Qualifications:
- Noble Born: Forget being the son of a Governor. Ron Paul Atreides is the heir of a Great House Duchy, with the signet to prove it.
- Mentat: 9 out of 10 people will take a Mentat over a Lawyer for analytical thinking every day of the week.
- Bene Gesserit: Who would you rather have lobbying the Congress? Just a politician, or a politician with the Voice?
Senator Kennedy
Vote Aye!
Aye!
Senator Kennedy, Aye. Senator Kerry
Vote Aye!
Aye!
Senator Kerry, Aye. - Prescient: Aren’t you tired of not knowing when the next hurricane or other natural disaster will occur, or hearing that we’ll never know when the jihadis will next strike? Ron Paul Atreides knows both.
Platform:
- Strong Currency: Tired of paying more Solaris for the same number of slaves? No more; under Ron Paul Atreides, the currency will be backed with 100% pure spice from Arrakis.
- End to global warming: Ron Paul Atreides will be tough and strong with the Guild, forcing them to place weather control satellites up, ending the desertification of our planet.
- Support for the Butlerian Jihad: Ron Paul Atreides has always understood the sanctity of the human mind, and will never support artificial intelligence.
- Strong military: Fremen warriors carrying the Atreides banner will rule the Galaxy!
Remember: Ron Paul Atreides has already seen himself winning this election, so hop on the winning team!
I was asleep, hoping to wake up recovered (and I do think I can eat soon), but the Lakers got payback. Excellent.
Well, excellent except that McGrady got hurt it seems. He seems like a nice enough guy, and you hate to see guys get hurt.
Strike that by the way. I’ve had an upset stomach pretty much since writing the below.
Had a flu last night that attacks the lower back. I figure it’s a flu because my father says he got it too, and it lasted the same amount of time: about 12 hours.
The trick is, I already have a bad back… so I ended up having to vicodin my way through the night. I still had a bunch of the stuff from when my wisdom teeth cracked an adjacent tooth, fortunately.
A game company has had to tell the Ronulans to pipe down, too:
Since [not including Ron Paul in a little video game], we’ve been getting regular abusive emails and phone calls from Ron Paul supporters….
The reason, by the way, is that Ron Paul wasn’t going to appear in the first debates. So we didn’t include him in the game, which was about those debates. CNN has continued to promote the game on their main Politics page, thus the confusion. The phone calls are really best, because they just don’t let up. Even when we explain the situation, they just accuse us of being Ron Paul hatas.
I guess the LOVE in rEVOLution stands for “Love to sour everyone they can on Ron Paul.”
I’m not big on the PSP but part of me would want to buy this one:
Mike Huckabee and his campaign are lying about his record in order to attempt to discredit the Club for Growth’s revelations about his history of raising taxes in Arkansas.
Chip Saltsman, Mike Huckabee’s campaign manager, says this on the candidate’s web page:
More than 80% of the voters supported a 4-cent tax on diesel fuel to fix the roads. Similarly, the voters approved a 1/8 cent increase in the sales tax to preserve their natural and cultural heritage. The Governor would have violated his oath of office if he did not go with the will of these voters. He did not raise taxes — the people did.
The candidate himself said the same thing on Meet the Press:
Did we raise taxes on fuel? Yes, but 80 percent of the people voted on it because it was on the ballot. So it wasn’t that I raised it. I joined with 80 percent of the people in my state to improve what was the worst road system in the country.
The problem is, it’s just not true.
In 1999, the year in question, Arkansas had three elections, according to the Secretary of State. Two were special election primaries for the state legislature, wtih Democrats voting in District 33 and Republicans voting in District 14. The third issue on the ballot was indeed statewide, however it wasn’t a tax authorization. Rather it was a state highway bond. The one bit of truth is that this bond issue did indeed pass with 79.4% of the vote. Other than that…
Let’s see what the Nevada County Picayune said he had to say about the situation back in 1999 (emphasis added):
Huckabee pointed out this is a bond issue and not a tax issue. No new taxes will be created should this measure be approved by the voters….
The only monies to be committed to the bond issue is the $58 million a year already allocated by the federal government to the interstate maintenance fund and the four-cent diesel fuel tax increase to be paid by the trucking industry, along with state matching funds Arkansas is already required to use for matching federal turnback funds….
Under Huckabee’s plan, the state could dedicate money from the three-cent gasoline tax increase to work on rural highways in the state.
Funny how in 1999 Huckabee was saying that the ballot measure was not a tax hike. The reason he could say this was that it’s true: the taxes had already been passed, with the intent of using them to pay down the bonds if the bonds passed, and to help pay for the road improvements themselves otherwise.
Personally I’m surprised that Huckabee would lie so blatantly about his own record. Maybe it’s just me, but I expected the preacher in the race to be the one who would campaign in the most above board manner. But if we can’t believe what he says on this, how can we believe anything he says to get elected?
Character counts, and if Huckabee is going to lie to me now, there’s no chance I’m going to vote for him in order to let him make himself into a liar on even more issues.
Update: Joe Carter found for us House Bill 1500 from the Arkansas 82nd General Assembly in 1999, the bill that authorized the issuance of the $575 million in highway bonds, and created the ballot measure. Here is a relevant excerpt from page 5:
The bonds shall be general obligations of the State of Arkansas, payable from certain designated revenues and also secured by the full faith and credit of the State of Arkansas, including its general revenues. Pursuant to the Arkansas Highway Financing Act of 1999 (the “Bond Act”), the bonds will be repaid first from: (1) revenues derived from federal highway assistance funding allocated to the State of Arkansas designated as federal highway interstate maintenance funds, and, if needed, that portion of national highway system funds authorized by Commission Minute Order 98-214 adopted September 22, 1998, and (2) revenue derived from the increase in the excise tax levied on distillate special fuels (diesel) pursuant to Section 2 of the “Arkansas Distillate Special Fuel Excise Tax Act of 1999” and the “Motor Fuel Excise Tax Act of 1999” and transferred to the State Highway and Transportation Department Fund pursuant to Arkansas Code 27-70-207(c) in accordance with Section 4(a) of the “Arkansas Distillate Special Fuel Excise Tax Act of 1999” and the “Motor Fuel Excise Tax Act of 1999.” To the extent that designated revenues are insufficient to make timely payment of debt service on the bonds, such payment shall be made from the general revenues of the State of Arkansas.
As we can see here, the taxes in question had already been passed, in the acts listed here by name and presumably signed by Governor Huckabee (had he vetoed them, I’m sure we’d have heard about it).
The people did not have the option of rejecting these taxes. They could only choose to endorse the use of those revenues on highway improvement bonds, or not. The claims made by Huckabee and his campaign, that the voters approved these taxes, are still false.
The Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force has been aiding the coalition in Afghanistan by refueling ships in the Indian Ocean. However the Democratic Party of Japan has been pushing to pull out, with its leader in fact getting into an argument with Angela Merkel over it when she last visited Japan.
Japan’s Prime Ministers have perservered through these objections, but now the authorization for that assistance is set to expire. Voting on a new bill will soon begin in the Diet, starting with the House of Representatives. A Liberal Democratic Party-lead coalition, which favors engagement in the War on Terror, controls the lower house, so the bill is likely to pass there. But they lost the House of Councillors in the last election in July to the DPJ, a month before the resignation of former Prime Minster Abe, so there could be problems getting the bill passed there.
Here’s hoping Japan’s left is as ineffective as ours on this.
The Rasmussen Tracking Poll is an going concern, and so here are my thoughts on last week’s movement.
I said last week that Mike Huckabee had peaked, and oh boy did he ever. Of course, I’m not going to gloat all that much, because my man has now seen his support cut in half since announcing.
Yeah, Fred Thompson’s support was apparently illusory, with Republicans not turning out to be as ready for the message of consistent federalism as the early polls made me hope. He’s now indistinguishable in this poll from Romney and McCain. Is McCain pulling supporters from him?
Giuliani chugs right along though, but given how swingy his numbers have been, I have to think a fair amount of that is weak. This is still anybody’s race, if this poll has anything to say about it.
The Sacramento Bee writes about a recent meeting of Republicans at the State Convention that was headlined by speeches by Rep. John Doolittle and two challengers, including Red State-supported Eric Egland. I’m thinking that our having helped Egland out-raise Doolittle has scared the guy, because he’s now referring to Egland and fellow challenger Ted Gaines as “weasels.”
Says the Bee:
Mike Spence, president of the California Republican Assembly, which represents the most solidly conservative wing of the state GOP, said his statewide organization will not make an endorsement in the Doolittle race. But conservatives are watching the district closely and with concern.
“I think most of our members are very supportive of John Doolittle, but I also know members that aren’t,” Spence said. He added: “I think we’re always concerned when there is a strong conservative member of Congress who is targeted. This will be one or two contested seats in California. We’re going to be trying to find a way to keep the seat.”
Mike Spence, I hope you’re reading this, because I want to tell you something: Eric Egland or Ted Gaines each probably have a better chance to win than John Doolittle. CD 4 ought to be our district, it having gone overwhelmingly for Bush both times. But Doolittle couldn’t even get a majority last time out, running behind all other Republicans.
This isn’t about innocent or guilty, as activist Pete Weber implies when the Bee quotes him as saying “The American system is you are innocent until proven guilty, and I believe my man is innocent.” This is politics, and if we can nominate a new conservative who will win over the incumbent who is on track to possibly lose, then we need to do it.
As the saying goes, if you want a friend, get a dog. But if you want a Congressman, nominate Eric Egland.