August 31, 2004

Cut Bait

Do you want to know why the mainstream media is, increasingly, seen is irrelevant? I'll give you one example: The Knoxville News Sentinel shells out the cash to send its top political reporter, Tom Humphrey - a guy with many years of experience covering politcs - to cover the Republican National Convention and what does he find to write about? The fishing habits of a former Tennessee governor.

August 30, 2004

Have Faith in the Power of Freedom

Both Sen. John McCain and former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani gave great speeches Monday night at the Republican National Convention. McCain was particularly effective at paring the war on terror down to its essential core and revealing again for those who have forgotten just how vital it is that we not retreat from the battle.

The awful events of September 11, 2001, declared a war we were vaguely aware of, but hadn't really comprehended how near the threat was and how terrible were the plans of our enemies.

It's a big thing, this war.

It's a fight between a just regard for human dignity and a malevolent force that defiles an honorable religion by disputing God's love for every soul on earth. It's a fight between right and wrong, good and evil.

And my friends, should our enemies acquire for their arsenal the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons they seek, this war will become a much bigger thing.

Have faith in the power of freedom. People who live in freedom always prevail over people who live in oppression.

Just as free democracies rarely (if ever) go to war against other free democracies, free democracies rarely breed terrorists. Freedom for the oppressed of the Middle East - via democracy and accountable governments - will go a long way to reducing the threat of terrorism. It is a Big Idea.

Kerry's big idea is different. Kerry and Edwards have faith in the power of the United Nations, in the power of international agreements, in the power of international coalitions, in the power of sanctions, in the power of diplomacy, in the power of multilateralism, and in empowering the likes of Jacques Chirac to have a say in our foreign policy.

Kerry does not believe in big ideas but in big bureaucracies. Saddam was not an evil to be uprooted and replaced with something good, but an irritant to be tied down with sanctions and resolutions and inspections - the trappings of international bureaucracy.

But we saw what sanctions and resolutions and inspections allowed to fester in Iraq: Saddam, a weapon of mass destruction, mass-murdering men, women and children and burying them in mass graves by the hundreds of thousands, children imprisoned, prisoners tortured, women raped, dissidents fed into shredding machines, villagers gassed, terrorists accommodated, suicide bombers' families compensated, treasuries looted while citizens starved and went without healthcare - while sanctions, resolutions and inspections were violated or ignored.

Bureaucracy can't stop a madman or terrorists because bureaucracy is all about rules and agreements, and madmen and terrorists don't follow rules or keep agreements. But madmen and terrorists can not ultimately triumph over the hope and the power of liberty, for all they offer is oppression and death.

John McCain - who knows from personal experience what it means to live under the oppression of tyrants - has faith in the power of freedom. He knows it is the road to victory over Islamist terror:

Take courage from the knowledge that our military superiority is matched only by the superiority of our ideals and our unconquerable love for them. ... We fight for love of freedom and justice - a love that is invincible. Keep that faith! Keep your courage! Stick together! Stay strong! Do not yield! Do not flinch! Stand up! Stand up with our President and fight! We're Americans! We're Americans and we'll never surrender! They will!"

Another Al Qaeda Attack?

Do you remember American Airlines Flight 587, which crashed in New York City shortly after take-off two months and one day after the September 11 attacks? Official word was, it wasn't terrorism. Now, though, Canada's National Post is reporting that al Qaeda in fact may have blown the plane out of the sky.

A captured al-Qaeda operative has told Canadian intelligence investigators that a Montreal man who trained in Afghanistan alongside the 9/11 hijackers was responsible for the crash of an American Airlines flight in New York three years ago.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents were told during five days of interviews with the source that Abderraouf Jdey, a Canadian citizen also known as Farouk the Tunisian, had downed the plane with explosives on Nov. 12, 2001.

The source claimed Jdey had used his Canadian passport to board Flight 587 and "conducted a suicide mission" with a small bomb similar to the one used by convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid, a "Top Secret" Canadian government report says.

RNC Blogging

BlogsForBush.com has some good stuff from the Republican convention, even though the convention has barely started. I'll be posting a round-up tomorrow of the good stuff on each of the blogs from bloggers inside the convention. By the way, if you google the word "blogs," BlogsForBush.com comes up second in the search results - ahead of Salon.com's blogs.

Beat the Price Increase

Prices for Bloagads ad space on HobbsOnline will be rising as of Sept. 1. Incidentally, HobbsOnline has already been read by 32 percent more people this month than last month.

Who Knew?

Communists for Kerry has a website.

Coming Soon...

Coming soon to a desktop near you: the $10,000 supercomputer from Orion Multisystems. Only, by the time you get one it'll cost $1,799 at Best Buy and be 25 times as powerful.

Protest Warriors

New York ain't the only city with protestors. Here's some pics from a protest . [Hat tip: Blake Wylie.] And speaking of Protest Warriors...

If Only They Were in Chicago...

CopKillers for Kerry has posted the names of a few of its members. If they were in Chicago, they could actually vote for him...

Irresponsibly Spreading A Rumor

Just in case this is true, I ordered one of these today. And while I don't believe the rumor, it occurs to me that "McCain" does have the same number of letters as "Cheney," should it become necessary to redesign the Bush campaign logo...

Kerry Supporters On Parade

A member of the group Hookers for Kerry.

I'm watching the blogosphere for good photo coverage of the freaks on parade outside the Republican National Convention. Ryan Sager is posting a lot of photos from New York, covering the protests like stink on a hippie. The more people see Kerry supporters like these and her (warning: offensive) and him (warning: offensive) it, the fewer normal people will want to vote for Kerry.

Do you really want a president who attracts support from prostitutes who want to kill unborn children? I didn't think so.

It Worked For Neville Chamberlain

John Edwards says that, if he is elected, John Kerry will appease Iran with free nuclear fuel, and we'll have peace in our time. If you think giving nuclear fuel to a regime that is at the center of international Islamic terrorism and is racing to build nuclear bombs to gain leverage over the entire Middle East and possibly use against Israel is a good idea, vote for John Kerry on Nov. 2.

Trade Deficit?

New blogger Scott Harris has a really fine examination of trade deficits and mercantilism and the nature of the global economy. I've never thought trade deficits were all that much of a bad thing. Consider this: If we bought an equal amount (in dollar terms) from Japan as they bought from us, trade would be said to be in balance. But if we then bought another 40 Honda cars at $25,000 a piece, we would be said to have a trade deficit of $1 million with Japan. But no one ever talks about the 40-Honda trade deficit Japan has with us. You can't drive money - but you can drive a car. And the $1 million in U.S. cash held by the Japanese only has value, ultimately, because it can be spent on goods and services sold in or produced by the United States.

August 29, 2004

Polls

I am extremely suspicious of this website, which purports to show the current state of the race for the White House based on state-by-state electoral vote counts based on which candidate - Bush or Kerry - is leading in that state.

Reason: The website, which I found via a Blogad on Instapundit, has Tennessee listed in the Kerry column, gving Kerry 270 total electoral votes (just enough to win the White House) and giving Bush 259.

That's absurd. Tennessee is a Bush state - it was in 2000 when Bush defeated Tennessee's native son Al Gore by 4 points.

Only one poll recently has found Kerry ahead in Tennessee, and that was within the margin of error. Every other poll in Tennessee this year has had Bush ahead. Details here. Incidentally, I'm told internal state Republican polls have Bush ahead by eight points in Tennessee. ElectionProjection.com, by the way, has Tennessee in the Bush column and Bush ahead of Kerry 284-254 in electoral votes based on all the most recent state-by-state polls.

There's another reason not to trust Electoral-Vote.com: It's a pro-Kerry site, with links to other sites that favor Kerry and oppose Bush, including one site that still pushes the already-debunked allegation that Bush was "AWOL" from the Texas Air National Guard.

The site is wrong about Tennessee, and I suspect deliberately so. Because if you switch Tennessee's 11 electoral votes into the Bush column, Bush wins 270-259, and that would undermine the website's real purpose: motivating Kerry supporters to contact Americans living overseas to register them to vote absentee for Kerry.

If you want to know how Bush is really doing in Tennessee, watch for the latest Tennessee poll from Mason-Dixon, and then add five points to the Republican's total.

UPDATE: Rasmussen has Bush leading Kerry state-by-state by a count of 213-207 in electoral votes with 118 in the "toss-up" category. Rasmussen lists Tennessee in the Bush column, based on a Rasmussen poll at the end of June that had Bush leading Kerry by eight points. Rasmussen says that in the last week, Arkansas, Virginia and Missouri have moved from Toss-Up to Leans Bush, and Minnesota moved from Leans Kerry to Toss-Up, while Maine and Michigan moved in Kerry's direction, from Toss-Up to Leans Kerry.

August 27, 2004

The Second Vietnam War

Hugh Hewitt has a very long and thoughtful piece about how the Kerry campaign is forcing America to refight the political wars of the Vietnam era. As I said, it is long and thoughtful. It is absolutely worth your time.

Another Reason for the Bush Boom

President Bush's administration has imposed lower regulatory cost burdens on the economy than any president since the government began keeping records back in 1987, according to the New York Times. This is a story best told with a graphic, which you can click to see a larger, more legible version:

I often blame the Bush tax cuts for the economy's strong growth over the last year or so. Of course, not burdening the economy with billions of dollars in added costs for new regulations is helping too. As you study the graphic you might notice that the level of regulatory burden on industry began to rise sharply toward the end of the first President Bush's term, and also at the end of Clinton's second term. In both cases, a recession soon befell the economy. The current President Bush leads more wisely, and the economy is responding positively.

If you're an entrepreneur, a mid-sized business owner or a corporate executive - or even if you simply work for an entrepreneur or a mid-sized business or a big corporation or own stock in a business - keep in mind as you vote on November 2 that John Kerry is much more apt to regulate, regulate, regulate than is President Bush. [Hat tip: Chris Alden]

It Was Terror

Turns out, Islamists terrorists linked to al Qaeda apparently blew up at least one of those two Russian commercial jets. But you already knew that was the case, even before investigators found traces of explosives and terrorists issued a statement taking credit. Two planes don't simultaneously explode and die of natural causes after leaving the same airport. Russia's war against the Chechen Islamists is just another front in the same war the United States is fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And although it happened in Russia, the attack signals once again that civilization is in a global against Islamist terror, a war that will not be won by signaling retreat. Remember that when you go vote on Nov. 2.

If You Don't Play, You Can't Lose

There's something a little sick about using the word "perseverance" in connection with someone obsessively buying lottery tickets until they win.

When I teach my kids about perseverance, it will be in reference to having a strong work ethic and an indomitable spirit - not in trying to get rich by repeatedly wasting money trying to win a large chunk of cash that the state lottery accumulated by taking it, a few dollars at a time, from thousands of poor and lower-middle-class people who also are wasting their money on that near-futile approach to getting rich.

For every person that wins big money, there are thousands and tens of thousands who never win a dime, but who waste hundreds and thousands of dollars that, if they invested it or used it to start a business, could make them wealthy over time.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words...

My first-ever posting at TN4W.com is up now. It's a longer, more fleshed-out version of something I posted here a few days ago, thanks to feedback from readers of the original post. Just another example of how the interactivity of the blogosphere enhances the quality of the end product.

Good News on the Nashville Economy

The Nashville area's unemployment rate has dropped to 3.4 percent from 4.5 percent a year ago, as unemployment falls in all eight counties of the metropolitan area. Manufacturing accounts for a fourth of the job growth. I blame the Bush tax cuts.

August 26, 2004

I Wonder Who Willie Horton Will Endorse...

Mumia Abu-Jamal, the murdering slimeball who killed a Philadelphia policeman and then merchandised the crime to turn himself into a successful author and radio commentator (despite being in prison!) and has become a hero of the American Left - who chant "Free Mumia" as if he was a political prisoner instead of a murdering slimeball - has endorsed John Kerry, becoming the first official member of Cop Killers For Kerry. Well, he didn't so much as endorse him as endorse the "Anybody But Bush" movement. And, of course, if you're in the ABB camp, your only option is to vote for Kerry.

Mumia's voting preference likely won't go over real well with the Fraternal Order of Policer or the people involved with this memorial project. Here in a nutshell is what I think of Mumia.

UPDATE: Uh. Kerry's first pick for his campaign's "religious liason" was an an avowed Marxist-Leninist and supporter of Mumia.

Bias

The anti-Bush bias in this story by Bloomberg political reporter Jay Newton-Small is nothing short of appalling. The story is headlined Bush to Urge Court to End Independent Political Ads, but the story's focus is solely on whether the Bush campaign has any illegal links to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, an independent organization of thetype known as a "527" for its designation in the IRS code.

There is not one mention in the entire 1,068-word story of the ample evidence of coordination between the Kerry campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and a variety of anti-Bush/pro-Kerry 527 groups - although the overwhelming majority of 527 money is being raised and spent by 527s aligned with Kerry and the DNC, and there is a mountain of evidence of illegal coordination among them compared to a molehil of evidence of illegal coordination between Bush, the GOP and the Swift Boat Vets.

Apparently the reporter is unaware of the well-documented web of connections between Kerry, the DNC and such organizations - potentially illegal connections that have included sharing personnel, holding joint meetings, and working together on message, strategy and more. Perhaps Mr. Newton-Small or his editor, Glenn Hall, need to be made aware of the volumes of information available here. And so, in the spirit of trying to help a couple of hard-working journalists do a better job in covering this important issue, I offer you their email addresses so you can send them an email telling them of your displeasure at the biased, incomplete coverage, and provide them links to the resources they need to do a better job next time.

You can email Jay Newton-Small at jnewtonsmall@bloomberg.net. And you can email his editor, Glenn Hall, at ghall@bloomberg.net.

Blogging the Convention

Here's a very interesting profile of the 15 bloggers who will be covering the Republican National Convention. I wish there was a 16th. Read the WSJ piece quick - it's today's "free feature" but tomorrow it disappears behind the Journal's evil-greedy-corporate-pay-us-money-to-read-it firewall.

Poll Trends

Bush is edging ahead of Kerry in Florida. And surging ahead of Kerry in Arizona. The indispensable Hugh Hewitt notes that the Arizona poll is especially bad for Kerry because the Kerry campaign targeted Arizona, which went for Bush in 2000, as a possible pick-up for the Democrats this year. Hewitt notes more bad news in the poll for Kerry - the poll suggests that Bush's increasing support in Arizona is largely coming from registered independents."

UPDATE: The latest Los Angeles Times poll, just released, has Bush up by three nationally.

Maxed Out

Being a patriot and a war hero doesn't mean one can't also be a buffoon.

UPDATE: John Hinderaker, writing over at PowerLine, says it best:

It's hard not to feel sorry for Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in an accident while he was serving in Vietnam. It's hard, but you know, I'm almost there. Cleland has become the ultimate Democrat - a professional victim, defined entirely by his triple-amputee status, who will do anything for the party hacks. Cleland served a term in the U.S. Senate; he apparently believed that his victim status entitled him to a Senate seat in perpetuity and without opposition, regardless of his votes, which consistently betrayed the views and interests of his constituents. As I say, the ultimate Democrat.

Today Cleland was recruited to perform a political stunt.

More Evidence That Kerry Won't Win Tennessee

Some national pundits are saying John Kerry could win Tennessee this November, but they're wrong. And Wednesday's Nashville City Paper carries a story that indicates I am right, they are wrong. The story says Tennessee's very-popular Gov. Phil Bredesen - a Democrat - is going to be spending a lot of time helping raise funds and campaigning for Tennessee Democrats who are running for the state legislature.

The administration has said campaigning for Democrats prior to the Nov. 2 election would be a priority this fall in maintaining current majorities held in both the Senate and the House.

If Bredesen was on the November ballot, he'd win with 70 percent of the vote. He is perhaps the most popular governor in Tennessee history - so popular that many Tennessee Republicans like him, more than a few of us are happy he won, and there's no issue on which the state Republican Party can gain any serious traction against him. In short, that makes him the state's perfect pitchman for the head of the party's national ticket. But instead of playing in the politics' Big Game, Bredesen is working in the minor leagues.

Yet, though Bredesen says he's for Kerry, he isn't actively working for Kerry. Why? Simple. John Kerry is a sure loser in Tennessee. No smart politician with a 70 percent-plus approval rating is going to tie himself to a sure loser. Some Tennesseans still recall how another very popular Democratic governor, Ned McWherter, found it to be a good day to go fishing when then-presidential candidate Michael Dukakis came to town.

If John Kerry had a realistic chance to win Tennessee, Bredesen would be actively campaigning for Kerry. He isn't. That's all you need to know about Kerry's chances in Tennessee.

Oops

I just realized I hadn't changed the prices on my Blogads after having a one-week sale earlier this month. Okay, the sale will end at the end of August. By the way, HobbsOnline's total visitor count and total page views this month passed the total for all of July on August 22nd. As traffic rises, I'm cutting ad rates. What's up with that?

August 25, 2004

Econometrics Predicts Bush Landslide

Deborah Solomon of The New York Times Magazine recently interviewed Yale economist Dr. Ray Fair, whose econometric model currently forecasts President Bush will win re-election by a comfortable margin. Fair is the author of the book Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things.

Fair's most recent forecast, released July 31, predicts Bush will win 57.48 percent of the two-party vote. Fair explains his work here.

Here are the key portions of that interview:

Q. As a professor of economics at Yale, you are known for creating an econometric equation that has predicted presidential elections with relative accuracy.

A. My latest prediction shows that Bush will receive 57.5 percent of the two-party votes.

Q. The polls are suggesting a much closer race.
A. Polls are notoriously flaky this far ahead of the election, and there is a limit to how much you want to trust polls.

Q. Why should we trust your equation, which seems unusually reductive?
A. It has done well historically. The average mistake of the equation is about 2.5 percentage points.

Q. In your book ''Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things,'' you claim that economic growth and inflation are the only variables that matter in a presidential race. Are you saying that the war in Iraq will have no influence on the election?
A. Historically, issues like war haven't swamped the economics. If the equation is correctly specified, then the chances that Bush loses are very small.

Q. But the country hasn't been this polarized since the 60's, and voters seem genuinely engaged by social issues like gay marriage and the overall question of a more just society.
A. We throw all those into what we call the error term. In the past, all that stuff that you think should count averages about 2.5 percent, and that is pretty small.

Q. It saddens me that you teach this to students at Yale, who could be thinking about society in complex and meaningful ways.
A. I will be teaching econometrics next year to undergraduates. Econometrics is a huge deal, because it is applied to all kinds of things.

Q. Are you a Republican?
A. I can't credibly answer that question. Using game theory in economics, you are not going to believe me when I tell you my political affiliation because I know that you know that I could be behaving strategically. If I tell you I am a Kerry supporter, how do you know that I am not lying or behaving strategically to try to put more weight on the predictions and help the Republicans?

Q. I don't want to do game theory. I just want to know if you are a Kerry supporter.
A. Backing away from game theory, which is kind of cute, I am a Kerry supporter.

Q. I believe you entirely, although I'm a little surprised, because your predictions implicitly lend support to Bush.
A. I am not attempting to be an advocate for one party or another. I am attempting to be a social scientist trying to explain voting behavior.

Q. But in the process you are shaping opinion. Predictions can be self-confirming, because wishy-washy voters might go with the candidate who is perceived to be more successful.
A. It could work the other way. If Kerry supporters see that I have made this big prediction for Bush, more of them could turn out just to prove an economist wrong.

Kerry: "Bring It On"

Bush: Okay.

Devastating.

Kerry 527 Connections News Resource

The invaluable BlogsForBush.com has a new archive of coverage of the web of connections between the John Kerry campaign, the Democratic National Committee and various "527s" - supposedly "independent" political organizations such as MoveOn.org, America Coming Together, Media Fund and others.

Called Kerry 527 Connections, it provides a single-source resource for journalists looking for facts and documentations of the extensive illegal coordination taking place between the Kerry campaign, the DNC and the Left-wing 527s.

BlogsForBush overseer Matt Margolis, who will be blogging from the Republican National Convention next week, has performed a valuable service to journalism and the truth by creating the archive. Use the information there to respond to Democrats and media folks who question you about President Bush and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and as an information resource when writing letters to the editor.

Kerry, DNC, Illegally Coordinating Efforts With 527s

Here's a long list of proof that John Kerry's campaign and the Democratic National Committee are illegally coordinating campaign activities, including events, advertising, message and fundraising, with so-called "527s" such as MoveOn.org and America Coming Together. Every single piece of evidence is backed up with links to the documentation.

So far, Big Journalism seems interested in looking only at a few minor links between Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and President Bush, but the blogosphere is doing the real work, exposing the much broader connections between Kerry, the DNC and the Lefty 527s. But this is how things work in the media today: the mainstream media either misses the real story, or ignores it out of partisan bias, but the truth routes around the Big Media censors via the Internet and the blogosphere until, eventually, Big Media is forced to cover it.

Polls are showing that, despite Big Journalism's yeoman's effort at ignoring Kerry's Christmas-in-Cambodia lie, and their ongoing efforts to "kill the messenger" rather than investigate the claims made by the SBVT, the message of the SBVT's ads is reaching the public, and having an impact on Kerry's poll numbers.

That is why the Kerry campaign and its allies in Big Journalism are counter-attacking with such ferocity. First they ignore you. Then they attack you. Then you win.

Memo to all Republicans likely to be interviewed by the media: If they ask you about supposed connections between Bush and the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, your answer should be something like this:

"Unlike John Kerry, whose campaign has coordinated with MoveOn.org and other 527s on fundraising, events, message, and advertising, and has a revolving door of shared personnel between the campaign, the Democratic National Committee and the 527s, President Bush does not want his campaign workers to coordinate illegally with the 527 organizations. When the Bush campaign found out that some of its volunteers had also worked with the Swift Boat Veterans organization, possibly in violation of the law, they were immediately separated from the campaign. Why hasn't John Kerry done the same?"

Stuck Overnight at LAX

Nashville blogger Blake Wylie is traveling on the Left Coast and blogging the adventure. Blake, by the way, is a fantastic photographer.

Birds of a Feather

BlogsofWar.com notes that former US Attorney General Secretary Ramsey Clark (brief bio) is poised to join the legal team seeking to defend former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before a special Iraqi tribunal. The panel's chairman, Mohammad Rashdan, told Arab News yesterday that, "Negotiations are under way for Clark's joining of the team."

Who is Ramsey Clark? Salon.com, a left-wing online magazine, once called him "the war criminal's best friend,", adding "The former U.S. attorney general has become the tool of left-wing cultists who defend Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein and Rwandan torturers as anti-imperialist heroes."

When he flew to Belgrade to support Slobodan Milosevic during NATO's campaign, there was no word about the siege of Sarajevo, the massacre at Srebrenica or the million homeless refugees from Kosovo - and even less of those olfactorily eloquent mass graves that NATO is now uncovering. But then, urging Belgrade to resist NATO, while he was there picking up an honorary degree, he told his hosts, "It will be a great struggle, but a glorious victory. You can be victorious."

In Grenada he went to advise Bernard Coard, the murderer of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. Other clients include Radovan Karadzic, the indicted Bosnian Serbian war criminal whom he defended in a New York civil suit brought by Bosnian rape victims, and the Rwandan pastor who is accused of telling Tutsis to hide in his church and then summoning Hutus to massacre them, and then leading killing squads.

As this article notes, Kerry and Clark have longstanding ties:

Clark served as LBJ's Attorney General in the 1960s and then participated in the anti-Vietnam War movement in the early 1970s with Kerry, just back from the war, who accused his fellow soldiers of war crimes and genocide. Clark was a lawyer for Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and Kerry was a major leader of the group. A photograph at the time shows Clark on the same stage with Kerry.

He also represented PLO leaders in a lawsuit brought by the family of Leon Klinghoffer, the wheelchair bound elderly tourist who was shot and tossed overboard from the hijacked Achille Lauro cruise ship by Palestinian terrorists in 1986. Prior to the start of the second Gulf War, Clark was retained by the state of Iraq, serving as legal counsel for the Hussein regime.

Hiring Signs

Jeff Cornwall points to evidence of the entrepreneurial economic boom. Here's an excerpt - there's more details and links on his blog.

The Young Entrepreneurs Organization (YEO) is a group of "business professionals, all of whom are under 40 years of age and are the owners, founders, co-founders, or controlling shareholders of a company with annual sales of $1 million or more." In many cities, this group represents the leading edge of high growth entrepreneurs. This group is clearly an economic bell-weather. In a recent poll of their membership, they found that 84 percent were planning on hiring in the next few months, and 11 percent indicated that they plan to hire at least 10 employees this year. Even more see growth in their companies over the next year, with 92 percent expecting sales to grow this year compared to last year.

Nader Update

To the six Tennessee liberals who read my blog: Jeff Blogworthy notes that Ralph Nader has successfully made it onto the ballot in Tennessee. That's not going to help Kerry, but Kerry has no realistic shot in Tennessee anyway.

Initial Reports

Les Jones has been doing some digging into the "after-action" reports that the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth claim were written by John Kerry about John Kerry in order to glorify John Kerry and get John Kerry an undeserved bronze star. Jones finds a bit of inconclusive evidence suggesting Kerry didn't write the after-action report after all. Les Jones doesn't work for Big Journalism. He's a blogger. Bloggers, apparently, now do what journalists used to do - dig for facts and report them.

The after-action report on the media's coverage of the campaign is going to find that bloggers repeatedly lead the way.

Karl Groves

Adam Groves is back blogging again after taking a break in order to work on a political campaign. Which means I've got to go put him back on the blogroll...

August 24, 2004

The Dog Days of August

John Kerry is having a horrible month because of his inept handling of questions surrounding his Vietnam service record, and the story isn't putting the Big Media in the best light, either. The Chicago Sun Times' John O'Sullivan dissects the mainstream media's attempts to protect John Kerry against the allegations of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and how the "freelance journalists" of the Internet (read: bloggers) pushed the story ahead anyway. Here's an excerpt, followed by my comments about the media's performance on this story, and the larger issue of John Kerry's Vietnam and post-Vietnam record.

Two weeks ago I pointed out that the main media outlets were ignoring the story that 254 swift boat veterans were accusing Sen. John Kerry of being, in effect, a liar and a blowhard. I doubted that this suppression could be sustained for long since free-lance journalists on the Internet were examining it - and uncovering what seemed like damaging evidence that at least some of the charges had substance.

It was sustained for exactly one week. Then the Kerry campaign quietly withdrew the senator's claim - a claim he had made repeatedly in speeches and articles for 20 years - that he had been on an illegal secret mission inside Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968. Kerry's admission was not reported the next day in either the New York Times or the Washington Post. True, the Post did carry an editorial supporting Kerry against the Swift Boat for Truth veterans. But it ignored the only new piece of news since that would have undermined the editorial's argument.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is a collection of 254 Vietnam veterans who served with Kerry. Last week, Big Media hyped a column written by Willam B. Rood, a Chicago Tribune editor who was a Swift Boat officer who served with Kerry. Rood's piece dismissed the SWVT's allegations as lies.

So, a question for the media: Why did you widely publicize Mr. Rood's account of events - the recollections of one veteran - as The Truth while dismissing the accounts of 254 other Vietnam veterans as partisan lies? Is it because Rood is a journalist? Or is it because his version of the story is the version you want the public to hear and accept as The Truth?

I don't know if John Kerry deserved all of his medals, though he surely deserved some of them and volunteering for service in any branch of the military at a time of war makes one a hero regardless of whether one serves in the combat zone or not.

The basic SBVT charge is that glorified himself in his after-action reports in order to win some undeserved medals, even to gain a third Purple Heart. If that's the case - if he sought an undeserved Purple Heart so he could get the automatic early exit from the war zone that one got for getting three Purple Hearts, John Kerry will to live with that on his conscience.

If John Kerry glorified himself in order to enlarge his platform from which to denounce the military and the government, and to enhance his credibility in organizing and leading a group of anti-war vets, he'll have to live with that, too.

If he tried to burnish his war-hero image with claims - now proven false - of having run guns and CIA agents into Cambodia, and of having been on a mission in Cambodia on Christmas Eve of 1968 (when the records and the testimony of numerous witnesses prove he was 50 miles inside Vietnam at Sa Dec), Kerry will have to answer for that lie to God.

But his actions after returning from Vietnam, slandering Vietnam vets as war criminals, he must answer for now. Most Vietnam veterans served honorably, and they did not deserve the kind of treatment given them by Kerry, one of their own.

John Kerry made his Vietnam service the centerpiece of his campaign and his primary rationale for asking voters to make him Commander in Chief. That opened the floodgates on three decades of pent-up anger at Kerry on the part of many Vietnam vets who believe he slandered and betrayed them once he came home from the war zone, and who believe his post-Vietnam political record of incessant hostility toward America's defense and intelligence services make him unfit for command.

"The contradictions of being a war hero and an anti-war hero," says O'Sullivan, "have finally caught up with him."

That's why the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth aren't going away.

Another Democratic Officeholder Endorses President Bush

Another Democratic politician - this one in the battleground state of Ohio - has endorsed President Bush, after getting in touch with reality:

The mayor of a Democratic stronghold in Ohio known for its steel industry job losses endorsed the Republican president Monday. George M. McKelvey, a Democrat in his second term, said he had no intention of becoming a Republican but might accept an invitation from Ohio Republicans to attend the Republican National Convention in New York.

In the 2000 presidential election, Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic nominee, received 69,212 votes to 40,460 for Bush in Mahoning County, which includes Youngstown. Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 5-1 ratio, according to the Mahoning County Board of Elections,

"What has our community received in return for the past loyal support for Democratic presidential candidates? Dare I speak the answer? Nothing," McKelvey said.

Half a Loaf

Today's Tennessean has an editorial about the Tennessee Tax Structure Study Commission that asserts that "it's not at all clear that opponents of the income tax are not represented on the commission" because the panel hasn't offered its recommendations yet. The editorial slams radio host and income tax opponent Steve Gill, who had the audacity to assert that the commission as structured is biased in favor of recommending an income tax, and asserts, wrongly, that Gill's presentation to the commission last week was "off topic" and didn't address "the central issue of where Tennessee gets revenues in the future." A few quick points in response:

The main culprit is not the state's tax code, but the state legislature and every governor from Lamar Alexander in the 1980s to Gov. Phil Bredesen today - all of them have repeatedly exceeded the state constitution's sensible and generous cap on annual spending growth. As I wrote back on July 22:

Every governor since Lamar Alexander in 1985 has exceeded the state constitution's limit on the annual growth of spending, by a cumulative first-year total of more than $3 billion - including this year by $105.1 million. Nor has the commission spent one day investigating how various governors - including current Gov. Phil Bredesen - routinely spend surplus revenue in a process that appears to circumvent the state constitution.

Instead of defending the commission against Gill's well-founded claim that the commission appears to be biased, The Tennessean would serve Tennessee taxpayers - and the commission itself - by urging the commisison to take a serious and fair look at the state's spending structure as well as its tax structure. The two are halves of a whole, and no report that looks at only half of the state's budget equation is very likely to produce a useful report.

No Record

The Tennessee Tax Structure Study Commission, in the news recently, has been holding a series of meetings for more than a year as it prepares to make a recommendation for reforming the state's tax structure. HobbsOnline has learned that there is no audio record of most of those hearings, only meeting "minutes" that are, by nature, incomplete.

Hearings held by most state legislative committees are commonly taped and the recordings are stored in the State Library and Archives. Meetings of the State Funding Board - the body that advises the legislature and governer each year with forecasts of economic and revenue growth - are taped.

Eileen Smith, executive director of the commission, responded to my email inquiring about getting a tape of the August 19 hearing, saying:

We do not have digital audio or video files. We have VHS copies of a few meetings - specifically meetings held the first quarter of 2003 as we awaited the appointment of additional members. Let me know if you're interested in those. ... The commission did not vote to record the proceedings. The Commission has been very sensitive about keeping its expenditures low.

The notion that taping the hearings would have been too costly is, frankly, absurd. A good digital audio recorder costs a few hundred dollars. The audio could have been stored on a PC hard drive, and uploaded to the website, at a total cost to the Commission of well under $1,000. The commission has probably spent more than that on coffee. It most assuredly spent more than that on travel.

But keeping a record of its meetings? Too costly.

August 23, 2004

Building Blocks of the Boom

Jeff Cornwall notes the good news in this report from vFinance Investments, Inc. (press release). vFinance says it's Entrepreneurial Confidence Index increased 13 percent in the second quarter of 2004 as compared to the first quarter of 2004 and is up "an impressive 33 percent from the same quarter a year ago."

Entrepreneurial confidence - the willingness to take a risk and start a business - is the essential building block of an economic boom. I think you're already seeing it in the strong growth in employment over the past year or so as shown by the government's Household Survey, which captures the growth of the small-business/home-based business/independent-contractor segment of the economy that the government's Payroll Survey of large employers misses. That's why the media reports sluggish job growth (based on the Payroll Survey) while the Bush Boom has lead America to the highest total employment in its history. Here's an excerpt from the vFinance report:

Analysis of the relationship between the ECI and the general economy indicates that this surge in entrepreneurial confidence reflects the strong increase in employment that began in the first quarter of 2004. When employment increases, confidence in the economy rises. Confident entrepreneurs are more willing to take the risk of starting a new business secure in the knowledge that if they fail they will be able to find employment. Thus, the climb in the ECI in the second quarter reflects the acceleration of employment growth seen in the first and second quarters. To the extent that this increase in interest is turned into actual new businesses, this process should become self-reinforcing. The new businesses that are created will hire more employees helping to generate healthy employment growth that will create an environment in which more potential entrepreneurs feel confident enough to strike out on their own.

USA! USA!

I must admit I'm rooting for the USA's Olympic basketball team - which Donald Sensing notes has made history by losing twice in one Olympiad - to lose again and again, so that they don't win a medal. C'mon, admit it. The thought of Allen Iverson having a gold medal, or even a silver or a bronze, makes you want to wretch, too.

Defense Spending Benefits More Than Just Halliburton

Jeff Cornwall points to some data showing that government spending on defense is good for small business. We already knew it was good for knocking off mass-murdering dictators and keeping us safe, so this is just bonus good news.

August 22, 2004

Hah!

Blogger Warren Smith emails:

Now that we know John Kerry did eight years naval reserve service, can we start calling for a full release of his reserve records, in order to see if he was ever AWOL?

August 20, 2004

Payback

John Kerry is learning that payback is what Sherman said war was.

Hugh Hewitt: "This is devastating. The day after John Kerry complains about having his war service questioned, the new ad underscores how Kerry did far worse to thousands of vets. Kerry built himself up over the years into a brave captain traveling deep into Cambodian waters to run guns, drop off SEALs and CIA men (hatless) etc. He did so after condemning a generation of soldiers and Marines as war criminals."

UPDATE: Kerry is showing his commitment to freedom of speech, while his campaign shows its disdain for censorship of dissent.

UPDATE 2: Instapundit documents how Kerry joined the anti-war movement while still serving as a U.S. Naval officer. If that's not treason, it's certainly betrayal.

Sparks Fly at Tax Study Commission

Tennessee has a "study commission," the Tax Structure Study Commission, that was created two years ago after then-Gov. Don Sundquist and his allies in the legislature failed to pass legislation creating an income tax. The commission was charged with studying the state's tax structure and determining how to reform it. Five of the commission's 19 members were appointed by Gov. Sundquist. Seven were appointed by House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, the Democrat wh