Say Anything Blog

AP - 

WASHINGTON - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich equated bilingual education Saturday with “the language of living in a ghetto” and mocked requirements that ballots be printed in multiple languages.

“The government should quit mandating that various documents be printed in any one of 700 languages depending on who randomly shows up” to vote, said Gingrich, who is considering seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He made the comments in a speech to the National Federation of Republican Women.

“The American people believe English should be the official language of the government. ... We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto,” Gingrich said to cheers from the crowd of more than 100.

I love seeing Newt out in the public arena. He is good for some laughs. “The language of living in a ghetto?” What is he trying to say? That Chinatown in New York is a ghetto? Or maybe all the neighborhoods which are predominately Hispanic, where Spanish is the dominant language? Maybe those pockets of the community on the west coast that speak Japanese, Samoan, Fijian, or any other language? I don’t know. You would have to ask Newt to expand on this thought. I for one would like to know exactly what was going through his brain when he said this.

Reports of extramarital affairs have dogged him for years as a result of two messy divorces, but he has refused to discuss them publicly.

This is an example of the conservatives being right about their criticism of the mainstream media. This is the last thing in the article and it doesn’t have any bearing on what was discussed in the article. Why is this put in there? His extramarital affairs have nothing to do with him saying that English should be spoken by everybody, so they shouldn’t have been included in this story. The MSM should stick to one story per article and not insert other things that do not pertain to the subject.

AP -

The Reverend elected to take over as president of the Christian Coalition of America said he will not assume the role because of differences in philosophy.

The Rev. Joel Hunter, of Longwood’s Northland, A Church Distributed, said Wednesday that the national group would not let him expand the organization’s agenda beyond opposing abortion and gay marriage.

This is the latest setback for the group founded in 1989 by religious broadcaster the Rev. Pat Robertson. Four states - Georgia, Alabama, Iowa and Ohio - have decided to split from the group over concerns its changing direction on issues like the minimum wage, the environment and Internet law instead of core issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.

“These are issues that Jesus would want us to care about,” Hunter said.

He resigned Tuesday during an organization board meeting. Hunter said he was not asked to leave.

“They pretty much said, ‘These issues are fine, but they’re not our issues, that’s not our base,’” Hunter said.

A statement issued by the coalition said Hunter resigned because of “differences in philosophy and vision.” The board accepted his decision “unanimously,” it states.

The organization, headed by President Roberta Combs, claims a mailing list of 2.5 million.

So let me get this straight, the Christian Coalition will not argue for the same things that Jesus did in the Bible including poverty and the environment. Apparently, this group isn’t really concerned about all the teachings of Christ. Only those things that will not hurt the Republican Party in the eyes of Christians, teachings like abortion and gay marriage. I want to say Thank You to the Christian Coalition, you have shown me that you are not really religious. You are only a right-leaning hit squad that uses religion as a cover.

According to the Washington Post, the Pentagon has had it’s own review of options in Iraq. According to the reporting, there are 3 options.

The first is Go Big. That means putting more troops in Iraq, calling up more reservists and getting more Iraqi troops in the fight against sectarian violence.

The second is Go Long. Put an emphasis on training and supporting the Iraqi military and police. Eventually decreasing troop strength to about 60,000 US troops in Iraq.

The Third is Go Home. This option means rolling up our forces and deploying out of Iraq as soon as possible.

“Go Big,” the first option, originally contemplated a large increase in U.S. troops in Iraq to try to break the cycle of sectarian and insurgent violence. A classic counterinsurgency campaign, though, would require several hundred thousand additional U.S. and Iraqi soldiers as well as heavily armed Iraqi police. That option has been all but rejected by the study group, which concluded that there are not enough troops in the U.S. military and not enough effective Iraqi forces, said sources who have been informally briefed on the review.

  “Go Home,” the third option, calls for a swift withdrawal of U.S. troops. It was rejected by the Pentagon group as likely to push Iraq directly into a full-blown and bloody civil war.

  The group has devised a hybrid plan that combines part of the first option with the second one—“Go Long”—and calls for cutting the U.S. combat presence in favor of a long-term expansion of the training and advisory efforts. Under this mixture of options, which is gaining favor inside the military, the U.S. presence in Iraq, currently about 140,000 troops, would be boosted by 20,000 to 30,000 for a short period, the officials said.

  The purpose of the temporary but notable increase, they said, would be twofold: To do as much as possible to curtail sectarian violence, and also to signal to the Iraqi government and public that the shift to a “Go Long” option that aims to eventually cut the U.S. presence is not a disguised form of withdrawal.

  Even so, there is concern that such a radical shift in the U.S. posture in Iraq could further damage the standing of its government, which U.S. officials worry is already shaky. Under the hybrid plan, the short increase in U.S. troop levels would be followed by a long-term plan to radically cut the presence, perhaps to 60,000 troops.
  The Pentagon official said this short-term boost could be achieved through three steps: extending the tours of duty of some units already in Iraq, sending other units there earlier than planned and activating some Army Reserve units.

  The group concluded that such a step might be necessary because it is concerned that the continuing violence is undercutting the Iraqi government’s credibility. “Folks increasingly realize that if violence can’t be contained, the spiral downward will continue, the national government will lose the effectiveness it has . . . . and then all bets will be off,” the official said.

  Also, it would take months to prepare and implement the expansion of the program to train and advise Iraqi forces, he noted. The military will have to find those additional advisers, prepare them for the deployment, get infrastructure in place to house and feed them, order and ship equipment for them to use, and recruit additional Iraqis for them to train.

  “The ‘Go Long’ approach is one that can work if there is sufficient strategic patience, resources appropriated and [if] leadership executes effectively,” a military intelligence official said.

  Another potential obstacle to the “Go Long” option is that it runs counter to the impulse of many congressional Democrats to find a way to get out of Iraq quickly. Planners envision taking five to 10 more years to create a stable and competent Iraqi army. Because it doesn’t lead to a swift exit, some Democrats could criticize this option as a disguised version of “staying the course.”

  The Pentagon group has given a thumbs-down to what it considered variants of withdrawal, such as pulling U.S. units out of the cities and keeping them in isolated enclaves, where they would not interact with the Iraqi population but would be available to combat major insurgent offensives and also to protect the government against coups.

So here is basically what our Pentagon is hoping happens. We increase our troop levels for a few months to try and limit the sectarian violence. Then we get troops out of Iraq fast and down to about 60,000 troops. Let them back-up the Iraqi government forces and train them for combat. While this is going on, we hope that the Iraqi government magically turns into some sort of legitimate Jeffersonian Democracy instead of a corrupt government that it is now. We are trusting the Iraqi government to stop the militias and sectarian violence in Iraq. We are hoping that the government will force out ministers that are playing up sectarian differences and attacking other government ministries. We are hoping that Iran will not continue to influence the Shiite majority. We are hoping that the terrorists linked to the Sunnis will stop rising up in Iraq. And, by the way, we are praying that Kurdistan will decide to come back and participate in this government fully instead of declaring independence. All the Kurds need to do is formally declare independence from Iraq right now and they have a stable, functioning government. Oh, and the Pentagon believes that this can be done between 5 and 10 years from now.

This is the same Pentagon that we have been hearing for over the past week haven’t been happy with this Administration about Iraq since Saddam was toppled. The reason that they didn’t stand up and say I believe that we need to change our strategy in Iraq to the President of the United Sates in private was the fear of being forced to retire. They weren’t acting like proud Americans during that time, they were trying to keep their jobs. Nice going by those Patriotic American Generals of telling the Secretary of Defense that his plans were garbage. The one last thing that I want to mention is how in God’s green earth are you going to be able to have Iraqi government forces that are mixed or of a different religious group going into Shiite or Sunni territories and not get hit by sectarian violence? The answer in my mind is that you don’t.

I have said this before and I’ll say it again. The 2 options that are left on the table should be “Go Big” or “Go Home”. If you believe that we can pull Iraq out of the fire, you should be with Senator McCain and “Go Big.” If you believe that Iraq is a lost cause, you should support the House Democrats and “Go Home.” Because this “Go Long” strategy hasn’t worked for the first 3 years, and there are no indications that it will work in the future.

Newsweek -

Republicans went nuts last summer when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee used images of flag-draped coffins in a political ad that questioned Republican leadership.

At the time, Republicans demanded the DCCC remove the ad and apologize. “It makes my stomach turn to see national Democrats so blatantly exploit the sacrifices made by the men and women of our armed forces,” Tom Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told reporters. “It takes a galling level of smug self-righteousness for [DCCC Chairman] Rahm Emanuel to invoke our honored dead one day and put their coffins in an ad the next.”

Six months later, the coffins are back—in a GOP ad. Heading into the final weekend of the campaign, the NRCC has gone on the air in Georgia with a spot attacking Democratic Rep. John Barrow on homeland security issues. At one point during the ad, an image flashes to rows of television screens displaying rows of flag-draped coffins. An announcer intones, “Barrow is funded by an organization that used coffins of dead American soldiers in a fundraising ad.”

Burns himself has demanded the NRCC remove the ad immediately. “It is unacceptable for them to use American soldiers’ coffins in my advertising,” Burns told the Associated Press. But a NRCC spokesman says the party has “no plans to take it down,” noting that the ad is “completely independent of Burns.”

Let’s see here, it is wrong for Democrats to use flag-draped coffins. I can see where that is a legitimate view. The NRCC says that the DCCC has stepped over the bounds of decency by showing the flag-draped coffins. OK, I’ll even buy that. Then for the NRCC to turn around and use flag-draped coffins in their ad, that is unforgivable.

I am tired of the Republican Party saying that the Democratic Party is unpatriotic. And that every time that we show our patriotism, that we are playing politics. This ad from the NRCC is playing politics with our dead. The Republican Party should be ashamed, but they will not be. The only thing that matters to the National Republican Party is holding power in congress to protect themselves and the President. This is an example of why we should vote for Democrats on Nov. 7th. When a party is this hypocritical, they need to be removed from power to examine what they believe in.

I have a request for the North Dakota Republican Party, please bring President Bush up for a Monday campaign stop for Dwight Grotberg and Matt Metchel. I would think that bringing in the Leader of the Free World and The Most Powerful Man in the World would whip up enthusiasm for the Republican candidates that could be used in Tuesday’s election.

I see this as a big win for everybody in North Dakota. President Bush comes to a red state and tells us North Dakotans that we need to keep the US congress in Republican control. He can tell us that voting for Democrats is voting for Al-Qaeda. He can tell us that the economy is great. He can tell us that Democrats all want to cut and run from Iraq and that Democrats don’t have a plan for winning in Iraq. He can tell us that Democrats opposed the Military Commissions Act that allows us to interrogate prisoners.

President Bush can tout that there is only 4% unemployment in the US, the deficit is half of what it was 3 years ago, that the stock market and that home ownership is at an all-time high. Wow. Those are major achievements. It makes me cringe that us Democrats have to run against that.

You can’t even say that the President is the reason for deficits or surpluses in the National Budget. Republicans are saying that during the Clinton Administration, it was their control of congress that caused surpluses as far as the eye could see. OK, if that is the way you want it, fine. The Republicans did that. Now, the Republicans in congress cannot do it. Time to get rid of them.

Alas, he will not come.  Do you want to know why President Bush will not come to North Dakota? We are not important enough. We have been taken for granted by The Republican National Party, and everybody knows it. Tell me why the President wasn’t here long before now stumping for the two Republican candidates, one for US Senate and one for the US House of Representatives. North Dakota isn’t important in the large scheme of things. If he can go to Pennsylvania and support a representative that admits to an affair but not to strangling his mistress, he should have the time to come to North Dakota and support two fine candidates like Dwight Grotberg and Matt Metchel.

I reiterate, please have President Bush come to North Dakota so we can ask him why we don’t matter. We can also ask him what his plan is for Iraq. If Democrats don’t have a plan for winning in Iraq, we must ask him about his detailed plan for winning there. We can ask him if Al-Qaeda supports Democrats. If a vote for Democrats is a vote for Al-Qaeda, then we must be one of the same. Let’s see if he has the guts to actually say that Democrats and Al-Qaeda are one of the same.

If I had my way, President Bush would be THE man of the United States and come visit us in North Dakota for a Monday afternoon.  He would be better for it.

USA TODAY:

The federal government’s “no sex without marriage” message isn’t just for kids anymore.

Now the government is targeting unmarried adults up to age 29 as part of its abstinence-only programs, which include millions of dollars in federal money that will be available to the states under revised federal grant guidelines for 2007.

Great. Using tax money to promote abstinence in adults! What next? Taking taxpayers money in a study to see if America’s Religious Leaders have a brain?

But Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the Department of Health and Human Services, said the revision is aimed at 19- to 29-year olds because more unmarried women in that age group are having children.

Government data released last month show that 998,262 births in 2004 were to unmarried women 19-29, the ages with the most births to unmarried women.

“The message is ‘It’s better to wait until you’re married to bear or father children,’ ” Horn said. “The only 100% effective way of getting there is abstinence.”

Hey, the only 100% effective way of not getting pregnant is abstinence! You would think that would be known by our children in schools because we have the best schools in the world now thanks to No Child Left Behind. Wow, you do learn something new every day. HAHA!

Sarah Brown, director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, says abstinence programs are among many messages that have helped reduce teen pregnancy rates. But “the notion that the federal government is supporting millions of dollars worth of messages to people who are grown adults about how to conduct their sex life is a very divisive policy,” she says.

Sarah has it right. Why are we targeting people who are grown adults? I have three guesses and the first two don’t count. It’s to appease the right-wing conservatives that want to legislate morality. Why do we need to let those people and their morality standards be the guiding light of the American Morals System? Where is that conservative bedrock of smaller government and keeping government out of the bedroom? All this comes out to be is a waste of taxpayers money. There is no other way to look at it. Once you meet the age of majority, the government should leave you alone. Stop telling us Americans what to do. We need to make our own choices, and according to the Constitution, We the people control the government not the other way around.

This is a sneak preview.

As we prepare ourselves to make political endorsements in subsequent issues, I can tell you unequivocally that this newspaper has never endorsed so many Democrats. Not even close.

In the 56 years we have been publishing in Johnson County, this basically has been a Republican newspaper. In the old days, before the Republican civil war that fractured the party, we were traditional Republicans. That is, we happily endorsed Jan Meyers for Congress, Bob Dole for U.S. Senate, Nancy Kassebaum for U.S. Senate; virtually every Republican state legislator from here, with a few rare exceptions; and most governors, although we did endorse the conservative Democrats George and Bob Docking and John Carlin.

The point is, I can name on two hands over a half century the number of Democrats we have endorsed for public office.

This year, we will do something different. You will read why we are endorsing Kathleen Sebelius for governor and Mark Parkinson for lieutenant governor; Dennis Moore to be re-elected to the U.S. Congress; Paul Morrison for Kansas attorney general; and a slew of local Democratic state legislative candidates. These are not liberal Democrats. They are what fairly can be described as conservative Democrats, and we can prove that in our forthcoming endorsements.

But I could not help but put in perspective a more global phenomenon that has led us to re-evaluate our traditional support for Republicans.

This change may come as no surprise to our most cynical conservative readers who would dismiss me (and others on the editorial board) as being a moderate Republican and, therefore, the same as a Democrat. To them, there is no difference.

But the shift, frankly, shocks me, because I have pulled the lever over and over since my first vote in 1968 for Republicans. If I was a closet Democrat, I must have hidden it well, especially from myself, since I always beat up on Democrats in my columns. I have called them leftists, socialists, and every other name in the book, because I thought they were flat-out wrong.

And, for the most part, I still do. I am opposed to big government. I have little use for unions. I never liked the welfare plans. I am opposed to weak-kneed defense policies. I have always been for fiscal prudence. I think back to the policies of most Democrats, and I cringe.

So, what in the world has happened?

The Republican Party has changed, and it has changed monumentally.

You almost cannot be a victorious traditional Republican candidate with mainstream values in Johnson County or in Kansas anymore, because these candidates never get on the ballot in the general election. They lose in low turnout primaries, where the far right shows up to vote in disproportionate numbers.

To win a Republican primary, the candidate must move to the right.

What does to-the-right mean?

It means anti-public education, though claiming to support it.

It means weak support of our universities, while praising them.

It means anti-stem cell research.

It means ridiculing global warming.

It means gay bashing. Not so much gay marriage, but just bashing gays.

It means immigrant bashing. I’m talking about the viciousness.

It means putting religion in public schools. Not just prayer.

It means mocking evolution and claiming it is not science.

It means denigrating even abstinence-based sex education.

Note, I did not say it means “anti-abortion,” because I do not find that position repugnant, at all. I respect that position.

But everything else adds up to priorities that have nothing to do with the Republican Party I once knew.

That’s why, in the absence of so-called traditional Republican candidates, the choice comes down to right-wing Republicans or conservative Democrats.

And now you know why we have been forced to move left.

This is an easy way of putting money back into the pockets of North Dakotans. Eliminate the ND State Income Tax. Combine that with Gov. Hoeven’s plan of property tax relief, I think that you could really do some good for the taxpayers of North Dakota. You might have to increase the corporate tax a small percentage, but that is a small price to pay in order to give the working people of North Dakota lower taxes that stimulates the economy and allows more people to spend money.

In 2002, ND state income tax receipts to the state were just less than $200 Million. Now in 2007, we are estimating a $500 Million surplus. Estimate that the state income tax receipts have grown to $250 Million. The reason that I said that you might have to raise the corporate tax is because of the education dilemma the state is facing right now.

I had never paid state income taxes until I moved to North Dakota in 2000. Let me tell you, paying state income tax just sucks. Since ND is almost last for all wages concerning jobs in the state government, it would be great if they could keep more of the money that they do earn.

Examples:
The average annual salary for Medical and public health social workers in North Dakota was $33,270 per year.
The average annual salary for Medical and public health social workers in The United States was $42,250 per year.
Meaning that a social worker in North Dakota makes an average of $8,980 less than the U.S. average.

The average annual salary for Probation officers and correctional treatment specialists in The United States was $43,020 per year.
The average annual salary for Probation officers and correctional treatment specialists in North Dakota was $35,340 per year
A difference of $7,680.

Now, I know that there is less crime and people and other factors that makes being in North Dakota a positive, but shouldn’t we try to keep those professionals here that want to stay here? There are many people after college saying that they need to leave North Dakota because of the pay that they can expect here. I understand that we are only talking around $700 for each family on a typical social workers salary in North Dakota. However, that is about $60 a month. I know that there are many people that would take any type of tax cut to help them through this economy. It wouldn’t force small businesses to fire people because of minimum-wage increases. (A bogus argument according to 650 economists, including 5 Nobel Prize winners for economics). However, the people would keep more of their money. Another good byproduct of this is that the government could shrink. The state of North Dakota wouldn’t have to worry about income tax enforcement. That could get rid of a couple of government jobs. Remember, government shouldn’t be in the job creation business, according to some Republicans. Overall it would be a win for North Dakota. Now all we have to do is convince the Republican leaders in Bismarck of this.

Oh the humanity!  Another Republican is caught in a scandal with stocks that they own.  First, you remember that Bill Frist’s Blind Trust of Stocks was only blind to him.  Now, Senator George Allen has been caught not reporting stock options that he received for his work as Director to Congress.  This broke the rules that require Senators to disclose any deferred compensation, including stock options.  The reason that Sen. Allen didn’t report the options?  He thought that the options were “worthless” because the price for the stock now was lower than what he received the options at.

This is great.  A possible Republican nominee for President is getting beat on for ethical violations of congress.  While he was a Director for two companies, he violated SEC rules for not filing required reports on insider stock transactions.  Two of the three three companies that he was associated with after his term of Governor has received financial help with his backing.  He has helped Commonwealth, coming through with $4 Million of tax-exempt bonds for a new Headquarters.  Ericsson received $800,000 in state grants for expansion.  I wonder if he would have done the same things for companies that he didn’t serve on the board or be an advisor to.

If the lemmings (Republicans) are so moral and virtuous, then there should be an outcry from y’all about these transactions.  Of course there is not, because he is a Republican.  For being the party of Rightousness, the Republican Party doesn’t do a very good job of practicing what they preach.  Do one thing for me, figure out if the Republican Party is a Religious Party of a Secular Party.  You can’t be both.  Then tell me.  If you are a religious party, then why don’t you follow the teachings of Christianity?  If you are a secular party, then why do you continuously bring Religion into the debate?  Just wondering.