God is Mitt Romney awful.  I always tell people that John Edwards reminds me of a sleazy used car salesman.  Well, I think he and Romney are in business together.  The guy is just phony, phony, phony.

I don’t think anybody in particular stood out tonight.  I think Fred stumbled over a lot of his words.  Rudy wasn’t at his best.  McCain gave good answers I thought, but he didn’t seem very excited to be there.  It’s time that Tancredo and Hunter call it quits.  It’s obvious being so close to Iowa that they aren’t going anywhere so for them to continue to be involved is just wasting time that could be used on the competitive candidates.  I would throw Ron Paul in with that as well except he has actually raised a good sum of money and has gained some ground.

The highlight of the evening of course was when Romney and Giuliani got into a tizzy with each other and for a moment I was ready for them to have a physical confrontation.

Oh, and Bill Bennett just said on Fox News that he thought that Romney came across the best tonight as the clear, concise conservative.  He must have watched a completely different Republican Youtube debate.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the Iowa caucus finds former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee with 28% of the vote, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney with 25% support, and everyone else far behind. National frontrunner Rudy Giuliani gets just 12% of the vote in Iowa at this time while former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson is the only other candidate in double digits at 11%

Rasmussen Reports

Oh God, help us.  I never thought I would hear myself say this, but the social conservatives are ruining our party.  There needs to be a balance between social conservatism and limited government fiscal conservatism and for the past six years it’s been extremely lopsided in one direction.  What’s more frightening is not that Huck could be our candidate, but according to recent polls, could actually end up being our President.

Top Republican lawmakers on Tuesday called on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a “fiscal crisis” to deal with California’s looming budget problem, but administration officials said such a move would be premature.

Sen. Bob Dutton, a Republican from Rancho Cucamonga who refused to vote for the current budget because it spent too much, said the governor should use a special authority voters assigned him during the last budget crisis to tackle a budget deficit forecast to be nearly $10 billion.

Under Proposition 58 passed in 2004, the governor could declare a fiscal emergency if he determines revenue is “substantially below” what was anticipated in the budget and summon the Legislature into special session.

“If we don’t do something now … to deal with this crisis, we could find ourselves right back where we were five years ago,” Dutton said following a Senate budget committee hearing in the Capitol on Tuesday.

The Sacramento Bee

I think Arnold has actually been worse than Gray Davis.

Thrust into the national spotlight on the 2008 presidential campaign trail, the case of killer Daniel Tavares is a horrific tale that reaches back well over a decade.1991 - Tavares pleads guilty to stabbing his mother to death in their Somerset home, and is sentenced to 17- to 20 years.

April 2006 - Kathe Tuttman of Andover is nominated to the state Superior Court by then-Gov. Mitt Romney.

June 11, 2007 - Tavares, 41, completes sentence with year off for good behavior but charges of assaulting prison guards keep him incarcerated on $50,000 bail.

July 16, 2007 - Judge Tuttman grants Tavares’ bail appeal and releases him on personal recognizance, even after Worcester prosecutors warned of his violent history and the assault charges.

July 23, 2007 - Tavares defaults on a court date after fleeing to Washington state.

Nov. 17, 2007 - Tavares is accused of murdering Beverly Mauck, 28, and Brian Mauck, 30, in their home in rural Graham, Wash., reportedly after an argument over $50.

Friday - Romney calls for the judge to resign, with his GOP presidential campaign spokesman citing a “systematic failure” in the case “starting with the judge.”

The Boston Herald

Tuttman is a Democrat who Romney appointed because he wanted “diversity” on the Massachusetts courts. Is this the man we want choosing our next Supreme Court justice?

Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, who helped broker a bipartisan immigration bill that went down to defeat this year despite President Bush’s support for it, will run to replace Lott as the Republicans’ vote-counting whip, said spokesman Ryan Patmintra.

While some might like to think that one of the freshman, like Coburn or DeMint, would be better for the position, the Senate is an old boys network. Some will cry foul over Kyl’s recent statements on immigration, but over his time in the Senate he has established himself as a pretty darn reliable conservative on everything from limited government to Supreme Court nominations. If he gets a challenger, it will probably be from an old bull who thinks he has accumulated enough owed favors to get the position, and that person would almost certainly not be even close to as friendly to the right as Kyl is.

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton trails five top Republican presidential contenders in general election match-ups, a drop in support from this summer, according to a poll released on Monday. Clinton’s top Democratic rivals, Barack Obama and John Edwards, still lead Republicans in hypothetical match-ups ahead of the November 4, 2008, presidential election, the survey by Zogby Interactive showed.Clinton, a New York senator who has been at the top of the Democratic pack in national polls in the 2008 race, trails Republican candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, John McCain and Mike Huckabee by three to five percentage points in the direct matches.Reuters

Doesn’t it make you feel just warm all over? Maybe we all need to start doing a rain dance for a Clinton nomination. Perhaps I’m better off voting in the Democratic Primary.

For an AIDS-scary world, there is some good news. AIDS may have been one of the biggest epidemics, but scientists now believe that the size and the course of the disease have been grossly over-estimated over a decade.In what could be a stunning revelation, the United Nations top AIDS scientists will soon acknowledge the ‘mistakes’, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, say media reports.

Reports say new studies have even shown that United Nations has cut its estimate of HIV cases in India by more than half.

The revisions amount to at least a partial acknowledgment of criticisms long levelled by researchers who disputed the UN version and reports about “an ever-expanding global epidemic”, reports said.

The new estimate put the number of annual new HIV infections at 2.5 million, a cut of more than 40 percent from last year’s estimate, reports said quoting the UN statement.

Total number of people infected worldwide with HIV — estimated a year ago at nearly 40 million and rising — now will be reported as 33 million.

Rediff News

Well, what do you know. Those UN scientists were mistaken, yet when discussing man’s supposed contribution to global warming there is simply no disputing the consensus of these same UN scientists that we are bringing about the end of humanity with our SUVs and coal power plants.

Or is there?

Critics, the reports said, also said that UN officials overstated the extent of the epidemic to help gather political and financial support to combat AIDS.

“There was a tendency toward alarmism, and that fit perhaps a certain fund-raising agenda,” said Helen Epstein, author of “The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS’

“I hope the new numbers will help refocus the response in a more pragmatic way.”

Well, I am just aghast that the UN might possibly exaggerate their “scientific” claims in order to push a preplanned agenda through. But no, that’s just simply not a possibility when it comes to global warming. They must be telling us the truth because they are so trustworthy. No agenda there.

Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, plans to resign his seat before the end of the year, congressional and Bush administration officials said Monday.

Lott, 66, scheduled two news conferences in Pascagoula and Jackson later in the day to reveal his plans. According to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement, Lott intends to resign effective at the end of the year.

No reason for Lott’s resignation was given, but according to a congressional official, there is nothing amiss with Lott’s health. The senator has “other opportunities” he plans to pursue, the official said, without elaborating. Lott was re-elected to a fourth Senate term in 2006.

AP

I am pleased to hear this. Lott has been horrible when it comes to earmark reform and has constantly made justifications as to why he and his porker colleague, Senator Cochran, need them so badly. Governor Barbour will appoint a replacement who will serve until the 2008 election. There is wide speculation that Congressman Chip Pickering will be the anointed successor. Whoever it is, I hope they have a more fiscally responsible agenda than Lott did.

Fox News did a piece on where the five first tier candidates stand in regards to Social Security:

_ Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani: Supports private accounts. Opposes higher taxes. Favors bipartisan commission to propose changes. “I would rule out a tax increase”

_ Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney: Supports private accounts. Opposes higher taxes. Open to a reduction in promised benefits to future retirees at higher income levels. “I’m prepared to be entirely bold, but I’m not prepared to cut benefits for low-income Americans.”

_ Sen. John McCain: Supports private accounts. Says obligations can be met without raising taxes. “As president, I’ll submit a plan to save Social Security, and I’ll ask Congress to do the same.”

_ Former Sen. Fred Thompson: Supports reduction in promised benefits to future retirees. Supports voluntary private accounts, with the government matching funds contributed by individual. Opposes raising taxes. “The status quo is not having a Social Security system as we know it.”

_ Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: Supports private accounts. Would allow retirees who don’t need their benefits the option of a tax-free lump sum payment that goes at their death to children or grandchildren. Would allow higher benefits for seniors who delay retirement beyond 70. “The president had the right idea, but he used the wrong word.”

In Massachusetts, which passed a mandatory insurance law last year, high costs are forcing the state to let more than 10 percent of the uninsured off the hook because they won’t be able to afford the premiums.Experts say the affordability problem is not going away. Medical inflation means the gap between what most people can pay and what health care truly costs gets wider every year.

The Bakersfield Californian

Romney likes to tout this as one of his grand successes as Governor of the Peoples’ Republic of Taxachusetts, but it’s a crock. As the article points out, the costs are inflating and the state is now giving a sizable amount of people a pass on the mandate rather than the $1,000 fine that was supposed to penalize those who did not abide by the new freedom stealing law.

The Christian News Wire notes two different statements that Huckabee has made in the past concerning his Federalist approach to abortion. One is below:

“The issue divides strongly committed pro-life and pro-choice Republicans but is not a central issue to most other Republicans. A possible platform revision long under discussion would say the Republican Party, ‘unlike the Democratic Party, does not stand for abortion on demand and is basically a pro-life party.’ In the spirit of federalism, the proposed GOP revision also would replace the abortion amendment with a statement saying the issue should be left up to the individual state legislatures to deal with as each sees fit. ‘That’s exactly what we have looked for, and if it’s left up to the states, more of them are going to put some restrictions on abortion,’ Arkansas Lt. Gov. Mike Huckabee said in an interview after appearing on a conference panel yesterday.” (Ralph Z. Hallow, “Conservatives Hold Fire On Abortion,” Washington Times, 2/12/95).

I agree with Huckabee on this. The chances of the Federal Government passing an outright ban on abortion is a pipe dream and there are a lot of people in the pro-life community who need to come to that realization. The best approach is that being advocated by Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson, to overturn Roe and return the decision to the states. From there pro-life advocates can begin to lobby for bans on a state by state basis and actually make some progress instead of following the all or nothing approach.

Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson proposed an income tax plan Sunday that would allow Americans to choose a simplified system with only two rates: 10 percent and 25 percent.

Thompson’s proposal, announced on “Fox News Sunday,” would allow filers to remain under the current, complex tax code or use the flat tax rates.

Asked whether the plan would cut too deeply into federal revenues, the former Tennessee senator and actor said experts “always overestimate the losses to the government” when taxes are cut.

“We’ve known for years any time we have lowered taxes and any time we’ve lowered tax rates, we’ve seen growth in the economy,” Thompson said.

Thompson added that money would be saved by his Social Security reform plan. He proposed that workers younger than 58 receive smaller monthly Social Security checks than they are now promised. Individuals could contribute 2 percent of their paycheck to a personal retirement account, an amount that would be matched by the Social Security trust fund.

The retirement plan “faces up to the fact that Social Security is going bankrupt and we’re going to have to do something about it,” he said.

Thompson proposed permanently extending tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003, reductions that would end after Dec. 31, 2010 unless Congress acts.

Charlotte Observer

This is a pretty good idea and I think Thompson is approaching these issues the right way. The tax cuts he proposes are enough to give another boost to our economy and help middle and lower income families, but not so outrageous that the Democrats will have to be resuscitated with a defibrillator. He also puts up a nice plan to ease into private accounts for Social Security where it might be more palpable for those who opposed the Bush plan. Something has to be done on S.S. and the Democrats and a handful of RINOs simply aren’t up to it. Maybe Thompson could reach a middle ground by introducing these proposals as president.

The rule, due to go into effect Jan. 1, would let the Federal Housing Administration charge higher premiums on mortgages it insures for low- and middle-income borrowers with poor credit.Borrowers who pose less of a credit risk would pay less.

The rule would impose a disproportionate burden on black homebuyers, Congress’s Government Accountability Office said in a July report. About 32 percent of current black borrowers would be disqualified from the program, and another 40 percent would pay higher premiums, the report said. About 79 percent of FHA-insured loans went to first-time homebuyers in 2006.

Sen. Elizabeth Dole, the N.C. Republican leading the effort to block the rule change, “is concerned because the rule would make it more expensive for low-income and minority citizens to buy their first homes,” her spokeswoman, Amy Auth, said last week.

Dole last week attached an amendment to a housing bill that would stop the rule from going into effect for a year. The other sponsors of the amendment were Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and Richard Shelby of Alabama, the committee’s ranking Republican.

Charlotte Observer

This has absolutely nothing to do with black people or white people or purple people. It is all about folks with bad credit. The primary reason we are seeing this sub-prime mortgage meltdown going on is because of the Federal Government putting pressure on lenders to relax their standards and hand out all of these adjustable rate mortgages to people who really shouldn’t have qualified. Suddenly, when the low interest rates start going up people are in shock and awe that these people can’t keep up the payments and are defaulting left and right on their loans. Imagine that.

The Bush Administration is actually doing something right here by allowing lenders to charge a high risk premium to these buyers as a type of insurance to keep the industry from continuing to crumble and instead of supporting this these two idiots are pandering to a group that won’t vote for them anyway, by throwing down the race card. It’s pathetic and it’s a crock.

The Feds created the sub-prime problem and now that a reform is in the midst you got more of them standing in the way of that. Working in North Carolina, I am becoming increasingly tired of Liddy Dole and I think it’s about time she hangs up her hat. As far as Shelby, he’s always been a borderline RINO in a state where we should have another solid conservative like Sessions.

Under the new rule, it could charge a risky homebuyer as much as $228 a year more on a $130,000 loan, the average cost of an FHA mortgage, said Brian Montgomery, the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees the FHA.

That’s $19 more a month.  If they can’t handle that they shouldn’t be given a mortgage!

If the stem cell wars are indeed nearly over, no one will savor the peace more than James A. Thomson.

Dr. Thomson’s laboratory at the University of Wisconsin was one of two that in 1998 plucked stem cells from human embryos for the first time, destroying the embryos in the process and touching off a divisive national debate.

And on Tuesday, his laboratory was one of two that reported a new way to turn ordinary human skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without ever using a human embryo.

The fact is, Dr. Thomson said in an interview, he had ethical concerns about embryonic research from the outset, even though he knew that such research offered insights into human development and the potential for powerful new treatments for disease.

“If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough,” he said. “I thought long and hard about whether I would do it.”

The New York Times

This was a big story that broke out over this holiday week. This should put an end to the embryonic stem cell debate since they should no longer be needed providing these claims are justified. It will interesting to see how this pans out politically, since the Democrats have just lost one of their wedge issues and the Republicans have been right all along, being against the use of embryonic stem cells for research.

Here’s a hint:  It’s not us, but I already knew that.

Democrats like to define themselves as the party of poor and middle-income Americans, but a new study says they now represent the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional districts.

In a state-by-state, district-by-district comparison of wealth concentrations based on Internal Revenue Service income data, Michael Franc, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, found that the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional jurisdictions were represented by Democrats.
He also found that more than half of the wealthiest households were concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats hold both Senate seats.

The Washington Times

There was a time where it was justified to say that Republicans represented big business and the wealthiest of Americans, but that is about 40 years outdated.  All you need to do is look at the electoral map to see it.  The northeast and west coast are the wealthiest regions in the country and they vote overwhelmingly Democrat, while the poorer regions, like down here in the south, vote heavily Republican.  So will the Dems stop spreading a dishonest myth?  I wouldn’t bet on it.

The survey, said pollster Whit Ayers, shows travel and tourism related to major issues such as national security and the economy are important to South Carolina voters.“In the minds of South Carolina … primary voters,” Ayers said, “it’s not the least bit tangential. Travel and tourism is a really big deal.”

About 70 percent of Republicans and Democrats surveyed think the federal government can do more to reduce lines without compromising security. Half of Republicans and two-thirds of Democrats said the federal government can do more to improve airline system efficiency.

The State

Here is my problem with the airport screening. I flew home from a business trip in Minneapolis yesterday. The TSA guy wouldn’t let me take my can of Axe deodorant in my carry on because it was one ounce over the limit. They were also performing an extra pat down on an 80 to 90 year old man while I was standing there.

I sure am glad we have all that national security. Imagine if I had been let through with my can. I could have deodorized someone to death and hell, those 80 year old men are dangerously shady. He could have attacked someone with his false teeth or tried to suffocate a passenger with his toupee.

Sure, I want to be safe when I am flying from some crackpot who might want to take the plane down, but TSA does not use an ounce of common sense in their screening. All they do is frustrate people and waste our time with these useless procedures that defy logic.

Washington State’s largest school district sent letters to teachers and other employees suggesting Thanksgiving should be “a time of mourning” for its Native American students.The memo, from Caprice Hollins, the district’s director of Equity, Race & Learning Support, included an attachment to a paper titled “Deconstructing the Myths of ‘The First Thanksgiving.’”

It includes 11 “myths” disputing everything from what was served at the first Thanksgiving (no mashed potatoes or cranberries) and who provided the food to the nature of the Pilgrims themselves: Myth No. 3 calls the colonists “rigid fundamentalists” who came to the New World “fully intending to take the land away from its native inhabitants.”

But what got the Internet abuzz was Myth No. 11: “Thanksgiving is a happy time.” It was followed by “Fact: For many Indian people, ‘Thanksgiving’ is a time of mourning … a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship.”

Hollins would not defend her letter, but David Tucker, a spokesman for the district, said it was an effort to be sensitive to minorities in Seattle schools.

Fox News

First of all, what kind of joke of a position is District Director of Equity, Race & Learning Support? I’ll bet that woman makes a six figure salary. Get a real job, Ms Hollins. How many tax dollars are being wasted on you to tell kids that they shouldn’t dare be thankful for what they have on Thanksgiving Day, that instead they should feel horrible and guilty for being white? Sensitive to minorities? Do not black Americans celebrate Thanksgiving? What about other ethnic Americans like Hispanics and Asians? Hell, even the Indians celebrate it, according to the according to members of the Tulalip Tribes.

Native Americans in the Northwest celebrate the holiday with turkey and salmon, said Daryl Williams of the Tulalip Tribes. Before the period of bitter and violent relationships between natives and their culturally European counterparts, they worked together to survive, he said.

“The spirit of Thanksgiving, of people working together to help each other, is the spirit I think that needs to grow in this country, because this country has gotten very divisive,” he said.

I think Michael Medved put it best:

Nationally syndicated talk show host Michael Medved was more blunt.

“The notion that now you have a major school system sending out a message that, no, rather than expressing thanks we should emphasize guilt on this holiday — that is sick, it is destructive and it is anti-American.”

Caprice Hollins is clearly just another far left crackpot who thinks so lowly of herself that she must spread her misery onto other peoples’ children with her anti-American Marxist brainwashing. This is not the first time the Seattle school district has engaged in such behavior. The woman needs to be fired from her job immediately.

The U.S. Department of Education investigated in April after the district spent part of a federal Smaller Learning Communities grant to send 20 students to the “Eighth Annual White Privilege Conference.”

After complaints last year, the district removed from its Web site a definition of racism that claimed planning ahead and individualism were examples of cultural racism.

Gov. Chris Gregoire has a five-point lead, 47 percent to 42 percent, over her once and future Republican opponent Dino Rossi, according to a just-released statewide poll undertaken by an institute at the University of Washington.

The Washington Poll, which surveyed 601 voters, found the Democratic governor with a healthy 50-38 lead in populous central Puget Sound, but trailing her GOP foe 36-52 in Eastern Washington.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

This is the real stolen election that the Democrats, of course, never talk about. Dino Rossi should be the rightful governor of Washington already, but some shady shenanigans kept him from taking his rightful place in Olympia. It looks like this will be another close race next year between the two of them.

The unexpected retirement of Rep. Mike Ferguson (R-N.J.) marks the latest in an exodus of moderate Republicans that is pushing the caucus in a rightward direction and could potentially cripple the party’s chances of winning back seats in swing districts next year.Of the 17 Republican House members to announce their retirements this year — Ferguson joined the club on Monday — eight have built reputations on Capitol Hill as centrists willing to work with Democrats to get legislation passed. Political observers warn that those are exactly the type of candidates the GOP needs to regain its congressional majority.

The Politico

First of all, good riddance to Ferguson, another RINO I am happy to see walk out the door. We need Republicans that will stand for limited government, lower taxes, and traditional American values, not squishes who blow which ever way the wind is.

I love how these political commentators in the media always cry doom and gloom for the Republican Party every time we lose a Democrat lite from our ranks. As far as I am concerned the party can only get better the more of them that leave. Sure, there are some instances where we need a more leftward leaning Republican in order to win a particular state or district. Maine is a good example of that, but we should never sacrifice the basic values of the party when we don’t have to, and most of the time, we don’t have to. I don’t see Ferguson’s seat an exception.

The writers of this piece, however, contradict themselves:

Davis said moderates were increasingly frustrated about their ability to make a difference in the current partisan age. “And they have to fight even harder to hold onto these seats,” he said.

In 2006, moderate House Republicans took the brunt of the Democratic congressional landslide. Former GOP Reps. Nancy Johnson (Conn.), Rob Simmons (Conn.), Gil Gutknecht (Minn.), and Charlie Bass (N.H.) all were ousted by Democratic challengers.

They tell us how vital the “moderates” are, yet show us how they got slaughtered in last year’s election. So which is it?