Is this press corps prepared to ask hard questions?

See for yourself. I wonder if this group of people has any objectivity left. I doubt it.

Zimmer hold Lautenberg Accountable

For far too long, Senator Frank Lautenberg has been happy to thoroughly trash his opponents whether they are Democrats or Republicans. His engine to spew slime is as well known as the corrupt tactics that put him in office the second time around after his corrupt predecessor was forced to withdraw he bid for re-election. But in a response to an editorial, Dick Zimmer took some serious shots at Lautenberg record in this article from the Dailyrecord.com:

Our incumbent Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., certainly has never agreed with your contention that the gap between what New Jersey sends to Washington and what we get back is a phony issue. Back in 1982, when he first ran for the Senate, he complained that we ranked 45th out of the 50 states in the percentage of our tax dollars we got back from Washington and promised that he would change it. He certainly did. As your editorial correctly notes, we now rank dead last among all 50 states, a position we have held for many years. We currently receive back only 61 cents for every dollar we send to Washington.

These are serious words from a congressman with a solid track record of fiscal responsibility. While he will likely be completely sullied throughout this process by the Lautenberg machine, we shouldn't ignore some of the facts that represent our current Senator's record. Lautenberg will try to make this about Zimmers record while refusing to talk about his own. But he has one.

Lautenberg has not only failed New Jerseyans on the money we get from Washington, but he has failed us on the taxes we send there as well. He opposed the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 on the grounds that they benefit the "rich." But, because New Jerseyans' incomes are relatively high, our state benefited from those tax cuts 33 percent more per capita than the nation as a whole. In fact, 3.4 million New Jersey tax payers saw savings because of the cuts. If Lautenberg had his way, and those tax cuts never went into effect, the return on each dollar we paid in taxes would not have been 61 cents; it would have been only 58 cents. Yet, Lautenberg wants to repeal most of those tax cuts.

This piece is a must read. Let's take Senator Lautenberg to task for once.

Roche HQ Moving from NJ to California

The Newark Star-Ledger reports that one of our largest pharmaceutical companies is leaving New Jersey:

After eight decades in New Jersey, the drugmaker Hoffmann-La Roche is changing its name and moving its headquarters to California, the latest blow to the Garden State's reputation as "the nation's medicine chest."

The moves, part of parent company Roche's proposed $44 billion takeover of the California biotechnology firm Genentech, will result in the U.S. subsidiary assuming the Genentech brand name, and will mean big changes for the company's 3,240 workers in [its Nutley-Clifton campus in] New Jersey....

...the state will lose jobs with the closing of Roche's U.S. headquarters in Nutley, the shutdown of its New Jersey manufacturing facilities by 2010 and a consolidation of finance and information-technology operations.

The story says that NJ had 20% of US pharma jobs in 1990, and now has less than 14% -- a decline that occurred because NJ only held the line on pharma jobs while pharma and medical manufacturing jobs increased nationally from 207,200 to 296,000.

To be fair, the story says that it's not totally clear whether there will be a net job loss -- there will still be some R&D taking place at the Nutley-Clifton campus, and some of Genentech's jobs will move here -- but it's never a good thing to have a headquarters leave the state. It would be a lot less troubling if it weren't consistent with a bad trend for New Jersey. If we created a more positive business climate (by which I don't mean subsidies, like Corzine wants to do for stem-cell research), then it wouldn't be hard to choose us over tax-hungry California.

The NY Times doesn't want you to read this.

The New York Times will publish an opinion piece from Barack Obama but will not allow the same from McCain. So in steps the New York post. Printed in its entirety from this opinion piece int he Post.


GETTING IRAQ RIGHT
HOW TO KEEP PROGRESS GOING
By JOHN McCAIN

EDITORS' NOTE: The New York Times wouldn't print this oped from the GOP candidate.

AS he took command in Iraq in January 2007, Gen. David Petraeus called the situation "hard" but not "hopeless." Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80 percent to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation is full of hope - but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.
Progress has been due mainly to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Sen. Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent.

"I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there," he said on Jan. 10, 2007. "In fact, I think it will do the reverse."
Now Sen. Obama has been forced to acknowledge that "our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence." But he still denies that any political progress has resulted. Perhaps he's unaware that the US embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, "Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress."

Even more heartening has been progress that's not measured by the benchmarks:
* More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists.
* Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has found the will to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City - dispelling suspicions that he's merely a sectarian leader.

The surge's success hasn't changed Sen. Obama's determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale.

In a New York Times op-ed and a speech last week he offered his "plan for Iraq" (in advance of his first "fact-finding" trip to Iraq in more than three years): It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months.

In 2007, he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we'd taken his advice, the war would have been lost. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Maliki has endorsed his timetable - when the Iraqi prime minister has merely said that he'd like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of US troops at some unspecified future point.

Sen. Obama is also misleading on the readiness of the Iraqi military. Iraq's army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year - but that doesn't mean, as Sen. Obama suggests, that it'll then be ready to secure the country without a good deal of help.
The Iraqi air force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications and other complex functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent US presence, as Sen. Obama charges. We've already seen a partial withdrawal with the departure of five "surge" brigades, and more can take place as the security situation improves.

As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields (such as Afghanistan) without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I've said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I've also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground - not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Sen. Obama.

Sen. Obama has said that he'd consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his "plan for Iraq." Perhaps that's because he doesn't want to hear what they have to say.

During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I've heard many times from our troops what Major Gen. Jeffrey Hammond (commander of Coalition forces in Baghdad) recently said: Leaving based on a timetable would be "very dangerous."

The danger is that extremists supported by al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we've had too few troops in Iraq.
Sen. Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. Indeed, he's emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the "Mission Accomplished" banner prematurely.

I'm dismayed that he never talks about winning the war - only of ending it. But if we don't win the war, our enemies will - and a triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us.
As president, I won't let that happen. Instead, I'll continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

Dear Barack: You're wrong about small towns

Originally written by Will Manly at thestironline.com which now appears to be defunct.

Dear Barack Obama:

I grew to like you over the last year.

I've always thought of you as dangerously naive at best. Eloquent, gifted, genuine, yes. But dangerously naive at best.I couldn't vote for you -- but not because of your funny name or your lunatic pastor.

I couldn't vote for you because you say we should raise taxes (even on the rich, who I'm convinced already pay too much), and because you say we should abandon Iraq (which I'm convinced would be surrendering a war we must win), and because you don't respect the Second Amendment (which I'm convinced should disqualify any politician from any office).

Still, I've liked your message of unity and your ability to inspire. And, since your rise I've hunted, quite frantically, for young conservative leaders with your talent. (To my relief, I found Bobby Jindal.)

And I've long said if you beat Hillary Clinton, you will have done your country a tremendous service. But anymore I'm having a harder and harder time rooting for you.

First came your wife's comment about being proud of America for the first time -- conveniently, right after you started winning primaries. Then came your own words about your grandmother, who is just a "typical white person" -- a racist, or at least someone with racist tendencies. (I'm a "typical white person," I suppose, and I'm no racist. In fact, little makes me angrier than when it's insinuated I am.)

Sometimes people say things they don't really mean. But this is a pattern.

Last week we heard your comments about small-town America. Someone at a San Francisco fundraiser asked you why it's so hard for Democrats to win in rural areas. You said:"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them ... So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them ... "

Is that a minority? HEY CLETUS, GET THE GUN! (If only we had a job to go to, some time in the last 25 years ... )

Here's a thought: Maybe gun rights voters know gun control laws kill people and steal freedom.

Here's a thought: Maybe some of us have moral objections to an immigration system that forces rule-followers to wait decades for legal status, and rewards border-violators with amnesty.

Here's a thought: Maybe some Americans cling to their church because their pastor is a nice person, because they find love there, because there they have something they can believe in.

Here's a thought: Maybe, just maybe, us simpletons in small towns find it harder to be bigoted than all o' y'all cityfolk. Maybe, in small towns, where everybody knows your name -- and how hard you work, if you pay your taxes, how well you treat your neighbors, how often you volunteer in the community, and whether or not you're a good parent -- people see the content of your character, so they don't give a hoot about the color of your skin. (But I grew up in a small town where about a third of the population is of a different race than me. What do I know?)

And here's my favorite thought of all: Maybe small-town folks are -- really -- capable of thinking. All on our own.

You're wrong about why small-town Americans don't vote for Democrats.

We don't vote for Democrats because we're self-reliant so we don't like the government trying to "solve" everything for us. And because you tell your rich friends in San Francisco that we're dumb. And because, each election, whichever one of you is running for president traipses all over the country telling us you have all the answers, that you're the one on our side, that you respect our way of life.

But each time, a little bit here and there slips out -- and by the end of the campaign, we can tell what you think about us. And we manage to learn who you really are.

And we see you're just a horse's ass.

Free Cars and Gas for State Workers

Each morning as I make my way to work, I typically spot between one and four state owned vehicles heading toward the cluster of state offices in Trenton. Now, we all know that there are certain jobs in the state where it is more cost effective to provide a state vehicle than to reimburse employees for mileage. But what doesn't make sense to me is why the Ford Focus flying by me at 65 miles per hour on route 206 clearly driven by a commuter to work should be paid for by my tax dollars. The auto, from the State Department of Environmental Protection was one of many that department seems to dole out to its workers like candy.

Here's an idea for you Mr. Corzine. Make your state workers come to work in their own cars. Make them pay their own gas. And then, if they need to do the public's business, provide a pool car that they can use and then return back to the NJ government premises. Outside of law enforcement who are on duty 24 hours a day, no state worker should have a state owned vehicle with state paid gas parked at their home AT ANY TIME.

If legislature of this state is so interested in fighting global warming(the irony of the outrageous number of State DEP vehicles on our streets is raw) -cut the fleet. State owned autos should not be a perk for state workers.

CAGW - Tell your representative you want energy independence!

From the Citizens Against Government Waster comes a great utility. Follow this link and tell your Senators and Congressman that you want action on oil and gas policy!