Those Retirement Rumors

On Monday, Rottenchester posted about the latest Randy Kuhl retirement rumor, this time involving the NRCC trying to convince Congressman Kuhl from seeking another term (you know, "We'll make him an offer he can't refuse..."). I agree with Rottenchester that this latest rumor sounds incredibly fishy, not only for the reasons he cites, but also because federal election laws forbid the NRCC from approaching any incumbent to have such a conversation anyway.

William F. Buckley Jr., 1925-2008

"A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'"
~William F. Buckley, Jr.

I'm very saddened by the passing of WFB today. Building a political movement is much like building a house: You need to start with a firm foundation. And I would argue that while Edmund Burke was the father of conservatism in general, Buckley laid the foundation for the modern American conservative movement. Conservatives should be thankful that a man like Buckley existed, and that he never gave up on yelling "Stop!"

Ontario County's Growth

13WHAM's Evan Dawson has a great story on Ontario County's growth compared to most of the region, along with a blog post about the Eastview Mall in Victor. It's great to read and watch stories like these about Ontario.

Dawson emailed me a few days ago to get my input on the story, and here was my response:

I think the Progressive Farmer put it best in 2006 by ranking Ontario County the "Best Place to Live" in the United States, because of its: "Great schools. Low crime. Excellent health care." I'm not originally from here, having grownup downstate and then living a few years in DC, but I fell in love with the area after meeting my then girlfriend (now fiancee) who's from the region. It's a beautiful county, right in the middle of the Finger Lakes region and New York State's wine country, and with its closeness to the third largest city in the state, Ontario County offers a unique opportunity to residents who commute to Rochester but want to live in either a rural or suburban setting. Besides, where else in America can one get a slice of delicious grape pie?

Congressman Kuhl's Statement on FISA

I missed posting this statement from Congressman Kuhl over the weekend. As to his comments about the Clemens hearing last week, while I'm no Yankees fan, I fully agree that last week's congressional hearing on whether or not Roger Clemens used steroids was a joke. If it turns out that Clemens did in fact use roids, he should be punished, not by Congress, but by Bud Selig. And if Henry Waxman is so concerned about the state of baseball, I propose that he do us all a favor and resign from Congress and try to become the MLB Commissioner.

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 15 – U.S. Representative John R. "Randy" Kuhl, Jr. (R-Hammondsport) today issued the following statement regarding the priorities of the Democratic Leadership:

"America is fighting a battle against a potential recession, job loss, ramifications of war and famine, outlandish spending, and a failing health care system, but the Democratic leadership would rather hold a full-day hearing to determine if Roger Clemens used steroids. By being more concerned about sensationalism of cheating in baseball, the Democratic majority is cheating Americans out of the security and prosperity that their government has promised to uphold.

This week was another example of what happens when Congressional leadership fails to get their priorities in order. I understand that Speaker Pelosi wanted to get home for a wedding this weekend, but she put the bride and groom ahead of protecting our nation. By not allowing the bipartisan, Senate-passed FISA vote to be brought up on the floor, she has rendered U.S. intelligence officials unable to certify new terrorist surveillance without needless, cumbersome bureaucratic hurdles. I sure hope that was some amazing wedding cake.

Unless Roger Clemens has a plan to revive our faltering economy or pass legislation that will protect American from a terrorist attack, he has no business testifying on the Hill when Congress has more imperative issues to discuss. Maybe next week American Idol will hold their audition on Capitol Hill so the Democratic majority can delay taking up legislation to fix our porous borders or create solutions to Social Security.

The Democratic majority is out of touch with the American people. The majority has forgotten that the reason that they were sent to Washington was not to get a photo op with a celebrity, but to solve America's problems. I hope we can do better in future weeks."

Who Does My Brain Want to Vote For?

So I took the Implicit Association Test from Harvard University today, which is designed to use your mental reflexes to rank the remaining presidential candidates in either a positive or negative light. Not surprisingly, in my results, Huckabee was ranked on top, followed by McCain, then Obama, and all the way at the bottom, Hillary. These results pretty much mirror my results from this online candidate selector, which had Huckabee at 68%, McCain at 55%, Obama at 18%, and Hillary at 10%. The interesting thing about the latter results is that it is generally viewed that Obama is more liberal than Hillary, and he was, in fact, rated as having the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate last year. But according to the quiz, there are a few (and I mean "few") issues that we do agree on: (1) we favor allowing churches to provide welfare services; (2) we favor a means in which illegal immigrants could earn citizenship (though I'm sure we disagree on the means); and (3) we agree that drug laws should be enforced. As for Hillary, we agree on the first two items, though supposedly not on the third issue concerning drugs. Granted, none of these issues are make-or-break issues for me, but still interesting that a hard-core conservative like me slightly agrees with Obama more than Hillary.

As for the Harvard test, it measures likeability more than one's preference on the issues, and in that contest between Obama and Hillary, Obama wins in a landslide. And while I like McCain, there's no question that Huckabee is the more affable of the two, IMHO.

House Republicans Protest Democrats’ Partisan Games at the Expense of America’s National Security

CNN : "What they're doing here is that they're trying to bring awareness to what's going on. They're ratcheting up pressure on House Democrats on the FISA act, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. We heard from President Bush just a short time ago as well, so this is a full-court press that Republicans and President Bush are staging against House Democrats. This is a showdown over the legislation that governs how U.S. intelligence agencies oversee some communications between suspected terrorists." (Watch the full segment here.)

FOX: "There is some outrage on the Republican side. … The President and a number of Democrats and many Republicans in both the Senate and House are saying 'you have to pass a law, we cannot let the old law expire because there are problems in it.' The Leadership instead decided to pursue different matters and recess for a week without even taking up another effort." (Watch the full segment here.)

MSNBC: "A day when the President and these Republicans and a vast majority of the Senate feel as though the law governing the electronic surveillance of terrorists in this country should be taken up. That bill right now in limbo because the Senate has passed a bill that House Democrats are vehemently against … Congress due to go out on a week-long recess after they leave this week … Nancy Pelosi at this moment holding a press conference saying they will hold firm, they will not put the Senate bill on the floor…" (Watch the full segment here.)

Congressman Kuhl: We Owe Our Deceased Veterans, Not the Other Way Around

Congressman Kuhl wrote the following post on The Hill's blog today, in which he announces that he's cosponsored H.R. 5148, a bill that would relieve families of paying certain debts if a veteran dies "as a result of an injury incurred or aggravated on active duty in a combat zone."

Criticism of DNC's "Superdelegates"

With the prospect of a brokered Dem Convention seeming increasingly likely this year (especially after Obama went three for three yesterday in states as different as Louisiana, Washington, and Nebraska), Chris Bowers, an Obama supporter, indicates that he would quit the Dem party if the "superdelegates" don't vote for whom "the majority (or plurality) of its participants in primaries and caucuses want it to nominate" at the convention. Out of fairness to the Clinton campaign, he also advocates that the delegates from Florida and Michigan should be allowed to vote at the convention, which would give her a few more delegates.

I can understand Bowers' frustration with the process, but this is not an argument to put forward now if you're an Obama fan. According to the latest CNN vote totals, Hillary has received just over 420,000 more votes than Obama when the vote tallies from Florida and Michigan are included. RealClearPolitics currently has Hillary having 3 more delegates than Obama, though that's without Florida and Michigan given that they won't have delegates seated at the convention at this time (though the DNC could change its minds on that decision), and the RCP polling national polling average has her beating Obama by 2.9%. However, Obama now has the momentum in this race and should continue to do well this month in states like ME (which is today, though this is the only race that I think is still "up in the air" left this month, given no current polls and New England having gone for Hillary thus far despite the Kennedy's), the VA-MD-DC trifecta on 2/12, WI (which usually votes similar to IA), and HI (where he grewup).

Yet, despite all this, what if Obama can't close the 400K voter gap, or there remains a razor thin delegate margin in June? Even though there is a lot of criticism against superdelegates, the fact is that we do not hold a national primary in this country. Instead, we have primary voters going to the polls during a six month period, during which they learn more about the candidates and make a decision at the time that they vote. And even when they vote, they're not voting for a particular candidate, but for the delegates to represent them at the convention, which is held more than eight months after the first caucus/primary contest. Because of this, I think it's very premature for an Obama supporter to say that he'd "quit the party" if the superdelegates don't support the "will of the people," because it's hard to claim a "will of the people" in the primary process. How many people who've already voted in the primary now regret their decision? What if something new transpires, or a scandal is revealed, against the "favored candidate" before the convention? Should the superdelegates vote for the candidate who received a plurality of the vote, or has a slight lead in delegates, then? And let's say that Hillary still has a slight lead in the vote total and delegate count then, but polls still show that the more liberal senator from Illinois has a better shot against McCain than Hillary, and the superdelegates decide that it's better for the party to nominate Obama in such circumstances? I'm sure under the latter scenario, Mr. Bowers would be singing a much different tune...

WHAM Followup

Evan Dawson replied to my comments on Rottenchester's blog here (just scroll down through the comments), and I replied to his. Perhaps my use of the word "bias" was too strong in this matter, and I appreciate Evan for taking the time to reply. As I stated in my reply to him, "In the past, when I have criticized other media outfits in their reporting of stories (particularly the local papers), I never received a single response from them, so I'm glad you took the time to reply."

While I may still disagree about how this story was portrayed, having the reporter in question follow up with the bloggers on this was very helpful, and even though I normally watch WROC 8 for my local news, Evan, through his thoughtful followup, has given me reasons to watch his network instead.

Brazil Truth

Rottenchester just posted a lengthly retort to my comments on his blog from last night, questioning how I could accused WHAM of media bias and providing a hypothetical if a Dem was investigated by the media for doing the same thing.

Yet, the proof of bias (see post above) is right on WHAM's website. Here's a link to the PDF on the channel's website with the expenditures. Notice something there? Right on the first page, the document is stamped January 31, 2008. Why is this relevant? Because Kuhl's office could NOT have provided the report to the reporter on the 2nd, since the report is not required to published until 60 days after the trip.

Here are excerpts from the Congressional Rules for "Official Travel" that apply to CODELS: "Additionally, the Speaker of the House may approve official foreign travel for a group rather than an individual. Group official foreign travel is called a 'congressional delegation' (CODEL). In the case of a CODEL, the committee chairman, ranking member, or senior employee must write the report for the entire group and submit the report to the Chair of the Committee on International Relations before the end of the session. The report should cover the per diem expenditures, transportation expenditures, and miscellaneous expenditures, as well as the reasons for the expenditures. Within 60 days of the beginning of the next regular session of Congress, the Chair of the Committee on International Relations must file a consolidated report of all committees' official foreign travel expenses with the Committee on House Administration. Changes may be made by submitting an amended report to the Clerk of the House (Emphasis added)." So as you can see the official foreign travel report should have been filed by "the committee chairman, ranking member, or senior employee" who "must write the report for the entire group" and it must be submitted before the end of the congressional session. Not in 30 days and certainly NOT by Congressman Kuhl! Even if Congressman Kuhl was traveling alone the rules state that "members must submit an expense report to the committee chairman within 60 days of the conclusion of the trip," not in 30 days. The 30 day rule applies only to officially connected travel, i.e., official travel paid by a private source, which this trip wasn't!