Opinions are US

Dems Stay Home

2010-10-30T18:28:00.002-05:00

10/30/2010

It’s getting close to the election. If I can believe all the polls, the Republicans will have a major party the evening of November 3. I hope so.

The main thing to remember is to VOTE. I have never been a member of the Be sure everyone get out to vote group. If you don’t know what you are voting for, stay home. But for this election, I will put it another way. If you are not voting Republican, stay home.

This country is as close to changing from a Representative Republic to a Socialist Democracy as it has ever been. This election is a referendum on what type of country this is. Are we a country that believes that the individual is responsible for his own life or are we a country that believes that the government can fix anything (See Greece!).

If you believe in capitalism and individual responsibility, if you believe in the right to select your own health care and you own lender then go vote. If you think that we should be told that only the government can decide who can provide student loans or what kind of car that GM can build, then stay home.

I am already concerned about what will happen in the lame duck Congress. Whoever wins on November 3, the Democrats in Congress know that they can do almost anything they want because it will be 2 years before they are held responsible for their actions.

If the Republicans sweep as thoroughly as I hope, it will be their last chance to do the things they want (Card Check, Cap and Trade, etc.). The defeated congresscritters will have no reason to restrain themselves and the victorious ones will see 2 years as an eternity for the public to forget.

Republicans, please hold firm and do everything you can to stop any of this. Beyond that I only want to tell you to remember what is happening this year. You were out of power because you forgot who you were. REMEMBER who writes your check. The Tea Party is a loose association of like-minded people who got fed up. If you take office and slip back, it can just as easily work against you.

Reply to editorilist Reg Henry

2009-12-13T23:19:00.000-05:00

12/13/2009

Well Mr. Henry, did you happen to notice the job President Obama has been doing to this county?

It is not an evil genius that has pressed for the government to take over 16% of the economy of this country.

I know you try to think at least once a day but I think you may have failed when you wrote your last article. You try to paint all of the opposition as birthers or those who think the president is a Muslim but that is a well-known rhetorical trick used by may liberal apologists.

The TelePrompTer flap is simply a humorous aside to the argument about this president. He does seem to perform much better when using one but so what? Just funny!

When you disparage the tea party movement, you have to use the left wing vulgar terminology. Can’t you even discus a movement of a large group of the grass roots people of this country with some form of intelligent words?

In your mind, it seems, you want to blame all of the president’s problems on evil geniuses and give no right of fair argument to those who don’t agree with you or him.

When most conservative commentators have a discussion with liberals on the issues, they try to argue the merits of the issue. Liberals, on the other hand sometimes make an attempt to argue but almost immediately start calling names.
Tea-Baggers, homophobes, holocaust deniers (If you don’t subscribe to the man caused global warming theory) and so many others examples abound.

Rather, Mr Henry can we discuss the deficit your president and congress has run up? Can we discuss the EPA saying it will regulate in a “Command and Control” manner the economy of the United States.

No, I guess not. Let us just assume that a few evil geniuses have change the poll numbers of this president to have him one of the lowest approval rating at this time in his presidency of any president in history.

Good Luck with that one!

Harry Flair
Marietta, GA.

Time's UP

2009-02-08T15:34:00.000-05:00

2/8/2009

Ok, long enough. Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States had had enough of a honeymoon. He is putting all of his abundant oratorical prowess behind the unbelievably poor Senate “Stimulus Bill” or Pork Special. The last poll I heard showed only about 35% of the people wanted this bill. That helps restore my faith in the people of this country.

Mr. Obama argues, it seems to me, that we should all be scared to death that if our big daddy federal government does not throw a Trillion Dollars at every thing the left wants, we will have an economy that collapses worse than the Great Depression.

His basic argument is: We have to do something! If we don’t do something, it is the end of our way of life and although this bill is not the best, it is far better than not doing anything. Is that really a logical argument for intelligent people? Not really. It is an attempt to use his popularity to sell something most people would not buy otherwise.

Perhaps he should be told that the campaign is over. He has to govern now. Just because he won the hearts and minds of a large voting bloc does not mean that he can have whatever he wants.

Most people think that there are things the government can do. Unfortunately, this bill is mostly pork that will do no stimulus at all or for some parts not for 10 years. Emergency Act? Not likely. Not likely to help. I fully hope our Senators both vote against it.

Congratulations President Obama

2009-01-20T21:26:00.000-05:00

1/20/2009
Well, we have a new president. Congratulations to Barack Obama. I saw joy and hope in the faces of many of my coworkers today. To the blacks of this country, this is a momentous occasion.

I note that he is my president. I will support him until and unless he actually does something I cannot support. So far, so good.

I hear people talk about change and hope. If you ask what change, a lot of them are stumped. There is a kind of nebulous feeling out there that our new president will make all things good. I have heard some idiots saying that now they don’t have to worry about their mortgage or the gas in their car. Nuts everywhere.

Reasonable people are open to new ideas and I hope sincerely that we hear some new ideas that are going to work to help this country maintain and improve its place in history.

Looking at the new cabinet, I see some good and some bad things. What I heard of his inauguration speech sounded fine but as usual, not big on specifics but it shouldn’t be. This was a time for patting on the back and smiling.

The media has spent the time since the election building up the man and the expectations of him. It wasn’t quite a coronation but it was approaching it. We have, once again, transitioned from one party to its bitter enemy in a peaceful manner befitting our Constitution. Hurrah!

Now comes the hard part. After the build-up that has been reaching a crescendo over the last week that no mere mortal can possibly meet, the new president must find a way to make it all work. Governing is not the same as campaigning. Now you must find a way for everything to work. If he does and if it seems to most Americans to be a reasonable way for government to function, he will be a very successful President. I truly hope so.

If not, however, I hope the media gets over its love affair with the new President and provides facts that actually reflect reality. We will need to know honestly and quickly if major problems occur.

Unless and until that happens I wish Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States of America the best of luck and a wonderful term of office.

Harry Flair
Marietta, GA.

Drill Now!

2008-07-16T20:55:00.001-05:00

This is in response to a letter in the Marietta Daily Journal on 7/16/2008. Ms. Susan Binns suggested that drilling offshore was not necessairly a good idea.

7/16/2008

Response to Ms. Susan Binns

I think the American public is getting just a little tired of the “Offshore Drilling Won’t Help” line.

Ms. Binns suggests that the only way offshore drilling would directly help is if America nationalizes the oil companies. The only person I have heard suggest that was a Democratic congressperson during the congressional grilling of the oil companies. Not a good idea.

Ms Binns, oil production and gas prices are complicated issues. Please tell me, however, how not drilling or taking any other action because it might not help for 10 years helps. If we sit around bemoaning the price of gas and waiting for some magic wand solution to the problem, it will never get fixed.

It would be wonderful if some terrific technology breakthrough occurs and the solar energy or wind energy or some other alternative technology suddenly is able to take care of all of out needs. It will do no one any good to sit around waiting for that to happen. Until then, we have to do something to improve the situation. Not necessarily fix it completely, but any step in that direction is a good idea.

If drilling will not add to our energy supply, why not? If none of the oil companies want the offshore leases then maybe the Democrats are right. I think that we cannot lose by increasing the worldwide supply. If you understand the law of supply and demand, increasing the supply cannot but help to lower the price. Maybe drilling offshore will not get us back to $2.00 gas but maybe it will improve our situation somewhat. No one is suggesting offshore drilling will fix all of our problems. It is a START!

Pursue conservation if you want. Most of us are learning to do that anyway. Waiting around for everyone to “carefully review the facts as presented by independent economists” is a receipt for another 10 years of no action. You are right. There is no simple solution in the offing. At $4.00+ for gas, a tipping point might have been reached that is causing most of us to change our driving habits. Not drilling or not improving the supply of oil is forcing major changes in this country and is severely injuring the “American way of life”. The public is getting increasingly vocal about making some attempt to help the situation where we can. Drill here. Drill now. Pay less.

It’s getting so depressing.

2008-06-22T20:50:00.001-05:00

6/22/2008

John McCain has found an issue but so far has not been able to exploit it. He now says he wants to drill on the outer coasts of the country to try to find some of our own oil.

I get so sick of hearing the liberals (and quite a few non liberals) saying that the ANWAR will not solve our problems if we drill there. Drilling off shore will not solve our problems. Nuclear energy will not solve our problems, blah, blah,….

If we didn’t do something until we had a complete solution to it, we would probably still be living in caves. There may be some one solution to the high price of oil but so far no one has found it. We cannot afford to sit back and wait for that to happen.

There are a lot of solutions to the oil problem. Insist on better mileage in the vehicles we buy. It is not a good idea to do that by law but we all know how well SUV’s are selling since the price went up. The pits!

Build Wind turbines and do not let small groups of people get away with “not where I can see them!” Work on Solar energy. Bio-fuel works but is too expensive with today’s technology. Hydrogen could be good but there is a long way between current technology and perfecting it. We can’t wait. We need to drill now. ANWAR and offshore are both viable if allowed to proceed. There have been NO major oil spills in the Gulf in 30+ years. Even with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, there were no big leaks. Oil Shale in the west has the possibility of making a huge impact. Just let us do it. Get out of the way.

Build some refineries. None have been built here since the 1970’s. There does not need to be any government research grants. Just get out of the way. Let supply and demand work.

John McCain has taken a small step in saying we should be drilling offshore. It would be a winning strategy to push for this now. He doesn’t want to drill in ANWAR but if he were to really look into current technology in the oil industry, he might notice it is a lot more environmentally friendly than it used to be.

The choice seems to be to do all of this or get ready to start giving up the American way of life. If you are ready to do that, I’m happy to let you do it. I am not ready to give up our mobile way of life yet and I don’t think most people are ready to give up things like their summer vacations either.

Happy Motoring!

It's Over for Now

2008-02-06T23:10:00.000-05:00

02/06/08

Well, It’s over.

What does the election mean? I think everyone has their own opinion. The news media says it is the end of “conservatisms”.
I have heard some of the talk show hosts say it means that conservatives stayed home and that means that they have all the power in the upcoming election.

Who knows? Clinton and Obama both claim victory on the Democrat side. McClain rightfully claims victory for the Republicans. Huckabee claims a huge victory in the south and Romney says “I am in it until the end.”

It did not come out the way I wanted but that is what the vote is for. Hopefully the conservatives will find a way to support whoever the Republicans select, otherwise the Democrats will have a field day.

Who knows? Maybe the Democrats will get nasty with each other and have and independent run by whichever looses. Maybe the conservatives will run an independent candidate and maybe Bloomberg will actually run.
Whatever happens, it ought to be fun!

Time to get serious about the vote!

2008-01-30T09:59:00.000-05:00

1/30/08

Is the election going to be Clinton and Clinton against Clinton-Lite?

It is starting to look that way. Most people know that if you get one Clinton you get them both. Is that a good thing? Bill again?

It has looked all along as though the Clinton machine would be sure to have Hillary as the candidate. I haven’t seen anything to change my mind but at least it is somewhat interesting. Barack Obama is every bit as liberal as Hillary but we don’t have much of a history on him.

On the Republican side, I am a bit surprised to find John McCain as one of the two frontrunners. I expected Romney and Rudy. McCain has too much baggage at this time for conservatives to support him. He is winning independents and Democrats voting in the Republican primaries. He has a lot of credibility in the defense sector, one of the most important issues. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have much in the illegal immigration sector. To a lot of conservatives, that is a very important issue. He says he learned from the immigration fight earlier this year and now supports the fence.

He says he is conservative but on too many issues he has voted in a somewhat Clintonesque manner. He seems to be a version of Clinton-Lite. He didn’t support the tax cuts, he sponsored McCain-Feingold, and the McCain-Kennedy. He might be better than the Bill/Hill group but only marginally on a lot of issues. I don’t trust him to appoint conservative judges.

I think the media and the Democrats would love to run against him. He will probably cause the large conservative base of the Republican Party to stay home on Election Day. That would not be an optimal situation for the country. I hope someone else wins the nomination but I will vote for him if he gets the nomination but I will have to hold my nose. At least, he is Clinton-Lite, but not Clinton (or Obama).

2008-01-19T16:35:00.000-05:00

I was asked about the hint of impropriety in Arkansas for Mike Huckabee. Some of the things I have heard are from http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/11/13/huckabee/. I wouldn't base my opinion on Salon but it is like some talk show hosts say, don't believe it unless you verify it for other sources or if it fits with what you already know. I am still checking. In some instances, the actions in question can be observed as either good or bad. Unfortunately, I just don't know.

I don't have independent sources except for unsubstantiated stories. I think that he mainly seems to be willing to say whatever he needs to for election--possibly no more than other politicians but I just don't trust him.

I have a great deal of admiration for anyone that can lose 110 pounds but that does not make him presidential. I don't know that there were improprieties but the suspicion is there.

I know he supported in-state tuition for illegal aliens and I know he supported drivers licenses for them as well. He seems to want to be an isolationist internationally and I think that is a serious error. I think in general he is a serious populists. Not a man that inspires me.

A New Election

2008-01-17T11:33:00.000-05:00

1/16/08

It seems that the state is going to be mostly ignored in the upcoming primary. Since we are one of many in “Super Tuesday” any attention we get will be badly diluted. Nonetheless, I want to get my two cents in.

I was a founding supporter of one candidate, ABH—Anyone But Hillary (thanks for the title to Herman Cain). I am starting to think that Barack Obama would be as bad as Hillary.

The common wisdom is that Republicans are going to have a bad year. I certainly hope not. I am a Libertarian at heart but Ron Paul (former Libertarian) is too much. The overriding issue has to be the protection of the country from militant Islamofascists and the protection of our borders. The two are closely related but different issues. Ron Paul has the notion that if we bring all of our troops back and tell the world “we’re sorry about whatever we did” that everyone will love us again and we won’t have any more problems. (Dennis Kucinich are us!)

Rudy is one I could vote for but his campaign is floundering now and may not recover. He is not a conservative but I think he would be strong on my two issues. It would be hard for anyone to challenge his record in New York.

Mitt Romney seems to be a fully acceptable conservative. Unfortunately, he has been branded as a flip-flopper. Not true but some people think it is so. (Note: flip-flop is when you go back and forth on an issue, not when you change your mind and stay there.) He is probably the best with respect to the economy.

John McCain would be strong on the defense of the country except for the border issue. Unfortunately, we have McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy and the vote against the tax breaks. No chance, no matter how much he is admired for his Vietnamese heroism. So, sorry John.

Oh yes, I almost forgot Thompson. I like him and could easily support him. I like the idea of him having to be dragged, kicking and screaming into the election. I don’t know how true that is but a fun thought! The only problem is that he still supports McCain-Feingold but I can let one problem slide.
That brings us to Huckabee. The best thing I can say about him is that he supports the Fair Tax proposal. I think that would be a great thing if it passed but it is not enough to support Huckabee. It is a death knell to me that he endorsed the in-state tuition for illegal aliens. He seems to be a populist that is extremely good in saying the right things to the right crowd. He is the candidate that the press loves (along with McCain) but that is a strike against him. There are hints of impropriety in Arkansas and I just don’t trust him. One of the things I have always worried about is a theocracy taking hold in the nation. I don’t think Mike Huckabee is the start of that but….
I could support Giuliani or Thompson. I prefer Romney. I will support any Republican. Remember, ABH or maybe ABH or O. After all, it is only the country at stake. Vote. Vote smartly.

Another Try on Immigration

2007-06-20T12:07:00.000-05:00

6/20/07

Senator Isakson and Senator Chambliss

I was hoping I wouldn’t have to write this. I hoped the Immigration Bill was dead. It seems that this is not the case. I am hearing about all sorts of “tricks” that will be used. I keep hearing that this is the only chance we have to get a comprehensive solution to the immigration problem. Why? Why do we need to have a comprehensive solution?

If a good solution is not available, isn’t NO solution better than a bad solution? No new law needs to be passed. The president simply needs to enforce the current “comprehensive solution” from the 80’s. The fence has been approved. Allow it to be constructed and then, after the flood is stopped, come back for more. If the border were secured, most Americans would support other steps such as guest worker and eventual citizenship. If the employer penalties were actually enforced (or even strengthened) the problem would slowly start to reverse.

Just because a solution is a compromise is not a reason to accept it. The people of this country and in particular the people that I talk to are all saying the same thing. Build the fence. I think the Senate could start different legislation promoting increased penalties for employers and providing tamper proof ID cards for immigrants. There is no need to complicate an already complicated issue. Instead of putting all our immigrations into one flawed basket, why not address the problem piecemeal? It couldn’t be worse.

Please do not vote for this bill. If necessary, support a filibuster against it. It is a poison pill for the Republican Party and can destroy all possibility of majority in the near future.

Harry Flair,
Marietta, GA.

Reply from Johnny Isakson

2007-06-12T13:51:00.000-05:00

6/12/07

Dear Friend :
Thank you for contacting me regarding the Senate debate on comprehensive immigration reform. I appreciate hearing from you and appreciate the opportunity to respond.
Many have asked why I became involved in a process to work towards a comprehensive reform bill in the Senate. I did it for two reasons. First, in my travels throughout the State of Georgia in the past three years, I had heard loudly and clearly from Georgians that they wanted us to end illegal immigration in America right now, plain and simple. We cannot leave it for future generations to solve. And second, quite frankly, the 2006 elections changed the landscape in Washington and put Democrats in charge of the legislative process. Had I not sat at the table and fought for conservative principles, Democratic Leader Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi would have had the votes to pass last year's horrendous Senate bill and send it on to the President. I could not let that happen. Therefore, I stood strong with other conservative colleagues in the Senate and worked towards a process by which we could to start the immigration debate in the Congress.
I started this process seeking to accomplish three main goals in this debate - to truly secure our borders, to prohibit a new pathway to citizenship and to stop the current climate of amnesty whereby millions of illegal immigrants are breaking our laws and facing no punishment for doing so. As a result of a severely flawed immigration law passed in 1986, some 12 million to 20 million immigrants have been allowed to enter this country illegally and remain indefinitely. They work tax-free, get free health care in our emergency rooms and educate their children for free in our schools. Our nation's policy today is amnesty, and it must end.
The immigration bill we debated for the past two weeks differed dramatically from the one signed into law in 1986 and it is also very different from last year's Senate bill. The 1986 law granted amnesty but failed to secure the border, and our country has been paying the price ever since. Last year, the Republican-led Senate repeated the same mistake of 1986 by passing a bill to grant legal status to illegal immigrants without securing our nation's borders and without imposing any punishment for those here illegally. I voted against that bill last year because it was amnesty and because it failed to secure the border.
This year, I led an effort to ensure that any proposal contain the essential foundation for successfully reforming our immigration system - a requirement to truly secure our borders first before any reform of our temporary worker system takes place. This became known as the "Isakson trigger," and it mandated that Congress must fund, put in place and make operational true border security before any temporary work program could begin. As it currently stands, the bill states that border security must include at least 20,000 border agents, 31,000 detention beds, four unmanned aerial vehicles, 105 radar towers, and 300 miles of vehicles barriers. In addition, a minimum of 370 miles of the fencing mandated in last year's Secure Fence Act must be constructed. I firmly believe that these security measures would finally provide comprehensive border security and would ensure that we have operational control of our southern border.
The final, key piece of my trigger was a biometrically secure identification card that will allow employers for the first time to instantly verify whether an immigrant is legal. Employers today must guess whether documentation provided by immigrants is fraudulent or not. A biometrically secure ID would replace this guessing game with certainty and would hold employers accountable with much stricter fines for hiring illegal workers.
Although opponents of the bill have suggested that there was nothing worthwhile in this bill, I would suggest that it contained several critical and necessary changes to fix our broken immigration system. It would have secured our borders first. It would have ended our current system of amnesty. It contained no new pathway to citizenship and would have forced illegal immigrants to go home before they could be eligible for a green card or for citizenship. It would have ended chain migration. It would have given employers a fraud-proof system to verify whether workers are legal. It would have forced immigrants to learn English. These are the kind of conservative Georgia principles that I brought to the table and fought for and was able to include. Even though these principles were included, I recognized it was still an imperfect product and that is why I worked through the amendment process to make it even stronger.
I voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Bingaman to limit the temporary worker visa quota for the proposed Y-1 visa to a "hard cap" of 200,000 per year. The bill as originally drafted provided for 400,000 Y-1 visas for the first year, and that number could have risen to 600,000 in following years. This amendment passed and that number was instead capped at 200,000.
I voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Graham to impose mandatory jail sentences for those who crossed the border illegally after being deported - at least 60 days in jail for the first offense and no less than two years for the second offense. Everyone needs to know that America is changing its immigration laws, and that if you break our laws, you will lose your freedom. This amendment passed.
I voted for an amendment offered by Sen. McCain to require illegal immigrants to pay back taxes on their earnings for the time they had been in the United States . This amendment passed.
I cosponsored and voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Coleman to close a loophole in existing immigration law to allow local law enforcement to acquire information about the immigration status of a person they have probable cause to believe is not lawfully in the U.S. There are several "sanctuary cities" around the United States that have prohibited their law enforcement to inquire about a person's immigration status. In certain cities, a person can be charged and even tried without the local authorities ever inquiring about whether the person is in the United States legally. The amendment would make it clear that state and local governments may not prohibit their law enforcement from checking a person's immigration status when they have probable cause to believe that the person is in the United States illegally. Unfortunately, this amendment failed.
I voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Hutchison to prohibit anyone who worked here illegally from obtaining social security benefits based on earnings obtained while here illegally. This amendment passed.
I cosponsored and voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Inhofe to require that English be declared the national language of the United States . It also provided that the English language is the default language for government communication, and that no person has a right to have the government communicate in any language other than English, unless "specifically stated in applicable law." If an exception is made, then only the English language version of any government form can have legal weight.
I voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Demint to require that temporary workers maintain a minimum level of private health insurance to keep them off public assistance such as Medicare and Medicaid. Unfortunately, this amendment failed.
I voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Sessions to prohibit anyone who is not a green card holder in the United States from being able to take advantage of the Earned Income Tax Credit. This amendment passed.
I voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Cornyn to permanently bar about 635,000 "alien absconders," or immigrants who have received deportation notices, from obtaining visas. Unfortunately, this amendment failed.
I also voted to defeat all cloture motions designed to cut off debate on the immigration bill. The Democratic leadership in the Senate refused to allow up or down votes on additional Republican amendments that would further strengthen this bill. Among these critical initiatives that I supported but was not allowed an up or down vote on was an amendment mandating spending for border security as well as an amendment to require illegal immigrants to return home in order to participate in the Z visa program. The Democratic leader's refusal to allow votes on these additional amendments was unacceptable.
As I have said throughout the debate, I would reserve judgment on the final bill until deliberations were complete on the bill. At the time the Democratic leadership moved to end debate on the bill, it was my view that this bill was not good enough yet for the people of Georgia .
I recognize the lack of trust that a majority of Georgians have in the federal government's ability to follow through on its promise to secure the border. For that reason, I recently sent a letter to the President calling on him to use his emergency funding powers to fully fund the border security measures in this legislation as well as all outstanding border security measures that have previously been passed but not yet funded .
I have been working hard to address the number one domestic issue in the United States . I will continue my efforts because I believe it is absolutely critical to our state and to this nation that we secure the borders and restore credibility to our immigration system.
Thank you again for contacting me. Please visit my webpage at http://isakson.senate.gov for more information on the issues important to you and to sign up for my e-newsletter.

Sincerely,
Johnny Isakson
United States Senator

Response from Saxby Chambliss

2007-06-08T12:23:00.000-05:00

6/7/07

Subject: Responding to your message
Dear Mr. Flair : Thank you for contacting me to share your thoughts about immigration reform. I appreciate knowing your thoughts on this important and emotional issue. Our current immigration system is broken and needs reform. Any reform Congress enacts must meet our national security needs and our economic interests; it must also manage the number of people we admit into the U.S. to ensure American workers and families are not negatively impacted by our immigration system. Moreover, all individuals living in the United States must respect and obey our nation's laws. There are times when old and current laws must be reviewed, revised and ultimately strengthened. The time is now to appropriately reform our immigration laws. The recently announced bipartisan agreement on immigration reform is a step in the right direction toward reaching a final and comprehensive immigration bill. This legislation is a significant improvement over last year's bill, which I opposed, but this is not a perfect bill. For me to support any final bill, it must contain the following principles that are important to Georgians: Guaranteed border security first . No amnesty and no new path to citizenship Temporary means temporary - guest workers must go home at the end of their authorized temporary work period End chain migration - replace family-based immigration system with a merit-based system. Eliminate the job magnet for illegal immigrants by implementing a simple, secure employment verification system. English should be the official language of the United States and everyone should speak it. Our nation's immigration problem has been in the making for many years and there is no easy fix. I have chosen to be proactive and engaged during the negotiations because my involvement is the right thing for Georgia and the right thing for America 's future. As the debate progresses, I will continue the fight to ensure that our nation is secure and our economy continues to thrive. If you would like to receive timely email alerts regarding the latest congressional actions and my weekly e-newsletter, please sign up via my web site at: www.chambliss.senate.gov . Please do not hesitate to be in touch if I may ever be of assistance to you.

Open Letter to Saxby Chanbliss and Johnny Isakson

2007-06-08T12:21:00.000-05:00

Note, this letter sent to the Marietta Daily Journal and published on Thursday, 6/7
6/4/07

Mr. Chambliss and Mr. Isakson
I have read in the news today that Senators have returned with the message that the opposition to the immigration legislation is fading quickly. I think what is happening is that people, like myself, have said all we can say and are getting very tired of the political class ignoring us. You can only write so many letters to the editor.
I am not a joiner. I generally do not write to you gentlemen but in this case I am hearing that I am no longer opposed to the bill. I am. I am very oppressed to it. If this law passes with your support, I will do whatever I can to oppose you.
There is no reason to attempt to reach a compromise on this issue. If we simply enforce the current laws and add the fence we can take a deep breath and make a decision in a reasoned and all inclusive manner. Stop the flow.
There are too many unanswered questions with this legislation. As a quick example, do you really expect 24 hours enough time to investigate for the Z Visa? We don’t even know for sure how many illegals are here. It is not a reasonable expectation that the government can do an adequate job investigating these applications.
I understand you think that this is a good bill because you think that it is the best you can get out of a Democratic Senate. Sometimes compromise is not a good thing. Sometimes it is better to be careful, or even better, right!

2007-05-30T14:32:00.000-05:00

5/30/07

One of the best articles I have seen on the situation in Iran. A really good read.

From:
Opinion Journal, Wall Streen Journal editorial page.

The Case for Bombing Iran I hope and pray that President Bush will do it.
BY NORMAN PODHORETZ Wednesday, May 30, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

http://www.opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/?id=110010139

Reply to Letters Published 5-22-07.

2007-05-22T16:23:00.000-05:00

5-22-07
Mr. Martin,
A few questions. If you think we should change our strategy in Iraq, do you now support the new commander in Iraq and his new policies with respect to the increase in troop levels and changed troop assignments?
I know you think people are calling you names and refusing to allow you to speak but exactly how did I find your information? It was printed, the same as many others of different ideologies. I have seen no one try to deny you the right to dissent. We simply think you are wrong.
If you decide to do exactly what your enemy wants you to do by withdrawing your troops, what would you call it except surrender. Redeployment? This is what the Al-Quaida terrorist have been working toward ever since we defeated them in Afghanistan.
No one that I know of has said that Hussain was operationally involved with 9-11 except for those that keep denying it in view of almost every informed person’s acceptance of that fact. Iraq was invaded for many reasons. As I recall, 28 different reasons. WMD was 1. We know Iraq was providing aid to Al-Quaida operatives.
It is clear that you and I will never agree on the increased or decreased danger caused by the Iraq invasion. I think we have been able to fight them there instead of here but you will not agree. Your freedom to do so. Just don't tell me what not to think of your ideas.
In the same edition, Ms Gall seems to imply that the President and his whole cabinet should be jailed for some imagined illegalities. If she is so tired of "Rush, Hannity and Boortz" then she should stop listening. That is what the "Off Button" on the radio is for. Good riddance. If you cannot come up with some better reason for sending our president to jail other than the fact that she precieves a lack of honest debate, I dread her ever having any kind of power over anyone.

letters I am responding to.

2007-05-22T16:20:00.000-05:00

Bush, Cheney criminals, should be in jail
Tuesday, May 22, 2007 9:59 AM EDTE-mail this story to a friend Printable version
DEAR EDITOR:Re: Steve Crowley letter, "Democrats' propaganda helps enemy, hurts us," Tuesday's Marietta Daily JournalYes, Mr. Crowley, we are standing up and telling our politicians we've had enough! We've had enough of the Bush/Cheney lies - starting a war with a country that did not attack us and invading a country that had nothing to do with the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. We're tired of Bush not protecting our borders, Osama and Al-Qaida could have come across our borders on a daily basis. We're tired of Bush trying to sell our country to Mexico and Canada with his infamous North American Union.Crowley talks about the Democratic Party using every opportunity to discredit Bush as a leader - what a joke! This man is not a leader and has done nothing but try to continually divide this country. He is the one who has used propaganda and continues to do so. Remember "Mission Accomplished," Jessica Lynch and Patrick Tillman? Don't you notice that when times get a little rough for him, he once again goes to his 9/11 speech, but he forgets to tell you that Saddam had nothing to do with it - it was Osama Bid Laden and Al-Qaida who are in Afghanistan where the fight should be. But no, we had to go to Iraq where more than 3,000 of our bravest have been killed and more than 15,000 seriously injured and Afghanistan is more dangerous than ever. And then, of course, we take such good care of our troops when they get home - remember Walter Reed Hospital - but, of course, when Bush says he supports the troops, we never look any further than that do we?
This so-called leader has surrounded himself with incompetence and we are all paying the price. You too, Mr. Crowley, but I guess you just can't see it yet!This country was founded on honest debate. The problem with this president is he can't take the honest debate without name-calling. I am so tired of Rush, Hannity and Boortz that I could puke. They sure preach honest debate, don't they -- they do nothing but call names and if you disagree with them, they hang up on you or cut you off or start yelling, because they can't debate and hold ground.We had eight long years of the Republicans going after Clinton. No honest debate there, but if someone goes after Bush, then they should be tried for treason, right? Bush and Cheney are the ones that have violated our Constitution and should be in jail. They are certainly criminals.Jeanette GallSmyrna
Those who criticize war dissenters are ignorant
Tuesday, May 22, 2007 9:59 AM EDTE-mail this story to a friend Printable version
DEAR EDITOR:In recent days MDJ columnist Laura Armstrong and letter-writer Steven Crowley attacked those who voice disagreement with our policy in Iraq as somewhere between the aging "peace" crowd and traitors. They take the stupefying ignorant approach that anyone who doesn't agree with them and our current policies are somehow against America and for terrorism.These arguments are both fundamentally wrong and cowardly. Both writers have forgotten, or chosen to ignore, that much of America's glorious history was shaped by those who disagreed and dissented. Our founding fathers, the women's movement, civil rights reform, all required Americans to seek and speak about aspects of America that required change. I think Ed Morrow said, "We are not descendants of fearful men." The fact is that dissent is the most quintessentially American of activities.Let me make clear that I am conservative by nature and favor an aggressive worldwide anti-terrorist foreign policy. I understand that in some cases that policy must be enforced by our military. Let me also make clear that I fully support our armed services, and I am humbled and proud that our forces continue to make the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf. That does not mean that I will support policies based on falsehoods and failed strategies. I am stunned by the cavalier way both writers insist that we mindlessly extend our existing plans, continuing the sacrifice of our troops, without debate or discourse.
We know now that Iraq did not have WMDs. We know through the 911 Commission that Iraq had no role in the 9/11 massacre. We know from our own intelligence organizations that terrorists have been galvanized by our Iraq strategy and we are less safe from terror now then before the invasion. We know from centuries of world history that occupying a foreign country - regardless of the nobility of the effort - is a brutally difficult task.Already we have lost 3,800 of our best and brightest, somewhere between 75,000 and 250,000 Iraqis, and spent billions of dollars with no end in sight. More of the same is a recipe for disaster (please see the definition of insanity).Consider where the war on terror might be had we made that investment in rebuilding Afghanistan, in new technology, and in controlling our own borders. We have to be smart enough to learn from our mistakes and adapt to the realities of today.Please do not accuse those who desire to change our strategies in Iraq with surrender to terrorists. Do not confuse efforts in Congress to expedite an end to our presence in Iraq - a platform on which many were elected - as anything less than executing their sworn responsibility to constituents.Finally, do not engage in the most un-American of all activities, the suppression of free debate in an open democracy.Not only is it the right of Americans to vigorously debate these issues, it's our duty to do so.Bill Martin
Marietta

Open Letter to Congressional Delegation

2007-05-18T12:28:00.000-05:00

Open letter to Georgia Congressional Delegation

5/18/07

I read today that our two Senators, Isakson and Chambliss are members of the commission that negotiated the new bill on immigration reform. Both of them indicated they were concerned about the border security issue but supported the bill. The statements I have seen indicate Sen. Chambless perhaps more than Sen. Isakson.
I have heard the Democrats repeat ad nauseam that they got the majority in Congress in order to send a message that the war should end. Not so. Most of the people I have spoken to support the idea that the message to Republicans was and is to act like Republicans. Stop being Democrat Lite. Border Security should be the number one issue in ANY discussion about immigration. As far as I can see, this bill treats security as an afterthought. This is not acceptable. Where is it written that bipartisanship is always a good thing? Sometimes (and lately, frequently) partisanship is what is needed. The Democrats have the majority. The Republicans should fight any Bill that relegates security to a side issue. It may be that they lose but at least put up a token resistance. This bill doesn’t seem to address the next 20 million illegals to come into the country. We must stop the bleeding.
We don’t, of course, know what will actually come out of the Senate. It may be that the triggers mentioned by Sen. Isakson, including employer verification and biometric id cards will be in the bill. If so, then and only then is it an acceptable bill.
I try to have an open mind on this but I don’t see this bill as helpful to the country in the long run. The most important issue in the country is the National Security. I have and will continue to support the War because anything else is just wrong. We have a wonderful and unique country and we need to do whatever we can to protect it. I think that the fine young men and women in the military generally understand the importance of their work and ask only for support for those they are protecting. God Bless Them! They are doing a wonderful job in difficult conditions. We must also have an eye to security at the border. It is too easy for illegals to come in--either well meaning people looking for work or evil meaning people looking for death and destruction.
Immigration is a difficult problem. Very few people want to go around deporting mass numbers of illegals. Most people do want the flood to be turned off. Then we can talk about "path to citizenship" and "guest worker programs".
In addition to the security end of the argument, there is a cultural argument. There is a distinct American Culture. It is being diluted by the hoard of illegals that come in without end. Legal immigrants come in an generally tend to assimilate to that culture. Illegals tend to group themselves together and try to maintain the old country cultures. We are in dire need for that to stop. We do not need to become Balkanized.
I don’t know yet where the delegates to the House stand on this, I simply hope that they will understand the importance of standing firm on principle. I have heard that my congressman, Tom Price is strongly opposed. Thanks Tom! There is no need to make decisions simply on the basis of compromise. There is a time for that and a time for not giving up your ideals. It is sometimes better to lose than to surrender. Even better, let’s WIN!

response to editorial letter

2007-05-07T11:35:00.000-05:00

5/7/07

Re: Jim Stillman--Marietta Daily Journal, Sunday, May 6, 2007.
The sane and informed majority of Americans know that in fact the war is not over. If you think that, please explain the media’s favorite subject, the body count. Any war can be stopped, including civil wars. One just needs to apply enough force. The decision to do that is a political decision and is not necessarily the right approach. Please note that six months ago, the Democrats were screaming (along with some Republicans) that we needed more troops over there. The Democratic Senate approved David Petraeus to take charge. They then proceeded to refuse to allow him time to do what he was going over there to do--increase troop levels in Baghdad and win the war.
Mr. Stillman, if you think our military is under trained, under equipped and undermanned, ask a soldier. You say no jobs, water or electrify. How much did they have before we invaded? I suppose you think the pre war Iraqi’s were better off? I suppose so if they were Bathist Otherwise, they had to worry about rape rooms, torture chambers and mass executions.
I suppose you think that if we had not invaded Iraq, for the 23 reasons the Democrats approved as well as the Republicans, the world would love us and all these terrorist would be throwing flowers instead.
They HATE the US. They hate our way of life and want it to change. One of the problems is that whatever we do, it is not enough. They do not like the religious freedom we enjoy. They do not like the right of women we endorse. They do not like anything about us and unless we submit to the Caliphate, it will not be enough. Are you ready to do that?
If you think pulling out of Iraq will end the war, you are being very foolish. Which Iraq were we in on September 11, 2001? Bush is right in his veto. Please read the constitution. The President is charged with being the Commander in Chief. The Congress approves (as it did) the war and then funds it. If they want to cut off funds, do so. Playing games with our troops is not the way to support them. Saying you do is simply words. Remember, none of these troops were drafted, a fact that many of the so-called advocates of "Peace at any Price" seem to forget. These marvelous young men and women embody the ideal of peace through strength.
And finally, Mr Stillman, please note the Lie that these jackals who absolutely, irrefutably used to start this war. You cannot because there was no lie. That is simply another case of: Say it often enough and loud enough and some people will believe it.

Propaganda?

2007-03-23T15:20:00.000-05:00

3/23/07

Once again someone has written in complaining about the war being built on "a foundation of lies". Again, we hear that we have lost the war. An implied "we cannot win the war" is always there and again the cry that "Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11" as a proof that the president lied.
The resolution authorizing the war was almost unanimous. The stated caused for the war included but was not limited to a worldwide belief that Saddam was recreating his WMD capability, his constant violations of UN resolutions (note, UN, not US), attempted assassination of a US president, his support of terrorism (not of 9/11) and others. It you were to go to Wikipedia and search on Iraq Resolution, you will see the full list. Oddly enough, it does NOT include participation of Saddam in 9/11.
As for losing the war, consider where we are with respect to the objectives. Saddam is taking a desert dirt nap now and I cannot think of many people that deserve that fate more. Iraq has an elected democratic style government. Most of the provinces in Iraq are peaceful. A recent poll of the citizens of Iraq indicated that very few think things were better under Saddam. Less than a quarter of Iraqi citizens believe they are in a civil war whereas almost 100% of democrats and media outlets believe that. The rape rooms are closed. Despite the outrage of the panty wearing prisoners in Abu Ghraib, the torture rooms are closed. Lately, the deaths are down substantially, both of US Troops and civilians.
Now the Democrats are attempting to put a limit on war. They are tying the funding of the war to a date certain withdrawal. The president cannot and has vowed that he will not sign that bill. If he does, it sets limits on what he can do and takes the authority away from the president for controlling the war. In case you are not familiar with it, the Constitution provides the President with that power. I do not want 435 presidents to run a war. Note: It just passed with 218 votes. A powerful (bare) majority.
I understand that some of you do not like the war. I want it to end as soon as possible but putting a date of withdrawal on it simply tells our enemies how long to hide out. If I were the president, if this abomination passes, I would veto it and if no replacement comes along, he will have no choice but to withdraw. Our troops that the Democrats claim to respect and their families will be without the materials they need. And may the Democrats reap the whirlwind.

Left, Right---Who is RIGHT?

2007-02-24T16:36:00.001-05:00

2/24/07

I was listening to a radio show the other night, I think it was Dennis Prager. He said something that rang a bell with me. He noted that to the people on the right, liberals are often wrong, misguided, ignorant of some facts or even in some cases, nieve. Liberals on the other hand, always seem to see the people on the conservative side as evil. It is barely possible in some cases to have a political discussion with a "progressive" without being called a NAZI or being accused of wanting to go find an old person and beat them up and take their Social Security check and mail it to Haliburton.
We on the right see the war as something to protect western civilization. We see a threat from radical Islam that is intended to bring all the joys of Sheria Law to our shores. We see a continual progression from Ayatollah Khomeini to Osama Bin Laden and to Iran and Hesbolla. On the left, they see this as a mistaken effort to impose our will on the peaceful religion of Islam and in particular a distraction from the only true battle in the war on terror, Afghanistan.
We see the effort in Iraq as a noble deed. We are trying, against awful odds to allow a people who were trapped in tyranny to live as a free people. We may not succeed, but we are the only country in the world that would even try. As I understand the other side, they do not understand we are in a global war that is still raging and will continue to do so for many years if not decades. They want to use the criminal courts to punish terrorists after the fact of an attack. After all, they say, it is largely our fault that we are the target of attacks.
The answer to the question of who is right will come from history. I am afraid that in the short term that history will be written by mostly supporters of the left in the press and academia. The long term will tell. Will we have chaos reigning due to a major conflict raging that could possibly have been stopped in its infancy or will our peaceful offspring's look back in horror? I know what I think and there are times when I am afraid, very afraid.

Reply To Mr. Tom Poteete, Letter 2/1/07.

2007-02-05T10:52:00.000-05:00

2/5/07

Tom,
I have a few notes in response to your letter. You mentioned that William Buckley, Charles Krauthammer and Newt Gingrich have expressed concern about how the war has been run.
So what is new? Can you name a war in which everything went as planned? NO. One of the axioms of war is that no plan ever survives contact with the enemy.
People ARE allowed to disagree with the President and his plan. Even you. Even me. The difference is that while disagreeing with the tactics they agree with the strategy. Gen Petraeus is the commander on site and the President is giving him, as he has done with previous commanders, what he requests. George Bush is the Commander-in-Chief. He gets advice from his onsite commanders. He has agreed with most of us, the old plan was not working. What would you have him do? Should he simply pull all troops out or keep doing things that fail? NO.
I don’t know you but I suspect that you do not believe we are in a long hard global war against Islamic militants. That is, I think, one of the major reason that the people of this country are more and more against the war. They do not understand the implications of losing this war. When asked what the consequences of leaving without winning would be, a frequent response is "it couldn’t be much worse than it is now". Please people, remember what is at stake. If we leave Iraq without some stabilization of the situation there are many consequences. The short term, local, consequence is that there will be a bloodbath that would be difficult to imagine. If you don’t believe that, you are naive. One of the long term consequences is that the world will see that the US cannot be trusted to keep it’s commitments.
Unlike Vietnam there would be an additional price to pay. We would leave a county that cannot maintain itself and would provide a haven for terrorists with resources from Iraqi oil to plan and execute worldwide terror against the western world.
Brownback and Hagel have abandoned the President on what large numbers of Republicans believe is the single most important issue that exists. Some of them will show up in the polls as against the current policy but I haven’t heard any alternative idea except surrender under many different names. If you have a way to resolve this issue, provide it.
Name calling is not productive. The fact of the matter is that I have not been provided with any examples of name calling by responsible conservatives. No one is happy about how things are going but name calling by either side is not productive. We need to pull together and find a way to solve this sticky problem Otherwise we will be still trying to solve it when bombs go off here in the US.

Global Warming

2007-01-07T14:45:00.000-05:00

1/7/07

I thing the people in Colorado would be concerned about the idea that global warming might not be a fact. New York, on the other hand is sure that it is a reality. New York had temps in the upper 60’s and low 70’s this past week. Oh horror! That hasn’t happened since the 30’s. It must therefore be true. The question I ask is: Was it global warming in the 30’s? Of course not. I don’t know what is causing the temperature to increase now but it is NOT an isolated incident.
I have heard that the sun’s output has increased and that man is causing the increase. Who is right? I don’t know. I do know that the man made global warming advocates want us to give up the trappings of our lifestyle. The most enlightened and prosperous lifestyle ever. Most of these people are the same ones that see man as the most serious threat to the environment ever. (If you doubt that, see Al Gore’s book. Earth in the Balance. in which he makes that exact statement.)
I have a serious problem believing that a SUV could be killing the poor polar bears.
It is obvious that we need to lower our usage of foreign supplied oil. I would agree with even the kooks on that. My reasoning is much different, though. I think this country will sooner or later be placed in serious jeopardy because of that dependence. As we fight the poorly named War on Terror, the sorry fact is that most of the oil is in the hands of our enemies and their supporters.
We must take steps to lower that dependency. I do not agree with the concept of the government mandating that car makers increase gas mileage. I think that will happen on it’s own as the price of gas goes up. I think there should be drilling in all domestic locations that have significant deposits. By significant deposits, I do not mean Saudi Arabia volumes. I think we should be looking at alternatives. Ethanol is not THE solution but is a part of the whole. We need more refineries. We need more windmills. We need more of lots of different solutions. Fuel cells? I don’t know. We need to start now. I could be convinced that incentives from the government will help but not completely solve the problem.
Some people want only this way and other want that way. Let’s get together and find a lot of little solutions. Global Warming? If you believe mankind is causing global warming then this ought to at least be a start to you. If you believe mankind has little or no affect on global warming then this should at least be a start to you as well.
I have enjoyed the warmer temperatures but I know that a month or even a winter does not global warming make. Just remember, the temperatures have only been accurately taken for the last 100 or so years. The earth has been here a long time. Just have good sense when you examine the history of climate change.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T12:16:00.000-05:00

1/1/07

It is 2007. Now what? The Democrats are in charge in the Congress. The Iraq war is still going on and President Bush is talking about how he will cooperate with the Congress on minimum wage and immigration. John McCain is considered to be the front runner for the Republicans and Hillary Clinton for the Democrats. Did you ever feel like you have no choices?
John McCain is a strong supported of the national defense and will, I think, keep us on the road to safety. McCain-Fingold is enough in and of itself to vote against him. Add in the defeated McCain-Kennedy immigration bill and you basically have more of the same. The other Republican candidates all seem to have problems. Rudy may be the best of the bunch but he has his own baggage.
Hillary Clinton is mostly unknown on national defense. So far, her votes seem to be more to satisfy the possible thought that a woman would be too soft to handle national defense. If her votes are truly her beliefs, that is a good thing. Unfortunately, we don’t really know. The Obama silliness will hopefully go away. He is perhaps the most liberal of the current bunch of candidates.
Saddam is thankfully a little longer in his coffin after having been stretched by the neck. If the mainstream media would show something other than bombings in Iraq, people might have a better idea about what is really going on.
Some changes need to be made in Iraq. I am not a general but it seems like the Ethiopians have learned from us the things to do when attempting to quash an insurgency. They said some of the fighters in the earlier hostilities might be pardoned but the leaders will be hunted down and killed. They will find and confiscate all weapons. None will be allowed weapons except for the official military and police.
No nation in the world has ever tried to do what we are so painfully trying. We are attempting to fight a politically correct war in which there are no collateral damage (accidental civilian deaths). As Mr. Sherman once so eloquently put it, "War is hell!" We tried to mitigate that but by so doing, we left a lot of combatants around to be problems over and over again.
If you look critically at any war, mistakes are always made. Remember, the enemy is also trying to win. In this case, they have had a tremendous assist in our media. They play the media extremely well.
I don’t know if a surge in troops will help or not but it is at least a new try that probably will not hurt. If they remove the arms from the militias, that would be a great first step. It should have happened 2 years ago but better late then never. I am sorry to see Rumsfield go but maybe that was needed to shake this dog of a war onto a new footing. If it does that, good.
I hope everyone has a safe and prosperous new year and that all of our troops in harms way return safely.

He's BAAAAAACKKKKK

2006-11-06T09:33:00.000-05:00

Billy's last message from the Middle East--

Well, I'm officially out of Iraq! I'm hanging out in Kuwait for a couple of days and if I can smuggle everything through customs without getting arrested I'll be heading to Germany, Ireland, New York and finally to Colorado. Should be a fun trip. Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm safe and doing good. Take care and I'll see you all soon. Should be arriving in Colorado early morning on the 3rd.
Billy

At last word, He was en route from Colorado to Hawaii.

Way to go, Billy. Happy 30th Birthday. What a present. Give that wife and daughter a hug from me!

Here Come the Dems

2006-10-20T12:22:00.000-05:00

The Election is Getting Close
It is getting close to the election. I hear Democrats hopefully trying to convince the Republican voters that either they have no chance to win so they might as well stay home or trying to convince them that no one else is going to vote so there is no reason to bother.
I certainly hope it doesn’t work. The Democrats are trying every trick in the book. (Yes, I know--so are the Republicans!) The entertaining part is listening to the Dems telling the Republicans that they shouldn’t vote for their party because it acted like Democrats on the budget. They tell you how bad the economy is--Didn’t I see DOW 12,000 this morning? Unemployment is historically low, the unemployment claims are the lowest in months, gas prices are 33-40% lower than this time 6 months ago.
The painfully point out that they are sure all Republicans are not Mark Foley but since they are in the same party, they surely don’t care about children. Never mind we are talking about bad e-mail that was available to people for years and truly awful text messages available to Republicans for a week or so before action was taken. When Republicans point to worse behavior by others and show the double standard, the Democrats say that they are playing politics.
They tell you the war in Iraq is a disaster. What do they want to do? Leave. Variously, they says run out as fast as we can, leave at the end of the year and some even say (those in Red States) that we need a new plan. Fine. What is it? No one knows.
Immigration is another favorite. They point out that the Republicans don’t want a comprehensive policy because those evil Republicans want a fence. Lets just blame those terrible businessmen who hire them. Shades of Berlin. Oh, I forgot. The Berlin wall kept people in. Ours is to keep people out. Most people believe we stop the flood before we address other issues. Almost the only people talking about doing door to door to throw people out are Democrats implying that the Republicans want to.
So if you want a Speaker Pelosi, a Majority leader Reid, impeachment hearing, attempts to defund defense as well as the Fence at the border, stay home on election day. You’ll teach those Republicans. Meanwhile if you don’t vote, you vote Democratic.

Can you support the troops and not the war?

2006-08-17T16:25:00.000-05:00

Re: Mark Denney, support for war’s false premise not same support for troops. Mariette Daily Journal, 8/17/06

Mr Denney,
You are not giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Any individual has the right to disagree with anything he wants to in this country. The problem is when persons in the leadership of the country make statements like: (Dick Durban) "... Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime—Pol Pot or others—that had no concern for human beings." Or
(John Kerry) "And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women,.." And others.
When and individual disagrees with a policy or action, he is merely exercising his constitutional right to free speech. When a party leader makes statements like "Bush Lied and thousands died" it is no longer simply free speech. And before anyone screams, they DO have that right. The problem is that in the rest of the world, including the enemy locations, it is seen as disunity. Any disunity seen by the enemy emboldens them. Clearly, that has been shown to have been true in the liberal war of wars, Vietnam. General Giap has so stated in his memoirs.
Is it treason? Of course not. Is it something that helps the troops? NO. Does it harm the troops? I would say so, but if you ask the troops they strongly say it does. You don't have to be silent. You do have an obligation to chastise the national leaders that appear to speak for you when they make over the top statement.
Yes, Mr. Lanzotti is probably arrogant. I am and you are. We all have opinions. I like to think mine are right and obvious. Possibly not always. In this case, we can debate but I like to think that my opponents in the debate understand the fact that although you can support troops and not support the war, you must not damage their efforts. That is NOT support.
I appreciate the fact that you didn’t use the "Bush Lied" line. You say that most soldiers think they are avenging 9/11. I don’t necessarily think that polling is accurate but to some extent it is in fact, true that this war is revenge. Not against Saddam but against our enemies. 9/11 was a battle. Afghanistan was a battle. Iraq is a battle. The war continues.
No, Saddam did not plot 9/11. No, he didn’t, to our knowledge, fund that attack or train the terrorists. He did fund terrorism(ask the Israelis killed by suicide bombers). Newer documents even indicate he might have been involved is some peripheral way. The more important fact is that Iraq is a battle in the current world war against Islamic Fascists. If you think we are at war in a major way you understand that. If not, you have not yet been convinced. In my opinion, I think that most people will eventually be so convinced. The recent airline plot has shown some that the enemy is still out there.

Letter 25

2006-08-15T08:12:00.000-05:00

8/14/06

Hi,
Just wanted to let everyone know what has been going on over here for the last couple of weeks. We just finished up a huge combined operation where the US and Iraqi National Police (INP) swept through several neighborhoods looking for weapons and wanted people. Well, not to say they didn't know we were coming, but there was a note in one house that said " To US forces, this house is clear, please don't break anything". I didn't participate in the house clearing ops, we established security around the neighborhood. We spent at least 12 hours a day patrolling and checking positions and telling Iraqis to put their helmets on. We received machine gun fire one day while we were out and one of our teams was actually attacked by one of the Iraqi checkpoints. The Iraqis thought the Marines were civilians approaching them in the dark of night. One Marine was lightly wounded in the attack, before the Marines were able t o regain control of the Iraqis. The guys responsible were thrown in jail by the Iraqi General. Now we are in recovery ops, basically resting for a couple of days from all of the fun we had and sending up reports and doing all kinds of paperwork, okay, not really resting. Here is a picture of me as we were getting ready to do one of our patrols. It was taken by a Combat Camera crew member who was with us documenting the experience. I have lots of photos of the time they were out with us and a couple of videos that I will have to share with you all. Just wanted to say hello and let everyone know what's going on in Iraq, I'm off to go eat chow, its the first time we haven't had to wear all of our protective gear to eat in 2 months.
84 days left,

Letter 24

2006-08-07T10:52:00.000-05:00

8/6/06

Hey everybody,
Just wanted to say hello and hope everyone is doing well. Amy and Kayla are doing good, they are currently in Kentucky visiting with my parents for a couple of weeks, so hopefully most of you will get a chance to see them. I'm doing good, staying busy as always. We should be working on getting out of here and getting everything ready for our replacements, but with the ever changing situation here in Baghdad, we are going to know just about as much as our replacements do. We can let them know how these guys operate and which criminal organization or militia they work for but they are talking about moving us outside of Baghdad and even possibly further down south to Basra, near Kuwait. If that is the case, we will have to pack up and move again with just a few months left in country. There is another rumor that our replacements will be in Iraq at the end of September. Don't get too excited, it doesn't mean we leave at the end of Se ptember. They will have to go to Taji for a week for training before they link up with us, and then the RIP/TOA (relief in place / transfer of authority) is supposed to take about 10 days. So the current rumor is mid October. Of course everything is still subject to change, just letting you all know what I know. Things are going to be really crazy for the next few days to few weeks with a bunch of operations planned, so I will try to write when I can and reply to emails as the opportunity allows. Here is a picture of FOB Falcon (Forward Operating Base) taken from outside of the FOB, something that most people inside Falcon have never seen and a picture of our Team Chief directing traffic. Take care and I hope to hear from you all soon.

Oh! Woe is US!

2006-08-01T17:27:00.000-05:00

8/1/06

So many people in the world complaining about the poor civilians being killed in Lebanon. I hate to see innocent people being killed as much as anyone but the questions is how to stop this killing. Per the UN and others of its ilk, we need a cease fire now. In fact, we should be negotiating with Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran about how to make the middle east better-read: how to get rid of Israel.
Israel is a democratically elected friend of the US. I am very proud that our president is allowing the Israelis time to clear some of the terrorist in the world. The question is not how to stop Israel from killing innocents but rather who’s fault it is. I heard reports in the last 2 weeks that Israel was dropping leaflets telling the civilians to leave that they would be bombing. I heard that Hezbollah was preventing that exodus to the point of turning all the people fleeing back to their dangerous homes. I have also heard stories about Hezbollah actually blowing them up to get the exact reaction they got. If these terrorist are not concerned about blowing up themselves they don’t have any qualms about killing 50 or so civilians. They certainly are trying to do that with the unguided rockets they send into Israel on a regular basis.
Remember how this started. Israel was invaded, a group of it’s soldiers killed and some kidnapped. That is an act of war in any country anywhere, anytime. If Mexico started sending random missiles into Texas and then invaded and killed and kidnapped, I would hope the president would retaliate.
This will never end as long as there are those out there that are willing to not only kill but die in order to advance their goals of completely eliminating Israel and once that is done spreading their 12th century culture around the world. As Newt Gingrich stated, we are in World War III. Western culture is in danger. So far few people understand the danger in the world. Not enough! It is not too late. The game is in the early innings. It has been going on with slowly increasing ferocity since the 1980’s. The violence will increase. Unfortunately, it will take another 9-11 or worse to have enough people wake up. At least, I hope that whenever that happens people will wake up.

Letter 23 from Billy

2006-07-31T10:06:00.000-05:00

7/30/06

Hello everyone, hope you are doing well. I'm doing good, enjoying the sunny weather out here. Temps are in the 120's in the day and 90's at night, but at least we got our power back on, we went a week without AC. Many of you may have heard that some units got extended for 4 months. As of right now that doesn't affect our team. We did not come over here on unit orders, most of us came on individual orders. We are currently in the process of planning our relief-in-place with the team that is coming to replace us. We were preparing what to expect on a daily basis with working with the Iraqi National Police and monthly calendars and all that fun stuff, but with the uncertainty and chaotic nature of Iraq, we may end up knowing just as much as the new guys coming in. There are rumors that we may turn into an Iraqi Army unit or might switch our area of operations or even completely disband. No one knows around here, which is par for the course. Anyway, I'm into double-digits now and counting down, so for me its just 97 and a wake-up, but who's counting? I can already smell the ocean air and I'm making a list of all the food that I've missed and plan on eating. Hope everyone is planning on coming out to Hawaii and visiting us, let me know if you are interested and I'll help you get the best prices. Some of you already promised to come out so you better come see us.
Take care and write back,
Billy

Enough of this!

2006-07-11T17:30:00.000-05:00

7/11/06

I have just about had it with "lets all just try to get along." I read Dick Morris this morning and he says no that the Mexican people have elected the "conservative" it is time to be generous with the illegals. He says that the Mexican people turned away from a Chavez type leader so we should be nice to the people that have broken our laws. Garbage.
The border needs to be secured. That is the first thing. This article, however is not about border security. I have had just about enough of trying to get along in the political arena. George W. Bush came into office with the attitude of if he played nice with Ted Kennedy and the press he would be able to "just get along" with the Democrats. Didn’t happen. At every point where he had a chance to play hardball with the Democrats, he slow pitched them and they hit long balls instead.
I have never heard the President use the bully pulpit to pound on the Democrats. He certainly has not pursued the press in situations that I think he should. You cannot say the same about them. They have screamed LIAR at him for so long that people now believe it. The big lie works for Democrats when the press helps. I don’t need to defend this--those that support the war understand there were 23 reasons listed on the approval from Congress.
People say no WMD’s were found and yet when the classified report comes out with the data on the WMD’s found, none of the President’s people came out and touted the report. He has consistently chosen the less contentious approach to take when working with Democrats.
Enough! It is past time to pound them. When you are right, shout it. When they support pulling out of Iraq despite the obvious problems with that, tell the world about it. Play hardball. I think that George W is so beaten down by the press and the Democrats that he doesn’t even remember how to fight back.
Bush ran as a "Compassionate Conservative." That is what he seems to be. He has been a good war time president and seems to be doing a very good job with protecting the country. He needs to start fighting back on the political front. He needs to prosecute the people that are leaking to the press. He needs to demand that Congress open hearing and push for them to get the sources of the constant drumbeat of leaks that are detrimental to the health of this country.
Enough! How long can we exist as a country if we allow people that hate our president to continue to fight him at the expense of the country’s security. Shame on the New York Times! Shame on the LA Times! Shame on those Democrats (not all) that give aid and comfort to our enemies! Do they not think that we are at war?
The hatred I hear is beyond that which is normal and consistent with the understandable desire of Democrats to get back in power. It is a visceral hatred that goes so far as to actually give aid to the enemy. Of course they want to get back in power.
I see cartoons in the paper that show the terrible straits into which the country has fallen. Yet, if you check the financial sections of the same papers, you see that the economy is going great guns. The stock market is up, employment is up. Wages are up. The President and his people should be touting that and saying it loud and clear.
We are winning the war in Iraq. It is not a fast process but the wonderful military we have is doing what it has to do. It is slowly pushing the terrorists and "insurgents" back in influence and improving the conditions there. It is doing so in a humane manner never before seen on the face of the Earth. They take such pain including deaths to protect civilians. It hurts to see things like the murder/rape that is so in the paper now. If they are convicted I believe they need severe punishment, up to and possibly including the death penalty. They disgrace the military and the country.
We are under threat from North Korea, from Iran, from general terrorist and from within. The external enemies are obvious. The internal enemies are, too. Part of the problem is that the internal enemies sometimes don’t even know that they are enemies of freedom. They seem to have blurred the line between freedom and hedonism. Not the same thing.
I don’t think our civilizations is going to crash because of this. I don’t think even that the country will collapse because of this. I do think that the recent trend will continue to alienate Americans until something dramatic happens. I hope that is a good dramatic thing but I am afraid--so very afraid that it will be another larger terrorist attack.

Reply to Sal Albanese (Marietta Daily Journal, 6/15/06

2006-06-15T19:03:00.000-05:00

Is That So, Mr. Albanese?

I suppose you know all of the people that support the war? You know me?
My daughter’s husband has just returned to Iraq after a 2 week leave in order to be introduced to his new daughter.

Find a random soldier arriving at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. If you can get to them through the crowd of people applauding them, ask them if they think you are supporting them by calling the Bush Administration amateur and corrupt. I think you will be somewhat surprised at the answer. They will know what you don’t know. They are doing a job that needs to be done. They also know that when you are screaming that their effort is worthless you are giving aid to their enemies.

I don’t know for sure what your political affiliations are but I would suspect that the Bush administration can do NOTHING that would make you happy, short of resigning. I would be willing to bet you had that opinion before 9/11. Are you one of those who still have a deluded belief that Bush was selected President? You LOST! Twice.

Tell me how you can get more personal than saying that you know that no one that supports the war has children there. You want a draft? That is the most immoral thing a country can do to its citizens. Our troops are all volunteers. If you started a draft, you would simply destroy the morale that has slowly but surly rebounded since those draftees have been removed since the end of the draft. Do you know any draft age children? If so, ask them if that is a good idea to put people’s lives on the line when they do not choose to do so.

Again, Mr. Albanese, you show your ignorance of reality. This is a long war and Iraq is a battle in it. I hope people wake up before the next 9/11. I am glad the president is watching the terrorists. You would probably want to arrest them and try them. They must be put out of work permanently.

Letter 22

2006-06-15T19:02:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone,
Well, unfortunately I had to leave and go back to being a defender of truth, justice, and the American way. I want to say thanks to everyone for their love and support and if I didn't get to see someone, I hope I will get to see you soon. I never would have guessed how wonderful having a little girl would be, and I only wish I could be there to help with all of the nightly diaper changes over the next 4-5 months, but Amy has already assured me that I will take over all diaper duties upon my return until she feels we are even. : ) Well, I'm currently en route back to Iraq, where I'm sure things are going to be just as much fun as when I left. I will let everyone know what people are thinking about everything going on over there. Well, my time is up, so I have to go. Take care and I will talk with you all soon.
love,
Billy

Letter 21

2006-06-05T08:46:00.000-05:00

6/5/06
Hey everyone just wanted to let you all know how good it is to be back in the States for a couple of weeks. As most of you may already know Amy gave birth to a happy and healthy little girl we named Kayla. She is so tiny and so cute and already has me wrapped around her little fingers. She couldn't wait for me to get back home so she came a little early but she is doing really well. I will be in Atlanta until the 14th and I hope to make it to Kentucky while I'm here, it just depends on the Kayla's doctor visits and how well Amy feels. Here are a couple of pictures of my sweet little girl. Take care.

Response to Letter to Editor Marietta Daily Journal, 5/17/2006

2006-05-17T17:29:00.000-05:00

Mr. Kepner,
Not being an idiot (or one who calls people idiots), a Republican legislator or a MDJ editor, I think you might be incorrect. It seems to me that only someone that has little of no knowledge of the economy beyond the public education level would hold the opinion that tax decreases are not good for the country.
There was an editorial cartoon in the paper the same day as your letter that showed a rich person making statement that "It’s a win-win economic deal: I get a new yacht and I give you a job scraping barnacles!" With that type of foolishness, it is no wonder people are suffering with class envy.
Mr Kepner, the current economy is the best economy in many years. How do you think that happened? A recession had already started when George Bush took office and then 9-11 happened. It was predicted there would be a deep recession and possibly a depression. Instead, the tax cuts were passed and now we have one of the best economies in the world. Tax revenues generally increase when tax rates are cut. Check the data. John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and George Bush are the best examples recently. Each of them lowered tax rates and in response the economy boomed and the tax revenues went up.
Yes, the congress is spending way too much. Yes, I would like to see the taxes lowered across the board. Maybe something like the Fair Tax would be helpful. Certainly it is not good for tax policy to dictate sociological changes. Find that in the constitution. But I shudder to think about how high the spending would if we had Democratic Congress and President. Aggggh!

Random Musings!

2006-05-16T17:06:00.000-05:00

5/16/06

War On Terror?
I find myself surprised that I am defending the government. As a Libertarian, I usually tend to support lesser government. However, since 9/11, I have to suspend that thought in many cases. I believe that we are embroiled in a world wide struggle for the hearts and minds of the world. This is a long and costly war. It is not going to go away any time soon.
That being the case, it is necessary to compromise some of the rights I would normally fight for. I cannot be upset that the government monitors the calls from overseas phones to citizens as long as the origin is from suspected terror origins. I am not in the slightest upset that they are running pattern recognition software on telephone record. Recording internal conversations without warrants is a different matter.
I think that biggest problem in this country is the fact that the left does not believe that we are engaged in a war. They seem to think that we are in a crime. Lets send an extradition order to Afghanistan for Ben Laden--that should show him. Seriously, this is a serious problem. When the American left and the press spend all their time shouting that Bush lied or is a fool, it gives comfort to our enemies.
I understand that some may not be willing to part with their "liberties" as they see it. They think since our Constitution protects them normally that it does so during time of war. See Lincoln, Roosevelt, et al. This war will last a long time. I have no doubt that the American public will awaken again, hopefully before another major attack on us. Probably not. It will probably take a Nuke or dirty bomb before they realize that we are at war against radical Islam. Worldwide. It is not a war we can wish away or ignore. These people have told us many times that they want to kill us. All of us. Unless we complete convert from the Western Civilization we have and become 12th century Muslims they will not give up.

Immigration-Illegal style
I hear the House passed a bill to allow Pentagon to protect borders. That is nice. The president will speak tonight. Most pundits seem to think he will order the National Guard to the border to seal it off. I doubt he will put enough teeth in it to satisfy most conservatives.
Update.
I listened to the speech and it was pretty good. The most important thing to do is CLOSE the border. He said send National Guard. Not large numbers but, I think, enough. He said they were not to be used for detention or law enforcement but rather administrative and He probably put that in to satisfy the Posse Comitatus people. No one knows exactly what they will be doing but the word infrastructure comes to mind. This is a good thing. He mentioned technology. That is good.

The only really controversial thing to his base was the pathway to citizenship. A small minority will still see that as an amnesty. If in fact the restrictions he mentioned are followed, it will be an excellent process. As long and the illegals do not get put in front of the legals, no problem. Pay the fine, pay the taxes and get at the end of the line.
The rest of the speech was not so clear. The employers that knowingly hire illegals must pay a serious fine. One that would make them think long and hard about hiring them.
He made an obligatory reference to the "melting pot" and said we need a guest worker program. Maybe, but I have seen some of the results of guest worker programs on the nightly news in France and the rest of Europe. That program has it’s own problems. If we have a formal guest worker program, it needs to be strictly temporary and enforceable. Probably the best idea I have heard on that idea is that the program needs to be run from inside Mexico.
The speech is a good start. Overnight polls show widespread acceptance. It is, however only a starting point. The National Guard issue needs to be fleshed out and the other points require details and study. The devil is always in the details.
Tony Snow started Monday.
I haven’t heard much on Tony Snow but I hope it is the start of a new offensive for the White House to fight back against the Old Line Media. I have seen that he has sent memos to some of the media indicating that he will not be a pushover. He has sent emails to CBS, NY Times and The USA Today indicating that he understands what I see as liberal bias in their reporting. I hope he pushes on.

General Michael Hayden's nomination
I have heard the complaint the General Hayden should not be chief of the CIA because he is military. Well, I am not sure why that would disqualify someone. He would be under civilian control twice. The military in this country understand the concept of civilian control. That is why the president is also the Commander In Chief. He runs the military. These positions in the cabinet are to be filled at the pleasure of the president and the consent of the Senate. There is no requirement about the military status of the designee. He seems to be qualified in many ways and I think that unless there is a specific reason to reject him he should be accepted.

Is President Bush disenchanted?
It has been a long time since the I have seen any lively responses from the White House. It begins to seem that the president is committed to the concept of "let’s just all get along". I haven’t seen anyone really defending the president or his policies since the Harriet Miers nomination. I am afraid that the President is overly consumed with the Iraq situation. He has been pounded so long and so hard by so many people that I am afraid he is gun shy. This speech last night sounded good but we need to see if there is a follow up of any type. It is truly about time that he attacks back against the vicious and sometimes slanderous charges placed against him. That he lied about WMD has been said so many times without rebuttal that the general public seems to completely believe it.

That this war was mishandled is a charge that is possibly true but certainly not without precedent in history. Find me a properly handled war that took more than an month to prosecute. It hasn't happened. Wars are by nature impossible to manage without mistakes and usually fatal mistakes.
Should we think that the horrible Clinton administration was better than the Bush administration? No. But I will admit that Clinton had a much better spin machine than Bush. Is our country better off with spinning or doing what is right even if it causes criticism? NO. We must stay the course and do what we have determined it the right thing. If the Democrats take the fall elections, all of the good done in the last 6 years will be undone. There will be constant investigations and threats of impeachment. If they win the presidency in 2008, the tax breaks will end and many of the progress in the War On Terror will be reversed. We need to be strong and generate large turnout in the elections. Although a lot of conservatives say that there is no difference in the parties now, they should remember what could happen.

He may be disenchanted but hopefully he can rebound and spread the good aroung!

Where have you gone George Bush?

2006-04-26T13:34:00.000-05:00

4/26/06

I have supported the President for the last 6 or 7 years. I even supported the Dubai Ports deal. I have to wonder what is going through President Bush’s mind now. It almost looks like he is so involved with Iraq that he does not hear the base.
I recently read an article by Newt Gingrich in which he sets what he perceives as a set of 5 priorities for the Republican Party for the 2006 election. They all seem to be good Republican ideas that the president should read and follow. That would be ideal. Short of that ideal, I think the president should adopt some of them anyway.
Immigration. I don’t understand why he keeps talking about no massive deportation. I don’t think that anyone is looking for that as a first or even a last priority. We MUST get control of our borders. You can call it national security or homeland security or immigration control. I don’t care. It must be controlled. A fence, a wall, the National Guard, whatever it takes should be done. After and only after that we can enter into a national debate about what to do.
Gas Prices. Calling for investigation of gas prices is surrendering to those that do not understand supply and demand. If he wants to do that OK, do it. BUT at the same time, let’s take actions that will help. First, suspend part of the taxes that are on gas. Second, start exploration for new sources of oil. Third, accelerate the research for alternative sources. Fourth, remove the import tariffs on ethanol. Our production cannot support large increases in demand.
I hope the hiring of Tony Snow as his spokesman is the start of something good. I fully support his determination in Iraq and the War on Terror. I support him as opposed to the current crop of
Democrats. I just wish he would wake up and smell the politics.

Oil Again

2006-04-25T18:48:00.000-05:00

4/25/06

Oil Prices
What is causing the current price explosion for Gasoline? As usual, it is that old friend, Supply and Demand. India, China and most of the rest of the world are growing. They all are buying cars, opening chemical plants, using lots of petroleum products. Very little additional is being pumped out of the ground. There is lots of oil that is not being pumped but nothing that will help in the short term. As of the last time I saw the data the cost of the oil required to produce 1 gallon of gasoline was about $1.65. The taxes from all the different levels of government was somewhere between $.27 and $.53 in 2002. Those taxes are currently higher. That adds up to near $2 per gallon before you add the cost of refining, the cost of transportation and the cost of the CAFE list of gasoline formulations the environmentalists have demanded.
I think I will scream if I hear another person that "knows" that the problem is price fixing. Or brings up the retirement of Exxon CEO Lee Raymond and his package. A CEO is worth what he makes. Otherwise, the board would not pay him so much. If you took his $400 Million and split it out over the shareholders it would not be but about $.02 per share. In contrast, the price of the stock has risen 3 times its value in the last 10 years. Hummmm. Seems like a good job to me!
Corporations are in business to make money for the stockholders. They lend money to the company with the expectation that they will profit, either by dividends or by the price of the stock going up. Both happened with Exxon.
Yes, they made record profits. Yes, it is a lot of money. Yes, he got it the old fashion way--he earned it. I wish I could but he is welcome to all of it. Congratulations!
If we could somehow increase the supply of oil (ANWAR comes to mind) or new sources of oil (Like maybe the oil shale that might be starting to be price viable) or new ways to drive our cars that could use hydrogen or something else it would be nice. Unfortunately it is not a short term solution. We need some technology breakthroughs. Maybe we can tech our way out!

Having fun in Iraq

2006-04-24T08:24:00.000-05:00

4/23/06

Hello everyone, just thought I would write everyone again and let you all know how things are over here. Our team has been busy with several new transitions. Our Iraqi Brigade General was replaced with another General, and within a week we had to take him to the hospital for a possible heart condition. I guess he just isn't used to working with people like us. A couple of days ago they changed our Brigade from 4th Brigade 1st Division Commandos to 7th Brigade 2nd Division Public Order Brigade. That changes all kinds of stuff for us on the American side. We even thought we might have to move again. Luckily we aren't going anywhere, we are staying with the Iraqis we have been working with. It doesn't really affect a lot of the way we operate, except for on the Admin side, it changes how the reports are done and where they go through. Good thing I'm the Admin officer. So not to confuse everyone even more, but our higher headquarters was MNSTC-I, (multi-national security transition command Iraq) disowned us and we now belong to IAG, (Iraq Assistance Group). That really messed up a lot of our Admin stuff, especially leave. I had to spend a lot of time and effort to make sure our guys who are going on R&R in May were taken care of. Of course I have to make sure everyone in June is squared away too, especially me. Speaking of me, I almost got shot a few days ago. I was talking with another Soldier who had just returned from a patrol. He didn't clear his weapon when he came back in and it wasn't on safe. I was only a few feet away from him when he fired a round into the ground next to his foot. Of course he swears his weapon wasn't loaded, but you have to treat every weapon as if it was loaded. I will also have to send some more pictures out. We had a mission the other night where we had some Engineers come out and try to dig a burn pit for the Iraqis since they have decided that collecting garbage is more fun than disposing of it. Well the Engineers brought out two ACEs (Armored Combat Earthmovers) basically big armored bulldozers and within an hour had them both stuck and partially buried. We had to call in two bigger armored bulldozers to pull them out. I attached a picture that I took, but it is kinda hard to see exactly what is going on. As you can see, the tracks are completely buried. I was talking to the Engineer who was in charge at the time and he had gotten his HMMWV stuck in the mud a couple of days after that incident. He said his buddies are having a good time picking on him for all of that. Well, I just wanted to let everyone know what was going on these last couple of weeks. Take care and I will write more when I get a chance.

On a personal note:

2006-04-19T11:27:00.000-05:00

My daughter has just gotten home and my newest grandchild is due in June. For those of you that follow Billy in Iraq, he should be here for the delivery of his first daughter. All are well and looking forward to the big event.

Those Evil Oil Executives......

2006-04-19T11:11:00.000-05:00

4/19/06

Whenever I hear people talking about the evil oil companies and their executives and their obscene profits, I want to ask them what is it about capitalism they want to change. Supply and demand people! The prices are up. News Flash! So is demand.
If you look at the prices for gasoline over a long term, you will see some trends. When the demand nationally goes up, so do prices. When the season changes, the prices go up. Those evil oil companies are up to it again.
Lets try to do this without oil. If you have a source of some product for which there is a limited supply. Maybe some fruit that all of a sudden has been determined to be a cure for cancer. This fruit (Lets call it Stone Fruit) is grown only in 25 farms in southern Indiana. The fruit has been selling for $0.50 per bushel for the last 2 years. Everyone is happy. Those who like Stone Fruit as a snack have their fruit and they buy it for about $1 per pound.
Now, a report comes out from the CDC that this fruit has a 95% rate of cure for some form of cancer. What happens now?
First, people run to the store to buy all of the Stone Fruit they can. Fights can break out as some lady fills her basket and no one else can get any. The manager of the store calls his supplier and says to get all the Stone Fruit they can. Next, the supplier calls the cooperative that the Stone Fruit growers belong to and says he needs an additional 500 bushels. The coop says that they only have 1000 bushels and 500 suppliers are asking for them. The suppliers start bidding on the fruit. When the bidding is over, the price has gone up by a huge amount. Basic supply and demand. The supply has stayed the same but more demand for the product.
The supplier calls the store manager says I can get more for you but it is going to cost you more. Since the supplier had to pay more, the grocer has to pay more. Therefore, you have to pay more.
Now, imagine that the Japanese decide that this fruit is needed and they start bidding against the domestic bidders. Then the Russians, the Chinese, etc. The price goes through the roof and the consumer is faced with a choice. Either pay large prices for StoneFruit or do without.
Exactly what has happened with oil. The Indian and Chinese have started to grow. They are selling cars and people need oil. The chemical industries in those countries are growing and needing oil. No additional oil or refineries are in sight.
Now, add in the government requirements to create 38 or so different blends of gasoline. When it changes seasons and the refineries have to make a new blend, it costs more AND it cuts supply while the blend changes.......
Supply and Demand. Learn it. It might help you blood pressure as you deflate you wallet. You cannot argue with natural laws. If you try, you get the Soviet Union and its wonderful economic model.

Illegal Aliens---My Take

2006-04-05T15:38:00.000-05:00

4/5/06

I have listened with interest to the many different ideas on the illegal immigrant issue. I have heard people that want to protect our borders called racists and I have heard people calling for completely ignoring the "problem". I have heard the president call for a "guest worker program (amnesty)" and I have heard people call for a large US Army contingent on the border.
I think I come down somewhere in the middle. I think you have to protect the borders of this country. I think that might include a fence in places, a stronger fence in other places, a beefed up border patrol and any unmanned sensors needed. Not the Army. The first step in ANY solution to the problem is to stem the tide that is overflowing our country. If that is not done, it is merely a game.
I don’t want to stop immigration, though that might not be a bad idea for starters if it is done in a very fair and VERY temporary manner. I want to stop illegals. Not undocumented workers. If you are in this country without a visa or green card, you are illegal. You are breaking a law.
A lot of people break the law (i.e., When is the last time you drove the speed limit on an uncrowded interstate highway?). The reasonable person that breaks the law does so knowing he can be ticketed or arrested. Illegal aliens should have the same situation. If they are caught by the police they should be sent back to the country of origin. No long appeal filled delays. Just go home.
If we can stop the flood at the border then we can try to make a dent in assimilating the illegals that are here now. I don't think that we should go knocking on doors in the middle of the night but if a person comes to the attention of the authorities and is illegal (and it should not be an insult to have your documents checked) then that person should go out ASAP.
There should be courts dedicated to this and there should be local detention available. I know that will cost money and some of that should come from the fines from employers that knowingly hire illegals.
Social services should be restricted to those that are deserving of them. Those are citizens of this country. The only possible exception I would accept would be for emergency medical services. Food Stamps and housing and other services should not be going to non citizens. If you come to this country illegally, you are not to benefit from it. I want to pull the welcome mat.
Here is where I differ from many conservatives. If you can stay in this country under those conditions and you don’t get into trouble and come to the attention of authorities and if you want to stay and become a citizen of the nation you have "broken and entered", then I agree that there has to be some way for you to become a citizen. If not, we would be creating a permanent under class. No rational person wants that. It might cause prices of many personal services to increase but that is a small price to pay for the increased security and the decrease in the problems caused by the constant inflow of illegal aliens.
We need immigrants. We need these people. Our economy needs these people. The problem is assimilation. If this is going to remain a vibrant growing society, we cannot allow the country to Balkanize.

Letter 20

2006-03-11T13:25:00.000-05:00

2006-03-10

Check out my photos
billystale has invited you to view a photo album on Yahoo! Photos
Okay, I'm going to try this thing out. Apparently you can print off the pictures you want and it should help save email storage space. Let me know if you think this is a good idea, before I stick a whole bunch of photos here. Thanks.
View 2006-03-10

Letter 19

2006-03-03T09:22:00.001-05:00

Hello again,I told you that I would write more often and I owe you all some pics so here I am sending out a couple of pictures. These are pictures I have taken while at Camp Victory / Liberty. Its basically a couple of camps seperated by a bridge. These guys have it made. Most of them never leave the FOB and have no idea what is outside the gate, not that there is much out there. The camp is only 15 minutes away from Falcon and half of them have no idea where Falcon is and then there are those who only fly to Falcon if they have business there. Must be nice. But enough complaining about that. There are several palaces at Victory and several lakes that are supposed to be fully stocked with fish such as bass and trout. The Kurds said that Saddam did two things right, create a road network and stock the lakes with fish. Anyway, I'm finally getting around to sending these out, I took them a little while ago, but I haven't been able to get them downloaded until now. So I hope that you all enjoy. As for me, I'm doing fine, I've been busy with paperwork and admin stuff for the last couple of days, which is good, I prefer that to all of the excitement that is going on outside. Things may calm down here soon, at least that is what everyone is hoping for. Amy is doing good, she needs to be more careful when she's walking, but her and the baby are both doing very well. For those who don't know we are having a little girl who is due on June 14th. I'm currently scheduled for leave during that time, which will be good if the baby cooperates. We are pretty close to deciding on a name too, but I'm not going to say anything yet. I've got several more pics that I need to send out so expect a few more emails later this week, depending on how busy the team is. Take care,love and miss ya,

Billy

Letter 18

2006-02-27T10:08:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone, I know it has been a little while since I've written everyone a letter to let you all know how I am doing. The weather here is finally getting nice, it is about 78 today with a low around 50. The situation here is tense, there is a curfew imposed throughout most of the day to try and keep the violence down. Our commandos are on alert ready to go on missions and thus we are also on alert, because if they go out, we have to go out with them. The other night they responded to a report of several vehicles entering a mosque with weapons possibly preparing for a jihad. Several elements from our commando brigade responded and were attacked as they approached the mosque. When we arrived at the scene the commandos were firing at a sniper who was up in the tower. The commandos then stormed into the mosque and captured the insurgents. There were a few commandos wounded in the attack but I'm not sure how bad. The next day there were hundreds of Sunnis at the mosque protesting the attack. They believe that the mosque itself was attacked instead of the terrorists that went into it. It is a very intense situation here right now, and I hope that things start calming down soon. Either this will all start to settle down, or we could see a civil war erupt between the Sunni and Shiia. In case anyone was wondering, the Shiia and Sunni are variations of the Islam, kinda like Catholic and Protestant. Except these two groups really hate each other. The Sunni are the ones most responsible for attacks against the US and they were in power while Saddam was president. The Shiia were persecuted under Saddam and now they are in positions of power because the Sunnis refused to vote during the first drafting of the constitution. I'm going to try to remain as safe as I can and hope that things start to cool down over here. I'll try to send some pictures a l ittle later today. Take care and I'll write back more often now that I have my computer back and the internet is working.love,Billy

Ports

2006-02-24T16:23:00.000-05:00

2/24/06 I can’t believe that I am going to say this but I agree with Jimmy Carter. I actually think the management of the 6 ports in the United States by the United Arab Emirates company is not necessarily a bad idea. I have heard many Democrats arguing that they will stop the deal (Hillary) or talking about how concerned about Homeland Security they are (Charles Schumer and Pete King). Many Republicans are upset and are arguing that the deal is bad for security because putting an Arab company in charge of the ports operations is like putting a fox in charge of a hen house. This is a much more realistic argument from those that actually have real concerns about national security. I have heard so many distortions of the deal that I am getting confused. As I understand the deal, these 6 ports were being managed by a private company in Great Britain. That company has been purchased by a company in the UAE. That company is mostly or wholly owned by the UAE government. The management of the ports will continue to be handled by a company in a foreign country. It changes from Great Britain to UAE. It also changes from a private company to a public company. I have seen hysterical articles about the 6 ports being sold to the UAE Company but that is not the case. The management of the ports will change from one set of foreigners to another. The security at the port is still going to be handled in the same, inefficient way by Homeland Security and the US Coast Guard. NO changes in security are expected. The only way the management team can impact the current security processes is by changing the manifests issued stating the contents of the containers. (As if that couldn’t happen now!!). I have heard many complaints about the UAE prior to 9/11. They did banking for al-Qaeda they were friendly with Osama, etc. Since 9/11, all I hear about is what a good job they are doing for us. The port in Dubai is the busiest port for the US Navy outside of the continental US. The air base there is essential to our operations in the middle east. I have heard from many places of the cooperation of the government there in the war on terror. I have also heard that the reliance of UAE on US tourists is amazing. They couldn’t afford to damage the US economy. All in all, I think that this is probably an neutral impact on our security. I do, however, think that all this said, it is a good idea to review the issue with public comments. I usually nut not always agree with George W. Bush but in this case it galls me to not only agree with him but with Jimmy Carter (President Peanut) as well.

Letter 17

2006-02-02T09:31:00.000-05:00

2/1/06 Hey Everybody, How is everyone? I'm good, well, I'm cold and tired right now, with a mild cold, but other than that I'm good. I'm staying positive and I'm excited that Amy is going to have a little girl. We've been working on names when I'm not running around here doing some crazy missions. The Iraqis have conducted a couple of big operations and of course we don't find out about it until the last minute, which means we have to jump through a bunch of hoops in order to get them cleared to conduct whatever type of mission they are doing. We basically act as a liason between them and the U.S. forces, but enough about that. So, if you didn't know, we are expecting a little girl and I know Amy is really excited to have someone to go shopping for and shopping with. She already has me wrapped around her little finger. I'm always thinking about her and things to get for her. The weather has been cold with some rain, no snow though. We may be moving again. They are talking about moving us back to the building we originally moved out of. At least they are also talking about moving us into single rooms, all of us this time. We'll see what happens. Amy got my computer fixed so I hope to be able to send more emails and I'll also send more pictures. Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm always thinking about you and I hope that you all are doing well.

Reply to comment.

2006-01-19T22:22:00.000-05:00

1/19/06
Well, I'm not sure what you are trying to say. That may be the most rambling comment I have ever had. Do I understand you correctly? Are you actually telling me that I have no right to bitch? Remember what this country stands for. The troops are fighting for MY right to Bitch.

I will comment on your remarks in order.
1. I am not sure where 2,3,4 went but 1. Do I claim my Vietnam Veteran? I am not sure what that means but as I said in the original note, I served during the Vietnam era. No combat. So? What does that prove? Nothing.

I really don't think that because your father had problems you have any additional rights to muzzle me. What the protesters did to the returning vets was despicable. It is one of the reasons those same people now end every complaint about the war with "but I support the troops".

As most normal people, I do not wish for Jane's demise. I would really like it if she would just shut up.

Writing to the President or to Congress is an option. I chose to write about my issues here. If you don't like it, go bye-bye.

I am a product of the 60's and you can't wait for me to die? You feel the same about your parents? What about G W Bush? What about all the other products of the 60's? By the way, you have no idea if I am a product of the 60's. Since I was in the Military in the mid 60's, does that count? Does someone have to have been a hippy to qualify as a product of the 60's? If so, I guess I am not. Then again, some parts of the 60's were pretty good.

Oh yes, my Love Children that I couldn't raise. What the hell do you know about my family? I wish you Gen X kids would get involved in politics instead of spending your life whining about poor, poor pitiful You... If you want social security, you should have raised a stink and supported the president's plan for private funds. No. You guys gave us politically correct speech and Bill Clinton. Thanks.

Response to comment

2006-01-18T00:10:00.000-05:00

1/17/06

At last! A comment from a "lib" that doesn't simply consist of some obscenity. You ask several questions. I will try to answer as I can in this reply.

Prove to you that we should have gone to Iraq.

Well, that might be hard to do. It depends on what you consider proof. Did you consider the first Gulf war a good reason to go to Iraq the first time? If so, are you aware that the first war was ended on a cease-fire in which Hussein agreed to certain things, including the continuing inspection of his country? Are you aware of the Oil For Food foolishness that was preventing proper UN supervision? What about the attempt to kill George H W Bush? Did Hussein shoot at American and British Airplanes in the area HE agreed was no-fly zones?

What about The recent revelation by Stephen F. Hayes in The Weekly Standard that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had ties to – and was training thousands of – terrorists in the years prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Or, the 9/11 Commission Report that clearly stated, “[Osama] bin Laden himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995.” http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp

Did or didn't the US Congress vote to allow the war to take place? See: http://hnn.us/articles/1282.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_Council_Resolution_1441

Did or didn't almost all of the US Senators make statements that the Hussein regime was a threat to the US? Too many to document but check out press statements of Kerry, Clinton, et al at the time—not 2 years later.

Did of didn't George W Bush take the cause to the UN and didn't they unanimously approve the right of the US to enforce the original cease fire? See http://www.psr.org/home.cfm?id=Post_Gulf_War_U_N__Securi for a list of resolutions relating to WMD.

As for the WMD's, there has been some WMD’s found but I will ignore that. Regardless of the existence of WMD’s or lack thereof, the intelligence services of the US, UK, France, Germany, Egypt, Israel and others all stated he did have them. If you are the leader of a country and you believe that your enemy has both the capability and the desire to inflict damage on you, you MUST take action to prevent that damage. What would you and the great liberal left have said if President Bush had NOT attacked and we found out Hussein did have the WMD's when he or some group he sold them to used them in New York? There would have been rightful HELL to pay. A leader has to react to capabilities and intent. Imminent threat implies something in the nature of a bomb on the way.

Why didn’t he use them? I do not presume to be able to read his deranged mind. He may have already moved them to Syria. He may never have had them and had no generals to tell him that. I don’t know. But then again he may just have been more insane then we know.

If you doubt the truth of my statements of the absurdity of saying I support the troops but not what they are doing, ask a soldier. They would prefer peace also but they are doing what they signed up for. In large numbers, they think they are making a difference in Iraq. They think they are giving a country that was held in bondage a chance to be free. Maybe not American democratic government but a reasonably modified democracy that will perhaps make a major difference in the Middle East.

I suppose my biggest ire is directed at the people that say they support the troops and then in the next sentence say something like: “…that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the – of – the historical customs, religious customs," John Kerry.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47765
or perhaps Dick Durbin who: compared American behavior at Guantanamo Bay to the killing fields of Pol Pot, the Nazi concentration camps, and the Soviet Gulag. http://durbin.senate.gov/gitmo.cfm
In conclusion, I will say this again. You have the right to disagree with the war. You might even have an obligation to speak up about it if you do. No problems here. I simply object to the seemingly obligatory “but I support the troops” stuck at the end of any such protest. Don’t bother. They have seen the support many protestors give them.

One More Time

2006-01-16T15:38:00.000-05:00

1/16/06
I'm going to try one more time. I only bother with explanations because there are such disingenuous people out there that try to argue that anything the military does is bad. Mr. Albanese, you argue as if all of our troops are draftees. The draft ended many years ago. You cannot but patronize the public and the troops with the often heard, "I support the troops, but I don’t support the war." If a person is a baker, if you denigrate his bread, constantly talk about how bad it tastes and how it is never fresh, you cannot honestly turn around and in the same breath say how wonderful the baker is. It is insulting and it is not true. A person may feel like he doesn't want to hurt the baker's feelings and so say what a wonderful baker he is. That does not change the evidence of your dislike of his products. I admit I am an armchair warrior. I am a veteran and I volunteered during the Vietnamese War. I did not, however see any combat. I do remember the military of that day and it consisted of people of several ilks. Some of them were drafted. They rightly hated where they were and what they were doing. There were those that enlisted and never expected to be involved with fighting. As far as the fighting was concerned, a lot of it was done by the volunteers that knew exactly what they were doing and why. Those are the ones that make up our entire military at this time. Repeat. There are no draftees in the military at this time. They almost unanimously support the leaders of this country. Never has one country invaded another for the purpose of improving the style of government in the occupied land, while simultaneously respecting the lives and resources of the people. This is a new endeavor and the success of it is evident in the 3 elections the people of Iraq have had within a year with very large turnouts dispite threats to the safety of the voters. You cannot ignore the purple fingers of fate. This time, there will be no sighning of the surrender to the cameras of the clamoring press. This time we use another standard. We will leave a country that is better off than it was. Remember, sir, we were attacked first. Ask the 3000 dead from Sept 11 about that. To say Saddam was not involved or there were no WMD's begs the question. You have to answer the primary question "are we at war or should we treat all these terrorists as criminals with complete protection of the very US Constitution they wish to subvert. If we are fighting criminals, I guess the proper response is to send an army of lawyers to fight them. Bill Clinton tried that approach before Sept 11. If that date is not important to you, ask the above mentioned 3000. If we are at war, help our army to be victorious in their battles. The war is not against Osama. It is not against Iraq. It is against the people that want to destroy this country and the way of life we have created in the most successful nation in history. You do not have to like the President. You do not have to like the Congress. You do not even have to like me. To like our troops, you have to support what they are so successfully doing.

Letter 16

2006-01-06T09:32:00.000-05:00

1/5/06

Hey,
Just wanted to say hi and let you know how I'm doing. I haven't been able to get on her too much since I completely destroyed my laptop. I won't get into that too much, just make sure you never drop one. I'm doing okay. I have a room that I share with one other person, kind of reminds me of my college days, except no alcohol, no girls, and no fun. In case you didn't know, I'm located on Camp Falcon which is on the southern end of Baghdad. Not one of the larger bases, but at least we have a PX and a coffee shop. We have the only dining facility that requires eye wear in order to eat, but other than that the food isn't too bad. Not much here in the way of vegetation, just rocks and a lot of dirt. Baghdad is a wonderful place and you should come visit me. People here don't like dogs because they are filthy, yet they scavenge through the dump (which can be found on every street corner). Let's not even talk about how they never use toilet paper and just go to the latrine with a bottle of water. In case you didn't know, its to wash their hand when they are done using it. Of course they don't use utensils when they eat either, so washing their left hand with their right one and some running water probably isn't the best thing to do before going to eat. Other than that, they seem to be really friendly always coming up and shaking your hand and stuff. I've learned a few words in Arabic such as Hello, Goodbye, How are you, I'm good/bad, my numbers up through ten and a few odd words. I haven't learned words like soap, toilet paper, toothpaste, and deodorant yet, I'm not sure they translate. I've also learned how to write numbers and my name in Arabic. Well, I just wanted to let you all know I'm doing fine, no dysentery yet. Take care and please feel free to write me anytime and I'll get back as soon as I can. Here's my mailing address in case I didn't get it out to you.
Billy Engle
4th BDE CDO SPTT
Unit# 42508
APO AE 09361-2508

Berry Merry Christmas from Iraq

2005-12-27T09:45:00.000-05:00

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas from Amy and myself. Here is a little holiday recipe we thought we would share with you all. Enjoy
Merry Christmas.

Berry Merry Christmas
1 packet of hot cocoa mix
1 teaspoon or tablespoon of raspberry syrup
1 peppermint candy unless you like more
1 dollop (is that a word still used today?) of whipped cream, or just use the canned stuff
1 stick of cinnamon (I find them in the arts and crafts section of Wal-Mart)
Chocolate shavings
Oh yeah, hot water
Make hot cocoa according to the package, unless you have a better method, in which case, make it that way. My way uses hot water and a spoon. Once you have congratulated yourself for making hot cocoa and drinking half of it, make another one. Put a peppermint candy into the cocoa, it will melt, but they usually make really cool popping sounds as the crack. Find a spoon and pour raspberry syrup in it. You can even use the same spoon you stirred the cocoa with. After tasting the syrup and refilling the spoon, mix it in the cocoa. Take another spoon unless no one is looking and scoop up some whipped cream, I like Cool Whip. Place it on top of the hot cocoa. If you find a can of whipped cream, see how much you can put into your mouth, if you have some left over, put it on the cocoa. You don’t have to do this if you have already put whipped cream on it, I do though, can’t have too much. Find a stick of cinnamon, I found that it is much better than using any ordinary stick and put it into the cocoa as well. If you are like me, you will be making chocolate shavings at this point because you ate the ones you made earlier. Just use a cheese grater and a chocolate bar and scrape it over the whipped topping. If you aren’t full, enjoy the Berry Merry Christmas that you just made.

Letter 15

2005-12-25T11:10:00.000-05:00

12/24/05

Just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas, and let you all know that I am doing good. I received several boxes and cards and I want to thank everyone for sending them. There isn't a lot of Christmas lights outside, due to the light discipline, but inside the buildings, everyone is celebrating the Christmas spirit. I was surprised to find out that many Iraqis celebrate Christmas as well, not to the same extent that we do, but several of the traditions are still there. I am now living in a room with only one other person which is very nice. There is also the possibility that we will get our own individual rooms after one of the units here leaves. I hope everyone is doing well and I wish you all a Merry Christmas, keep me up to date with what is going on over there, and thanks again for all the presents and pictures.
Love,

Santa in Iraq

2005-12-24T09:43:00.000-05:00

12/25

Just wanted to let you know that I ran into Santa over here and he is on his way to America now. He even let me ride in his sleigh. He dropped off some presents, so I did like any good kid would do and immediately opened them all. Thanks for all the wonderful presents, phone cards, food, cards, and necessities. I truly appreciate everything. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas this year and I'll be there next year. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Open letter to a soldier (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Guard or Reservists)

2005-12-14T21:52:00.000-05:00

12/15/05

I have seen many requests to send letters to our troops thanking them for their sacrifice. That is not enough. The members of our military are of such high quality that if you don't have the history or experience you may not understand how good they are.

In the 60's and 70's, the US military was crippled by 2 major problems. First fo all, the Congress of the US did not respect the military and it's job. It worked hard to make useless the fine effort of many excellent men and women in Vietnam. Secondly, the military was crippled by the draft. Because of the draft, many of the troops did not want to be there and their resentment spread to many who did. In spite of these problems, you, the military, performed wonderfully whenever you were allowed to do so.

This is a new era. All of our troops are volunteers and most of you have either enlisted or reenlisted during this time of war. If you take a Marine or a Soldier aside and ask why they are there, you could get all sorts of answers, varying from "I am here to protect my country" to "I wanted to get the educational help the Army gives when I get out." Some of them really can't express why they are there. In fact, most will probably tell you that they are actually fighting for their comrades. The fact is that no one is in the military who doesn't want to be there.

Many of the people that protest the current war so stridently are still mired mentally in the 1960's. They make statements about bringing our troops home from a war they are forced to fight. They suggest that the troops need to "Frag" the officers as a protest. What idiocy!

These time frozen critics have no idea the quality of our fighting forces.
We have seen the pain of the mainstream media constantly telling us about the awful failure that has been going on. They tell us that the war was a lie or started on false premises or that we are losing. That is nonsense. You are telling us a much different story. You tell of the schools rebuilt and the happiness of the people to vote--even the women. You tell us of successes that belie the story of the military hating press.

There seem to be two types of Americans when it comes to our military. Those that understand the need and your skill and those that think we should all just get along. A corollary of the second group is the "Hate America" crowd. They think the world's problems are caused by the US. They will probably always think that and in this country that is their right. If fact, that right is maintained partially by you, the very military they disdain.

Not all of you have great honorable reasons for fighting. The fact that you perform your duty and do so in such a magnificent manner is a tribute to your personal pride, patriotism and honor.

Many thanks to all of you--The American Soldier, whose presence in a dangerous world offers some protection to the rest of us. Thank you for standing between those who would destroy our civilization the rest of us who cannot or even will not stand. You have the undying appreciation of myself and the vast majority of the freedom loving Americans. Thank you and may you continue in freedom and honor in whatever far flung place you stand that your duty calls yout to stand to protect us.

Letter 13--Blickenstaff and Diamondback

2005-12-12T10:44:00.000-05:00

12/9/05

Hello,
Just a friendly reminder to let everyone know how I'm doing. I'm not doing too bad, although I think I might have caught a little cold. I guess that is to be expected when living in a room with 20 other people. We are living on an Iraqi compound called FOB (forward operating base) Blickenstaff. I don't know who makes up the names for these things, but that is what it is called. We are only a couple of blocks away from FOB Blickenstaff and FOB Marez. We make routine trips to both areas. They are anything but routine though. We go through two intersections to get there and we travel in the lane that has the least amount of traffic, even if it means the traffic is incoming. Habits that I will have to break when I get back home. I got a haircut yesterday for 3 bucks and it even came with a massage. The barber was from Nepal and the massage was equivalent to being mugged. The guy was literally hitting me on the head and doing karate chops to my back. I'm sure Amy would have loved it though. The food is pretty good on Diamondback, they have a large selection to choose from, but I usually get the stir fry, because it is like a Mongolian style where you choose the vegetables and meat and they fry it up for you with whatever spices you want. The food on Blickenstaff though, nobody really likes. Even the Iraqis have been complaining about the quality of food. At first it was a racial issue, because the contractors who prepare the food are from India and they don't like them. However, Iraqis are actually cooking the food for the Iraqis and when they found that out, they changed their story to it being the food itself. They are very interesting people, strange, but interesting. One even tried to sell us a AAA battery today. That's it, a single battery, that was probably already used. They will sell anything we issue them at a market too. They sell ammo and then complain when they don't have any. During their briefings, they point at a map and said "some go on this half and some go on this half." It took about an hour but they finally decided on how many should go to which half, and they even narrowed it down to a specific location. Well, it looks like we have our work cut out for us. I'll keep in touch and I should be leaving Mosul sometime before Christmas if everything goes well during the elections. Take care.
love,
Billy

Letter 12--Convoy to Mosul

2005-12-12T10:43:00.000-05:00

12/3/05

Hey everyone,
We have finally arrived in Mosul, it was a long drive through the countryside. There isn't much outside of Baghdad that I could see. There was an occasional house or two on the road and we passed by a few villages, but other than that it was just empty. Our convoy got hit with an IED but it went off in between two of the vehicles. Luckily nobody was hurt. The vehicle that drove though the blast got a broken headlight and a cracked windshield, mostly from rocks and debris that was thrown into the air. I was hoping that it would be an uneventful trip, but at least we are all okay. We are living in an Iraqi compound, we have our own little area that is separated from the Iraqis and we have TV and internet set up via satellite. It doesn't seem too bad up here so far. Still no hot water, but with two showers and 40 people, what can you expect? I'll keep in touch and I hope all of you do the same.
love,
Billy

Latest defense

2005-12-01T16:15:00.000-05:00

12/01/05

There are some out there that think the MJD is at war against the leftist or Democrats and that most people can see through Bush's lies. It would be a lot easier to understand that point if they ever offered any evidence that Bush lied. All you do is point to conservatives and say Bush Lied--Thousands died. Then your defense of it says that it is obvious that Bush lied. Yeah? Check the dictionary for the definition of lie. It includes intent to deceive or deliberate falsehood. Show me one. Simply saying something over and over again is not proof.

There are those that say that there can be no good outcome from the war. Not true. There has been a good outcome already. Saddam Hussein is not longer able to torture, rape and execute the 27 million Iraqis he once held complete power over. Instead, he is on trial for his life in a at least partially fair court.

I think it may be true that whenever we leave Iraq it may degenerate to civil war but we are currently engaged in a great experiment to see if it is possible to generate a democratic form of government where an autocracy once existed. That has never been done before. Oh yes, I forgot about the little country called the United States of America. Or maybe France. The transition in France wasn't pretty there but it worked. Italy, Japan, and even Afghanistan had little or no experience with democratic forms of government before they had civil war or had it imposed after losing a war. None of the changeovers happened peacefully within 2 years.

I think that the Iraqis have at least the potential to work out a government that is pluralistic in nature and possibly even democratic. I don't have a crystal ball but the alternative is not very pleasant.

Picking up and leaving is obviously not an option. I think the President has stated, sometimes poorly, that we have to stay the course. What the means is that we removed Saddam and we stay until there is a chance of government working and then leave. I think that is the best we can do now. The War on Terror is continuing and will continue for a long time. I hope to live to see the end of it some day but don't think I will. Hope springs eternal.

Letter 11

2005-12-01T09:42:00.000-05:00

12/1/05

I've been receiving a lot of emails about what I want for Christmas, so I thought I would try to answer everyone in one big email. Since the two things that I want are highly unlikely, a plane ticket home, or Amy shipped over in a box, I will have to settle for something else. I really don't need much and I haven't given it a lot of thought about what I want. I can use phone cards if anyone happens to have some lying around or if not, www.aafes.com has a good deal on phone cards as compared to Wal-Mart, but I'm not picky. I don't have a permanent place to live yet, so it is hard to tell what I need. Of course I could always use normal daily living items for personal hygiene or stuff to make me feel at home, like pictures. I should be getting my own room when I get back from Mosul in about three weeks, or about the same amount of time as it takes mail to get here, so feel free to send me anything you want. I'm not asking for anything more than a Christmas card and a picture and I'll be happy, I would rather everyone focus their attention on Amy and the baby and get stuff that we can use when the baby is born. Most of you have kids, or are one (Jeff), so you know much better than I as to what we will need for the baby. Don't worry about me, I have a PX over here that I can shop at, just help Amy out and I'll have a merry Christmas. Thanks for all of your support we truly apprecia te it.
love,
Billy

Letter 10

2005-11-30T09:41:00.000-05:00

11/30/05

Hey everybody,
How are you all doing? I'm doing good. I finally have a mailing address! I'll put it at the bottom, but first I'll tell you about my trip to Camp Falcon. The trip through Baghdad was interesting, but not too interesting. This country has some nice historic buildings, but the majority of it is just dirty and filthy. There is trash all over the place and all of the oil refineraries and factories pump out smog constantly. Lucky for me, Falcon is downwind of all of that, so it smells like burning tires here everyday. I went through Camp Victory and Liberty and those places were nice, especially Liberty. Those people live on a lake in palaces and resorts. If you hear anyone say they have it bad from one of those places, don't believe them. Yeah, the threat is still the same, but the quality of living is just so much better. We are going to Mosul soon unless things change again. It is going to be a long tr ip and I don't know what to expect when I get up there so I might not be on here for a couple of days or for as long as three weeks. We are scheduled to stay there and support the elections before coming back to Falcon. We are going to be travelling with the commandos on our way up there, so this trip is looking like it will be a lot more interesting than my last one. If you send anything soon I should still be able to receive it before Christmas. They recommend sending packages before the 5th of December in order to make it back to the states, so I assume it is the same in reverse. I'll send some pictures as soon as I get a chance to get on here again. Talk to you all soon.
Love,
Billy

Letter 9--Falcon

2005-11-29T09:27:00.000-05:00

11/28/05

Well, I'm done with another camp and will be heading to Falcon soon. Our training here was okay, a lot of classroom work, well, actually it was a lot of power point presentations. We did get a lot of information though. Our journey should be an interesting trip, we will most likely travel through downtown Baghdad. Once we get there we are going to go meet with the Iraqis that we will be working with. I'm sure I will have a lot more to tell you once I get to another computer. Hopefully it is just about the sights and how our interaction with the Iraqis goes. I will tell you all about it as soon as I can.
keeping my head down,
Billy

Letter 8

2005-11-28T09:46:00.000-05:00

11/25

Hi everyone, just letting you know how I'm doing. We all got to go to the coalition side of Taji today to go to the PX. It was nice on that side of the base, we ate dinner in a huge dinning facility that had a taco bar, a pasta bar, a mongolian-style stir fry, a salad station, short order, a Baskin Robbins bar, and the main line. Lots of food to choose from and it was all good. Much better than the stuff they have been feeding us, like spinach stew. The PX was huge too, it was like going to a PX on post. For those who don't know PX is Post Exchange and it is just like a small version of Wal-mart, except tax free. They also had a Cinnabon and several other restaurants. Everything was going pretty good until I heard a couple of explosions. The base got hit with a few mortars some distance away from where we were. I think it blew up someone's roof but nobody was hurt. I'm doing fine and I will keep you guys up to date on what is going on around here. Hope your day of shopping isn't quite as exciting as mine.
love,
Billy

letter 7

2005-11-28T09:45:00.000-05:00

11/25

I have finally discovered the cause of all of America's problems. Amazingly enough, I don't think politicians are to blame. All of America's problems stem from the fact that there are countries out there that actually use this type of toilet. If they could go someplace and have a moment to themselves where they could have some time to think or read the paper, maybe things would be better. I still haven't gotten the courage to actually use this thing. This one actually has toilet paper in it, but we were told we can't flush the paper we have to take it with us and throw it away. There is usually a little hose attached to the faucet, but I don't think that is supposed to be used for cleaning yourself, who knows what the locals do with it. In Kuwait they would throw used water bottles in the urinals, I don't really want to know what they were using them for either. Luckily we have some real American style toilets and porta-johns ou t here. Hope you enjoy.
love,
Billy

Letter 6

2005-11-24T20:01:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone,

Well, this is the second Thanksgiving in a row that I've missed with family and friends, luckily I've made a lot of friends here and we all celebrated together. Some of them have missed Thanksgiving and Christmas three times in a row, so I at least have that to be thankful for. The guys here did a really good job of fixing this place up today. There were lots of decorations and what appeared to be bread carved into different animals. The most prominent of which happened to be a stegosaurus. I'm not sure what that has to do with Thanksgiving, but that is what we got. The menu wasn't too bad either: Turkey, roast beef, glazed ham, several varieties of vegetables such as sweet potatos, carrots, green beans, mixed salad, shrimp, a huge selection of desserts, pita bread, and beverages including chai tea. I hope everyone there had/will have a great Thanksgiving (depending on which time zone you are in and when you get this email). ; Thanks for supporting me and the rest of the troops out here.

love,

Billy

Letter 5

2005-11-24T09:26:00.000-05:00

11/22

You would think that I would follow politics a little closer, but I just watch the intel reports and see how they relate to what I'm doing over here. Basically any time I hear Fox or CNN mention Iraq or Baghdad. I don't get to watch the news much here, but whenever I log on I can usually see something about the war or what the President is up to in Iran, China, or North Korea. I'll leave the politics to you and the politicians and I'll take care of things over on this side. I have seen a lot of cool things that we get to use to help us defend against the insurgents, most of it is signal related, so I guess that's why they needed me. I've never seen it before or even heard of it, but the Army usually doesn't make things that the Soldier can't figure out. I have looked at the website and I think it is really cool, I never thought what I said would end up where others could read it. I just wanted to keep everyone informed of how I'm doing.

Response to Jeanette Gall's letter of 11/22/05 in the Marietta Daily Journal, Marietta, GA

2005-11-22T13:00:00.000-05:00

11/22/05

Ms. Gall, I am a little confused. You say you cannot have an honest discussion with Republicans about the Big Lie that "Bush lied, thousands died" because they bring up Clinton's name and attack you personally. Ms Gall, the only people I have seen attacking people personally are the liberal Democrats. Whenever we attempt to discuss issues with these people, we get called everything from liar to hate monger. You might note that no one is calling anyone Un-American. It is part of the Big Lie technique that you accuse people of things they don't do so as to preemptively deflect a charge you expect to be leveled against you. You asked about Osama? We searched for Eric Robert Rudolph for 5 years and we pretty well knew where he was. Osama is not conveniently in our country. He is in a country surrounded by his supporters or those he can intimidate. I would be amazed if he were captured anytime soon.

You asked if Al Gore's chief of staff (shudder!) had leaked the name of a CIA agent, what would have happened. Which Bush Chief of staff leaked the name of a covert CIA agent? Plame's husband did so but no Bush administration member has been indicted for doing so. "Since Karl Rove is involved, he has flip-flopped." Hummm! Maybe that is why you misunderstand what the words mean. When Kerry says he voted for the $80 Million before he voted against it, that is flip-flopping. Bush takes a stand and keeps it. If Rove were guilty of "outing" a covert CIA agent, it seems like he might have been so indicted. No one was.

You say Bush manipulated the intelligence. What and how did he do so? It has been investigated several times and the only intelligence he got that the Senators (including Democrats) didn't see was even more bellicose than what they saw. As you might recall, the intelligence services of virtually the whole world said he WMD. Wrong? Maybe. Liars? Unlikely. I rather doubt that our best friends in the world, the French would have cooperated with Bush in manipulating the data. Yet, they said Saddam had WMD. We still don't know if they were right and the WMD were shipped to Syria. He certainly had lots of time to do so.

Ms Gall, you are NOT Un-American to express your beliefs. It is only if you deny that right to those that disagree with you that you are in conflict with what most people believe is an American. Yes, "we should question our government." BUT, we should do so with the insight of what was the information available at the time the decision was made. Hindsight is truly a wonderful thing.

Letter 4

2005-11-21T10:22:00.000-05:00

11/20/05

Hey everyone, its me again. I am now in Taji, or Tadji depending on who you ask, at the Phoenix Academy. Basically I'm in an Iraqi compound within a coalition compound. I'm finally not sleeping in a tent, instead we are sleeping in barracks that was built by the British in the 1920's ,the bunks are of cheap Iraqi construction and I'm surprised they can even hold our weight. I got a haircut today from an Iraqi who used a piece of string to pluck my eyebrows. I've never had my eyebrows trimmed before, especially not with a piece of string. He just kinda rolled it up and moved it down my brow entangling whatever hairs were in the way and then yanked them out. I don't remember asking for a eyebrow cut, but it was all free of charge. I also got to eat a mixture of western and Iraqi food, wasn't as good as Kuwait or Striker, it was about as good as Ft. Carson though. I had green bean stew with rice, flat bread, a hamburger and some fries. the fries were about the best thing, although the bread wasn't too bad, similiar to the foot bread I had in Afghanistan. We are just relaxing today since our flight was late getting in, we had one group show up at 4 am and we still have one group that didn't make it here last night, so they are stuck in Camp Striker until tonight. They have internet and phones here, not a lot of them but I should be able to get on here at least once a day or so. I've heard they have the European toilets here, the kind without a toilet, I haven't looked for them yet. The showers weren't to bad, they are single units with a lot of room in them, much more than what we have had, now if there was only hot water. I should be here about a week and then moving out again, I should find out soon where my team is going and how long we are going to be there, so that hopefully I can get a mailing address. Take care and I'll write more later.
love,
Billy

Letter 3

2005-11-21T10:20:00.000-05:00

11/18

Just letting everyone know my current status. I'm hanging out at Camp Striker near the airport in Iraq waiting for a flight to my next destination. The camp is small but quiet. I haven't seen much of the country though, because there are walls surrounding everything, but I can see the tops of some palm trees off in the distance. This place isn't as sandy as Kuwait, however it did rain before we got here and the whole place is a muddy mess. The mud is a thick clay kind that your feet get stuck in. We had a few people lose flip-flops on the way to the showers. The food is good here. We had T-bone steak and lobster tails for lunch today. I think all of the good food got sent over here because when I was in Ft. Carson the food was horrible. We have a huge variety of fresh fruits and beverages, they even have energy drinks for free. There is also a Burger King here and they are putting in a Pizza Hut, just in case y ou want something different. The computers are sluggish and leave a lot to be desired, but it is free, so I can't complain too much. They have an AT&T phone center here, which seems to be fairly common throughout this area, only problem is that a 550 minute phone card used to call home is actually only 170 minutes. The price isn't too bad though, only $35. It is worth it to talk longer than ten minutes, which is how long you get with the free phones. Once I get settled down, I should have better access to phones and internet, at least I hope. I will have to send pictures later, we can't use our memory sticks on these computers. I heard that the Democrats are trying to get us out of here, I appreciate the thought, but I don't think it is going to work the way they want it to. There are a lot of things going on over here especially an election in December, so I don't think the 6 month timeline is reasonable, but if it wer e to happen, I wouldn't complain. Then I'll be home where I can be with Amy when she gives birth. Haven't thought of any names yet but we are not going to name him or her John or Chris, nice try though.
Take care,
Billy

Letter 2

2005-11-17T09:44:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone,
Just letting you know that I'll be out of the net for a little while, could be a day or it could be ten. I'm leaving tomorrow sometime and I don't know when I'll get to another computer or phone. Here is a picture of Kuwait, it all pretty much looks like that out here, I'm sure the city is much nicer, but all I've seen around here is sand. If you look carefully you can see a white car in the background. That is the Beduins, nomadic people that herd camels and goats. They just wait and pick up brass from the ranges, which saves us the trouble of having to do it. They sat out there all day and waited for us to leave. Should be an interesting year in Iraq though. Hopefully it won't be too interesting, I can deal with that. I'll try to find better things to take pictures of, maybe I'll get lucky and see a tree or something. Keep in touch and I'll write back as soon as I can.

Letter 1 from Son in Law in Iraq

2005-11-16T09:28:00.000-05:00

I'm back from the field and finally got a shower and a hot meal and answered a few emails. There wasn't too much going on out there in the sand. We did some weapons training on the first day, running through different drills such as walking and shooting at the same time. We were out in the middle of nowhere and there were Beduins off in the distance watching us the whole time waiting to pick up our spent brass. I don't know where they came from, but they were driving old cadillacs or new SUVs, yet they live in the desert and herd goats and camels. When they hear us firing, they come out and wait all day for us to finish so they can collect the brass. I have no idea what they do with it, unless they make camels and elephants out of it and sell it back to us. The second and third day was machine gun training and convoy training. I got stuck in the gun turret even though I'm not a gunner. The gunner's weapon was broken and th en he didn't bring anything to protect his face such as goggles or a bandana, so I ended up in the turret. Everyone else had large machine guns such as the .50 cal. and all I had was my little M4 rifle, I didn't even have ammo for it. All my time was spent watching everyone else shoot at the targets as we drove down the road and getting a facefull of sand for my troubles. We also did some training where the locals were sent as actors to either harass, attack, or beg from us. We had a dirt road we were supposed to follow and as we went through the towns they would attack or whatever. Since we were out in the middle of a desert and there was nothing around us, we would drive off of the road and go completely around the little towns they had set up. Nobody had ever done that before and the locals were completely surprised by our actions and we ended up not getting bothered at all by them until we were forced to stop at one little town and the locals crowded around our convoy, we managed to keep them under control and everything went smoothly. We found out later that they would get paid a little extra if they could draw an X on our vehicle with chalk, none made it that close though. Another group doing traing with us, was the Puerto Rico National Guard. They went through the same stuff after we did. We saw their vehicles and there were Xs all over the place, the locals had even played tic-tac-toe on some of them. Didn't find any scorpions or camel spiders though. I did see some camels and I tried to catch a lizard, but that was about it. Once I get my pictures to download I'll send some. Talk to you all later.
love,
Billy

In Reply to Sal Albanese

2005-11-09T18:55:00.000-05:00

11/9/05

Mr Albanese, I was not going to make any comments on your first letter in which you clearly were regurgitating the Democratic lines about lies and general Bush hatred. Unfortunately, when I saw your letter in the Nov. 9, 2005 MDJ, I could no longer be silent. You, sir, have given an indication of your intelligence and civility to label those who disagreed with you as "spineless simple-minded people..." who "..wouldn't recognize it (the truth) even if it came up and bit them on the backside." I thought name calling was a conservative trait.

In fact, it seems that whenever the left is challenged about the fact that they are spouting the Moveon.org line the only response is to call people names.

I do not wish to restrict your right to be heard. I don't know that the people you are referring to want to deny your right to speak either but I do think that you could use a dose of that truth you mentioned.

A few questions to you. What evidence do you have that someone lied about or manipulated the intelligence that was viewed by the Senate Intelligence Committee among others (almost all of whom voted for the war)? Where is the administration official that said Iraq was responsible for 9/11. If prewar intelligence was faulty, the fault lies with the CIA and others worldwide which supplied the erroneous information, not with the political leaders, Democratic and Republican, who relied upon it. WMD's, which, by the way have been found several times, including (per the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Sunday, November 06, 2005) which noted: The 4th Infantry Division discovered in an ammo dump near the town of Baiji 55 gallon drums of chemicals which, when mixed together, form nerve gas. They were stored next to surface-to-surface missiles which had been configured to carry a liquid payload. Does it have to be mixed together to get the magic WMD label?

Sick of the indictments? Which indictments are those? Are you speaking of Libby, who was indicted for not remembering or lying about what he told reporters? When did the Left decide that indictment is the same as conviction?

Aren't you getting a little tired of the Bush ran from Vietnam line yet? He was reelected even with the existence of forged documents run by CBS and others.

Valerie Plame-Wilson was not a covert agent. No one in the administration has been even charged with "outing her". Note that new evidence indicates that Joe Wilson was telling people his wife worked at CIA in 2002.

If more deaths not honor our troops, will cutting and running honor them?

Strategy or Luck

2005-10-12T15:27:00.000-05:00

10/12/05

Is this a brilliant strategy or is it just luck?

President Bush nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. I have heard conservative pundits complaining ever since her name was released. The President has commented "trust me" and that she was a loyal and trustworthy nomination.

Rush Limbaugh is upset because he wanted a fight in the Senate. Some people are upset because they wanted a credentialed "Conservative" from the list of approved or vetted judges--Janice Rogers Brown or Priscilla Owen or Edith Jones or others often mentioned judges waiting in the wings. These conservatives are wailing about the bad choice so the Democrats are saying something along the lines of, "Well, if they hate her so much, maybe we want to support her."

I don't know what to think of her yet but I am intrigued by the idea that the president may be showing once again that he is so dumb that he outsmarts everyone again as he has done so many times in the past. Ms Miers is a total unknown to me but that doesn't tell me anything. The president trusts her. He says she is a strict constructionist. If you look at his other appointments, he gets good marks. He knows that the Supreme Court appointments will be one of the highlights of his legacy. Therefore, I think he truly believes that she will be an excellent Justice. I reserve judgment on the basis of trust but verify.

Interestingly enough, I have seen reports today that some of the aforementioned conservative judges turned President Bush down for the appointment due to the viciousness of the confirmation process. We all know that he seemed to be strongly wanting a female or a minority. If the women waiting in the wings turned him down, then Ms Miers could have been his last best choice.

Whichever is the case, it looks like fun!

Blue States

2005-10-10T12:53:00.000-05:00

10/10/05

Last week, I visited Seattle and stayed with a friend. Although she is about as liberal as it gets, we agreed to disagree on most subjects. We found a few things to agree on such as the fact that FEMA didn't do a great job after Katrina but in general we didn't find much in the way of common ground. Interestingly enough, her only request to my wife was that she try to convince me to watch some news source other than FOX--as if that was the great evil source of some sort of conservative rays that infect viewers. Give me a break!

I can understand and accept that people do not agree with me. That is one of the reasons we have such a great country. People can disagree and not be subject to the dreaded knock on the door in the middle of the night. (To you younger readers, that is what the real Nazi's would do to take you to concentration camps did. Also note: In real concentration camps they KILLED you. They didn't make you cavort in your underwear.)

I have watched with interest the red state-blue state splits but to me it is mainly just shorthand for the differences inherent in the liberal big cities and the more conservative rest of the country (Fly-Over country). I have personally argued that there were some basics that separated the two but I always thought that like most other people, we were all just good Americans following what we thought was the correct path.

After reading the editorial page of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, I was appalled. I don't think I have ever seen such hatred for a region of the country before. There was an editorial cartoon that indicated that only in RED STATES would someone scream "Somebody call Washington, DC. They gotta rebuild my house" Another shows that "God Hates the Red States".
The letters to the editor have the vilest names and thoughts credited to members of the administration that I can imagine.

I didn't like President Clinton--lots of people didn't either. Some small number of extremists called him and his staff lots of things. Some of them were uncalled for and some of them were found to be, after adjudication, true. Mostly, the conservative public wanted the Clinton Administration to end. Just go away. I know a lot of Democrats and Liberals think that about President Bush. He at least hasn't demeaned the office with interns and stood on national TV and lied about it. The problem is that a very large group of the above mentioned groups of Liberals seem to think that anything that could happen to get rid of W is OK. No name it too vile to use. No charge is too absurd or baseless to throw at the president. Anything that hurts the administration is good and anything that reflects good on the administration is bad.

You have every right to want a change in the administration to whatever you want. You have a right to make slanderous statements about good people trying to do a good job. You have that right. You also have an obligation as a member of a civilized society to have a modicum of decorum. Or, as a famous American once said, "Can't we just get along?"

A confirmation at last!

2005-09-30T16:54:00.000-05:00

9/29/05

At last! The Roberts confirmation is over and he has been sworn in. I think I will be pleased with the Roberts Court but to some extent that remains to be seen. It is, however, unusual to have a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States that has a 4 year old son. Strangely refreshing, though.

I have heard Liberals saying that now that they have confirmed Roberts, the President should replace Sandra Day O'Connor with a "moderate". Rubbish! George W Bush won the election after telling the citizens of this country that the nomination of strict constructionist was a priority for him in the second term. Why should he sway from that? I am no longer surprised at the audacity of liberals. They and their Main Stream Media and Entertainment enablers will stop at nothing. Generally I have heard that the Democrats have said that they agreed on Roberts but they will gang up on the next nomination. I have no doubt that is true.

I wonder if anyone noticed something. When Ginsburg was confirmed, she declined to answer questions that she might have to rule on. It has been called the Ginsburg rule. A lot of people were talking about how Roberts should not have to answer the same type of questions. Democrats said, to a large degree, that there was no such thing as the Ginsburg rule and Roberts had to answer all questions.

Well, he didn't. He steadfastly refused to do so and he got confirmed. He got 78 votes. It seems to me that whoever the president nominates has a really good, newly vindicated Ginsburg rule to follow. Who knows. It might help.

Is this enough?

2005-09-01T11:31:00.000-05:00

9/1/05

Has the insanity of the energy industry finally gotten bad enough to allow some changes? Does the reduced supply and $6.00 gasoline make enough difference to allow some changes to start being made?

Hurricane Katrina added her input to the energy madness and caused several refineries to close or operate at reduced rates. The loss of electrical power caused pipeline companies to temporarily run short. Big surprise. Did anyone notice that there hasn't been a refinery built in about 30 years? How much has demand increased in that time?

Oh well, I guess it is OK to stand in line for very expensive gasoline--as long as they don't build one of those smelly plants anywhere. God knows, it might disturb some mosquito somewhere if we do. And Nuclear power? Not a chance. The environmentalists would go completely berserk

I did see a poll last week showing that the majority of people now approve of the idea of nuclear power plants. The latest Rasmussen survey finds that 55 percent now want the U.S. to move towards nuclear energy, with just 24 percent opposed. This is a major change. The date on this poll was August 25, 2005--Before Katrina.

I think the public is slowly starting to see that something must be done now. The problem is what to do. Drilling should be happening everywhere it can. Refineries should be built as needed and a major shift to nuclear power should start immediately. I know politicians are afraid of controversy but very few people will change to vote against a politician showing support for this. The environmentalists will not have voted for them anyway. Show a little courage now and it will be a big help to the public you serve.

Random Thought, Again

2005-08-10T16:16:00.000-05:00

8/10/05

1. The Fair Tax. Neal Boortz has just released a book on the Fair Tax and it seems to be selling pretty good. I just looked on Amazon.com and it is number 4. Not bad. I haven't read the book yet but I have been listening to the author talk about it for over a year and it looks pretty good. Mainly, it would be an improvement to the current system in the sense that we could do away with the IRS and the army of accounts that deal with the paperwork for taxes. You can tell that the income redistributers are against it and that in itself is a good recommendation for the program. I like the idea that it will do away with the idiotic answer that you get if you ask most people how much tax they had to pay and they reply " I didn't pay anything. I got xxxx dollars back." It should at least get people talking about tax reform in a macro sense that might allow major change. (I'm not holding my breath!)

2. The Roberts Supreme Court Nomination. Did anyone really think that the Democrats would allow the President to nominate anyone other than Hillary or Ted Kennedy without a nasty battle? John Roberts is an unknown factor. I believe this president has nominated good people for all sorts of positions. I haven't had much of a complaint for his people. I do not know what happened in the private conversations. I don't know what was said to who. The real shame of it is that we will never know where he stands on any substantive issues because he cannot dare to actually tell anyone where he stands on anything until he is confirmed. Almost any honest and straightforward answer will give ammunition to someone to shoot him with. If he is a strict constructionist that is enough for now. Hopefully, if the Democrats put up a truly ideological battle, the magic Group of Fourteen might totally disintegrate and allow the final destruction of the Senate rule allowing the filibuster for judicial appointments. The constitution does not require a supermajority to confirm noninees. That rule of the Senate will certainly vanish as soon as the Democrats are in power again. The only reason it didn't before is that the Republicans didn't filibuster and the Democrats didn't think of it first.

3. Cindy Sheehan. Cindy Sheehan is the woman that is camped out at President Bush's Crawford, Texas. She had a meeting with the President last year after which she said that "I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis," Cindy said after their meeting. "I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith." She also noted that for a moment, life returned to the way it was before Casey died. They laughed, joked and bickered playfully as they briefly toured Seattle. For the first time in 11 weeks, they felt whole again. "That was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together," Cindy said. (http://www.thereporter.com/republished/ci_2923921). Now, it is obvious that she is "out to get" the president. She is working with that paragon of honest reporting Michael Moore. Everyone I hear discussing this ( and that is almost exclusively the Fox news and the AM talk show group) says we all understand that she has given up a child and because of this she has a right to say anything. Sure she does. She has a legal right won for her by her son and so many others over the years that have sacrificed their lives and limbs for her right to speak out. That said, the idea that she can be excused in her grief is not acceptable. She must accept the same amount of scorn that anyone would that makes such a fool of themselves. She is clearly politicizing her son's death and that is inexcusable. For Shame.

Senator Durbin

2005-06-23T09:22:00.000-05:00

6/23/05

Senator Durbin,

I read your speech before Congress the other day about the terrible torture of the terrorists in Guantanamo. Had I read this and not known it was a prepared speech read before the U. S. Senate, I would most certainly believed that this must have been a rant prepared in Al Jazeera from Osama Bin Laden or from some other vile enemy of the United States.

Now, I understand that Durbin said that "Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line. To them I extend my heartfelt apologies." Does this mean I should accept his apology? He did not say that he was sorry he made the statement. He simply "apologized" if I believe his remark crossed the line.

Shame on you! You know very well that the American Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Airmen are not the kind of animal that you compared them to. I hereby question your patriotism. I can do this regardless of your denial that I can because I live in a free country. This country. You have the right, won by the blood of the same American fighting men you have disparaged, to make this unwarranted charge. I have the right, won the same way to say to you, sir, Shame!

Read you history sir. Pol Pot did not use his killing fields to isolate truly evil persons from society. He used them to KILL. The Nazis did not use the concentration camp and gas chambers to isolate people that were captured on the field of battle but rather to exterminate groups of people. The Gulags were not for gathering information on future terrorist attacks but to remove enemies of the State.

I challenge you sir. Defend your statements or withdraw them immediately. You have given the enemies of our freedoms more ammunition to use

Where's the Lie?

2005-06-21T10:33:00.000-05:00

6/21/05

I can't tell you how tired I am of the constant cries that "Bush Lied, people died." I have heard that incessantly in some form or other for the last year or so. Yeah? When did he lie? I have yet to hear anyone present a single instance that has a documented falsehood uttered by Bush or his high level associates in relation to the war in Iraq.

For those of you that do not fully understand the English language, a lie requires knowledge that the statement made is false. If you make a statement that is based on faulty information and truly believe it to be true, that is NOT a lie. It is generally understood to be an error or a mistake. A lie requires that the person making the statement know at the time the statement is made that it is false.

I am also getting weary of the whining fools that think that how the world "feels" about us is in some manner going to have an impact on the war we are currently involved in. Our enemy in this war is the Islamic Jihadist. These zealots do not particularly care how we treat our prisoners and the more bad headlines they can generate the better. Their current goal is to cause the American public to decide that the cost of the war is not worth the effort. Part of that is to make our leaders look like liars and fools. Unfortunately, they are getting a lot of help from the old media who love to print anything detrimental to the administration and ignore anything praiseworthy.

The terrorists locked away in Guantanamo are not being tortured. They are getting treatment as good as they would receive anywhere else in the world. NONE of them have died, no serious injuries exist. In the Soviet Union, Cambodia or Nazi Germany, that would not be the case, regardless of what Dick Durbin says.

All of the reasons for fighting in Iraq are still there. We have already changed the landscape in the Middle East. Supporting our troops does not mean comparing them to Nazis. Supporting our troops does not mean setting a date for withdrawal, thereby telling the terrorist (not insurgents) when they should schedule the big push. If we withdraw from Iraq before WE decide it is the correct time to do so, the people that compare it to Vietnam may become right. They wished for it, they cried that this is a quagmire and they could cause it to become true.

If we surrender in Iraq, we might as well start planning for the next attack. We will have told the terrorist to go ahead--we won't fight back for long.

Compromise? Or is it Cave?

2005-05-26T10:40:00.000-05:00

05/25/05

The Republican party in the US Senate has again showed that it does not have the ability to govern effectively. If the Democrats were the majority party again (God forbid!) and the Republicans had serious objections to some presidential appointments for the judicial branch, and had the necessary votes to approve them, I doubt that they would even think of using the filibuster to stop the vote. If they did, I have NO doubt that the Democrats would find every reason that changing the Senate rules would be a good thing. Does anyone for one moment think that whenever the situation is reversed the Democrats will hesitate for any length of time to change the rules? They understand that being the party in power gives you the ability and the right to set the rules. The Republicans need to learn this lesson.

If you rule, you need to rule. That is, you set the conditions under which you operate. I don't for a moment think that the Democrats have forgotten that but it seems that the Republicans are very slow to learn it. I remember when the Democrats had been in power for 40 years. They controlled so strongly that there were credible stories about Republicans being locked out of Conference Committee meetings. Their opinion was not only unnecessary but unwanted.

The only good thing is that if the Democrats do as I expect them to do and start the filibuster for a Supreme Court nominee it probably will not take a lot to start the Constitutional Option rolling again. The "Extraordinary Circumstances" mentioned in the deal is undefined. If Democrats attempt to use the filibuster again, some of the signatories of the deal may step up and gather a little courage. Whatever they do, the national press will find the Republicans the scoundrels the always do and the Democrats the champions of the Constitution.

The rule in questions is not a Constitutional requirement. It is simply an agreed upon method of operation of the Senate. It was confirmed by the majority party and is subject to change at any time. Whoever is in the majority has the ability and more importantly, the right to change the rules. It should not be the case that the minority sets the rules.

Republicans. Stand up! You are in the majority for now. You will continue to be the majority only as long as the people of the country believe you truly mean to support what we believe. Allowing the minority to set the rules is not a good idea.

Random Thoughts

2005-04-22T12:30:00.000-05:00

4/22/05

I find that ever since the election of President Bush, I am having a hard time getting excited about issues. I have never had so much emotional commitment to a political cause before. Now, I see some new trends that are important to me but just cannot rise to the threat level of the election. Essentially, here are some random thoughts.

1. Supreme Court and the Senate nuclear option. I hear this called the nuclear option and I read opinions both pro and con. For the Senate to change the rules such that the minority party is no longer able to filibuster the nominations is not something that I would consider nuclear. It is just a rules change. Some Republicans are afraid of it because they say that it will bite them if the Democrats become the majority party again. Since when have the Democrats played by consistent rules? If the Republicans ever try to use the filibuster to stop some future Democrat nominated judicial appointee, is there any doubt that they will immediately change the rule--no matter what the Republicans do? If the Republicans decide that they do not want to change it so as to have it there when they need it, they will be sorely disappointed. I wouldn't count on principle to drive the Democrats. They are used to ruling. They expect to be the ruling party. They understand that to keep that power they have to do whatever it takes. At the same time, the press will simply play along. If the Republicans change the rule, it is nuclear. If the Democrats change it at some future time, it is necessary to prevent the obstructionism of those dastardly Republicans.

2. Immigration. What is it about illegal immigrants that grants them the right to anything? They are, by definition, not undocumented--they are illegal. I know that if they were actually barred from the country there would be very little construction going on and very little yard maintenance. This does not however give us any reason to grant these people special privileges such as drivers licenses and in state tuition--the most recent goodies I see as offered to these illegal people. I don't necessarily want to have the borders closed tightly but it would be nice if they were at lease a cursory attempt to separate the people sneaking in for work from the terrorist coming in to blow up some building somewhere. A work permit is OK and might even be an acceptable document for obtaining a drivers license but the expiration dates need to coincide and there needs to be some way to have the workers leave when the documents expire. I also want the government--state, federal and local to deport the people it finds without work permits. I do not want bans from local governments on police asking for some type of documentation. How did we reach this point?

3. Education. It is becoming obvious that most universities in this country have become bastions of liberal indoctrination ( I would say thought except that thought is discouraged in lieu of political correctness and leftist doctrine). This will keep on happening and probably getting worse unless some Fox News of Universities opens. The thing that will actually change this problem for the better is when the donations to the schools stop. That is the only way to get the attention of the administration and get realistic policies and attitudes. Tenure needs to be modified such that it is easier to get rid of the professors that teach doctrine--of any sort. Heaven forbid that the Congress attempts to do something about it. I can't see them doing something that actual makes it a better situation.

More Later!

Why Laptops

2005-04-21T11:15:00.000-05:00

4/21/05

RE: The Cobb County Laptop issue

The question I have is why do all discussions of computer for students start and end with laptops? Rather than issue laptops to the students why not look at computerizing the desks in the classroom? First of all, the desktops would be significantly cheaper. They would not be subject to being left at home. They would not be subject to being pitched around when a pickup basketball game starts. They offer all of the perceived advantages that the laptops offer but not the down side. It is a lot harder to lose a desktop machine.

The desktop machines would be a lot cheaper to replace as they age--only the CPU portion would need replacement routinely. The monitor and other components would not need routine replacement. They would only need changing in the event of failure.

The desktops are easier to maintain and will not have failing batteries causing disruption in class. It would allow the same computer based education that the laptops do but be easier and cheaper to use.

Most of the students in this county have access to computers and internet at home. Those that do not may need to have the capability to "check one out" from the school for the year or for shorter periods of time. A small pool at each school should be able to handle that.

I know that this letter will not change the minds of any of the brain-locked 5 but I had not seen this proposal anywhere. It would be a possible compromise to the acrimony that currently exists.
Harry Flair

Laptops For Cobb County Georgia Schools

2005-03-09T12:41:00.000-05:00

3/9/05

I have refrained from entering the laptop fray in order to attempt to get a better idea as the to benefits and disadvantages of the idea. I have read with interest the articles in the MJD that show that the program has been, at best, misrepresented. The $75 million grew to over $100 million and no one on the board seems to notice a 33% increase in cost. I am beginning to think that this School Board has decided that they do not have to answer the people of the county.

I understand that some of the members feel safe in their districts because they are Republicans. I have news for you. If this program goes through as planned, without even a reasonable testing period with clear, measurable objectives, I would vote Democrat if necessary to get you out of office. It in not acceptable that such an expense be incurred without some good reason. Just saying that it will help does not cut it. Stating that laptops increased attendance in some other county does not mean that the increase was caused by the laptops. It seems certain to me that as things stand, any SPLOST III will be DOA unless some changes are made. Most people do not respond well to arrogance.

In particular, is this implementation proposed the best? Is Apple the proper choice? I don't think so but I don't know what the decision was based on. Was it cost only? We don't know. Unfortunately, this new technology is not the same as the industry standard. Businesses in general use IBM compatible systems. There are enough differences to cause confusion to the very students we are supposed to be helping. How many Cobb County students do not have a computer now? I think most of them either own or use a computer regularly. Maybe we need to find that out before we spend this kind of money and assume these students are not computer literate.

I have been in the computer industry for many years and I encourage the county to increase the technology level in the schools. Please give the laptops to the teaches. That is a wonderful idea. Provide projectors to the classrooms. I don't have a problem with a true pilot program. A good pilot should include trials at both ends of the school spectrum. A top performing school and a bottom performing school. Perhaps a middle school at both ends and a high school at both ends. There should be concrete objectives including test score evaluations and attendance evaluations. Then and only then can we fairly evaluate the idea.

Creative Spellers don't need laptops in the classroom. They need to LEARN TO SPELL.

Let Freedom Ring

2005-03-07T15:53:00.000-05:00

3/07/05

The United States is a fine example of the way the democratic process works. We have different parties that, at time, accuse the other (s) of everything they can think of. The process works. Sometimes, people in large numbers are not pleased with the results of our elections but at least so far, they do comply with the wishes of the majority (within the bounds of the Constitution, thank God!).

In Afghanistan and Iraq, the world has seen the jubilation of the people able to vote for the first time. It may not last. It may turn into something not resembling Democracy. It may even turn, at some time, into a Theocratic nightmare. But at least for now, freedom is ringing in these two countries.

In Lebanon, the people clamoring for Syria to leave is unthinkable 6 months ago. I don't know yet if this will lead to a democrat form of government in Lebanon but there is at least a chance of it for the first time in memory.

Palestine has even elected a president in a free election. Does this mean that the PLO, Islamic Jihad and Hamas will accept Israel? Of course not. Does it mean that at least a seed of the democratic process has been planted. You betcha! Without Arafat, it might even grow into something that the world can celebrate.

Saudi Arabia had elections.

Egypt is about to have the first contested election ever.

Some of the former Soviet Republics, Georgia and Ukraine have had democratic elections that seem to be real.

It is reaching the point the even the German Der Spiegel asked, "How quickly can the virus of democracy spread?" Apparently the answer is pretty darn fast!

Was Bush right? I think so and even some of the doubters around the world have started to agree.

We need to have a lot more work on the process but after the fertilization with American blood in the middle east, the seed is starting to sprout. It wasn't cheap. It wasn't fun. But in the long run, it may be effective. It is a major battle won in the War on Terror.

Where is the coercion?

2005-01-15T16:11:00.001-05:00

1/15/05

I watched the Hannity and Colmes show last night on Fox News Channel. One of the guests was Michael Newdow. Newdow is the publicity seeker that filed suite against the use of prayer in the Inauguration of President Bush. As I listened to the debate, I realized that the arguments from the conservative side seem to say that the Constitution was written buy the same people that gave us the Declaration of Independence. And since the Declaration states belief in God and the writers all seem to have different parts that show support of religious participation in government was at least tacitly approved.

The Newdow argument seems to be, as quoted from his web site, http://www.restorethepledge.com/mike_newdow/ "The First Amendment states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." As I understand it, this resulted from the Framers' awareness of the persecution and animosity that inevitably accompanies state religions. With this in mind, they made the decision to ensure religious freedom by keeping the government out of that sensitive area."

The actual amendment says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances".

I think that the real argument is the one that seems to be ceded to the left by the right. If a person who is a member of the government stands in front of a crowd, either in person or in a broadcast, and displays some religious document on government property or dares to utter a prayer, the left and generally the courts claim that this is a violation of the establishment clause of the Constitution.

How is this making a law? Rather, prohibiting the prayer would seem to be prohibiting the free exercise therof. The same goes for displays of different religious documents such as the 10 commandments on public property. Prohibiting the display seems to me to be more of a violation.

If the government refuses to allow some religious group the right to display it's icons but allows others to do so, that seems to indicate a preference. Allowing the free display or distribution of documents or information seems to be simply that, free display or distribution. No law is involved. I have heard the arguments that it is somehow establishing because it is using the power of government to "indicate a preference." And if the voters choose to object to that, what is stopping them?

I firmly object to any legal coercion that leads to the establishment of a religion. The thing is, where does that happen in a Republic like ours? It just aint so!

It’s Exciting to Imagine!

2004-12-17T11:17:00.000-05:00

12/17/04

Afghanistan has had popular democratic elections! A new president has been Inaugurated! If you had told me that last year, I would have expected jubilation in the streets. I would have asked how many American troops died in the run-up to let this happen. This is a large win for the US in the War On Terror. I think I consider this as big as taking Guadalcanal in WWII. It is the first time we have shown that a terrorist supporting/supported government can be toppled and a new non-totalitarian government allowed to grow. Wow!

Now, it looks more and more like Iraq really can follow suit. I hear from many sources that the election will not mean anything if the Sunni people do not participate. Au Contraire! If the Sunnis do not want to participate, tough for them. In the past, the Baathists were allowed to participate to some small degree but the rest of the country was plain and simply suppressed. No one is suppressing the Sunnis. When the election happens, some of them will vote. If others do not, well, so be it. We don’t have 100% participation. Does that mean that our elections are invalid? (I am sure the Democrats will shout a resounding YES! to that, but most of us understand that the answer is NO!)

If, after the election, the Sunnis think it was unfair or that they were cheated, it might mean a civil war. Well, that is their choice. We removed Hussein and allowed them to vote. After that, it is not our decision. Our goal was to stop a destructive tyrant that hated America from hurting America with existing or soon to exist weapons. No, I don’t think that he would develop a ICBM, but a dirty bomb in the hands of Dark-Age Islamists (Thanks, Victor Davis Hanson for a great phrase!) would be every bit as bad.

We are making great strides in World War IV. Afghanistan and Iraq are free if not completely stable. Libya has lost its somewhat advanced position in WMD. We have made progress in Saudi Arabia and the latest “agreement” with Iran on Nuclear weapons, as mild and impermanent as it is, was arguably caused by the re election of Bush.

It is not all peace and joy. War is Hell. We have had some reverses. In general, however, we are on track to make major changes for the better in the world and to our safe and free existence.
It is good!

It's a Christmas Tree, No a Holiday Tree!

2004-12-13T18:20:00.000-05:00

12/13/04

Christmas is under attack all over the country. There are many documented accounts of banning of Nativity scenes, the singing of Christmas songs, the banning of Merry Christmas by stores and even the renaming of the Christmas Tree to the Holiday Tree ( I’m sorry, which holiday was that?). My question is how do we stop this silliness?

This country is 80% Christian. It seems foolish to me that a majority that large is unable to display the symbol of their religion during the holiday season. No, I don’t want to require everyone to believe. I just want to have the right to tell someone Merry Christmas without worrying about their beliefs. If you are offended by it, tough. I am offended by your trying to make me give up my celebration.

I have heard of several challenges to this and frequently the challenger wins. The problem with challenging the Scrooges is that it is expensive. They usually have the support of the ACLU or other groups. They seem to be working in an attempt to totally remove any religious connections to the government (if, that is, they are Christian connections. Jewish, Islamic, others are excused!). Their motives are not important. I don’t care.

How do you fight the Principal of your local elementary school? You have to put pressure on him from above. How do you do that? You have to work in the local elections to force potential school board members to commit to not pushing politically correct pap.

The problem is how to make that happen. Unless there is some organized pressure, that will never happen. People trying to get elected think they must not offend anyone. Until someone comes up with a process to force politicians to at least state where they stand on this and hold their feet to the fire, it will not stop. I don’t know how to do that but I really would like to have someone come up with a process or a plan of some sort. Any ideas?

I want my Christmas back!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2004-11-24T18:33:00.000-05:00

11/24/04

It has been an eventful year and it has been a good year. It was a year of plenty and a year of challenges. I happily thank the American public for the contribution they made to the future of this country. By rejecting the bid of John Kerry for the presidency they have, at least for now, put their foot down and said "we will pursue the war on terror to the end". For that and for so much else, I thank God.

I believe that this country is the most free and the most equitable in the world. I believe that what we have done to free millions of Afghans and Iraqis will be seen, in the richness of history, to have been one of the first and most important steps on the way to world peace. As long as there is oppression of masses of people and intolerance by so many the world is not a safe place.

I am thankful that I live here. That I live in a country that allows me to express my thoughts without fear that someone will find me and "convince" me that I shouldn't have these thoughts. I am thankful that our economy is so good. I am thankful that I am employed. I am thankful that I have a nice home and three wonderful children, each married to loving spouses. I am thankful that I have 2 beautiful grandchildren.

I am thankful that my son-in-law is safe in Afghanistan. I am thankful that my family can get together at this time and celebrate the joys of the holiday.

Thank you God!

AT LAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSST!!!

2004-11-04T13:11:00.000-05:00

11/4/04

It is finally over. George W Bush has won. John Kerry showed more grace in losing than he had the entire campaign. The president declined to claim victory until Kerry gave his concession speech but that was a graciousness that was to be expected of the president. That Senator Kerry conceded in view of the evidence that the lawsuits could have extended this election for weeks shows that he does have some class. I personally did not expect that from one of a pair of trial lawyers but I am pleased.

My predictions for the elections were spot on. I said the House would remain comfortably Republican. It did. I said the Senate would gain and wind up as 54-45-1 and may actually be 55-44-1. I said the presidency would go at 54-45, with Nader at 1%. I guess I could claim that I was talking about the electoral college, but honesty requires that I admit that I really wasn't. It was closer than I expected.

I heard some of the pundits on TV say that they thought (I would attribute if I could remember which one said it!) that the Al Qaqaa report that said we didn't protect the 350+ Tons of explosives cause a problem until it was pushed off the front page. Regardless of why the race actually came in so close it was a good 24 hours for America.

The election is over and some people are saying that George Bush has a mandate to pursue his agenda. Others (Mostly Democrats) are saying that he has won and now should move to the center to bring us together. Right!!! He won, Congress Won and the American people won. Now is the time to start to use some of that capital to get some of the plans that he had. Lets start with the Fair Tax Plan.

There are lots of things that need to be done, mostly to get government off our backs. The most important thins is to finish Iraq and to continue the War on Terror. America has said we are at war, not at crime.

Good Luck, Mr. President.

The Election Prediction

2004-11-02T09:20:00.000-05:00

11/02/04

I made my prediction a few weeks ago and I see no reason to change it. Bush by a large margin. I think about 54-45%. Nader and others will get somewhere near 1%. I think that the Osama Bin Laden tape showing him wearing a virtual Kerry/Edwards Election Pin may, as Dick Morris says, have sealed Kerry's fate. When I voted this morning they were expecting up to 90% turnout in this very heavy George Bush precinct. How many people have not answered pollsters or flat out lied to them? I guess we will fing out.

The Senate will go +2 for the Democrats (Illinois and Alaska) and +6 for the Republicans (Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, South Dakota and Florida.) This gives an overall configuration of the Senate of 54-46(The independent is always really a Democrat). Not enough in itself to bust the "filibuster" but a better starting point.

The House will stay comfortably in the Republicans hands.

I think and hope that there will be a much larger percentage that this in the presidential race. I am so tired of the polls showing a tie. I have recently seen and have long suspected that these polls were biased. I will see when this is over if I have been living on misplaced hope or if I was correct. It's been a long day already--In line at about 6AM. I don't expect that the results will be in very early. Then again, I can hope.

Tomorrow is the day.

2004-11-01T13:34:00.000-05:00

11/1/04

Tomorrow is the day that it all comes down to. This is the most important election in at least the last 50 years. Are you going to vote for some nebulous plan for jobs and some perceived security in your old age? Or are you going to vote for honor and honestly and a safer US?

If you walk into the voting booth on Tuesday and you select John Kerry you are going to send a message to the world that America cannot be trusted to follow up on it’s policies even if the president and a majority of the citizenry fully support it. If you want the people of this country to change their minds on some issue, all you have to do is to make it expensive enough—kill Americans until the whiney sob sisters that know nothing about history in this country decide that it is not worth it. This usually includes the majority of the media.

If you vote for Kerry, you are saying that someone that has nebulous plans for everything from winning the war in Iraq (that he has both supported and not supported, depending on which hour you ask him,) to magically spending trillions of additional dollars without raising taxes. You are voting for someone that has as his only consistency the diminution of the United States as a sovereign power in the world. You are voting for someone that falsely accused a wartime president of lying and misleading the country on every conceivable subject. You are voting for someone that is so “nuanced” that whatever he tells you can mean almost anything he wants it to mean later.

If you vote for President Bush to continue in his leadership role, you are supporting someone that says what he means and means what he says.
There is no doubt for anyone that reads and understands history that we are safer now than we were 4 years ago. Ask yourself if on September 12, 2001 you thought you could go 4 years without another major attack on this country. George W Bush has taken the war over there instead of fighting here. I know the Islamafanaticts want to attack us here. They have said so many times. They want to kill many thousand of us. They mean what they say. They have not been able to do so yet. This, more than anything else is a reason to vote Bush. If you think that the president is uselessly wasting young American lives, ask the troops what they think. He has and continues to actually work to make us safer. Not perfectly, but he at least understands the problem. George W Bush knows that we are at war. We are not at crime.

Vote Responsibly

2004-10-27T12:09:00.000-05:00

10/27/04

I am writing today to the people that have not yet made up their minds about who to vote for next Tuesday. I say to you that if you value the American way of life, if you do not want you children or grandchildren to be praying to Mecca 5 times a day, if you enjoy the fact that women have rights in this country then you better think long and hard about your choice.

I saw a car today with a Kerry/Edwards sticker on it. The sticker said Kerry/Edwards for "A Safer America." A Safer America? How? If you think that having a more sensitive war is safer, if you think that treating World War IV as a nuisance is safer, then yes, Kerry/Edwards would give you a Safer America. If not, however, you better choose the other team.

George W Bush is a wartime president. If you doubt that, ask the three thousand dead from September 11, 2001. Ask the Taliban and ask Saddam Hussain. If you are one of those who think that war never settles anything go find a Carthaginian and ask him or her about it.

War has been declared on this country. Osama Bin Laden said so. He is not the only enemy we have. He is important to America because of 9/11 but he in the overall picture, he is just a player in the show. There are many Islamic Fundamentalist groups that are out there waiting for us. Until we are able to complete this war, we will never be fully safe. That being said, is there any real doubt that the current administration has been able to at least curtail the violence in this country?

The terrorists have said they intend to kill Americans in large numbers. The is little doubt that they have been trying. So far, so good. Unfortunately, that is likely all we could ever honestly be able to say. Kerry wants to use the law enforcement approach to resolving terrorism. Ask him how he will prosecute the suicide bombers. If you think that sending the Sheriff or even the FBI out after Islamic Terrorist will do the job, then you need to stay home. I really don't want you to endanger the lives of millions of guiltless Americans with your uninformed vote.

Although there is no right to vote in the Constitution, that privilege is one that should be guarded ceaselessly. To waste your vote is a shame. If you do go to the polls, think about the safety of your fellow citizens and your descendants. Think about what message you send to the enemies of America if you vote the way the terrorist would like you to. If you doubt that, ask yourself if you were a terrorist, would you want someone that says he will arrest you or someone that says he will kill you and topple the government that supports you.

Vote for the one that will keep your safer.

Vote for George W Bush.

What If Kerry Wins?

2004-10-22T00:13:00.000-05:00

10/21/04

I made my pick in the election on Sept 9, a large win for President Bush. I will stick with it. I still think the American voter will walk into the voting booth and decide, not on the rhetoric that is heard daily by both sides but by the one issue that trumps all of the others, terrorism and the pursuit of victories in the War on Terror.

It seems obvious to most people, even the Kerry supporters that on the issue of terrorism, Mr. Bush wins fairly easily. Senator Kerry made his attempt to derail that support when he “Reported for Duty!” in his convention and he was answered by the Swift Boat Vets.

Since he did so, even through in the debates he either won or at least tied according to most, he has been behind. He gained but cannot overtake the president. He hired a new team, the former President Clinton’s group of slime throwers. He has descended into the tried and true Democrat tactic of “Scare the Old Folks”, “Scare the Minorities”, and a new one this year, “Scare the Young Men” with a new Democrat sponsored Draft Proposal, supported by exactly 2 members of the House of Representatives—both Democrats. The president has been blamed for the Flu vaccine problems, for wanting to destroy Social Security and even by some idiot for causing the hurricanes in Florida by not signing on to the Kyoto Treaty.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of fools out there and there are a lot of people that want to suck up the government largess from the people that actually earn the money. There are those that hate George W Bush. There are some, I’m told, that actually like Senator Kerry. What happens if he wins?

No, I won’t say something stupid like some brain dead entertainers said. I won’t move to Australia. But what is the actual result of the Kerry Win?

Unless the Senate and the House is swept into office with him, it seems unlikely that he will get much if any of his domestic plans implemented. He has generated so much division that I cannot imagine the Congress working with him. His worst immediate damage on the domestic front will be his nominations to the Supreme Court and if the Republicans have learned anything from the Democrats, they will completely block that.

It is hard to say for sure how much will it hurt the country on the foreign front. It could depend on the reactions of the radical Islamisists that we are fighting. Heck of a deal, our future decided by them. If they stand back and allow President Kerry (God! That hurt to write) to take office and make an effort to actually try to implement the “plans” he has offered in their generalities, it may not for a while at least, seem so bad.

The terrorists will probably wait for at least a while to see exactly how much he (I can’t type that title and name twice!) simply gives them. Will he withdraw immediately from Iraq, leaving a country for the Islamic Nuts to take over? Will he completely demoralize the military to the point that they start to cease functioning efficiently? It is clear that he wants to treat World War IV as a Justice Department issue. I think we can guess that idea is doomed to failure. It depends on reacting instead of proactively seeking the terrorists out. It is, after all, such a nuisance.

If the terrorists don’t wait, the country could face 4 years of misery that could be even worse than the awful picture I see. There could be multiple attacks of all sorts. After all, the suicide bombers have to work, too. If they are not needed in Iraq, maybe some will come over here. I am not saying that Kerry would do nothing, just that his methods as demonstrated by his record would be ineffective. It is difficult to arrest a bomber after he detonates. I foresee very little jail time there.

I don’t know where it will go but I will sincerely pray that I don’t have to find out. I’m scared of that possibility that the terrorists will see his election as the weakness it is and push very hard.

Ok, Who’s Surprised?

2004-10-01T23:11:00.000-05:00

10/1/04

It has been 24 hours since the much-ballyhooed debate. Who won? Well, if you listen to the pundits and the campaign people for the Democrats, they did. If you listen to the pundits and the campaign people for the Republicans, they did. Surprise, Surprise.
The general consensus is that Kerry won the Style battle and Bush won the Substance battle. Kerry sounded like an attorney or a college debater and Bush sounded like someone you might run into at the local grocery store. Kerry was glib and displayed a passion I had not heard from him before. Bush displayed the careful, resolved determination most of us have come to expect. Kerry was smooth and easy going, Bush was believable and likeable.
After the words of the two men were given time to sink in, I really didn’t hear anything new from Bush. Kerry, however, showed a little of his true colors in a few of his comments. When speaking of preemptive war, Kerry said “But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.”
Bush’s reply? “I'm not exactly sure what you mean, "passes the global test," you take preemptive action if you pass a global test. My attitude is you take preemptive action in order to protect the American people, that you act in order to make this country secure. “
Bush did a lot of ah… and umm… Oh well, I don’t think I will vote based on how smooth someone sounds. I think I think after all that, I am still where I was. Fortunately, I think most of us are in the same place. My mind is made up. There is only one issue of importance in this election. Who will best protect this country against the militant Islamic Fundamentalists? There is only one answer to that question.

40 Questions for John Kerry

2004-09-16T10:20:00.000-05:00

For Original document, click here

August 26, 2004, 8:33 a.m.Media-Ready Crib SheetTwenty questions for John Kerry.
By Peter Kirsanow

Senator Kerry has been pretty successfully avoiding the media, but sometime between now and November 2 he'll have to sit down for a far-ranging interview on a program other than The Daily Show on Comedy Central. Thus far, most Kerry interviews have been less-than-penetrating (one recent poll even indicates that nearly a third of the electorate knows very little about John Kerry) and certainly not hostile (in comparison, see, among other things, President Bush's press conference of last spring). Bill Clinton was subjected to far-greater scrutiny by this time in the 1992 election cycle. Kerry's legendary policy flip-flops as well as his campaign's shifting stories related to the current controversy compel questioning at least as tough as that directed at Kerry's critics.
Here are only a few of the questions Kerry hasn't adequately addressed. They don't even have anything to do with swift boats. There are no "gotcha" questions. They're posed in a respectful manner. In fact, many are softballs. After all, few interviewers would wish to alienate Kerry and foreclose the possibility of follow-up interviews. With that in mind, here goes:
1. The Bush campaign maintains that you spent 20 years in the Senate with no signature legislative achievements. What do you consider to be the five most important pieces of legislation that you've authored?
a. What's the most important piece of legislation regarding intelligence you've authored?
b. What's the most important piece of antiterrorism legislation you've authored?
c. What's the most important piece of health-care legislation you've authored?
d. What's the most important piece of education legislation you've authored?
2. You'd agree that on paper, Dick Cheney's experience and qualifications dwarf those of your running mate. Why would John Edwards make a better president during the war on terror than Dick Cheney?
a. It's been widely reported that John McCain was your first choice as running mate. If true, why did you prefer Senator McCain to Senator Edwards?
3. Earlier this year you told Tim Russert that you'd release all of your military records, yet you've failed to do so and you refuse to release your Vietnam journal. Why shouldn't the public infer that the contents of these documents would undermine your credibility or otherwise damage your candidacy?
a. When will you release the documents?
4. You've stated that you believe that life begins at conception yet you voted against the ban on partial-birth abortions. At precisely what point is a life worth protecting?
a. Is there any limitation on abortion (waiting periods, parental notification) for which you'd vote? If so, what?
5. You've promised to repeal much of the Bush tax cut and while in the Senate you voted to raise taxes an average of five times per year. If current economic trends remain largely unchanged during a Kerry presidency, would you seek additional tax increases?
a. How would you raise taxes and what are the highest marginal tax rates that you'd support?
6. You opposed the 1991 Gulf War even though Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, had invaded another country, and France and Germany had supported the war. In the current conflict no WMDs have been found, France and Germany oppose the action, and Saddam hadn't invaded another country. Yet you recently stated that knowing what you know now, you'd nonetheless authorize the use of force — even though you voted against funding it. Could you please reconcile these positions?
7. You acknowledge meeting with representatives of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong in Paris in 1970. Afterward you urged Congress to accept the North Vietnamese proposals. Please explain how this wasn't a violation of the Logan Act and, if you were still in the Naval Reserves at that time, how it wasn't a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibiting unauthorized communications with the enemy.
8. In several speeches before black audiences you've stated that a million African Americans were disenfranchised and had their votes stolen in the 2000 presidential election. There are no official or media investigations that support that statement. What evidence do you have to support the statement and if you believe a million blacks had their votes stolen, why haven't you called for criminal prosecutions and congressional investigations?
9. Do you dispute the National Journal's assessment that you're the nation's most liberal senator? If you do, which senators do you consider to be more liberal and why?
10. Why did you propose cutting the intelligence budget by $6 billion in 1994?
11. As president, would you nominate anyone to be either an attorney general, FBI director, or CIA director who had been a leader and chief spokesman for a group that had discussed and voted upon a plan to assassinate U.S. senators (even if the proposed nominee had opposed such plan)?
12. You have consistently stated that you "never, never" attended the November 1971 Kansas City meeting of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War at which a plan to assassinate six pro-military U.S. senators was discussed. Several newspapers reported that when confronted with FBI surveillance reports, your campaign "all but conceded" that you were in attendance , but claimed that this was a mere "footnote in history."
a. Were you there?
b. Did you discuss the assassination of U.S. senators? What did you say?
c. Did you vote upon such a plan? How did you vote? Were any similar plans discussed by your group at any time? What were they?
d. If the plan was voted down, what steps did you take to insure that supporters of the plan didn't carry it out anyway?
e. Especially considering that this took place in an era of political assassinations and assassination attempts (Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., George Wallace, etc.), did you report the discussion to any law-enforcement authorities? If not, why not?
f. When did you resign from the organization?
g. Do you dispute reports that you continued as a spokesman for the organization for more than a year after the Kansas City meeting?
h. If this was a mere footnote in history why have you repeatedly and vehemently denied you were there?
i. Did your campaign, as alleged in several newspaper accounts, attempt to get a witness to change his story about your attendance?
13. You have criticized the Patriot Act. What portions would you repeal or amend and why? What evidence do you have of any abuses of the Patriot Act?
14. As president, what would you do about Iran's emerging nuclear capability?
15. During your eight-year tenure on the Senate Intelligence Committee you missed more than thee fourths of all public meetings. It's also been reported that you have skipped or delayed receiving intelligence briefings during the campaign. Why should the public believe that you're serious about this issue?
16. What do you think is appropriate punishment for guards (and their superiors) found guilty of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib? Do you believe they should be stripped of command and receive dishonorable discharges and prison time?
17. On May 6, 2001, on Meet the Press, you stated that you had committed "the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers" in violation of the Geneva Convention. Specifically, you said you burned villages and "used 50-calibre machine guns, which [you] were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people."
a. Who ordered you to use 50-caliber machine guns on people?
b. How many people did you shoot with the 50s and how many of them were killed or wounded?
c. When and where did these shootings occur?
d. What other atrocities did you commit and when?
e. Which village(s) did you burn down and when?
f. Were any of your crewmembers present during the commission of any of these atrocities?
g. Did you order them to participate in the atrocities? Did they follow your orders?
h. Why were there no reports of these atrocities? Did you order your crew not to report them?
i. Are any of these incidents described in your Vietnam journal? If not, why not?
j. Did you observe thousands of (or any) other troops committing atrocities? When, where and what kind? Did you report them? If not, why not?
k. In light of your admitted atrocities, if Abu Ghraib guards found guilty of abuse should receive prison time and be stripped of command, why do you believe you should be considered for commander-in-chief?
18. Who among the justices currently sitting on the Supreme Court would be a model for your nominees to the federal bench? Why?
19. In a speech before Drake University Law School you characterized U.S. allies in the war in Iraq as "some trumped-up so-called Coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted,..." Do you maintain that Great Britain has been bribed, coerced, bought, or extorted? What about Italy? Japan? Poland? Please specifically identify those members of the Coalition that have been either bribed, coerced, bought, and extorted and the officials who were bribed or bought.
20. You told George Stephanopoulos that you had a plan to get out of Iraq but refused to provide details. Would you consent to having your secret plan privately evaluated by an independent, bi-partisan panel of military experts who could report the plan's merits to the electorate without divulging the details?
a. Would you also consent to privately revealing to an independent panel the names of the foreign leaders who secretly support you so that the panel can confirm your story to the electorate?
b. Ditto regarding the leaders whom you say have secretly told Senators Biden and Levin that you must win?
Obviously, there are a lot more questions — Social Security, health care, etc. Certainly there are tougher questions and those more artfully crafted. This is just a start. Feel free to add your own. TV-newsmagazine producers are welcome to use any of the above.
— Peter Kirsanow is...not holding his breath.

Part 2:

September 15, 2004, 6:23 a.m.Where No Reporter Has Gone Before...Twenty more questions for any Kerry interviewer.
By Peter Kirsanow
Here's a second set of questions the media should pose to John Kerry (for the first, click here). The same premises apply as in the first set: only policy-related questions; nothing to do with the Swifties (who've since posed their own set of questions); no "gotcha" questions; several softballs; and, all posed in a respectful manner:
1. You've repeatedly demanded Donald Rumsfeld's resignation over Abu Ghraib prison abuse. In light of such demand, please respond to the following:
a. Given your confession that you committed atrocities in Vietnam, including burning villages and using 50-caliber machine guns on people, shouldn't you, then, withdraw from presidential consideration?
b. If your answer is "no," please explain why a secretary of Defense should be held to a higher standard than an aspiring president who personally committed atrocities objectively more horrific than the abuses for which you hold Rumsfeld accountable.
2. You now state that Iraq was "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time," yet just a few weeks ago you stated that knowing what you know now you'd still authorize the war. Why would you still vote for a war that is wrong?
a. If the war was wrong, do you maintain Saddam should still be in power? If not, how would you remove him?
b. Which of the following is your primary objection to the Iraq war:
(1) that it shouldn't have been fought?(2) that it was in the wrong location?(3) that the timing was bad?
c. If your answer's either (2) or (3) above, where should the war have been fought and when?
3. During your eight-year tenure on the Senate Intelligence Committee, you missed more than three-fourths of its public meetings. You refuse to release your attendance reports for the committee's closed classified briefings. Why shouldn't voters infer that disclosure of these attendance reports would reveal that you neglected to attend numerous classified briefings?
a. If you did miss any classified briefings, what duties were you tending to that were more important than attending the briefings?
4. Let's assume for the sake of argument that the president lied about the reasons for going into Iraq. Presumably, this means that the intelligence data didn't support the reasons given by the president. You had the same intelligence data on Iraq as the president, yet you voted to authorize the war. Why, then, did you knowingly vote for a lie?
a. By doing so, didn't you also lie to the American people?
b. If so, will you, therefore, urge your supporters to stop running ads declaring that "Bush Lied"?
c. If you maintain that you didn't lie, is it because you neglected to read the intelligence reports prior to the vote?
5. Assuming your definition of a lie is the same as Webster's, i.e., a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive, please specifically identify which of the following statements in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address are lies:
a. Saddam aids and protects terrorists;
b. Saddam has used weapons of mass destruction;
c. Saddam deceived weapons inspectors;
d. Saddam sought uranium from Africa;
e. Saddam has pursued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.
6. What do you consider to be your most important accomplishment as lt. governor to Michael Dukakis?
7. You've criticized the president for acting "unilaterally." As president, would you have gone into Afghanistan without France's approval?
a. Would you have gone into Afghanistan without the approval of France, Germany, and Russia?
b. Please describe your criteria for going to war.
8. You've stated you would appoint only pro-choice judges to the federal bench. Would you agree that, even if it's not your intent, such a litmus test could disproportionately disqualify Catholic nominees?
a. What would you do to ensure that your abortion litmus test wouldn't have a disparate impact against Catholics?
9. Do you think there's waste in the federal government? If so, could you kindly identify ten wasteful government programs that you'd eliminate and why?
10. What do you consider to be your most important accomplishment during your nearly 20 years as a senator?
11. You once entertained supporting charter schools but backed off after teachers' unions objected. You were once critical of affirmative action but backed off after some civil-rights organizations protested. In June you stated you might appoint some pro-life judges but backed off the next day after abortion-rights groups expressed alarm. Could you please take this opportunity to assure voters that you'll be able to handle North Korea, al Qaeda, and Iran more successfully than you're able to handle the NEA, NARAL, and other interest groups?
12. Newsweek Editor Evan Thomas has stated that the media wants you to win and that the media's help is worth 15 points in the polls. Do you agree or disagree with Thomas's statement?
a. If you disagree, is it because you maintain that the media doesn't want you to win or because the advantage is other than 15 points?
13. During a Labor Day rally in West Virginia one of the principal speakers, in your presence, called President Bush and Vice President Cheney draft dodgers. Do you agree that Bush and Cheney are draft dodgers? If not, why didn't you correct your supporter?
14. You maintain that public schools aren't adequately funded. The D.C. public schools spend approximately $13,000 per pupil — one of the highest levels in the nation — yet its students' academic performance is among the worst in the nation. Could you please explain why you oppose parental choice in education?
a. Given that pursuant to court order the Kansas City public schools spent one billion dollars with no discernable improvement in academic performance, what is your definition of "adequately funded"?
15. In your convention speech, you stated that every terrorist attack would be met with an immediate response and you've also stated that you would emphasize a law-enforcement approach to the fight against terrorism. This is identical to the pre-9/11 U.S. approach to terrorism. Could you please explain how a pre-9/11 approach to terrorism will prevent another 9/11?
a. Please describe the lessons you've learned from 9/11.
16. You've repeatedly criticized President Bush for "rushing to war." Since you've conceded that knowing what you know now you'd still authorize the war, precisely when would you have begun the Iraq war?
17. You also criticize the president for going to war "without having a plan to win the peace." You've stated that "winning the peace" would require more troops — but you voted against the $87 Billion bill to fund the troops who are already there. Could you please explain how you would've deployed more troops had your vote against funding prevailed?
a. "Knowing what you know now," would you have voted in favor of the $87 billion in funding?
b. In other words, do you now regret voting against the funding bill after voting for it?
18. During the Democratic primary debate in Greenville, South Carolina, in January, you claimed that the administration had exaggerated the terror threat.
a. Who exaggerated the threat? When? Please supply specific examples of the exaggerations.
b. If the threat has been exaggerated, does this mean that as president you'd reduce intelligence funding and defense spending in proportion to the "actual" threat? If not, why would you overspend?
19. The guards at Abu Ghraib prison forced prisoners to, among other things, disrobe and wear women's underwear in order to humiliate and demoralize them. Former American POWs claim that their North Vietnamese captors forced them to listen to your 1971 Senate testimony recounting alleged U.S. war crimes in order to humiliate and demoralize them. Could you please distinguish your actions from those of the Abu Ghraib guards?
a. If you assert that the difference between your actions and those of the Abu Ghraib prison guards was that you didn't intend your testimony to humiliate and demoralize American POWs, do you at least concede that your actions were reckless and irresponsible?
20. It was well known by the time of your 1971 Senate testimony that North Vietnam used statements by Jane Fonda and other antiwar protesters as propaganda. At the time of your testimony did you consider that it was highly likely that the statements of a naval lieutenant alleging war crimes would also be used?
Journalists are still welcome to use any of the above. You'll have several opportunities in the next two months. Indeed, it would be journalistic malpractice if Kerry weren't at least asked, at a forum likely to be seen by a large segment of the electorate, why, in light of his admitted war atrocities, he should be commander-in-chief.
— Peter Kirsanow is...still not holding his breath.

Why Should He?

2004-09-15T16:39:00.000-05:00

9/15/04

That paragon of journalistic virtue and unquestioned impartiality, Dan Rather has said to the President of the United States, "Answer the questions, Mr. President!". My question to him is, why should he? Rather has been not only drinking but gulping the koolaid for the Kerry campaign. If it hurts Bush, push it. If it hurts Kerry, suppress it.

Dan Rather and the CBS 60 Minutes staff have, in the opinion of most reasonably intelligent viewers, totally destroyed the mantle of objectivity and journalistic honesty which they inherited from the giants of the past. Edward R Murrow must be rolling in his grave so fast that the seismographs are registering it. Only someone with an agenda to push would not only refuse to admit error but refuse to even consider the possibility of error.

Mr. Rather's response that the documents might be true is laughable. If he is going to present himself as a responsible journalist, he has to have some confidence in his sources beyond "they could be true". The same thing could be said about any forged document. It could be true. Not bloody likely in this case. If you look at the huge preponderance of evidence coming in that the documents are fake, he should be saying that although they thought they were real, they should be additionally vetted.

He increases the heat of the fire, however, when he parrots the Kerry surrogates and says that it doesn't matter if the documents are true but that Mr. Bush has to answer them anyway. I could create fake documents saying that Dan Rather was committing some crime. Although the documents are fake, should the police arrest Dan Rather and require that he defend the charges or would it be better to find out if the charges are correct before the arrest? In other words, Why Should He?

My response.....Rest in Peace CBS reputation. It is now gone for good!

Russia

2004-09-10T11:49:00.000-05:00

9/10/04

Russia. The name conjures up many images. In the recent past it brought to mind the vast array of the armies of the Soviet Union and all of it's nuclear forces that were aimed at us.

Before that, it was either a backward Eurasian communist country or a Tsarist fiefdom ruled by the descendants of Ivan the Terrible and Catherine the Great.

Now, what I think of is a country that has a terrorist problem that may be even worse than ours. I grieve strongly for the families in Beslan. There is something horrible to most civilized humans about the concept of murdering children. I hope that there is a special place in Hell reserved for these people. The idea that some soul missing, mindless, "Islamic" fundamentalist loser would target children specifically is chilling and should be eye opening.

In Russia, the president, Vladimir Putin, does not seem to understand yet what is actually going on. He seems to say to the terrorist that he will not negotiate. He will stand firm. All well and good but he is missing a or perhaps the most important step.

When George Bush attempted to get support in his War On Terror (A.K.A. WWIV) he got little help from Russia and some other European nations. To some small extent, I understand why they were loath to lose all the income from weapon sales and so forth but thinking short term is not always the best idea.

It should be clear to everybody by now that the enemies of this country are the same enemies that the entire civilized world has to fight. Maybe they will join the U.S., Great Britain and the other allies in this global struggle. It is a long term fight and the sooner Russia and the other Western countries log on to the battle the sooner we can make serious progress.

This war is to the death of one of the combatants. Western Civilization or Radical Islam. President Bush has done a good job so far but without the rest of the western world joining, we are simply stomping out small flare-ups in a forest fire. It has to be done, but it would be nice to have a little more help! Mr. Putin needs to understand that the world has to stand together or we will surly not stand at all.

Politics Today

2004-09-09T14:39:00.000-05:00

9/9/04

I watched in dismay the Democratic convention. The idea that these people could take control of my country was frightening. When Senator Kerry Reported for Duty, I almost couldn't believe it. He has somehow convinced himself (but luckily not all of us) that the only requirements for becoming the President of the United States is to have served in Vietnam, gotten medals and not be George Bush.

After the convention, he got a negative bounce. The pundits of the liberal media all immediately jumped up and defended him and the conventional explanation was that there were so very few undecided voters that a bounce was not possible. They didn't mention that a negative bounce implies losing support. We weren't supposed to notice that.

The Republican convention was, to this obviously unbiased reporter, extremely well done. The speeches indicated the differences within the party's big tent. The Zell Miller speech was possibly the best I have heard in a long time. Zell was angry. Arnold was happy to be an American. Rudy was happy to be in New York and a lot of the others just seemed happy.

President Bush gave his speech and against the gentleman's agreement that has long existed, Senator Kerry spoke the same night. The result? An 11 point bounce for George W Bush. I guess all of the undecided voters decided at the same time? Wait...There aren't any undecided voters. It must have been the Kerry voters that decided to change sides. Wait.... Yeah, maybe. Who knows where the bounce came from--I'm just glad to see it.

I just know that the difference in the tone of the conventions were reflected by the polls. Happy people are a lot better to watch than pople that are working so hard at not saying what they want to say. You could tell that most of the Democrats wanted to shout something along the lines of "Bush is Satan". What will happen in the future is yet to be seen. I think that it will be a large win for the President but I guess we will have to wait until November to see. I hope so!

Are they Alike?

2004-08-20T14:41:00.000-05:00

8/20/04

Question. How is the US Olympic movement, especially the men's basketball team like presidential politics?

I have been watching the 2004 Olympics on NBC this week and I have reached a conclusion. It seems that I am seeing the same type of "in your face" performances that I see daily in the political arena. The US men's basketball team played in a manner that we all expected. They were a group of individuals that were interested in showing how good they are. The issue of a team did not arise. Each player had to show he was the best there was. He had to do this, no matter what the consequences were to the team.

In the current round of presidential politics, I am seeing the same type of thing, particularly in the Democrat and National Media camps. On the Democratic side, I hear reckless charges of misleading or lying to the public about one thing or another. From the media, I see nothing that could hurt the Democratic candidate and nothing that could help the Republican candidate. Neither one of these two seem to realize that the fate of the country could be resting on these actions. Team America is at risk. We are at war. We need to consider this when we take actions that could hurt us in the rest of the world. When a representative of a major political party make statements that embolden our enemies it causes hurt to the country and the brave troops that defend us.

It is good that partisanship exists but as it once did, it should stop at the shorelines. Partisanship is the way compromises and decisions are made. Argue all you want about domestic policy and even foreign policy but stating you will "bring the troops home" during a presidential election time merely tells the enemy that if they can hold out for a little while longer they could win by default.

When not in a presidential race, make your arguments. Attempt to change policy. If the public supports you it will force the leadership to change. Putting any particular time limit on troop withdrawal is simply a bad idea. It is not a good idea to risk the lives of your soldiers so you can be shown as the most important player in the game. We should be a team!

What I Want George W Bush to say

2004-08-13T16:35:00.000-05:00

8/13/04

I Am Staying on Board and Continuing to Do My Duty!
On August 30th, the Republican National Convention starts in New York. On the 2nd of September, George W. Bush, the current President of the United States, will accept the nomination of his party to run for reelection ion. I’m sure this is no surprise to anyone. What follows is what I would like to have included in the text of the address that he will give to formalize that acceptance.
I want George W Bush to stand up in the spotlight and say " The age of Political Correctness in defense of this country is past!" If we need to profile to stay safe, do so. We will do what is necessary to protect this country.
I want to have George W Bush address the continuing progress in the war on terror, or as I call it, World War IV. I would like to hear George W. Bush say that he was right to go to war in Iraq. The intelligence sources of almost the entire world including the Senate Intelligence Committee, the CIA, Vladimir Putin , MI5, French Intelligence and many others all agreed that Saddam Hussain . I would like him to remind the country of why we are fighting this war--war was declared on us.
I want to know how we will address the remaining members of the Axis of Evil. What about Syria? I know we cannot attend everything at one time but is there a plan? I really don’t necessarily want the plan spread all over the news, but I want to know one actually exists.
I would like to hear George W. Bush say that although tax cuts were a good idea, it is a better goal for the country to completely reform the tax system. There are several good or better ideas out there to strive for and I (in my second term) will push for a Congressional review aimed at a National Sales Tax such as the Fair Tax.
I would like him to say that although he supports immigration into this country, he wants to have some manner of control of it. He needs to institute a new, sweeping policy of work visas, of border security and cooperation with local law enforcement to control illegal immigration. Undocumented workers are illegal unless they have a visa or work permit. While here, they should be treated fair but not given carte blanch at the trough of the welfare handout.
I would like to hear that "the age of Big Government is over" again, except that this time, I want it to be a real goal. I want to have some indication that the rising entitlements of government have some limits. No longer will this administration mortgage the future to get some votes. I know some of this was motivated by the attempt to bring a more civil atmosphere to Washington. It can’t happen. As long as the Democrats are out of power, there is no bi-partisianship available. Working with Ted Kennedy will only get you dirty, not more votes.
I want to hear that America is growing out of the short recession and that Americans are working in large numbers and that we can feel good about us again.
I want to hear from the Gipper again!