Republican Candidate To Keep Your Eye On
Here is a Republican candidate for president to keep your eye on. He seems to be a true conservative. Not a RINO like Romney, Giulliani, or McCain. Definately a longshot, but worth taking a look at.
From wmur.com
NASHUA, N.H. — Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee visited New Hampshire on Friday and pitched his ideas on health care and the war in Iraq.
The conservative Republican and former Arkansas governor is near the bottom in primary polls, but he has gained attention based on his record and his “aw shucks” style. “Be a little afraid of the candidate who has an answer for every issue in great detail and can solve every problem, because I’m not sure anybody’s that smart,” Huckabee said. “And if he is, he’s way too smart to be running for public office. We need people like me.”
Huckabee grew up near poverty and has been called one of America’s top five governors. In his 10 years in office, he improved education, reduced welfare and cut 90 different taxes, according to his campaign. “You try to bring good ideas, not partisan ideas,” Huckabee said. “The purpose of government is to function and to function competently.” He also used to be 100 pounds heavier. After he was diagnosed with diabetes, he dropped the weight and led a movement in Arkansas to get people healthier and focus on disease prevention. His ideas to reform Medicaid and improve health care have some support. Analysts and activists called Huckabee a dark horse with a lot of potential. “He was a working man’s son, and he worked his way to the top,” Sen. Bob Clegg said. “He’s got the right message. He’s talking about all the right subjects.” “I think Mike Huckabee is a very articulate speaker,” former U.S. Rep. Charlie Bass said. “He has a great message, and I hope the New Hampshire people will listen to him.” Huckabee’s support of President George W. Bush’s troop escalation plan for Iraq could be his toughest sell, given the widespread public opposition to the war in the state seen in the last election. But Huckabee said troops in Iraq are fighting a holy war with an enemy bent on the destruction of Western civilization
Nanny State 2
When are they going to ban small children in cars? They can be very distracting also.
It’s just too bad they think we are too stupid to take care of ourselves, isn’t it. Keep voting for Democrats and they will protect us from the real enemy: ourselves, not terrorists.
The following is from wmur.com:
BARRE, Vt. — Put down the flute and keep your eyes on the road.
And forget about sipping that cup of coffee on the way to work, or smoking a cigarette on the way home. In some states, it could soon be illegal — if it isn’t already.
Emboldened by the passage of cell phone bans for drivers in some communities, states are turning their attention to other things that drive motorists to distraction.
Vermont lawmakers are considering a measure that would ban eating, drinking, smoking, reading, writing, personal grooming, playing an instrument, “interacting with pets or cargo,” talking on a cell phone or using any other personal communication device while driving. The punishment: a fine of up to $600.
Similar bills are under consideration in Maryland and Texas, and Connecticut has passed one that generically bans any activity that could interfere with the safe operation of a motor vehicle.
“Cell phones attracted people to this issue,” said Matt Sundeen, a transportation analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures. “Now that people are more focused on distracted driving issues, they’re beginning to talk about the broader range of distractions.”
For the sponsor of the Vermont bill, the motivation came from his own observations.
“What finally pushed me over the edge was when I was at a stop sign and somebody opposite me was trying to navigate around the corner with a cell phone to the ear in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and she wasn’t doing very well,” said Republican state Rep. Thomas F. Koch.
He said his wife recently saw a driver playing the flute, which led him to include the instrument ban in his bill.
“There are a lot of bad habits out on the road. This isn’t just for drivers’ own good. This is to protect the other people on the road,” he said.
Often, they need protection:
- In Illinois, a bicyclist was killed by a driver who had been downloading cell phone ring tones while behind the wheel last September.
- In Westminster, Calif., a 7-year-old boy was struck and killed by an SUV whose driver lost control as he was trying to reach a cell phone and plowed into a family at a bus stop Nov. 29, authorities said.
- In Spokane, Wash., a trucker who was allegedly using a cell phone crossed a highway median and struck another truck head-on, killing five children, in 2005.
- In Athens, Ala., a woman lost control of her car while reaching for a ringing cell phone and crashed into a church last month.
Distracted drivers were involved in nearly eight out of 10 collisions or near-crashes in a study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute that was released last year by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Young drivers are some of the worst offenders. A study of more than 5,600 students released last month by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm Insurance Co. reported that nearly 90 percent had seen friends drive while talking on cell phones and that half saw drivers playing hand-held games, using listening devices or sending text messages.
Jeff Rogers, 44, of Barre, filling up his pickup at a gas station Thursday, said the Vermont bill is “going a little too far.”
“I can understand the cell phone thing,” he said. “But the rest of it, how are they going to enforce that?”
Why Harry Reid Blocked The War Debate
More proof that Harry Reid blocked the war debate and not the Republicans
This is from nationalrewiew.com:
A Minority to be Reckoned WithBy The Editors
The nonbinding anti-surge resolution that Democrats conceived as an easy, free way to score political points met its demise (for now) when Democrats realized it would not be as easy or free as they had hoped.
Under Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republicans have quickly gotten the hang of serving in a minority that can successfully frustrate Harry Reid’s partisan maneuvering on the war in Iraq. At the conclusion of the Senate’s always-confusing filibuster/cloture/motion-to-proceed machinations this week, the New York Times scolded Senator Reid for being outmaneuvered by Senate Republicans and failing in his attempt to get a majority of the Senate on the record in opposition to the troop surge in Iraq.
Reid was done in when Senate Republicans insisted that they be permitted to offer an alternative to the Levin/Warner nonbinding resolution against the surge. When Reid refused to allow a vote on a resolution by Sen. Judd Gregg opposing any cut-off of funds for troops in the field, Republicans mounted a filibuster that Reid’s forces were unable to overcome. With only two defections, by Sens. Norm Coleman and Susan Collins, Republicans united behind their call for a full and fair debate on alternative options for the war.
Democrats wanted to oppose the politically unpopular troop surge with a nonbinding resolution that divided Republicans without facing a politically perilous vote on cutting off war funds that divided Democrats, so Reid refused to yield. Thus, Reid “blocked the debate” on the Iraq resolution as much as Republicans, although the headlines said otherwise. At least the New York Times editorial board — again — got it right when it said the Democrats’ goal of formally rebuking President Bush was made more difficult by “allowing the Republicans to maneuver them into the embarrassing position of blocking a vote on a counterproposal that [Democrats] feared too many Democrats might vote for.”
Under Harry Reid’s command, Senate Democrats had been confident that they had President Bush in their crosshairs. But war plans seldom survive contact with the enemy.
War? What war? Dems set their priorities
From the New Hampshire Union Leader:
HOW DARE President Bush continue to budget money for a war when there are entitlements to expand? Why, the nerve!
Democrats are incensed that Bush’s new budget trims funding for Medicare and Medicaid — two of three entitlement programs on pace to bankrupt the country in just a few decades — while providing a huge increase for the Pentagon. The President must think there’s a war on or something.
Democrats, on the other hand, know that there’s only one war: the class war.
How silly of the President to imagine that Islamist terrorists will continue trying to kill us just because they’ve been doing it off and on for a quarter century — nonstop for the past five years — and they keep saying that they won’t quit until they destroy us. Doesn’t he know that our money is better spent on enormously inefficient bureaucracies that deliver low-quality assistance to low- and middle-income Americans at outrageous expense?
Granite Status: Gregg, Reid step up war of words
This is an article about how Harry Reid actually is the one who stopped the debate about the war and not Republicans.
The following appeared in the New Hampshire Union Leader:
By JOHN DISTASO
Senior Political Reporter
With the U.S. Senate at a standstill over non-binding Iraq resolutions, Democratic Presidential hopefuls are caught in the squeeze.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wanted Republicans to allow a simple majority vote on a Democratic-backed John Warner and Carl Levin proposal opposing a surge. But he required a 60-vote super-majority for Judd Gregg’s resolution opposing any cut in troop funding.
The Republicans refused to accept the tilted playing field, then blocked a vote on the Warner plan and the war of words was on.
“What this really comes down to is very simple,” Gregg said on the Senate floor yesterday. “This resolution would have received broad bipartisan support in this Senate,” and Reid didn’t want to appear to be backing President George Bush in any way, shape or form.
Gregg said that “rather than have a vote on our amendment, which would have received a large majority in this body — much larger than the proposal put forward as their proposal — they decided not to have a vote at all, and then they claimed that we were responsible for slowing the process. How inconsistent and indefensible is that statement? ‘I don’t have the votes; therefore, I will not allow a vote to happen, but it’s your fault that I’m not allowing the vote to happen.’ Really?”
Reid had called the GOP’s effort to force a vote on Gregg’s plan a “diversionary tactic” to avoid the real issue, Bush’s strategy in Iraq.
Supporting the troops: Gregg exposes Reid’s hypocrisy
The following appeared in the New Hampshire Union Leader:
IF YOU THINK the Democratic leadership in Congress is above playing politics with our troops in the field, think again.
Democrats are desperate to capitalize on the public’s dissatisfaction with the war by passing a purely political resolution (sponsored by Republican Sen. John Warner) opposing President Bush’s troop surge for Iraq.
The non-binding resolution would do two things. First, it would achieve its intended purpose of generating more bad press for Bush and the Republicans right as the 2008 Presidential campaign gets under way. Second, it would achieve the unintended consequence of undermining troop morale and boosting the spirits of the enemy. But hey, as long as it hurts Bush, right?
Sen. Judd Gregg is not amused. He’s introduced his own resolution, which would oppose cutting off funds to our military personnel already serving in Iraq. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who claims to support the troops, saw Gregg’s resolution and refused to allow a vote on it.
Reid on Monday characterized Gregg’s resolution as a “distraction” from the important issue of opposing a troop increase, which everyone already knows the Democrats oppose.
Only in Washington can a non-binding political statement be considered the “real” issue and a promise to give troops the money and equipment they need for the duration of the war be considered a “distraction.”
Reid’s shameless political pandering and reluctance to commit to financially supporting the troops is disgraceful. He should allow debate on both resolutions, and Sen. John McCain’s, which supports the troop surge, and let the political chips fall where they may. That is the only honorable course of action.
18 Ways To Be A Good Liberal
Below is an email I received. I am not sure who the original author is. I thought it was pretty funny and thought I would share it.
18 WAYS TO BE A GOOD LIBERAL
1. You have to be against capital punishment, but support abortion on demand.
2. You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.
3. You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are more of a threat than U.S. nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Iran or Chinese and North Korean communists.
4. You have to believe that there was no art before federal funding.
5. You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical changes in the earth’s climate and more affected by soccer moms driving SUV’s.
6. You have to believe that gender roles are artificial, but being homosexual is natural.
7. You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.
8. You have to believe that the same teacher who can’t teach 4th– graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about sex.
9. You have to believe that hunters don’t care about nature, but PETA activists do.
10. You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.
11. You have to believe that Mel Gibson spent $25 million of his own money to make “The Passion of the Christ” for financial gain only.
12. You have to believe the NRA is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.
13. You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high.
14. You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, Gen. Robert E. Lee, and Thomas Edison.
15. You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides are not.
16. You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn’t worked anywhere it’s been tried is because the right people haven’t been in charge.
17. You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying drag queens and transvestites should be constitutionally protect ed, and manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.
18. You have to believe that this message is a part of a vast, right-wing conspiracy.
GOD BLESS AMERICA
Oops, can’t do that either!
Nanny State
The article below illustrates what happens when liberals are in control. They think they are smarter than anyone else, and know what is best for everyone else. You see, we are not smart enough to do basic things on our own, so they will tell us how we should do them.
This is just the latest example and it comes from wcbstv.com:
Bill Banning iPods In Crosswalks Slated For Albany
Lou Young reporting
CBS) NEW YORK First it was cell phones in cars, then trans fats. Now, a new plan is on the table to ban gadget use while crossing city streets.
We all seem to have one — an iPod, a BlackBerry, a cell phone — taking up more and more of our time, but can they make us too distracted to walk safely? Some people think so.
If you use them in the crosswalk, your favorite electronic devices could be in the crosshairs.
Legislation will be introduced in Albany on Wednesday to lay a $100 fine on pedestrians succumbing to what State Sen. Carl Kruger calls iPod oblivion.
“We’re talking about people walking sort of tuned in and in the process of being tuned in, tuned out,” Kruger said. “Tuned out to the world around them. They’re walking into speeding cars. They’re walking into buses. They’re walking into one another and it’s creating a number of fatalities that have been documented right here in the city.”
Pedestrians have been hurt and killed in the manner Kruger describes. Not surprisingly, though, iPod users are less than thrilled with the senator’s proposal.
“That’s not a distraction,” said one woman, iPod securely implanted in her ears. “You have your iPod in your ears and you’re crossing the street, you are looking with your eyes. You don’t have to hear anything, really … I guess.”
Added another New Yorker: “It’s a terrible idea. It’s outrageous.”
Kruger said not so fast.
“If you want to listen to your iPod, sit down and listen to it,” Kruger declared. “You want to walk in the park, enjoy it. You want to jog around a jogging path, all the more power to you, but you should not be crossing streets and endangering yourself and the lives of others.”
Kruger’s bill would only apply to big cities across New York state. We don’t know what kind of support it has in Albany, but he hopes that the New York City Council, which has already banned indoor smoking and trans fats in restaurants, will pick up the cue.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Al Gore Is Insane
This man has lost his mind,here are his latest comments.
From cnn.com:
Gore says Bush administration paying scientists to dispute global warming
MADRID , SPAIN (CNN) — Former Vice President Al Gore said in an interview on Tuesday the Bush administration is now paying scientists to dispute global warming since the administration can no longer argue against it.
During an interview with CNN affiliate Cuatro in Madrid, Gore said, “they’ve lost the argument and they don’t want to stop dumping all this pollution into the Earth’s atmosphere. The only thing they have left is cash and now they’re offering cash for so-called skeptics who will try to confuse people about what the science really say. But it’s unethical because now the time has come when we have to act.”
Gore was the Democratic nominee against Bush in the 2004 presidential election. His film, An Inconvenient Truth, is up for the best documentary Oscar.
Democrats Have Vietnam Flashback
The following appeared on nationalreview.com:
It’s Howard Dean’s Party
The Democrats are in the throes of a full-fledged Vietnam flashback.
By Rich Lowry
|
Washington, D.C. — At the Winter Meeting of the Democratic National Committee, in a ballroom of the Washington Hilton packed with hundreds of Democratic activists, Rep. Rahm Emanuel seems a distant memory. Emanuel is the Chicago Democrat who masterminded the brilliant, soothingly moderate Democratic campaign of 2006 while clashing with the fire-breathing DNC Chairman Howard Dean. |
If there’s one thing obvious in this room, it is that Emanuel might be clever, but it’s Howard Dean’s party. Dean electrified a similar DNC gathering four years ago when he said that he was “from the Democratic wing of the Democratic party,” and launched his antiwar candidacy briefly into the stratosphere. Now, all the Democratic presidential candidates appearing here borrow from Dean and try to appease the party’s yowling, antiwar base.
Even Hillary Clinton, who now represents the right flank of the Democratic field. She is sporadically heckled from the floor as she speaks. She desperately wants to find her footing in her antiwar party, but in a way that doesn’t damage her national-security credentials. There is a pleading quality to her antiwar lines, as if she’s saying: “Please accept this and make me go no further.”
She explains that the Senate needs 60 votes to cap troop levels, as she advocates, or cut off the funding for U.S. troops, which leaves it open that she’d be for a funding cutoff as well, if she had more votes. She touts her idea to cut funding for Iraqi troops — never mind that until now everyone has agreed that training Iraqi troops is an absolute imperative. She concludes by pledging that if Congress hasn’t brought an end to the war by January 2009 — again leaving it open that she might support a congressional cutoff — she will if she’s elected president.
Other presidential contenders implicitly push her to commit herself further. Barack Obama demands plans to end the war in “clear, unambiguous, (no) uncertain terms.” John Edwards says that the White House is counting on Democrats to be “weak and political and careful. This is not the time for politician calculation.”
Both are shots at Hillary, whose cutoff date of January 2009 seems far away compared with the dates of the rest of the field. Edwards wants the war over in 18 months, by August 2008. Obama wants it over in a little more than a year, by March 31, 2008. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson wants it over by the end of the calendar year, and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack wants it over “immediately.”
This is a party that is heading toward serious attempts to cut off funds for the Iraq War, especially if conditions don’t improve soon. Nonbinding resolutions of the sort the Senate is debating this week won’t be adequate for long.
The Democrats are in the throes of a full-fledged Vietnam flashback. Even if the Bush “surge” works, Democrats will stay committed to ending the war — just as Democrats cut off the war in Vietnam in the mid-1970s, even as it had been put on a more sustainable footing. The party has regressed all the way to its McGovernite roots. The centrist Clintonite interlude of the 1990s is almost entirely washed away, with the Clintonite candidate — Hillary — trying not to get washed away with it.
This McGovernite tendency is pacificist and isolationist. Even as Democrats give way to it, they still style themselves idealistic internationalists. Calls to end the genocide in Darfur were applauded here, although no one said how it was going to be done, nor why ending the savagery in the Sudan is such a priority when it is fine to abandon Iraq to its near-genocidal furies.
The Vietnam Syndrome made Democrats allergic to the use of force for two decades. The Iraq Syndrome will be a reprise. Anyone who, like Rahm Emanuel, wants to see the Democrats occupy the sensible center must be dismayed. Howard Dean, however, can only be pleased. He’s chairman of this party for a reason.
© 2007 by King Features Syndicate
