Odds and ends no. 14

Subtitled, the Election 2008 edition.

While I’m not a “highly influential member of the media” like Rush Limbaugh, I do get quite a bit of e-mail from a number of sources. I’ll always at least glance through them, and if something really interests me enough to do a post I’ll sit down and do one that evening. Obviously a lot of Andy Harris-related material makes that cut because of the impending election. Still others I mark as unread and place in a folder I call “Blog ideas”. Right now that folder is really full and I know that some of these are time-sensitive because they have to do with the campaign. I really could spend my weekend just cranking out posts if I had that kind of time.

By what may be a stroke of good fortune, I have to clear two time slots before Tuesday for possible breaking stuff which I may have confirmed tomorrow; items I feel would be quite attractive for readers. Thus I decided a little bit of closet cleaning was in order, and it was a chance to resurrect a category of sorts I hadn’t utilized since April. This is the stuff I’d love to write about further but there’s only so many hours in the day.

To begin, an article by Doug Bandow at the OpenMarket.org blog touches on something I discussed yesterday, and questions whether the “specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures” which Franklin Roosevelt instituted did anything but extend the Great Depression by another seven years. And I also came across a post on that same website from Hans Bader (who I’ve cited before) that neatly explains Barack Obama’s “spread the wealth” theories.

Speaking of Obama policies, I have Adam Bitely at NetRightNation to hat tip for finding a not-really-all-that-surprising Townhall article by Amanda Carpenter. Did you know that not only is ACORN a group of scofflaws when it comes to registering voters, but a batch of deadbeats when it comes to paying their taxes?

Adam also gets the credit for sending me a link to this from Fred Thompson:

Hey, Fred, where was this during the campaign? I guess he’s a better pitchman for others than for himself.

I hadn’t heard from the folks at Freedom’s Watch in awhile, but this is an excellent video about DSCC Chairman Chuck Schumer and his drive for a filibuster-proof 60 seat majority in the Senate:

It’s worth reminding folks that Schumer’s group was the brains behind the “Bought By Big Oil” website that I compared to being bought by Big Labor a few weeks back.

Why not another video while I’m at it? We all know that Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania has been a critic of the Long War. This week the group Vets For Freedom began buying airtime for an ad that essentially calls him a liar.

His GOP opponent is Lt. Col. (ret.) Bill Russell, a 28 year veteran who most recently served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Naturally the VFF PAC is supporting him, as are many others in the conservative media world.

Vets For Freedom also released their own voting scorecard earlier this month – the topic being war-related Senate votes in 2007. Not surprisingly, John McCain’s 93.5% rating garnered him an “A” for the year while Barack Obama flunked with a score of 0.5. Joe Biden was among three Senators (Ted Kennedy and Bernie Sanders of Vermont were the others) with a big fat zero. The best of a bad local lot (all F’s) was Delaware’s Tom Carper with a 33 rating, while Barbara Mikulski won the Maryland race against Ben Cardin 29 to 14.

It’s a nice idea, but the VFF report’s one glaring weakness is not covering House votes. We only elect 34 Senators this year but all 435 House members are up and it may have been more helpful to figure their votes out too.

To wrap this up, perhaps an Obama win wouldn’t be all that bad for the GOP. At least that’s what Newt Gingrich says. I know Newt is a history buff and his reasoning is sound, but there’s a big difference in eras I don’t think he’s accounting for. This came from Jeff Quinton at the Inside Charm City site, as Newt appeared two weeks ago on Bob and Kendel Ehrlich’s weekly radio show.

Well folks, I hope you enjoyed this political potpourri. It took my file down from 36 items to 14 (some of these were discarded), with most of those not being time-sensitive. In truth, most of them are environmental items that can wait – hey, I’ll need something to write about after November 4th.

Just so you know in advance, I’m probably going to slow down my pace just a touch between the election results coming out and the holidays. Normally I shoot for 11 posts a week (2 per day Monday thru Thursday and 1 on Friday through Sunday) but with the slow news cycle I may trim it back to 8 or 9 a week. It gives me a bit of a break, but I also have some heavy research posts planned in there as well. So don’t worry – regardless of result Tuesday I’m not going anywhere!

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.