I am reworking the header images so I just put up a temporary one for now, just fyi. It looks like the switch to WP 2.0.6 is going well so far. Now I just need to finish adjusting the theme.

We will be upgrading STG to WordPress 2.0.6 this weekend from this old 1.5.2 distro we are using. So please stand by as we’ll likely have some slight glitches. Also, we will be launching two new project sites on Monday so stay tuned.

Iowa sources are reporting Tom Tancredo will announce his presidential campaign this weekend in Iowa. I have talked with several pro-Tancredo sources who seem to be confirming this rumor.

Video Removed for Bug CheckModerators = Alex Trebec
Anonymous = Sean Connery

In response to Sam’s earlier post on the President’s new policy in Iraq, I just have one question. What would you have President Bush do?

This is where I go all neocon on you.

This new policy in Iraq is a course correction. Granted it is late, and mistakes have been made, but still it is an attempt at correction. One I hope succeeds. War sucks, and can never be perfect. Robert E. Lee put it best when he said, “It is well that war is so terrible, lest we should grow too fond of it.”

As for our soldiers in Iraq “getting picked off like they’re first prize in a turkey shoot” is just plain silly. I am not picking on Sam, but we need to discuss this plainly and simply. We have yet to experience major losses in the war on terror. In the Civil War we lost 365,000 men. In WWI, 116,00. 407,000 in WWII. 40,000 in Korea and 58,000 in Vietnam.

So the fact we have lost 3,000 men is not lining them up for a “turkey shoot”. Any death is tragic but we must put this war into the perspective of history. But at what expense? Yes our casualties are low (not by the left’s standards), but we also are not winning. So do we cut and run with our tails between are legs? Or do we correct past mistakes?

In my opinion 20,000 troops is not enough. We currently have 116,000 troops in Europe? Why? All they are doing is helping Germany’s economy. I propose cutting the European force in half and redeploy the rest to Iraq. Put a platoon on every street corner of Baghdad if we have to. Suffocate the insurgency. Of course this will never happen. This proposal would cause the death toll to rise, something the American people do not have the will to do and our Politicians know this all too well.

I believe it was the right decision to go into Iraq. Not for WMDs, or to over through a tyrant, but rather to draw out our enemies. To force them into a single front. That objective has succeeded. Now all that is left is to beat them. Will we win? I have my doubts. I have no lack of competency in our military. My doubt lies in the American people who do not have the will to stand up to Islamic Fascism. Our weak stomachs hamstring our politicians when fighting in a war. Especially a gorilla war like the War on Terrorism.

So what are we to do? President Bush has waged a war in which we did not have enough troops on the ground in Iraq and setbacks have occurred. If the troop surge is not the answer, what is? No one is proposing an alternative plan for success in Iraq. No one. Only defeat.

Yesterday, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) proposed an amendment to the Senate ethics reform bill that was essentially the language passed by Pelosi’s Democratically-run House. While the current Senate ethics package will only allow for the public disclosure of about 5% of earmarks, adding Pelosi’s package will allow for the disclosure of all earmarks that are done in the Senate.

So the good Senator from South Carolina, in a bipartisan move, suggested adding the Democratic Speaker of the House’s ethics package to the weaker Senate package in an effort to better inform the American people about how their money is spent in Washington. Should pass the Senate unanimously, right?

Wrong.

The Senate Majority Leadership engaged in tactics reminiscent of the House Majority’s actions in 2003 in order to twist arms to pass the Medicare Part D bill. The Club For Growth provides the best rundown of how this happened:

The Senate is boiling with excitement right now. For background, the Senate is proposing very weak earmark reform rules. In contrast, Speaker Pelosi and the House Democrats implemented some very strong earmark rules in the lower chamber last week.

In response, Senator Jim DeMint, who is a very strong advocate for more transparency, figured, “Let’s just offer Pelosi’s reforms as an amendment to the Senate bill.”

It was a very clever strategy. Dick Durbin, the Majority Whip, threw a fit on the Senate floor and offered a motion to table it (kill it).

Let’s be clear about the rich irony here. Senate Leadership tried to kill a bill that House Leadership supported and passed. Harry Reid and Dick Durbin are basically saying that they want their pork no matter what, even if it embarrasses their own party.

So when the motion to kill the bill came to a vote, Durbin and the Democrats lost! [ed. note: At this point, the Senate erupted. The chair, who I think was Maria Cantwell, banged the gavel repeatedly to bring the room to order. The Democrats were frantically performing triage in an attempt to recover.]

It should be noted that a majority should never offer a motion to table if they aren’t sure they can win. It was very embarrassing. Especially since Durbin was trying to kill a proposal that his Leadership colleagues in the House offered!

Anyways, after the motion failed, DeMint asked for a voice vote, which is common. It’s basically used to save time since de facto support of the bill was decided when the motion failed. However, Big Ted Kennedy objected, which is all that it needed to skip a voice vote.

The Dems are now off the floor whipping the hell out of their members for when they take a real roll call vote later this afternoon.

Read the entire piece for all the updates on how this played out on the Senate last night. The Club also reports today that the motion to table won’t be brought back up today, showing that Reid’s attempts to whip solid Democratic opposition to the amendment has not been successful yet.

More from HUMAN EVENTS, RedState (with the best headline, “Cue the Clown Music”), and the Americans For Prosperity has a list of the 10 Democrats who defected to the Republican side and the 7 Republicans who are likeminded with Reid (guess who’s on the list? Republican Whip “Getting damn tired of those Porkbusters” Lott!).

UPDATE: Reid Waves White Flag. The Amendment will be attached to the bill and Senators will have to disclose earmarks just like their counterparts in the House do.