Sometimes I think the world and this country is going to heck in a hand basket, sometimes I come across something that shows that the American people still get it.

This is a small article and video from CNN, from up in Bakersfield where there is a new National Cemetery.  There’s no political content to this, no pats on the back, no pokes in the eye out of this story. It’s just a story of ordinary folks from Kern County and Bakersfield honoring a couple of unknown vets who died and were laid to rest with honor and respect by the good folks from Bakersfield.

Veterans day is Wednesday, small town America still remembers why.

CNN story, “Unknown vets spared paupers’ grave”

Bloomberg is up with a story of how the California budget is once again in the hole to the tune of $1.1 Billion.

“California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will know within a month whether a $1.1 billion drop in revenue collections is part of a growing budget shortfall or an isolated event, his budget spokesman said.

Revenue in the three months ended Sept. 30 was 5.3 percent less than assumed in the $85 billion annual budget, state controller John Chiang reported yesterday. Income tax receipts led the gap, as unemployment reached 12.2 percent in August.”

This development is going to turn the race for Governor back in an interesting direction and could be a good one for Republicans….maybe.

The Democratic nominee for Governor, most likely former Governor Moonbeam Brown, will have to explain how he will deal with the sinking ship SS California which is taking on more and more water and a middle class electorate just hanging on in the middle of recession. Raise taxes, more cuts in education, which will annoy the CTA, more cuts to state employees, which will annoy the state workers unions including the powerful state prison guard union, or what.

Over on the Republican side, the nominee for Governor is going to face the same economic facts, but will not have to pander to the various state unions in order to deal with the problem. There is an opportunity to be bold on the R side to deal with the budget problem, but how bold will the R nominee be and will the electorate beleive promises made after the tenure of the “Girlyman Governator” who famously said during the recall election “We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem”, and failed to deliver on anything.

California once again is turning into ground zero for a debate between the views of both parties over the role of government, taxation, government spending on services, and how to balance competing interests and demands. How this debate plays out might just be a harbinger of future races and for that matter the 2012 Presidential race.

Promoted from diaries - and let me be the first to thank the current Senate Majority Leader for ensuring that the Las Vegas Review-Journal endorses his Republican opponent - whoever that may end up being. - Moe Lane

Looks like old Harry Reid done gone and stepped on it, “Big Time”, at least in Vegas with the paper of record for the state.

I usually scan a fair number of Dead Tree media sites, and I have never seen an editorial that slaps down a politician this hard, especially a sitting Senator up for re-election.  Maybe it’s a good sign of the turning of the tide for a MSM that is getting tired of free prostitution for Democratic office holders, maybe this is just Nevada, who knows, but this is a great editorial.

From Sunday’s ReviewJournal

“SHERMAN FREDERICK: Enough is enough, Harry

Stop the childish bullying…..

On Wednesday, before he addressed a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Reid joined the chamber’s board members for a meet-’n'-greet and a photo. One of the last in line was the Review-Journal’s director of advertising, Bob Brown, a hard-working Nevadan who toils every day on behalf of advertisers. He has nothing to do with news coverage or the opinion pages of the Review-Journal.”

“President Obama today announced* that health care reform would indeed mean that someone, somewhere, was going to have to make tough choices about what health care was appropriate in what circumstances.

“As President, it is my duty to step up to the plate and lead. To take these hard decisions and to show that, yes, indeed, we can.”"

source. Examiner LA

Ok…so it’s not real, but it is funny.

It looks like there is actually some shame left in Washington when it comes to buying more airplanes for Air Pelosi.

From the WSJ August 10th.

WASHINGTON — Bipartisan opposition is emerging in the Senate to a plan by House lawmakers to spend $550 million for additional passenger jets for senior government officials.

The resistance to buying eight Gulfstream and Boeing planes comes as members of both chambers of Congress embark on the busiest month of the year for official overseas travel. The plan to upgrade the fleet of government jets, which was included in a broader defense-funding bill, has also sparked criticism from the Pentagon, which has said it doesn’t need half of the new jets.

Two Missouri senators, Democrat Claire McCaskill and Republican Christopher Bond, said they would oppose funding for the jets when the legislation is taken up by the Senate in September.

While the term bipartisan gets a bad rap here on RS, in this case I’ll applaud any help from anyone R or D that helps to ground Air Pelosi, so polite golf applause for Claire McCaskill and a big round of fiscal conservative Republican applause for Christopher Bond.

Let’s see if this is a trend or a one off.

OK, so I’ve been critical of Birthers posts, and here I am posting one, so Pot calling Kettle Black…guilty as charged.

But this is a slightly different news item, one that is sure to make some RS Birthers heads spin and maybe even explode. This is just sad…very sad news.

“It’s looking more and more like the forged “Kenyan birth certificate” released by Orly Taitz on Sunday was a prank by a supporter of President Obama. Politijab points to an anonymous blogger at FearlessBlogging, who has uploaded four photos of the original forgery and a mocking declaration:”

source: Washington Independent

I realize that CA is the land of “Fruits and Nuts”, but sometimes common sense does tend to break out.  Call me a cynic, but this move is being driven by the coming budget crunch in California, and a realization that housing criminal illegal aliens is a really stupid way to spend money when there’s not a lot to go around.

From the uber Liberal LA Times.

“3 California counties will check immigration status as inmates enter jail”

“Los Angeles, Ventura and San Diego will become the first counties in California to begin checking the immigration status of all inmates booked into jail as part of a national effort to identify and deport more illegal immigrants with criminal records.”

What’s really bad here however is that this is a program being started by local authorities, there is no state Law that mandates these sorts of check, as a poltical issue, Republicans in the CA Assembly ought to be all over this issue and running, not walking to get on the foor of the Assembly to introduce legislation that mandates these sorts of non descriminatory checks in every jail house in the state.

If there was any question at all that Obama and the Democrats in power now were bought and paid for by Union dollars, today’s news from California out to clear that up.

The Obama administration threatens to rescind billions in stimulus money if Gov. Schwarzenegger and lawmakers do not restore wage cuts to unionized home healthcare workers.  LA Times

I have no sympathy for the Girlyman Governator, he’s getting what he deserves, and I do hope the Republican minority in the CA Assembly sticks to it’s newly found principles and just says no by refusing to vote in favor of restoring these cuts (takes a 3/4 vote to pass a budget change).

With Prop 1A (Sales Tax increase) set to go down in defeat, and the economy not on the mend out here in CA, some real choices are going to confront the Assembly when it comes to taxation and spending in the Golden State. It remains to be seen what the Republican minority is going to offer up in the way of cuts to balance the state budget, and with the Democratic majority clearly beholding to the SEU, CTA, state employees and others depending on the largess of the California tax payer along with Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress paying back Union supporters with this sort of threat, it’s going to be a bloody battle.

Look for a long hot summer in Sacramento while the battle of the CA budget is waged.

Why are people fed up with Republicans, ask Senator Mike Enzi R Wyoming why he’s set to co-sponsor this piece of garbage.

Report: Congress Set to End Tax-Free Online Shopping

From Fox news

For the past decade and a half, most Internet shoppers haven’t been forced to pay sales tax while buying goods online.

But now, according to CNet News, an alliance of “brick-and-mortar” retailers and state governments has teamed up to end that — and they’ve crafted federal legislation that may be introduced in Congress as early as next week.

While I expect Democrats to do this sort of thing, a Republican Senator working to raise taxes, what in the Wide Wide World of Sports is this fool smoking?  Does the Senator from Wyoming in that bad of need for campaign contributions from the merchant groups trying to kill internet sales, or is this something else all together?

What sort of conservative value is it to raise taxes on ordinary people?

Maybe Senator Enzi was out of town on a junket last week when all the Tea Parties were going on, must have been because he sure as heck did not get the point that people think we are paying too much in taxes now without this sort of stupidity.

In short, Stupid is as Stupid Does and this move of a Republican Senator cosponsoring a bill to tax internet sales is STUPID.

FORT WORTH, Texas, March 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/

– Lockheed Martin test pilot David Cooley, 49, was killed today at about 10 a.m. Pacific timeCalifornia. We are deeply saddened by the loss of David and our concerns, thoughts and prayers at this time are with his family. David joined Lockheed Martin in 2003 and was a 21-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. He worked at the F-22 Combined Test Force, where a team of Lockheed Martin and Air Force pilots conduct F-22 aircraft testing. in the crash of an F-22 aircraft flying on a test mission from Edwards AFB,

No details yet on the cause of the crash, or any other information, but a sad day in the aviation community.

I just caught the last ¾ of Michael Steele’s appearance on FOX News Sunday and there is only one word to express my reaction “GREAT”.

While I’m not going to do a full in-depth review, my takeaways were:

#1 This guy can think on his feet.

When Chris Wallace tried to push Steele into a corner over the real differences in the R brand over real divides on social issues, Steele did not get tripped up. His 80/20 agreement explanation was great.

#2 Steele invoking the 80/20 rule.

Steele is brilliant when he asserts that the Republican brand needs to start working together on the 80 percent of the issues conservatives agree on, fiscal, defense, law and order, education while not abandoning recognition that there are 20 percent of issues that the party disagrees on, mostly in social issues. Steele made no apology for his Catholic faith and what it teaches him about abortion, and that’s a pretty darn good answer. I also like Steel’s answer on Gay marriage, and his rejection of Federal laws asserting that states can take care of the issue, a 10^th Amendment Federalist point of view that I like.

#3 Did I mention that Mr. Steele can think on his feet and put forward a positive presence on TV, one that has been missing for 8 years?

What does everyone else think?

Today’s a WS Journal editorial breaks apart the myth of "95 Percent of Americans" get a tax break.

 The link is here. 

 The money quote is the very last paragraph:

Some families with an income of $40,000 could lose up to 40 cents in
vanishing credits for every additional dollar earned from working
overtime or taking a new job. As public policy, this is contradictory.
The tax credits are sold in the name of "making work pay," but in
practice they can be a disincentive to working harder, especially if
you’re a lower-income couple getting raises of $1,000 or $2,000 a year.
One mystery — among many — of the McCain campaign is why it has
allowed Mr. Obama’s 95% illusion to go unanswered.

Senator McCain, why are you not challenging "The One" on these basic facts?  Wednesday’s debate would be a darn good time to start!

Recently John McCain has been coming face to face with “Angry” Americans; I’m one of them by the way. What does this anger mean and how is McCain dealing with the anger? Badly in my estimation.

First up, why are people angry? I’m personally angry because I play by the rules, I have a job, I don’t take on a lot of debt, I live in a house I can afford, I save money in my 401K and am getting hosed right now. My 401K is down about 50 percent right now, and that is going to hurt, or at least push back when I can retire. I think that the rest of the American middle class who are pretty much in the same boat as me are also angry because of the economic mess this country is in and we want someone to blame.

For sure I blame Democrats like Barney Frank and Maxine Waters for their well documented role in this mess, but there’s much more blame to go around. I blame the fools that had decent paying jobs, but not super paying jobs who went out and bought houses that they could not afford and the system that let them do so.

That brings me to the other bucket of blame, the bucket of blame I offer up to President Bush and his executive team that stood by silently while this economic crisis grew and grew. There’s probably some blame left in that bucket for Republican Senators and Congresscritters who did nothing while this problem developed. Where were they, why were they silent while this stuff happened? The only Senator who spoke out against the excesses of Freddie and Fanny was John McCain by the way.

But back to John McCain and his run for the Presidency against “The One”. Both have essentially the same position on the economic bailout, with “The One” throwing more blame for the mess on the policies of the President.

I see no policies put forth by McCain on how to prevent this problem from happening in the future, I see no honest assignment of blame, starting with the current President and his team for their role in not minding the store so to speak. I see no bold moves by McCain, like announcing an appointment of prosecution Czar by the name of Rudy Giuliani to go after both the banks, the lenders and yes the people who engaged in mortgage fraud. I’m not even getting a Clintoish “I feel your pain” coming from Senator McCain. I get a lot of “my friends” and lame speeches by President Bush.

As a rant, yes I am angry, and so are the rest of ordinary Americans who played fair, did what they were supposed to do and are now getting hosed. As a rant, this is not an appeal to vote for anyone other than McCain, I don’t believe in putting the Fox in charge of the hen house by voting for “The One”, but John McCain has to address this anger with something more than he has to date if he wants to win this election. If that something is putting the President under the bus for his role in this economic mess, so be it.

Joe Biden…the gift that keeps giving and giving and giving.

In this interview with cute little Catie of the bloodshot eye network, Senator Joe “Foot in Mouth” Biden spills the beans on the lack of class exhibited by campaign Nobama.

I keep wondering when the Nobama campaign will put good old Joe on ice!

Read More →

With the announcement of Joe Biden as VP on the Donk side, are we going to see somewhat of a dress rehearsal next week when it comes to Republican Spin misters on the talking heads shows at the Donk convention? Maybe not exactly dress rehearsals, but maybe Pre-Season lineup tryouts.

I’d guess that we see the usual group of Republicans interviewed, but I also think there will be a bit of pre-season thing going on. I’d watch carefully on who is trotted out from the R side of the ditch and how they do to get an idea of how and what John McCain is thinking about on the VP front.

I’m sure we’ll see Mike Huckabee, probably Fred, probably Mitt, and a few of the rising stars like Bobby Jendal. By the way, I’d love Bobby to comment that none of his people own, work, or hang out at ether a Dunkin Doughnuts, or a 7-11, even in passing.

My long winded Bidenish point; keep tabs of who gets the most TV face time, and how they do on the talking heads shows. Next week at the Donk convention is sort of a dress rehearsal for the McCain VP and a bit of a Pre-Game. I’m sure the eventual McCain VP will get some face time, and it will be interesting to see how they do.

Well it’s almost time for the “conversation” from Saddleback Church, so I am posting this as an open thread.

This is also going to turn into a test of RS 3.0 and the servers, hence the Server Test V 1.0 title. I hope Neil and company don’t mind and will cross their fingers as the balloon goes up and this first pseudo debate open thread. There will be more tests in the future debate season.

As to expectations for the “conversation”, I’ve got none, but it should be interesting.

Howard Dean, last time I check a nerdy white guy, has brought the race card back into play today.

In an NPR interview on a local Maryland station Mr. Dean, chairman of the DNC, “slipped” and called the Republican party the “White Party”. Seems like the truth of the racist overtones that keep being mentioned by the MSM in regards to race in the contest for the White house will indeed come out, but as many have anticipated, from the Liberal side of the aisle.

Not to sound like I really care about Hillary, but I actually think that Hillary and her supporters should be livid over yet another Democratic male leader giving her the business.

Consider for a second:

John Edwards, who had this ticking time bomb of a scandal in his closet, came in second in Iowa to Obama, and stayed in the race. If Edwards was not just another member of the Democratic boys club, and had done the honorable thing, he would have dropped out when he informed his wife of his infidelity. What would Edwards dropping out ether before Iowa, or right after had done to the Hillary/Nobama race? But we all know Edwards and for that matter few Democrats really care about anything, other than themselves so that’s a bit of joke comment.

I’ve also been wondering about the famous Watergate question that no one will ask Nobama, “What did you know and when did you know it”. Seems to me like Nobama might have had the dirt on Edwards, but used that dirt to keep Edwards in the race, at least long enough to knock old Hillary out of the race.

So Hillary got done over by Bill with ‘Affair de Monica , and looks like she got done by Edwards affair. I’d say old Hillary has every right to be be mad as heck and her supports should be too! It’s really such a shame that Democrats really think so poorly about women that none of the current Nobama worshiping party members or the MSM will talk about what Edwards affair did to Hillary.

It’s just too darn bad that those dedicated Hillary supporters just can’t be informed of what their party, or rather the men of their party have done to the women of the Democratic party. Why those Hillary supporters should be so mad that they go ahead and express their anger on the floor of the Democratic convention by putting good old Hillary’s name up for the President spot and stage some protests until they get some respect.

Poor Hillary!

A rather short diary, but hey it’s a video one, so…

This election has now as they say, “Jumped the Shark” (Google it if you don’t know that one).

In some ways, this is pretty funny.