Sleepless in Midland

Bill Ayers missed the mark at University of Illinois

The former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers recently had his bid for emeritus status at University of Illinois rejected leaving many of us wondering whether UI had finally seen the light of day. But no, not exactly.

Paul Kengor explains it in Obama's Prairie Fire Companion.

It seems that Ayers dedicated his 1974 book "Prairie Fire" to Bobby Kennedy's killer, Sirhan Sirhan. Unfortunately for Ayers, Bobby's son, Christoper Kennedy, happened to be on the university board of trustees. And Mr. Kennedy was able to garner enough support to keep Ayers from getting the emeritus appellation.

It was probably a challenge for Mr. Kennedy to reach take that position, but for whatever it's worth, at least it proves that blood is thicker than the effluence of radical leftism.

Mr. Kengor provides a pretty good review of the history of Barack Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers. Read the whole thing at Obama's Prairie Fire Companion. And before we jump to conclusions, recall that Obama was oblivious to Ayers' radical past since the book was written long before Ayers became his mentor. At least that's what Obama told us, anyway.

Fear shuts down Lone Star Times blog

Bloggers all across the country are following the mess created by the Righthaven lawsuits. If anyone doesn't know, Righthaven LLC is the company established for the purpose of recruiting clients and suing bloggers for copyright infringement. It's a nasty, nasty business, and Righthavenlawsuits.com was set up to counter that nastiness.

But now we learn about a victim that didn't even get sued but is shutting down for fear of being sued. Lone Star Times was a great blog, and it's sure to be missed by its many fans. But it's bye bye. Here's what they say:

The proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back” however recently came in the form of our growing awareness of the legal uncertainty and jeopardy faced by bloggers being sued in mass-fashion over questionable copyright claims. See here and here for more information, if you want to learn more.

Put simply, from a risk/reward standpoint even the remote possibility of getting entangled in this type of mess wasn’t worth it. The time to pull the plug had arrived.

What's needed is a clarification in the copyright legislation of just what "fair use" means. But that would require a Congress with the people's interest at heart. The matter will probably take years to resolve through litigation. And in the meantime, there will be a hole where Lone Star Times once stood so proudly.

Texas bank welcomes concealed carry customers

These photos came by way of email and purport to show the sign in the window of Chappell Hill Bank in Chappell Hill, Texas, a community on U.S. 290 between Houston and Austin.

NOTICE
LAWFUL CONCEALED CARRY
PERMITTED ON THESE PREMISES
Management recognized the
Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
as an unaliienable [sic] right of all citizens.
We therefore support and encourage
the carrying of licensed concealed weapons.

KBTX.com says the bank was robbed in March, and the bank President, Edward Smith, believes that expressing his support of the 2nd amendment this way may serve as a deterrent. Hey, it couldn't hurt.

Thanx sis.

Judge strikes down anti-prostitution laws in Ontario

The judge based the ruling on the safety issue. The law made the prostitutes vulnerable to violent crimes because it forced them to hide from the police. Judge: "I find that the danger faced by prostitutes greatly outweighs any harm which may be faced by the public." Makes sense. Link.

A higher court will probably have the last word on this, but should it hold, this will be a good test of the free market principle that fewer regulations result in lower prices.

Give her an office in Roswell, anyway

The other day we chortled at the reports that Mazlan Othman had been appointed by the United Nations to be the Earth ambassador in the event of extraterrestrial visitation.

But, it turned out to be a hoax.

Too bad. Maybe some of the smart entrepreneurs in Roswell, NM, can set up a ceremonial office for her there, anyway. Heck, maybe she could have her own float at the next UFO festival.

So as of now, Ms. Othman will have to go back to examining the risks of near earth asteroids, and we'll go back to laughing at the UN because it's a tired old institution verging on senility.

Robert Gibbs Tweets, too

The thing that drew me to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' Twitter page was the post on Sophos blog about how his Twitter account got hijacked with the onMouseOver worm. Here's Mr. Gibb's reaction:

My Twitter went haywire - absolutely no clue why it sent that message or even what it is...paging the tech guys... 5:35 AM Sep 21st via web

Give the guy some slack, others got suckered in, too.

But take a look at the whole page. Maybe this is what is expected of Obama's press secretary, but all he does is link to favorable articles about Democrats and unfavorable articles about Republicans, sometimes with a "WOW."

And this:

POTUS to American students: nothing is beyond your reach if you're willing to dream & work hard to attain it http://bit.ly/cJOOkL 7:15 AM Sep 14th via web

Ah ha! That's it. Gibb is using his Twitter page to promote that message by demonstrating to students that they could perform this function of press secretary as well as the current job holder.

We could always privatize the public library

The citizens of Midland, Texas, are patiently waiting for the library board and staff to implement some of the changes recommended by the outside consultant. See Commissioners to assess library staff wants before replacing director.

If they can't agree, here's a way: privatization. (Idea via Carpe Diem.)

It works in other cities. Library Systems & Services, LLC is a company that manages libraries, and they've got a long list of communities in which they run the libraries. Most of them are in California, however three are in Texas: Leander, Red Oak and San Juan.

The company starts by cleaning house. Read a NYT article about it here to see what that means. Or to bypass the NYT, click here.

Timothy Carney on C-SPAN

Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner was a guest on C-SPAN's Washington Journal the other day, and he quite likely gained some new fans from fiscal conservatives who have grown dissatisfied with the Republican party.

A caller complained about corporate subsidies, and what follows is a homemade transcript of Mr. Carney's answer:

Corporate welfare should be the easiest target for Republicans to go after. There are hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare that the congress lays out over the decades. That they've got government agencies explicitly set up to subsidize corporations. The Export Import Bank is one of them, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the research and development tax credits or windmill tax credits that really take the form of checks directly to companies like General Electric and [unintelligible]. And say "look, this stuff is corporate welfare," and we are going to end and make the Democrats stand up for, well, the reason we need to give these checks to General Electric, who spends more on lobbying than any other company, is because it's good for the -- make the Democrats defend their corporate welfare.

Republicans could gain some populist points as well as burnish their image of trying to cut spending. So I agree with you, I think the fact that the Republicans are basically leaving them alone shows they might be closer to their K Street friends than conservative principles .

Emphasis added. Watch the show here. The portion transcribed begins at about the 29 minute mark.

He could have thrown farm subsidies in there too. But what are the odds that the old guard Republicans would consider serious reform? Not high when there is so much money at stake, and that's a simply explanation for why so many voters want new people representing them.

In the meantime, we'll have to wait for the required fund raising report to find out how much money Texas District 11 Representative Mike Conaway reeled in from his fund raiser in Washington D.C. last week.

Houston Voter Fraud

They saw things at the poll that shocked them, so they decided to look into the actual voter registrations. They organized volunteers and with 30 donated computers, the group called True the Vote made some astonishing revelations.

“The first thing we started to do was look at houses with more than six voters in them" [Catherine] Engelbrecht said, because those houses were the most likely to have fraudulent registrations attached to them. "Most voting districts had 1,800 if they were Republican and 2,400 of these houses if they were Democratic . . .

"But we came across one with 24,000, and that was where we started looking."

See full article at Foxnews.com.

It happened to be a poor black neighborhood, and the Democrat reactions seemed to come from a template. For example, Contempt for Democracy - attacks on voting rights. But the voter rolls contained people who were registered as many as six times, underaged, or who identified themselves as non-citizens.

Most of the questionable voter registrations were secured by a group called Houston Votes -- Harris County report pdf -- which was headed by a fellow who was employed by the Service Employees International Union and which is a voter registration arm of Texans Together. See Houston Chronicle.

The Harris County voter registrar turned the information over to the district attorney, and one can only hope that the Harris County D.A. will serve the public better than U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has done in the realm of protecting the vote.

Added: Is voting too difficult? No, it's very easy, and some are trying to make it even easier. Turbovote, for example, is raising money to set up a program that will do practically everything for the voter. They compare it to Netflix. Once the project is fully funded the voter in one of the 29 states which allows no-excuse mail-in ballots can sign up, and they'll mail an absentee ballot to the voter with a prepaid stamped envelope for mailing to the appropriate registrar.

Ascension, Mexico -- kidnappers grab girl, citizens take chase, RIP kidnappers

In the midst of lawlessness it's inevitable that citizens will eventually take the law in their own hands.

Accounts vary, but this seems to be the essence of the story. Six kidnappers grabbed a teenage girl from her family's restaurant in Ascension, Mexico, which is about 100 miles South of the U.S. border in the state of Chihuahua. Citizens chased after them. And when it was all over, two of the kidnappers were dead, one escaped, three were in custody, and 12 Ascension police officers were fired.

Read this fascinating story at NPR and Mexican Trucker Online.

In the meantime, the newspaper El Diario de Juarez cowers in fear of drug lords.

Personalized billboards

The day is coming when someone walking through a store might get an advertisement directed specifically to that person, sort of like this one from the movie "Minority Report."

But that's in the future. For now they only recognize the shopper's age and sex and then deliver an ad based on what the camera saw. See Japanese billboard recognises age and gender. Excerpt:

Equipped with a camera that snaps a picture of the peering customer, the computer digs into a database of more than 10,000 patterns to accurately determine the gender and approximate age of the individual. With that info, the billboard can then show off a targeted advert, appropriate for the viewer.

Luckily, the facial recognition software still hasn't been perfected to identify us with more specificity.

Segregation block by block

This would have been very painstaking if done by hand. But whatever the method, the results are maps of cities showing race diversity on a block by block basis using U.S. Census data. Check it out at this Flickr spread showing maps of 102 U.S. cities.

Via FastCompany.com via LinkFilter.net.

Tea Parties make Larry Kudlow bullish

Larry Kudlow thinks the new crop of candidates rising to the top due to Tea Party support is bullish for America. Quote:

Free-market capitalism is on the comeback trail. That’s one of the key tea-party messages. And make no mistake about it: The free-market power of the tea-party political revolt is totally bullish for stocks and the economy.

In short, this is a revolution.

The political elites in both parties don’t get it. Nor do the mainstream media. But the tea-party movement is stopping Obamanomics dead in its tracks. And it will overturn the Keynesian big-government planning effort now in full force in our nation’s capital. The tea parties are Reaganism reincarnate, and then some. ...

In other words, this is not going to be your father’s Congress. Nor is it going to be your father’s Republican party. The party of George W. Bush and George H. W. Bush is about to be totally transformed. Constitutional spending limits. Low flat-tax rates. Slam-downs on budget baselines. Pitchforks maybe, but not pork.

He's not the first to make these observations, but they deserve repeating. See A Bullish Tea Party Revolt.

ARP, a conservative challenge to the AARP

We all know about AARP. They seem to put prospective retirees on their junk mail list about the same time said prospective retirees get old enough to legally buy liquor. And AARP's involvement in crafting ObamaCare to their own benefit has drawn some intense criticism. The field may seem ripe for competition, and along comes a new group which hopes to compete for the same customers. It's the Alliance for Retirement Prosperity, or ARP.

The founder, Lawrence Hunter, was a guest on C-SPAN this morning talking about it -- watch it here. But the really frightening aspect of his talk was his prediction about ObamaCare. Adapted transcript:

The supporters of ObamaCare, who by the way did not get what they wanted, they got this sort of Rube Goldberg device that nobody likes. And everybody knows, and I will say this categorically, everybody knows that if this plan is implemented as written into law it will collapse. And what's going to happen early on is people are going to recognize that and people are going to be clamoring to fix it, and you can believe that Nancy Pelosi and company are going to be right there with what? The public option. That's where this is going to take us. It's failure by design.

Sharp words indeed. He says everybody knows it, so if we didn't know it before, we do now.

When a criminal record is expunged the ghost may linger forever

If a criminal conviction has been expunged and for which there should be no criminal record, should it disappear from the rest of the world?

The tsunami of political awareness that is sweeping across the nation has scared plenty of politicians. And some who feel vulnerable are going nasty on their opponents. So what else is new? They've always been nasty.

This post isn't about politics but was inspired by a nasty political campaign in 2007 that resulted in a hearing before the Supreme Court of New Jersey last week. Via Law Blog.

Here are the facts. A political consultant discovered that G.D., a former aid to an opponent in a primary, had been convicted of some drug charge in 1993. But the conviction had been expunged although the consultant claimed not to know that.

So the Hudson County Democratic Organization caused a flier to be distributed. Law.com says this:

The first flyer ran, "It's the company you keep. And the sleazy crowd Brian Stack surrounds himself with says a lot about who Stack is. Coke dealers and ex-cons. [G.D.] is also a drug dealer who went to jail for five years for selling coke near a public school."

The second flyer said, "We all know the threat that drugs and illegal guns have in our communities. But not Brian Stack. He continues to surround himself with one shady character after another -- not one but two convicted drug dealers and ex-cons."

The flyers were sent out to about 8,000 households.

G.D. sued for libel due to his record being expunged in 2006 although the NJ Department of Corrections did not remove the information from its website until after the suit was filed. Truth is a defense to a libel suit. And the defendants' position was that they published the flyers without knowledge of the expungement, and besides, the conviction really did occur.

The defendants filed motions for summary judgment and to dismiss. The motions were denied. The defendants appealed and won. From the Appellate ruling:

Defendants contend that because the information contained in the flyers is true, it cannot support a defamation claim. Plaintiff, on the other hand, contends that defendants are not entitled to rely on the defense of truth in light of the fact that his conviction was expunged. For the following reasons, we agree with defendants in both respects.

So G.D. took it up a notch to the NJ Supreme Court. You can hear the oral arguments in G.D. v. Kenny, A-85-09,  here. (After 30 days it should be available here.)

If you've read this far, you've probably concluded that G.D.'s case is probably a goner and that the Supreme Court of NJ will side with the defendant. And that seems consistent with reality in this day of dwindling privacy and ubiquitous databases filled with private information. Someone's got a dossier on each of us. Expunging a criminal conviction may serve a purpose, and though privacy groups don't like it, nothing will make a conviction disappear.

Annie Oakley volunteered lady sharpshooters in case of war with Spain

Government archives online provide some some fun facts and and fascinating history.

For example, in 1898, Annie Oakley wrote a letter to President McKinley expressing her confidence that he could avoid war with Spain, but in case of such an event she offered to send 50 lady sharpshooters to assist. Every one would be an American, and by providing their own arms and ammo it would be of little expense to the government.

A loyal American, a great shot, and a cost conscious citizen -- what a gal!

Ferreting out Nuclear traitors

The Department of Justice has come under considerable criticism, and rightly so, for turning a blind eye to voter intimidation and fraud.

But they may have done something right when they nabbed a man and woman who, it is alleged, wanted to sell nuclear weapons secrets from the Los Alamos National Laboratory to agents of Venezuela.

But it was a sting by undercover FBI agents pretending to be Venezuelan spies. Here's the DOJ news release. Via NewsRealBlog.

A sting operation is a tricky thing with the sinister aspect being that they might lure someone into doing something the person might not have done without the enticement the stinger dangles in front of him. But in the field of nuclear armament we can't take chances. And hopefully a sting like this may create such a distrust of real spies that the potential traitor decides not to take the chance.

A sports reporter's asset

So a sexy woman interviewed young male athletes, sexual tensions arose, and someone made a remark. It was Ines Sainz of TV Azteca who probably got more than a glance from every heterosexual male in the arena when she showed up to conduct interviews of New York Jets players the other day.

But someone is alleged to have used "inappropriate language," and that unleashed a storm of political correctness. However, it was other women who complained. Why? Because she's on the job in a competitive business and has a cosmetic advantage. Her competitors want to strip away that advantage. It's like the futuristic short story from years ago in which anyone with a talent was given a handicap so that everyone would be equal.

Call it multiculturalism and give the gal a break. She's merely doing the jobs Americans won't do.

Post Script: Did you see the word "asset" and think of Ms. Sainz's gluteus maximus? Shame on you. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Greenspan for higher taxes

CFR.org has the video, and blogs.wsj.com provides a summary:

Greenspan said that the U.S. needs to do something now to deal with budget deficits and it must do something very soon. He explained his anxiety is so high that "I'm coming out in the first time in my memory" in support of higher taxes in addition to reduced spending, including allowing the so-called Bush tax cuts to expire.

Via Future of Capitalism.

Anyone who isn't on the receiving side of government spending has to be holding out hope for a reduction of the budget deficit as well as a reduction of the overall debt the nation faces. But the problem with Mr. Greenspan's proposition is that higher taxes generally don't result in higher revenues. But even if it were true, there is no guarantee that any revenue gained from higher taxes will be used to reduce the deficit. Instead, the government we have is borrowing money and distributing it to favored constituents. Any increased revenue due to higher taxes, should there even be an increase in revenue, would simply go down that same hole.

Greenspan did a pretty good job as Fed chairman, give or take a few glitches.  But among the things included in Mr. Greenspan's legacy is his encouragement of home buyers to get adjustable rate mortgages. His prescription for higher taxes during a recession could even top that.

Early air travel on the desk top computer

A little Fall cleaning project uncovered the instruction manual for Flight Simulator, a game that kept me occupied for hours many years ago. And I mean many years ago, like mid 80s, in the early days of desk top computering.

Check out the minimum computer requirement -- a PC, PC Jr., or PC XT with at least 128kb memory. It was even better if you had a color monitor. Those were the days when floppy disks really were floppy.

Microsoft has put out newer versions of the software, but the next version I got was Combat Flight Simulator which dispensed with all the real life flying simulation and sent you back to a WWII dogfight in the European theater. So the ace is up there in his P51minding his own business, and dead ahead is a pack of nasty Nazi Luftwaffe planes coming straight at him. Lock and load!

Hey, while we're talking about WWII warbirds, the CAF Airsho is coming up on October 9 & 10, 2010.

"Here you have" worms

This computer virus was roaming all over the internet last week via emails to everyone in Outlook address books on contaminated computers. Mathew J. Schwartz tells about it in Cisco Pinpoints 'Here You Have' Worm's Virulence. We've all learned not to open attachments from strangers, but these appeared to have come from someone the recipient knew. Chilling.

But at least the text of the emails had some tells. Zdnet.com describes an example:

The worm, which uses the subject line “here you have” and random text like “This is The Free Dowload Sex Movies,you can find it Here,” includes a link to what purports to be a PDF document but is instead an executable file hosted on a Web site.

It came from a hacker named "iraq_resistance" of the cyber-jihad organization called "Brigades of Tariq ibn Ziyad," according to the aforementioned article by Mr. Scwartz. The hacker takes credit in a youtube video which declares by computer voice that "the U.S. does not have the right to invade our people and steal the oil under the name of nuclear weapons." He concludes with "I hope the world understands I am not a negative person. Thanks for publishing." He's a little too hasty with the "thanks." People thinking of him as a "negative person" should be the least of his worries now that he's drawn a target on his own back.

Obama tries to make it OK to ridicule people about their skin color

Most of us would never do that. We learned as children not to make fun of someone because of their skin color. We grew up knowing it was wrong. And when we hear someone else do it we're repulsed by it.

So if charges of "racism" get thrown at us they bounce right off because we know they are false. We got our immunization from years of treating people the same without regard to race.

But then there's President Obama, out there trying to isolate and ridicule John Boehner -- see Alinsky's Rules for Radicals for Dummies. And of all things, he's picking on Boehner's skin color. But it didn't just start recently. This link to Obama's May 10, 2009, White House Correspondent's Association Dinner speech has been on my blogging "to do" list for over a year. And here it is, straight from the horses mouth:

In the next hundred days, our bipartisan outreach will be so successful that even John Boehner will consider becoming a Democrat. After all, we have a lot in common. He is a person of color. (Laughter.) Although not a color that appears in the natural world. (Laughter.) What's up, John? (Laughter.)

Most of us still abide by the rules. No, not Alinsky's rules, the rules of decorum. The rules of civil society. Jokes about skin color are still off limits.

But hey, what about that next 100 days, Mr. Obama? That "bipartisan outreach" must have reached so far out there we couldn't even see it.

Bill White's run for Texas governor sans party ID

I had to chuckle while reading Eric Kalenak's letter to the editor in today's print edition of the Midland Reporter-Telegram when he pointed out that Bill White's web page, www.billwhitefortexas.com, doesn't disclose that Mr. White is running as a Democrat. That nondisclosure had to have been poll tested. And it really demonstrates how Democrats running for office these days must think they have to run from the Democratic Party.

Actually, if you spend some time at the press and news archives section of Mr. White's website you can find links to external headlines that have the word "Democrat" in it. So we can't say he avoided it entirely. But he sure isn't bragging about it.

We've certainly seen a shift in attitude since those days in 2008 when Democrat candidates were riding the coattails of hope and change.

Motorcycle crash as seen through helmet cam

There probably isn't a normal male living on earth who hasn't owned or wanted to own a motorcycle. Eventually, the realization hits most of them that vehicles do bump into one another, and a fender bender in a car could be a crippling accident on a motorcycle.

Anyway, check out this 50 second video as seen from a helmet camera. The fun starts at about the 47 second mark. Then some post action still shots can be seen here.

One more reason to distrust Smiling Bob

You'll remember Smiling Bob, the guy on the TV commercials with the silly grin and the swooning ladies trying to sell Enzyte, the "male enhancement."

We've written about that before, see So That's Why Smiling Bob was Smiling noting the criminal charges that resulted from the Enzyte operation.

And now, via the Illinois Poison Center Blog, we learn that the drug could even be harmful.

A study cited in the article concluded that it lengthened the QT interval, the time it takes the heart to get ready to accept the next electrical charge telling it to beat again. In a healthy person it may not matter, but for someone with an already long QT interval due to age, disease or drug interaction, it could cause arrhythmia.

So what does Smiling Bob do if he experiences arrhythmia? Well, he could cough hard to try to remain conscious for a few seconds and hope the arrhythmia quits on its own. But that's a iffy situation. See Cough CPR for more.

Or he can hope that one of those lovely companions knows CPR.

Disclaimer: While I try to be as accurate as possible, I'm a blogger, not a doctor. So don't take any of this as medical advice, whether it's to stop arrhythmia or enhance a male, and do your own research before trying this at home.

Why I'm against the 9/11 Koran burning

The reason there are so many people against the Ground Zero Mosque is because it would thumb its nose at anyone who felt any pain on that day, 9/11/2001, for as long as the structure remains. It would be a victory celebration for the other side.

Florida preacher Terry Jones' Koran burning proposal is a nose thumbing right back at them, with a flame to boot.

Both the Ground Zero Mosque supporters and Preacher Jones should just back off and quit trying to infuriate the other side.

Bloggers of all stripes have weighed in against it, but here's my own twist. If the preacher goes ahead and burns some Korans, the MSM will rebroadcast it to high heaven with fingers wagging and tongues clucking. And should there be another terrorist attack, that preacher will get the blame, not the terrorists or the misguided religious zeal that inspired them, but that preacher.

And then there's President Obama. Being the shrewd politician that he is, he would use any attack to focus attention on those who don't agree with him. And we know the Tea Parties, the biggest thorn in Mr. Obama's side, will get thrown in mix, too.

As someone once said, never let a crisis go to waste. We should focus on cutting off Mr. Obama's ammo supply, not providing him with more.

Updated 4:59 pm: Jones cancels Koran burning. Mosque still on.

Henry Hill ain't dead yet?

Henry Hill was the real life good fella played by Ray Liotta in "Goodfellas," the movie that's been on TV almost as many times as "It's a Wonderful Life."

The movie took us through Hill's criminal career and ended as he went into the witness protection program after his testimony sent several Mafia characters to the pen. And apparently he has outlived all his old mobster pals. But that doesn't mean he's home free. The Telegraph says he's still living and still hiding although he's been out of the program for over 20 years. (Via Newmarks Door.)

According to the article, he manages to go to Vegas every six weeks to play the slots. And heaven only knows how he supports himself. He's established that he can tell a good story, but his art on ebay? I dunno.

I wonder what ever happened to Jimmie Two Times, Jimmy Two Times.

Added later: My favorite part of "Goodfellas" is when Liotta as Hill woes his new girlfriend with an evening at a club at which everyone knows him, he throws around a lot of money, and he gets the best table in the house. "What do you do?" she asks. "Construction," he answers. She feels his hands and says, "They're too soft for construction work." "I'm a union rep," he says, and that's all the explanation she needs.

Chardonnay, Merlot or Cabernet? The Mike Conaway fundraiser.

It's a wine tasting fundraiser for Texas District 11 Congressman Mike Conway on September 23, 2010, in Washington, D.C.

My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail. Yours too? You won't find it at Conaway For Congress either. No problem, here it is at PoliticalPartyTime.org. Expected contribution levels: $2,500 Cabernet Level; $1,000 Merlot Level; $500 Chardonnay Level. RSVP to Amber. Wine glass provided, but bring your checkbook.

OpenSecrets.org says he raised $1,137,066 for the 2008 election to run against Libertarian candidate John R. Strohm. And it says he has raised $846,574 for the 2010 election. That may seem like plenty considering that Democrat challenger James Quillian has only raised $5,560.

Actually these D.C. fundraisers aren't aimed at those of us out here in Texas District 11. And the money isn't being contributed to help battle the challenger. But just what the donors expect isn't easily determined from the information made public. All we can do is speculate that someone wants a favor that only a Congressman can provide. Notice that the invitation helpfully alerts invitees that he's on the Ag, Armed Services, and Select Intell committees.

The way Jack Abramoff did it was too blatant for his own good. He was accused of a lot of things but ended up pleading guilty to a charge of bribery for giving a Congressman gifts and trips in exchange for pushing certain legislation and other official business.

Those in the know do it much less blatantly according to Alex Gibney, producer of Casino Jack and the United States of Money. In a podcast interview Mr. Gibney explains that there's a much smoother, legal way to do it. The lobbyist or someone wanting a law about something pays a visit to the Congressman explaining what he wants. They say goodbye and part company. Then a week or so later the Congressman's office gets a phone call saying that person, company or lobbyist wants to put on a fundraiser for the Congressman. So the money comes in as clean as if it had just completed the rinse cycle.

But this is pure speculation. For all we know Mr. Conaway is expecting that powerful wind of the Democratic Party brand to blow at Mr. Quillian's back and the long coat tails of Barack Obama to sweep Mr. Quillian into office but for that last $2,500 Cabernet Level contribution collected on September 23.

Post Script: If you didn't get invitations to Mr. Conaway's previous D.C. fundraisers, see them at PoliticalPartyTime.Org.

Still bashing Bush after all this time

Who would have thought that two years after the historic election of a hope and change president that the MSM would still be taking pot shots at George W. Bush?

Ira Stoll at Future of Capitalism points to a Boston Globe review of Tony Blair's new book and quotes this sentence from the Globe review: "Blair, who expresses great admiration for Bush's intellect (that's not a typo) and willingness to stick to his principle, doesn't seem bitter about the political difficulties his positions caused him."

"Not a typo."  Hilarious.  But the Globe knows its audience, and it takes a long time for grievances to dissipate when there's no will to move on.  Then again, maybe it's a campaign tactic for the November election.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that the name "Obama" will be with us for a long time even if he is replaced in 2012. The Obama debt will burden us for years, and credit for that will be placed right where it belongs. Here's something to watch for -- the next president to continually refer to the problems inherited from his/her predecessor. Sound familiar?

Personal note: One thing I admire about GWB is his thick skin and his ability to shrug off all those personal attacks, a quality that's easy to admire but hard to emulate.

Will Republicans repeal Obamacare?

When Texas District 11 Congressman Mike Conaway was in town last month he admitted that if the desire is there, ObamaCare would be difficult to repeal and that there would only be a small window of time in which to do it.

Some of the newly elected Republicans might be in favor of a repeal, but the old school Republicans probably won't. See Chris Rowan's article Obamacare is here to stay. Excerpt:

Hugh Hewitt interviewed House minority leader John Boehner a few days ago, and could not get Boehner to commit to a rapid legislative agenda to repeal and reverse the Democrat’s leftist legislative cramdown after the midterms in November. Boehner hemmed and hawed, sounding every bit like the establishment inside-the-beltway career politicians that got us into the dire economic mess that we’re in now. ...

Think about it. Imagine the seductive appeal of that kind of power over the lives of others. Think your congressman can resist the urge to use his new authority as one of 435 quasi-health care administrators to ensure his re-election? Doubtful, right?

Stealth statist Republicans will nip at the edges of Obamacare, but will never repeal it because they have as much to lose (and, ironically, as much to gain) as the radical leftist Democrats who crammed it down our throats.

Obamacare is here to stay.

Cynical? Yes, but consider that fewer than 15% of congresspeople have bothered to sign the No Earmark Pledge.

And every attack on Obamacare will be met with some study telling us why we should stop fearing it and love it. Like this one, for example, telling us that a computer "microsimulation model" predicts that more firms with 50 or fewer employees will be offering insurance coverage after ObamaCare kicks in than currently do. Seems counter intuitive at any time and especially during times of high unemployment. But hey, they used a computer model, and computer models are never wrong (cough -- global warming -- cough).

As Mr. Rowan says, Obamacare is here to stay.