Saturday, March 10, 2007

Lt. Governor Bill Bolling in Staunton VA...

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Lt. Governor Bill Bolling stopped by Mrs. Rowe’s restaurant in Staunton to speak to and have breakfast with the Augusta County Republicans. This has become a routine with the Lt. Governor and his wife as they canvass the State of Virginia meeting with the Citizens that he represents.

The Lt. Governor spoke of the “2007 Session Highlights” and provided a handout describing all that happened in this last session and the work still needed to keep Virginia on the “Right” track. Lt. Governor Bolling spoke of the efforts and accomplishments of our local Republicans and highlighted Delegates Steve Landes, Chris Saxman, and Ben Cline…



The Lt. Governor spoke for about 20 minutes to a crowd of approximately 65 in attendance and also spoke with local media representatives including a reporter from the Harrisonburg Daily News-Record and a NBC29 News representative. I did not notice any reporter or representative from the local Staunton NewsLeader paper but that has become routine in their coverage of Republican events in their own BACKYARD

Lt. Governor Bolling spoke of many issues and highlighted where the local Republican party, as well as the national party is headed. He spoke of the 1994 revolution where Republicans took back control of Congress by promoting BIG ideas and issues. He spoke of the “Blueprint” that Newt Gingrich presented and how the Republican Party had the “Contract with America” that returned this country to the true values of Americans. Lt. Governor Bolling also spoke of the re-commitment to “Values” that are important to Americans and the advancement of these values. He also spoke about how our Democratic Governor Tim Kaine, along with our prior Democratic Governor Mark Warner ran on promises of not raising taxes and truly did “Run” from those promises once in office…


Lt. Governor Bolling also spent time talking with and about Chaz Evans Haywood who is running for Clerk of the Court in Rockingham County. Chaz is a strong Republican and has worked with both Congressman Bob Goodlatte and Senator George Allen in the past. He carries the same strong conservative beliefs of these outstanding “Virginia Republicans” and intends to bring these beliefs and integrity to the Clerk of Court office…
http://www.chazforclerk.com/


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Friday, March 09, 2007

Again... How Can that Be???

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It appears President Bush has once again beat Al Gore in yet another arena of issues. The Investors Business Daily ran an article showing how much more efficient and less polluting the President’s Crawford Ranch house is as compared to the “Gore Complex” in Tennessee.


As USA Today described it: "Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into purifying tanks underground — one tank for water from showers and bathroom sinks, which is called 'gray water,' and one tank for 'black water' from the kitchen and toilets." The purified water is funneled to the cistern with the rainwater"


Recently it has been reported that the Gore Complex uses 20 times the amount of energy as compared to us common folk and with that contributes that much more of those damaging “Greenhouse” gasses that the ex-Vice President has made a career out of fighting.


Now a big deal has been made about how Gore has been purchasing “Carbon Credits” to offset his 20x energy use but the fact is the former Vice President is still producing 20x the “Gasses” that he implores the rest of us to cut back on…


In addition, "the Bushes installed a geothermal heating and cooling system, which uses about 25% of the electricity that traditional heating and cooling systems use." As Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, noted: "It's interesting that Bush seems to actually practice conservation, while Gore seems to want to buy his way out of his obligations."


The fact is that the President and Mrs. Bush designed their Crawford Ranch “Eco-friendly” and built it many years before Al Gore found his calling in life…


Speaking of carbon offsets and shell games, guess where Gore buys his carbon offsets? Well, he buys them from a firm call Generation Investment Management LLP, a tax-exempt U.S. 501(c)3 corporation. The chairman and co-founder is Al Gore. In other words, he buys his carbon offsets from himself. Others who buy these offset are really buying stock in Gore's growing business. You, too, can green up his portfolio, if not Earth itself.


And you would think President Bush would get a great deal on petroleum products from his “Big-Oil” buddies that the liberals love to talk about. Why isn’t the President abusing his “Oil rich” status and using it wherever possible?


Better yet. Why didn’t Al Gore design and build his “Complex” with the same features the President used in his Crawford ranch???


http://ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=258075474834657

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Help Yourself....


Once again Donna Brazile has a column in the Washington Times (#3 Zen) and she talks about the recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast and her families hometown of New Orleans. Brazile talks about how the President came to New Orleans for just another “photo op” and then continues to talk about her families efforts to repair their house with no help from the President.

“It has becoming abundantly clear that the president's visit is just another photo op meant to convey he's still with us -- without making a significant commitment to help with recovery. In fact, while attending an event in Mississippi, the president said: "The federal government's role has been to write checks. The governor's role and the mayor's role is to help expedite the federal money to the local folks."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20070304-094010-7577r.htm


Again Donna Brazile takes the usual cheap shot that she is known for and turns it “Political” at every opportunity. We expect it for she was the Campaign manager for Al Gore and has been bitter at every opportunity since then and continues to push the “Liberal Spin” whenever possible. It’s just amazing that she is allowed to have a weekly column in a Newspaper like the Washington Times which has been compared to FoxNews with their “Obvious Rightwing” support as many from the Left have observed…(Sarcasm)


Brazile goes on to state that if the President really cared about the people in “Her Town” he would eliminate the 10% matching fee required by law.

“Just recently, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, asked that the administration amend the Stafford Act to waive the 10 percent match of federal funds the state is required to repay.”

Now after Brazile brings up the request made by Reid to eliminate the 10% fee, which has been waived in the past for other major disasters, Brazile falls back to her usual “Attack the President” whenever possible and ties those evil corporations if possible with: “In the correspondence, Mr. Reid reminded the president that, "Since 1985, FEMA has granted waivers of state match for public assistance in 32 different disasters." Despite having suffered two of the worst hurricanes in U.S. history, Louisiana is still asked to meet the match requirement. So why not grant us the waiver and free some of the funds that would otherwise go to Iraq contractors like Halliburton?”

Brazile goes on to describe how her family has started to rebuild the families house in New Orleans without waiting for the Government funds promised by the President.


“Like many others who have returned, my Uncle Nat, brother Johnny and other relatives have all been hard at work preparing to tear down the molded ceilings and replace the roof. They decided to rebuild -- with or without federal assistance. After all, it's their home. Soon, my Uncle Douglas and brother Floyd will come back from Georgia, and at least half of my family will be reunited and sitting on the porch with something cold to drink.”

This is commendable and stories of people jumping right in and doing for themselves instead of waiting for the government to do everything for them
have been reported from all over the Gulf coast after the Katrina disaster. Unfortunately it seems to be a large portion of New Orleans residents who chose rather to depend on the government for things to get done instead of doing it themselves. The problem is that Brazile fails to note that which has been provided in relief to the area and where some of that money is tied up.
The President stated:

Just so you know, of the $110 billion, $86 billion of that has been obligated -- in other words, it's out the door. But only $53 billion has been spent. And so part of the day today we talked about if the money is out the door in Washington, where is it and how come it hasn't been out farther? And that's one of the things that we're going to continue to work on, to make sure that obligated money ends up in somebody's pocket.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/03/20070301-13.html


Maybe Brazile should take a look at her local and state elected Democrat representatives and ask why\where this money has gone? But instead she continues to attack the President and his administration whenever possible instead of looking at what has been provided by the government, and the private sector, and how that money has been squandered.

A few weeks back I did a post on the corruption of the relief money provided to those in New Orleans by the government and the incredible amount of private donations from the American people. In this post there are numerous examples of fraud and outright theft of funds provided to those effected by the hurricanes. A large concentration of this fraud is focused and comes from New Orleans and it’s residents and needs to be addressed. I, like many private citizens, opened our wallets and made donations only to hear how some of this money was spent on frivolous items and abused by those now waiting for more aid from the government.
http://rightsideva.blogspot.com/2007/02/super-bowl-of-blame-games.html

WASHINGTON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Fraud involving payments supposed to help victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita likely exceeds earlier estimates of $1 billion and only a tiny fraction of the money has been recovered, according to a U.S. government report released on Wednesday.”
The GAO cited incidents in which FEMA gave $17 million in housing assistance to individuals who had already obtained free housing in the form of trailers or apartments and $20 million that went to people who improperly claimed for help for both storms that ravaged the U.S. Gulf Coast area.”

We must help those who need our help for that is the right thing to do. But we should also hold those responsible who abuse the government, and private,
Aid . We, as well as Brazile, should also ask those elected representatives like Mayor Ray Nagin, Governor Blanco, and Senator Landy, where and why the funds provided have gone and why the delay?

All three of these elected representatives are of Brazile’s Democratic party so don’t look for her to be asking those questions in her next column to the Washington Times…

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

NewsLeader... Nothing, Nada, Zilch...

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Once again there was a significant Republican event in Augusta County that the NewsLeader failed to cover and present to it’s readers. Tuesday night at the Augusta Government Center in Verona there was a Augusta County Republican Committee meeting that was open to the public. At this scheduled meeting State Senator Emmett Hanger spoke about the recent State Assembly session in Richmond and several of the bills that came out of the session. Also speaking to the Local Augusta Republicans was Scott Sayre who is challenging Hanger in the upcoming Republican Primary for the Senate seat of the 24th district.

This was a very enthusiastic meeting with a large turnout of Augusta County Republicans who have become energetic and ready to support the important work done by the Representatives while in Richmond. More to follow on the meeting and campaigns in future blog posts…
The interesting thing I found was that once again a significant Republican event occurred in Augusta County only to be ignored by the Staunton NewsLeader. The Waynesboro NewsVirginian attended and reported the event with a story on their frontpage hardcopy and the NBC29 News service provided video coverage and reported the event as well.
A week prior to the 2006 Senate election Republican Senator George Allen came to Staunton to meet with over a hundred local Republicans at Mrs. Rowes for breakfast. Senator Allen also met with many Mrs. Rowes Patrons who were very interested and supportive of the Seanator. Both the NewsLeader and the NewsVirginian had reporters in attendance and the NewsVirginian did a large frontpage article reporting the event. NewsLeader? Nothing, Nada, Zilch…

A few weeks later Republican Delegate Chris Saxman had a public meeting with the Chamber of Commerce at which time he spoke about the Transportation “Crisis” issue with many in attendance. Once again the NewsVirginian provided substantial coverage of this important issue that has become a focal point of the pending state budget. The NewsLeader? Nothing, Nada, Zilch…

After this Republican State Senator Emmett Hanger met with another group open to the public which was attended by local media representatives, and spoke about efforts to improve programs dealing with substance abuse. The NewsVirginian and Harrisonburg Daily News Record both provided articles in their newspapers. The NewsLeader? Nothing, Nada, Zilch…

The NewsVirginian story can be found at: http://www.newsvirginian.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WNV/MGArticle/WNV_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193565601&path=

Sunday, March 04, 2007

What, now Mars has Global Warming also?...

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In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.
Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.
"The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," he said.


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html