When you were in school did you ever wonder why you had to learn all that history? Rick Barber, a Republican candidate for Congress in Alabama, is a perfect example of why history is important. He has a video on his campaign site which attempts to connect his campaign to the Founders of this country. Apparently, Mr. Barber was not paying attention in history class. Of course is he went to school in Alabama who know what he might have been taught about American history.

Barber’s video has him talking to three actors playing President Washington, Samuel Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. He rails against the IRS, progressive income tax, and tyrannical government repressing small business. He calls Sam Adams a brewer and Washington a distiller—obviously they would understand his point of view.

Leave aside the fact that Samuel Adams was not a brewer (for a time he worked in his family’s malt business). Mr Barber has been watching to many TV commercials for Sam Adams Beer.

He is correct that George Washington had a distillery. Most plantations and large farms in early America has one. The ad has the Washington character saying “Gather your armies,” when Barber asks them “Are you with me?”

Where Mr. Barber goes off the track is he assumes Washington would rise up in rebellion if the government taxed small businesses. If you payed attention in history class you know exactly what Washington would do, in fact what he did, when distillers resisted paying taxes to the central government.

In 1794 the federal government needed revenue and imposed a tax on distilled spirits. The farmers in western Pennsylvania and other places resisted the tax. It was called the Whiskey Rebellion. What did President Washington do? He sent the Army to suppress the rebellion and arrest rebels. It was the only time in American history when the President lead troops in the field.

Unfortunately for Mr. Barber if President Washington said “raise your armies” it would be to crush the tax rebellion not to support it. If you do not know history you make stupid statements where the facts are well known. It would be less embarrassing if he had not raised the issue of taxes on distilleries.

Of course, Mr Barber says his commercial is misunderstood. “They need to not look so deep into things,” Barber said, “It’s definitely not an inciteful call to arms.” Maybe it isn’t, but if you are going to claim the Founders support your cause make sure history is on your side.

I am glad to report the Democratic voters of Pennsylvania made their wishes known on May 18th, 2010. Despite Senator Specter being supported by all the leaders of the Democratic Party at both the federal and state level, he lost to Joe Sestak. The Primary was marred by attack ads by Senator Specter on Joe Sestak’s naval career and record in the House of Representatives.

Joe Sestak is a retired Navy Vice Admiral. He is the highest ranking military officer to ever serve in Congress. The attack on Admiral Sestak backfired. It angered most veterans so much that they worked hard for Sestak.

Senator Specter turned Democrat solely because he would lose the Republican Primary to Pat Toomey. He had a reputation for bucking the Republicans. However, his voting record endeared him to few voters of either party. In the end, his change of party to save only one job, his own, did not work.

This is the third installment of my blog posts about Senator Specter’s “No Show Joe” advertisement. I had to do some research for this one.

Senator Specter claims Representative Joe Sestak missed 127 votes. I can neither confirm nor deny that statement. Unlike Senator Specter, I do not have the staff and the direct access to the database of the Clerk of the House of Representatives to count the votes. All I could do was go to the web site of the Clerk of the House of Representative and check the votes on the few specific days the ad listed.

I checked and printed the roll call for every vote on those days unless Senator Specter listed a specific bill for a date. I came up with 29 votes which I could identify in this manner.

Of the 29 votes 11 were unanimous votes.
Near unanimous votes were 11. I defined near unanimous as any vote where 5 or fewer House Members voted against a bill or resolution.
There were 9 votes where a bill or resolution was contested but passed.
There were 2 votes for bills or motions which failed.

First let me take the two votes which failed. One was a motion to adjourn the House. It failed mainly because most Democrats voted against adjournment.

The other vote which failed was on a more important issue. On January 18, 2009 there was a series of votes on the budget for the Departments of Commerce and Justice and for related agencies,most of the votes were on amendments. The vote which failed to pass the total Ayes was 165 and Noes 245. But please note 236 of the Noes were Democrats.

Among the Unanimous Votes were such vital issues as a resolution to “Commend the Real Salt Lake soccer club for winning the 2009 Major League Soccer Cup.” Another unanimous vote was a resolution for the “Korean War Veterans Recognition Act.” That vote was 421 to 0. Do not misunderstand I am a Korean War veteran myself but this was a symbolic resolution with no real world impact. Finally, there was a 423 to 0 vote “Recognizing the historical and national significance of the many contributions of John William Heismen to the sport of football.”

Not one of the votes which Senator Specter listed would have been changed if Representative Sestak would have been present and voting. Are there votes which would have been changed if Representative Sestak had voted? I do not know because the Senator gives no information. I do not even know what period of time the 127 votes refers to.

Senator Specter has a staff and access to the database of the Clerk of the House of Representatives. If there are votes of real importance, not things like recognizing National Dairy Month another one I did not list above, provide me with the dates and bill number. Without more information I have to assume this saying Joe Sestak missed 127 votes is just another smear on the reputation of an honorable man.

I suspect most of you have seen Senator Arlen Specter’s television ad “No Show Joe” by now. In case you are like me and do not have a television you can view the video on the web site Senator Specter set up to go with the ad.

There are so many problems with the ad and its web site that I cannot address them all here. For right now I will only address the most scurrilous claim in the ad. I will address some of the other issues in another blog post. They are unrelated to the subject of this post. Read the rest of this entry »

I just got home from the Vice-President’s rally for Senator Specter. It was a great time and the little band of veterans we rounded up at the last minute accomplished our purpose.

Our little group of veterans probably could not have achieved more at the rally if we had 100 people there. We did not think we would be able to get into the rally. The newspaper had said you had to get a ticket from Senator Specter’s office yesterday. As the woman issuing the tickets told me when I ask, due to a communications problem not as many people as expected could come. Basically they were desperate for any warm bodies. Read the rest of this entry »

To the Editors:

Atlantic Magazine published a special issue recently on the future prospects of the US. The conclusion of James Fallows, a regular contributor who has spent years in China and other countries, is that our prospects are better than any other country on earth if we can solve one problem, the way our government is working. Most letter writers who have been printed in these pages would agree, I believe, with that assessment.

When I was walking the streets campaigning for election candidates in the past couple of years, the people I spoke with agreed that the lack of honesty and integrity in governing officials is what upsets them most. I think the two perceptions are connected.

Democratic governing can only happen through good faith bargaining and if duplicity and selfish maneuvering takes priority over commitment to the common good, governing itself grinds down to short-sighted positioning based on the latest polls and powerful influences. The far-sighted and often hard choices that constitute good governing just doesn’t happen. I think many would agree that is our current situation.

I am sending to both political parties in the county a modest document to address that situation. It is a Pledge to Voters for candidates to ascribe to. It promises truth-telling and giving priority to the common good, both current and future.

The pledge is general and abstract. It’s hard to imagine anyone who could disagree with it. That is the starting point, where we all agree. But by putting this point of agreement into words and repeating those words over and over, slipping into evasive and self-serving patterns of behavior becomes a little less common. And little by little our level of political discourse should rise to a more cooperative confrontation of the serious dangers to our common welfare.

I ask the readers to urge your party and the candidates to speak the pledge at the beginning of every public presentation. Don’t accept the protest “I already do that all the time.” Insist on the pledge being spoken because unspoken assumptions are more easily ignored. Here is the pledge.

My Pledge to Voters

By electing me to office you the people bestow on me your trust in my integrity and dedication, Therefore I hereby commit myself:

1. to support and advance democracy and the Constitution;
2. to speak and promote truth even while leading citizens to support the common welfare;
3. to put the common welfare, both current and future, ahead of the welfare of any individual or group;
4. to conscientiously discharge the duties of my office;
5. to model good citizenship;
6. to acknowledge when I fall short of these commitments;
7. to practice these principles both during campaigning for election and during my term of service if I am elected.

John Rose

On CNN’s Larry King Live Former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge said of the would be Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab:

I take a look at this individual who has been charged criminally, does that mean he’s going to get his Miranda warnings?

Does that mean the only kind of information we want to get from him is if he volunteers it. He’s not a citizen of this country. He’s a terrorist, and I don’t think he deserves the full range of protections of our criminal justice system embodied in the Constitution of the United States. (emphasis added)

So Tom Ridge, our former governor, is the person who determines whether a person is a terrorist. That is great news since the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is in such financial straits due to the Bush recession. We can disband all the courts in the state and save billions of dollars a year paying judges, juries, and other court costs. All we have to do is get Ridge to come back to Pennsylvania and pay him $50 million a year to decide the innocence and guilt of every accused person.

I wonder why Tom Ridge never displayed this super power when he was governor? I worked for the state when Ridge was governor; I never realized I worked for God. I wonder if Governor Ridge can use his divine powers to hold the “criminals” in suspended animation or something until he declares they are reformed or he sends them to hell. That way we can eliminate all prisons and save even more billions.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Jonathan Turley Takes on Tom Ridge’s Hackery (videocafe.crooksandliars.com)
• Tom Ridge: Terror suspect doesn’t deserve ‘full range’ of rights (cnn.com)

I found the blog was down when I tried to post an article earlier today. Luckily I had a backup of the blog so I managed to restore all the users and articles after reinstalling the WordPress software. I do not think the blog was off-line for very long. I was working on it last week. I think something went wrong when one of the plugins updated.

If anyone has problems with the blog in the future contact John Harvey, the Blog Master.

HuffingtonPost reports yet anther ethics complaint against Sarah Palin. Andree McLeod, obtained obtained emails and records through a Freedom of Information request for the period after Palin was named Vice-Presidential candidate. The records indicate Palin’s staff used state resources for political purposes during the period.

While the ethics complaint may be interesting, it is just another charge against an official who resigned to avoid impeachment. The real story to me is the subject of the emails and messages going between Palin’s staff and the McCain campaign. Bill McAllister, a communications aide to the governor, sent an email to the McCain campaign asking for guidance about what Palin’s position should be on abortion and sex education.

I need to verify what’s being said on the governor’s behalf regarding two social issues," McAllister writes. "On abortion, she is pro-life, but does she oppose exceptions for rape and incest? On sex education, does she favor an abstinence-only approach or does she allow for contraceptives? [Emphasis added]

The email does not ask what position the campaign wants Palin to take. It asks what her position is. This seems to indicate that even Palin’s aides did not know what her position was on hot button social issues. Or they were willing to say anything the campaign wanted them to say about issues on which the candidate had already spoken. An even more troubling implication is that Sarah Palin is willing to say anything to get elected.

I was glad to hear that HR 2454, The American Clean Energy and Security Act had passed in the House of Representatives. However, I was very disappointed to learn that Tim Holden had voted against the bill.

I would suggest that you concider doing what I did. Go to Tim’s web site. Send an email using the form. In addition to expressing your reaction, ask what would have to change for him to vote for the bill if it passes in the Senate. Do not just criticize ask what we can do to change his mind. What would Tim Holden need from Senators Specter and Casey?