An Appeal from Center-Right Bloggers

I don’t know how center right I am but I signed up too

I’m not a blogger, just a reader of blogs, and I wish to join up.

RepJ: I agree with you about DeLay…..but…..

“Power abhors a vacuum.” DeLay has been sucker-punched out of the leadership while he battles ghosts thrown at him by the Dems.

His absence leaves a power vacuum which gives the Dems a double victory. Delay is smeared and distracted and the Republicans are being monitored by a substitute leader. Since the job of Majority Leader is a lot like herding cats, it is best that we get a bone fide leader in there.

When Ronnie Earle nailed DeLay with the indictment, that effectively knocked him out of the game until……. This is a critical year with elections in the Fall and nearing the end of Bush’s ability to affect change in his second term.

We can not afford to stand by DeLay. That’s politics.

You guys actually believe republicans are going to reform themselves? They’ve been in Abrahmoff’s pockets for years. The only reason they’re talking “reform” now is because they got caught, plain and simple.

Now this is supposed to be the biggest scandal that Washington has seen in 50 years. I thought Monica was. This is comical.

I signed – It’s time to clean house.

What Craig said. Money is power, and Washington is getting to much automatically from paychecks.

Redistribution of money from Washingtion is inefficient and corrupt prone. No amount of rules, laws, or good intentions will prevent it it for long.

Craig and Jim are correct. Until we, the voters, start demanding that our elected officials uphold the Constitution, including Article X of the Bill of Rights, nothing will be solved.

Washington, D.C. was never intended to have the power it has assumed over the years. A quick read of the Constitution will prove that it is a limiting document, granting only specified powers to a central government. Any powers not so specified are the business of the states and the people.

Power corrupts. It feeds upon itself. The chain must be broken by electing good people, citizens not politicians, to Congress. We must demand accountability from them, and then, no matter how good they are, turn them out of office before they can make a career out of feeding at the public trough.

The Founders never wanted serving in Congress to be a career for self-serving blowhards. The intent was for citizens to take their turns as representatives of the people, and to do so as a duty.

The same applies to the Chief Executive. The best president would have Thomas Jefferson’s attitude, that it’s just a job, a patriotic duty. Jefferson didn’t even think it worthy to mention his time as President on his own gravestone, clearly indicating that he had a firm grasp on priorities.

LaShawn,
You are and have been always my DAILY read.
I only comment however, as my soul stirs me.

nyblues: You are S-o-o-o-o-o-o-o right! I have now switched parties and I will pray to Saint Teddy of Kennedy tonight for moral guidance and ethical truth. He has a direct line to the Angel of annulment after a full quota of kids and decades of marriage.

Your clear and compelling logic has won me over. Come Monday, I’m going to see if I can get some of guys outside the 7-11 looking for pick-up jobs to join us.

You know, I can go on and on about taking the country into a war based on false premises and then not armoring our troops once they’re there.

I could also mention the traitorous outing of a CIA agent for political payback and the absolutely dismal response to a federal crisis on W’s watch that New Orleans still hasn’t recovered from, but that would be too easy.

Poor guy, I bet you really thought this was reply of yours was witty too. Keep trying, you’ll get there one day. LOL

Anywho, back to Abramoff and this corruption of the GOP leadership. This stance by Hastert and so called “reformists” is really all for show.

This practice of pay to play politics didn’t just pop up overnight, it’s been there for years. I’m sure the Democrats were guilty of it when they were in charge. They lost the House after holding it for 40 or so years partially because of charges of corruption, yet in just over a decade the House under GOP rule, we have charges of bribery that really makes everything in the past look like child’s play. I’ll say one thing for republicans, you guys are over achievers when it comes to corruption.

Abramoff’s a republican. He only donated directly to republicans. Bob Ney and Conrad Burns are targets of the Justice Dept’s ongoing investigation with Abramoff. That’s a fact.

If there are Dems involved with this, I hope they get found out and convicted too. Throw all the bums out.

Don’t delude yourselves into thinking the party in power will police themselves. They’re only talking about it now, because they were emabarassed into doing so. Plain and simple.

“Abramoff’s a republican. He only donated directly to republicans.”

- Admin

Admin,

Fair enough. I find this practice different from other blogs I post on, but if that’s your policy here then it is what it is.

As for the Abramoff scandal, we’ll have to see how it plays out. It is very likely some Democrats may be involved as well and if they are, kick them out too. However, I don’t doubt many more republicans will be implicated in this. They are in the majority and decide what legislation gets to the floor. You have to be in power before you can abuse it.

We need voting machines that aren’t owned by private corporations and real campaign finance reform. The McCain Feingold bill hasn’t helped in the slightest.

And still other blogs allow no dissent at all (or so I’ve heard), unlike this one. – Admin

nyblues: Normally, I eschew goading by the politically biased, but in your effort to rise to the level of serious, I will make an exception.

You write: “You know, I can go on and on about taking the country into a war based on false premises and then not armoring our troops once they’re there.”

1.) Please delineate the false premise or premises. 2.) Your statement about the inadequate armoring our troops is a tacit charge that this was by plan or ignorance. Any evidence? What, by your measure, is sufficient armoring?

You write: “I could also mention the traitorous outing of a CIA agent for political payback….”

Am I correct in assuming that you refer to Valerie Plame? If her outing was at the hands of the Bush administration and if it was traitorous, why did Fitzgerald neglect to indict anyone for the act you ascribe?

You write: “….and the absolutely dismal response to a federal crisis on W’s watch that New Orleans still hasn’t recovered from….”

Huh? Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana have vast areas that are in a shambles. Why is it only about New Orleans? How long does an informed person such as yourself think it should take to clear and rebuild an infrastructure that has been so destroyed. (At least in Hawaii they don’t require the lava flows to be removed.)

You write: “Poor guy, I bet you really thought this was reply of yours was witty too. Keep trying, you’ll get there one day. LOL”

I intended my reply to be equivalent to the integrity of your charges.

I will accept that you are blinded by a hatred of Bush. But your KOS talking points expose you as being uninitiated in fundamentals of logic.

Calvin, you’re right. It really is hard to find anything positive written about the man. The general agenda of the dinosaur media is to use DeLay as a stalking horse, bringing him down in order to “get” to George Bush.

This is not a defense of Tom DeLay. He may very well be guilty of the charges leveled against him. If so, he should pay the full price. A crook is a crook. And he was right to stand down from his leadership position, given the storm surrounding him. My point is only that there is a concerted effort on the part of the old media to skew the news because DeLay has been, in their liberal opinions, on the wrong side politically. That agenda on the part of the media is shameful.

None of this affects my support for the blogger effort to reform Congress. We simply must do so, letting the chips fall where they may. Democrat or Republican, the crooks must go. To spearhead this, we need a fresh face, and perhaps Shadegg is the guy with enough ethical backbone to do the job. I hope so.

Hi LaShawn, I agree entirely with the letter but don’t understand why it’d be from “center right.” I’d agree conservative Republicans were part of the problem but I don’t believe conservatism was itself the problem. I don’t imagine you do, either, and I’m curious as to your thoughts.
Bill Lalor
http://www.citizen-journal.net

nyblues. tsk, tsk. You pretty much recite moonbatic talking points.

Vis a vis WMD & terror, I suppose the “bipartisan” congressional report was wholly managed & produced by Rove? Plame is so out of it and blown out of porportion and on it goes with the rest of your talking points.

I’m only going to focus one “scandal du jour” of which I’m intimately aquainted with. Something that I wear practically every day – body armor. In the words of one wit, about the only thing they’re good for is to prop your sitting body up when napping.

What you cited falls short on facts. In essence, the typical armor being bought by families were suitable for law enforcement, not war and the higher lethality of the weapons used.

Think of that CA bank robbery a few years ago, where the cops, in their armor, were mowed down by two robbers in battle gear. Eventually, even the robbers succumbed to the bullets, body armor not withstanding.

Would you rather have soldiers operate with a false sense of security or better yet knowing that they may be under-armored, proceed with caution?

Simply put, there is NO type of armor, perfect for any and every situation — regardless of what cHillary may say.

That’s not even taking One-Size-Fits-All into consideration. So-called adequate protection for a 240lb trooper built like a linebacker would immobilze the 98lb soaking wet female soldier.

The statement you quoted is incomplete, the Pentagon DID NOT report that 80% of combat deaths could have been avoided had our troops been armored properly. “Properly”? Define properly!!!

The study showed only that OF the soldiers who were hit by weapons fire and subsequently died while WEARING armor, a certain % were hit in areas not covered by the body armor, i.e. the gap between the chest plate & back plate.

Soldiers are also given Shoulder, Arm & Groin protectors, few elect to use them.

Whether you realize it or not, one can be killed by the armor plate itself. If a high-powered round doesn’t penetrate the ceramic plate, it can still kill by the kinetic energy expended against the plate.

Think of it this way — how would you feel if a 1sq ft plate, weighing about 10 lbs slammed you full on in the chest at 100 mph?

How about a 2 lb Groin Plate slamming back at your…?

Ditto for the Shoulder Plate. Would you rather chance a clean shot thru the arm with a 50/50% chance of hitting the bone w/o armor, or a 100% chance of numbing your arm and effectively rendering perhaps your useless arm while waiting for feeling to return in perhaps 15 mins or longer? By that time the battle could be over with you as the casualty.

I could go on about the pros & cons of how much armor is enough, but I think you get the point with a little imagination.

But back to the meat of topic at hand.

There is NO practical body armor that will protect a shot to the face or the gap between the helmet and body armor collar on the sides and rear of the head. If you want total protection, then think Bomb Squad suits and imagine trying to have a running battle with Hajjis while wearing that 100 lb plus suit.

Also, don’t get wrapped up in emotionalism. Armor and accessory makers are in the business of selling their products, with or without DOD’s blessing. In the same way that deficient armor was pitched at families, there are others who still make pitches at the family as an end run around stringent DoD testing & QA/QC.

At least the army was able to take corrective action when it was discovered that the preferred armor would deteriorate over time to the point of falling apart. Who is watching out for the troops when they buy unapproved armor & accessories?

In fact there’s a current campaign underway to sell gunner’s sling at https://www.coopersling.com/adopt_a_gunner.php

Sounds good, don’t it? Just tugs your heart’s string and makes you want to fire off another campaign to “get” Bush & Rummy, don’t it?

Only problem is this — The Cooper Sling Seat was not selected as the Army’s gunner’s restraint solution because it:

a) Impacted the gunner’s operational effectiveness because it decreases his/her mobility – The gunner cannot turn more than ~180 degrees independent of the turret.

b) There is considerable travel in the restraint system, allowing the gunner to build momentum before being “jerked” to a sudden stop.

c) The restraint design interferes with gunner’s ability to drop back into the vehicle during roll-over IAW standard operating procedures.

d) The Cooper seat/restraint did hold the gunner to the top of the vehicle where, in a rollover, the gunner would be crushed between the ground and the top of the vehicle. Use of the Cooper seat/restraint will lead to almost certain serious injury or death in a roll over accident.

e) Testing performed on one version of the Cooper seat/restraint system showed that it did not prevent the gunner from being ejected out of the gunner’s hatch.

In addition, this advertisement implies that the Army is not doing anything to address this issue when, in fact, PM Tactical Vehicles is providing 500 systems (tested and approved by the Army Test and Evaluation Command) per week.

Like any other critical problems, solutions take time to develop. 1) identify the shortcomings, 2) analyse solution vectors, 3) create prototypes, 4) test and re-evaluate, 5) field a controlled set and follow the performance in the real world, (soldiers are capable of doing things never conceived/anticipated in the laboratory — and not necessarily to the good) 6) re-evaluate results, redesign where necessary, 7) finally make it available to all — as fast as they can be produced.

Bottomline, if you’re going to attach yourself to any bandwagon, do your homework first. Catchy soundbites are just that, catching the unaware, while someone dances to the bank.

If after all the above, you still think Bush/Rove/Rummy are to blame for this so-called body armor fiasco, you have truly been assimilated by the partisan moonbats.

If you think the Pentagon bureaucrats are to blame, then why on earth would you want to entrust anything of import to you and yours to ANY government agency and their attendent bureaucrats?

Good luck with your campaign La Shawn! But I would not hold out much hope for either political party. Just consider what has gone on in the last half-century. Democrats get corrupted by 40+ years of power. Voters throw Democrats out. Republicans get corrupted by 10+ years of power. It’s hard to put your faith in princes when they have names like Lincoln Chafee, Chuck Hagel and John McCain.

And what are Democrats and the MSM been doing during their years in the wilderness? They have donned tinfoil caps in order to better hear the voices of CIA spooks on their phone lines, pined for the return of Saddam’s thugocracy, published “inaccurate but true” memos, proclaimed Christophobia to be the One True religion, beatified Cindy Sheehan after consulting the wisdom of the dimpled chads, stormed Gitmo to save the waterlogged Korans, and launched the holy jihad against the racists and homophobes to be found hiding under every bed. Democrats give paranoia a bad name.

When will people learn? Power corrupts. Warning to Republicans: Democrats have proven that being thrown out of power does not necessarily lead to the return of moral sanity.

nyblues writes concerning Andy’s post: It’s very interesting that you would say Plame is blown out of proportion, since her main task at the CIA was to work on the proliferation of WMD. I don’t care what side of the political aisle you’re on, her status as a covert agent is not in dispute and it was not right to out her.

Now just think that through. If Plame’s main task at the CIA was to work on the proliferation of WMD, then she must have payed an important role in misleading Clinton and then Bush about Iraq. But more to the point, by the time nyblues is certain about what Valerie Plame did at the CIA, she was hardly useful or covert. Of course, it is possible nyblues is a CIA insider who is breaking a gazillion laws by posting here.

Valerie Plame’s covert status is very much under dispute. There is absolutely no cover for her under the statute Fitzgerald was empowered to investigate. Fitzgerald himself said so in his fifteen minutes of fame chat with the universe.

I will retire from this with the understanding that the first rule of rhetoric is the willingness to disagree. I disagree and nyblues’ evidence is water thin. By the time the old SEC chestnut gets dragged out concerning the Frist trust, it ipast time to go watch the weather channel.

nyblues, Plame did not meet the quals for protection. Why did the CIA refer to the JD? To put that point of law to rest.

As for the WMD mess, I’m tired of rehashing it all. Simply put, if Bush lied, so did Clinton and every other nation and Hans Blix. The inspectors had been inspecting for a decade to no avail. More time wasn’t going to prove anything new.

nyblues wrote”One question, why would so many of your fellow soldiers and their families even feel the need to buy armor if they had what they needed?”

I dunno. Perhaps for the same reason that when safe at home, many young turks tend to strut and talk the Rambo-nehead trash. They thot combat was like a video game where they’ll Duke-Nukem anything in their path. Then reality bites and they proceed to wet/soil their pants.

Anyhoo, most of those writing home and crying for more armor are typically rear echelon types. They typically are not the ones actually out on combat patrol. Everytime Jihadii lobs a mortar within a half-mile of their AO, they’re the 1st to dive into the bunker and hog the middle so that the others will create a human bufferzone of flesh and armor — what better to absorb the 1 in a million shot to hit the proverbial swish from a mile away.

Nevermind that the odds of getting shot in Motown or in our nation’s capital on any day is higher than a year in an Iraqi FOB.

I guess the proof in the pudding would be to see how many have actually claimed for a refund for the personal armor. But even then, that wouldn’t be a true picture since I know of some who have taken the DOD up on the offer.

Why?? Not for lack of protection rather flexibility. Much like some guys carry several types of weapons when they can only use one at a time:
Riding in the hatch? Bulk up.
Riding in an armored truck? Lighten up.

Either way, they’re still with regs which call for wearing armor at all times outside the wire.

Bottomline, when God says your time is up, what difference does it make if you got snipered, stung by a scorpion, bitten by an asp, succumbed to heat stroke(from wearing hot/heavy armor),IED’d, simple traffic accident or by a MS13 gang-banger or thug rapper’s stray shot? Are you ready for Judgement Day?

nyblues, Plame did not meet the quals for protection. Why did the CIA refer to the JD? To put that point of law to rest.

Are you actually saying the CIA went through the trouble of referring Plame’s outting to the Justice Department because she wasn’t a covert agent and they don’t believe this law should be on the books? That seriously doesn’t make any sense.

As for the WMD mess, I’m tired of rehashing it all. Simply put, if Bush lied, so did Clinton and every other nation and Hans Blix. The inspectors had been inspecting for a decade to no avail. More time wasn’t going to prove anything new.

Please come off it. By the time Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, any intel Clinton had on Iraq was five years old. I don’t want my president pointing to five year old intel as a reason for war. Do you?The entire world did NOT believe Iraq had WMD. Additionally, if Blix thought WMD were there, he was definitely one of the guys who wanted to finish the job of inspecting before Bush invaded and they smeared him too, just like they did to everyone else who disagreed with them.

The point is whether WMD were there or not, we could’ve let the inspectors do their job since they were on the ground. I’ll leave it there since you’re getting tired of it.

nyblues wrote”One question, why would so many of your fellow soldiers and their families even feel the need to buy armor if they had what they needed?”
I dunno. Perhaps for the same reason that when safe at home, many young turks tend to strut and talk the Rambo-nehead trash. They thot combat was like a video game where they’ll Duke-Nukem anything in their path. Then reality bites and they proceed to wet/soil their pants.
Anyhoo, most of those writing home and crying for more armor are typically rear echelon types. They typically are not the ones actually out on combat patrol. Everytime Jihadii lobs a mortar within a half-mile of their AO, they’re the 1st to dive into the bunker and hog the middle so that the others will create a human bufferzone of flesh and armor — what better to absorb the 1 in a million shot to hit the proverbial swish from a mile away.
Nevermind that the odds of getting shot in Motown or in our nation’s capital on any day is higher than a year in an Iraqi FOB

So your stance is they didn’t know what they were getting into. I’m not a soldier, but I’m sure a few of these guys in the articles I posted saw combat and were thankful for the armor they had to buy on their own. So what we have is soldiers who see things differently than you do on what they need in a war zone.

I should mention I visit DC frequently and have never had a problem. Sorry, I’m not buying that DC and Detroit are less safer than Iraq of all places.

Bottomline, when God says your time is up, what difference does it make if you got snipered, stung by a scorpion, bitten by an asp, succumbed to heat stroke(from wearing hot/heavy armor),IED’d, simple traffic accident or by a MS13 gang-banger or thug rapper’s stray shot? Are you ready for Judgement Day?

Thug rapper’s stray shot? Wow. As for Judgement Day, that’s between me and God. If you know you’re ready then I’m happy for you.

Terry is right La Shawn. I believe the equation should have been:

(Right-leaning moderates + Right-wingers)/2 = Right-leaning moderates.

Your equation yeilds: humor-challenged serious-posters.