John Cox on TV Talk Show in New Hampshire

This was a great interview that covered a lot of pressing issues with Presidential Candidate John Cox.

Really?

A Reuters story that comes as no shock to anyone who has been paying attention:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Inundated with politics long before the 2008 presidential election, U.S. voters are in danger of suffering wearying bouts of the uniquely American affliction of “campaign fatigue” in coming months.

Experts say voters who follow the news closely are most at risk of the condition striking this year earlier than ever. It takes its toll with information overload, long hitches of unpaid work for campaign volunteers and the all-important undecided voters on the fence longer than usual.

Voter attention tends to wane in between the early debates, major primaries and conventions and, in a contest so long this time it includes two summer hiatuses before the November 2008 vote, fatigue is practically unavoidable, many of the experts said.

“It’s a reality. There’s going to be a lot of fatigue, come summer,” said Thomas Patterson, a professor specializing in government and the press at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. “People are thinking this has been going on a long time already.”

Primary Reform anyone? This is getting absurd, but traditional politicians won’t have a whole lot of interest in changing in as the less engaged people are, the more they can play with the process.

God Bless the RSC

The Republican Study Committee is fighting Democratic Pork with a slew of Amendments to the pork-laden (is there any other kind of bill in this congress?) Homeland Security Bill. Amendments include:

32) Prohibit FEMA funding for dance classes. (up to 4 times)

33) Prohibit FEMA funding for puppet shows. (up to 4 times)

34) Prohibit FEMA funding for bingo games. (up to 4 times)

35) Prohibit FEMA funding for yoga classes. (up to 4 times)

36) Prohibit FEMA funding for art classes. (up to 4 times)

37) Prohibit FEMA funding for theater workshops. (up to 4 times)

38) Prohibit DHS funding for the office of Multimedia

39) Prohibit DHS funding for purchasing Louis Vuitton handbags

40) Prohibit DHS funding to pay parking tickets

41) Prohibit DHS funding to purchase jewelry

42) Prohibit DHS funding to pay bail bonds

43) Prohibit DHS funding to send more than 50 employees to conferences outside the U.S.

44) Prohibit DHS funding to pay for adult entertainment

Yes, folks there are sane poeple in Washington.

And That’s What It’s All About…

Is abortion about a woman’s right to choose? Not hardly. As Jill Stanek points out, Rolling Stone tipped the male pro-choice hand in a ham-handed attack on Fred Thompson:

It’s easy to be “pro-life” when you’re a settled father and family man. It’s another thing altogether to oppose abortion in absolute terms when you’re a Hollywood actor playing the field and you face the prospect of unintentionally bringing a child into the world with your latest conquest.

Not everyone wants to live out their own personal Knocked Up script. When it was relevant to him, Fred Thompson respected that choice.

So it seems to be about the man’s choice for comfort, not the woman’s choice as pro-Choicers frequently howl.

Don’t Trust Them

Some Senate Republicans are promising immediate money for border enforcement in the immigration amnesty bill:

It is a political tightrope fraught with peril, but the members know they need more Republican support to break through the logjam.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a principle author of the amendment with Republican Sens. Jon Kyl and Mel Martinez, says his amendment is designed to be “a confidence builder” to address members’ concerns that ramped up border security provisions in the bill won’t, in the end, get funded.

Graham hopes to provide $4.4 billion the day the bill is signed, through an estimate in fees and fines in the current immigration bill, to be used to beef up all the border security measures in the bill, with an additional $800 million for further measures, taking from measures put forward last year by New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg who called for more investment in capital infrastructure, like unmanned aerial vehicles and new Coast Guard boats.

That’s expectating about 8.8 million people to pay fines for Z-Visas. Given the immediate stay that many are getting at the front end of the bill, I sincerely doubt that. Let’s see some enforcement from the Administration and enforcement-only bill to insure our border’s secure before politicians try to go behind that.

Larry LaRocco: Right Out of The Baucus Playbook

Julie Fanselow points out Larry LaRocco working six hours with Orefino Sanitation. I say *yawn.* Having come from Montana, I’ve seen this before, it’s rip off of Max Baucus tried and true campaign tactic. Working a day at someone’s jobs doesn’t mean you understand them, share their values, or any such thing. It means that you’re doing your political thing. If he goes to Washington, Mr. LaRocco will far outearn the Sanitation workers he slowed down. Hopefully, Idaho’s smart enough not to fall for it.

For With What Judgment Ye Judge…The Congressional Version

Majorityap points out a mixed message from CT. Congressman Chris Murphy (D-CT.) who used a lame excuse for missing a vote on a key lobbying bill:

Murphy later told the New Britain Herald that he missed the vote because he “got caught up in conversation off the floor,” even though he told the Hartford Courant “he did not remember where he was.” Murphy told both papers that missing the vote was merely an “oversight.”

Last year of Former Congresswoman Nancy Johnson missing a vote on an Amendment, Murphy declared:

Murphy blasted then-U.S. Representative Nancy Johnson in March 2006 for missing a vote on a Democrat amendment to increase federal spending on port security. Like Murphy’s June 8 excuse to the Hartford Courant, Johnson’s office said at the time she was off the floor during the vote. That explanation wasn’t good enough for Murphy, then a Connecticut state Senator.

“It is simply inexcusable for her to fail to cast a vote either way on this vitally important issue,” Murphy told the New Haven Register. “(Johnson’s) vote matters to the people of this district.”

A clear case of glass houses and a good reason why one has to be careful criticizing members of Congress for missing votes if you’re running against one. Certain votes are going to be missed. Most of us miss a day of work every now and again and nearly everybody ends up late. Congressmen are critical. Most of us don’t have a one strike and you’re out policy at work, so one has to look at more than missing vote to whether a person’s record is marked absenteeism.

The Business as Usual Congress

Truth and Hope Report Podcast Show Notes:

“Business as Usual,” that’s how 63% of Americans describe the Democrat Congress. (hat tip: Captain’s Quarters). Might if have something to do with outrageous Democrat earmarks? Their all talk, no action policy doesn’t play too well with the American people.

Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey says Congress doesn’t have time to find all the earmarks. Hundreds of citizens are offering to help sift through the Earmarks via Porkbusters (be sure to add your name) (Hat Tip: Instapundit.)

House Minority Leader John Boehner is saying they’ll go to war over earmarks, but I’m with Lorie Byrd. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Meanwhile Moderate Muslims show up as the member of the radical group CAIR plummets. I just wish they would do more and be active in opposing the terrorist elements of their sect.

Finally, President Bush goes to Congress to demand the passage of the amnesty bill, saying the current situation is unacceptable. If it’s unacceptable, why doesn’t he enforce the law? Instead he’s holding the security of our country hostage for a guest worker program to benefit corporate America.

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Trackposted to Right Pundits, Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson’s Website, The Virtuous Republic, DeMediacratic Nation, Right Truth, Maggie’s Notebook, DragonLady’s World, Webloggin, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Conservative Cat, Pursuing Holiness, Rightlinx, third world county, stikNstein… has no mercy, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate’s Cove, Planck’s Constant, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

b2evolution’s Days are Numbered

The Following is a Technical Geek Discussion. For Politics, Religion, etc. Move On To the Next Post

I’m having a crummy day on visitors. Everybody’s complaining about the page load times. Well, to the helpful folks out there who suggest it’s my sidebar, let me say this, “It’s not my sidebar. It’s not my server.” It’s my blog software.

B2evolution is at the root of the problem. After nearly 3 years, I’ve reached a concuslion. The blog software bites. The Spam filters without a Capecha image are as pourous as our Southern Border. My wife and I have deleted thousands of spam trackbacks and I seriously doubt we’ve gotten them all. It may take years to find them. Many times I’ve regretted starting out with b2evo, but have held back on changing because of the hassle involved, but during the past few months working on the John Cox presidential campaign blog, I’ve seen first hand the benefits of Word Press. There are a lot of cool widgets and add-ons that can make a blog better and help search engine positioning. Spam Trackbacks and Comments come but they land in a moderation Queue. What do I have here?

I have a Capecha that’s cut spam down to nothing while also cutting my traffic from Open Trackback Parties down quite a bit. But receiving 1300 Spam Trackbacks a day isn’t really a serious alternative. Of course, if I were to go over to b2evolution.net, they’d advise me to install the latest version of b2evo. That would be version 1.10.2, the sixth new version of b2evolution to come out this year! And 2.0 is in Development. I’ll add that it’s a huge hassle everytime I have to reinstall b2evolution, because I also have to reinstall my template and redo my customizations.

I spend 15-25 minutes a night sending Trackbacks to Linkfest Haven blogs using the Haloscan scanner because b2evolution’s trackback sender rarely ever works. If I want to trackback something from Mr. Cox’s Blog over, I copy over the Trackback URLs into the Trackback field and I hit Publish then move onto the next thing.

The preliminary day of doom for b2evolution is hereby set as June 28, 2007.

Evolution News and Views Midweek Open Trackbacks

In my continuing quest to introduce you to interesting blogs, I’m pleased to hold this Open Trackbacks Party in honor of Evolution News and Views, a Discovery Institute Blog covering stories related to evolution and Intelligent Design. It features a lot of intelligent content (although many will insist that the blog began billions of years ago in a silicon pool and over time and with random mutations and undirected natural processes, text was formed and then millions of years later, the programming language for movable type evolved and thus we have a blog.) Regardless, check it out, it’s quite fascinating.

Now, onto today’s trackback party. Here are the rules.

1) Post about anything that’s in good taste. No porn, no spam, no profanity.
2) Send me a trackback of any tasteful post you want and as soon as I check my blog, I’ll update this post with your link provided you link back to this thread. If your software won’t allow you to send trackbacks, just use the Wizbang Standalone Pinger.
3) Deadline is Wednesday at 11:00 PM MT. Further trackbacks won’t be posted after that time.

For your convenience here’s today’s link. If you’re a registered user, the, trackback should appear below. If not, here’s the process:

Enter the characters as shown in the box and something like this should appear

This is a Trackback URL that’s good one time only so that we can seperate humans from spammer bots.

Below are other great parties:

Linking In:

Conservative Cat:

More Details on the Acetaminophen Scare
This news is a week old, but it’s not my fault. When you live with a guy who does molecular biology, the last thing you suspect is that he can’t spell the name of a common drug. Anyway, the story…

Open Trackbacks

The Conservative Civil War

The immigration issue has driven a wedge into the heart of the convervative movement.

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