Democrat Forum Wants Williams as OKGOP Chair

On the Oklahoma Democrat forum DemoOkie, several of the main posters (and active Democrats) have been talking about the OKGOP Chair race.

2/07:

"I endorse [Cheryl] Williams for GOP Chair"

2/22 (emphasis mine):

"[Gary] Jones is challenging Vice Chairwoman Cheryl Williams, who represents the more libertarian wing of the party.

Williams would seem to have her work cut out for her. Under Jones, who has served two non-consecutive terms, the state party has prospered. In 2008, when most of the country turned Democratic, Oklahoma gave two-thirds of its presidential vote to the Republican nominee, John McCain, and strengthened the GOP's hold on the Legislature and the state's congressional delegation."

"Here's hoping Williams wins. The wackier the better at the Grand Old Party."

2/25 (emphasis mine):

"I am glad this organiztion [sic; referring to OCPAC] is growing and I believe pretty soon they will take out my friend Gary Jones as ORP Chair. Gary is a very competent and able person doing the job as the Repubs chair."

I always find it interesting to see what the other party thinks of our internal affairs. It can give a good perspective on the issues. For example, if they hate the party chair, we're probably doing pretty good. If they want the chair to stay the same, it's probably a sign that change is needed.

Report: Cheryl Williams Finds Running Mate

According to reports* received by this blog, OKGOP Chair candidate (and current vice-chair) Cheryl Williams has tapped Richard Engle for her running mate. Engle will be running against current Chairman and candidate Gary Jones' pick, Angie LaPlante, for Vice Chair at the 2009 Oklahoma Republican Party State Convention on April 18th.

Williams and Engle are closely affiliated with the libertarian wing of the party, mainly supporters of former presidential candidate and Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who are disgruntled with the status quo in the party, whereas Jones and LaPlante are considered to be part of the 'establishment', and more in line with the larger social conservative wing of the party.

In my opinion, Williams' choosing Engle to be her running mate is a poor decision, bad strategy, and will backfire on her at the state convention.

Engle was one of the main spokesmen for the 'Liberty Values Coalition' at the 2008 ORP State Convention (the LVC was, again, mainly supporters of Ron Paul). His tone, manner, and argumentative interruptions of the convention made him the most annoying, irritating and aggravating person present. By the time the convention was over, I had a headache from listening to the man. He turned off many of the delegates who might have otherwise voted with his coalition. The same thing will happen with Cheryl Williams.

But, I'm fine with that, since I'm supporting Gary Jones.

* - unverified as of yet

CPAC Straw Poll Results

The 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) started on Thursday and came to a close today. At the conference, they took a straw poll for the 2012 GOP primary.

You just thought last election was the longest election cycle in history. Try to last through this one.

Anyway, here are the results:

CPAC 2009 Straw Poll (PowerPoint)

• Mitt Romney: 20%
• Bobby Jindal: 14%
• Ron Paul: 13%
• Sarah Palin: 13%
• Newt Gingrich: 10%
• Mike Huckabee: 7%
• Mark Sanford: 4%
• Rudy Giuliani: 3%
• Tim Pawlenty: 2%
• Charlie Crist: 1%
• Undecided: 9%

Straw poll of 1,757 CPAC registrants, February 26-27th, 2009

First of all, here are some of the demographics of the participants. 52% described themselves as 'Students', 36% were non-students, and 13% were either co-sponsors of the event or affiliated with a co-sponsor (i.e. FairTax, NRA, ACU, Eagle Forum, etc.).

57% of the voters were between the ages of 18 and 25. The next highest group was 26-40, at 16%. 12% were 41-55, 7% were 56-65, and 5% were over 65 years of age, and 2% were under 18.

I think that those figures explain Ron Paul's high performance. The large number of the college-age crowd, Paul's main demographic, must have had an impact on his vote total.

Just from looking at the answers to some of the questions, the crowd seems to have been more libertarian of bent, with not quite as much emphasis on social conservative issues. Hence the success of Romney and Paul, and the lower numbers for Huckabee and Palin.

An interesting poll, nevertheless, I'd rather wait a year or so before seeing any more presidential election polls...

Israel Update: Government Situation

The Muskogee Politico's Israel Update

The Israeli elections held on February 10th resulted in Tzipi Livni's Kadima winning a plurality of seats in the Knesset, but Binyamin Netanyahu the presumptive prime minster, as the right wing parties won more seats than the left wing.

Israeli President Shimon Peres gave Netanyahu the official green light to begin forming a governing coalition on February 20th. Initially, Netanyahu voiced his hope to build a broad coalition, with the more left-wing Kadima and Labor joining his government along with right wing parties such as Yisrael Beitenu and Shas. However, Labor said they would not join a Netanyahu or Livni government.

Today, Tzipi Livni rejected Bibi Netanyahu's offer to join his coalition, meaning Netanyahu will have to turn to the nationalistic, right-wing parties to form a government. The parties in a right-wing coalition would be Netanyahu's Likud (27 Knesset Members, or MKs), Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu (15 MKs), Shas (11 MKs), United Torah Judaism (5 MKs), National Union (4 MKs), and Jewish Home (3 MKs). To form a governing coalition, Netanyahu must have at least 61 MKs supporting him.

It would appear that Bibi will easily break the 61 mark. However, a recent statement by Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv could possibly mean that United Torah Judaism will refuse to join a coalition with Yisrael Beiteinu. The latter party has made marriage reform a central part of their demands. Currently, there are no provisions for civil marriage in Israel; the only approved marriages in Israel are those performed under the regulations of a recognized religion, and marriages performed outside of Israel.

Rabbi Elyashiv has said that it is forbidden to compromise in any way regarding civil marriage, and that civil marriage must not be allowed even between non-Jews.

Will this endanger a Netanyahu coalition? Only time will tell.

Bobby Jindal's Response and Oratory in General

If you haven't seen it yet, here is Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's response to Barack Obama's recent address to Congress (apparently, the first 'State of the Union' for a new president is not called the 'State of the Union'):



I did not get to see his rebuttal live. Now that I've heard it, I have to say I was somewhat disappointed. The content of the speech was great, but the delivery was poor.

Now, I know that Jindal has never been on a stage like this before, giving the Republican rebuttal to a State of the Union, especially when it is delivered by a smooth (teleprompter-enhanced) speaker like Barack Obama. But, it sounded like Bobby Jindal was talking to a class of schoolchildren.

In that line of thinking, here's a great post by Matthew E. Miller at Race42012. He refers to a paper written by Winston Churchill in 1897, which is quite interesting to read. The Republican Party has not had a great orator since the Great Communicator.

Bobby Jindal has many years ahead of him to improve his speaking abilities. He has some massive intellectual firepower, and if he would polish his oratory skills, he could become a powerful speaker.

Dumb Athlete Alert: MLB Edition

Dumb Athlete Alert: MLB Edition - by the Muskogee Politico
or, Don't Put All Your Eggs In One Basket

Major League athletes make a lot of money, no matter how good they are, or how famous they are. After all, the minimum salary in Major League Baseball is $390,000, $457,588 in the NBA, and $310,000 in the NFL. How's that for a minimum wage?

And that's just the base salary. Oakland Raiders' cornerback Nnambi Asomugha will make $28,500,000 next year - the highest in the NFL (so far). Boston Celtic's forward Kevin Garnett makes the most in the NBA, at a mere $24,751,934. The New York Yankees third-baseman Alex Rodriguez rounds out the major sports with a MLB-leading salary of $28,000,000.

So when an athlete makes money by the boatload like that, why is it that some of them put all their eggs in one basket?

Case in point: MLB players Scott Eyre, Johnny Damon, Xavier Nady, and Mike Pelfrey. These players all had accounts with Stanford Financial. The federal government has frozen Stanford's assets, and the SEC has charged Stanford with running an 8 billion-dollar scam, or Ponzi scheme.

Enter the 'eggs in one basket' problem.

Xavier Nady, salary of $6.5M, can't buy a new apartment because his credit card accounts are frozen due to the Stanford Financial situation.

Johnny Damon, salary $13M this season, doesn't have the cash to pay his bills or mortgage.

Mike Pelfrey, who made $1,987,500 in 2008, says that 99% of his money is tied up with Stanford Financial. He's having to use a small account with Bank of America to pay his bills.

And now, for the best of all - Scott Eyre. He made $3.8M in 2008. He has $13 in his wallet (that's right, thirteen dollars). His checks are bouncing, and if if takes a week or two to get his money from Stanford, he'll have to borrow from his teammates.

Just one more reason why you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket, especially when you have a lot of them.

Sudetenland 2.0?

Following up on the 'Netanyahu vs. Ahmadinejad = Churchill vs. Hitler' story; is Bahrain the new Sudetenland?

History buffs will remember Sudetenland as the predominately-German region of Czechoslovakia ceded by Great Britain and France to Hitler's Germany, without the consultation of the Czech government. Hitler claimed that after the Sudeten question was resolved, Germany had 'no more territorial ambitions' in Europe. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, upon returning to Great Britain, claimed that the ceding of Sudetenland to Germany brought 'peace for our time'. History shows what happened. Hitler took the rest of Czechoslovakia within six months, and Poland within a year, starting World War II.

Bahrain is a predominately Shiite Muslim island-nation, ruled by a Sunni monarch. Iran is also mostly Shiite. Bahrain has been a part of the Iranian/Persian lands for millenia, but in 1971 Bahrain became an independent state.

Now, an excerpt from a Reuters article:

Bahrain has criticised as irresponsible reported remarks by an Iranian official that questioned the Gulf Arab kingdom's sovereignty and caused a diplomatic furore in the region.

According to media reports, Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, a close adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said earlier this month that Iran had sovereignty over Bahrain.

"If these statements are meant to test the waters then the response was clear internally and externally, and this was affirmed by the magnitude of Gulf Arab and international condemnation to these irresponsible statements," Bahraini Interior Minister Sheikh Rashed bin Abdullah al-Khalifa told the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.

Here's another possible reason for the rhetoric coming out of Tehran:

The Islamic island country, populated by 500,000 people, has recently made many pro-Jewish gestures, despite the fact that only 50 Jews currently reside there.

In 2008, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa issued a royal decree appointing female Jewish lawmaker Hoda Nono to the post of ambassador, making her the first Jew in the modern Arab world to become an ambassador. The businesswoman and mother of two, who serves as one of two Jews on the king's 40-member legislative upper chamber, is stationed in Washington.

In November, the king extended an invitation for all Bahraini expatriate Jews to return to live in Bahrain, saying "It's open, it's your country."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, alternatively, has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel, claiming that the Jews manipulated the Holocaust to gain sympathy for the Jewish state, calling Israelis the "most detested people in all of humanity."

(from IsraelNationalNews.com)

We shall see how President Obama and the rest of the world leaders deal with this situation, should Iran begin to press for annexation at any point. Thank God that Bibi is going to be Israel's Prime Minister.

Paper: Netanyahu vs. Ahmadinejad Reminiscent to Churchill vs. Hitler

An editorial in the Investor's Business Daily says that "the global stage is set for a confrontation reminiscent of Churchill vs. Hitler and Reagan vs. Gorbachev. How long will Benjamin Netanyahu tolerate an Iranian nuclear threat before acting?"

A very good question, especially since the inept IAEA just announced that Iran, with madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the helm, has enough enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb. And that's just the stuff that the IAEA knows about. Does Iran have stockpiles of uranium that the IAEA does not know of? Quite possibly.

Anyway, here's a link to the whole editorial. Many very good points are made, especially regarding the ineffectiveness of the IAEA. It's a must read.

Arctic Sea-Ice Underestimated Due to Faulty Sensor

From Bloomberg:

Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.

The error, due to a problem called “sensor drift,” began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That’s when “puzzled readers” alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site.

(rest of article)

Yet another argument for Global Warming to be proven wrong, or exaggerated.

Vaclav Klaus: The Hero of Europe

Vaclav Klaus, the fiery president of the Czech Republic (who happens to be the current rotating president of the European Union), offended the liberals in the European Parliament today, essentially comparing the current path of the EU to the former Soviet Union. The free-market advocate, global warming critic, and conservative politician delivered a speech before the EP, which you can read in its entirety here.

Excerpts (emphasis Klaus'):

The present decision making system of the European Union is different from a classic parliamentary democracy, tested and proven by history. In a normal parliamentary system, part of the MPs support the government and part support the opposition. In the European parliament, this arrangement has been missing. Here, only one single alternative is being promoted and those who dare thinking about a different option are labelled as enemies of the European integration. Not so long ago, in our part of Europe we lived in a political system that permitted no alternatives and therefore also no parliamentary opposition. It was through this experience that we learned the bitter lesson that with no opposition, there is no freedom. That is why political alternatives must exist.

And not only that. The relationship between a citizen of one or another member state and a representative of the Union is not a standard relationship between a voter and a politician, representing him or her. There is also a great distance (not only in a geographical sense) between citizens and Union representatives, which is much greater than it is the case inside the member countries. This distance is often described as the democratic deficit, the loss of democratic accountability, the decision making of the unelected – but selected – ones, as bureaucratisation of decision making etc. The proposals to change the current state of affairs – included in the rejected European Constitution or in the not much different Lisbon Treaty – would make this defect even worse.

Since there is no European demos – and no European nation – this defect cannot be solved by strengthening the role of the European parliament either. This would, on the contrary, make the problem worse and lead to an even greater alienation between the citizens of the European countries and Union institutions. The solution will be neither to add fuel to the “melting pot” of the present type of European integration, nor to suppress the role of member states in the name of a new multicultural and multinational European civil society. These are attempts that have failed every time in the past, because they did not reflect the spontaneous historical development.

[At this point, liberal members of the EP began to walk out in protest. You can view this at the 7:35 mark of this video, unfortunately in Czech, not English.]

[...]

We must say openly that the present economic system of the EU is a system of a suppressed market, a system of a permanently strengthening centrally controlled economy. Although history has more than clearly proven that this is a dead end, we find ourselves walking the same path once again. This results in a constant rise in both the extent of government masterminding and constraining of spontaneity of the market processes. In recent months, this trend has been further reinforced by incorrect interpretation of the causes of the present economic and financial crisis, as if it was caused by free market, while in reality it is just the contrary – caused by political manipulation of the market. It is again necessary to point out to the historical experience of our part of Europe and to the lessons we learned from it.

Many of you certainly know the name of the French economist Frederic Bastiat and his famous Petition of the Candlemakers, which has become a well-known and canonical reading, illustrating the absurdity of political interventions in the economy. On 14 November 2008 the European Commission approved a real, not a fictitious Bastiat’s Petition of the Candlemakers, and imposed a 66% tariff on candles imported from China. I would have never believed that a 160-year-old essay could become a reality, but it has happened. An inevitable effect of the extensive implementation of such measures in Europe is economic slowdown, if not a complete halt of economic growth. The only solution is liberalisation and deregulation of the European economy.

There is hope for Europe after all. Here's another video to see, from Nigel Farage (MEP from southeastern England, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, and co-chair of the Independence and Democracy "caucus" of the European Parliament).

UPDATE: Here's an AP article on the issue.

ND House Effectively Bans Abortion

KXMC TV (Minot, ND):

North Dakota's House of Representatives has passed a bill effectively outlawing abortion.

The House voted 51-41 this afternoon to declare that a fertilized egg has all the rights of any person.

That means a fetus could not be legally aborted without the procedure being considered murder.

Minot Republican Dan Ruby has sponsored other bills banning abortion in previous legislative sessions - all of which failed.

He also sponsored today's bill and says it is compatable with Roe v. Wade - the Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion.

(Rep. Dan Ruby, -R- Minot) "This is the exact language that's required by Roe v. Wade. It stipulated that before a challenge can be made, we have to identify when life begins, and that's what this does." But Minot Democrat Kari Conrad says the bill will land North Dakota in court, trying to defend the constitutionality of a law that goes against the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.

(Rep. Kari Conrad, -D- Minot) "People who presented this bill, were very clear that they intended to challenge Roe versus Wade. So they intend to put the state of North Dakota into court defending Roe vs. Wade"

The bill now goes to the North Dakota Senate.

The North Dakota Senate is controlled by the Republican Party.

Gary Jones Announces OKGOP Team

Official press release from OKGOP Chairman Gary Jones:

(EDIT: That didn't work... try this instead)

This will make for an interesting state chair race. This blog is fully behind Gary Jones; the OKGOP has flourished under his lead like it has for no other.