Backroom Report - Monday, June 29, 2009

The drought is over… outdoor watering restrictions have been phased back… so now get ready for a huge surprise. And folks it’s not a good one.

A couple of years back, when the state of Georgia implemented strict watering limits, most water systems around northwest Georgia raised their water rates. There were two factors at play. One is that the state required local water systems to reduce their water usage, so cities and counties decided that by jacking up water rates their water customers would be less inclined to use water unnecessarily.

Second, many water systems issued bonds to pay for upgrades and expansions of their infrastructure. So when water usage went down, they had less water revenues to cover their monthly expense of servicing those bonds.

So now that watering restrictions have been scaled back and we can water our lawns, wash our cars, and fill our swimming pools… guess what? The water rates have not been adjusted back down.

If you use more water than the small amount it takes to bath, wash clothes and flush toilets each month… you’re going to have sticker shock when you receive that next water bill.

Now I’m not out wasting water, but it has been dry the past three weeks and my lawn along with the 80 shrubs I planted this spring are thirsty. When that statement arrives this week I can guarantee you that I will be one unhappy camper… and I probably won’t be alone.

To make it worse, the Cartersville City Council and Mayor just voted to raise your water rates even higher to generate additional revenues to offset anticipated lower tax collections caused by the economic downturn. Instead of making needed cuts to the city budget to cover the shortfall and balance the books, the folks who run Cartersville pulled one out of the liberal playbook and jacked up the price of something else, so you couldn’t accuse them of raising taxes.

Hey, increase fees, increase water rates, do what you want… but if the revenues end up padding the general budget it’s still a tax increase.

So when you get you water bill this coming month… especially if you’ve done any outdoor watering… you may just want to pick up the phone and call Commissioner Clarence Brown if you live in the county… or call the mayor and city council members if you get your water from the City of Cartersville… and let them know they need to drop the water rates back down to pre-drought levels… and in this economy it’s only fair.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, June 29, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, June 22, 2009

I really debated with myself over whether I should even address this morning’s topic because it involves a lot of rumor and hearsay… however the scuttlebutt around Cartersville has intensified to the point that something has to be done.

Regardless of how much of this turns out to be 100% factual is really irrelevant, because of the damage these rumors and accusations are doing to various individuals in the community and to the Cartersville School System.

As a former elected official, I always admired the ability of the Cartersville Mayor and City Council and of the School Board and Superintendent over the years to circle the wagons and keep negative things from becoming public nightmares. When you’re dealing with organizations involving large numbers of employees and in the case of the school system… 1000’s of children and their families, it can be difficult.

Don’t get me wrong, I fully believe in open government and don’t like seeing things swept under the rug when the public should be made aware of them… but there are other issues that sometimes crop up… usually of a personal nature… that should be quietly handled to protect innocent family members and co-workers. The rumors and hearsay involving Cartersville High School and its athletics programs appear to involve both those private personal issues and a couple that should be public… and it’s time for the school board and the high school administration to take a cue from Barney Fife and nip this stuff in the bud.

Cartersville High has a storied tradition of producing championship quality sports teams… but more important than the number of trophies and banners is the opportunity of Cartersville High to use its sports programs to build decency and character in our young people… and here’s where the problem lies.

Without mentioning names… because that is really not the issue, there are stories circulating of an athlete allegedly being caught having sex in a coach’s office… another story of an alleged rape of a female student in a classroom that was supposed to have been monitored by a coach… stories of athletes allegedly being served alcohol at parties chaperoned by adults… and stories of one of those athletes allegedly being pulled over for DUI… there are attacks against coaches over alleged improprieties in their own personal lives… and there are countless accusations and counter claims pitting various factions within the school system against each other… plus there are numerous other rumors hanging on the Cartersville High grapevine.

Again, my point this morning is not whether all of these things are true or none of them are true… the issue is that these stories and others are wildly circulating throughout the community and personal reputations are being ruined… and Cartersville High is being dragged down… giving the community a black eye.

So to Superintendent Dr. Hinesley and to the men and women on the Cartersville Board of Education… this is the week to deal with this mess. If heads need to roll let’s get it done now so things don’t fester during the upcoming school year… if things aren’t as bad as they appear from the outside, then get out front and address the public and put some fears at ease. If things are that bad, then acknowledge the problems and lay out a course of action to deal with them. This community needs closure now.

We welcome your opinions… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, June 22, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, June 15, 2009

When it comes to our nosy friends in the U.S. government I have four words for them… None Of Your Business! And if you are among one of the lucky 3 million American households who received an “American Community Survey” from the U.S. Census Bureau, here’s your chance to say it too. Do the feds really need to know how many toilets you have in your home? And more importantly do they even have the right to ask?

Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution gave the federal government a mandate to conduct an enumeration of the U.S. population once every ten years for the purpose of apportioning congressional districts and calculating the federal tax burden.

Since the census numbers are used to calculate how many congressional seats each state receives… our founders wisely assessed that by also tying taxation levels to the same numbers, states would not try to artificially inflate their census numbers in order to get more congressmen… if they did they would also be subject to more taxes. Now the tax part was repealed almost 100 years ago when the individual income tax was implemented, so that part is moot… but the enumeration part has gotten out of control.

In other words the federal government has the authority to count heads… and that’s it. But we all know the federal government never let’s that little thing known as the Constitution get in their way… oh no!

While the U.S. Census will not be conducted until next year, our busy little friends in DC are demanding that millions of American households bare their souls and disclose countless private matters to Uncle Sam in non-census years… and if you don’t you’re subject to a fine of up to $5,000… again never mind that the Constitution doesn’t give them the right.

Of course the DC do-gooders will say we’re only using the data collected to help us in serving citizens. Translation? We want to be able to prove that Americans need us to spend more tax dollars to take care of everyone from cradle to grave.

So how many toilets do I have in my house? “None of your business”. How much do I spend heating my home each year? “None of your business”.

Do I have phone service? How many automobiles do I own? Am I a student? What is the highest level of education I’ve completed? Do I have health problems? Give the location of where I worked last week? How did I get to work last week and long did it take me to get to there? Did I carpool? How many hours did I work? How much did I earn? Did I have any other sources of income? How much and from where? And dozens more questions for me and every member of my household… And you know what my answer is?

None of your business!!!! And Uncle Sam can kiss every toilet seat in my home if he doesn’t like it!

Now the media tried to spin the story about the Tax Day Tea Parties back in April to make them appear as being all about taxes… they completely missed the point. It was about freedom and individual liberty and a stop to intrusive non-sense like this illegal government survey and other government actions that have them putting their sticky fingers into every aspect of our lives.

And one more word of warning to Uncle Sam… when I do receive my “real” census form next year, I’m only required to give you the number of people residing in my home. However I’ll be generous and also give you the sex and age, but no birthdays, no Social Security numbers, and no other information. And when I select the box for race or ethnicity… I’m putting down Native American… after all I’ve had ancestors here since the early 1600’s. I mean how long do you have to live here to be considered a Native?

Now on advice of counsel I am only telling you what I would do and am not advocating that anyone break any law. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

We welcome your opinions… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, June 15, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, June 8, 2009

Several days ago an e-mail alert hit my in-box… “Gun Rights Under Attack In Bartow County”. As a gun owner and strident protector of the Second Amendment I immediately opened the e-mail, although I was puzzled because NW Georgia is gun country and no politician around here would dare cross gun owners. Well, it turns out the e-mail had nothing to do with gun rights and everything to do with private property rights… and I found myself on the other side of the issue opposing these upset gun owners.

Most folks around here come from the school of thought that says, “I don’t care what you do with your property as long as you don’t infringe on my right to use and enjoy my own property”. It’s that gray area where the rights of one party infringe upon another party that causes things to get complicated.

Now if your neighbor were releasing toxic gases into the air on his land, the government would shut him down because that air doesn’t stay over his land… it blows onto other people’s property. Likewise if he were dumping hazardous waste onto his land, he would be stopped because he would be polluting surface water and ground water… killing wildlife and possibly contaminating his neighbors’ wells.

Now the subject of the e-mail I received involved a different type of pollution… noise pollution being generated from a firing range… and make no mistake it is pollution… negatively impacting people’s health and keeping them from enjoying their own homes and property.

While Bartow County has been very progressive over the years and ahead of many neighboring counties in terms of land use planning… the county is way behind the times when it comes to dealing with noise pollution. I’ve been on the receiving end of noise problems and our hands were virtually tied other than filing lawsuits against the other party because Bartow County has nothing substantial on the books concerning noise and nuisance issues.

A revision to Bartow County’s zoning and land use laws is being considered that would place additional restrictions on firing ranges. The proposed changes are reasonable and would help protect neighboring homeowners from the noise and from possible stray bullets.

Unfortunately the proposed changes as written would also force two local firing range owners to shut down. Both of these men have significant investments in their businesses and those rights should also be protected if possible.

While the planning commission voted against the new proposal, County Commissioner Clarence Brown has postponed making a decision until his next meeting. There is a solution I hope Commissioner Brown will consider…

Approve the proposed restrictions so that new firing ranges being built in Bartow County would have to adhere to the new law, and then exempt the existing gun ranges from some aspects, such as the minimum land requirements, on the condition that they agree to some reasonable restrictions… such as adopting the limited hours of operation included in the new proposal.

Commissioner Brown also needs to take this a step further and put together an advisory panel to investigate other metro Atlanta noise ordinances. Then craft a countywide statute that will give citizens something to stand on when they face unreasonable noise problems.

Like it or not, Bartow County is now part of metro Atlanta and subdivisions and nice homes are located side by side with farms and open land. I hope Commissioner Brown has sympathy for the young mother who finally gets her baby to sleep only to have it awakened by that loud car stereo passing by or by that kid on the loud dirt bike riding next door. And I hope he considers that exhausted third shift worker unable to sleep in the daytime because a neighbor decides to shoot skeet in his pasture.

They say a man’s home is his castle… but right now in Bartow County that’s not the case. Times have changed and Bartow County’s ordinances must change as well.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, June 8, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, June 1, 2009

When one thinks of the Old South of my youth, some of the things that come to mind are sweet iced tea, the Confederate battle flag, and those “South Shall Rise Again” bumper stickers… and all three may play a role in next year’s Georgia gubernatorial race.

Sometime this week it’s widely anticipated that former Democrat Governor Roy Barnes will announce that he’s seeking a comeback. Since Georgia governors are term-limited to two 4-year terms and old Roy already has one term under his belt, he could only serve four years if elected… and I detect a slight whiff of desire by Roy to get back at those who ousted him in 2002. Hopefully there is more driving his decision to run that repairing his tarnished legacy, but I doubt it.

Of course some Democrats are pinning their hopes that Barnes, as a former governor, will be able to raise the substantial sums of money needed to compete with the GOP nominee in a state that is strongly conservative and red. Then there are those Dem’s who secretly fear that while ol’ Roy may generate some buzz and make things interesting, that it may not take long for his Democrat Primary opponents to remind voters of why Barnes was put out to pasture by Georgia voters in a shocking upset in 2002. By that point Roy will have sucked up a boatload of scarce Democrat donor dollars in a contentious primary campaign that may leave Democrats with a sinking ship.

So let’s talk about that sweet tea… one of the issues that Barnes will milk for all it’s worth is the property tax relief grant program that was implemented during his term in office. These dollars flowed from the state to the counties to offset a portion of the property taxes that would have been billed to property owners. Over time many counties took advantage of the situation by raising their millage rates hoping taxpayers wouldn’t notice because of the reduction from the relief grants… this allowed those counties to pad their budgets.

Like most government programs, this one ended up costing more than expected and was becoming a huge drain on the state budget… especially during this current economic meltdown. Thus the state legislature this year was forced to continue the program with the contingency that if the economy remained anemic, the relief grant dollars would not be provided. So this fall, unless your county significantly cuts its own budget, your property tax bill will rise by an average of between 100 and 300 dollars. Ouch! So you know ol’ Roy will blame the GOP as he takes credit for starting the program… and it will provide Barnes the perfect populist issue as he tries to siphon off some support from the tea parties being planned over the next several months.

Now about that Confederate stuff… Barnes is also branding some Republican gubernatorial candidates as secessionists who want Georgia to leave the Union. Nothing could be further from the truth, but that shouldn’t stop a good trial attorney like Barnes from twisting the facts. A number of state legislatures around the nation have passed resolutions reminding Congress and President Obama that the 10th amendment to the Constitution is still alive… and that much of what is being done in DC these days should thus be declared unconstitutional… that the federal government is doing things and exercising powers that are specifically reserved to the states.

To a big government hound dog like Barnes… saying that states have rights under the 10th amendment is blasphemy, and he is using War Between The States imagery in his attempt to paint the GOP field as wanting to return Georgia to the 1860’s… a snake oil salesman if I ever saw one. Not one of the GOP candidates has made any statement even remotely suggesting that Georgia leave the Union, but ol’ Roy is not one to let facts get in the way of a good campaign attack.

So one day this week, you’ll probably see ol’ Roy with his graying Shoney Boy dipsy-do hairstyle announcing his decision to run for guvnah again in his syrupy southern trial layer style… but ol’ Roy ain’t Matlock and this is one case where I think the jury will side with the GOP.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, June 1, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, May 18. 2009

There’s something going on this week in Washington DC that could potentially have a major impact on your future… bigger than the bank bailout, larger than the GM/Chrysler situation, more important than Obama’s multi-trillion dollar deficit or Nancy Pelosi’s water boarding side show… but unfortunately the media will never report this side of the story… because it involves religion.

I dare say that over 90% of you listening this morning consider yourselves to be Christian. Most of you believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God… and the Bible is very clear that those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who oppress her will be cursed.

God’s ancient prophets told us that Israel would one day be restored as a nation and would once again occupy the Holy Land… God’s Covenant land, including the city of Jerusalem. The series of events leading up the May 1948 rebirth of the nation of Israel are amazing. As you study the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the Palestine Mandate approved in 1922… you come to the realization that the country of Jordan was to be considered the home for the Palestinian peoples.

Yet for the past 40 years, political leaders around the world have been trying to force Israel to give up more land so that another independent Palestinian state can be created under her nose… the so-called two state solution. So why should this matter to you? Because the Obama administration is embarking on a Middle East policy that could very well bring God’s wrath upon our nation.

In November 2001, John McTernan and Bill Koenig published a book titled “Israel, The Blessing Or The Curse” in which they lay out a persuasive argument revealing that every time the United State government puts pressure on Israel to give up land for peace, some catastrophic event would hit the U.S. There’s not enough time here to go into detail, but the research is astounding.

Now the Obama administration is blackmailing Israel… sending word that the U.S. will not address the issue of the Iranian nuclear program until Israel does three major things (and a number of smaller things): (1) Gives the Golan Heights to Syria… (2) Provides the Palestinians with a corridor running from the West Bank to the Gaza strip, effectively cutting Israel in half, (3) Divides Jerusalem by giving East Jerusalem to the Palestinians to be the capital of their new nation. The moves being pushed by Obama are so extreme that even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed strong reservations, but reluctantly said she would do as instructed.

The new Israeli government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is opposed to all three proposals… they know their implementation would bring about a quick end to Israel as a nation. Netanyahu will be in Washington this week meeting with Obama… and Obama holds most of the chips.

Watch the events that unfold in coming days very closely. If the U.S. truly attempts to force Israel to divide the land, God’s hedge of protection on America may be parted and the outcome for us could be catastrophic.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, May 18, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, May 11, 2009

Back in the 1980’s, Cartersville’s own Joe Frank Harris was Governor… and Cartersville and Bartow had a lot of clout under the Gold Dome. That power meant good things for the home folks… just one example was Anheuser Busch choosing to build their brewery here.

Unfortunately now, there’s a group of local community leaders trying to play a political game they don’t fully understand and it may put Cartersville even further down the blankety-blank list at the capitol.

Now I love this county as much as anyone… and many of these community leaders I’m referring to are friends and acquaintances... and their intentions are good… they’re just on the wrong track.

Here’s the background… it’s been many decades since a state senator representing Bartow County actually lived in Bartow County. And many folks, me included, have worked hard during reapportionment every ten years to get all of Bartow included inside of a single senate district instead of having it split between two districts like it is now. Maybe one day that will happen… but until it does we have to continue to play the game, and some folks have forgotten how.

Back in the 1970’s, 80’s, & 90’s Democrat State Senator Nathan Dean from Polk County represented a large section of Bartow including Cartersville. Nathan had seniority and held some powerful leadership positions. Local business people and community leaders, whether they were Republican or Democrat, cozied up to Senator Dean and kept him happy. In return, he took care of the folks here in Bartow when we needed something.

Fast forward to today… State Senator Bill Heath from Haralson County represents the southern half of Bartow including Cartersville. You may remember Bill as the man who defeated former House Speaker Tom Murphy.

Instead of building a close relationship with Senator Heath like we once did with Senator Nathan Dean, a number of local leaders are considering running their own Cartersville based Republican candidate against Heath in the GOP Primary next year. Huge mistake!

First… the portion of Bartow County in Bill’s district only makes up about thirty-something percent of the primary vote. Second… there will be some highly contested Democrat races next summer, so the challenger won’t be able to count on Democrats crossing over to vote in the GOP Primary as happened last year when Paul Battles unseated Jeff Lewis in a local state house race.

Third… Bill is very well liked and respected by his fellow senators and more importantly, by the senate leadership… and he is a successful business person and an honorable man to boot. I have already heard straight from the top that if a local group tries to challenge Heath, then Cartersville can completely forget about getting anything from the Gold Dome crowd.

Much of this stems from something that happened a few weeks ago. Local officials in Bartow County and Cartersville wanted to increase the local hotel/motel tax rate. This required local legislation to be passed by the state legislature… and protocol dictates that all members of Bartow County’s delegation sign off on the bill. Instead of getting a go ahead from State Reps Tom Graves and Barry Loudermilk, along with Senators Preston Smith and Bill Heath… State Rep. Paul Battles went forward and put the bill on the house calendar.

Paul’s inexperience along with the failure of local leaders to prepare the ground in advance with Heath and the rest of the local delegation… killed the bill. Plus did Mayor Matt Santinni and Commissioner Clarence Brown really think that conservative Republican legislators were going to happily vote for their tax increase plan?

If Cartersville and Bartow County want to win… if they want to re-establish clout at the state capitol… then they have to stop working to knock off powerful and well-liked local legislators. Instead, try building bridges and working the system they way we used to over the prior three decades. Then go to work and try to influence how local senate districts will be redrawn in 2011.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, May 11, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, May 4, 2009

Let’s say you own a business… your employees form a union and force you to pay wages and benefits almost 50% higher than most of your competitors… and because of the competitive disadvantage you found yourself in, your company ends up in serious financial difficulty.

Now let’s say the U.S. government decides to take money by force from it’s citizens and from your competitors thru taxes and loan it to you to prop up your employee’s union… then the government works out a packaged bankruptcy deal whereby the very union employees who ran you into the ground walk away owning 55% of your company.

If owned Chrysler, then that is exactly what happened to you, and General Motors may be next… with a plan circulating that would give 39% of General Motors stock to their employee’s union. If you own stock in GM… and you just might if you own any mutual funds, have a 401K, or are a member of a pension plan… then you’re fixin’ to get screwed too.

Plus there are foundations, universities, pensions funds and retirees who loaned money to Chrysler by purchasing of bonds and other financial instruments… who stand to be wiped out by this Chrysler bankruptcy.

This whole auto industry bailout plan implemented by the Obama administration was nothing more than a payback to the unions for helping him get elected. If Chrysler and GM had been allowed to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy on their own, they could have rid themselves of these bloated union contracts they are saddled with and could have then competed with Honda, Toyota, and the other car companies on a level playing field.

As for me, I’ll never buy another Chrysler or General Motors product again. It’s really no great loss because every GM or Chrysler product I’ve ever owned has been a lemon anyhow. Now before you attack me for not buying American… I now drive a Ford truck and our Toyota Sequoia was built in the good ol’ USA.

It’s just time we let Detroit and Washington know that we’ve had enough… stop taking our tax dollars to prop up businesses that should be allowed to fail. Heck, if Obama had been in charge the last hundred years the government would probably still be subsidizing horse drawn carriages.

In closing, let me give a tip of the hat to two local giants who passed away last week… Mathew Hill and Lewis Justus. We’ve lost quite a few community leaders here in Bartow County over the past few years and these two men will be missed by many.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, May 4, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, April 27, 2009

Not much has been said locally, but we have an interesting dilemma unfolding here over the next few months involving your property taxes. Each year county officials set the tax value of every piece of property… residential, commercial, and raw land.

In theory those values should accurately represent the true worth of the properties. After all it wouldn’t be fair for two almost identical homes to have widely varying tax appraisals. So here’s the dilemma…

It’s no secret that property values have dropped significantly over the past 18 months. One only has to glance at the near record number of home foreclosures we’ve experienced here over the past year… and large numbers of foreclosed properties depress the values of neighboring properties.

This is an issue of fairness… and while tax assessors were quick to factor in the rapidly escalating prices of homes and land during the past decade when doing their tax appraisals… the big question is will they now be willing to lower property values across the board equal to the average drop in real estate prices we’ve experienced?

Having served on the Bartow County Board of Education, I can tell you that county and city school officials, along with those in city and county government are wringing their hands. If the tax digest… the overall combined value of all properties in Bartow County comes in lower than last year’s valuations, then officials have two choices: (1) Raise property tax rates to compensate, or (2) Cut expenses.

While local city and county governments have some room to raise millage rates to compensate… in the case of school systems it gets a little trickier. By law a school system cannot set its tax rate above 20 mils without having a public referendum, and the Bartow County School System is in the upper teens already, so they have very little headroom.

Having already been impacted by reduced state funding for several years, I can tell you that local school systems have very little fat left to trim. You can’t just send the kids home and tell them to come back when the economy improves.

I can also tell you that if Bartow County tax assessors don’t lower the tax values of virtually every piece of property in this county to a level based upon today’s economic realities… then we may end up with a tax revolt… and real estate prices have dropped anywhere from 15 to 30%.

We’ll find out how they handled it collectively when the tax digest is released later this summer and again individually when our tax valuation notices are mailed out a few weeks later. It’s a no-win situation and I don’t envy those involved.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, April 27, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, April 20, 2009

Having donated countless hours and resources fighting for conservative causes over the last 25 years, I just wasn’t motivated to attend any of the Tax Day Tea Parties last week… Maybe watching the Obama administration’s quick dismantling of our nation had put me into a defeatist mindset.

Then I turned on the television Wednesday evening and watched as thousands and thousands of Americans from coast to coast took to the streets to demand that their government hear them and address their concerns… I was moved and for the first time in a while I felt encouraged that maybe we had one last opportunity to preserve America for the next generation.

Most of the pontificators in the media missed it! While lowering taxes was certainly part of focus of those attending the Tea Parties, the underlying issue is personal liberty. Freedom from a tax code so confusing that even the lawmakers who wrote it can’t understand it… freedom from an all-powerful government encroaching into every aspect of our lives from child rearing and education to the types of food we eat to the color we can paint our houses. America is saying enough!

Despite the downplaying of the Tea Parties by the likes of liberal news outlets MSNBC and CNN, a strong possibility exists that the tea parties could become something more and the left knows it. That’s why they were so quick to attempt to demoralize those who were excited by the protests.

But there is hope… at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, many scholars believe that only five percent or less of the population of the colonies at the time were actually in favor of breaking with Great Britain. A movement that started small and was dismissed by most grew quickly, and we know the eventual outcome.

Since last Wednesday I’ve had numerous people ask me… “How do we keep the momentum going and grow this Tea Party movement into something more?”

Here’s the fact of the matter… a huge percentage of the U.S. population has no clue about what goes on in the nation. So the secret to expanding and furthering our cause of liberty is education. You must talk with your friends and give them hard facts about what their government is doing and how it impacts their lives.

Invite them to listen to shows like we air here on NewsTalk AM 1270… such as Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, and Monica Crowley. Share news and information from web sites, books and publications you trust. A perfect example is Imprimis… a monthly newsletter published by Hillsdale College. You can sign up to have Imprimis delivered to your home for free at Hillsdale.edu – just click on the Imprimis button at the bottom of the page.

Another thing you can do personally is to stop spending money with businesses that support and donate money to liberal progressive causes… A perfect example here is Progressive Insurance Company… Yep, that’s where the name came from. Their chairman donates millions to liberal progressive causes and candidates. We must defund the left and instead go out of our way to support those businesses that support freedom.

I truly believe we are living a line from Don McLean’s prophetic song American Pie… “The players tried to take the field, but the marching band refused to yield.” We are the marching band… we are the patriots… and we will not yield to the New World Order players who wish to enslave us all.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, April 20, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, April 6, 2009

Calling all RINO hunters… 2010 may be the year you’ve been waiting for and there are some RINO’s out there with big targets on their butts. For you non-political types, RINO (R-I-N-O) is an acronym for Republican In Name Only. A RINO is a politician who runs as a Republican in order to get elected, but is not a true Republican in terms of ideology.

As Georgia transformed from 130 years of Democrat control to become the GOP powerhouse it is today, a number of Democrats changed stripes so they could maintain their power. And there are numerous school board members, city councilmen, county commissioners, etc. around the state who have been elected in recent years who are not true conservatives, but ran as Republicans because that was the easy thing to do.

All one has to do is spend a few minutes with one of these RINO’s to understand that they don’t have a firm grasp of the issues and in many cases don’t even understand the most basic tenets of conservative ideology.

So why would Republicans elect these RINO’s to be their standard bearers for the November General Election? Georgia is an open primary state, meaning that voters don’t have to register by party and are free do chose whether to vote in the Democrat or Republican primary when they show up at the polls.

Now primary elections are designed to allowed each political party to select its own nominees for various offices… then the parties go up against each other in November. However, with open primaries, voters from other parties can and do cross over and help pick the other party’s nominees.

A perfect local example was last year’s GOP primary defeat of Republican State Representative Jeff Lewis by Paul Battles. With no contested races on the Democrat ballot, many Democrat voters crossed over and voted against Jeff on the GOP ballot giving Paul a razor thin victory. Whether or not Paul would be considered a RINO is up for debate, but if only Republicans had been allowed to select their nominee, Jeff would have won.

So why should RINO hunters… those who seek to replace RINO’s with true Republicans, be excited about 2010? Two words… Thurbert Baker. Baker, a Democrat and Georgia’s Attorney General, announced last week that he would seek the Democrat nomination for governor. With Davis Poythress already in the race and strong rumors that former Governor Roy Barnes may be considering a run as well… suddenly the Democrat primary next year looks to be a donnybrook and that means most Democrats will pull a Democrat ballot.

And with a Republican primary almost free of Democrat intrusion, Republican voters can go about the business of purging the party of those pesky RINOs.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, April 6, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, March 30, 2009

Attention City of Cartersville, Bartow County, and Georgia Environmental Protection officials… according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture… as of last week… Bartow, Chattooga, Floyd, and Gordon Counties are no longer in drought condition… none… nada… not even in the dryer than normal category…. and Lake Allatoona is full for this time of year.

We were told the watering restrictions we’ve been saddled with were necessary due to the drought, but now that it’s over I only have one question… will you now abolish these rules so we can get back to living our lives normally… like being able to wash our cars? This one should be a no brainer and shouldn’t take more than a few days for them to implement. Or will government refuse to turn lose, now that it has its slimy claws firmly embedded in our posteriors?

Now on to happier topics… here’s a tidbit that may not have caught your attention. On April 27th, The Rome News Tribune will take over home delivery for the Atlanta Journal Constitution in Bartow County. Hmmm… so does this mean competition is brewing for the Cartersville Daily Tribune?

If the Rome News will have its own carriers delivering the AJC in every nook and cranny of Bartow County, wouldn’t it make economic sense to also begin promoting subscriptions of the Rome News Tribune here? They already have a huge presence in Adairsville and Kingston… they publish 7 days a week… and they already cover a lot of Bartow County news, events and sports.

Now nothing against the Cartersville hometown paper, I’ve been a subscriber for almost 30 years… but the folks in Rome are light years ahead in preparing for the new media world that’s quickly enveloping us. One only has to compare the websites for each paper… The Cartersville Daily Tribune only updates its website once each morning after the paper has been delivered and doesn’t post complete stories… just enough information to get you interested, hoping you will go out and buy a paper.

On the other hand, the Rome News Tribune updates its website around the clock with breaking news as it happens… it publishes complete articles online, not just snippets… packs much more news and editorial content into each print edition than Cartersville… and even produces some streaming video stories that are available on the web. They understand that newspapers must change or die… as evidenced by the rapidly increasing number of papers that have ceased publication in recent weeks, and the severe downsizing of others such as the AJC.

Even more troubling for newspapers was a recent survey that revealed that most people age 40 and under really wouldn’t care if their local newspaper went out of business. This generation is wired and they want their news tailored to them and they want it instantly as it happens… sent to their desktops, laptops, PDA’s & cells. Waking up and reading about it tomorrow is not an option. The Rome News is doing the prep work needed to meet this challenge.

In 1980 the population of Bartow County was around 45,000 and the Cartersville Daily Tribune had a circulation of just under 6,000… the county’s population is now almost 100,000, yet the Tribune’s daily circulation has only increased to about 7,500 papers… proof that the younger set is getting their news and information elsewhere.

So should the Cartersville Daily Tribune be worried about the Rome paper invading its turf? With a weak economy impacting advertising revenues, the folks in Rome may not have deep enough pockets to launch an all out war right now. On the other hand, Rome News Publishing already owns the papers in Rockmart, Cedartown, Calhoun, Walker County, Catoosa County, and over in Cherokee County, Alabama. This might be an opportune time to make a move. Stay tuned… this one could get interesting.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, March 30, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, March 23, 2009

Back in the early 1800’s my gr-gr-gr-gr-grandfather Tarlton Sheets was the chairman of the first grand jury ever constituted in Campbell County, Georgia… you say you never heard of Campbell County? Well, that may be because just over a hundred years later, during the Great Depression, Campbell County went bankrupt and was absorbed by Fulton County.

Even if the economy stops its freefall and levels out this year, those paid the big bucks to know such things say that the State of Georgia along with its cities, counties, and local school systems will see significantly decreased tax revenues for at least two more years and that means even more severe belt tightening will likely be required…

So here’s a thought… could this be the perfect opportunity to increase efficiencies, cut overhead, and provide better service at a lower cost to taxpayers by consolidating governments?

For example, by merging the Cartersville City and Bartow County School Systems, we could eliminate one superintendent position along with numerous other duplicated jobs such as transportation director, food service director, etc. Attendance districts could be better managed allowing more efficient mapping of bus routes… the possibilities are endless. And we would forever eliminate that age-old battle between city and county over annexation.

How about consolidating all of Bartow County’s cities with the county government? It’s been successfully done with Augusta and Richmond County, Columbus and Muscogee County, and a few others.

Just think, one countywide fire department would be much more efficient than having separate city and county fire stations down the street from each other… and no more trying to figure out if a home or business is in the city or county before sending out the trucks.

How about a countywide police force to handle traffic enforcement and other functions? That would allow the Sheriff’s department to concentrate it’s efforts on running the jail, serving warrants, providing security for county buildings, and other higher level law enforcement actions.

Since Bartow County buys a large percentage of its water from Cartersville already, wouldn’t a consolidated water department make more sense? The possible savings to taxpayers through consolidation and merging of local government entities are impressive.

Under normal circumstances steps of this magnitude would be hard to achieve… pride in one’s school system or city would stand in the way, but these are extraordinary times. Let’s take the lemons of this bad economy and make some lemonade…

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, March 23, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, March 16, 2009

It’s amazing what a single second can do… If you were listening to the Lars Larson Show here Friday night you heard from our own State Representative Barry Loudermilk. Now Barry has worked diligently to do away with red light cameras in Georgia. His viewpoint is that they’re unconstitutional because the ticket is charged to the owner of the vehicle whether or not the owner was actually driving… plus anyone charged with an offense is supposed to be able to face their accuser in a court of law… something that doesn’t happen with these red light cameras.

Loudermilk and others have also argued that the primary motivation behind the cameras is the money they generate for the cities and counties that install them… while the cities and counties would always fire back that safety was the reason for them. Yet every time Barry would introduce legislation to reduce the fines or have the dollars redirected to the state… mayors, councilmen, and commissioners would flood the Gold dome in protest.

There’s also big money in the pot for the companies that manufacture and operate the cameras for the cities. So needless to say they have lobbyists working against any restrictions on red light cameras.

Fortunately for us, Loudermilk was successful in getting legislation passed last year that would require that at any intersection where a red light camera is placed, the yellow light would have to stay on for the federally recommended minimum time plus one second…
That’s all it took!

You see… once a city installs a red light camera, the state DOT relinquishes control of the lights at that intersection to the city… and many of these local governments were reducing the amount of time that the caution lights remained yellow. Less time means more tickets.

By forcing them to leave the lights on yellow for the federally recommended minimum plus one second guess what happened? Accidents at the intersections actually decreased, plus the number of tickets dropped by as much as 80%!

And guess what many of the cities with red light cameras are doing? Pulling the plug… which proves that putting those dollars in the cities’ bank accounts was the primary motivation for installing the cameras in the first place. Just in Gwinnett County alone Duluth, Lilburn, Norcross, Snellville, and Suwanee have either turned off the cameras or plan to as soon as their contracts are up because that extra second is costing them big bucks.

So a big tip of the hat to State Representative Barry Loudermilk for having the determination to not give up… and for also for having the brains to outwit the red light camera folks and prove they were primarily in it for the money.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, March 16, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, March 2, 2009

It’s one of the biggest games of political chicken played out in Georgia in a long time… so the question is… will the state legislature blink?

Last Thursday the Georgia Department of Transportation board voted to fire DOT Commissioner Gena Evans after just 14 months on the job. To understand what will transpire over the next few weeks let’s look at how we got here.

The DOT board is made up of one member from each of Georgia’s 13 congressional districts. These board members are elected by the state legislators whose own districts are located inside a particular congressional district. For example, Bartow County is in the 11th Congressional district. So our state house members and state senators along with the others from inside the 11th district voted to elect David Doss of Rome as our DOT Board Member.

Gena Evans was the pick of Governor Sonny Perdue to be DOT Commissioner. The DOT board voted to hire Evans by a vote of 7 to 6 instead of choosing Speaker Glenn Richardson’s choice, State Representative Vance Smith. This was a pitched battle and several State House members were punished by the Speaker for how they played the game.

Evans came in and starting cleaning house… exposing numerous problems within the agency and cracking down on what she considered incompetence… especially in regard to accounting methods used. This caused a dramatic slowdown in road construction projects as Evans and her staff tried to untangle the mess at DOT. This rattled a DOT board that was being pressured by the business community and local officials to get various road projects underway.

While this was all boiling under the surface, Governor Perdue, Speaker Glenn Richardson, and Lt. Governor Casey Cagle put together a proposal to consolidate Georgia’s transportation future in the hands of one state agency… and that agency was not the DOT. Instead the Department of Transportation would be downsized and its responsibilities reduced to just maintenance and operations… not construction projects.

The icing on the cake is the future of almost one billion dollars of transportation money included in the recently passed federal economic stimulus bill that is headed to Georgia.

So last week’s firing of Commissioner Gena Evans was the DOT board’s way of punishing Governor Perdue for daring to move forward with his plan for reducing the role of the DOT in Georgia’s transportation future.

In a DOT board press release last Thursday announcing that Evans was being replaced, two things caught my eye. One was the DOT board’s message that they will be putting plans in place for spending that one-billion dollars in federal transportation money… this was a direct challenge to Governor Perdue, Cagle and Richardson… for if the state legislature approves the new realignment of state transportation agencies, then that one-billion dollars would be handled by the new agency instead of DOT… and the leadership of this new agency would be appointed by Perdue, Cagle, and Richardson.

The second issue is that DOT board members know they are in a political dogfight, so in desperation they played the race card. The person they named to replace Gena Evans is black. No problem there… if Gerald Ross is the most qualified person to run the DOT that’s fine by me. However, instead of focusing on Mr. Ross’s qualifications and vision… the press release focused almost entirely on the fact that Ross was the first black chosen as DOT commissioner. This was a calculated play… knowing that black legislators and most Democrat members of the General Assembly would not vote for Perdue’s plan to shift power and funding away from a DOT that would now be headed by a minority. This was pure race based politics and it’s shameless.

There’s a lot of arm-twisting going on behind the scenes and the future of transportation in Georgia is dependent upon the outcome.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, March 2, 2009

Backroom Report - Monday, Feb. 23, 2008

If you’re an employee of the Bartow County School System… and most other area school systems for that matter, you’ve probably been getting short-changed on the gains you’ve received from your 403b tax sheltered annuities…. Commonly referred to as TSA’s.

For too many years, the investment choices available to system employees have been from companies that heavily market to education institutions. While these companies sound great on the surface, and tend to tug at your heart strings a little with their pro-education approach, when you start to dig into the financial facts, you’ll discover that you would have probably gotten much better returns if your TSA had been with one of the no-cost or low-cost plans offered from quality companies like TIA-CREF or Vangard.

Folks, we’re talking big bucks here. The commission loads that have been subtracted from the dollars you’ve invested have probably been very steep… and you’ve also probably been hit with high annual management fees among other charges.

A typical teacher who invests in a TSA thru the school system over his or her working career could possibly have tens of thousands… that’s right… tens of thousands of additional dollars available at retirement if a low-cost or no-cost TSA had been selected, but unfortunately until now these plans were not included among the choices available to system employees.

When I served on the board of education on the 1990’s I tried to bring attention to this issue and pushed to have these superior options made available to our employees, but had no success. Fortunately, current board member Matt Shultz has picked up the battle flag and has requested that Superintendent Harper postpone the selection of the system’s TSA plans for the upcoming year until at least one no-cost or low-cost option is included in the list of approved TSA vendors.

If you work for the Bartow County School System and have money deducted from your paycheck for a TSA plan, then you owe it to yourself to contact the superintendent and ask that he include at least one or more of the superior options available from companies such as Vangard or TIAA-CREF… it could mean a huge chunk of additional dollars waiting for you at retirement.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, February 23, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, February 16, 2009

I came close to choosing a different topic this morning… after all I didn’t want to be accused of starting a run on a local bank, especially one that I own stock in and have three checking accounts at.

But after the Atlanta Journal Constitution published the information yesterday, I thought it might be a good idea to explore the issue and perhaps put some worried minds at ease.

In banking there is a method of gauging the potential health of an individual bank that is known at the Texas Ratio. I say potential health because this index doesn’t mean a particular bank is in danger of immediate failure, it only points out that the value of problem loans at that bank exceeds the value of the cash and reserves held by the bank. In other words once a bank measures 100 or higher using the Texas Ratio, then that bank is considered on the watch list.

One only has to read the foreclosure listings each month to see that a number of area banks have been hard hit by bad loans… especially those made to developers and contractors. Unity National Bank based here in Cartersville is one of those banks affected.

In the 3rd quarter of 2008 Unity had a Texas Ratio of 93%. For the 4th quarter that had jumped to 108%, placing Unity in the company of 40 other Georgia banks… and Georgia leads the nation in the number of banks on the watch list. Thirty-five other banks on the watch list in Georgia have a Texas Ratio worse than Unity’s 108%… with five Georgia banks having ratios over 200%, and six Georgia banks having ratios over 300%.

One must understand that the Texas Ratio is just one measurement and there are a number of other factors that should be considered when gauging the health of a particular institution… Some banks on the watch list are taking immediate steps to improve their condition, such as cutting overhead, raising additional capital, and selling foreclosed properties… and many of the Georgia banks on the watch list will pull through just fine.

In the case of Unity National, I have full confidence that Mike McPherson and his team are working fervently to improve the bank’s condition and I have no intention of closing any of my accounts there. Most other area banks, even those not on the watch list are also taking proactive steps to firm up their books.

No doubt these are tough times, but in the case of Georgia’s banks, hopefully the worst is now behind us.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, February 16, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, February 9, 2009

City and county officials across the state are worried about proposed statewide legislation that would impact how local governments calculate and collect property taxes. Caught in the middle is newly elected State Representative Paul Battles… more on Paul’s dilemma in a moment.

A decade ago the Georgia legislature implemented a new “homestead relief grant” that funneled state tax dollars back to cities and counties on the premise that local governments would then fully roll back their property tax collections by the same amount. Local government would get the same tax revenue as before and property owners would get a substantial tax break.

But as usual, many local governments took advantage of the situation to either raise millage rates or soak up additional revenue from escalating property value assessments… or both. For example… if the state rebate to the local government reduced Mr. Homeowner’s property taxes by $250.00, then the local government might bump up its own rates and assessments enough so that it collects an extra $150.00 from Mr. Homeowner

So we have the state rebate of $250 minus the local increase of $150… and that gives us local officials hoping that Mr. Homeowner would never notice the hidden local increase… because after all, his total property taxes would still be $100 less than before. But that was not the intention of the state rebate passed by the legislature. They wanted Mr. Homeowner to get the full property tax rebate.

Now we have a dire budget crisis and Governor Perdue has announced he wants to abolish the state relief grant to help offset the lost revenues. Legislators are caught in the middle… not wanting to be accused of increasing taxes and also not wanting to leave cities and counties hanging this year since property tax bills already went out last fall with the relief grant factored in. So what’s the solution?

The Gold Dome gang wants to fund the current year’s relief grant program, but base future year’s grants on the financial ability of the state to cover them. Bottom line? If the economy is bad, the relief grants disappear.

Also added into the mix is Senate Bill 83, authored by State Senator Chip Rogers, that would double the current homestead exemption from $2,000 to $4,000 and would also index the amount to inflation going forward. The homestead exemption has not been increased since the 1930’s and in today’s dollars… if it had been indexed for inflation all these years, you would now be receiving an exemption of around $34,000.

Then we have proposals floating around that would cap the amount of any property value assessment increases to the rate of inflation with a maximum of 3% annually. Local assessors might also be required to factor in the value of foreclosed properties when calculating assessment values.

City and county officials locally and across the state are worried that they may see substantial restrictions on their ability to pass thru hidden backdoor property tax increases. In the future if they need additional revenue, local governments would be forced to actually raise the tax rate for all to see… or they could trim their budgets… and that scares them.

I can all but guarantee you that four of Bartow County’s five members of the general assembly will put homeowners first and back these measures to control property taxes. However the jury is still out on newly elected State Representative Paul Battles.

Battles was heavily supported in his election bid by a number of area city and county officials… many of whom are close friends. So the big question still to be answered is whether Battles sides with local government officials who want no restrictions on their ability to grab these backdoor tax increases… or does he side with homeowners who are tired of their property tax assessments going up every year? We’ll soon find out.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, February 9, 2009)

Backroom Report for Monday - January 26, 2009

Stuffed away somewhere in one of the filing cabinets in my home office is a set of plans for the highway 20 road project that would change the section of highway from I-75 over to US 411 into a four-lane roadway… the plans also call for rerouting the road near Georgia Highlands so that it would run behind the fire station and intersect with 411 at the current intersection of 411 and Peeples Valley Road. The Cloverleaf would also be reconfigured and some frontage roads added.

Considering how dangerous parts of highway 20 are and how badly traffic backs up around the hospital area, these upgrades can’t come soon enough… but don’t hold your breath. The copy of the plans I have were put together back in 1994… 15 years ago.

As a young kid in the 1960’s I remember how easy it was to tell whenever you crossed the state line into any of our surrounding states… Georgia’s roads were much higher quality and the Georgia DOT won numerous awards over the years.

However that began to change about 20 years ago and Georgia is now struggling to keep from falling even further into transportation hell. Road construction has dropped to a snail’s pace and even routine maintenance of existing roads and bridges has been cut.

Georgia’s primary mechanism for funding road projects… the gas tax… has not been updated in decades. While it’s nice to know that our gasoline tax is one of the lowest in the nation, we also know that without additional transportation dollars we run the risk of permanently damaging our state’s economy and our quality of life.

If the per gallon gas tax had just been indexed for inflation and allowed to rise gradually over the years we would now be in decent shape, but it wasn’t. Now we have a mess and over the next two months you’ll see a number of new transportation funding plans coming out of the state legislature. Georgia business leaders have let it be known in no uncertain terms that transportation needs must be addressed now.

There are numerous proposals on how to raise needed transportation dollars, from public/private initiatives… to converting HOV lanes into toll lanes… to creating a new regional or statewide one-cent sales tax plan. The one thing that is not being talked about however is to simply raise the existing gasoline tax… and that’s a shame.

It costs the same amount of money to build a mile of new roadway regardless of whether those dollars come from a sales tax, gas tax, toll roads, or some other mechanism.
Why create a whole new bureaucracy to collect these additional dollars when it could all be accomplished so easily by just bringing the existing gas tax up to the level it should have already risen to if indexed for inflation?

As a conservative I hate taxes, but I also realize that there are some functions of government, such as transportation, that must be adequately funded… and with a gasoline tax those who use the roads pay the dollars to build and maintain the roads. The more you drive the more you pay. It’s fair and simple.

There’s just something unnerving about converting existing HOV lanes into toll lanes where the price varies based upon time of day. Many refer to them as Lexus lanes because only the wealthy will be able to afford the huge fees required to drive in them and avoid traffic congestion.

And a new one-cent sales tax would hit everyone... including those who don’t drive. And don’t even get me started on toll roads… I refuse to drive on them. It infuriates me to see money wasted building tollbooths and paying the government workers to man them. We don’t need all that additional overhead and inconvenience.

Our road system is the great equalizer in American society. Regardless of your status in life… whether you drive an $80,000 luxury car or a $1,000 Bondo buggy… you can crank up and go anywhere the pavement leads… unless you’re stuck in traffic.

My message to our elected officials is to junk all of the plans for creating new bureaucracies. If you honestly believe we need more funding for our roadways, then act like adults and just raise the gasoline tax to where it should be, instead of trying to take the money from my other pocket while hoping that I won’t notice.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, January 26, 2009)

Backroom Report - Monday, January 19, 2009

Over the past few years, developers have rushed to start new subdivisions and massive new home communities in Bartow County, but a quick drive around the county and you’ll see vacant lots everywhere. Here’s a statistic that will cause you to realize just how out of whack things got…

Based upon current levels of new home construction… if not another new subdivision or rezoning request is approved… it will take just over 16 years for the existing inventory of vacant lots in Bartow County to be used up. Think that’s bad? In Carroll County it will take 27 years.

Of course we all hope that in coming months things pick back up, but I think we also realize that it’s going to be a long time before we see the type of rapid growth we’ve experienced around here the past two decades.

Unlike some politicians who never met a tax increase they didn’t like, we’re fortunate to have some elected officials here in Bartow who understand that citizens are hurting. Instead of adding more pressure to already strained pocketbooks and wallets, Bartow County Commissioner Clarence Brown make some tough decisions recently and implemented a furlough plan for county employees… and reduced some non-essential services. In Euharlee the mayor and council are planning to reduce their own pay.

Now let’s look to Washington DC where over $150 million dollars will be spent on Barack Obama’s inauguration… With the majority of that coming from taxpayers… you and me. What a contrast!

Personally, I’m very concerned about the smoke and mirrors that is Barack Obama. Yes he’s the United States’ first bi-racial president, but beyond that his past associations and personal ideology should scare the heck out of anyone who believes in our Constitution.

Even though I’m a news junkie, I haven’t watched a single television newscast in several days and probably won’t watch one for a few more days. For me this week is a Nobama Zone. There’s just something unsettling about this man.

Some conservatives will say that even though they disagree philosophically and politically with Obama, they hope his presidency is successful for the good of our nation. But for him to be successful, means that he has been able to implement his policies and achieve his goals… and that means that the good old USA looses in the long run. I dare say we have some commissioners and city councilmen in this nation who have a better grasp on how to hold government in check and jump start our economy than the crowd now in charge in DC. 2012 can’t come soon enough.


That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, January 19, 2009)

Backroom Report for Monday - January 5, 2009

Having closely followed the Georgia General Assembly for the past thirty years nothing surprises me anymore when the Gold Dome gang gathers for their annual 40 days of mayhem, but this year’s session promises to be something special.

We all know how tough it is to limit the growth of government, much less abolish old programs that are no longer needed. Every time a legislator even thinks about slowing down the annual increase in some budget item… the folks who stand to gain from that program flood the capital with chants of “you’ll hurt the children”… or “seniors”… or “the poor”… or “left-handed midgets wearing pink dresses”. Guess I’ll be in trouble with the PC police for not using the term “vertically challenged” instead of midget. You get the point. Every government agency or pork item is sacred to someone.

With the state of Georgia expecting a possible two-billion dollar budget shortfall due to the economic slowdown… some conservatives see this as the best opportunity in years to downsize state government. We all know something has to be cut and those trying to protect their pet projects may end up on the losing end this session.

State Senator Chip Rogers is one of those leading the charge to place some type of cap on growth of the state budget. He also has introduced legislation to place limits the mid-year supplemental budget.

One issue that will generate some heat and has a decent chance of passage is a statewide freeze or cap on the annual growth of property tax assessments, with bills being been introduced by both Democrats and Republicans. Of course cities, counties and school systems will rise up in opposition to any restrictions on their cash cows.

Outside of the battles over state budget cuts a few other issues will get some attention. State Senator Preston Smith, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, has blocked efforts the past two years that would reduce the number of jurors required for imposing the death penalty from a unanimous twelve down to ten jurors. With the fallout from the Brian Nichols case still floating around, Smith will be under immense pressure to move over and let this one pass.

There will also be an effort to restrict bonuses paid to Georgia Lottery officials. While it may be sexy during an economic slowdown to slash these annual payouts… you have to remember that the Georgia Lottery is a money making operation and is one of the most successfully run lotteries in the nation. If you want the best running your business, you have to pay for it… and losing the top brass here would cost us far more in reduced lottery revenues than we pay out in these small bonuses.

Look for a few bills dealing with the issue of firearms… SB9 would allow concealed carry permit holders the right to carry their firearm in a purse or pocket instead of a holster as is required now. And State Rep. Barry Loudermilk has pre-filed House Bill 31 that would effectively kill revenue generating red light cameras.

And finally newly elected State Representative Paul Battles faces his first big vote when the House convenes and votes for House Speaker for the upcoming term. During his campaign Battles adamantly stated that he would not vote for current Republican Speaker Glenn Richardson’s re-election to that post. (audio clip inserted here) Does Paul keep his campaign pledge or cover his rear with his fellow House Republicans?

All in all this will be a fun session to watch and we’ll keep you posted

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, January 5, 2009)

Backroom Report For Monday, December 29, 2009

Perhaps you’re one of the large number of folks who woke up Christmas morning to find a plasma or LCD HD television under your tree. Now you can watch your favorite shows, movies, and sporting events in amazing 1080p high definition… with such crystal clear clarity that you’ll be able to count the dandruff on the actors or ball players shoulders.

Well, you should be able to enjoy full high def... that is unless you subscribe to cable television instead of getting your TV service from Directv or Dish network.

Seems the cable companies have a dirty little secret they hope you won’t find out about.

The amount of content that cable companies can deliver to your home is restricted by the size of the cables they use… and as cable providers add more channels the only way they can squeeze them in is by compressing the signal they deliver… and that means that your 1080p high def channel may be delivered to your home at much lower quality.

I’ve seen first hand a demonstration using two identical televisions tuned to the same high def channel except one TV got its signal from a cable company and the other signal came from Directv. The comparison showed a noticeable difference in picture quality with Directv being the clear winner.

Now for full disclosure, I’ve been a Directv customer for 12 years… not by choice, but because Comcast has never installed cable on my road. However, if cable and satellite were both available to us I would pick satellite in a New York minute.

You probably spent a nice wad of money on that HD TV and you’re also dropping a bundle on your monthly service… for that kind of cash it only makes sense to get a true 1080p signal delivered to your home.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, December 29, 2008)

Backroom Report - Monday, December 15, 2008

My voice is shot and my brain is tired, so this morning I’ll just take a moment to let you in on some changes taking place in coming days. It seems that the entire media world… newspaper, television, and radio is in a state of transition and this will affect some of the radio shows you’ve been listening to for many years.

The first change involves Michael Reagan who has aired here from 6 to 9 PM weeknights. Michael called me a couple of weeks ago to let us know that his contract with Radio America is ending and that instead of signing a new deal with another network… he wants to take more time to travel and will now only being doing a one-hour show on a small Christian radio network based in Mississippi… They’ve wired him to travel and much of the time he’ll be doing his show on the road. While we hate to lose Michael… I’m thrilled that we’ve been able to pick up Lars Larson to fill that time slot.

Lars is a rock solid conservative, but also has a touch of that Glenn Beck humor. We spoke for a while Friday and I really like the guy… and I think you’ll be impressed with his show. Lars takes over tonight, so be sure to check him out.

Also Greg Knapp, whose show airs 5 to 6 PM weekdays, has decided to drop his show effective in a just a few days and instead will work as a substitute talk host for other hosts across the country. Greg has children at home and he really wants to spend more time with them… With today’s technology he’ll be able to sub at any station in the nation while broadcasting from his home. We should have an announcement later this week on his replacement and I think you’ll be impressed.

Finally, Bill O’Reilly has just signed a new long-term television contract extension and has decided it’s just too much to continue doing both TV and radio. Bill’s radio show will end in a just a few weeks and we’re waiting for his network to announce his replacement… we are also looking at other options for that slot. I invite you to drop me an e-mail at chuck@newstalk1270.com and let me know who you’d like to see in that time.

Another quick note… Glenn Beck’s new television show launches in January… and will air weekdays at 5 PM on Fox News… of course we’ll continue to have Glenn’s radio show here 9 AM to noon. And you’ve probably heard that Alan Colmes is leaving Hannity and Colmes on Fox News… it will now be the Sean Hannity Show.

Please check out the new Lars Larson Show beginning tonight at 6 PM. We would love to get some Cartersville folks calling into the show… we have his toll free number posted at NewsTalk1270.com

As we approach the end of 2008, I’d like to add that we at NewsTalk AM 1270 greatly appreciate our listeners and thank you for being part of our radio family.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, December 15, 2008)

Backroom Report - Monday, December 8, 2008

One doesn’t have to look far around Bartow County to see that the economy is on very shaky ground. Over the last few days, six restaurants have closed their doors and rumors are strong that a local major car dealer will soon be shutting down.

Here at the radio station we’ve had two advertisers file chapter 7 bankruptcy in recent days… one, a major national client owing us thousands of dollars… and many other clients are struggling to pay their bills. It’s the old… if you’ll pay Susie, then Susie can pay Tom, and Tom can pay James, and James can pay Rita, and Rita can pay me, and then I can pay you.

Consumers are tapped out with many carrying high debt levels… falling home prices and new strict lending rules have eliminated home equity lines as a source of extra cash for most… and the still shaky stock market has greatly reduced many nest eggs and retirement plans.

Unemployment here in Bartow and neighboring counties has now topped 8%… in nearby Chattooga County it’s 9.1% and many economists expect job losses to continue to escalate for at least another 12 to 18 months. Plus quite a few folks who still have their jobs have seen their hours cut back.

Then there’s the psychological component… even if the recession hasn’t resulted in a cut to your personal income, you probably feel the overwhelming urge to cut back and hunker down… thus contributing to our shrinking economy.

For the last 30 years NW Georgia has weathered economic downturns fairly well… the continued influx of newcomers and construction helped provide an offset to other losses. This time construction is flat, foreclosures are thru the roof, manufacturers are downsizing, retailers are closing… we’re getting hit from every angle.

Seeing a precipitous drop in state tax revenues, Governor Perdue ordered state agencies to put together plans to cut their budgets by 8%. So what did the Board of Regents do to help cover the budget cut? They raised fees that students pay each semester… Families are tapped out and losing their homes… and the spoiled brainiacs running Georgia’s colleges and universities refuse to share the pain by tightening their belts a paltry 8%.

Unfortunately it’s the same at almost every level of government. Over the last year or two we’ve seen increases in fees for business licenses, water rates, a new storm water utility tax, and a continued rise in the appraised value of many homes and commercial properties when the actual values have decreased… resulting in property taxes that are higher than they should be.

I would love to pick up the Daily Tribune one morning and read the headline… “Cartersville-Bartow Chamber of Commerce Encourages Local Governments To Cut Taxes And Fees”.
The problem is it will never happen as long as local government plays such a large role in the structure of the chamber.

While a local chamber needs to work with area governments to facilitate positive change… chambers leaders must remember that their first allegiance is to the businesses they represent… and sometimes that means publicly standing up to government.

If you’re like me, you’re not too big to fail and are probably not expecting a government bailout. But it would be nice to have a local chamber ready to stand and fight higher taxes, fees, and burdensome regulations.

In the meantime, if you own or manage an area business… keep fighting the good fight. It’s in all of our best interests to see each other be successful during this downturn.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, December 8, 2008)

Backroom Report... Monday - November 24, 2008

A recent article in the Cartersville Daily Tribune opened my eyes to a policy of the Bartow County Sheriff’s Department that merits a closer look… the subject is what the department does with firearms that it has seized.

Let’s say deputies pull over a car and discover a large quantity of illegal drugs… the driver is arrested on a charge of possession of drugs with intent to distribute. In this case the car is impounded and later auctioned off under federal RICO statutes with the proceeds going back to the sheriff’s department.

That’s why I was shocked to see that the Bartow County Sheriff’s Office doesn’t also auction off firearms that it has confiscated… or at least trade the guns for new firearms for officers. Instead the agency has the guns melted down.

Now I’m not picking on Sheriff Clark Millsap… I think Clark has done a decent job and I voted for his reelection back on Nov. 4th… but there does seem to be a disconnect between Millsap’s previous statements that he supports the 2nd amendment and his policy of melting down firearms… and here’s how I got there…

In the drug scenario… the driver is the guilty party… not the car. The drug dealer just happened to be using that particular car to transport the drugs.

In the case of someone being in possession of a firearm during commission of a crime… it’s the individual who has committed the crime… not the gun. Yet by melting down firearms, the sheriff’s department is treating the gun as the problem.

The reason for melting firearms given by the sheriff’s department in the Tribune article is that they’re concerned about the guns getting back on the street. Using that logic, when a drug dealer’s car is later auctioned off I guess we should all be scared that the new buyer may also use the car to run drugs like the previous owner did… it’s a silly argument.

If someone supports the second amendment…as Sheriff Clark Millsap has said he does… then that person must treat firearms as legitimate items that law abiding citizens should be free to own and use… not as evil objects that must be destroyed for fear of their future possible misuse… Heck, almost anything from a butter knife to a piece of knitting yarn can be misused to cause serious bodily harm.

When a law enforcement agency auctions off firearms, background checks can be done to ensure that sales are only made to citizens legally eligible to own a firearm. By melting down the guns… Bartow County is missing out on needed revenue and sending a misguided message that guns are evil. I hope Sheriff Millsap will reverse his current policy.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, November 24, 2008)

Backroom Report - Monday, November 17, 2008

If you’re a registered voter you might as well take your phone off the hook… It’s the election that never ends… Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin. With two weeks left to go, I’ve already grown so sick of the ads and robocalls it’s tempting to not even vote…

But I’m one of the those pesky Republicans you can blame for there even being a runoff in this race. Upset with Chambliss on his vote for the Bailout Bill… his vote for a bloated farm bill… and his failure to fight illegal immigration… caused many like-minded conservatives to join me in voting for the Libertarian in the U.S. Senate race… and we denied Chambliss the handful of votes he needed to get 50% plus 1 and avoid a runoff.

I think Saxby has gotten the message and folks like me, Joe McCutcheon of Ellijay, and other GOP activists around the state realize that the possibility of a President Obama having a filibuster-proof senate is too risky for America… we need a least one layer of checks & balances in Washington lest we run headlong down the path to socialism. So I’ll begrudgingly head to the polls to vote for Saxby.

There are a couple of other races on the statewide ballot that most folks could care less about, but let me give you a couple of reasons these two races matter.

In the runoff for Public Service Commission Seat #4 between Republican Lauren McDonald and Democrat Jim Powell, you can blame us disaffected Republicans as once again many of us voted for the Libertarian and denied McDonald his majority. With gas prices temporarily back down due to the economic slowdown, most Georgians are not thinking about energy costs right now… but it’s still a huge issue going forward and this is where Lauren McDonald has the edge. While both candidates are in favor of developing alternative forms of energy, McDonald knows that we must also do all we can to develop Georgia’s energy infrastructure so we have adequate supplies of gasoline, diesel, natural gas, and yes… electricity… and that means clean reliable nuclear power. Democrat Powell’s views here are murky as he’s tried to placate those on both sides of the issue… and we can’t afford murky. McDonald gets the edge.

That leaves one more race, the runoff for the Georgia Court Of Appeals between Sara Doyle and Mike Sheffield. Now Sara Doyle is cute as a button… and works in a law firm with several prominent Republicans so you might think she would be a safe pick, but a little digging will reveal that she’s backed by several far left groups including the pro-gay rights group Georgia Equality. Mike Sheffield is being backed by a number of conservative groups and has a solid conservative pedigree. The choice on this one is easy and it does matter… Mike Sheffield gets the nod. Regardless of whom you vote for, don’t end up as one of the millions of Georgians who skip the Dec. 2nd runoff election… with low turnout expected your vote matters even more.

That’s my opinion… we welcome yours… Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, November 17, 2008)

Backroom Report – Monday, November 10, 2008

If there’s one thing that’s always troubled me about the Republican Party, it’s that we eat our own yet go out of our way to cater to the Democrats. Case in point…

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is not part of the Washington insider’s club… the press doesn’t like her and longtime GOP operatives don’t want her rocking their boat. As soon as the presidential election was over, some McCain staffers were trying to lay the blame for their defeat at Palin’s feet.

You have to understand that John McCain is still a U.S. Senator and by deflecting criticism to Palin, McCain’s handlers can keep a little shine on his armor. There’s also the fact that many of the staffers on McCain’s presidential campaign team previously worked on the campaigns of Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, or Rudy Giuliani… or are associated with some other up and coming GOP stars who might themselves be planning a run for the White House in 2012.

Palin’s popularity among rank and file Republicans poses a threat to these folks in 2012, so the plan among these GOP operatives is to permanently damage her so the field will be clear for the other guys. Do you really believe that Palin did not know that Africa was a continent? It’s all a bunch of anonymous source bunk. That’s how the GOP eats its own.

What makes it all worse is now that Obama has been elected, suddenly some Republican U.S. House and Senate members are falling all over themselves to be nice and state that we should now fall in line behind Obama and hope he is successful. Even some of the talk show hosts who were leading the charge against him, are singing the same be nice tune. Last week Glenn Beck insinuated that until Obama does something leftist, we should step aside and sing Kumbaya.

Glenn Beck and the others singing that tune are wrong. For the past few years… Iran, under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been threatening to wipe Israel off the face of the earth… yet as of today they have not done so. Does that mean we should be friendly with Iran and wish them well and only stand up against them after they’ve destroyed Israel? No! We push back now… we expose them… we bring international pressure against them… we work to prevent Israel’s destruction.

It’s the same with Obama and the Democrats… For years President Elect Barack Obama has publicly espoused far left policies that would push the United Stated into socialism. We as Republicans, Libertarians, and independent conservatives need to play our role as the loyal opposition and fight him every step of the way… we need to do everything within our power to at least slow down his grand plan to take us leftward. We cannot wait until he’s forever “changed” our nation.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday, November 10, 2008)

Backroom Report - Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008

In a year when things have trended to the Democrats… in a year when voters gave us America’s first bi-racial president… a far left socialist… in a year when Democrats nationally picked up additional seats in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House…

What happened in Georgia? Why did the Peach State not only stay Republican but in some areas become even more so? I’ll answer that in a minute.

In nearby Floyd, Gordon, and Polk Counties Republicans picked up extra seats on school boards and county commissions… even knocking off Democrat incumbents in some cases.

Here in Bartow County Republican Sheriff Clark Millsap coasted to an easy 2 to 1 victory over Democrat Bill Evans… Republican County Commissioner Clarence Brown almost didn’t even campaign and still crushed Democrat Jerry Nally with 69% of the vote… State Representative Barry Loudermilk grabbed 75% of the vote to win a landslide victory over Democrat challenger Rick D’Arezzo… and Republican State Senator Bill Heath soundly trounced Democrat challenger Tracy Bennett 2 to 1.

On the state level, in what was supposed to be nail biter… John McCain beat Barack Obama by roughly six points… Republican U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss came with an eyelash of avoiding a runoff in his race against Jim Martin… all of Georgia’s Republican congressmen were easily reelected…

Many pundits expected Georgia Democrats to grab several seats from the GOP in the state legislature… it didn’t happen… in the Georgia State Senate all of the incumbent Republicans were reelected and the GOP held onto their two open seats…

In the state house out of 180 seats it looks like three Republicans lost and two longtime prominent Democrats were beaten…

So how did Georgia Republicans manage to dodge the bullet in what is by all measures a Democrat year?

Nothing fancy here… It’s because Republicans in Georgia acted and voted like the conservatives we elected them to be. Keeping taxes low, keeping government spending in check, fighting illegal immigration, and being socially conservative. If only George W. Bush and congressional Republicans had remembered their conservative base the past few years, the GOP on the national level would be in much better shape. There’s a huge lesson here… do what you were elected to do and the voters will reward you.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Wednesday November 5, 2008)

Backroom Report For Monday 11-3-08

The media refers to him as a gadfly… he likes to call himself an ethics watchdog… but whatever you call him, George Anderson of Rome likes to stir things up. Over the years Anderson has filed zillions of ethics complaints against Georgia elected officials and candidates (mainly Republicans). Though he occasionally hits a homerun, most of his complaints are tossed for having no merit… but this time he may have opened the door for the possible dismissal or resignation of one of Georgia’s most powerful state officials.

When I was the Republican nominee for State Senate District 52 back in 2000, I was also doing consulting work and legislative candidate training as an independent contractor for the Georgia Republican Party. George Anderson filed an ethics complaint against me just a couple of weeks before the election in which he accused me of taking campaign contributions from the state GOP in excess of state limits… Of course I had done nothing wrong. The money in question was not related to my campaign… it was my salary for the consulting work and candidate training I was doing. I have a sneaking suspicion ol’ George knew I was clean, but was just trying to help out the man I was trying to unseat… former Democrat State Senator Richard Marable. The State Ethics Commission dismissed the complaint against me as having no validity… of course after the election, but Anderson had done his job of generating some bad press before Election Day.

Now someone (possibly a supporter of Bill Evans - the Democrat candidate for Sheriff of Bartow County) has contacted Anderson and leaked to him that Sheriff Clark Millsap improperly filed his latest campaign disclosures. Once again Anderson files an ethics complaint against a Republican just days before an election… The bottom line is that Millsap’s disclosure does contain a few clerical errors and he told the press that he’ll file an amended return to correct the mistakes. It’s really no big deal and Millsap has really done nothing wrong… in the mad dash to Election Day he was just a little sloppy.

While the complaint against Millsap is just trivial and no cause for concern, Anderson may have just landed a big fish in the form of one Gena Abraham Evans… Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation. Anderson recently requested, under the Georgia Opens Records Act, a copy of all of Commissioner Evans e-mails that have been sent or received using her state e-mail account. I bet many of you employed by government didn’t realize all of those e-mails you send and receive at work are kept forever and can be seen by the public if someone makes an official request for them?

Now Commissioner Evans is an attractive woman… and from the content of her e-mails she led a very active romantic life prior to marrying her new husband a few weeks ago. Some of the e-mails dating as far back as 2003, are filled with sexual references and intimate conversations with her boyfriends… and some of the language is pretty explicit. I can only imagine how tough it was for her to break the news to her current hubby that all of this stuff would soon be on the evening news.

Evans holds advanced degrees and is an engineer by trade… she’s obviously a very intelligent woman… but also either dumb or naïve to have used a state e-mail account for personal intimate romantic correspondence filled with gutter language. Evans was reprimanded earlier this year by the State DOT Board because she had dated board member Mike Evans for several weeks before notifying the board… personal relationships between the DOT Commissioner and the board she serves are prohibited. Board member Mike Evans resigned his seat and he is now the new husband I referenced earlier.

It seemed that Gena Evans had dodged a bullet and was on her way to reshaping what had become a dysfunctional and inefficient Georgia Department of Transportation. However along the way she stepped on too many toes as she worked to dismantle the good old boys network, and now… whether on his own or at the prompting of some of Gena Evans’ enemies… George Anderson may have just hit one of those homeruns.

This story may get buried under the avalanche of election day news, but don’t be surprised if Gena Evans is no longer DOT Commissioner by the end of the week.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday November 3, 2008)

Backroom Report For Monday 10-27-08

Advanced Voting gets underway this morning… you’ll be able to vote today thru Friday from 8 AM thru 5 PM at the Bartow County Voter Registrars Office and also at the Cartersville Civic Center.

While you may have decided on your pick of candidates, many voters have yet to study the three amendments to the state constitution you’ll find when you cast your ballot… so let’s do a quick run-thru…

The first question asks whether large tracts of forestland should be taxed based upon a special assessment instead of upon fair market value of the property so as to encourage owners to maintain their property as forests … When you have commercial, industrial or residential development next to or near a large tract of natural land… The tax assessment of that raw land can skyrocket based upon what the highest use of that land could be… instead of what it currently is…

By voting yes on amendment one, you’ll encourage owners of large tracts of property to keep their land natural instead of selling to developers because they can no longer afford the escalating property taxes.

Amendment two came to be because of a recent lawsuit… many cities and counties in Georgia provide property tax breaks or abatements to developers who agree to redevelop existing blighted areas. The reasoning is that by giving up immediate tax dollars, the city or county will receive a higher level of taxes a few years down the road from the increased value of the newly redeveloped property. Some school systems were also waiving collection of school taxes on these redeveloped blighted properties until a lawsuit ruled the practice unconstitutional…

Approval of amendment two would once again allow school systems to participate in these tax abatement deals. The argument against amendment two is that since the school system would be losing revenue for several years when it grants a tax break to a developer… then existing property owners would have to make up the difference… in essence, home and property owners would be subsidizing the developers.

Amendment three is a little complicated, but here it goes… if approved this amendment would allow developers to build new projects and issue bonds to cover the costs of providing roads, sewer, water, and some amenities… the new residents of these projects would then pay a special tax to the developer for a certain number of years in order to pay off the bonds… there are still some unanswered questions as to oversight of the collected funds and some see approval as a taxation without representation issue.

Several other states allow developers to utilize this type of system… if you’ve seen or heard the ads for the retirement community The Villages in Florida, that is an example of a community built under this method.

In addition to the above three constitutional amendments… City of Cartersville residents will also be voting on a referendum to allow Sunday sales of alcohol by the drink. Regardless of whether or not you personally drink alcoholic beverages or even condone use of alcohol, this is really an issue of freedom and personal liberty.

It’s already legal to sell alcoholic beverages Monday thru Saturday… so why should Sunday be off limits? To those who say that Sunday is the Sabbath and should be set aside, we must remember that Jews and some Christian denominations consider Saturday to be the Sabbath, and some religions celebrate Friday as their holy day.

Why should they be denied the ability to order a glass of wine with a meal on Sunday, which is just another day to them? I know this runs against the moral foundation of some, but again it’s a matter of personal liberty.

Election officials continue to project very long lines at the polls next Tuesday with waits of several hours possible… so if you can, please try to take advantage of Advanced Voting today thru Friday 8 AM to 5 PM at the Bartow County Voter Registrars Office and also at the Cartersville Civic Center.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday October 27, 2008)

Backroom Report - Monday Oct. 20, 2008

I guess some would say we shouldn’t be surprised with Colon Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama for president… Powell, a moderate, was always a soft Republican and looked a little uncomfortable at times wearing an elephant on his sleeve… he is also someone who runs in elitist circles and felt his reputation took a hit among his friends because of his own involvement in the decision to liberate Iraq. Endorsing Obama could be seen as a way for Powell to make nice with the liberal elite… after all the holiday party season is approaching and one wouldn’t want to be left off any guest lists.

Then again… though Colon Powell served under Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43… all Republicans… though Powell’s son was appointed to the Federal Communications Commission by George W. Bush… though Powell has long praised John McCain and even donated $2,300 to McCain’s campaign a few months ago… suddenly Powell endorses Barack Obama.

There has to be more to it and I firmly believe it comes down to skin color. Let’s face it… any prominent black person who wants to avoid the Uncle Tom label must support Obama…

Those who are paid the big bucks to study such things tell us that between 92 and 95% of all blacks will vote for Obama… so much for judging a man on the content of his character, not on the color of his skin.

Polling data over the years shows us that blacks are more pro-life than whites, they are strongly against homosexual unions, they overwhelmingly favor school vouchers and choice in education, on a large number of important issues blacks are more conservative that the population as a whole… yet they are totally in the tank for Obama… a man who is pro-abortion, a man who favors homosexual rights, a man who is against vouchers and choice in education, a man ranked as the most liberal of all 100 U.S. senators.

Maybe this is a taboo subject, but it seems that a wall of separation is rising again between the races. Many whites are bewildered that the desire to elect the nation’s first black president has caused so many to completely ignore the fact that Barack Obama is a socialist in philosophy and record… while many blacks view those opposed to Obama as doing so strictly due to racism and bigotry. It sets the stage for a tense Wednesday November the 5th.

Regardless of whether Obama wins or loses, there’s a strong possibility that race relations in this nation will be set back many years. You can already feel the tension.

Both Republicans and Democrats have their armies of lawyers ready to go to file challenges in any state with a close vote margin… Polls are tightening and if this is a squeaker, it could make the hanging chads of 2000 look like a birthday party. Throw race into the mix and we could be looking at something more…

As a nation we are potentially looking at an event that could signal the end of our union.

Already there are ministers of all races encouraging their flocks to remain calm in the days ahead regardless of how the election turns out. They have their work cut out for them and they need our help.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End of complete transcript of commentary that aired on NewsTalk AM 1270 – WYXC at 7:35 AM Monday October 20, 2008)

Backroom Report - Monday, October 13, 2008

America was founded as a nation of rugged individualists, but we’re quickly becoming a nation of wusses… we’ve all heard news stories of school districts banning tag or some other childhood game for fear that someone’s little Johnnie may scrap his knee during recess… now the politically correct crowd and their media allies have all but convinced the American public that political candidates and their campaigns can’t say anything negative in public about their opponent… even if it’s the truth.

Imagine if John McCain has said that Barack Obama was “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father”. McCain’s campaign would be over… Instead that was actually the attack leveled at Thomas Jefferson by the John Adams presidential campaign two centuries ago.

How about the presidential election of 1824 where John Quincy Adams’ campaign called Amdrew Jackson’s wife a slut and the Jackson campaign called Adams a pimp. Even newspapers got in on the act… one editorial said that “General Jackson's mother was a common prostitute, brought to this country by the British soldiers who afterward married a mulatto man, with whom she had several children, of which number General Jackson is one!"

Today you can’t even get most newspapers to print the truth if it comes across a little mean-sprited.
If anyone critcizes Barack Obama on his tax, healthcare, energy, or any other proposal… then that person is labeled as a bigot by the press.

Attack Obama on his association with Marxists, Socialists, and known domestic terrorists and you’re automatically an outright racist. To my friends on the left… crank up your smear machine because I’m tired of the truth being swept under the rug…

And here’s the truth… Barack Obama is not qualified to be president of the United States… not now… not ever… My grandmother always warned me to never date anyone I wouldn’t want to marry and to be careful who I hung around with… because your friends are your future.

Barack Obama’s friends and associations are fair game… if there were concerns with just one or two people he knew in passing you might could write it off… but it’s flamethrowing Marxist Father Flannagan… it’s Barack’s pastor of 20 years… the white people hating bigot, Rev. Jeremiah Wright… it’s the recently imprisoned Tony Rezco… it’s domestic terrorist William Ayers… it’s Marxist guru Saul Alinsky… I could go on and on, but the fact is that Bacrack Obama’s life is filled with dangerous radical leftwing kooks… even Obama’s mother Ann was a Marxist and leftwing activist… it’s no wonder Barack Obama is rated as the most liberal of all 100 U.S. Senators and it’s no surprise he picked the 3rd most liberal… Joe Biden… to be his running mate.

But let’s go a step further… even though Obama has tried to distance himself from people like Louis Farrakhan… why are Farrakhan, extremist Muslim hate groups, the Palastinian terrorist organization Hamas and other haters of America from around the globe backing Barack Obama? What do they see in him that they like?

Listen to this audio clip from Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan… (30-second audio clip played)

Did you catch that? Farrakhan said that Barack Obama was the messiah…

This election goes far beyond left/right or Democrat/Republican politics… this election is for the soul and future of this nation. Regardless of how well or how poorly the Republicans do this election cycle… Democrats will hold and possibly increase their majorities in both the house and senate giving Obama almost free reign… and I don’t believe most Americans realize how quickly Obama will be able to push thru his agenda… an agenda he has cleverly kept hidden from sight.
All I can say is that you can get an good idea of where Obama will take us… because his friends are our future.

Over the past week news stories have been filled with instances of mass voter fraud being carried out across the nation by ACORN and other groups sympathetic to Barack Obama…

This is one election when you can’t afford to stay home and allow radical fringe groups to steal our nation’s government… You don’t need a reason to vote by absentee ballot this year in Georgia… you can even stop by the elections office from now thru Nov. 3rd and vote your absentee ballot in person and avoid the long lines expected on election day.

Barack Obama likes to chant “Yes We Can!” My words to him are “hell no we won’t”… we will not let godless far left Marxist/Socialists destroy the nation our ancestors gave their lives to create. Please vote like your life depends on it…because it does.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com (End complete transcript of radio commentary)

Backroom Report 9-29-2008

From the technology bubble of the late 1990’s all the way back to the tulip bulb bust in the 1600’s… and I’m not making that one up folks… free markets have always had their ups and downs.

What starts out as a good thing ends up going bad when too many people get carried away and want to get in on the action.

The current financial crisis facing our nation is very complicated, but a substantial cause is the housing and mortgage meltdown that is now impacting virtually the entire economy.

There’s a reason that banks and mortgage companies traditionally required a 20% down payment when purchasing a home. (1) Even if market fluctuations caused home prices to drop, mortgage companies would still have sufficient collateral securing the debt. (2) If you had scrimped and saved to put 20% into your new home, you would do everything in your power to make your house payment on time and wouldn’t just throw up your hands and walk away if your home value dropped a little.

Young couples starting out would rent an apartment or small home… stick to a tight budget and save their dollars for several years until they were ready to buy. Many couples today feel they must have a four bedroom, 3-1/2 bath, three car garage mansion on day one… taking on too much debt completely ignorant of the reality that most families will eventually face difficulty at some point in their lives… medical problems or loss of a job and next thing you know you can’t make the huge mortgage payment.

From California to the southeast, our economy has been pretty good for the past 15 years and that created a growing market for new homes… and prices rose rapidly creating tremendous equity that homeowners began to tap to pay off credit cards, or to buy cars or take vacations.

In order to keep up with the Jones we developed creative financing techniques such as using private mortgage insurance to reduce our down payment requirements. Then thinking that home prices would continue to spiral upward forever, many buyers tried new adjustable rate or even interest only loans. How stupid could we be? Unfortunately a bunch.

Earlier this year on the front page of the local paper, there was an article proclaiming how great it was that Cartersville was receiving $300,000 of our federal tax dollars to give to local people so they could buy homes with no down payment. Using time honored lending standards the folks receiving this government largess should never have been approved for a mortgage.

And Barack Obama is proud of his years as a community organizer and was part of ACORN. So what does a community organizer in an organization like ACORN do? Since the 1990’s using accusations of red lining, they’ve blackmailed lenders into making risky low or no-down payment mortgages to minorities with poor credit…

Builders are also to blame as they rushed to build more and more spec homes to meet the growing market… then suddenly supply outstripped demand just as oil and food prices shot up which put a squeeze on family budgets… interest rates rose jacking up house payments for those with adjustable rate loans… plus those with poor credit who got mortgages they shouldn’t have, began to default on their loans in increasing numbers.

Now we have a glut of unsold homes on the market… builders bankrupting… near record numbers of foreclosures hitting the courthouse steps every month… banks that made risky loans are now unable to meet capitalization requirements … and Congress wanting to take $750 billion dollars from you and your children to bail everybody out.

If you’re one of the people who didn’t buy more house than you could afford… if you’re someone who makes your mortgage payment on time… if you’re someone who played by the rules and lives responsibly… then your getting screwed and you’re not even getting dinner and a movie out of the deal.

Congress knows you’re mad so when they present and vote on their bail-out bill… possibly today… they’ll wrap it up in ribbons and bows and give the package some name other than bail-out… they’ll say just the right things to make you think they’re listening to you, but it’s all smoke and mirrors.

I’m no fan of George W. Bush… but the Democrats have controlled the U.S. Senate and House for two years now and look where it’s taken us. Bush may have proposed this bail-out, but it’s the Democrats who’ve picked up the ball and are running with it. Bail-out bill or not, the next couple of years could be rough… be smart with your money and smart with your vote.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com

Backroom Report 9-22-08

(Transcript of feature that aired Monday 9-22-08 at 7:35 AM on NewsTalk AM 1270 - WYXC)

Packed stadiums on Friday night mean one thing… Georgia’s second religion, high school football, is in session. Successful head coaches are treated like royalty… men like Larry Campbell of Lincoln County who leads the state with 417 career wins, and former coaches like Dan Pitts, and the late Nick Hyder are all part of Georgia high school football lore.

Yes, we Georgians love our football… and this is especially true in smaller towns like Calhoun, Dalton, Cartersville, and yes Adairsville… unfortunately, sometimes a few parents love the thought of their sons playing on the local squad more than they care about their school, community, or the other young men on the team. This appears to be the situation in Adairsville.

When a high school brings in a new head coach, the most important step is for the school administration to back up their guy 100% as he works to establish order and discipline in the program.

In 2007 new head coach Mark Arthur was charged with the task of taking over an Adairsville Tiger football program that over the last twenty years had been mediocre more often than not. In his first season the Tigers went a very respectable 7 & 3.

However, this season started out on the wrong foot as the team lost their first two games by large margins. The next week Arthur was dismissed as head coach. A school just doesn’t fire a head coach after the first two games unless something else is wrong and at this point one would have to give the benefit of the doubt to the administration… but this story didn't end here and things got even worse.

Assistant coach Brett Tolbert was brought in to replace Arthur and he led the Tigers to a victory in their third game… only to resign a few days later. Two weeks and two head coaches gone… something is terribly wrong in Adairsville and it appears to center around school principal Stan Lewis and a few disgruntled parents who have managed to yank his chain.

Here’s the background… as the season was getting underway Coach Arthur dismissed a couple of players from the Adairsville squad and a couple of other players quit. Like it or not, a head coach must have the authority to maintain discipline on his team…

According to our sources, some of the parents of those players who were dismissed or quit, put pressure on Principal Stan Lewis who in turn put pressure on Coach Arthur to place these kids back on the team. Arthur refused and was terminated… and was replaced by Coach Tolbert.

Lewis then pressured Coach Tolbert to reinstate the players. Tolbert met with his senior players and asked them if those who had quit should be allowed to rejoin the team. Sources say the seniors told Coach Tolbert that they felt allowing those disgruntled players back on the team would be bad for team morale.

Tolbert met again with Principal Lewis and told him he would not reinstate the players and then resigned. Now we’ve learned that all but seven of the Tiger’s players are refusing to play the rest of the season in protest of the principal’s actions.

Here we are only three weeks into the football season and regardless of what transpires this week… for the Adairsville Tigers this has been a year ruined by crybaby parents and an incompetent administrator.

Principal Stan Lewis is now dodging the press and hiding behind the school superintendent. Supposedly a meeting is scheduled for this morning to try and iron out the problems. For the sake of the school and especially the young men on the team let’s hope things are quickly resolved.

For the rest of us there’s a lesson here… we all love our children and want success for them, but they need to earn that success on their own. Just because mom and dad are members of the booster club, or volunteer for concession stand duty doesn’t mean their little junior should see playing time. You earn the right to play based upon dedication and talent.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com

Backroom Report 9-15-08

One of the fun things about being involved with the media is you develop a network of sources who occasionally provide you with behind the scenes information that the public usually never hears about… this morning we get to hear about an alleged battle underway between the Cartersville School System and Cartersville Mayor Matt Santini involving illegal immigration.

Last Monday the Governmental Affairs Committee of the Cartersville-Bartow Chamber of Commerce met… one of the agenda items was illegal immigration.

If you recall, earlier this year the Chamber held a series of four public meetings on illegal immigration... and many of the experts who presented information at the meetings seemed to lean to the left and be somewhat supportive of the illegals…

According to our source, the chamber put together a report to the community based upon the information gathered from the meetings… the report was forwarded to the Governmental Affairs Committee for its approval and from there it would be sent to the full Chamber Board before being released to the public.

Despite the soft peddling of the illegal problem by some of the experts, the consensus was that Cartersville and Bartow County face serious problems concerning crime, gang activity, public safety, code enforcement, increased demand for government services, and strain on our local school systems due to the influx of illegals.

Well, there seems to be some heated disagreement among the governmental affairs members about the content of the report. It’s no secret the Cartersville City Schools are taking a beating from the impact of the illegals… Our source said that School Board President Linda Benton and Superintendent Howard Hinesley both argued passionately for the adoption of the report…

However standing in their way were Cartersville Mayor Matt Santini and former Mayor Mike Fields. Both opposed having the Chamber take a position on illegal immigration. I was told that Santini was visibly angered and became engaged in heated debate when Superintendent Hinesley made a motion for adoption of the report.

I’m not sure why Santini and Fields are opposed to taking a firm stand against illegal immigration in our community, but it appears they are standing in the way.

And there is one other opponent joining Santini & Fields in opposition to this report… one of Bartow County’s largest employers. According to our source… a representative of this company… a person who has been involved in local community affairs for many years, supposedly told the chamber that if the report is adopted and released, that his employer would pull out of the chamber and would no longer help fund chamber related community projects.

I would encourage anyone interested in preserving the quality of life we enjoy here in Cartersville and Bartow County to contact the chamber leadership and encourage them to adopt and release the report without watering it down.

Backroom Report, Monday 9-8-08

She’s reenergized the Republican base and is causing sleepless nights for Barack Obama’s handlers… but there’s another story concerning John McCain’s pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate.

For decades the northeastern moderate wing of the GOP has controlled a sizeable chunk of the Republican Party’s national operations and has held a tight rein on it’s purse strings.

From Gerald Ford to George W. Bush, GOP presidential nominees have had to either be the pick of the northeastern moderates or the Republican nominee had to play by their rules after securing the nomination in order to have the campaign cash to mount a serious run against the Democrats… a case in point was Ronald Reagan.

Reagan dared to challenge incumbent Gerald Ford in 1976 for the GOP nomination and came close to wining. Ford went on to lose to Jimmy Carter that fall. Knowing that Reagan would be a leader for the GOP nod in 1980, the northeastern gang recruited former CIA director George H. W. Bush to run in the Republican Primary against Reagan. It was a horserace, but Reagan prevailed.

At this point the northeastern boys approached Reagan and basically told him he had to choose their boy Bush as VP or they would hold back their money men and Reagan wouldn’t stand a chance against Carter. Of course Reagan gave in and won the election… and eight years later George H. W. Bush followed Reagan as president.

The northeastern gang also gave us Bob Dole as the GOP nominee in 1996 and George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004… so which GOP candidate did they back with their massive fundraising machine this year? Mitt Romney

John McCain has never bowed at the alter of the northeasterners and this has been a factor in the difficulty McCain has had in raising money this year. McCain has been under immense pressure to select someone as his running mate who would be acceptable to the old establishment wing of his party, otherwise the well would remain dry… so what did maverick McCain do? He went in the complete opposite direction and selected Sarah Palin… definitely not a member of the good old northeastern boys club.

For the first time in many decades both the GOP nominee and VP pick are free from the reins of the GOP elite… McCain has called their bluff and now Sarah Palin has captivated America… and even though some of the money men are sitting on the sidelines, cash is now pouring into McCain’s campaign coffers.

A lot can happen over the next eight weeks…but if John McCain and Sarah Palin are victorious November 4th… control of the Republican Party will have been wrested away from those who have prevented the conservative revolution from taking flight these last 30 years.

Though I have much respect for John McCain’s service to our nation, I’ve never been a fan of him politically and had planned to vote for Bob Barr in protest. However with Sarah Palin on the GOP ticket, I’ll be in the McCain camp come November… and I bet a lot of other Republicans who were sitting this one out will be with McCain & Palin too.

Backroom Report 8-25-08

It’s no secret the economy here in NW Georgia has hit a real slump… after several years of unemployment numbers under 5%… which is considered to be full employment, the latest rates from the Georgia Dept. of Labor show Bartow County at 7%, Floyd County at 7.2%, Gordon County at 7.5%, and Chattooga County at a whopping 9.1% unemployment.

The rising numbers of residents now out of work is beginning to severely impact numerous local businesses with many car dealers, restaurants and others experiencing significant drops in sales.

For those still working, inflation is taking its toll and is especially noticeable at the grocery store as food prices have escalated sharply…

Almost all of us have had to tighten the old financial belt to some degree, but getting government to downsize is another matter. Just when we could all use a little relief from the taxman, the city of Cartersville is poised to raise taxes this fall by refusing to adjust their millage rate to what is referred to as the rollback rate.

Cartersville officials will be holding a series of three state mandated public hearings in coming days to explain the tax bump. This increase is especially hard on local businesses… after being hit with a new storm water utility fee by the City of Cartersville last year… and also absorbing increases in business license fees by both the city and county, business owners need some relief.

It’s also very disappointing that our local Chamber of Commerce has stayed on the sidelines…. The chamber’s primary purpose is to work on behalf of it’s business members and that means fighting tax and fee increases.

The Bartow County Board of Education seems to understand the financial pressure our community is under as they plan to reduce their property tax millage rate down to the rollback rate at a called meeting this Thursday.

Perhaps it’s not too late to send a message to Cartersville officials that they also should avoid a tax increase by adjusting their proposed property tax rate downward…

Backroom Report 8-11-08

Last week I had some criticism for the Bartow County Board of Education, so this week I thought it only fair to praise a few board members who stood their ground on property taxes.

Each year the county tax assessor’s office recalculates the value of all property in the county… this is known as the tax digest… and as usual the value of property in Bartow County rose again.

If school board members had left the millage rate unchanged they would have generated a significant increase in property tax revenues for the upcoming fiscal year. They also would have been required by state law to hold three public meeting explaining why they needed the additional tax dollars.

Instead, Bartow school board members Matt Shultz, Tammy Livingood, and Greg Bowen all said no and together formed a majority that instead voted to roll back the property tax millage rate.

With the economy sputtering and a high number of local homeowners facing foreclosure, Matt, Tammy and Greg did the right thing by tightening the school system’s belt… giving local taxpayers a break.

Bowen chose not to run for reelection this year and will be replaced by Larry Parker. Livingood was defeated in the Republican primary by Wanda Gray. I hope that Parker and Gray take notice and follow their predecessor’s lead in effectively dealing with the tax issue when they each take office in January.

Larry Parker especially has large shoes to fill as Greg Bowen has been one of the most consistent board members when it comes to keeping taxes low and expenditures under control.

Last week Bowen was the only board member to say no to a possible purchase of property along U.S. 41 near Emerson that would be used for future construction of a new Emerson Elementary School. Bowen contends that property values are flat and the school system should be able to get a better deal than the $45,000 an acre this particular tract of land is projected to sell for.

Bowen has hinted that he may seek another public office at some point in the future. If so he deserves a strong look as he has a substantial track record to run on.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next Monday… for a complete transcript of this morning’s comments, go to NewsTalk1270.com

Backroom Report 8-4-08

When government provides a service, it pays no property tax on the land or buildings used in providing the service, and no ad valorem taxes on the vehicles or equipment it uses. Meanwhile the private businesses providing that same service must pay those taxes, placing them at a competitive disadvantage.

Plus when a government provided service operates inefficiently it subsidizes itself from the taxpayers. Private businesses don’t have that luxury.

These private businesses are the bedrock of our community. They are the ones who buy the ads in the high school football program, donate money to send band students to camp, and support other charitable endeavors in our community.

Conservatives and libertarians believe that government should not… let me rephrase that… government should NEVER compete with private business. It’s not a level playing field and it hurts us all.

When I served on the Bartow County Board of Education back in the 1990’s, after-school programs were the new rage. School systems across the nation began implementing taxpayer-funded programs to entertain… I mean educate children after the lengthy school day ended.

However, we as a school board had another idea… instead of using tax dollars to provide yet another government program in competition with private taxpaying childcare centers… we structured a plan to allow the childcare businesses to provide the after school programs using school facilities.

The result? Everybody wins! School administrators got the after-school programs they wanted. Parents had an alternative to their latchkey kids riding the bus home to an empty house. The private childcare owners paid fees to the school district to use the facilities, and no taxpayer funds were used to subsidize the program.

So needless to say I was shocked when I found out that the current Bartow County BOE has just scrapped that plan in favor of a government run program to be paid for by the taxpayers of Bartow County.

Now at this point some of you parents using the program are saying, “Wait a minute! We’re going to pay $35 a week to the school system for our kid to use the program.”

Yes, but let’s look at those stubborn things known as details… Under this new plan the taxpayers will fully fund this program. So what happens to the $35 you parents are paying? According to an article in last Thursday’s Cartersville Daily Tribune, all of the fees paid by parents “will go to the principals who will be able to spend the funds on students and faculty members.” Yes, you heard that right!

Here’s the bottom line…

The Bartow County Board of Education will now go into direct competition with local taxpaying privately operated childcare centers… and will use our tax dollars to do so… and will take the fees paid by the parents for the program and give that money to the principals to use as a slush fund at each school. No wonder the principals were in favor of making the change.

Little by little socialism continues to creep into every aspect of our lives… from Washington DC right down here to Bartow County. The next time your charity or organization has trouble raising the funds it needs… don’t blame local business people… blame a government that continues to squeeze the life out of free market capitalism.

Glad This One Is Over

Note: Management at the Daily Tribune refused to run this week's column

(Personal note from me: When Matt Difebo (formerly of the Tribune) asked me almost five years ago to write a weekly column, I was told the Tribune was looking for edgy social and political commentary more like that found in larger newspapers or inside politics publications like James Magazine/Insider Advantage... something that had always been missing from the Tribune.

Having worked at the Gold Dome and having managed campaigns over the years, I have an angle on things that the average voter probably never sees. Politics can be very ugly and I've attempted to occasionally incorporate those "inside politics" things into columns.

After Tuesday's election, I was hit with over two-dozen calls and e-mails from people wanting my take on how/why Paul Battles was able to knock off State Representative Jeff Lewis, so I used the column I submitted to give one of those "inside politics" looks at the issue.

I am not a journalist... I am an opinion writer. I fairly pointed out what Paul and Jeff each did right and wrong in running their campaigns and what Paul faces with this current attempt by some to oust Glenn Richardson as House Speaker.

The Internet has changed the rules, and people today expect reality… not fluff written in such a way as to keep from offending anyone. After discussions with current Tribune management I have made the decision to discontinue writing the column.

Thanks for reading my musings over these past five years. At some point I may reconsider and resume writing, but for now I’m going to enjoy a well-deserved break.)

______________________________________________________________________

Column:

I’m sure his phone has been ringing off the hook since Tuesday night. By now Paul Battles has heard from state legislators looking to score a few brownie points with the newest state representative, and has also probably spoken with more than a few former Jeff Lewis backers seeking to mend fences.

All I can say to Paul is be careful. You are one of 236 legislators, almost all of which have more seniority than you. In coming weeks you’ll be buttered up so much the pancakes at IHOP will become jealous and it will be hard to know who your friends really are.

One of the first decisions facing Paul will be whether or not to actively join the coup planned by State Rep. David Ralston and his backers who seek to replace Glenn Richardson with Ralston as Speaker of the House.

In a debate I co-hosted on NewsTalk AM 1270 recently, Paul made statewide news when he said that he would not vote for Glenn Richardson to be re-elected as Speaker. Paul really has no choice now but to join the revolution.

Shortly after the November general election, Republican house members will caucus and select their nominee for Speaker. Democrats will also meet and pick their person. Mathematically it’s impossible for the Democrats to come anywhere close to regaining a majority in the House this year, so whomever the GOP house members nominate will become Speaker in January.

If Paul throws in with the rebels and they are successful, he’ll open a few doors that otherwise would be 3 or 4 years away. If they are unsuccessful, he won’t even be placed on the back of the bus. He’ll be hidden away in the spare tire carrier under the bus.

So far, the two main GOP leaders after Richardson… Rep. Mark Burkhalter and Rep. Jerry Keen are publicly sticking with Richardson. It’s hard to imagine the king being overthrown without the support of at least one of these two. Just remember it’s a long time until November.

Paul also has to walk a tight wire here at home. Rank and file conservative Republicans are not happy with the election results. As evidenced by the intense questioning Battles faced every time he appeared at a GOP function, there is general suspicion among the elephant gang that he is not a true conservative.

While Jeff Lewis championed tax cuts throughout his time in office, Paul has indicated he would consider additional taxes for transportation. He also stated at a GOP meeting and during our debate that he would have had trouble voting for HR89, a pro-gun bill that passed the legislature this session and was signed by Gov. Perdue.

One conservative legislator from a nearby county I spoke with this past week hinted that he hoped Paul would be redistricted out of his seat after the 2010 census numbers are in. While that was probably just post election disappointment from a fan and friend of Jeff Lewis, it still underscores the fact that as a newbie every move Paul makes will be monitored closely.

So if Jeff Lewis was so revered by conservatives, how did he lose? If you’ll check my Tribune column from May 25th (patting myself on the back) I pretty well nailed how all four contested local elections would play out. The Lewis/Battles election turned out to be the street fight I predicted.

There are only two people who could have possibly taken Jeff out this year. Paul Battles was one and I won’t say who the other is lest he gets election fever too. I stated that to defeat Jeff, his challenger would have to go negative, and I was actually surprised at how hard Paul and his handlers hit Jeff.

Jeff’s weakness? He’s too nice of a guy. When he stopped by the radio station to place his advertising buy back in early May, I warned him that he would have to run this time like he was a challenger and would have to hit Paul. Jeff was very hesitant. It’s just not his style.

There’s a rule in politics that an attack or accusation unanswered becomes the truth in 48 hours. Jeff was slow to respond to Battles’ attack ads, instead trusting that voters would reject the negative campaigning and stick with him.

That caused Jeff’s supporters to spend valuable time and effort trying to convince people that Jeff didn’t vote for Speaker Richardson’s GREAT Plan and instead told Richardson to his face that he couldn’t support it.

They also tried vainly to explain that while yes the effort to appropriate $10 million for North Metro Tech was a joint effort among several legislators, it was Jeff who used his influence to move the project from number 17 on the list of capital outlay projects up to number four… knowing that only the top six projects would be funded in the budget.

In other words, Jeff’s campaign got mired in minutia playing defense instead of being on message. Lewis needed something to stir up that large mass of Bartow conservatives who are notorious about sitting out primary elections only to show up in November.

If I were managing Jeff’s campaign, I would have recommended direct mail pieces to likely GOP voters hitting Paul hard on the tax and gun issues. I truly believe this would have generated just enough extra turnout to cover the 186 votes Jeff lost by.

Meanwhile, one only had to look at the list of people who publicly endorsed Paul to see quite a few Democrats. With no local races for Democrats to vote for, an analysis of the numbers will reveal that many Dem’s crossed over and pulled a GOP ballot… most voting for Paul.

In closing, Paul’s team did a good job of turning out his large natural base of support. Even though it was a squeaker, Paul will be the new State Representative from District 15 and to the victor goes the spoils. I wish him well.

As for Jeff, Bartow County has lost a significant amount of clout at the Gold Dome. Though our other two local State House members, Barry Loudermilk and Tom Graves, have each received high marks from business leaders and political observers, it still takes longevity to gain the pull Jeff had.

It will also take some time for the wounds from this campaign to heal as quite a few personal relationships in the community have been strained. No one ever said politics was an easy enterprise, and I for one am glad this contest is over.

Yes, Things Really Are Getting Smaller

After almost twenty years of intense political involvement, I’ve pulled back from any political activity for the past three years. Other than writing this column, an occasional radio commentary, and voting… I’ve stayed on the sidelines.

A couple of local races this summer have really piqued my interest, but I’ve pledged to myself to hold off until after the election before writing what I really feel about what I see as deceptive political advertising by some candidates.

So to get the deceptive marketing monkey off of my back I’ve decided to write about mayonnaise. Yep, I’m talking good old Hellmann’s mayonnaise.

Now ever since I was old enough to enjoy that southern delicacy called a ‘mater sandwich, I’ve known that mayonnaise comes in a quart jar, and it had to be a glass jar at that.

A few manufacturers have tried switching over to plastic jars recently and one or two have even trotted out squeezable mayonnaise. No thanks, just give me my quart sized glass container of mayonnaise.

I’ve always handled the majority of grocery shopping for our family and if you’re price conscious like I am, you know the cost of eggs has skyrocketed over the past few months. The upper price limit on large eggs stayed at 99 cents for many years, but for the last few months it has seemed like you’ve hit the lottery if you can grab them for under a buck-fifty.

Since one of the primary ingredients in mayonnaise is the good old egg, you would expect the price of that luscious creamy whiteness to rise a little and it has.

However, the good folks at Hellmann’s have decided to try a different tactic. Recently they reduced the size of Hellmann’s mayonnaise from a quart (32 ounces), down to 30 ounces. Did you notice? You don’t have to feel like the Lone Ranger, as most people didn’t.

You also probably haven’t noticed that canned tuna that once came in an eight-ounce can has slowly been shrinking a quarter ounce at a time over the years until it now weighs in at whopping six ounces. Sorry Charlie!

Not to be outdone by the mayonnaise folks, the orange juice companies are hot on their heels. The 96-ounce Tropicana orange juice plastic jug has a great new shape… a shape that holds only 89 ounces.

You probably didn’t notice though as the good people at Tropicana added a great new “fresh snap cap” and included text announcing their great new feature right there on the container to divert your attention as far away from the size labeling as possible. After all, that screw-on top was such an inconvenience.

All of this product shrinking should come as no surprise. The one-pound bag of Fresh Express salad mix was chopped to 12 ounces just a few months ago. One-pound containers of coffee have weighed in at 13-ounces for several years.

Some ice cream manufacturers now only pack 56 ounces of air whipped creamy goodness into that half-gallon (64-ounce) container. Hey honey, will you pick up a 1-3/4 quart size container of ice cream on the way home tonight?

A one-pound bag of potato chips now arrives in the convenient 9-ounce bag with plenty of air to cushion the chips against breakage. Candy bars are about half the size they were a few years ago.

Want more examples? Yogurt containers used to be 8-ounces, now yogurt comes in the great 6-ounce size. The Whitman’s chocolate one-pound sampler? Now it’s 12-ounces.

The Shedd’s Spread three-pound Country Crock of margarine now weighs in at 2-pounds, 13-ounces. Quart jars of spaghetti sauce sell now in the handy 26-ounce size.

While we’re talking about eggs, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them soon come in the “great new” 10 egg carton. Less cholesterol, lower calories. Maybe milk will soon come in the 7/8-gallon size.

It also seems that no one thought about the impact all of this product shrinking would have on recipes that call for standard sizes of ingredients. Since that quart jar of mayonnaise now only contains 30-ounces instead of 32, I guess you’ll have to buy two jars and use two ounces out of the second jar in order to make that dish.

I’m so frugal when it comes to grocery shopping that I’m about to have a meltdown over this. Maybe I need to go back to political consulting to take my mind off of things. At least we’re not surprised when politicians lie.

It's Class Reunion Time!

It was warm August evening around 7 PM when I decided to take my bright yellow Schwinn 10-speed for a spin. The year was 1974 and in just a couple of weeks I would be making the transition from junior high to the big leagues. I would officially be a high school freshman.

As I rounded the corner onto the next street I spotted Ann Watson out in her yard. Ann and I were the same age and had been neighbors for several years.

Of course being a teenage boy and Ann being a cute girl, I had no choice but to stop. We sat in the grass in her front yard and talked about making the transition up to the big school. We compared notes on teachers… who we had heard was tough and who was supposed to be easy.

We wondered what the kids would be wearing and if they would act differently. Then we started to name off some friends who were already in high school that we could count on to help show us the ropes.

I had already experienced my growth spurt and was just shy of six feet tall, but several of my friends were still close to the ground. In ninth grade there can be a huge mismatch in physical maturity. At least I didn’t have that problem to face.

Never the less, Ann and I were both more than a little apprehensive about making the leap. Time rolled away that evening and soon it was pitch black, but I didn’t care. It was just one of those magical nights you sometimes have when you’re a kid.

Then I noticed a car with its headlights on bright driving slowly down the street. You guessed it. Mom had waited patiently for me to return home, but once the clock hit 10 PM she sent dad on a search and rescue mission.

He just slowed down and quickly beeped his horn as he drove by, but I knew that meant to head home ASAP. Ann and I chatted for a few more minutes and then I reluctantly hit the street.

A few days ago I received an invitation in the mail for my 30-year high school reunion… Cedartown High School class of 1978. Unbelievable! Then all those memories came flooding back.

I was one of those guys who loved high school. I arrived early every day just to hang out with my buddies until the first bell would break up the fun.

We had two lunch shifts and every year I would even structure my study hall so that I could stay in the lunchroom for both shifts, just so I wouldn’t miss anything. If there was a ball game, school dance, or a party anywhere… I was there. I had one of the biggest music collections in town, so I usually brought the tunes.

Our school was no different than any other in that we had our cliques, but I hung out with everyone. I didn’t care if you lived in the slums or next to the country club. From the jocks to the marching band gang and from the brainiacs to the vo-tech crowd, they were all my friends and we had a blast!

Of course graduation sent us in many different directions. Several classmates headed to the military and stuck it out to retirement. Others gained college degrees and settled into predictable career paths. A few never settled down and have bounced around over the years.

While many like me look forward to class reunions, some will never attend a single one. It’s easy to leave high school with a lot of baggage. Old wounds from broken hearts, bad grades, or just perceived unpopularity… it’s hard for some folks to go home again.

The five and ten-year reunions are fairly predictable. Everyone is still young, vibrant and most of the guys still have their hair. Many show up sporting new spouses or manage to find a hot date to show off. A few have children already.

The crowd generally breaks into those who have started a career and those still wondering what to be when they grow up. Some of the high school party animals are now tea drinkers, while a few former wallflowers try to make up for what they missed in high school by getting plastered. It’s almost like being back in school.

By the time the fifteen, twenty and twenty-five year reunions roll around most folks have settled into their lives. A few show up with their second or maybe even third spouse and some have changed careers. A handful of classmates have grandchildren!

There are always a few surprises as some classmates exceed all expectations and have hit it big in business or as a performer or something. Then there are a few who much was expected of that end up with blue-collar everyday jobs. Even at the twenty-fifth get together, there’s still a little sizing up of each other.

By the thirtieth and later reunions, the Teflon of youth has been replaced with thinning graying hair, a few extra pounds and the hard knocks of life. It’s finally a time to look back and warmly remember the fun, friendships, and shared experiences of growing up together without the pride and prejudice.

Back in Cedartown in the 1960’s and 70’s the population was stable. Some of us attended first thru twelfth grades together, and as schools were consolidated we were almost all together by our junior high years. We spent more time with each other during our school days than we did with probably anyone other than parents and siblings.

Hopefully some of those who have been reluctant to come to previous reunions will feel comfortable and join us this time. We’ve missed them. If your class reunion is coming up, lay the doubts aside and go!

I served in the student government but luckily my cousin Bill was the council president, so he’s the guy who has to plan and put our reunions together. I just have to bring my sound system, which means I get to choose the music. Some things never change.

Pandora's Gone, I've Got The Box

A Tale of Two Storms: As I’ve watched the news footage coming out of an underwater Iowa, I’ve seen citizens across that state roll up their sleeves to help their neighbors and work to protect their towns. Contrast that to the pictures from New Orleans after Katrina.

While Iowans have exhibited good old-fashioned American work ethic and self-reliance, many of those in Katrina’s path had become so dependent on government over the years that all they could do was stand there waiting for the government to take care of them… and then loot their neighbor’s homes while waiting.

Speaking Of Katrina: Over 3,000 oilrigs located in the Gulf of Mexico were in the path of Katrina. No oil workers were killed, there was very little damage to the rigs, and there were no oil leaks from where the shafts enter the ocean floor.

Still not convinced we should be drilling off both coasts? Naturally occurring oil leakage from the ocean floor is ten times more than what is caused by man’s drilling.

Socialized Oil: For years elected Democrats have complained about being called socialists by conservatives. The latest machinations from our leftist Donkey friends in DC include the call for nationalizing oil wells and refineries in America.

Though not as prosperous as the United States, Mexico had a decent standard of living and the U.S. had no problem with Mexican illegal aliens until Mexico nationalized its oil companies. Their economy went in the tank and many of their residents fled for the border. Plus their national oil company has been a disaster. Isn’t socialism grand?

Still Want Bigger Government? While the Obamamaniacs clamor for government run healthcare and more welfare programs, even the liberal Democrat controlled U.S. Senate has given up on government.

Seems the government operated senate cafeteria has gone millions of dollars in the hole over the past few years. A few days ago the senators voted to allow a private company to operate the cafeteria. More food choices, lower prices, and better service are just around the corner.

Stock Up On Light Bulbs: Before you stampede area stores, there are exemptions for specialty bulbs like those for appliances, bug lights, and some decoratives, but most regular incandescent light bulbs will be phased out starting with 100-watt bulbs in 2012. That will be followed with 75-watt bulbs in 2013 and smaller wattage bulbs the next year.

The new energy efficient fluorescent bulbs take fifteen minutes to reach full light output, so this should make for some interesting problems. Have a closet or stairway light that you only need on for a few seconds? The new bulbs will use more power warming up than your current bulb would use over several uses in those applications.

Plus these compact fluorescents contain mercury. Accidentally break a bulb and you’ll need to evacuate the house and call out the HAZMAT team.

Speaking Of New Technology: Many of you didn’t know that Google was in Bartow County last fall. Heck, they may still be here running around undercover as we speak. Those Google folks are sneaky.

Anyway… many of our local streets and roads have now been filmed with Google’s amazing 360-degree “street view” technology. Just go to www.maps.google.com and type in your home or business address.

If your road is outlined in blue, that means Google has paid you a visit, and you’ll be able to pull up a picture of your area and house online. You can pan the view from road to sky and all the way around. So if you’ve been bragging to out of state friends that you live in a mansion, you might want to go ahead and break the news to them before they look at your house online.

Sometimes Technology Stinks: Last November I bought something large that had to be delivered. The driver called me on his cell to say he was in my driveway. I looked out and no truck.

It seems the mapping services that provide content for the navigation units we all use now have a lot of errors. This one had my house placed a mile from where we actually reside. A few weeks later another delivery company couldn’t find me. Their unit had me pegged a mile away in the opposite direction.

If you want to see my house at Google you’re out of luck. Type in the address and it puts you staring into a wooded lot nowhere near me. That’s probably a good thing.

A Time Of National Testing

I wouldn’t be stating anything new if I said that we all face trials and tribulations along life’s pathway. From illness to financial problems, most folks have their share. It’s just part of the experience of inhabiting this wonderful planet.

However, I bet you know someone who just seems to have God’s favor. Seemingly without effort this person will usually have a bounce in his step and a smile on his face.

Typically in the right place at the right time, business success appears to come easy. He probably has a great family life and is respected in the community.

All is not fun and games, but when faced with adversity this type of person usually manages to successfully steer his boat through life’s obstacles until the trip is finished.

As Christians it sometimes seems that there are times when these challenges are tests to see how we react when the going gets tough. The Bible is filled with stories of individuals much like you and I who had times of favor and times of testing.

The Bible also contains stories of nations, especially Israel, which were also challenged, tested and sometimes punished based upon the collective behavior of her inhabitants. Does anyone remember Sodom and Gomorrah?

Those who are paid the big bucks to study such things say that around eighty to eight-five percent of Americans identify themselves as Christian. Many would say that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, but that is an argument for another day.

However it has always amazed me that as Christians we believe in a supernatural God that operates in our individual daily lives, but at the same time we ignore the fact that God did and still does bless and judge nations. He also uses nations to accomplish his purposes here on earth.

Whether or not our nation was founded as a Christian nation, this land was colonized by Christians. There were many proclamations issued by our first settlers claiming this soil for God’s glory.

Over the centuries Americans have used their time and resources to spread the Gospel around the world and I believe God has honored that commitment by richly blessing our nation.

Yes we struggled through our own vices such as slavery, but God doesn’t require perfection in order to receive his goodness. King David was a perfect example. All God asks is that we as a nation admit our wrong doings, ask his forgiveness, and strive to do better.

As a teenager in the 1970’s I remember thinking the U.S. had lost her way. From the resignation of Richard Nixon, to the disaster that was the Jimmy Carter presidency, it was a bad decade.

Energy shortages, stagnant economic growth, the Cold War, massive numbers of citizens on welfare… there was a sense that America was broken and despair had permeated her very soul.

Then in April of 1980 a crowd of Christians estimated by the National Park Service as being over 750,000 descended upon the Mall in Washington, DC for a two-day event called Washington For Jesus.

Speaker after speaker implored the crowd to pray for America and ask God’s forgiveness for her sins of abortion, drug abuse, divorce, and other shortcomings.

I fully believe this was a turning point in our nation’s history and that God cleansed the land of the curses we had brought upon ourselves. Though still not perfect, the nation prospered greatly in the years since.

But just like Israel of old, after receiving God’s forgiveness our nation has slowly drifted away again… increasingly becoming consumed with greed, lust, sexual immorality, and a spirit of selfishness. The exploits of President Clinton seemed to underscore the magnitude of our nation’s slide.

At that point it was as though God lifted his hedge of protection from our shores. We soon had the stock market crash of early 2000. Then came the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the lengthy quagmire of Iraq, Katrina, the energy crisis, and the housing crisis… and now America once again seems to be drifting into a state of malaise similar to that we experienced in the 1970’s.

However this time as I look around the national landscape I don’t feel the sense of national attrition we exhibited in 1980. Where are the leaders calling upon our nation to once again repent, turn to God, and request his favor?

Over the almost thirty years since Washington For Jesus has our nation so fundamentally changed that we have either forgotten past lessons or no longer care?

This great experiment in government we call the United States has lasted longer than many believed possible. The situation in the world today is such that our lives could drastically change in the blink of an eye.

Perhaps this is one of those times of national testing and we hold the future in our hands… and our hearts.

Dear Libertarians...

Probably no political party in America today espouses individual liberty to the degree the Libertarian Party does. Since it’s founding almost forty years ago, the Libertarians have wandered around the edges of our nation’s political landscape, occasionally making noise but never seriously challenging the Big Two.

Revolutions rarely happen overnight. They typically take many years or decades before coming to pass. It seems that a possible Libertarian revolution that was brewing in the 1970’s and early 80’s was preempted as the Democrats began to adopt some of the LP’s socially and morally permissive ideologies, while many Republicans more fully embraced free market concepts along with lower taxes and reduced government spending.

Though political power in the United States is still firmly entrenched in the hands of the two main parties, Libertarian thought continues to help mold and shape public and political opinion.

I archive my columns online at my personal website, and the heading on the home page reads, “Conservative with a touch of Libertarianism and an occasional trip down a dirt road.”

There are millions of Republicans like myself who feel let down by our party as conservative principals are repeatedly abandoned for political expediency or perceived political self-preservation.

The Republican Revolution of 1994 that others and I worked so hard to see come to fruition has been squandered by the socialistic “compassionate conservatism” of George W. Bush and spineless Republicans in congress who have refused to challenge him. We feel as though left at the altar while the GOP sneaks a kiss with the left of center crowd.

The selection this year of a moderate John McCain as the Republican standard-bearer is more than many conservatives can stomach. I’m one of those.

There are many like me who agree with much of the platform of the Libertarian Party’s concerning economics, taxes, smaller government and individual liberty. I’m sure I’m not the only GOP’er who watched some of the national Libertarian Convention last weekend on CSPAN with at least a remote thought of possibly switching parties.

In all honesty it was refreshing to see a party hold a presidential nominating convention where the outcome had not been decided in advance and actually took six rounds of balloting before a nominee was chosen.

On the other hand this national convention was very amateurishly run by today’s standards and paled in comparison to even a GOP state convention. If the Libertarians hope to attract more than core true believers to their cause, they must quickly ramp up to speed on the marketing of their party or they will never draw enough new faces to seriously challenge the Big Two.

Like all political groups, the Libertarians also have their share of party faithful whose ideologies would be considered on the fringe. While the Democrats and Republicans work to keep theirs out of the limelight, many of those at the Libertarian convention were front and center.

As an example, many conservatives will readily admit the war on drugs has been a failure, and that many of our rights and liberties have been surrendered to it. Some might even be willing to look at the decriminalization of marijuana and other measured incremental steps as we work to roll back the federal RICO statutes and other infringements.

However when legitimate contenders for the Libertarian presidential nomination along with some state party chairmen make legalization of pot their primary focus on camera, then the party risks completely alienating those who might otherwise give the LP’s a chance.

Another dangerous point of the convention came when the chairman from the “Big Love” state of Utah spoke about polygamy in his state and gave the impression that it should be legal alongside homosexual marriage.

If it is to grow, the Libertarian Party can only go one of two ways. It can tone down the rhetoric on abolishing welfare, shrinking government, and cutting taxes in order to draw liberal Democrats to the fold. Or it can minimize its ardent support of liberal social and moral ideologies in order to attract conservatives from the GOP.

By selecting Bob Barr as the Libertarian nominee for president last Sunday, many of the delegates seemed to understand that for the party to flourish and have a bigger impact, the logical step is to reach to out to disenfranchised Republicans. It was also obvious that some hardcore “anything goes” Libertarians don’t want their tent enlarged.

There’s a real possibility that over the next four years, the Libertarian Party will experience growing pains and some shifts in its platform as Barr brings an influx of former Republicans with him. This will either invigorate the party to new heights, or result in an internal fight between the newbies and the old-timers that will leave the Big Two parties firmly entrenched.

A slowing economy, increasing prices for oil and food, along with an unsettled populace unhappy with both the Democrats and Republicans presents a peak opportunity for a third party to break out of the pack. America is crying for change and during this transitional period of 2008 thru 2012 we as a nation will either embrace liberty or we will embrace socialism.

The Libertarian revolution has been simmering for almost forty years. Conditions in the United States may have to deteriorate to an almost unbearable point at some time in the future before an opportunity like this comes again for freedom minded individuals. Libertarians, seize the day!

It's Campaign Consultant Time Part 2

Last week I looked at the machinations of the November General Election, but today we get to tackle some hot Republican on Republican action in four contested races in the upcoming GOP Primary.

Not to ignore you folks on the left, but the Democrat ballot this July features no local candidates. Instead, you of the donkey persuasion will be treated to a hot U.S. Senate race featuring five wannabees plus a Public Service Commission race featuring two unknown candidates.

With DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones and perennial candidate Jim Martin among the five who are fighting to take on U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss in November, the senate race will dominate the Democrat side and get lots of media attention. So what does this mean for GOP candidates in Bartow County?

Secretary of State Karen Handel has predicted a turnout of 70 to 80% in November. However, if past results are indicative of the Primary turnout, there will be some bored poll workers come July.

Many local Democrats, especially black voters supporting Vernon Jones, will pull a Democrat ballot for the July Primary and thus will have no impact on those running Republican. For Republicans neither U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss nor Congressman Phil Gingrey have Primary opposition. The statewide GOP ballot features only two contested Public Service Commission races.

Thus local GOP turnout come July 15th will be driven by those Republicans who vote regularly and by those folks motivated by local races. Remember in a Primary, voters can select whether to pull a GOP or Democrat ballot when they arrive at the polls.

The Primary for a Republican candidate is a completely different creature than the General Election, especially in a presidential year when a massive number of occasional voters show up in November and go straight GOP. No, these folks running in the GOP Primary will be fighting for every vote, door to door.

For incumbent Bartow Tax Commissioner Valenda Bailey, this is her challenge year. Valenda is finishing her first four-year term after winning the race in 2004 to succeed long time tax man Jack Nally. Unless some scandal is involved, generally a first time incumbent is usually more vulnerable than he or she will be down the road.

With the exception of the school board, Bartow County voters don’t like to change horses without a reason. Challenger Judy Kilgore will need to make a strong case as to why Bailey should be replaced. Bartow voters also don’t like personal attacks so Kilgore will have to use discretion as she lays out her reasons.

For District 4 Bartow County Board of Education member Tammy Livingood, incumbency has another twist. Few county BOE members make it past two terms. Either they burn out or the voters just want a change.

Tammy is finishing her second four-year stint on the board and has decided to re-up for another term. Livingood faces a challenge from Wanda Gray, a former teacher and current real estate professional.

This race only encompasses Euharlee, Taylorsville, and surrounding areas; so on its own it won’t drive many voters to the polls. Also, House District 15 doesn’t overlap hardly any of Livingood’s district, so the turnout from the Lewis/Battles race will have no impact.

No, the contest between Livingood and Gray will come down to family, friends, networking and good old-fashioned selective door knocking. By selective I mean both candidates need to get a list of likely GOP voters and concentrate on personally contacting those folks by phone or in person.

The other countywide race features current Democrat turned Republican incumbent District Attorney Joe Campbell and challenger, attorney Chris Coomer. This contest actually involves two counties, Bartow and Gordon, which make up the Cherokee Judicial Circuit.

Coomer is from Bartow, while Campbell hails from the smaller Gordon County. If voting breaks along county lines Coomer has a good shot, even though it’s tough to unseat an incumbent.

Also in Coomer’s favor is the fact that Campbell has always been a Democrat and only changed parties when he qualified for re-election back in April. GOP voters are always cautious of party switchers, especially when the party change comes with no fanfare or public announcement by the elected official about the reason for the change.

Campbell has been around the electoral block a few times and that has its advantage. Coomer will need to run a textbook campaign to even his odds against Campbell.

The highest profile race for Bartow voters will be that between State Representative Jeff Lewis and challenger Paul Battles. District 15 encompasses Cartersville, Emerson, Center, Stamp Creek, White, and the Lake Allatoona area.

Lewis is finishing up sixteen years in the General Assembly and has used that longevity to move into several House leadership positions, chairing the Energy, Utilities, and Telecommunications Committee and also holding key spots on other committees.

Jeff has a laidback demeanor and has never been one to beat his own chest. Though Lewis has a number of strong accomplishments under his belt, his style has opened him up to accusations that he hasn’t done anything. His campaign should focus on reminding voters of all of his accomplishments. He should ask voters if they are willing to trade seniority for the unknown.

As a longtime pastor and banker and with his many years of civic involvement, for Battles the strategy must be centered on turnout of his large group of natural voters. However, Paul has to be careful in how he challenges Lewis in general, lest he alienate possible swing voters who have voted for Lewis in the past. A perfect example would be Battles’ campaign slogan, Leadership We Deserve, which seems to insinuate that voters don’t deserve Jeff’s leadership.

The other knock against Paul among GOP regulars is that he has been the go-to guy whenever a local tax increase measure has been on the ballot. He also helped head up the City of Cartersville storm water utility tax panel, and the resulting inflated water bills have some residents and business owners crying foul.

That said, this race promises to be a street fight with both candidates scrapping over a small pool of undecideds and newcomers. Paul has a large network and the cash to mount a credible campaign, while Jeff also has a large network and the power of incumbency. This contest could get expensive.

It’s Campaign Consultant Time

I’m a big home improvement junkie, spending so much time at Lowe’s and Home Depot that the employees there know my kid’s birthdays and how I like my steak cooked. Needless to say I watch a lot of home repair stuff on television.

One recent show featured new homeowners who fell in love with a house and rushed the process without hiring an inspector before purchasing. Of course after they moved in, suddenly they found things weren’t quite what they expected and their bank account ended up taking a huge hit as they were forced to make expensive repairs.

It’s like that with politics. Someone gets motivated to run for a particular office and doesn’t sit down with a campaign consultant to get an honest analysis of what it will take to win. If you’re going to devote several months of your life and a big chunk of change trying to get elected, you need to do some homework beforehand.

Though I’ve been affiliated with the Republican Party, if you’re a regular reader of this column then you know I’m just as likely to hold the Republican’s feet to the fire as I do the Democrats. So hopefully you’ll believe me when I say that today I’m wearing my non-partisan hat as I give a campaign consultant’s analysis of this year’s elections.

The first thing to understand is that there is a significant group of registered voters who show up for most every election. Then there are three additional groups of voters whose turnout percentage depends on which races are on the ballot. One group is motivated by local elections, another by statewide races, and the other is focused on the presidential election.

This is a presidential election year so national issues are in play, but there is only one U.S. Senate race and a couple of Public Service Commission seats up for grabs statewide. Additionally there are a handful of challengers for some county and legislative races locally, so the makeup of the electorate this year will be slightly different than 2006 when high profile statewide offices such as Governor were up for grabs in both the primary and general elections, and the only local elections featured three school board seats.

Let’s look today at contested races that will be decided in the November General Election where a significant percentage of voters will be driven by the presidential campaign. If Barak Obama is the Democrat nominee, pundits expect a record turnout by black voters who traditionally vote Democrat.

So what impact will this have on Bartow County races and will Obama have coattails for those with a “D” next to their names? Blacks make up just less than ten percent of the population locally, so the influence in November here will be negligible. Plus an anti-Obama backlash is also expected and that will drive non-Democrat numbers up.

An analysis of voting demographics show Bartow voters to be strongly conservative and much more likely to vote for a GOP candidate, all things being equal. It’s a bright red county in a red state, and Obama has been rated the most liberal of all 100 U.S. Senators. Enough said.

In 1994 I became the first Republican elected to a partisan office in Bartow County. The last remaining elected Democrat in the county, District Attorney Joe Campbell, switched to the GOP when he qualified for office this time. The transformation has been completed. I hope Joe remembered to cut the lights out at Democrat headquarters when he left.

Probably the biggest surprise when the dust settled from candidate qualifying was the unveiling of the Bartow Democrat’s secret weapon. Former Republican Jerry Nally signed to run as a Democrat against sitting GOP County Commissioner Clarence Brown.

Now I know Jerry is a conservative and though we haven’t spoken recently, I believe Jerry felt he had a better shot in November when everyone can vote instead of challenging Clarence in the GOP Primary like he did in 2004. His strategy seems to involve garnering Democrat voters and disgruntled Republicans. It’s a gamble for Jerry as Brown has very little vulnerability with either group.

With the recent controversies involving former Bartow County Sheriff’s Department officer Brenton Garmon and his father James Garmon, some would say sitting Sheriff Clark Millsap might actually be a little susceptible this year. The rumor mill was loaded with names of people ready to challenge Clark.

When the dust settled, only Democrat Bill Evans stepped forward. I don’t know Bill, but I can tell you that like Nally, he faces a huge challenge in overcoming local voting demographics. The same scenario also faces local Democrat legislative challenger Rick D’Arezzo who hopes to unseat Republican State Rep. Barry Loudermilk, and Democrat Tracy Bennett who has signed on for a rematch against GOP State Senator Bill heath.

After the Democrats gerrymandered Georgia’s legislative districts following the 2000 census, a three-judge panel became involved in redrawing the seats. I got a sneak preview of how the new map would look the evening before it was officially released to the public.

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I immediately called Barry Loudermilk and asked him if he had an interest in running for the State House. His residence was located in a drastically redrawn district tailor made for a Republican. Barry ran and defeated Democrat incumbent Buddy Childers. The demographics of Loudermilk’s district 14 are strongly skewed against any Democrat challenger.

In 2006 Tracy Bennett ran against incumbent Republican State Senator Bill Heath and lost 68% to 32%. There’s another one of my famous political rules that says you better take your best shot the first time when challenging an incumbent, because the second time is even tougher. Also, only a portion of Bennett’s Bartow County is in Heath’s district, which also includes Haralson, Polk, and part of Paulding.

The powers that be in Atlanta have handicapped all of the state’s legislative races and both Loudermilk and Heath are considered safe. No disrespect to D’Arezzo and Bennett, but they each have a tough road ahead.

Now here’s another dirty little secret of politics. Both the Democrat and Republican state parties will promise the moon to get challengers to sign up to run against incumbent legislators of the other party, but will rarely deliver on the promised help.

A high number of challenger candidates give party bosses two things. One, they can brag about how many of the other party’s seats they are shooting for in an attempt to create statewide momentum. Two, it ties down the opposing side’s incumbents who are being challenged, bleeds their money, and keeps them from helping out in other races.

The Georgia Democrat Party is facing a significant disadvantage in fundraising this year. When their money and advertising help is finally divvied up among Democrat challengers, only a few top tier candidates will see anything. The rest of those running will be left to fend for themselves.

Regardless of the odds, I salute anyone willing to place their name on a ballot. And even though some challengers have tough races ahead, you never say never until the last vote is counted

Next week I’ll take a look at the four local Republican against Republican races on tap for the July Primary. Stay tuned!

It Was Only A Dream

Hats off to Curtis Rivers for a humorous retort to my column of last Sunday where I implored Governor Perdue to sign HB89, a bill that loosens Georgia’s restrictive laws governing concealed carry permits. In Mr. Rivers’ dream he envisioned that if HB89 became law, eating out in Cartersville would be akin to Miss Kitty’s diner on Gunsmoke where you would be as likely to have a gunfight with your meal, as to get a refill of your sarsaparilla.

When the Texas legislature considered changes to gun carry laws in 1995 we heard the same arguments from the left. If rules were loosened, Texas would return to the Wild West days of the 1800’s with nightly shootings and carnage in every eatery. The guns laws were eased and after a decade of waiting, the shootings never materialized.

Just a few years later when the Florida legislature considered changes to their concealed carry permit regulations, the left again trotted out the same old Pablum. They even went as far as saddling up with the Florida tourism folks to launch a campaign claming people would stop coming to the Sunshine State for vacation if the law passed. It’s been several years now since the law was changed and Florida is still covered with guys wearing Bermuda shorts, black socks, and sandals.

Around this nation, thirty-four other states allow guns to be carried in restaurants. Studies conducted by those on both sides of the issue have been unable to find a case in these states of a legal permit holder using his or her firearm in a violent manner in an eating establishment. As I said last week, concealed carry licensees are the cream of the crop.

As Mr. Rivers stated in his letter, his fears were only a dream. It seems that a lot of liberals have dreams like this that never seem to materialize.

Every time Republicans propose changes to Social Security to ensure its financial solvency while increasing benefits for future retirees, the left launches a fear campaign to scare seniors. It’s all politics, but it works and thus Social Security remains a creaky old program that shortchanges future generations.

When the GOP attempted to modernize the school lunch program in the mid-1990’s, the left went into action claiming school children would become malnourished from coast to coast. Food service workers and boards of education across the nation flooded congress with calls, letters, and official resolutions in opposition to the plan. Despite the outcry, changes were implemented and the school nutrition program was improved with no dire consequences.

Again in the 1990’s, a Republican Congress passed a sweeping welfare to work reform package and forced President Bill Clinton to sign off on it. Yep, you guessed it. Social workers, community activists, and a cadre of those of the liberal persuasion painted pictures of a grim future where homelessness would become pandemic.

Surprisingly to many, after implementation of the reform bill welfare rolls dropped significantly while the number of Americans holding jobs rose. Of note, homelessness also decreased during this time. Oh those silly, silly liberals.

Of course every time conservatives trot out a tax cut plan, Democrats and their allies go into orbit with their cries that the tax cuts only benefit the wealthy and the money could be better spent on the poor.

They conveniently neglect the fact that every time federal tax rates have been cut, from the administrations of John F. Kennedy through George W. Bush, federal tax revenues have actually risen as a result.

Maybe the high incidence of dreaming by those on the left could be because liberals don’t sleep well anymore as they watch their socialist utopian visions crumble around them. Personally I think they’re having nightmares, but they can continue to call them dreams if they want.

Where Would Sonny Eat?

It was just a regular Wednesday in Killeen, Texas back on October 16, 1991 when Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp drove over to Luby’s Cafeteria to have lunch with her parents Al & Ursula Gratia. The restaurant was filled with moms, dads, children, and grandparents… all oblivious to the fate that awaited them.

Someone else paid a visit to Luby’s that day. Shortly before 1 PM, a distraught 35-year-old George Jo Hennard drove his pickup through a window at the cafeteria. He jumped out of his vehicle and immediately opened fire on restaurant patrons and employees with both a Glock 17 handgun and a Ruger P89.

He reloaded his guns several times over the fifteen minutes he calmly stalked and murdered those in Luby’s. Before his rampage was over, twenty-three innocent people lay slain and another twenty were wounded, making it the most deadly mass shooting by a solo gunman in U.S. history… a record that stood until the Virginia Tech Massacre in 2007.

Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp had a handgun for protection with her that day, but left it in her vehicle due to gun laws in force in Texas at that time. During the carnage, Suzanna’s father charged the gunman in an attempt to stop the slaughter. Al Gratia became a statistic as one of the dead. Suzanna’s mother also perished as she rushed to her dying husband’s side.

The events of that day haunted Suzanna Hupp. If only she had ignored the law and instead had kept her handgun in her purse and brought it into Luby’s. Perhaps she could have stopped George Jo Hennard early in the event and saved many lives, including her parents.

In the end, George Jo Hennard took the coward’s way out, killing himself after a Texas Department of Public Safety officer arrived and chased Hennard into a restroom.

Suzanna Hupp went on a mission to change Texas’ concealed carry gun laws so that law-abiding citizens could protect themselves and their families. In 1995 the Texas legislature made those changes and former Gov. George W. Bush signed the legislation into law.

Hupp was elected to the Texas House of Representatives the next year, a position she held for a decade until she retired from politics.

Now let’s turn our attention to Anniston, Alabama. On December 17, 1991, just a few weeks after the Luby’s Massacre, two criminals with stolen weapons rounded up twenty employees and customers at a Shoney’s restaurant in Anniston and forced them into a walk-in cooler and locked them in. Holding the manager at gunpoint, the thugs began to rob the home of the Big Boy.

One customer, Thomas Glenn Terry, had managed to hide under a table during the ordeal. Terry was legally armed with a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol.

When one of the robbers patrolling the restaurant discovered Terry and pointed a gun at him, Terry opened fire. Five rounds found their mark, killing the thug instantly.

The second criminal turned his attention away from the store manager and shot at Terry, who returned fire, mortally wounding the perpetrator. It was all over. The store manager was unharmed. The twenty people trapped in the cooler were freed. What could have been another massacre was stopped in its tracks.

While blood and carnage such as that at Luby’s always seems to find massive coverage by America’s anti-gun news outlets, it’s rare when they cue us in on the good stories where everyday Joe’s and Jane’s use firearms to save lives.

Every day in this nation crimes are prevented when would be criminals decide not to take a chance on possibly being confronted by citizens carrying concealed weapons in public places.

Republican State Representative Tim Bearden of Villa Rica, a former police officer, introduced HB89 during this year’s session of the Georgia General Assembly. After a few modifications Bearden’s bill was passed and now awaits action by Governor Sonny Perdue.

Georgia’s concealed weapons laws are some of the most restrictive in the nation and HB89 would loosen regulations, allowing lawfully licensed concealed permit holders to carry their firearms into more places.

A recent study revealed that concealed carry permit holders are even surprisingly less likely to be involved in a crime than off duty law enforcement officers. The bottom line is that those holding permits are the cream of the crop. By and large they are the ultimate good guys and gals.

Law enforcement agencies do the best they can, but it’s rare that an officer happens to be in position to prevent or stop a crime. Most often they arrive after the damage is done and their efforts are spent analyzing crime scenes and hunting for perpetrators… a point that former officer Bearden has repeatedly made.

A consortium of restaurant owners and liberal politicians has launched a campaign urging Perdue to veto HB89, and Perdue has indicated that he is carefully studying the legislation.
My question to Sonny is where would you rather eat? Luby’s or Shoney’s. The answer should be a simple one.

So You Want To Run For Office?

2008 is starting out as one of those years when the voting populace is filled with unrest and seems ready to kick a bunch of incumbents to the curb whether they deserve it or not. One the other hand, I’ve seen similar election years where the fuss turned to fizz by Election Day and the status quo ultimately prevailed.

However, if the rumor mill is anywhere near accurate this promises to be a busy and interesting election season here in good old Bartow County. From board of education to sheriff to the state legislature, it seems that everyone knows somebody who is thinking about running for office.

So to all of you aspiring politicians, here’s a question we all want to know the answer to: Why do you want to throw your hat in the ring?

Here are some of the more popular answers I’m sure we would hear. “I can do a better job.” “I’ll work harder.” “The incumbent doesn’t vote the way I like.” “He’s been there too long.” “We need a change.”

There’s also an answer that we’ll never hear, but I suspect some would-be challengers feel this way. That answer? “I’m running because I want the power that comes with the position.” Oh yeah, we want to elect you.

Having worked on campaigns over the years from local to U.S. Senate I’ve seen it all. Sometimes a highly qualified challenger gets thumped by an entrenched incumbent who couldn’t vote his way out of a paper bag.

Or perhaps a longtime incumbent gets defeated for no real discernible reason. Then after a few months of Mr. Newbie, voters develop a really bad case of buyer’s remorse.

I’m not here to defend any of the incumbents out there. Many of them have big war chests and they can spend some of that to remind voters why they should be returned to office.

There are two primary reasons though that helps explain why many voters historically seem reluctant to replace incumbent office holders. First is the fact that the voters elected and in some cases reelected the person multiple times. To now vote against this incumbent would be to admit they possibly made a mistake in electing him or her in the first place.

The second reason is that though we may occasionally get upset with our incumbents, we also realize that after several years in office they have learned the ropes and possibly gained some type of seniority that we don’t want to trade away for the unknown.

The bottom line is that if you want to knock off an incumbent, you better have some very strong reasons that you can hammer away at over and over. If you think you’re going to run the, “I’m a nice guy and so is the incumbent, but I hope you’ll vote for me campaign,” then save your qualifying fee. It almost never works.

A perfect example here locally was the year 2000. I was working for the Georgia GOP at the time and we were recruiting challenger candidates to run against Democrat incumbent state legislators. I recommended that our political director give Parnick Jennings a call to see if he might be interested in a possible bid against then Democrat State Senator Richard Marable of Rome.

Parnick had many of the qualities that make for a good candidate, especially for this senate district. He had phenomenally high name recognition here in Bartow County, plus he grew up in Floyd County where his father was a prominent businessman.

Parnick was well spoken, was a hard worker, had a large network of friends and associates, and would be able to raise the funds necessary to mount a competitive campaign. Ultimately he decided instead to mount a challenge as a Democrat for the state house seat held by Republican Jeff Lewis.

Though Parnick had so much going for him, he still fell short by a large margin in his campaign against Jeff. So what was the main reason for Parnick’s defeat? He chose to take the high road and not hit Jeff with an avalanche of negative mailers and ads.

Without going negative, there was no way to convince voters that they needed to turn out someone they had reelected several times. As I said, when you have two nice guys running a friendly campaign, the incumbent almost always wins.

While a little bit of money and worn out shoe leather might get you a school board seat, you better have deep pockets, a stiff backbone, and a little bit of attack dog in your personality if you’re looking at something larger.

A good rule of thumb is that a challenger needs to outspend a popular incumbent 2 to 1 just to level the playing field. In a county the size of Bartow that means $100,000 to $150,000 is the starting point for money needed to mount a competitive campaign for sheriff, county commissioner, or the state legislature.

Win or lose, most folks who have placed their names on the ballot look back on the experience fondly and are glad they took the chance. Most of the losers also wish they had the money back they dropped on their campaigns. If you can’t get others to donate the money you need, you probably won’t be able to get enough of them to lend you their vote either.

With just a few days to go until candidate qualifying begins, take a hard look at why you’re considering taking the plunge. If it’s just for the power or you’re on an ego trip, then let it go. However if you believe you can truly offer us a better alternative to the incumbent and can mount a credible campaign, then go for it. The odds are long, but you might be that rare exception.

A Picture Even Phil Gingrey Could Understand

When I read the press release a few days ago I shook my head in disbelief. Yet there it was in black and white. In today’s political world, maintaining any semblance of ideological purity is tough to do, so I guess I shouldn’t jump on Congressman Phil Gingrey too hard. However, this issue cuts to the core of what’s wrong with our federal government.

I’ve known Phil for about a decade, from when he was a state senator representing part of Cobb County. He was very generous to me when I ran for state senate in 2000 and I can honestly say, politics aside, Phil is one of the good guys.

During my campaign I was burning the candle at both ends and he called one morning and asked what I had planned that evening. Phil and country music star Travis Tritt are good friends and Travis was performing over at the Forum in Rome that night, which just happened to be in my senate district.

Phil arranged for us to hang out backstage with Travis and also pick up a little PR for my campaign during the concert. It was a nice gesture on his part, so publicly criticizing Gingrey is not something I do lightly. For the record I have contributed financially to Phil’s congressional campaigns in the past.

One of the core principals of conservatism is the reigning in of the size and scope of the U.S. federal government. For thirty years we have advocated the elimination of unnecessary government agencies and programs, many of which should be constitutionally reserved to the states.

During the Republican Revolution of 1994 conservatives pledged to defund and eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, returning all responsibility for education to the states. Instead, Phil and most other conservatives signed off on President Bush’s “No Child Left behind Act” a few years ago, which has resulting in the doubling of the size of the Department of Education.

Another favorite target was the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The NEA has received its share of criticism over the years for wasting our tax dollars on obscene and vulgar filth masquerading as art. If an artist can produce and market his artwork, power to him. But please don’t ask taxpayers to give their hard earned dollars to some weirdo who wants to dip a crucifix in urine and call it a masterpiece.

So when I received the press release proclaiming that Congressman Gingrey was hosting an NEA workshop at Kennesaw State University it got my attention. The purpose of the workshop was to help inform people about federal funding opportunities and the process of applying for Arts Endowment grants.

Whoa! Wait a minute! Republican Congressman Phil Gingrey, supposedly a conservative, was hosting a workshop to help people take more of my tax dollars to spend on art projects that they couldn’t get the free market to support? Unbelievable! Even if the money is used to expose young children to the arts, it’s not a function for the federal government.

As soon as I finished reading the NEA press release I contacted Gingrey’s Communications Director Chris Jackson and unloaded. In just over a decade conservatives have abandoned trying to eradicate the NEA, and have instead joined big spending liberals by promoting this unnecessary government agency.

When a Democrat pushes for bigger government and higher taxes, though it upsets me it’s no surprise. However when someone on your own team does the same thing it hurts. It’s the old knife in the back syndrome.

To be fair, though Republicans have had majorities in the U.S. House and Senate until recently, conservatives have not. There have always been just enough moderate and liberal Republicans from up north to monkey things up. That doesn’t excuse Gingrey and company though.

As conservative voters look toward November it’s becoming increasingly hard for them to get excited about our Republican candidates. The big argument is that a vote for third party candidates for president, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House will only make it more likely that Democrats will not only gain the White House, but also substantially increase their margins in Congress.

What’s a conservative to do? The Republican Party is adrift and there’s no one on the horizon with vision such as exhibited by Newt Gingrich in 1994 with his Contract With America. Many conservatives just don’t trust the Republican Party to follow through on its promises, and actions such as Gingrey’s cozying up to the NEA only adds fuel to the fire.

If there was ever a time for the Libertarian Party, the Constitution Party, or other minority political group to step up, this is the year. Even if they only pull a few percentage points, it could tip some elections away from the GOP… and that would paint a picture even Phil Gingrey could understand. And no NEA grant would be needed.

A Little Truth In Advertising Would Be Refreshing

I wish just once I would pass a car on the highway with a bumper sticker that reads: “My Child Is An Honor Student At XYZ Elementary, But He Can’t Read Worth a Darn”. A little truth in advertising would be refreshing.

In today’s world not only is no child left behind, but all children are winners just for breathing. When I grew up the honor roll was reserved only for students earning straight A’s. Then it was relaxed so that even if you had a couple of B’s, as long as you had an overall “A” grade point average you could sneak in.

Now in many place having all A’s and B’s gets you on honor roll even if the GPA is just barley 80. Of course we can’t forget the early grades where kids now get grades like “Satisfactory” and “Needs Improvement” with a smiley face drawn beside it. My first grade report card shows good old letter grades so mom knew if I got A’s or worse.

I even recently heard of one school system where the children got perfect attendance certificates even if they missed multiple days of school as long as those days were excused absences.

Then there are some high schools where the administration feels it’s unfair to have one just valedictorian. So at graduation those gathered may experience the thrill of hearing from the white male, white female, black male, black female, Hispanic male, and Hispanic female valedictorians. Sometimes there will be another one or two thrown in for good measure if there are other minorities in sufficient numbers.

Of course we can’t leave out sports. Little Johnny stinks at baseball and never got a hit. His team only won one game all season and came in last place. Yep, you guessed it. Little Johnny takes home a trophy the size of the old Shoney’s Big Boy. Johnny we’re so proud of you. You were the last winner

Not! Losing is tough, but it builds character and hopefully pushes one to try harder next time. Too many kids today have no idea what losing is. Nor do they experience the benefits that come from real competition.

I had never played organized football before and practice had been going on for two weeks when I finally signed up in the sixth grade. The first day the coach stuck me at middle linebacker in a scrimmage against the first team offense to see what I could do… and I got knocked on my butt on the first play.

He didn’t pat me on the helmet and tell me what a great job I had done. He pulled me aside and told I was going to either get killed or spend the season riding the bench unless I showed him I could tackle someone. That was all the motivation I needed as I single handedly sacked the running back behind the line of scrimmage the next three plays and ended up making the first string defense that year.

Though we got no individual trophies at the end of the season, we did get a team trophy because we went undefeated and won the city championship. Our coaches didn’t scream and yell all the time, but they let us know what it took to win and we were the better for it.

When my wife and I were in college and dating, we attended a health and physical education conference over at Pine Isle Resort on Lake Lanier. We really could have cared less about the conference. It was just an excuse for us to spend a weekend away from home and hang out with each other and our friends.

After we got there, me being Mr. Athlete I decided to check out some of the sports competitions they were holding. I mean after all it was only natural that I would want to show off my physical prowess to my girlfriend. Roar!

I picked up the entry materials and began to look for something to sign up for. Boy was I surprised! No basketball. No arm wrestling. No tennis. They didn’t even have horseshoes.

No, all of the competitions were for what at that time were called “New Games.” Heck, there was no competition involved at all. The games were the latest psychobabble fad. They were all designed so that anyone regardless of physical stature or athleticism could play… and there were no winners. Kumbaya.

This was the beginning of the modern era of elementary and middle school physical education/recess where dodge ball, tag, races, and other fun competitive games were banned in some school systems and replaced with feel good garbage.

Hey, I’m all for building self-esteem in children. I know many come from stressful family situations where they don’t receive positive reinforcement. However life is tough and the sooner these kids accept the fact that everyone can’t be a winner at everything the better off they’ll be.

About the only thing the self-esteem movement has accomplished is to make kids feel good about themselves while many perform at substandard levels. Susie I can’t read anything you’ve written, but you did fill up the page with your writing assignment so you get a ribbon for completing your homework.

Talk to business owners and managers and they’ll fill your head full of horror stories about fresh faced young hires who have no clue about work or life. When the boss doesn’t pat these twenty and thirty something’s on the back after they failed to perform adequately, they rush back home to the safety and comfort of parent land where their self-esteem can be stroked.

America was built by tough individualists who didn’t need to attend silly feel good team building classes. I just can’t imagine John Wayne rounding up the guys working the cattle drive and telling them that before they hit the trail, they needed to spend three days getting in touch with each other’s feelings. Today we have Brokeback Mountain and that’s not the only thing that’s broke.

A Little Spring Cleaning Is In Order

One thing about writing a column is that I continually collect bits and pieces of information to use. Of course these things pile up, so you’ll be thrilled to know I’m dumping them on you.

The past few weeks I’ve felt like I’ve stepped into some kind of time warp and ended up in a political parallel universe where nothing is as it should be. Republicans are acting like Democrats. Democrats are acting like socialists.

The Republican presidential nominee was written off months ago by the party and is not liked by many Republicans. And who would have thought that the presidential candidate who attends what many call a racist church would turn out to be a black Democrat?

Even many of our own Georgia Republicans have fallen off the conservative bandwagon, led by one Sonny Perdue. Of course Sonny was a Democrat State Senator up until 1998 so maybe his backsliding isn’t unexpected.

So What’s Your Plan? Transportation woes are choking the life out of Atlanta and north Georgia, and commuters have been pleading for relief. Now in his sixth year in office Governor Sonny Perdue has offered no meaningful solutions to address traffic gridlock.

Tired of waiting, the House and Senate have each addressed the issue this session and it looks like we’ll have an opportunity in November to vote on their handiwork. Under this legislation, just like our county SPLOST or school system ELOST initiatives, regional groups of counties would be allowed to put one-cent sales tax packages dedicated to transportation on the local ballot.

Though he can’t veto this legislation, Governor Perdue has vowed to campaign against its passage by voters in November. OK Sonny, what’s your plan to fund and fix our transportation problems? You say you still don’t have one?

Big Government Cagle: Georgia’s illustrious Lt. Governor Casey Cagle is a nice guy with eyes on higher office down the road. Always the pragmatist, Cagle continually looks for middle of the road lukewarm solutions to problems we face, so it shouldn’t come as a shock that when it involves healthcare he wants more government.

We can all agree that hospital emergency rooms are no place for people with common sicknesses such as strep, sinus infections or the flu. Yet, the uninsured continue to use the ER as their healthcare provider of choice causing huge losses for hospitals and higher healthcare prices for the rest of us.

The free market is responding to the problem as hospitals open off-site urgent care facilities, and private business groups open chains of walk-in medical clinics in pharmacies and grocery stores across the state. Cagle’s solution? Use tax dollars to fund walk-in clinics that will compete with the new private clinics. Ludicrous!

Stop The Madness! I believe our founders got it right in that we have fifty states all competing with each other to attract business investments. Whoever can provide an educated workforce, low taxes, and less government regulation gets the inside track. Where it gets out of hand is when tax dollars are used to actually subsidize companies in an attempt to lure them away from another state.

Two more major league baseball teams have recently signed deals to move their spring training facilities from Florida to Arizona where local governments there are using tax dollars to build state of the art stadiums and training complexes as bait.

I’ve decided I want to move to Naples, Florida, which means Florida would now get my sales taxes and property taxes instead of Bartow County and Georgia. I know Commissioner Brown would hate to see me leave, so I’ve got a proposal.

If Bartow County will build me a one-million dollar custom home and then sell it to me for $500,000, I’ll promise to live in the house for a minimum of twenty years during which time the state and county might recoup their costs through the taxes I’ll pay. Got a deal?

Barr-B-Que? This one should cause John McCain and the GOP establishment a little heartburn. Conservatives and Libertarians alike are searching for someone to carry their torches in the presidential race this fall. Backrooms are buzzing as our former congressman and my friend Bob Barr has suddenly vaulted to the top of the pack as a possible choice as the Libertarian Party presidential nominee.

Barr was a national favorite of many Republicans, plus for three years after leaving congress he hosted a nationally syndicated radio show carried on over one hundred stations. Though Bob can’t win in November, he has a great base to work from and could siphon off just enough votes from McCain to put several states back in play… possibly including Georgia.

I’m one of those individuals tired of compromising my beliefs. I have better uses for my left hand than to use it to hold my nostrils shut while I use my right hand to vote once again for a Republican presidential nominee who doesn’t share my values. Run Bob run!

Drugs And Water: It’s pollen season and I’ve been hit hard this year. My doctor prescribed an inhaler that only comes in a 20-gram size, which under normal dosing would last one month. However, my instructions are to only use it at one-third the normal dose, which means that one-month container will last me three months.

Instead of my health insurance company being glad that I won’t be using as much medication, they forced me to pay a three-month supply co-pay of $100 instead of the $50 co-pay charged for one 20-gram container.

This is the same mentality in play with the City of Cartersville water system and other water suppliers around the state. Because of the drought they have forced us to use less water. Less water use means less money for city coffers, so their solution is to raise rates. Get less water and pay more. What a deal! Have a great Sunday.

Evelyn Wood Is Spinning In Her Grave

She was the queen of speed reading, and though she passed away thirteen years ago her business lives on. The premise of the technique Evelyn Wood taught was that a person could read several times faster than normal while still retaining comprehension of what was read.

After some of the e-mail responses I received about my column from last Sunday, Evelyn Wood is probably spinning in her grave. I’m not sure about the speed part, but somewhere along the way it seems comprehension took a vacation.

The first e-mail chastised me for saying I would not vote for a black man. So I reread my column and nowhere did I write or even remotely imply that. In fact I have voted for black candidates before (and for women) so we can toss that one.

I was accused of being a bigot, a racist, and an extremist. This only affirmed the point I made where I stated that Barack’s campaign and his supporters appear ready to play the race card whenever necessary. Strike two.

I was accused of being against change. Actually I wrote that I was in favor of change, just not the kind of change Obama is proposing. I feel both parties have failed us and I’ll be voting for a third party candidate for president this November. Three strikes and you’re out!

From minor errors to even saying I insulted Obama’s intelligence when I actually referred to him as being articulate and charismatic, Obama supporters proceeded to distort my words and level blistering personal attacks at me… some of which are not fit for publication.

The most frustrating theme in the e-mails was that many writers failed to comprehend that the first part of my column was a satirical take about how others were attacking Obama over ethnicity and religion and that I then went on to state that Republicans should focus on issues and stay away from the “Hussein” and “Kenya” angles. These readers totally missed the point.

I love to correspond with our readers and I challenged a couple of the folks who contacted me to reread the column and then let me know if they still felt the same way. Both individuals responded they were surprised at how much they had misinterpreted.

Though they both still plan to support Obama and disagreed with some of my positions, they understood I was actually proposing that we should all keep the focus on the issues.

It’s understandable that when you feel very passionately about an issue or candidate, your radar may become a little skewed making it very easy to allow things to get blown out of proportion. Let race get introduced into the mix and it can heighten an already emotional response.

After twenty years in politics as both a candidate, elected official, campaign consultant, and political operative, I’ve developed a thick skin and honestly don’t mind having folks publicly or privately disagree with me. I actually welcome the debate. It’s kind of like football for the over the hill gang.

However there’s an old political adage that untruths unchallenged become facts, so when my words are distorted and baseless accusations are made, I have a duty to set the record straight… especially when a charge of bigotry is leveled on these very pages.

I’ve attended church with blacks and other minorities. I’ve also played sports, worked beside, and worked for them as well.
Even though I operate a news/talk radio station, I set aside two and one-half hours of time each Sunday morning for two local black gospel music shows. That doesn’t sound bigoted to me.

Dr. King challenged us to judge a man on the content of his character, not on the color of his skin. That means we should all be free to agree or disagree civilly with anyone regardless of race.

Those who loosely throw around words like bigotry and racism in their civil or political discourse cheapen the meaning of both words and make them almost unusable when real instances of prejudice are exhibited.

The saddest part of this discussion is that while I truly believe Americans today are willing to elect a candidate regardless of race or gender, there are still too many people in this nation, black and white, who feel compelled to play the race card.

If Obama becomes the Democrat nominee for president, we should all pray that he would be treated just like John McCain and all those presidential nominees who have passed this way before. That is true equality.

If instead Obama is seen as being off limits and untouchable because of race, then relations between blacks and whites in this nation will be set back many years. We’ve come too far to let that happen.

Obama Nation Or Obamination?

He’s young, good looking, articulate, charismatic, and if elected President of the United States he could possibly be the most dangerous person to hold the office since FDR.

He’s Barack Hussein Obama… oh, I can’t say that? But that’s his full name isn’t it? Look, I understand that John McCain condemned talk show host Bill Cunningham for using Obama’s full name while speaking to a McCain rally, but does that mean “Hussein” is totally off limits?

If it reminds voters of Saddam Hussein or other Arab terrorists of that name, then I guess it’s politically incorrect to say Hussein. What about John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, George Herbert Walker Bush, Ronald Wilson Reagan, Richard Milhous Nixon? There’s a long track record of using full names when describing our presidents.

Heck, McCain’s full name is John Sidney McCain III. Wow, that kind of takes the edge off his war hero status doesn’t it. OK, we’ll just stick with plain old Barack Obama.

A lot has also been made of the fact that Obama is truly African-American. His mother was a white American while his father was a Muslim from Kenya. However, when pictures of Obama dressed in the traditional clothing of a Somali elder were leaked to the press recently by the Clinton campaign, cries of racism poured from the lips of wife Michele Obama and campaign operatives.

OK, we’ll just let Obama bask in the glow of possibly being America’s first black president, but we won’t mention his African background. Unfortunately, this probably won’t be the last time the race defense is used by the Obama campaign. While it may work at lower levels of the political structure, even the most liberal members of the press corps don’t like to be fed boilerplate rhetoric.

There has been speculation from some that Obama may be the Anti-Christ, the False Prophet, or at the very least the Manchurian Candidate. The large crowds attending his rallies, which come complete with fainting fans, have only fueled this mindset. Heck, they even applaud when he sneezes.

All humor aside, if Republicans are serious about defeating Obama, assuming he becomes the Democrat nominee, they need to persuade their allies to forget about Obama’s middle name, ethnic origins, and religious background… and instead have them zero in on what his vision of “change” is. Once Americans see where he wants to take us, perhaps they will understand the threat.

The real danger is that Obama’s unique powers of persuasion will allow him to become the 21st century version of FDR.

For those who lived through the Great Depression of the 1930’s, Franklin D. Roosevelt was seen as a savior. Through sheer force of personality and political heavy handedness he overcame those opposed to his big government plans for rescuing America.

Say what you will about FDR, but he was responsible for changing America from a nation where individuals were responsible for their own success or failure, to a nation where individuals looked first to government for the solutions to their problems.

And FDR’s big government plans for saving America? While the rest of the world recovered fairly quickly from the Depression, the U.S. economy continued to languish under FDR… not until after his death in 1945 and the end of World War II did America’s economic engine take off.

Conservatives and Libertarians have spent the better part of sixty years trying to undo the damage of FDR’s big government legacy and the battle has been hard and slow.

Just as Roosevelt played upon the fears of those hurting from the Depression, Barack Obama is rallying those faced with rising medical expenses; those who gambled on sub-prime or variable rate mortgages and lost; and those who just feel like others are getting rich while they tread water.

His message is simple… change! He rarely mentions specifics, instead using flowery language that tugs on the heartstrings and energizes his crowds. It’s haves against have-nots; rich against poor; and minorities against the establishment. Now we face the possibility of electing someone who is actually anti-capitalist.

As an example… while China, Cuba, Brazil, Venezuela, Russia and other nations grab rights to all of the oil producing areas around the world they can get their hands on, Obama wants to punish Exxon-Mobile for making too much money.

If you are covered by a pension through your local, state, or federal government job, your union, or a private employer… if you have a 401k at work… or if you own an IRA, Roth IRA, or other retirement vehicle, you are probably invested in Exxon-Mobile stock through a mutual fund. You are the beneficiary of their profits.

Unfortunately, the average Joe hears the phrase “billions of dollars in profits” and thinks, “yeah that’s unfair and Obama will stop it.” Yet if faced with new Obama implemented windfall profits taxes, Exxon will be forced to cut back on exploration and development of new oil fields. That means gas prices will rise even higher, America will become even more dependent on foreign oil, and your retirement plan will take a financial hit.

To those living through the Great Depression it really didn’t matter that what FDR proposed didn’t work, or that it was detrimental to our nation’s future. The important thing was that he was persuasive and it looked like he was doing something.
In 2007 the National Journal named Obama as the most liberal of our one hundred U.S. Senators. In 2009, he could become the most liberal person to ever hold the office of President of the United States… and with his oratorical skills and persuasiveness, that would be an Obamination.

One Word, Many Definitions

I never expected my column last week on freedom to generate the volume of e-mail I received. It was encouraging to know there are so many in our community who value freedom as much as I do. I heard from several Fair Tax fans, a number of Ron Paul supporters, educators, a couple of doctors, some folks in favor of Sunday alcohol sales, and some Libertarians.

This collection of freedom seekers highlights the problem we face in expanding personal freedom in our society. Many people have one or two areas where they would like to see freedom ring, but aren’t willing to extend those same freedoms in other areas. Thus we can’t generate enough political persuasion to accomplish much of anything.

I’m not proposing anything, but a number of issues were raised in the e-mails I received and I feel they are worth throwing out here for discussion.

The sale of alcohol on Sunday is a perfect place to start, and our illustrious Georgia General Assembly is considering relaxation of alcohol laws right now. Now I’m not a drinker, so I really don’t have a dog in this fight. However the alcohol issue goes to the core of whether we as individuals are truly free.

Prohibition was tried and it failed; yet across the South we still have a hodgepodge of alcohol restrictions with the most common going back to our old Sunday Blue Laws… no package sales of alcohol on Sunday.

I mean after all Sunday is the Lord’s Day? Right? Well, not exactly. Jews along with several Christian denominations keep Saturday as the seventh day of the week. Muslims keep Friday as their holy day. Why then are package sales of alcohol only prevented on Sunday?

Even if we all agreed that one particular day is the Sabbath, is that reason enough to make it illegal for merchants to sell alcohol or anything else on that day? For the last thirty plus years courts have struck down Sunday Blue Laws time and again as an unnecessary restraint of trade, so why are we hanging on to the alcohol laws?

I personally wish all retailers would voluntarily close on Sunday as Chick-fil-A does. It would be great to have a national day of rest each week. Church attendance would increase and families would be able to schedule more time together

In reality though, as long as the public safety angle is covered with tough laws on drinking while intoxicated, why should there be any restrictions on when alcohol is sold or for that matter when anything else is sold? I’m just asking.

On a related matter, our legislature is also considering a loosening of Georgia’s current restrictions on consumers being able to order wine from other states. Until now Georgia’s alcohol wholesalers have been successful in keeping away the out of state competition, but if residents are allowed to order other types of goods by phone or over the Internet then why should wine be off limits? Why are we not for unfettered free trade across the board?

Another e-mailer suggested that all state CON (certificate of need) rules be abolished so that medical providers would be forced to compete for our business. All that government would require is that statistics on each medical facility be readily available so that healthcare consumers could make informed decisions.

The state legislature is currently considering a bill that would allow Cancer Centers of America to bypass existing CON laws and open a facility in Georgia. A number of hospitals are fighting this one, as they see it as an intrusion into their healthcare marketplace. It will be interesting to see how the General Assembly handles this issue, as there are some unusual allies on both sides of the fight.

Some other e-mailers raised the question of education. Why should parents be restricted in where they send their children to school? Though a family lives in one area, another school around the corner might be a better fit for their kids.

One person suggested that all public education be abolished and replaced by a system of private schools. Each parent would receive a voucher equal to what was previously spent by the government to educate his or her child, and could use that as payment for private or parochial school tuition. That way parents could choose an educational institution that offered a curriculum that met their educational, philosophical, and moral requirements.

The Libertarian mantra holds that as long as what you do doesn’t negatively affect others or infringe upon their rights, then it should all be legal. Where they lose support for their cause is when they get into areas of morality such as legalizing prostitution, marijuana, and other drugs.

I remember seeing a WWII veteran on television a couple of years make the statement that he didn’t risk his life in the war just so somebody could legally hire a hooker. Freedom is one word with many definitions.

God gave us free will to accept or reject him, his laws, and his word. If it’s good enough for the Big Guy, then I guess it should be good enough for government. Let freedom ring… that is unless it’s for something you disagree with.

The Solution To Many Of Our Problems

Regardless of political persuasion there is one word we all hold in high reverence. Freedom of speech; freedom of the press; freedom of assembly; freedom of religion… from birth we have had it ingrained in our psyche that we as Americans are free. Above all else, freedom is the one word that defines us.

Each year on Memorial Day and again on Veterans Day we celebrate those who have fought, shed their blood, or given their very lives to protect these freedoms we cherish. However by our actions we seem to be on a continual path of trading more and more of our freedoms away.

When I served on the Bartow County Board of Education it was common to have bus drivers and others in non-certified positions tell me that the primary reason they worked for the school system was health insurance. I dare say that many of you reading this column today have chosen the job you have based upon the benefits available.

It’s a shame that in a nation supposedly as free as the United States, workers feel constrained in their choice of employment strictly due to the health and retirement benefits offered. Perhaps there’s another profession that would be more rewarding. Maybe you would like to be in business for yourself, but are afraid you won’t be able to find affordable health insurance.

From healthcare, to Social Security, to education… many of the issues we face could be solved if only we truly practiced what we say we believe in. Let’s leave the elephants, donkeys, and labor unions out in the pasture and explore what it would really be like if we embraced freedom in all aspects of our lives.

The late former Beatle John Lennon penned a classic song titled “Imagine” back in 1971 that quickly became a worldwide anthem. Unfortunately the song is anti-religious and anti-capitalist. Even Lennon himself was quoted as saying the song was “virtually the Communist Manifesto”. However, lets steal a train of thought from Lennon’s tune.

“Imagine there’s no employer provided healthcare. It’s easy if you try. No dental or disability insurance. No retirement plan to try. Imagine we’re all free people, living our own free lives.” Hey it’s easy to see why I gave up on my music career, but you get the point.

If only all of our elected officials would first apply a freedom filter to every decision they make. Imagine that the current tax code would be abolished and replaced with either a flat tax or the Fair Tax. No record keeping, no deductions, no social engineering, and no decisions made solely because of the tax consequences. April 15th would be just another day!

Imagine not having to juggle IRA’s, Roth IRA’s, 401k’s, 403b’s, SEP’s, or worry about the solvency and abysmal rate of return of Social Security. To simplify retirement, at birth each person would receive his or her own lifetime retirement account that would mimic today’s Roth IRA.

Each individual would be free to determine the investment mix in his account and employers could contribute up to fifteen percent of the employee’s gross annual salary to the account in addition to the employee’s own contributions. Change jobs… no problem! The account is yours and any contributions go with you. No rollovers or multiple accounts to handle!

Social Security would be abolished for everyone under age 35. Those above that age would have the choice of staying under the current Social Security plan or having all their previously paid Social Security contributions credited into their new lifetime retirement account. As an added benefit the government would no longer face the looming bankruptcy of Social Security.

To address the healthcare affordability crisis there are several simple steps that would solve many of our problems. The first is to eliminate employer provided healthcare. You would own your high deductible policy coupled with a Health Savings Account and would be able to change jobs or retire and still keep your coverage.

The only thing required of government would be to provide a level playing field and then get out of the way and let insurance companies and healthcare providers compete. Each individual insurance company would be required to structure their policies so that their rates are the same for everyone regardless of age or sex. Insurers would only be allowed to add a set percentage surcharge for smokers or those excessively overweight, and there would be no up-charges for pre-existing conditions.

Beginning at age eighteen your base insurance rate would permanently accrue a surcharge of one-percent for each month you go without coverage at any time the rest of your life. This would motivate people to keep their coverage.

Just as we’re now seeing low cost walk-up clinics open in grocery stores and pharmacies, healthcare providers would compete for your business because you would be paying for routine services out of your HSA and hopefully be tightfisted with those dollars. Your insurance policy would cover expensive procedures.

Imagine you’re a free agent with no need to join a union. There would be no need to work at a job you really don’t want. And there would be no reason to vote for a certain politician or party based upon what they promise you… because government would be only a fraction of the size it is today.

Obviously there was not enough room here to flesh out all of the details and there would still need to be a safety net for those who through no fault of their own fall through the cracks, but the possibilities for freedom are as endless as you can imagine! You only have to be willing to accept the responsibility for your own life that comes with the territory.

This Is One Trip I Hope We Avoid

State Representative Tom Graves of Fairmount was on the receiving end of a temper tantrum thrown by State House Speaker Glenn Richardson a few days ago, and it may be the best thing to ever happen to Tom. It may also be the catalyst that saves Republican state representatives from taking a trip down Tom Murphy Boulevard.

The late Tom Murphy, a Democrat, served as House Speaker for three decades. His job was not an easy one as he tried to hold together a coalition of rural white and urban black legislators who often had nothing more in common other than the “D” after their names.

Tom Murphy came from the old school of political leadership… a side of politics that most citizens today find abhorrent. Murphy ruled with an iron fist and if you bucked him, you immediately had your political legs knocked out from under you. Every few years some faction of the Democrat caucus would attempt to stand up to Speaker Murphy. The price paid by the rebels was often harsh.

When Republicans gained the majority in the State House in 2004 they needed someone tough enough to hold the coalition together as they developed their own pecking order… lest infighting derail the fledgling GOP majority before it ever got a chance to govern.

Glenn Richardson was the pick to be their Speaker and he was successful in not just holding GOP gains, several Democrats swapped party affiliation and the GOP picked up additional seats. Though not perfect, Richardson had done what was needed.

However, over the past couple of years uneasiness has developed among many rank and file GOP state reps, and even some of Richardson’s lieutenants. They won’t say so publicly for fear of retribution by Richardson, but a movement to replace him may only be waiting on the right opportunity.

The revolution almost got off the ground near the end of 2006 when allegations of a clandestine romance between a married Speaker Richardson and a female lobbyist surfaced. Richardson moved quickly to nip the unrest and launched a vocal offensive against those who would dare try to drag him into a scandal. Though political columnist Bill Shipp still refers to Glenn as “Romeo Richardson” in many of his columns, by and large the media has let the issue die.

Rank and file GOP house members quickly fell back in line and kept their fingers crossed that Richardson’s frequent displays of temper wouldn’t harm the party’s ability to maintain its majority.

Times have changed since Tom Murphy was a young Speaker. The public today has come to expect a more civilized level of political leadership. From the mid 1990’s until Murphy’s defeat in 2002, he became the poster child for everything wrong with the Democrat Party in Georgia.

Republicans hammered away at Democrat incumbent representatives at election time, even trotting out television commercials tying Murphy to individual reps with much success. As strong and tough as Murphy was, in the end he was one of the primary reasons the State House fell into GOP hands. Some see the GOP making the same mistake with Richardson.

Glenn Richardson is one of those politicians who makes a lot of enemies along the way. Head strong and temperamental, it’s just not in his nature to build broad coalitions or soft-peddle his initiatives.

Though I knew it would never pass in anywhere near the form proposed I was personally glad to see Richardson trot out his GREAT Plan for abolishing property taxes. Bold ideas stir debate and in the end the public usually benefits. Richardson’s plan though was more than bold… school board members, city councilmen, and county commissioners across the state rose in unison to condemn what they perceived as a power grab by the state.

Caught in the middle were Richardson’s own GOP house members. Though almost all are in favor of some type of overhaul of Georgia’s tax code, they were bombarded by home folks fighting Richardson’s plan. While their committee assignments, chairmanships, and their ability to pass legislation are subject to the Speaker’s whims… it’s those home folks who reelect or replace those state reps.

In recent months Republicans in the house have begun to be saddled with Richardson’s rising negatives. His actions a few days ago punishing Tom Graves and others for daring to buck him when voting on State Department of Transportation board members have added yet another layer to the appearance of a sinking ship for Richardson.

Graves voted his conscious in supporting incumbent DOT member Mike Evans for reelection over the objections of Richardson. Evans and David Doss of Rome have been two of the more progressive leaders trying to correct major problems within the DOT. In exchange for his vote, Graves was stripped of his “Hawk” status, his subcommittee chairmanship, and other leadership positions by Richardson. He also evicted Graves’ from his office under the Gold Dome and moved him to the legislative office building across the street… the ultimate slap in the face.

Don’t expect anything to transpire before November, but if the right opportunity presents itself again, there’s a revolution in waiting to replace Richardson before he takes Republicans in the State House on a trip down that one-lane dead end road known as Tom Murphy Boulevard.

Here Comes Humpty, Hide The Wall

Maybe this is exactly the type of presidential election we've needed for a long time. Perhaps this is the year when a fundamental shaking of the foundations of both major political parties will rearrange the chessboard for the next two or three decades.

First a little background… until the mid-1960s the Republican Party was predominantly controlled by northeastern socially liberal business types who are still to this day referred to as "country club Republicans". Though he lost, Barry Goldwater's maverick presidential candidacy in 1964 started the ball rolling that culminated in the Reagan Revolution of 1980.

Reagan's victories over George Herbert Walker Bush in the 1980 GOP primary and Democrat President Jimmy Carter that November didn't signal a total win for conservatives. Supposedly the northeastern establishment gave Reagan the ultimatum of selecting Bush, their choice for president, as his vice-presidential running mate or the money and assistance for Reagan's presidential bid against Carter would dry up.

The establishment believed that with a Democrat majority in congress, Reagan would only be able to do so much. They also believed Bush would then be heir apparent to the presidency in 1988 and could undo any damage done by Reagan.

Reagan's victory was attributable to his ability of successfully building a coalition of social conservatives, economic conservatives, and pro-defense types. While some voters like me would fit into all three categories, a substantial percentage of the electorate holds only one or two of those positions as a primary focus when selecting a candidate.

Let's fast-forward to 1988 as George Herbert Walker Bush makes his run at the White House. One thing establishment Republicans hold in disdain is the social conservative movement. However they realized that Bush could not win without them, so a young socially conservative U.S. Senator from Indiana named Dan Quayle was chosen to be Bush's running mate.

Their theory was that social conservatives would hold their collective nose and vote for Bush with Quayle on the ticket. They also knew that Danny boy was a political lightweight who would pose no threat to succeed Bush eight years later. However the establishment kingpins had not banked on Bush being unable to win reelection to a second term in 1992 after conservatives abandoned him over his broken pledge to not raise taxes.

Meanwhile, seeds for the second conservative revolution had been sown in the 1980's by a rag tag bunch of young GOP congressmen led by one Newt Gingrich. They used C-SPAN to promote their cause and railed against Democrat liberalism. They toured the country speaking at town hall forums and lecturing at colleges.

When Bill Clinton defeated Bush in 1992, Gingrich and his young guns rushed to fill the void and two years later Republicans were swept to power… garnering large majorities in both the U.S. House and Senate. Clinton was held in check as Gingrich and company prevented him from raising taxes and forced him to sign their welfare reform legislation. The GOP establishment trotted out Bob Dole as their nominee in 1996 in an attempt to make a comeback, but conservatives wouldn't bite.

Now on to 2000 as George W. Bush attempted to resurrect the old Reagan coalition and barely pulled it off. However, it became rapidly apparent that while Bush might be willing to nominate socially conservative judges, W. was no conservative when it came to reducing the size of government.

One only had to look at W's cabinet to see it was built on the foundation of his father's own presidency… with "northeastern establishment" written all over part of it's membership. Conservative columnist Peggy Noonan, who worked for both Reagan and the elder Bush, recently wrote that George W. Bush has destroyed the modern Republican Party.

Yes, Georgie boy has squandered the Reagan Revolution and the old northeastern establishment cavemen have awakened from their slumber to rally around John McCain. One only has to watch the steady stream of endorsements from the liberal/moderate faction of the GOP to see that McCain is their man.

I've been wrong before, but here's my theory. McCain wins the GOP nomination and picks his own Dan Quayle as a running mate. While current polling data shows Juan… I mean John McCain beating either Hillary or Obama. The media, which has been very friendly to McCain during the primary, will unload on him during the general election in order to tighten things up.

Each presidential election, roughly the same percentage of people show up to cast a ballot… but the number of liberals or conservatives who make up the overall vote can vary by several points year to year. Bottom line? It's all about who turns out.

With McCain as the GOP standard bearer, conservatives will not be energized to participate in November. McCain's base will consist of moderate Republicans and Democrats along with independents. These voters are likely to vote for incumbents or Democrats in congressional races.

Meanwhile, if Clinton captures the Democrat nomination, her only chance of winning in November is to patch things up with Obama and put him on the ticket or find a comparable black running mate who won't upstage her. Otherwise, black voters may stay home in large numbers.

With Obama on the Democrat ticket in either slot and McCain heading the GOP team, the odds are good that Democrats will hold and probably build upon their majorities in the house and senate.

A win by Clinton or Obama in November will reenergize conservatives and open the door to a new Republican revolution in coming years. A win by McCain will either finish off the GOP or the party will become inhabited by moderate Republicans, independents, and moderate Democrats unhappy with the continued liberal drift of their own party. Conservatives searching for a new home may even lead to the emergence of a new credible third party.

It's all conjecture and speculation, but the bottom line is that all the king's horses and all the king's men will probably not be able to put the old Reagan coalition together again… at least not under the banner of John McCain.

Some Folks Shouldn't Be Voting

If any recent day typifies life in this crazy modern world, it was probably this past Tuesday. World financial markets were in a meltdown and the Federal Reserve held an emergency meeting to cut the interest rate a massive three quarters of a point in an attempt to stave off a precipitous stock market drop.

President Bush was working with congressional leaders on an economic stimulus package to reduce the likelihood of a recession. Meanwhile the U.S. presidential campaign was in full swing with Hillary and Obama having just ripped each other to shreds at a debate, and Fred Thompson announced that he was dropping out of the race on the GOP side.

Overseas Condi Rice was working diplomatic circles in an attempt to put more pressure on Iran and its burgeoning nuclear program. The nation of Israel had just reduced fuel supplies flowing into Palestinian territory in response to rocket attacks against Israel. In turn, Palestinians breached a security wall separating Gaza and Egypt.

It was a normal day in America’s newsrooms; then the story broke that Heath Ledger had died. I racked my brain… who the heck was Heath Ledger? I shouldn’t have worried about finding the answer, because for the rest of the afternoon and evening all the important news was swept from the airwaves of CNN, Fox, and MSNBC as we were flooded with wall to wall coverage of yet another celebrity tragedy.

Dave Ramsey and two other prominent financial gurus were scheduled to appear on Larry King for a full forty minutes to discuss the rapidly worsening financial situation. Sorry, guys… some Hollywood type was diddling around with drugs and took a dirt nap. CNN will have to reschedule you so that we can bring viewers mind numbing ramblings on the life and times of Heath Ledger.

I hate it for the guy. Ledger was in the prime of his life and his movie career was headed higher. However, what should have been a thirty-second news piece turned into a media feeding frenzy with every network trying to create a new angle in order to drag the story out. Is this what we’ve come too?

Are Republicans really ready to nominate a 72-year-old U.S. senator who has more in common with Democrat John Edwards than Ronald Reagan? Or have we swallowed his marketing mantra of “straight talk”?

Who cares what Barack Hussein Obama believes in? Oprah endorsed him and that’s enough for millions of Democrats. Shouldn’t we want to understand Hillary Rodham Clinton’s socialist dream for America? Nah, the only thing that matters is that she’s a woman.

I can’t even count how many times a talk show host on our radio station has taken a call from a supporter of Obama or Hillary and then asked the caller to name one policy their candidate espouses. Usually there’s dead silence… and then a rambling answer about how he or she believes their candidate cares about people.

The caller was yet another victim of modern marketing that appeals to how we feel instead of to the facts surrounding an election. The odds are pretty high that the person standing in line behind you at your polling place on February 5th won’t have a clue.

Every election we hear the media types pontificate about how pitiful voter turnout is. I’ve been guilty of it myself. However I’ve about come to the conclusion we would better off as a nation if we discouraged voting. Do away with motor voter. No more voter registration drives.

It’s easy to see why only property owners were allowed to vote in some colonies in the early days of this land. The powers that be understood that those with a vested interest would pay attention and cast their votes accordingly to protect our capitalist way of life.

As evidenced by the new Donkephant economic stimulus plan, here’s what we have. Today the majority of Americans are like spoiled children with parents who can’t say no. If you’ll stop crying then mommy will let you have one more cookie… OK two more cookies… all right three cookies, but that’s it… maybe. How else do you explain a stimulus plan that gives tax rebates to people who paid no taxes?

Let’s see… the U.S. dollar is sinking in value against foreign currencies because our government is running massive budget deficits. Additionally our trade deficit continues to skyrocket.

So Bush and the Democrat controlled congress want to take dollars we don’t have and will have to borrow from the Chinese… then give the money to Americans so they can spend it buying more stuff made in China, thus increasing the budget and trade deficits. Wouldn’t that make the dollar even weaker and our economy worse?

Financial markets don’t like uncertainty. The failure of congressional Democrats to make the Bush tax cuts permanent is a contributing cause of our financial jitters. Instead of doling out Oreos, simply making the cuts permanent would increase confidence as businesses make long-range plans. Companies would invest in new projects and create jobs and we all would win without more government borrowing. The problem is that answer is too complicated for most folks… so just slip us some Chips Ahoy. Heck, a chocolate IV would be nice. Hmmmm.

So to all the folks who don’t have a clue… set your Tivo to record plenty of stuff this week to keep you entertained and then stay home on election day so you can catch up on the latest episodes of “American Awful” or ‘Dancing With The Has Beens.” To those who truly understand the issues we’re facing… I’ll see you at the polls.

Too Many Not Willing To Sacrifice

Our founding fathers risked their lives, homes, businesses, and fortunes in the pursuit of freedom. Many lost everything they owned for daring to stand up to the British Crown. My gr-gr-gr-gr-gr-grandfather Stephen Shiflett gave his life in 1776 in the opening days of the American Revolution.

As I look at the political landscape, it seems that far too often most Americans today are not willing to make even the minor sacrifices necessary for the survival of our republic. For many it’s selfishness… while for others it’s just a healthy mistrust of government. Why sacrifice when you don’t believe our politicians will honor their end of the deal?

Roman emperor Nero had nothing on us. He may have fiddled while Rome burned, but we’ve got a full 535 piece orchestra blaring. Funny how that figure corresponds with the number of U.S. Representatives and Senators we have.

Of course we can’t lay all the blame on Congress. In most cases they’re only doing what we’ve asked them to do and therein lays the problem. Gimme, gimme, gimme. Don’t reform Social Security… just give us more... and throw in government subsided prescription drugs and federal universal healthcare while you’re at it.

Good old American style free market capitalism has given us a higher standard of living than our ancestors could have ever dreamed of. Most folks in the lowest income brackets have cars, cell phones, microwaves, DVD players, cable or satellite television, and an assortment of goodies that the majority of the world’s population can only dream of.

Our free markets have also given us, with the help of Madison Avenue marketing genius, an insatiable desire for material goods. Heck I’m as guilty as the next person. Americans are always longing after a bigger HD television, a more expensive vehicle, or a home the size of the Biltmore House.

So if the President and Congress put partisanship aside and actually stepped up to the plate and said we could save our nation from coming economic collapse by freeing ourselves from dependency on foreign oil, would you be on board? Yes?

What if we were told that it would take ten years and would result in the average wage earner seeing a ten percent decrease in earnings during that time… but at the end of the ten years our standard of living would start a steady rise, we would all benefit, and we could leave our children a prosperous nation? Would you still be for it?

With today’s “we want it now” attitudes, ten years is too far into the future and most wouldn’t be willing to make the sacrifice. Hey, don’t bother us until things collapse. When it does go sour though, we’ll want you to fix it right now!

Over the past few days I’ve read numerous articles and transcripts where economic experts have detailed the financial challenges we face as a nation. It’s not a pretty picture. Heck, some are even forecasting complete financial collapse within seven years to ten years

For the past decade Americans have used the rapid rise in home prices as personal piggybanks… tapping the increased equity in their homes to live a lifestyle beyond their means. The current correction in the housing market has shut that window for most and now consumer spending is dropping… and unfortunately America’s economy is primarily driven by consumer spending.

An enormous amount of our nation’s wealth is being transferred to foreign lands to pay for $100 per barrel oil, along with untold billions to China for cheap imported merchandise and clothing. Now major American financial institutions like CitiBank are crawling on their hands and knees to beg Arab sheiks and the Chinese for financial assistance.

America is for sale at foreclosure prices. You would be shocked at the number of American companies that are now completely or partially owned by Arab companies that have used our oil dollars with which to make their purchases. Foreign investors are even gobbling up homes in places like Miami and Naples where the bottom has fallen out of the high-end housing market.

Not to be left out, good old George W. is in on the action… traveling around the Persian Gulf region, begging our enemies and pseudo friends to increase oil production before it bankrupts us. So far they’ve demanded massive amounts of new hi-tech armaments from us, while still holding fast to current petroleum production levels. I have a sneaking suspicion those weapons will eventually come back to haunt us or our friends in Israel.

The Soviets always said they would sell us the rope they would hang us with. They believed capitalists were too eager to make a buck and eventually we would sell ourselves out. They almost had it right. It looks more likely that Middle Eastern oil producers will sell us the oil they’ll eventually drown us with.

The president and congress are now floating various economic stimulus proposals in an attempt to prop things up short term. Unfortunately it’s all smoke and mirrors and eventually the fiddler will have to be paid. However by then that fiddle may have been replaced with a sitar if you know what I mean.

Just A Few More Weeks If We're Lucky

So what have we learned so far in this year’s presidential election circus? First, just as they did in the general elections of 2000 and 2004 political pollsters blew it in New Hampshire last week. Second, more than holding staunch liberal or conservative political ideologies, voters in New Hampshire are contrarians and voted to keep Clinton and McCain alive. Third, instead of reporting the news the media is deliberately trying to spin the news in an effort to keep the presidential race exciting and thus keep their ratings up. So let’s explore the inside story.

For Hillary Clinton, if New Hampshire proved anything it was that the Clinton political machine would do whatever it takes to knock out Obama. Case in point… you may have seen the video clip of two young men holding up a sign and chanting “iron our shirts” at one of Hillary’s campaign events.

Evidence is strong that the two men involved were planted by Clinton campaign operatives. Knowing the media would play the video clip over and over, the stunt was designed to raise the passions of women voters and hopefully drive them to the polls to show those male chauvinists that a woman is qualified to be president.

Then we have Hillary’s teary-eyed comments, again designed to garner sympathy from the female electorate. Of course the media helped her immensely by playing the video non-stop, but news producers interestingly left off the last 18 seconds of the 45-second clip.

Most members of a focus group of Democrats who watched the first 27 seconds of Clinton’s tearjerker were strongly moved to support her. However when then shown the full clip that ended with her taking a very cheap shot at Obama, the same focus group turned just as strongly against Clinton. Whether the media deliberately shortened it to help her or it was just coincidence, the fact is it provided a big bounce for her.

The Clinton machine is trying to not overtly play the race card against Obama, but recent comments contrasting Obama with Martin Luther King, Jr. are already coming back to haunt Hillary. Watch for subtle jabs such as hammering away that he can’t win in November. They won’t say the reason is because of his race, but wink, wink… Democrat voters white and black will understand.

On the Republican side I’ve never seen such a mess and the media continues to miss what is driving the race. GOP voters have come to understand one thing… Bill Clinton forever changed the expectations game. It doesn’t matter how strongly a candidate lines up with traditional conservative principals, the GOP nominee must be able to articulate his vision in a personable and empathetic way while remaining tough… something George W. was never able to do.

That’s why Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney each face an uphill battle. Thompson appears as though sleepwalking his way through the campaign and only occasionally scores a few points at debates when the question asked happens to line up with his pre-planned cue card answers.

For Romney, while his Mormonism may cost him a few points in some states, the real problem is his delivery. He comes across as stammering and high strung… even a little on the patrician side. Though I agree with a lot of his platform, I have trouble listening to him. It’s like fingernails on a blackboard. The South will be troublesome for him just because he doesn’t connect with us.

In contrast, Mike Huckabee is soothing to Southern and Midwestern ears. Though there are some policy areas where he should be vulnerable to attacks from Romney and Thompson, Huckabee’s personality and delivery gives him that Ronald Reagan Teflon coat. Huckabee is also a fresh face and like Obama, appeals to younger voters.

The only thing that has stopped Huckabee from running away with this thing is the relentless drumbeat against him by conservative talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Laura Ingraham. All four of these talk a good game when espousing social and moral conservatism, but like so many in the GOP hierarchy they want the votes of Christian conservatives but are afraid of strong Christian candidates.

Though he governed Arkansas for ten years with no evidence of his religious beliefs affecting the state, these talkers feel Huckabee, a former minister, could be unelectable in November. Rush and company seem to be fulfilling the prophecy.

As for John McCain, it was incredible to watch the talking heads on CNN, Fox and MSNBC claim that McCain was the real winner by coming in a distant fourth in Iowa. They so desperately wanted him to live to fight Romney in New Hampshire, where McCain has always been strong.

South Carolina is also a good state for McCain, but voters there and across the South are beginning to remember why they shunned McCain in the first place. He was co-author of last year’s illegal immigrant amnesty bill that was finally shot down after much outrage from conservatives.

He also co-wrote the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill that opened the door to highly partisan 529 groups while trampling on First Amendment rights. Then there was McCain’s vote against the Bush tax cuts. Of course don’t forget how McCain lambasted a number of key Christian leaders back in 2000 when they chose to support Bush instead of old John. Speaking of old, McCain would be 72 years old when sworn in… not exactly the fresh face voters are looking for this year.

This is the first presidential election since 1928 where no incumbent president or vice-president is on the ballot. Though change means different things to Democrats and Republicans, this is a year of change. World events could send us scurrying back to experience, but anything is possible… at least for a few more weeks.

Questions, I've Got Questions

The beginning of a new year seems to be a good time to clear out all of these nagging questions that were floating around my little old brain during 2007.

Storm Water: The experts tell us that septic tanks are bad because water that is taken from our rivers and lakes is sent out into our septic systems instead of being treated and returned to the river or lake from which it was taken. The experts also require developers to build retention ponds so that rainwater will soak into the ground instead of running off into our rivers and lakes.

I’m confused. Doesn’t the water going into our septic systems recharge the groundwater while stormwater runoff replenishes our rivers and lakes? Seems like they would balance each other out?

Water Shortage: Let’s say you lease a building, remodel it and open a restaurant. You’ve calculated that you can seat 100 people and have based all of your sales projections on this number. In the process of getting a certificate of occupancy and your business license, the fire inspector comes out and after some calculations sets the maximum occupancy for the building at 70 persons.

Financially you can’t make it at that level and you argue that your building can adequately handle the 100 you planned for. The inspector explains that under ideal conditions 100 might work, but in the event of a fire or emergency anything over 70 people would be unsafe.

If we know that Georgia will periodically have droughts, shouldn’t the maximum occupancy of our cities and counties be set at a population level that officials can adequately provide water for during a worse case scenario like we are experiencing now?

Water Shortage II: With Lakes Allatoona and Lanier at record lows, wouldn’t this be an ideal time to launch a major effort to dredge and dig to make the lakes deeper so they will hold more in the future as they recharge? Just asking.

Light Bulbs: This one may have slipped past you, but the recently signed federal energy bill requires the phase out of incandescent light bulbs within six years. Think of all the weird places where you currently use incandescent bulbs other than your normal lamps and fixtures. There are refrigerators, ovens, indoor spotlights, fixtures with decorator bulbs, and bathroom vanities or dressing tables with clear or frosted globe style bulbs. All will become illegal to buy.

While I’m sure manufacturers will develop an extensive supply of expensive fluorescent or LED bulbs as replacements, it may impossible to find bulbs to fit certain odd sizes or uses. So who pays when we have to throw out perfectly good stuff because we can no longer find a replacement bulb for it? Never mind… I know the answer to that one. We do.

Civil Rights Museum: Organizers are putting the final touches on their plans for a new civil rights museum to be located in Atlanta. Many see the city as the home of the American civil rights movement so the choice of location makes sense. However, those planning the facility don’t want to stop with racial equality.

They plan to also include the women’s rights movement, and the mistreatment of American Indians by the evil white man. The big one though, is the inclusion in the museum of equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals.

School children on field trips make up one of the largest groups of visitors to most museums. So I have to ask local educators if they will be taking Cartersville and Bartow County students to visit this latest source of liberal indoctrination when it’s completed? Mommy, what does transgender mean?

Hillary’s Christmas Presents: Speaking of liberals… since most of you don’t watch Iowa television you may have missed the campaign Christmas commercial that Hillary Clinton aired a couple of weeks ago. It shows Senator Clinton seated by a Christmas tree wrapping presents for the American public.

Here’s a sample of some of the gifts she wraps and labels for us… universal healthcare, alternative energy plan, bring all U.S. troops home, new taxes, and universal pre-k. Of course missing from her commercial is the fact that these “gifts” will cost taxpayers almost one trillion dollars up front plus $135 billion annually. So is it really a holiday if we have to pay for the presents we receive? Seems the folks in Iowa didn’t think so… of course that all depends on what the definition of “third place” is.

What’s In The Bag? Well it sure isn’t what I used to get. Almost every day for lunch I eat a one-pound bag of salad… seasoned up with some spices, safflower oil, red wine vinegar, and tuna or other meat. However, I picked up a half dozen bags at the local SuperDooper Mart last week and when I returned home noticed they no longer contained one-pound of salad.

Nope. The bags now magically contained only 12 ounces instead of 16, yet I was charged the same per bag as I had paid before. That’s a twenty-five percent price increase! Surprisingly other grocery chains are still selling one-pound bags, so this must be a special vendor concession demanded by SuperDooper. Simple question… Did anyone else notice and if you did have you complained yet?

Now that I’ve got my head cleared again I can get back to good stuff next week like the presidential campaign and issues facing the upcoming session of the general assembly. Now who has salad on sale this week?

What's In Your Christmas Stocking?

I’m in a generous holiday mood today so I thought I would pass along a few Christmas present wishes, however I do have a few lumps of coal to distribute. Hopefully Al Gore won’t mind.

Back in the early 1990’s the late Georgia House Speaker Tom Murphy was the keynoter for a local charity fundraiser at the Cartersville Civic Center. He was facing a serious election challenge that year from a prominent and well-funded Republican business owner back home in Bremen and Republicans from all over the state had descended on Haralson County en masse to campaign against Murphy that Saturday.

The Bartow County Republican Party had sponsored two tables at the charity event and our tables were almost directly in front of Murphy, who was seated at the head table. Just before Murphy rose to speak, all of the sponsors were introduced and he instantly cast a glazing stare at our gang of GOP folk when we were announced.

Murphy stood and gestured to our table and said, “I see you folks here in Cartersville have problems with your own swarm of Republicans.” He then went on to explain how Republicans were running all over Haralson County… trying to get him, and he compared them to swarms of flies that he was going to swat. He cut his speech short and rushed back home to campaign.

After the dinner one of the ladies in our group purchased a fly swatter, cut a large hole in the middle and sent it to Murphy with a note telling him he could swat all he wanted but he couldn’t stop us. Murphy had a good sense of humor and I heard that he sent the lady a nice letter in response.

Even though he was on the other team and could be politically ruthless at times, Murphy was still a good guy. Now we all know God is a Republican, so my Christmas wish for the late Speaker is that he at least be allowed to chomp on his cigar in violation of Heaven’s no tobacco policy and also be given the opportunity to occasionally bang his gavel while tooling around the streets of gold… though he’ll need to learn how to adjourn his meetings in Hebrew instead of Latin.

There are a few folks who are well deserving of lumps of coal in their stockings this Christmas. At the top of the list is U.S. Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama for sneaking a provision into a year-end spending bill that prevents the Army Corps of Engineers from updating operating plans for Lakes Lanier and Allatoona. The move hurts Georgia’s hopes for increased water storage.

Another loser is the United States of America for ignoring the presidential candidacy of Congressman Duncan Hunter… arguably the most honorable and decent of all of the candidates in either party this time. Governor Sonny Perdue gets a small nugget of coal as a reminder to him that he’s been in office five years and Georgia still has no workable transportation plan.

Another annual shipment of coal is on the way to the “politically correct” mafia. An elderly county commissioner from Carroll County recently used the term “wetback” in describing the problem with illegals in his area and he has now been dragged though the mud. If you look up the word in my Merriam Webster dictionary, the definition reads: “A Mexican who enters the U.S. illegally.” Maybe it wasn’t the nicest word he could have used to keep from offending the walking on eggshells crowd, but this man is in his 80’s and wetback is the term he grew up using. Give him a pass.

Also on the coal list is former Atlanta Falcon’s head coach Bobby Petrino. May Santa leave him three consecutive losing seasons at Arkansas… that is unless Petrino quits before his contract expires. To the five Atlanta Falcons players who embarrassed the team with their “Free Michael Vick” exploits during the Falcons/New Orleans game a couple of weeks ago… no coal for you. I hope the Falcons will reward each of you by trading you to a city so cold you would beg for some coal.

And while we’re on the subject of football, multiple lumps of coal for college football. Money has ruined pro-sports and now college football is quickly succumbing to the lure of the almighty dollar. How else can you explain the fact that 64 teams will play in bowl games to wrap up the season? Whatever happened to rewarding only the best? Hey, we’re bad… we played in the San Diego Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl. No I didn’t make that up. Utah beat Navy Thursday night. Seriously.

Merry Christmas to everyone! To those of you receiving coal, better find a use for it quickly before Al Gore finds out you have it.

How Gullible Are You?

You got the e-mail didn’t you? You know the one that guaranteed that it was real… not a fake… and that the original sender’s attorney had sworn to its authenticity? You only had to forward the message to all of your friends, and then Microsoft would track it and send you a huge check based upon how many people eventually received the e-mail you forwarded.

I’m sure some of you fell for this or a similar hoax over the last few years as these type e-mails continue to make the rounds. After all, the thought of easy riches is hard to resist. Maybe you were skeptical enough to realize the e-mail for what is was, but how many times have you fallen for one of the growing number of scams or urban legends?

Let’s stick with the subject of money. We all want to protect ourselves from crime, so if a criminal forces you at gunpoint to withdraw cash from an ATM all you have to do enter your four-digit PIN number backwards and it will still dispense the cash, but will also alert police. Uh… not exactly. The technology for such a system was actually patented back in 1994 but has never been implemented.

Of course politicians are fertile territory for urban legends. I’m sure you know that Democrat presidential contender Barak Obama is the Muslim version of the Manchurian Candidate? After all, his father was a Muslim from Kenya and Barak admits to attending a Muslim school as a child. I’m sure you received the e-mail outlining how once elected president Obama would govern on behalf of Islam.

This one is false also. Yes, Barak’s father had grown up Muslim… but he was an atheist by the time Barak was born. He and Barak’s mother divorced when Barak was two years old. While true that little Barak attended a Muslim school for a couple of years while his mother lived in Indonesia, he also attended a Catholic school while there.

Senator Obama accepted Christ as an adult and has been a member of the United Church of Christ for almost two decades. Now you could honestly opine that Obama is a far-left liberal who would be bad for America, but the Muslim angle is a little out there.

Hey, let’s leave politics and talk about God. Did you hear about the new series of one-dollar U.S. coins featuring U.S. Presidents that is being released? The U.S. Mint decided to not include “In God We Trust” on these new coins… well, not exactly.

Yes there is a new series of coins featuring past presidents and you will not find “In God We Trust” on the front or back of the coins. Instead the slogan is engraved on the outside edge of the coin along with the phrase “E Pluribus Unum”. Now this urban legend picked up some steam when one of the early batches of the coins missed the second engraving step and entered circulation without the outside edge engravings. If you find one of the misprinted coins hold on to it because there are very few of them, but there is no anti-God conspiracy.

Speaking of former leaders, like me I’m sure you were raised knowing that fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini made the trains run on time. Like many falsehoods, this one has a grain of truth. The Italian train system was in a sad state of disrepair and major efforts were undertaken to restore its functionality and punctuality.

However, this rebuilding of the tracks and trains was actually accomplished a few years prior to Mussolini and his fascists grabbing power. Needing something with which to rally the people, fascist propagandists created the myth that Mussolini had created a train system that was the envy of Europe… and Italians bought the lie.

Even “Dear Ann” and “Dear Abby” are vulnerable to the wiles of do-gooders. Hoping to encourage Americans to vote in an upcoming election someone sent Ann Landers a list of elections that had each been decided by one vote and she published it in 1996 as gospel truth with no fact checking.

Some examples from the list: One vote made English our language instead of German. One vote made Hitler the head of the Nazi Party. One vote admitted Texas as a state. All of these are false.

To make matters worse, Ann’s sister Abigail van Buren had run a similar column about a decade before and had to publicly retract it when provided with information that the claims were false. I guess Ann didn’t read Abby’s column.

Of course that didn’t stop Jesse Jackson, who repeated verbatim many of the same falsehoods in a speech to the Democrat National Convention in August of 2000. Seems old tales die hard.

Now back to Texas… here’s one that sounds like an urban legend but is actually true. The document adopted that admitted Texas as a state contained a clause allowing Texas to be divided into five separate states. Now there have been some legal precedents in the interim that might prevent such a split today, but the clause is there and who knows… the good folks in Texas might choose to swap their Lone Star for a small galaxy.

The Internet is a great resource, but use it wisely. However if you get an e-mail promising an easy way to wealth and you think it might work… ah, forget it.

Finally Forced To Give "The Speech"

I’ve had quite a few folks this year pick my brain on who I’m supporting for president and why… and guess what? For the first time in my life I have remained on the sidelines and refrained from jumping on anyone’s bandwagon, although that may change soon.

Actually it’s been a good thing in that I’ve been able to more easily follow the daily nuances of the campaign without having my vision clouded by my involvement. I’ve followed the various daily tracking polls, news reports, and inside politics musings that would bore most to tears. So far everything is playing out just about as I thought it would.

Almost a year ago I wrote a piece on Republican candidate Mitt Romney… questioning whether Americans would overlook his being a Mormon. Romney has poured millions of dollars of his own money into his campaign and in most polls this year has been one of the frontrunners in a still crowded field.

For some reason though, Romney just has never been able to gain the momentum he needs to break away from the pack. With Rudy Giuliani too liberal for most GOP voters and John McCain being far too soft on immigration, the opening for Romney has been there, but he appears to have hit a glass ceiling.

Perhaps he’s just the Republican equivalent of Democrat candidate John Edwards. He comes across as too slick. Romney has the hair, the cufflinks, the demeanor, the big smile… he has “The Look”. And instead of soothing and reassuring, he sounds a little high-strung when he speaks. Then again, it might be the Mormon thing.

Numerous polls have been conducted this year on the political impact of Romney’s religious affiliation and the consensus is that roughly half of all Americans would be concerned at the prospect of having a Mormon president. Depending on the survey, between fifty-five and sixty-two percent of voters would either not vote for or would be very likely to not vote for a Mormon. Those appear to be numbers almost too high for anyone to overcome.

From the 1970’s up through the mid-1990’s a number of Christian evangelists traveled the nation conducting seminars and revivals that focused on the dangers of Mormonism. I remember several being held here in good old Bartow County. The skepticism of the LDS faith runs deep among many.

That being said, it was no surprise that Romney stole a page from the John F. Kennedy playbook, and this past Thursday he gave “The Speech”. Just as Kennedy had to reassure a predominantly Protestant nation back in 1960 that he would not be a tool of the Pope, Romney sought to convince America this week that he would govern in a secular manner not beholden to the powers in Salt Lake City.

Perhaps Romney had hoped he wouldn’t have to address the issue this forcefully. Then again, there is some reason to believe he held back on giving “The Speech” until the political opportune moment arrived… and arrive it did with the recent skyrocketing poll numbers of the Mike Huckabee campaign. Unfortunately for Romney, very few Americans paid attention to the specifics of his talk and for many it just reemphasized the fact that he is a Mormon.

I know very few Republicans happy with the GOP field of candidates. If only we could take Giuliani’s backbone and combine that with Duncan Hunter’s knowledge of defense matters; Tom Tancredo’s tenacity on the illegal immigration issue; Romney’s business acumen; Ron Paul’s love of the Constitution; and inject it all into Huckabee’s likeability and quick wittedness. Now that would be a formidable candidate!

Back in March I publicly stated on the radio several times that McCain would fade, Fred Thompson’s campaign would never get off the ground, and that the candidate to watch would be Mike Huckabee. With four weeks remaining until the Iowa caucuses, many Americans are just now paying attention to the campaign… and I’m less sure now of how this thing will play out than I was nine months ago.

You can talk issues all you want, but at the end of the day the majority of people who grace our voting booths put more weight on how they “feel” about a candidate than about specific policy proposals.

Despite Bill Clinton’s baggage and the fact that he was an unknown governor from Hope, Arkansas back in 1992, he was personable and quick on his feet. Despite the fact that he is an unknown governor from Hope, Arkansas and is not as conservative on some issues as Republicans would like, Mike Huckabee is personable and quick on his feet.

Both Giuliani and Romney had hoped that Huckabee would draw enough social conservatives away from Fred Thompson to make this a two-man race between Rudy and Mitt. Instead, Huckabee has capitalized on the opportunity and conservatives are leaving Thompson and Romney in growing numbers to join Huckabee, and the undecideds are breaking his way.

As expected everyone is now quickly unloading every bit of dirt they can find in an attempt to slow down the “I Like Mike” train, but there is very little substance in the attacks. The primary two obstacles standing in the way of Huckabee securing the GOP nomination are his perceived weakness on illegal immigration and the fact he has a lot less money than Giuliani and Romney.
Four weeks is an eternity in politics and even if Huckabee manages to either win or come in a strong second in Iowa, he will still have some major hurdles to overcome if he is to be the nominee. However, momentum is everything and it ain’t over until the body mass challenged female vocalizes in a melodic manner. Americans may just give Hope a second chance.

The Most Trusted Name In News?

They say it was not intentional and maybe it wasn’t, but the damage is done. For years mainstream America has deciphered CNN’s name many ways… Communist News Network, Clinton News Network, Corrupt New Network… you get the point. Many Americans have long distrusted the brainchild of Captain Courageous. Bias is in the eye of the beholder, but CNN makes it far too easy for everyday folks to join the bandwagon of accusers.

Having quickly skimmed thru all of the previous Republican and Democrat presidential debates this year, I closely watched every second of Wednesday night’s YouTube bias fest, as did a record number of viewers. If CNN’s producers thought they could slip this one past common sense they failed miserably, and only reinforced two stereotypes: (1) CNN is biased against conservatives, and (2) Bill and Hillary Clinton’s political machine is deep and dangerous.

The good Senator from New York, with poll numbers dropping after revelations about the planting of questions at prior Democrat events by her team, received a gash so deep that Evander Holyfield’s trainer probably couldn’t have stopped the bleeding. Seems her team has once again been caught in the act.

There’s a phrase used over and over in politics and government… plausible deniability. It takes many shapes and forms, but the result is the same. Go do the dirty work, but don’t let your leaders know in case the plan fails or is exposed. That way, the Mrs. Clinton’s of the world can honestly say “no” if asked about events such as Wednesday night’s shenanigans.

If you’ve not watched a YouTube debate, the format consists of supposedly everyday Americans asking questions that they videotape and send in. CNN then screens the submissions and plays what they deem as the best during the debate… giving candidates the opportunity to answer.

The issues facing America are many… Iraq, Iran, oil prices, tax reform, immigration, healthcare, the sub-prime mortgage crisis. So what burning question did CNN highlight as the focus of the Republican debate? Whether or not our military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuals is working. Wow! I know you and your family probably talk about that one around the dinner table all the time!

Not only were the Republican candidates hammered with the lengthy videotaped question regarding military homosexual policy, CNN even flew in the questioner, gave him a microphone, and allowed him to preach at the GOP debaters.

However before the debate was even over word broke that the everyday citizen questioner, Retired Brigadier General Keith H. Kerr, was actually a co-chair of the “Veterans and Military Retirees for Hillary” campaign group. CNN’s producers could have discovered his ties to Clinton this year and to the John Kerry campaign in 2004 with just a few mouse clicks and saved themselves a plane ticket. So CNN, was it incompetence or a failed attempt at subterfuge?

Ah, but things get even more interesting. Seems the undecided voter asking a question about abortion was none other than one of John Edwards’ supporters. Again, a quick Internet search revealed her political affiliations, but the good CNN folk either fell down on the job or thought they could slip this one by as well.

Want more? Another video question came from a mom sitting with her two children. We soon learned this common undecided voter was none other than an aide to the president of the American Steel Workers union and an active John Edwards supporter.

Yet another questioner turned out to be one David Cercone. Was he a supporter of Giuliani? Romney? Ron Paul? Not even close. David completed the trifecta as a devotee of Democrat Barack Obama. There appears to have been possibly two other Democrat participants in the debate.

So it’s bad enough that CNN allowed or encouraged Democrats to clandestinely participate in what was supposed to be a Republican debate, but out of the 40,000 video questions CNN reviewed they seemed to have also deliberately picked out some from far right whack jobs in order to paint the GOP as a band of loons.

One such clip came from a spooky looking good old Southern boy standing in front of a confederate battle flag that hung on his bedroom wall. He threateningly asked the candidates about their support for the flag. Another one came from a fellow inquiring about gun rights. But out of all those videos the only Second Amendment question CNN apparently could find featured a guy mowing down stuff with a gun while he asked the question. Hey let’s scare the little old ladies by stereotyping Republicans as “shoot everything that moves” types.

CNN moderator Anderson Cooper even ambushed Rudolph Giuliani with a question about misappropriation of funds while he was mayor of New York. The story was a rehash of one that had been disproved years earlier, but it mysteriously reappeared on several web sites as breaking news just two hours prior to the debate. Once again, two minutes of research and a responsible journalist would have left it alone.

Fortunately the Republican candidates handled the assaults with grace and proved that despite many predictions, 2008 won’t be a cakewalk for the Democrats.

They say the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one. To show they’re serious about repairing their damaged news organization, perhaps CNN should update their slogan with the three little letters “m-i-s”. They would fit perfectly just before the “T”.

Whatever Happened To Sticks And Stones?

There’s a lot of name calling going on these days… half-truths, insinuations, distortions, and outright lies. If you can’t defend your position in an intelligent diplomatic matter, then it’s time to break out all the tricks you learned in Character Assassination 101.

Now if you’re a good Southern boy like me, you were probably taught that, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” I guess we should all just ignore the verbal assaults, but far too many folks these days are ratcheting up the rhetoric and we’ve settled into a national quagmire where nothing is being accomplished because of it.

Even the clergy are getting in on the name-calling act. In the November 8, 2007 edition of The Georgia Bulletin, a publication of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, several area Catholic priests insinuated that those opposed to illegal immigration were racists. According to the publication, Father Daniel Stack said, “Georgia has a love affair with racism that just won’t go away. Let’s make it as stupid as it is. Let’s go get arrested.” Stack was referring to law enforcement traffic roadblocks that have resulted in the arrest and deportation of numerous illegals in recent months. According to the article, he has advocated that Catholics should stage mass arrests in protest.

Is there still racism in America? Absolutely, and it exists in every nation and among every ethnicity and culture. But to insinuate that those who seek to control illegal immigration are racists is beyond the pale. What would these priests say to the families of those who have been killed by drunken illegals on our roadways?

What about those who have been victims of attacks and robberies perpetrated by the Hispanic MS13 gang that has worked its way into Bartow County? Maybe we should welcome with open arms all of the Mexican drug runners who freely move back and forth across our southern border? Should taxpayers who are tired of footing the bill for illegals who are draining our public services be classified as racists? No!

Americans only want a sensible approach to immigration. We as a nation should decide how many immigrants we can legally and realistically absorb each year… then establish balanced guidelines based upon country of origin, ability to speak English, and education. Let’s seal our borders and have an orderly process. If you can contribute to our economy without being a drain on our resources, you’re welcome to get in line with everyone else, and each year we’ll let some of you in.

With a high percentage of illegals being of the Catholic faith, I’m sure these priests have some who attend their churches. And I have no doubt they have witnessed heartbreaking tragedies as families are separated through deportation. The bottom line though is that we can’t take all the world’s poor without destroying our nation… and it’s wrong for priests to label everyday people like you and me as being racist. Solution? Drop the rhetoric and solve the problem.

Of course we can’t leave out politicians who live and die by the twenty-second sound bite. I’ll never forget the image of Democrat Congressman John Lewis of Atlanta taking to the well during a House debate back in the 1990’s. A Republican measure that would have streamlined a government handout program was on the docket and in his best attack dog style; Lewis shouted that Republicans wanted senior citizens to eat dog food. The measure passed and as far as I know there has been no groundswell of silver hair members munching on Kibbles & Bits in the years since.

Want to fix Social Security? You’re guilty of wanting to kick old folks out in the street. Build a missile defense system? You’re taking money away from the homeless. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Whatever the issue and regardless of your political persuasion, someone on the other side is all too eager to add you to the list of those being demonized.

Then we have the political shenanigans. President Bush and most Republican congressmen were in favor of a modest increase in funding for the SCHIP children’s health insurance plan. In order to score political points Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pushed through an SCHIP funding bill that would have used our tax dollars to insure children and adults from families making up to $80,000 a year!

Of course they knew Republicans would vote against the bill and that Bush would veto it, but that was the plan all along. What better campaign weapon than to accuse Republican candidates running in 2008 of being heartless child haters. It’s no wonder most Americans are sick of politics and politicians. It’s also no surprise that the approval rating for the Democrat controlled congress stands at a paltry eleven percent.

I’ll have to admit, I’ve dropped the “B” bomb when referring to Hillary Rodham Clinton. I honestly despise the woman… but I promise to do better. From now on I’ll only articulate why I disagree with Clinton on the issues and will keep my personal distaste for her to myself.

So I guess this is where we all sit around in a circle, hold hands and sing Kumbaya… but it might be more comfortable for everyone if the liberals sit on one side of the circle and the conservatives on the other.

The Rewards Are Not Always Immediate

When neither Cartersville nor any of the three Bartow County high school football teams make the playoffs, it’s a disappointing season… and it’s something that hasn’t happened since 1996. Unfortunately, there’s already a buzz on the street about certain local coaches being replaced.

Whether pro, college, or high school sports, Americans like winners and won’t tolerate too many losing seasons or rebuilding years. Sometimes it seems as though our national motto should be changed to “What have you done for me lately.”

So other than work long hours year round for a lot less money than they’re worth, what have our local head coaches done for us lately? Unlike pro and major college sports teams with large staffs and big budgets, high school coaches carry the majority of the load. During the season it’s teach all day with practice or games after school… go grab a late night bite to eat and then watch film, devise strategies, and take care of paperwork.

Weekends? They’re pretty well consumed too. How about the off-season? It’s strength conditioning with the players or helping athletes make sure they remain academically eligible. Of course you have to field calls from parents, meet with booster club members, and take care of a million and one things the public never sees.

One of the best things about owning a radio station is high school football. From the Coaches Show to game night it’s an exciting time of year. However the absolute highpoint for me each season is meeting the players chosen for our athlete of the week awards.

If you really want to know what your team’s coach has done for you lately, you need to meet these young men. When they drop by the station for their interviews, they stick out their hand and introduce themselves. They’re polite and respectful… they’re thoughtful and well spoken… and it’s yes sir and thank you.

These young men come from all backgrounds… wealthy and impoverished… black and white… loving stable homes and rough family situations. However they all have one thing in common. Through team sports and caring coaches, most are able to shed some of the baggage they came in with as they develop skills that will take them far beyond a football field or basketball court.

Yes some will revert back to old lifestyles after their playing days are over, but for many of these young men a good high school sports experience under the watchful eye of a dedicated coach may be the difference between failure and success later in life.

When times are good, head football coaches receive a lot of praise and support. However, talk to one who has just come off a disappointing year and you’ll hear a different tale. Suddenly they’re not so popular and some of the things being said behind their backs would not be classified as family entertainment.

Coaches are like radio personalities… they’re hired to eventually be fired. And the odds are that there will be new faces along some of our local sidelines next season. It’s the nature of the beast.

However, before we head off down that road… let’s take a minute and thank these men for their hard work and dedication. Win or lose on the field, they’ve helped some local high school athletes develop into fine young men.

Ask a long time coach what the best part of coaching has been for him and you’ll probably hear an answer like this: “When the phone rings and it’s a man now well into adulthood who still calls me coach… and he thanks me for the job I did when he played for me many years ago. That’s what makes it all worth it.”

So to Cartersville’s Frank Barden, Cass High’s Rick Casko, Woodland’s Steve Hamilton, and Adairsville’s Mark Arthur… gentlemen, thanks for all you’ve done this year. The rewards may not always be immediate, but you are appreciated.

Just Another Politically Incorrect Sunday

If the little ghosts and goblins extorting candy from you last Wednesday evening didn’t scare you enough… here’s the sequel.

This Ought To Raise Your Fear Factor: Though Halloween is over and your kids are probably still bouncing off the walls from their sugar highs, there’s a little bit of unfinished spooky business to address in Iowa. Seems we have another case of “Politicians Gone Wild”. Perhaps Hillary and Obama have been spending a little too much time up there in the cornfields.

Always in search of another tax fix, officials in Iowa got the bright idea that pumpkins were actually decorations and not a food product and thus should be subject to the state sales tax. However, if residents complete an "Iowa Sales Tax Exemption Certificate" form whereby they claim the pumpkin will be eaten, the state will wave the tax.

In all likelihood state employees will burn up more tax revenue processing the forms than they’ll take in from the folks who actually pay the pumpkin tax. The next thing you know, revenue officials will force stores to break out the cost of packaging versus the cost of the food contained inside and require residents to pay sales tax on the value of the cans and boxes.

Don’t Blame The Boy: As I write this law enforcement officials have just announced that one of the recent California wildfires was started by a little boy under the age of ten who was playing with matches. Was it a dumb thing to do? Absolutely! Should he be prosecuted? No! Will his parents face lawsuits over the 38,000 acres burned and twenty-one homes destroyed? Probably.

So whom should we blame? Let’s try environmentalists and Smokey Bear. Up until the mid 1990’s home owners and landowners in some areas of California susceptible to wildfires were required each year to cut firebreaks around their properties and to clean up undergrowth and brush. Then along came the rat lovers.

Seems a rare species of rat that resembles a mini-kangaroo resides in that habitat so the Federal Wildlife folks threatened homeowners with fines or jail time if they disturbed the rat friendly habitat even on their own properties. Now over a decade later, one careless match and you’ve got a disaster.

Plus for the past several decades the public has been inundated with messages from our good friend Smokey Bear warning us as to the danger of forest fires. According to Mr. Bear, every single fire should be put out immediately. Instead of letting nature to take its course by allowing stray fires to burn out undergrowth and fallen trees, we currently have almost seventy years of buildup on the floors of many forests. One lightning strike or spark and we now experience fires of a magnitude not seen before.

Real American Hero? Like many boys growing up in the 1960’s I owned several GI Joe figures with all the weapons and accessories. Joe was advertised as “A Real American Hero” who was fighting for freedom. So in the name of political correctness and profits from overseas sales, the folks at Hasbro have pulled a fast one.

G.I. Joe now stands for “Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity” and fights under the banner of the United Nations. No more American Hero stuff… and fighting for freedom has been replaced also. According to a release by Hasbro, “Joe will embody the values of bravery and heroism that the first generation of G.I. Joe figures established.” Hogwash! Of course this comes on the heels of Superman no longer fighting for “truth, justice and the American way”. We need a new action hero that destroys Hollywood and then sets his sites on the corporate politically correct crowd. We can call him “Conservative Man”.

Water Wars: The University of Georgia footballers defeated Alabama and Florida this season. Shouldn’t that automatically bestow our state with more than bragging rights? Perhaps we should get first dibs on the water in Lakes Lanier and Allatoona until next season? We still have Auburn on the schedule boys… protect Allatoona… tame the Tigers!

Beyond The Headlines: Newspaper readers tend to skim the headlines and then read the stories that catch their attention… and that makes headline writers powerful people. These purveyors of the pen use their skill to pique your interests and either get you to read the article or at least convey the general message in the headline if you choose not to read the article. However, far too often the national journalistic types use their headline abilities to spin the truth.

Case in point… in the Friday Daily Tribune and in papers across the nation an Associated Press story headline hailed the fact that “Most in AP poll favor schools providing birth control.” Now this poll was motivated by a story from Maine that has dominated talk radio for the past couple of weeks. Under a new policy at a school in Portland, girls as young as 11 would now be given birth control without parental consent. If you only read the headline you would leave with the impression that an overwhelming majority favor this type of policy. Wrong!

An analysis of the polling date reveals that only thirty percent agree with unfettered access, while thirty-seven percent said parents should have to give permission. If you were to add that thirty-seven percent who want permission to those in the poll who were opposed to any distribution of contraceptives at school, you could have rewritten the headline to read, “Over sixty-five percent oppose schools giving students unfettered access to contraceptives”.

But the spin gets worse… when asked at what age students should receive birth control, the overwhelming majority of those polled said 16 or older. The bottom line is that very few parents agree with the Portland, Maine policy. So my fellow conservatives it’s time to go get a job writing headlines so that you too can influence public opinion. Have a happy politically incorrect Sunday!

The Stakes Are Huge For Bartow County

I live in an unincorporated part of Bartow County, and if you’re like me you may be tempted to think that all of the various municipal elections taking place in Adairsville, Cartersville, Emerson, Euharlee, Kingston, and White in a few days just don’t really matter. They do and you might want to pay attention.

Back in the early 1980’s Bartow County’s Commissioner, the late Frank Moore, saw that growth headed up I-75 would soon overwhelm the county if we weren’t prepared. He boldly proposed that we adopt a countywide land use plan and implement zoning.

In late 1983 my wife and I purchased the property we currently live on between White and Pine Log, and started construction on our home the next summer. A large percentage of our new neighbors were strongly opposed to Moore’s plans. Many of these folks had lived in this area “out in the country” their entire lives and they didn’t want the government telling them what they could and couldn’t do with their land. It was a very understandable position.

The opposing argument was that without zoning no home would be safe from the possibility that someone could come along and build a shopping center or an apartment complex next door. The fear was that the county would experience haphazard growth, and owners of single-family homes could see their peaceful settings ruined.

Both sides butted heads verbally and physically. It tore the county apart and even resulted in death threats, altercations, and finally a recall effort being launched against Moore. Frank Moore survived the political brouhaha and today Bartow County is the better for it.

Talk to realtors who work up around Ellijay and other areas of north Georgia where zoning has still not been put in place. They’ll fill you in on horror stories of families who build their dream homes on a scenic mountain ridge or fertile valley only to have someone come along and put up a loud or nasty business next door without recourse. I know of one instance where a man built a large automotive machine and body shop right in the middle of a mountaintop neighborhood in Gilmer County. The noise, smells and traffic have resulted in much legal wrangling.

Though the management of Bartow County’s land use plan has not been suitable for some (Toyo comes to mind)… compared to our unzoned neighboring counties, we are far ahead of them. The same can be said for Cartersville, which matured as a modern city several decades ago.

That’s not to say there won’t be future issues that may be somewhat controversial or that voters won’t shoot down city officials if they see them overreach… as they did when a bond referendum to develop the Milam farm property was voted down a few years ago. There will always be room for improvement, but overall residents seem satisfied with their town.

When you look at the candidates running for mayor and council in Cartersville, no one jumps out as a change agent. They all seem to be level headed folks who care about their city. Some may be more knowledgeable about issues of concern or may have a better idea of how city government works, but regardless of who gets elected the city should be just fine and we’ll probably see the status quo prevail.

However with the rapid growth being experienced… especially in Emerson, Euharlee and Adairsville, the people that are put in office there over the next few years will have a huge impact on all of us. Plans on the drawing board for new commercial projects around Emerson are staggering. Fortunately citizens there have elected some excellent council members recently and after this election cycle the city may be ready to face what’s coming their way as they continue to mature.

With very little commercial enterprise in the city limits and lots of new residences, Euharlee is a slightly different creature… and many of these newcomers have availed themselves of the political process. Turnover on the council and in the office of mayor has been common. The city continues to move forward, though they may have a little hiccup here or there.

The issues facing Euharlee are typical of fast growing bedroom communities in that they revolve around things like police protection, bad intersections not designed for the new traffic they carry, recreation, and managing growth. With the rapid growth the city has experienced in the last fifteen years, it may take another decade before Euharlee moves into the mature city category, but the impact on the rest of the county will be minimal.

That brings us to the northernmost municipality in our great county… Adairsville, which up until the past few years has seemed as though it has been hidden away and untouched by the influx of new businesses and residences that have swamped the northern third of the state.

Suddenly Adairsville has been “discovered”, and is ground zero for possibly some of the largest commercial and residential developments in northwest Georgia. A massive 1000-acre high-density mixed-use project is on track on the city’s western edge. Recent industrial expansion announcements by Yanmar and others promise additional quality jobs and a big boost in the property tax digest for the city, the county, and most importantly the county school system.

Of course the biggest piece of the Adairsville puzzle is Cabela’s, which would draw customers from across the Southeast. If the retail superstar does open as promised, the sales tax revenue generated by Cabela’s and the other retail outlets that would locate adjacent to it would provide a tremendous amount of revenue for the county school system’s current and future ELOST projects.

Many of the same families have either served in office or heavily influenced things in Adairsville for decades and that creates a different set of issues. Adairsville was already a mature city that did what it did and no one else around the county noticed.

While the majority of residents in Emerson have embraced the opportunities presented by new projects there… as evidenced by their new leadership, the situation in Adairsville is different. Campaigns there for mayor and city council have broken down into two camps affectionately known as “old town” and “newcomers”. The first group consists of those who want to pretend that the growth can be stopped and that Adairsville can go back to the way it was in the 1950’s.

The second group sees the growth occurring and knows it can’t be stopped, but feels that it can be effectively managed. They also believe that entities such as Cabela’s will greatly improve the quality of life for Adairsville residents.

If the “old town” crowd prevails this year it may take Adairsville another decade before it finally embraces its future. More importantly it will fall far behind where it should be governmentally and may miss out on some important opportunities (like Cabela’s) that would benefit all of Bartow County. These types of transitions from mature to new and back to mature are tough as evidenced by the nastiness of some of the campaigns there this year.

So to my fellow residents of unincorporated Bartow County… though you won’t be able to vote, maybe you can help influence those who will, because the stakes on November 6th are high for all of us.

The Question Is, Do You Want To Keep It?

In last week’s column I highlighted comments made to the Financial Times of London by U.S. Comptroller General David Walker in which he compared the current political, social, and economic situation in the United States to that of the Roman Empire shortly before its collapse.

I heard from a number of readers in response to the column… Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians. While a couple of folks used the opportunity to plug a particular presidential candidate or legislative issue, almost all were in agreement that things in our nation must change drastically and quickly.

Despite a booming economy, low unemployment, and a stock market near record highs… most people feel a sense of gloom and a greater disconnect from their government than I have ever witnessed. This is verified in a recent Reuters/Zogby poll that shows President Bush’s approval rating falling to 24%. Think that’s bad? Nancy Pelosi’s Democrat congress has an approval rating of only 11%.

If you drill down deep into various polling data, you’ll find that most Americans are furious with Bush over his failure to deal with illegal immigration. Then you have liberals who want us out of Iraq and conservatives who believe Bush didn’t allow the military to hit hard enough in the first few months of the war and now we have a quagmire. Then we have continued runaway federal spending by donkeys and elephants.

In response Democrats gained control of both houses of Congress, only to have America say, “Hey we let you in because we were mad at Bush and the GOP… not because we want socialism.” Many Americans feel as though they now have no voice remaining in national matters.

For the next few minutes let’s lay aside political party, economic status, race, religion, and all the other multitude of differences that politicians are all too adept at exploiting. Keep an open mind and look at each issue from the standpoint of what is good for the long-term health of our nation even if it negatively impacts you personally. Here are some changes that might help America reverse course.

Money In Politics: Only allow federal candidates to receive contributions from individuals, and that would be capped at $2,000 per contributor per election cycle. No more political action committee donations. No more money spent by political parties or third parties on behalf of candidates… and wealthy candidates could only spend one dollar of their own money for every ten they raise from others.

Term Limits: I’ve never been sold on the idea, but obviously Congress would not pass restrictions on campaign contributions like those above, so I guess our next step is to force them out after a few years.

Abolish The 17th Amendment: Under the U.S. Constitution as adopted the people elected U.S. House members to represent their interests. However the public did not vote for their U.S. Senators. The senators were appointed by their respective state legislatures to represent and protect the interests of the various state governments. This was designed to keep the federal government from overreaching with unfunded mandates that would unduly burden the states, etc. However, in 1913 the 17th Amendment was passed that allowed public election of the Senate and it has been downhill from there.

Change the Presidency: It’s ridiculous for the next presidential campaign to start the day after a president is sworn in for his term of office. Let’s elect our Presidents to a single six-year term, and prevent potential candidates from raising money or forming exploratory committees until twelve months before the next general election.

Additionally there is no Constitutional right to vote in a presidential primary, though most states hold them. Let’s abolish primaries and let each political party hold conventions at the state level to select delegates. Then the national party conventions would once again become the place where nominees are chosen instead of being the obscene beauty contests we have today. Hold the national conventions in July and the presidential nominees would then have at least three months to campaign… no more of these four-year long debacles.

Re-Constitutionalize The Federal Government: I’m not sure if re-constitutionlize is even a word, but I’ll take credit for it. Somebody drop a line to Webster’s for me. Our founders envisioned each state as an incubator for new ideas with the Constitution guaranteeing free trade between the states.

Current federal programs such as Social Security, Medicaid, SCHIP and other entitlements… or even federal funding of education or transportation should have never have been allowed constitutionally. As envisioned by our founders, states would compete against each other on tax rates, social programs, etc. If New York wants to provide healthcare for all of its residents, and Virginia doesn’t want to cover any of its citizens… then that’s fine. Let the free market decide which state will be most successful.

It would have been easy for me to harp on specific legislative solutions to some of our problems, but the truth is… until we correct the flaws in our system of electing Congress and the President… and also guide our nation back to adherence of the Constitution as our founders intended, we’ll never have the national will to do anything more than put bandages on the problems facing us.

Upon adjournment of the Constitutional Convention, when a citizen asked Benjamin Franklin what type of government the founders had given us… Franklin said, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Today the question should be, “Do we want to keep it?” If the answer is yes, are you willing to work to make the necessary changes?

It's A Republic If You Can Keep It

I didn’t see anything about his comments in any newspaper, on any radio or television program, or on any of the more popular news web sites… nowhere. At first glance it would have been all too easy to just dismiss his views as nothing more than that of a disgruntled crackpot doomsayer.

However when David Walker draws comparisons between the United States today and the Roman Empire just before its fall, we should all take notice. OK, who is David Walker? A mouthpiece of the radical right? A member of the John Birch Society?

No, he is the Comptroller General of the United States… in charge of the Government Accountability Office. Well he must be a Bush appointed rabid conservative. Not quite… Walker was a non-partisan appointee of one President Bill Clinton; approved by the U.S. Senate and serving a fifteen year term.

Walker made his comments in an interview a few weeks ago with the Financial Times of London, a respected business publication.

According to the article Walker warned, “There are striking similarities between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands, and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government”.

He added, “I’m trying to sound an alarm and issue a wake-up call. As comptroller general I’ve got an ability to look longer-range and take on issues that others may be hesitant, and in many cases may not be in a position, to take on.”

The absolute lack of coverage of his comments by the American press is baffling. Here’s a well respected high ranking government official telling it like he sees it in a non-partisan way in a legitimate interview, yet there is dead silence.

Want some more? In the article Walker stated, “With the looming retirement of baby boomers, spiralling healthcare costs, plummeting savings rates and increasing reliance on foreign lenders, we face unprecedented fiscal risks.”

He believes current U.S. policy on education, energy, and immigration, among other things, are on an “unsustainable path”. Walker also said, “Our very prosperity is placing greater demands on our physical infrastructure. Billions of dollars will be needed to modernize everything from highways and airports to water and sewage systems. The recent bridge collapse in Minneapolis was a sobering wake-up call.”

Democrat or Republican, I think most Americans realize our government institutions have become dinosaurs… too large and unwieldy to respond in today’s fast paced world of change. That’s why it’s so frustrating to hear Democrat presidential candidates try to buy votes with a further expansion of government, more middle class welfare programs, and class warfare tax increases. And no Republican frontrunner has yet to step forward, throw political caution to the wind and call for sweeping change.

Let’s say I own the largest widget making company in the world. We’ve been around for 70 years and have dominated the industry. However over the past few years several new upstart companies have made significant inroads into my market share.

These new competitors are lean. They have no escalating retiree pension and healthcare costs. They have the latest highly efficient production equipment. They aren’t saddled with old buildings, a bloated bureaucracy, or unionized employees. It’s obvious that I will need to make some drastic changes or my old widget company will slowly fade away.

This is the situation we Americans find ourselves in today. We all know that dramatic changes are needed, yet too many of us are complacent… preoccupied with other things… all too willing to let the next generation deal with the problems. Then when the empire collapses, all we’ll hear will be the cries of “Why didn’t someone do something about this?”

It’s not just politicians who are at fault. From the American Cancer Society to the AARP, America’s most basic institutions have sacrificed us on the alter of power and influence. It seems as though every one and every thing are for sale to the highest bidder.

As the Constitutional Convention ended in 1787, a woman stopped Benjamin Franklin and asked him what type of government the framers had created for us. Franklin’s reply? “A republic, if you can keep it.” Today the republic created by Franklin, James Madison and the gang would be all but unrecognizable to them.

Next week I’ll lay out several basic steps our nation can take now that would prosper and empower the individual, and catapult the U.S. to greater heights and a long prosperous future. All I ask is that you keep an open mind and be willing to step away from your current personal situation and view the big picture.

Here We Go Again...

It’s finally autumn and time for another one of my famous dirt road trips, so let’s see where we end up this week.

Duck And Cover: Alabama has always borne the brunt of numerous jokes over the years, but maybe this time the joke is on us. The City of Huntsville is in the process of putting together a monumental fallout shelter plan that includes protecting 20,000 citizens in an old underground mine, along with sheltering another 300,000 in various facilities around the area. Either they know something we don’t, or they never got the message that the Cold War is over… or is it?

Them Revenuers Is Back: This time however, them Tennessee boys with the badges ain’t lookin’ for no moonshine… no sir. Theys ‘un keeping an eye on folk who cross that thar state line and buy cigarettes to bring home with ‘em.

It may be the Volunteer state, but it seems there is no volunteering on whether or not residents will be paying the newly raised Tennessee cigarette tax. The tax jumped from twenty cents to sixty cents per pack back in July… resulting in increasing numbers of people who drive into neighboring states to load up on cancer sticks.

By comparison Missouri’s tax is seventeen cents per pack and Mississippi stands at eighteen cents. Bringing back more than two cartons is a Class B misdemeanor with a penalty of $500 and or six months in jail… plus your vehicle can be impounded and sold. Bring back more than twenty-five cartons and you can go to jail for up to six years with a minimum of one year to serve.

I can hear the jailhouse conversation now… “So I’ve got to serve six months for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, what are you in for?” “Six years for buying cigarettes in Mississippi and then driving back home to Tennessee.”

I Wouldn’t Hire Them: I don’t care if you wear it in your right ear, your left ear, or both for that matter. If you are a male and come for a job interview wearing an earring, I’m not hiring you. The Cobb County School System also didn’t think too highly of male earrings, and has a policy against wearing them at work.

The Cobb County Association of Educators agrees with some of its complaining school system employees that the policy is discriminatory and has pressured the system to drop the policy. Board members are expected to pass a new policy next month allowing all employees, male and female, to wear earrings… and the students can’t be far behind. Personally I think Tom Shane may be behind the whole thing.

People Will Complain About Anything: I almost died laughing when I saw the picture. Up in Lamont, Illinois it seems that a road crew didn’t stop to remove a dead raccoon from the middle of a state highway before restriping the center line. Yep… there were two big yellow paint lines right across the road kill.

Even more funny was the serious reporter from a local television station who rushed to the scene and put together a big broadcast piece… interviewing concerning citizens and animal rights activists. He even trolled along other roadways trying to find more evidence of uncaring road workers and hit the jackpot when he found what looked like a squirrel’s tail that was also painted over. Thanks again YouTube!

Looking For Love? If you’re a single liberal and looking for likeminded singles to hook up with, there’s a new place that will leave your tongue wagging… Barack Obama political rallies. Seems Barack’s campaign events are all the rage now among the dating class and even come complete with after-parties following the official proceedings.

I think it would be funny if conservative guys would start showing up at the rallies, pretend to be liberal, and try to hook up with a liberal gal. In the morning before leaving he could then break the news to her that he is really a staunch conservative. Talk about heartbreak!

Speaking Of Liberals: Cheer up my fellow Republicans, it’s being reported that Hillary Clinton will officially receive the political kiss of death next Saturday when 1972 Democrat presidential nominee and former South Dakota Sen. George McGovern endorses Hillary for president. Remind me how many states you carried George?

Global Warming Whoops! Al Gore is super serious about global warming. After all, according to NASA, 1998 was the warmest year in the United States since records have been kept. It’s a great statistic to beef up your arguments with.

Then one of those darned busybodies, from Canada of all places, checked the math and discovered some severe miscalculations in NASA’s own data. An investigation by NASA scientists confirmed the errors. Now it seems the hottest year in U.S. history was over seventy years ago. Our bad!

Could be The Couch For Me Tonight

It all started with an old picture that my grandfather’s first cousin Bobby Arrington recently scanned from some family history documents he had in his possession. Just three brothers in a photo that I estimate was taken sometime around the late 1890’s. The scanned photo was then posted on one of our family genealogy web sites and I was notified by automated e-mail.

One of the men was my gr-gr-gr-grandfather, John Bunyan Green, who was in the middle of the picture as the brothers were positioned youngest to oldest. The older brother, Abner Weatherby Green, caught my eye with his very distinguished appearance. There was something interesting about the guy that I would later discover.

Though I have had much success in researching many of my family lines, I had never even attempted to find out anything about the Greens. I barely remember my gr-gr-grandmother, John Bunyan Green’s daughter Della Green Peek, who died when I was about four years old.

As was still the custom in the rural South, her body lay in state at the home of one of her daughters, whom she was living with at the time of her death. She was dressed in her finest, which at that time included a woman’s dress hat complete with lace fringe and hatpins. Family members would take turns sitting with the deceased around the clock until the funeral hour.

My only other recollection of Grandma Peek was from several months earlier when my mom and I saw her at the Colonial Grocery Store in Cedartown. Being a kid I was more interested in what was in her buggy than what she had to say. Not sure if she liked them or needed them, but I do remember she had a large container of SunSweet prunes. Hopefully they didn’t contribute to her death… OK, just kidding!

Genealogy research, or “collecting relatives” as some would call it, is so much more than just compiling a listing of names, dates, and places. Together they tell a story that helps explain how you came to be the person you are. Genealogy also brings our nation’s history to life as you discover how your own relatives fit into and even played a part in the events you studied in school.

Spurred on by the photo of the Green brothers, I quickly began assembling large chucks of new family history. Like many of you, quite a few of my ancestors made their homes in Cherokee County, Georgia at some point in the early to mid 1800’s… and if you’ve studied North Georgia history, you’ll know that Cherokee County was one of the capitals of moonshine making.

Now my gr-gr-gr-grandfather’s brother Abner, the distinguished looking gentleman in the photo, had been a teen scout for the Confederate Army. Their father had died in a Yankee prison camp, and with the war over and the South’s economy in ruins, he did what many of his neighbors around Ball Ground did… he starting making corn mash liquor as a means of supporting his wife and their young children. However, that all came to an end in the fall of 1873 at Sharp Mountain Church.

In late September the church was holding a revival when according to historical accounts, just as the pastor was about to lead the congregation in singing a hymn… a strange bright light lit up the inside of the little church. Old timers who were there passed down stories of how the air was filled with the sounds of the rushing of wings and angelic music.

Those in attendance were so awestruck they didn’t leave the church for days. As word spread, others from across the region came pouring in on horseback and by the wagonload. They pitched tents on the hillside and the one-week revival turned into two weeks, and then three weeks… the revival that started in September finally ended in December when the ice was broken on the Etowah River and 73 people were baptized.

The revival was so etched on the hearts of those there, that a large number of those baptized had the event noted on their tombstones… many of which dot the little cemetery at Sharp Mountain Church. Among those baptized were my gr-gr-gr-grandfather John Bunyan Green, his brother Abner, and many other relatives.

Not long after the revival, Abner Weatherby Green felt he was called into the ministry and gave up the liquor making. A few years later he moved his family to Alabama where he pastored for over fifty years… forty of those years at one church. He lived to the ripe old age of ninety and was honored by many at his passing.

My files are filled with stories about my ancestors like those above… stories that paint a rich history of this nation from the early days of Jamestown, through the Revolution, Civil War, and the Great Depression. It has also been interesting to note that during my research I’ve uncovered a strange occurrence.

In looking back over my life, many of the friends and acquaintances that I really “connected” with, have turned out either to be distant relatives or their ancestors were close friends and neighbors of my ancestors… as though something in our DNA caused us to “click” all these many years later.

Now comes the fun part of the column where I get to embarrass my wife. Her maiden name is King, as was one of gr-grandmother’s. We’ve both had trouble tracing these lines and thought it would be funny if we ended up being related in some way.

Guess what? Well it wasn’t the Kings that made us kissing cousins. Seems that the Green brother’s mother (my gr-gr-gr-gr-grandmother) was Mirah Weatherby… an older sister to my wife’s gr-grandmother Elvira Weatherby. That makes me and my better half third cousins thrice removed… or something like that.

It all started with an old photograph… and it will probably end with me sleeping on the couch tonight.

(A special thanks to Bobby Arrington for allowing me to borrow his family history materials)

Where Have All The Activists Gone?

Ah… sometimes I long for the good old days. You know, the days where if the county board of education changed a single bus route, twenty or thirty folks would turn up at the board meeting to protest.

Maybe it’s because the county has grown so much larger and we all feel a little disconnected now. Or perhaps we’re all burned out on politics after eight years of Clinton and almost seven years of Bush. Personally I think we’ve enjoyed a long run of economic prosperity and we’re all just a little too fat and happy to bother ourselves with stuff like government. Whatever the reason, local residents seem much less inclined these days to interact with their elected officials.

The City of Cartersville recently held a series of mandated public hearings concerning the new property tax rate for this year and no one cared. The Bartow BOE voted last Monday on where they will build the new Cass High School and I’ve heard very little feedback. They also discussed at their work session a proposed policy change that would deny churches and other groups the use of school system facilities… and again it seems that very few are interested.

Have we really become that complacent? Or is just because these particular issues don’t inflame our passions?

In the case of the new Cass High, this one should raise numerous issues with the public. When the current Cass High on Grassdale Road was built back in the mid-70’s, there was an outcry from many who felt the school was being placed too far from Cassville where the former Cass High School was located. Here we are 30 years later and Cass will now be located in White in the northeastern part of the county… several miles from the current location.

Having served on the BOE back in the 90’s, I always knew that eventually another school would be built next to White Elementary. The property lays well and the recent addition of sewerage adjacent to the school solved the primary concern against locating another building there. However I must admit I never viewed the Cass-White Road site as a possible location for a high school.

I had envisioned building a new elementary school and dividing White elementary into two schools… one for kindergarten through second grade and the other for third through sixth grades. A new middle school was also a strong possibility since it is roughly ten miles from the area over to either Cass or Adairsville Middle Schools. However here we are with a new high school on the way.

A study of where existing Cass students live reveals that the overwhelming majority of them actually reside on the other side of I-75 nearer to the Cassville area. When coupled with recently announced housing developments around the area between Cassville and Kingston, it does raise questions as to why the facility was not located there.

The area around Old Grassdale Road and Cass-White Road where they intersect with I-75 is heavily industrial in nature. New projects… especially the new 1,000-acre industrial park at Cass-White and Zion Church Roads will further exacerbate traffic as workers and tractor trailers clog up already crowded lanes. Many students who travel by automobile will have to circumnavigate this mess to get to the new school.

There is also an issue of safety as Cass-White Road is narrow and has several bad curves. At the eastern end of the road where it dead-ends at Highway 411in White, traffic already backs up most mornings from the elementary school traffic. Turning left onto 411 can be a long and frustrating experience, with many drivers taking unnecessary risks.

Though I haven’t heard any public comments from board members or the administration, some of the concerns over the location of the new Cass High may be alleviated by changing school district lines. Families won’t feel the impact of any redistricting decisions until the school board takes action in about two years as they prepare for the 2010 opening of the new facility… but the public may be shocked at the changes made.

There is a very strong likelihood that students in the Pine Log district will be moved from the Adairsville district into the Cass High district. That would free up capacity at Adairsville High to take in more students from Kingston along with the northern and western sides of the Cassville area. Imagine that… kids from Cassville attending AHS! Maybe we can add a Colonel’s hat to the tiger mascot and give it a sword.

Completed nine years ago, Woodland High cost taxpayers just over twenty million dollars. Adairsville High topped thirty million. Cass is expected to top fifty-five million buckaroos, although it is a larger facility. From a financial standpoint, it could be eight years or more before the county could hope to complete a fourth high school. Unless the nation enters a severe recession, housing developments already approved or announced could completely swamp our three county high schools well before that time.
Board members have worked hard and in the judgment of the majority have made the best choice possible. Numerous other sites were considered. In the meantime, let’s put the heat on our local elected officials to round up the funds necessary for completing a major overhaul of Cass-White Road before the 2010 school year. We can’t afford to wait until we have a tragic accident to get our activist blood boiling.

They Call It "The Perfect Day"

If you’ve ever played football, you’ll know there’s nothing more exhilarating than laying a devastating tackle on the superstar running back from the opposing team. Sometimes your teammates even get to join in with a punishing hit on the guy while you have him locked up.

It doesn’t happen much anymore due to stringent officiating, but the next rung up the ladder is piling on. Mr. Superstar gets buried under a pile of opposing defensive players and all heck breaks lose under the mass of arms and legs. Poor old Mr. Superstar gets hit, punched, twisted, cussed at and spit on.

Hopefully there is no permanent damage and he will return to the game just battered and bruised. Every once in a while though, old Superstar gets carted off the field.

Intelligence agencies in the U.S. and around the globe agree that it’s not a matter of if America will be hit with another devastating terror, but when… and that brings us to The Perfect Day.

The Bush administration has done a good job of boxing in Bin Laden and Al Qaeda since 9-11, and many terror attempts directed at the U.S. and our allies have been thwarted. We must remember however that Al Qaeda is only one piece of the overall Islamo-fascist threat. There’s Hamas, Hezbollah, and dozens of other lesser-known organizations.

Then there are the individuals and small groups of people who are not affiliated with any recognized terror outfit… they are just sympathetic to the cause. Some may be in this country legally or illegally, while others may be homegrown.

Not to be left out of The Perfect Day mix are nations such as Iran, North Korea, Venezuela… even Russia and China. While a direct attack on the U.S. or its interests is extremely doubtful, there is no doubt whatsoever that these and other nations would love to kick us in some way if we’re down.

The buzz now in the intelligence community is that our known enemies and their unknown sympathizers, while not coordinating their plans, are waiting for just such an opportunity to pile on if we should find ourselves in some type of military, domestic, or economic crisis. This is what is now being referred to as The Perfect Day.

Just as the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in 1914 set in motion the events that led to WWI, intelligence analysts fear that some obscure event could start the ball rolling again with the U.S. clearly in its sites. Once the trigger event happens, these are some of the things the experts fear will happen.

China would flood world markets with the hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars it now holds… driving down the value of the dollar and setting off a crisis on Wall Street. This would result in a devalued dollar, making oil imports even more expensive.

Shortly thereafter, Venezuela shuts off all oil exports driving up oil prices further. Iran then makes moves against other Middle Eastern oil interests sending the world oil markets into a panic. Terrorists hit a couple of major Saudi refineries, taking them offline. Gasoline hits $10 a gallon and the U.S. economy melts.

Syria, which has been warning Israel for several months that it intends to retake the Golan Heights, ratchets up the rhetoric while giving a green light to Hamas and Hezbollah to unleash rocket attacks on Israel. China moves major military assets into position as though preparing to invade Taiwan. North Korea moves troops toward the DMZ with South Korea. Suddenly America’s military is pushed to the brink as it prepares for these potential imminent threats… whether or not China and North Korea are serious.

America’s biggest vulnerability may not be military in nature. Imagine if the Internet disappeared. In today’s world everything from radio, TV, and newspaper to all of our business and financial markets are completely dependent on the web. Even our military relies heavily on the Internet and other technologies that could be compromised.

It is no secret that China and Russia have invested heavily in training hackers to disrupt the Internet. Just last month hackers based in China successfully infiltrated U.S. defense Department computers for an extended period of time, causing much concern among Pentagon brass.

If all of the above were not enough, the thing that really has the Department of Homeland Security on pins and needles is the threat of domestic terror acts by Islamic sleeper cells and by their sympathizers here in the good old USA once America finds itself struggling to face problems such as mentioned above.

While potential attacks on the scale of 9-11 are still a concern, even more sinuous is the increasing probability of large numbers of small scale attacks from coast to coast. Under the Perfect Day scenario an almost continuous series of smaller terror events would unfold daily… such as using stolen propane trucks to blow up major bridges, the poisoning of municipal water supplies, and mass shootings of children and teachers in random schools nationwide.

The point is not to instill fear, but to remind everyone that we are still at war with Islamists intent on destroying us. The director of the CIA raised numerous alarms during a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations just this past week using stronger statements than we are accustomed to hearing from him.

I invite you do tune in Glenn Beck on NewsTalk AM 1270 or watch his show weeknights on CNN Prime as he examines The Perfect Day all this week. Six years after 9-11, it might be an eye opener for us all.

It's Best To Get Out Of The Way

I was one of those kids that came out of the womb in high gear and never looked back. I walked early, talked early, learned to read early, and was playing chess at five years of age. Like a whirlwind, I spent each day from sunup to dark at full speed. I wore out my parents, grandparents, and most of the kids in the neighborhood… and their parents too!

I can’t even begin to imagine how my folks managed to not lose their sanity. For me riding a bicycle was boring, so I would be build ramps in the street and jump them. Then I would build them bigger and bigger, until one of the neighbors would scrape my skinned up 5 or 6 year-old body off the pavement and carry me home. A couple of hours later I’d get out my tool kit and modify the bike to jump farther and be right back at it.

My mom’s parents had been very protective in how they reared her, and mom made it a point to give me a long leash. Now it was fully understood that I was to be respectful of others and not do anything wrong, but I was free to do dumb stuff and get hurt occasionally. I have the scars and broken bones to prove it. I could write a book on all the stuff I tried. Parents… just be careful about giving an eight year-old a 200 piece chemistry set!

Every couple has their own style in how they raise their children and as any parent with more than one can tell you, there is no one size fits all approach that works. The differences just between siblings can be tremendous.

One thing that has always bothered me though, is to see parents push their kids to take a certain career path or pursue a particular sport or activity that a child might not have chosen on his or her own. We’ve all probably seen instances of a child being expected to carry on the family tradition of being a doctor, lawyer, or other profession, only to have the child rebel at some point or miserably follow the path laid before them.

For several years I helped coach youth baseball and you could tell the kids who were there because they loved the game, versus those who were persuaded to be there because daddy was a baseball guy.

The philosophy I followed with my sons was to present them with numerous opportunities and then let them decide their own direction. I’ve always lifted weights every morning and we have a full assortment of exercise gear at home, but I never tried to force the boys into working out. The equipment was there for them to experiment with and if they showed an interest I would happily share my knowledge.

I play drums, but also kept keyboards, guitars, and other musical instruments around the house for the kids. They chose instruments other than drums. I grew up playing football and basketball, while both of my boys played baseball. I love high school football and it would have been nice to watch my sons play, but they made other choices and that’s fine with me.

It’s all about opportunities. You never know which little seed that gets planted at some point in a child’s life will be the thing that eventually bears fruit.

The second day of class in first grade, my teacher approached me about doing the voice work for a series of school safety public service announcements that radio station WGAA in Cedartown was putting together. Mom took me to their studios after school and I recorded all three spots in one take. I loved it! Later in high school, I had the opportunity my senior year to co-host a daily fifteen-minute program over WGAA that was broadcast live from Cedartown High each morning.

I had just about forgotten about doing these things until I opened my senior yearbook the other day and saw an inscription from one of my close friends, Len Shackleford. One of the lines read, “ Maybe we can really open up that radio station, who knows?” Len was one of the other co-hosts on our little fifteen-minute show.

Those two experiences with radio as a kid manifested years later and now I co-own a radio station. And Len? He is program director of a major country radio station in Orlando, and another one of our high school friends is program director of two stations in Huntsville, Alabama. Coincidence? Hardly!

In college my English teacher, knowing I was a music fanatic, invited me to write record reviews for the school newspaper. I’ve gone from praising Devo’s first album to writing a regular column for the Tribune. What a country!

In junior high school we had a class were we studied various career opportunities and then once a week we would hop on a school bus and visit a local business for an hour. One time we were allowed to package ground beef at the Winn-Dixie meat department, and another week we pretended to meet with a bereaved family at the local funeral home… helping them to plan a funeral.

After college I ended up in management with Winn-Dixie for a while… haven’t tried a career in the funeral industry yet, but I guess there’s still time.

The bottom line is this… present your child with endless possibilities and then get out of the way. At the end of the day, it’s your child’s life – not yours. You should nurture and provide support, but you have to let them chart their own course. The odds are, they’ll make you proud. Mine have.

A Regular Person Can't Be elected President

From the most seasoned political operative to the most out of touch person in America, we all know that politicians never say what they really want to say. Every statement is carefully crafted so as to upset the fewest number of people possible, while energizing or at least placating the candidate’s base of support.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing to have a presidential candidate who threw political correctness out the window and told us how he or she really felt? I introduce you to Joe America, candidate for President of the United States. When voters feel their government is not listening to them, they become more willing to take strong stances… and whether you agree with Joe or not, many of your fellow citizens do.

Joe's a regular talk radio listener, reads the paper cover to cover, watches all the political TV shows… and doesn't like the direction his nation is headed. Maybe he works with you or coaches your child's baseball team. He might be a deacon or sing in the choir at your church. He flies Old Glory on the 4th of July and places his hand on his heart during the Pledge Of Allegiance. He's just a regular guy who’s fed up.

Q: Mr. America, why are you running for President? A: The people we have representing us in Washington today don’t know their “blank” from a hole in the ground. We need real people who know what it’s like to work 60 hours a week to support their families… to deal with our convoluted tax code… to survive in spite of government.

Q: Immigration is a hot issue. What would you do to secure our borders and deal with the estimated 12 to 20 million illegals in the country now? A: Before you can deal with the illegals here now, you have to stop the hemorrhaging. I would put our military on the border and give them full authority to shut it tighter than a bank vault. At the same time I’d build a double fence from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific.

It’s not just the illegals… it’s the drug dealers and the criminals that are coming across. I would also announce that effective July 2009, anyone found to be in our nation illegally would be DNA sampled, deported and permanently banned from every entering our nation again… even to attend a funeral. They’re outta here! And no more anchor babies!

Q: You say you would return the government to the people. How will you do that? A: That’s easy… get rid of the money. Candidates would only be allowed to take contributions from individuals and that would be capped at $2,500 per election cycle. No more contributions from political action committees or political parties. Plus, lobbyists would only be allowed to present information to elected officials… no money, no meals, no trips, nothing!

Candidates would not be able to use the money they raise for any other purpose other than to be elected or reelected to their current office. If they run for another office, they would have to resign their current office and return all unused campaign contributions pro-rata to the contributors.

Q: What about wealthy candidates who want to fund their own campaigns? A: For every dollar they raise from others, they could use ten cents of their own money. That way at least ninety percent of their campaign funds would come from others who believe in them.

Q: Iraq is probably the biggest issue facing the nation currently. What would be your plan for Iraq? A: Look… regardless of whether you agreed with President Bush’s rationale for invading Iraq, we’re there and so is Al Qaeda. We need to kick all media out of Iraq and let our military do what they were trained to do… kill people and break things. If our men and women in uniform were allowed to do what they trained to do, we could knock out this Iranian backed insurgency in less than twelve months.

Q: What about Guantanamo? A: If one of these turban heads we’ve captured has information that will help us save American lives, then by George let’s do whatever we need to do to get that info out of them… even if it means cutting off their toes one at a time with wire cutters.

Look… we’ve got to understand this is not a war on terror. Terrorism is a strategy, just like the Germans used the Blitzkrieg in World War II. We are at war with Islam. It’s a corrupt religion that threatens to end the world as we know it.

Q: Let’s change the subject… how about moral issues? Where do you stand on abortion? A: Once that egg is fertilized it’s a life. Unless the mother’s own life is in physical danger, we have no choice but to err on the side of life. Abortion should be illegal otherwise.

Q: The Democrat candidates recently caught some flak for appearing at a gay forum. One question in particular caused some controversy… are homosexuals born that way or is it a choice? A: There are countless cases of homosexuals who have either through counseling or by religious miracle, been delivered from homosexuality and are now leading normal heterosexual lives.

This infuriates the homosexual community, which has taken the approach that people are born gay and that makes it OK. I would say that either through nature or our creator, mankind’s natural state is to reproduce. Therefore homosexuality is unnatural and if people are born that way… well, that means it must be a birth defect. By the way, I’m opposed to same sex marriage or civil unions.

Q: You mentioned taxes… what would be your plan for tax reform? A: This one is easy. Pass a law that wipes out the current U.S. tax code effective January 1, 2010. Then that gives us a little over a year after I’m elected to adopt a brand new simplified streamlined tax code… either a flat tax or the Fair Tax. No more stalling, as we’ll be forced to deal with the issue.

Q: Mr. America, you don’t mince words and aren’t afraid to say what you really believe. Do you think you have a chance of being elected president? A: The media will rip me apart because I don’t fit into their preconceived box of what a politically correct candidate should look like.

Put me on a level playing field with that bunch of Republicans who are afraid to say what they believe in, and with those Democrats… progressives… socialists… whatever they call themselves this week. I’m more in touch with mainstream America than you folks in the media will ever be.

Q: Thank you Mr. America for being so forthright with your answers. You do realize however, that many will find your opinions offensive? A: Thanks for the opportunity… but you do realize that most Americans don’t trust you folks in the media to fairly report the news? All I ask is that you give me equal footing and a fair chance against the big boys and girl. I’m outta here.

Hey Dude, Where's My Party?

It’s a radio station owner’s worst nightmare. I was tooling along Highway 53 in Gordon County listening to the radio a few days ago, when suddenly there was silence. I immediately pulled off the road, called the station, and talked with my youngest son who works there part-time. He has caught on quickly to the high-tech automation equipment in use and we rapidly went through all the systems and everything checked out fine.

Next stop was the transmitter room, where he solemnly informed me the transmitter was dead. After trying all the quick fixes I could offer over the phone, our engineer was summoned and it took him just a few minutes to track the problem back to a short in an electrical circuit breaker box. We were soon back on the air with no damage done.

We had an urgent problem and we all stopped what we were doing and fixed the problem. Too bad government can’t operate that way. From bad bridges to healthcare, our government has dropped the ball. There is no reason the folks who utilize Hardin Bridge Road should be inconvenienced for a couple of years because no one had the foresight to replace an ancient bridge… waiting instead until it was too unsafe to cross.

It’s the same with healthcare. We’ve known for twenty-five years that medical inflation has been outpacing growth in wages. Many proposals on how to fix the problem have been floated, but they always get bogged down by the two monsters in the closet… politics and special interest money.

In 1993 Americans proclaimed loudly that they did not want government provided Hillarycare. Since then a few attempts at private sector solutions have been implemented, but without converting the entire system with a comprehensive plan these attempts have been no more than a quick glimpse of the sun on an otherwise c