I was less than two years old when one man, an actor, gave a speech that galvanized a political movement which was about to go down to electoral defeat. Just two years later, that man would be elected governor of one of our largest states -- a startling outcome that would eventually propel Ronald Reagan into the White House.

On a personal note, Ronald Reagan inspired my early involvement in politics -- and his passing was the direct inspiration for my first blog post. This hero of my youth remains the hero of my mature years.

Remember these words.

This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up or down—[up] man’s old—old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism…

The whole speech is below the fold. more...

Posted by: Greg at 03:27 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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One of the great betrayals of the pro-life cause happened last summer when Scott Roeder killed abortionist George Tiller. Every right-thinking pro-lifer denounced that action, recognizing it to be fundamentally at odds with the nature of the cause we believe in.

IÂ’m therefore sickened to read about this effort to raise money for RoederÂ’s defense.

An Army of God manual. A prison cookbook compiled by a woman doing time for abortion clinic bombings and arsons. An autographed bullhorn.

These are among the items that abortion foes plan to auction on eBay and other Web sites in a fundraiser for Scott Roeder, the Kansas City man charged with killing Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller.

“This is unique,” said Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City anti-abortion activist who will sign the bullhorn. “Nobody’s ever done this before. The goal is that everybody makes money for Scott Roeder’s defense.”

Now I disagree with the notion advanced by one pro-abort activist that the auction could lead to more violence, especially given that there is more violence more often against pro-lifers than there is against abortionists and their facilities. But I do hope eBay refuses to support the auction, and that well-meaning pro-lifers avoid giving any support to the Scott Roeders of the world by coming to his defense rhetorically or financially.

And to those on the left who claim to be outraged – I’ve watched for years as Leftists have embraced killers like Mumia and Leonard Peltier, not to mention raising funds on their behalf. And for the last eight years we have sent he Left supporting terrorists and those (like Lynn Stewart) who aid them. Your outrage will have a lot more meaning when you side quits supporting cop killers and enemies of America.

Posted by: Greg at 10:20 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Down here in Seabrook, we passed a referendum to issue bonds for the building of a new library several years ago to replace a facility that was just too small for our community and, to be honest, already showing signs of aging. During Hurricane Ike, the library was seriously damaged, and it has not reopened -- depriving this community of one of its major focal points.

Several months ago, the new plans were unveiled and we were promised a new library by the fall of 2010. Groundbreaking was supposed to be last week. But those who attended the groundbreaking got an unpleasant surprise.

It was supposed to be groundbreaking day for construction of the new Seabrook library, but instead came the disappointing news that the funding isnÂ’t there.

“The project is on hold,’’ Harris County Precinct 2 Commissioner Sylvia Garcia told the crowed gathered Tuesday on what was to be the site of a groundbreaking celebration.

“Please don’t feel like the Lone Ranger. Every (Harris County) construction project except toll road projects has been put on hold,’’ she said, citing the tight economy.

Excuse me!

Where is the bond money?

Where are the disaster recovery funds to replace the damaged building?

And why was this bombshell decision hidden from both the elected officials and the citizens of our community?

I'm putting our Harris County officials on notice now -- you need to find that money and find it now. Local folks are mighty pissed off about this. And to those of you who are planning on running for reelection next year -- I don't care if you have an R or a D after your name, if this project is not under way soon, I will make it a point to work for the defeat of each and every one of you.

And yes, that does mean you, County Judge Ed Emmett. You are a master at finding money for projects that are a priority for you -- make hurricane recovery for this corner of Harris County a priority or be prepared to lose this reliably Republican area.

And since Barack Obama was down in New Orleans today promising ever more federal cash to that city over four years after their hurricane, how about giving some attention to those of us who dealt with a major storm significantly more recently?

UPDATE: I'll give the man credit -- Ed Emmett has been in touch with me today (Sunday, October 1 to let me know he is going to look into the matter of the library here in Seabrook. I'll post more when he gets back to me with some details on what is going on and what the prospects are for getting this project underway.

Posted by: Greg at 11:27 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Global warming doesn't appear to be happening.

What happened to global warming?

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

Of course, as the article points out, the high priests of the cult of global warming insist that even evidence that global warming isn't happening is no reason to believe that global warming isn't happening.

And pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Posted by: Greg at 08:21 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Anyone who has ever had a puppy knows that one thing is quite certain – there will be puppy accidents of both liquid and solid varieties. So when I read this story, all I could do was chuckle – and shake my head that anyone would even find it worth reporting on.

The mystery begins in a Pittsburgh bar where several high-flying airline types met last month.

The group swapped stories over drinks when three people present let loose with a good tale. Bo, the presidential puppy, recently left a present on the presidential jet, they said, and a flight attendant had nearly stepped in it.

“You can imagine the horror on board when they discovered what it had done,” a participant in the conversation said, referring to Bo.

Apparently my favorite member of the Obama family has even gotten loose aboard the presidential aircraft a time or two – something not too surprising for a pup of a breed known for being intelligent and having a high energy level.

My only thing is this – why does the White House see a need to deny that this incident happened? Set aside the issue of government transparency that Obama ran on last year (and has run from this year) – just remind everyone that Bo is a puppy and he does puppy things.

Posted by: Greg at 11:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Not only does it put one class of citizen outside the requirements of the law, it also excludes everyone but a small class of citizens from the protections of a part of the Bill of Rights.

In 1972, in the U.S. Supreme Court case, Branzburg v. Hayes, which said there was no “news media privilege” on sources in federal courts, Justice Byron White conceded the difficulty of specifying who is a journalist. White wrote that arriving at such a definition would be “a questionable procedure in light of the traditional doctrine that liberty of the press is the right of the lonely pamphleteer who uses carbon paper or a mimeograph just as much as the large metropolitan publisher.”
Fast-forward Justice White’s concerns to 2009 and he may well have added “… and the blogger sitting at home using a computer and the World Wide Web.” But that’s not where the law stands in Congress.
The House already has passed its version of a shield law. It defines a journalist as (take a deep breath here if reading aloud): “A person who regularly gathers, prepares, collects, photographs, records, writes, edits, reports, or publishes news and information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public, for a substantial portion of the person’s livelihood, or for substantial financial gain.”

Got that – instead of Congress protecting the right of every American to the freedoms of the First Amendment, Congress is looking to define most Americans out of the protections of granted under the rubric of freedom of the press. After all, if only journalists are to be considered a part of the press for purposes of federal law, it will become axiomatic that other aspects of freedom of the press are applicable only to that small class of individuals when we have a judiciary that constantly attempts to discern not the original intent of the Constitutioon, but instead the meaning of a “living constitution” that is untethered to the original meaning of the text.

Posted by: Greg at 11:07 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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On one level, I don't really care whether David Letterman has been dallying with his female employees. On another, I am struck by the hypocrisy of it all.

But there is also a question that has been flopping around in my mind regarding the charges against his accused blackmailer.

David Letterman is a public figure. As such, virtually any detail about his life -- especially about his professional life (and his extracurricular activities with female staffers qualifies as a part of his professional life) is fair game for the paparazzi, the tabloids, and even for more legitimate media. This information, especially given that it is true, could be freely published by any media outlet with no legal repercussions -- and even if the charges were not true it would be difficult to sustain a libel claim because Letterman is a public figure.

So if Joe Halderman could have legally written a book and/or screenplay and could have legally sold them, published the book, or produced the screenplay, on what basis do we as a society make it a crime for him to offer them to the subject of those works (Letterman) rather than to a third party? After all, the only crime here is that he attempted to sell his silence to Letterman rather than his words to a publisher or production company. Isn't what he did morally no different than what he would have done had he sold the story to a third party?

Posted by: Greg at 02:46 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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If this isnÂ’t reason enough to jail this cretin for the rest of his natural life, I donÂ’t know what is.

The evidence presented here – evidence which comes from Roman Polanski’s own mouth – makes it clear that the little girl he violently raped in at jack Nicholson’s house all those years ago probably was not the first he abused and certainly was not the last.

If this were Father Polanski the parish priest or Mr. Polanski the drama teacher at the local high school, we would not even be having a discussion of whether or not to jail him forever.

Posted by: Greg at 01:14 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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