find out who is behind the earmarks in the 2007 budget and exactly what they are for.  Imagine that?  Does this behavior sound like the kind of open government Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were talking about when they were in the minority?  Can we expect to hear Harry and Nancy chastising Mulhollan on the TV shows for not doing what is right?  Oh, how about the left-wing blogs who supposedly despise earmarks?  Will we hear from them?  Don’t hold your breath for either.

Take it into your own hands and you know, write your elected representatives and demand that the CRS responds to any and all requests by members of congress regarding all aspects of appropriations bills.

Philip Thompson, Not Above The Law

Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-Va.) staffer, Philip Thompson, was arrested for violating D.C. gun laws by taking a pistol to the Russell Senate office building.  He was charged with carrying it without a permit, and possession of an unregistered gun.  Webb denies giving Thompson the gun, which is irrelevant in this case.  The only relevant thing is was the law followed?  In his explanation, Webb also admits to another potential violation of  gun laws, in Louisiana.  That is, unless Philip Thompson and/or Webb have a permit to carry in the state of Louisiana, either he or Webb violated that state’s laws as well.

I think this is one of those very unfortunate situations where, completely inadvertently, he took the weapon into the Senate yesterday,” Webb added. The senator noted that he was in New Orleans from Friday until Monday. He speculated that the incident happened because three of his cars were moved because of the trip.

If 50-state armed security is what the Senator wishes, there are security firms that can provide it, legally.  Otherwise, supporting the second amendment by violating state ‘gun control’ laws is not a privilege granted to lawmakers and their entourage.  It’s right up there with alleging to support the troops while planning for defeat.

From Magic Negro To Screw The Poor

LA Times refers to Sen. Barack Obama as “the magic negro.”  A “less-than-real black man.”  Listen carefully for the outrage?  Hear it?  Me neither.  Liberal editors and democrats being racist is apparently OK.  The National Black Republicans don’t think so.  Neither do I.

 Al Gore gets called on his rich-get-warmer, poor-get-colder global warming offset policies by black activist network Project 21.  They say climate regulations and carbon offsets would harm poor and minority households.  While Al Gore warns the the planet is sick and we’re all going to die, he also believes it’s OK to pay money for causing harm to the ‘sick’ planet.  There’s a feel-good word for it.  It’s called ‘carbon offsets.’  Can you say limousine liberal?

Wikipedia: magical negro

Civil Unions Less Than Expected

After all the media coverage of demonstrations and court cases, who didn’t have the impression that there was genuine demand for civil unions, as the New Jersey legislature coded their version of ‘gay marriage?’ So much so that the law needed to be changed. Apparently not, judging from the number of civil unions that have actually taken place. Only 230 have decided to take the plunge. 219 of those were in South Jersey.

About 230 gay couples – just a fraction of those living in New Jersey – have entered into civil unions in the month since the state began allowing the ceremonies, according to state figures released yesterday.

I’ll leave it to the so-called experts to figure out why the numbers are as low as they are, but one can’t deny that expectations of something higher than that could very well be the product of all the media hype promoting, promulgating the gay agenda over the last couple years. Controversy sells newspapers.

The state Department of Health and Senior Services had received 219 applications for civil-union licenses from local registrars as of Monday. The breakdown by county in southern New Jersey is:

Atlantic 14
Burlington 10
Camden 14
Cape May 8
Cumberland 6
Gloucester 7
Ocean 11
Salem 1

SOURCE: New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services

There seems to be no participation in North Jersey, compared to South Jersey. Only 11 from  the most densely populated part of the state, and 219 in the southern half.  Why is that? It is also odd that Cape May, with its reputation for a large gay population, registered only 8.

Mayor Nagin Playing The Race Card, Again

Because Mayor Nagin is not seeing the kind of numbers of black former residents willing to return to New Orleans, where crime has never been worse, and it takes work and resources to rebuild before there is anything to return to, he does the most irresponsible thing he could possibly do.  Throw down the race card and suggest there is a conspiracy to keep blacks away.

I get the impression that the mayor really doesn’t want people to return to rebuild anew but rather to have someone else rebuild the old.   Either that or he refuses to accept the notion that those who have not returned just don’t want to and prefer to start anew right where they are, in the communities that took them in. 

The mayor also needs to consider that he isn’t going to be seeing those residents, however many there were, who were on public assistance and in public housing to return to rebuild when they did not have the resources and/or motivation to get out in the first place.  And in this instance, the mayor has no one to blame but himself and state legislators who accepted that as normal for decades.

Democrats Do A 180 On Presidential Papers

The House of Representatives stunningly (well, not really) voted to overturn an executive order that President Bush put in place soon after he took office in 2001.  I recall the action to be part of his ‘new tone’ in Washington.  He did it to squash the flood of inquiries  and petitions to delve into the just ended Clinton administration.    But, true to form, the current congress, now a democrat majority, wants to overturn that and claiming that it was done to protect his father’s administration, Bush 41.   Another attempt to re-write history.

The presidential papers bill nullifies a November 2001 order, criticized by historians, in which Bush allowed the White House or a former president to block release of a former president’s papers and put the onus on researchers to show a “specific need” for many types of records.

Among beneficiaries of the Bush order was Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, a former vice president and president.

Lets see, who was president after Bush 41 and before Bush 43?  They somehow left out an important ‘beneficiary.’  And there’s this gem from Mr. Investigation himself, Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the lead sponsor of the bill.

“Historians and scholars need access to presidential records so that there’s an accurate record of a president’s term in office and not an alleged version based on what the president chooses to share.”

Henry please, where were you in 2001?  Who in their right mind can’t see that they want it overturned so they can pry into the current administration’s papers.  The ‘Bush lied people died’ crowd is destined to take their hatred to the grave. 

How quickly they forget. 

Here Comes The Race Card

The Congressional Black Caucus is being pressured to reject the FOX news network in any and all presidential debates by labeling the TV network itself as racist.  The rabid left in the blogosphere represented by websites like the Daily KOS and the Huffington Post are on board with this as well.  They can’t, and won’t, discern the difference between people expressing a different opinion than their own and the network that puts it out there.   They react as though it is FOX’s opinion. For example, here’s what a website called colorofchange.org says about it:

Here’s a sampling of the kind of offensive messages that are put out on Fox:

  • Commenting on Hannity & Colmes about the speakers at Coretta Scott King’s funeral, featured guest Mary Matalin said, “I think these civil rights leaders are nothing more than racists” who are keeping “their African-American brothers enslaved.”
     
  • Jesse Lee Peterson, a regular guest who is Black said: “Kwanzaa is a racist, pagan, Marxist holiday” and then claimed that the “so-called seven principles of Kwanzaa are socialist, Marxist, separatist ideas… if a white man started a white holiday, seven-day white holiday, black folks would be burning down America.”
     
  • Erik Rush, another Black guest, labeled Sen. Obama’s church as cultish and separatist for espousing values of black unity and black empowerment (Fox regularly selects Black guests it knows will undermine Black causes). Rush said he replaced the word “black” with “white” in the church’s mission statement and “Suddenly, I was looking at this really scary doctrine. You know, it was something that you’d see in more like a cult or an Aryan Brethren church… I would go beyond saying they’re Afrocentric. They’re African centric. They refer to themselves as an African people and that somewhat disturbs me from the viewpoint of well, do they consider themselves Americans? Do they consider themselves Christians?”
     
  • On Hannity and Colmes, David Horowitz said: “The only lynch mob in America that is allowed to exist in America is a black lynch mob.”

Obviously, news outlets like CBS, NBS, ABS, CNNBS, and MSNBS don’t show the ‘other side’ of an argument to let ‘you decide.’  They all speak with one voice and one message, theirs.  Fox doesn’t need defending by me.  They are the only news outlet that makes an attempt to show you opinions from all sides of an issue.  It is the addition of the ‘other side’ that causes them to whip out the race card.  It becomes the next best tool to censorship for stifling debate.  

If you think that there is no connection between these blogs and democrat party operatives then I have this bridge I’d like to sell you.  Oh that’s right, these blogs are the democrat party operatives.  It was pressure from them that caused Democrats to cancel FOX’s participation in the Nevada primary debates just last week.  This after having signed on to do it.  Whats in play now is page three in the democrat’s playbook.  The entire book is three pages long.  Page one says, never respond to an opposing viewpoint.  Don’t participate in the arena of ideas.  Stay on your message only.  Page two is demonize the opposition.  If that doesn’t work, page three is use the race card.  Thats all they need, it’s all they have, it is what guides them.

If the purpose of participating in a debate is to connect to people via effective debate and persuasion, then FOX is the choice.  If they’re looking for an echo chamber where they can preach to the choir and a minuscule audience, then CNN would be the best choice.  It remains to be seen what action, if any, the CBC will take.  Based on the recent history of the purity of the Congressional Black Caucus, as in ‘no whites allowed,’ the odds are that they’ll follow suit.  I hope I’m wrong on this but time will tell.

Republicans, Get Off Your Butt

If you’ve watched any TV lately you are surely aware of the flap that some democrat senators are making over the termination of a few federal prosecutors.  And if that’s all you’ve been exposed to then you probably believe that there was something untoward going on, on the part of the Bush administration.  If so then please consider the possibility that you’ve been misinformed.

To put it bluntly, the whole episode is spin.  Nothing illegal, nothing even improper.  For ‘the rest of the story’ (thank you Paul Harvey for that one) turn to this editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal (not the mainstream media).

You probably have also noticed that neither the President or Attorney General Gonzalez have had anyone come to their defense.  Total silence among fellow republicans.  Could it be that, after 6 years of pounding by the MSM, republicans have been defeated by the mainstream media and democrat spin?  That they’ve lost their spine and/or the will to fight back.  Ahem, just the exact result the democrats want for the constant pounding on one hand, with no platform of their own in the other.  The “culture of corruption” and all that crap.

The democrats in Washington have gone a long way to ruin this government, and lose the war on terror, for the sole purpose of  ‘image’ around the world and getting their monopoly back in Washington.  Nothing is too sacred to sacrifice as long as they get where they want to be and to get what they want.  Which is total control in Washington, punitive taxes, punish free enterprise, expand the welfare state, socialized medicine, abortion on demand up to and including the last half-inch of birth in the vagina, borders in name only, free-for-all voting, constitutional rights for terrorists, just to name a few.

2008 is in the democrat’s sights and republicans are too distracted to see that far ahead.  It’s time.  Now, before its too late.  Take the time to let your elected representatives know that you expect them to get their spine back and stand up to democrat spin and not just sit back and watch the world go by.

For example, I just spent the last half hour getting this off my chest and I implore you to do likewise.  Republicans can not expect to lead anyone when they appear to be intimidated by people the likes of Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton.

Below is a copy of my note to my republican elected officials up to and including the President.  You can do it easily at congress.org.  Tell them you’ve had enough and what you expect them to do.

Although the main focus of this request is to my Rep. Jeff Miller, the biggest opportunity to put an end to the democrats’ stirring the pot, to hamstring the administration, is in your hands Mr. President and Mr. Gonzalez.  Please get to a camera, get to a microphone, and call a spade a spade.  Explain the facts as they are in this so-called scandal.  Point out the unwillingness of some of the 8 prosecutors to tackle obvious voter fraud cases.  Point out that yes, it is political. It is totally political.  Elections are political.  And the democrats are not interested in eradicating, let alone investigating, voter fraud.  There is ample probable cause.

Point out that Clinton replace them all, some say (and I happen to agree) so that he could get rid of the one who was working on, or would be working on, the Whitewater scandal.  Point out Hubbell’s role in it.

Point out that they all serve at the pleasure of the President, even though nobody seems to deny that fact.  But whatever you do, don’t let the democrats throw blood in the water to purposefully smear and incapacitate the administration.

Point out the facts, that Kay, and the guy in New Mexico, sat on their hands in suspected voter fraud cases.  Point out that these were democrat prosecutors.

Point out that these democrats don’t trust the American people to do what’s right.  That’s why they wholly 100% rest their agendas on the judiciary, from prosecutors right on up to the Supreme Court.  Otherwise, they would be on your side in canning those prosecutors instead of castigating you.

Point out that ‘the American People’ (other than the drive-by media) and Schumer and Clinton, want and expect absolutely no hanky panky with elections.  Point out the hypocrisy in the democrats’ interest in stopping voter fraud.  IE. if the suspect is republican, they’re all for it.  But not for it if the the suspect is a democrat.  Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 come to mind.

I’m left scratching my head and pulling my hair out at the SILENCE of all the republicans in Congress in this matter.  We need to fight back.  IF you don’t, the silence becomes tantamount to an admission of wrongdoing, which I know is 180 degrees from the truth.

We need a pep rally on the steps of the Capitol and in front of the White House.  The dems have that show down pat, and it works for them.

Time has long past to step up and tell the people exactly what is happening.  Don’t leave it up to Schumer and his ilk to do all the talking.  “The American people” will be able to understand the motives of the democrat’s phony scandal campaign without you having to tell them that too!

The ‘new tone’ has not worked.  It has won nothing but trouble.  Democrats don’t respect you, simply and only because you are an R and not a D.  They deserve to be stood up to, before another election season rewards democrats for their total and constant attacks on everything and anything you do.

Belly up to the counter. Politics are on the menu and Ross is on the grill.