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The Tacoma News Tribune has a one-sided article about the Bush Administration’s decision to give a $1.5 million grant to Federal Way based World Vision to help fund it’s anti-gang program.

The article makes no effort to provide any type of balance. It would have been very simple to provide a link to the actual decision on the Justice Department Web site, but they didn’t even do that. They simply quoted a heavily biased article from the leftist New York Times News Service

Maybe a quote of the constitution would help understand the issue:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

So, a) this does not ‘respect an establishment of religion’ since World Vision itself is not a religion but rather hires people of faith from numerous churches, denominations and groups; and b) withholding money from or requiring them to change their hiring practices would infringe upon their freedom to individually practice their religion.

This money goes to kids, not the establishment of a religion.
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I’ve downloaded a copy of the report from the Alaska investigation. I started reading the testimonies of the people who were witnesses to the issue. They all say the same thing. Todd Palin was the one pushing the issue.

The report says that Sarah Palin handled the firing of the public safety official properly. What, then did she supposedly do wrong? She didn’t rein in her husband.

There are so many problems with this report that it might only take until morning before people expose the flaws in it. Here are a few that I spotted:

• It was Todd Palin’s behavior that was in question, not Sarah’s.
• Sarah was required to rein him in if there was a question of ethics violations, but the report shows no indication that there were any.
• The report did not recommend any charges be filed or any disciplinary action be taken against her.
• Todd’s concern, and it’s clear that it was shared by Sarah, was for the safety of her sister, her father and the people of the area where the ex-brother-in-law served as a state trooper.

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I guess Joe Turner wants to keep me busy. In a post today he shows his ignorance of conservatism and family values in his post entitled “Family values group handing out 500,000 voter guides.”

The Family Policy Institute of Washington says it’s going to hand out its voter guides at churches and other places to let people know “where the candidates stand on issues like abortion on demand, gay marriage, the estate tax, off-shore drilling and embryonic stem cell research.”

Off-shore drilling? The estate tax?

I can see how the other issues would fall under the broad category of “the values that honor families and promote life,” but drilling for oil doesn’t seem to fit in. The estate tax also seems to be a bit of an outlier.

It’s sad that I have to explain this to someone who is supposed to be informing the public.

Off-shore drilling will lower the cost of gasoline and home heating fuels which are sucking families’ budgets dry.

The estate tax rips money from families as parents try to pass their wealth to their children when they pass away.

So, yes, Joe, those are family values.
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Follow these links and compare the wording:

U.S. Rep. Adam Smith has a new flack: Michael Amato
Washington Republicans get a new spokesman: Matthew Lundh

In the announcement about the new communications director for a Democrat Joe Turner stoops to calling him a ‘flack’. Not even close to the screed about communications directors for the Republicans.

Then he describes the Democrat who the new communications director is working for in glowing terms as “our go-to guy on terrorism issues.” Did you catch how he described the Republican who the other new communications director is working for? Inarticulate. Hey I’m no fan of Luke Esser, but the point is that Turner can’t seem to resist slamming Republicans and fawning over Democrats.
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The title of the blog is ‘Republican Governors knock Gregoire for homeless offenders; but Rossi voted to lower supervision of ex-convicts‘ which is misleading. What about it is misleading? It’s talking about two completely different groups.

Parents are concerned about homeless sex offenders, and that’s what the Rossi ad is about. But the ‘ex-convicts’ that Rossi showed less concern about ’supervising’ weren’t sex offenders.

Joe Turner, in using the word ‘but’ puts these two issues on the same level as if they were contradictory, but they’re not. If you asked the average person who is complaining about the sex offenders registering as homeless if they were as worried about the average ex-con being supervised, they would likely say ‘no’.
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When I talk with people about the presidential candidates I usually end up asking what experience Obama has running anything even close to the U.S. government’s executive branch (in so many words.) The only answer that ever comes close to an answer is “he’s running a campaign.” (Since most of the people I talk to are local in Tacoma, I thought it appropriate to include in this in local feeds.)

Well, for the folks who are duped into thinking that that’s anywhere comparable, I have more bad news. He’s not doing that very well either. From CBS News’ Dean Reynolds:

Obama’s campaign schedule is fuller, more hectic and seemingly improvisational. The Obama aides who deal with the national reporters on the campaign plane are often overwhelmed, overworked and un-informed about where, when, why or how the candidate is moving about. Baggage calls are preposterously early with the explanation that it’s all for security reasons.

If so, I would love to have someone from Obama’s campaign explain why the entire press corps, the Secret Service, and the local police idled for two hours in a Miami hotel parking lot recently because there was nothing to do and nowhere to go. It was not an isolated case.

Yeah, it gets worse.
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The Washing Policy Center (WPC) has come out with a list of pork added to the Wall Street… er… I mean the mortgage bailout bill.

By the way, did anyone notice what happened in the stock markets around the world today? They tanked. Ours. Theirs. All in the toilet. Looks like the bill failed. So what’s next? I’m guessing it the battle of the bands will begin. Who’s nose is cleaner, the R’s or the D’s? For my part, I hope every politician who got his hands dirty on the Freddie/Fanny debacle loses his office to a challenge. But I digress.

There are different kinds of pork, we’ll call them different cuts of the same pig. When a bill must be voted for for political or national security reasons it gets loaded with whatever can’t stand up to scrutiny. Call it ‘ground pork’. Then there are the bills, like the bailout, where a few delicacies are added for to make it more invoting… er… inviting to those who wouldn’t otherwise vote for it.

With this bill I’m left wondering who got bought out with this pork. Who’s vote was for sale when a little extra bacon was tossed their way?
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This week an award was given to the President of the Czech Republic by a Puget Sound think-tank known as the Washington Policy Institute. The organization’s primary goals are to support democracy free market principles. The award was given to Václav Klaus and he spoke that evening to a group gathered in Seattle. Several from Tacoma were in attendance.

In his published speech he spoke out against the EU, saying that his nation had little choice in joining and that the effects have been the loss of freedom, democracy and free-market liberties.

I would like to focus on his comments about global warming alarmism. As a world leader he is faced with the effects of this trend and in his speech offered some insights that seem to be lacking in American discourse. I apologize for lifting so much of the text, but I think it’s important to hear it all in his words, rather than mine. I’m not an economist or world leader. (more…)

Tonight I watched the Vice Presidential debate with other Tacomans at a gathering in the Walker Building, mostly upstairs from Maxwell’s. It was a hoot.

I enjoyed commentary from people around me almost as much as I enjoyed Sarah Palin’s gracious domination of the debate and Joe Biden’s flustered expressions and gaffes.

Women seemed to outnumber men in the group of 240 people that gathered there. They were hoping for about 100. The women were certainly more vocal than the men as well.

Plus I won a copy of ‘Sarah’ by Kaylene Johnson as a door prize. I look forward to reading it and I’d be happy to share any nuggets of insight in this amazing choice for Vice President. I think she’ll make a great one.

The two highlights for me were the numerous jabs landed by Sarah-cuda, which managed to fluster the senior senator and throw him off of his game, and the clear showing of how real Sarah really is.
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