“Hello. My name is Jill Lawrence. I’m a jealous harpy and I hate Fred Thompson because he does not bow down to me.”
By now we should all be familiar with Roger Simon’s stunt. Fred Thompson, failing to bow down before Roger Simon, saw a campaign stop totally mischaracterized by Roger Simon. What was a light hearted moment turned into a moment of campaign ineptitude in Roger Simon’s eyes. Luckily the moment was caught on film and the world could see for itself that Roger Simon was full of crap.
It’s happened again.
Jill Lawrence, no doubt feeling slighted by the campaign for not getting a one on one with FDT, had her revenge in USA Today. She writes:
Bill Theobald of Gannett News Service … quotes [Fred Thompson] saying he doesn’t like modern campaigning, isn’t that interested in running for president and “will not be devastated” if he doesn’t win.
[Emphasis mine]
After putting that up, she had to correct herself when Bill Theobald told her she got it wrong.
Bill calls to clarify that Thompson said he doesn’t like the process of running for president but he does want to BE president.
Perhaps she could have gotten it right the first time. After all, it wasn’t even her own first hand reporting. She was reporting on what another reporter reported. Maybe if she didn’t feel her ego had been slighted by the Thompson campaign she would have tried to, you know, get it right the first time.
By the way, the Thompson camp was kind enough to send me a transcript so we can see for ourselves just how inaccurate Jill Lawrence’s third hand reporting was. The question was, “Do you want to be President?” Based on the question and just the first ten words, you’d think Jill Lawrence could have gotten it right:
The first place, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. I wouldn’t be doing this. I grew up in very modest circumstances. I left government and I and my family have made sacrifices to be sitting here today. I haven’t had any income for a long time because I figured to be clean, you’ve got to cut everything off. I was doing speaking engagements and I had a contract to do a tv show. I had a contract with ABC radio…and so forth. A man would have to be a total fool to do all those things and to be leaving his family which is not a joyful thing if he didn’’t want to do it. I am not consumed by personal ambition. I will not be devastated if I don’t do it. I want the people to have the best president they can have.
Merry Christmas
To each and every one of you.
Will Huck Make Money at Cornerstone Church?
I’m a bit troubled by information I have received this weekend on Mike Huckabee. A friend, troubled by Huckabee speaking at Cornerstone Church, given it’s pastor’s virulent anti-Catholicism, started digging around.
If you notice on his personal financial disclosures, Huckabee is racking up big bucks on the campaign trail speaking at churches. Now, he does this it seems, by funneling the speaking fees through his company, 12 Stops, Inc., which was named after Huckabee’s book From Hope to Higher Ground: 12 STOPS to Restoring America’s Greatness.
Even throughout this year, Huckabee has earned thousands and thousands of dollars speaking at places, usually religiously affiliated, via the International Speaker’s Bureau. All the money flows through 12 Stops, Inc.
So, here’s the thing. An email was sent to the International Speakers Bureau seeking to get a Huckabee speaking engagement. Here’s the response back:
“It yucky all day loan”
Evelyn is sick. Last weekend she threw up all weekend. Yesterday she got diarrhea. At about 3:50 this morning, Christy woke up with a migraine. She was on the verge of hurling. She took some advil migraine, which usually helps her, and went back to sleep.
At 5 o’clock this morning I heard Evelyn wake up. She was yelling down the hall for “Mommy.” After a minute or so of this she distinctly said “Mommy, change my diaper it dirty.” Then, and this is her new favorite saying for things she does not like, “Mommy, hurry. It yucky all day loan” translation: it’s yucky, all day long.
I jumped out of bed, headed into her room, and was greeted by the odor of well, see the third sentence. Evelyn was covered from chest to foot. I got her up, cleaned her up, got her in the bathtub, left her there for a minute to change her crib pad and throw it, her blanket, and clothes in the wash, then put her back to bed and carried out the mass of a formerly clean diaper.
And, for the record, I did it all without gagging or hurling.
It happened again at 10:15 this morning. We repeated the routine. At least this time Christy was awake and feeling better so she could get the bath going.
I must agree with Evelyn — it’s yucky all day long.
We need a fiscal conservative in the White House
With a hat tip to Lucid Idiocy, one of my favorite blogs by a non-political political reporter, here is the Heritage Foundations’ list of the top ten examples of government waste.
The documentation shows that the number 1 example is the $25 billion in unaccounted for expenditures within the federal government for 2003. Read that again. As Heritage notes:
The government knows that $25 billion was spent by someone, somewhere, on something, but auditors do not know who spent it, where it was spent, or on what it was spent. … The unreconciled $25 billion could have funded the entire Department of Justice for an entire year.
That was for 2003. For 2007 Travis Fain found a reference to $6.7 billion in “unreconciled transactions.” There’s also this from the GAO report:
For fiscal year 2007, federal agencies’ estimates of improper payments, based on available information, totaled about $55 billion. The increase from the prior year estimate of $41 billion was primarily attributable to a component of the Medicaid program reporting improper payments for the first time totaling about $13 billion for fiscal year 2007, which we view as a positive step to improve transparency over the full magnitude of improper payments.
Now consider the 3,417 page omnibus spending bill that Congress pushed forward on with only 46 hours and 8 minutes of review time.
We need a real fiscal conservative in the White House.
Today’s the Day
I get sworn in at 6 p.m. tonight. We’ll see how ugly things get in the vote for President and Pro Tempore.
A deal has been cut, though it’s not widely known. But I suspect that Miriam now has nine votes locked in for sure with two more I’m pretty sure about.
The counting votes game has been quite fun for me. I learned several years ago some basic techniques for doing it. It’s obviously not that hard, but what assumptions to make, etc. can be tricky — especially when being new to a body without really knowing a lot of them. But, I think i’ve talked now to just about every single one of them and have a very high degree of confidence that my count is right.
Hey Christy’s Bible Study!
Nintendo started out as a small family business more than a century ago making traditional Japanese playing cards, and has undergone difficult transitions in its business to survive. Since it started making videogame consoles, the company has seen its fortunes rise with its Nintendo Entertainment System in the 1980s, and then fall in the 1990s as it lost share to rivals Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp.Because Nintendo puts a great deal of focus on cash flow, it tries to keep its inventory as low as possible. Such a strategy is rare among Japanese companies, which have tended to focus on revenue growth and market share.
The old guys in the family were scared to make too many lest the company get back on the verge of bankruptcy.
Suck It, God Haters
I assume this is not true, but it strikes me as very funny.
A movie based on a children’s book with heavy religious subtext has sparked a major controversy this week. But not the one you think. Parents at a 12:50 showing of “The Golden Compass” in Fort Worth’s Eastchase district were both shocked and appalled to find that the movie was preceded by a trailer for the upcoming big-screen adaptation of the novel “Prince Caspian”, which some parents fear may cause their children to read a series that promotes spiritual belief and “denigrates Atheism.” “I just can’t believe this,” said Leah Jones, mother of three and proud atheist. “I can’t believe that they would allow children to be exposed to this kind of thing without warning!”
The Golden Compass, I’m sure you know by now, is the first of a multi-part trilogy of books by an atheist who hated the Narnia series and wanted to write a series about killing God.
This could be huge for FDT
Judge Pressler is endorsing him.
A former appeals court judge venerated in conservative circles for spearheading the movement’s takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention endorsed Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign Friday. The nod from former Texas judge Paul Pressler could provide a major boost for Thompson’s presidential run among social conservatives, especially in the early-voting state of South Carolina. In a release from the Thompson campaign, Pressler calls the former Tennessee senator “the consistent conservative in the presidential race” and “the most electable.” The statement says that Pressler is “revered among Southern Baptists as a warrior and hero.” Last month, Pressler questioned the conservative credentials of former Arkansas governor and current presidential contender Mike Huckabee, telling the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund that “I know of no conservative he appointed while he headed the Arkansas Baptist Convention.”
The Gun Story You Didn’t Hear About
Two days ago in Omaha, NE, tragedy struck in the form of a mentally unbalanced high schooler, craving the fame that only the headlines of the drive by media can give him, walked into a shopping mall and opened fire.
There are those out there who want to end the lawful possession of guns by citizens. And privately, I suspect, while they are disturbed by what happened in Omaha, they probably think it plays right into their message. How tragic it was, but how helpful it is to remind the Supreme Court of the need to neuter the Second Amendment.
Not getting anywhere near the national media attention because, well, no one was killed, is this story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution that happened the same day.
A crew of brazen thieves stole an arsenal of nearly 80 weapons from a Fayette County gun shop early Wednesday after using a stolen pickup truck to rip burglar bars from the front of the store. Security video showed that the six suspects were inside Autrey’s Armory on Bethea Road at West Fayetteville Road for only about 70 seconds during the 4 a.m. burglary, Fayette sheriff’s Lt. Belinda McCastle said. McCastle said the suspects, all wearing hooded sweatshirts that covered their faces, were very organized. “It appeared that each individual had an assigned task,” she said. “They did not fumble over each other, they went in, crashed the counters, swiped the weapons and boom, they were out of there.” Most of the 75 to 80 guns stolen were handguns manufactured by Glock and Sig Sauer, McCastle said. The thieves also stole a Springfield .308 semiautomatic rifle with a collapsible stock and bipod, she said.
This goes to the heart of the matter before the Supreme Court. While well meaning groups and the District of Columbia insist that private citizens should not have the right to keep and bear arms, criminals still stockpile weapons. Does anyone really think that a criminal is going to obey the law? If so, please look at Washington, D.C., at one time the homicide capital of America, despite it being against the law to possess firearms inside the District.
The tragedy in Omaha, NE is a reminder of what can happen when evil or crazy or both wraps fingers around a trigger. The crime in Atlanta should remind us that, however much we would love to confiscate all guns to avoid another Omaha or Columbine, the people most likely to gun us down when we are unable to defend ourselves are also least likely to surrender their own guns.