Battle of the Bulge - In Rememberance

The Ardennes Offensive by the German military Army was officially named the Battle of the Ardennes by the U.S. Army and became known to the general public as the Battle of the Bulge. The Battle began 52 years ago today on December 16, 1944, and was one of the coldest, snowiest days "in memory" in the Ardennes Forest, occupying about 80 miles of the German/Belgian border. Casualties from exposure to extreme cold grew as large as the losses from fighting. In about a 30-day period, the "Battle of the Bulge" which was just one battle in WWII was the most bloody battle American Forces experienced in WWII: 89, 897 Casualties and 19,000 American dead - unsurpassed by any other engagement (more 6 times the losses 2,940 to date for the entire IRAQ War). Read More ...
Editor note: In memory of Jo Byrd Huddleston's cousin Onis Strong and to this editor's father, Harvey Stewart who won the Silver Star in the Battle of the Bulge. Readers are encouraged to memorialize their relatives involved in this battle by posting a comment.

Don Rumsfield says goodbye to Pentagon

Edwards Set to Launch '08 Bid; Bayh Out

Former Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards intends to enter the 2008 race for the White House, two Democratic officials said Saturday. Edwards, who represented North Carolina in the Senate for six years, plans to make the campaign announcement late this month ... Read More

Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh will not seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, FOX News has learned. Bayh made the decision depsite having made several visits to test states like Iowa and New Hampshire, and raising millions of dollars toward a possible White House run. Read More ...

Harry Reid and Ethics Rules

If you think that the change of leadership in both houses of Congress will lead to a complete overhaul of the undeniably corrupt system that has been the status quo for decades, think again. Any hope of a major overhaul in congressional ethics rules will likely run into one large insurmountable obstacle: Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Just this week, the Senate Ethics Committee, showing once again that it is a virtual oxymoron with a tin ear, found that Reid had not violated Senate rules when he accepted front row boxing seats on three separate occasions from the Nevada State agency, that was publicly opposing Reid’s pending bill to create a federal agency with oversight over boxing. The tickets were valued at between $1400 and $2000 each. Nice perk. Read More ...

Gov. Mike Huckabee joins Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity: Why?

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee pleaged to TKE–Tau Kappa Epsilon. The fraternity initiated Huckabee in Little Rock. During the initiation, Huckabee learned about the fraternity's values and its history and the fraternity's secret handshake. "He is, of course, a very impressive man, a dignified public servant. We look to men of high character and bring them into our brotherhood," says Kevin Mayeux, Tau Kappa Epsilon's CEO. Ronald Reagan is the only president to have been a TKE. Huckabee will become fraternity brothers with numerous CEOs, including those from Home Depot, Circuit City, and Starbucks.

Huckabee might be looking to the TKEs during fundraising efforts for a White House bid. The TKEs are on 270 college campuses, making them the largest fraternity in the country. When asked why the fraternity may have chosen him, Huckabee says: "Cause like Reagan, I'm a former radio sports announcer who is a conservative Repub; like Elvis, I am a rock-and-roller who used to be fat." Read More

Lower Tier Potential Presidential Candidates

CBS: While attention has focused on possible frontrunners such former Democratic Sen. John Edwards, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore and, on the Republican side, Sen. John McCain, Govs. Mitt Romney and George Pataki, and Rudolph Giuliani. Former NATO Commander Gen. Wesley Clark, Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, Sen. Joe Biden, and Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Duncan Hunter are also all either running or considering runs. But who may be below the radar, declared and still deciding, who could give the top-tier a run for its money?

The Republicans:
Mike Huckabee: Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas comes to the race with three winning assets: he's a governor, a Southerner, and a Baptist minister.
Sam Brownback: Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback is hoping to gain leverage by appealing to the conservative wing of his party, and there's a good chance he'll succeed.
Newt Gingrich: As architect of the Contract with America that led the Republicans to take back the House in 1994, Newt Gingrich is the best-known of the second-tier candidates.

The Democrats:
Bill Richardson: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's biggest advantage is his resume. He has decades of Washington experience, first as a staffer in the State Department and for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, then as a eight-term U.S. representative, next, briefly, as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and finally as secretary of energy under President Clinton.
Evan Bayh: Sen. Evan Bayh comes to the race with the advantage of having both Washington and gubernatorial experience. He was a two-term Indiana governor, and has been a senator since 1998.
Tom Vilsack: Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack recently drew a flurry of national attention by becoming the first presidential candidate to formally enter the 2008 race. Vilsack is the first Democratic governor in a traditionally red state in three decades. Read More

Arkansas ethics commissioner resigns

LITTLE ROCK (AP) -- Herschel Cleveland, an Arkansas ethics commissioner who made illegal campaign donations to two Democratic candidates in the 2006 election, resigned his post Friday after two years of service. Cleveland ran into trouble in the early part of this year after he gave $500 to gubernatorial candidate Mike Beebe and $250 to Mike Hathorn of Huntsville, who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in the Democratic primary. Arkansas law bars ethics commissioners from contributing to candidates who are running for state or local office. Cleveland was later fined $500 and issued a letter of caution. Cleveland apologized to the commission, saying he had made a mistake. Cleveland, the lawyer and Democrat from Paris, said the contributions had nothing to do with his decision to resign from the panel. Read More

Holiday Greetings

Editor's Comment: Received from one of our readers:
For My Republican Friends: Here's wishing all of You a Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year.

For My Democrat Friends:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. And without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee. By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.

New Jersey Legislature Votes to OK Civil Unions

TRENTON, New Jersey — Under pressure from New Jersey's highest court to offer marriage or its equivalent to gay couples, the Legislature voted Thursday to make New Jersey the third U.S. state to allow civil unions. Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine said he would sign the measure, which would extend to same-sex couples all the rights and privileges available under state law to married people. Read More

Army Top General Calls for Thousands More U.S. Troops, Reserves

WASHINGTON — As President Bush weighs new strategies for Iraq, the Army's top general warned Thursday that his force "will break" without thousands more active duty troops and greater use of the reserves. Noting the strain put on the force by operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the global war on terrorism, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker said he wants to grow his half-million-member Army beyond the 30,000 troops already added in recent years. Read More

Who Is Senator Barak Obama & What Does He Believe?

Senator Barak Obama (D-IL) has only been a U.S. Senator for two years but he is being promoted in the media as the Democrat’s best hope for winning the White House in 2008. Sen. Obama recently traveled to New Hampshire, where he was warmly welcomed by Democrat supporters. In November, Obama gave a keynote speech on AIDS at Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Southern California. Sen. Obama speaks as a man of faith.

“Senator Obama is a very charming person and he may likely become the Democrat’s presidential candidate in 2008,” said TVC Executive Director Andrea Lafferty. “But I hope that Christians will pay attention to his actions and his voting record—not his words—in deciding whether or not to support him in 2008. He has a voting record as far left as John Kerry or Ted Kennedy and his support of abortion and homosexuality make him an anti-life, anti-traditional marriage candidate.” Read about Obama position on homosexuality, Federal Marriage Amendment, abortion, partial-birth abortion, schools filtering internet pornography, and more ...

Problem Solved!

Everyone concentrates on the problems we're having in this country lately; illegal immigration, hurricane recovery, wild animals attacking humans in Florida. Not me. I concentrate on solutions to problems. The result is a win-win-win situation:
+ Dig a moat the length of the Mexican border
+ Use the dirt to raise the levies in New Orleans
+ Put the Florida alligators in the moat.
Any other problems you would like for me to solve today? -- and GOD BLESS AMERICA! [Truth in Humor from one of our blog readers.]

Can Anyone Steer This Economy?

Economists, academicians and financial consultants for years have been preaching that globalism is the wave of the future and that anyone who wants to survive in business must ride its surfboard or drown. All of a sudden, Business Week is having second thoughts.

Sometime next year--perhaps around Christmas 2007, if current trends continue--the U.S. will hit a milestone. For the first time in recent memory, the cost of imported goods and services will exceed federal revenues. In other words, Americans will soon pay more to foreigners than they do to their national government. We're almost there now. Imports cost us about $2.2 trillion a year; the federal government collects $2.4 trillion in revenues. Why is that important? Because for the past 70 years, Washington has been the 800-pound gorilla, more powerful by far than any other force in the U.S. economy. That's not true anymore. The federal government remains plenty influential, but the global economy is more so.

No matter which party you belong to, or which Big Idea or school of economic policy you subscribe to, one thing is clear: Globalization has overwhelmed Washington's ability to control the economy. Whether you're a Republican supply-side tax-cutter, a Wall Street deficit hawk of either party, or a Silicon Valley techie type, your preferred levers of economic policy just don't work as well as they once did. Read more at Business Week.

A Great Injustice in 37 Days - Action Needed Now

In just 37 days U.S. Border Agent's Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean are going to prison for doing their jobs! The agents were each sentenced in a federal court in El Paso, agent Ramos receiving 11 years, and Compean getting a term of 12 years for offenses that included violating the drug smuggler's civil rights! The same drug smuggler (illegal alien), who was given immunity to testify against the agents has since been arrested for smuggling an even larger quantity of drugs into the U.S. How could our government could allow this travesty of justice to happen?

Both of these men were distinguished professionals -- family men who swore to protect our nation from drug traffickers and criminals. These were not dishonorable men. In the performance of their duties, they stopped two drug smugglers who on trying to escape back across the border were shot (none were injured fatally). Now these law enforcement officers are in peril -- unless we take fast action! Imagine what it will be for them to be in prison for doing their official job to protect us. It is unthinkable.

You can help by CLICKING HERE and signing online the provided petition which will be presented to the President Bush. Then after familiarizing yourself with the facts, consider taking a moment to call the White House: 202-456-1111, and demand respectfully that the President pardon these two Border Agents! Remember, just 37 days is all we have to persuade the President to pardon these men before they go to prison.

The Benefits of Bush Bashing

In Lorie Byrd's article in the Examiner column today, she examines the benefits of Bush bashing. As we saw this week with Kofi Annan, you can say anything about President Bush, no matter how incredibly lacking your credibility is on a subject, as long as you sufficiently bash George Bush. Also, if you are a conservative, you can not only bash Bush while escaping scrutiny yourself, but you can also expect positive media attention (even fawning) that is ordinarily next to impossible for conservatives to receive. Read More ...

Young Conservative Speak Out With the 'ACLU Nativity Scene'

Campus conservative students plan to display an "ACLU Nativity Scene" at the University of Texas in response to the civil liberties group's "extreme" campaign to remove Christmas from the public sphere. To meet ACLU positions they renamed the Navity Scene to "ACLU Solstice Barn: They have a Gary and Joseph instead of Mary and Joseph in order to symbolize ACLU support for homosexual marriage; there is no Jesus in the manger; and the three Wise Men are Lenin, Marx and Stalin because ACLU founder Roger Baldwin, in 1934, wrote "Freedom in the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R." in which he said "the Soviet Union has already created liberties far greater than exist elsewhere in the world." The scene also has a "terrorist shepherd" and an angel with Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi's face. The group is concerned that "The ACLU and other left-wing extremist groups are working diligently to destroy Americans' rights to the free expression of religion." Read more...

Dems Seeking to "Knock John Bozeman Off"

Just a month after 3rd District U.S. Republican Congressman John Boozman won reelection, a democrat has announced to run against him for election in 2008. Boozman is the only Republican holding a U.S. or State office. His seat has been held by a Republican 1967. Arkansas Democratic Chairman Jason Willett as quoted in the press, said "Let's just do the damnedest we can to knock John Boozman off." Congressman Boozman who will begin his 4th term in Congress next month won overwhelmingly against his opponent in the last election. Media bias appeared evident when the announce a candidate two years before the next election and never properly address the incumbent as "congressman."

Huckabee awarded "Role Model of the Year"

Gov. Mike Huckabee received the "Role Model of the Year" Award from the Jobs for America's Graduates (JAG) program. The award honors Gov. Huckabee for his life of integrity and mission to improve opportunities for both youth and adults. Read More

PRA keeps same leadership

In Little Rock Saturday, the Republican Party of Arkansas re-electing Chairman Gilbert Baker to a second two-year term. No one challenged Baker, a Conway state senator, despite the party’s election setbacks.

Baker said the Democrats "beat us with the core principles of personal responsibility, smaller government & cutting taxes. They took the pages out of our playbook and tried to insert them temporarily into theirs. That makes it very difficult for them as they move forward, but it should give us comfort and ... remind us that we have to stay committed to those principles that we know are basic bedrock conservative principles." Baker said he will appoint a steering committee of business leaders in the next few weeks to review the party’s strengths and weaknesses and make recommendations to improve the party. He wants to re-engage the business leadership in this state and wants engage social conservative that are involved in the party.

Governor’s Final Christmas Gala on Dec 16th

"A Decade of Progress"- Governor’s Final Christmas Gala hosted by Governor Mike Huckabee and First Lady Janet Huckabee. Governor Huckabee said, "As we enter into the final days of my Administration, we have been reflecting upon the many things that we were able to accomplish over the past ten years. .... Some may think this is the end, but I believe that this is only the beginning. ... it is time to begin our next chapter with Hope. I hope you will join with us to celebrate the past and look forward to the future. We want this to be the best Gala ever so it is very important to us that you are a part of it." Money raised from the gala will support the Governor's travel to critical states and see if his message for the U.S. resonates with other Americans.

When: Dec. 16, 2006, 7:00pm – 9:00pm Where: Statehouse Convention Center - Wally Allen Ballroom A - Little Rock, AR. Individual Tickets for Gala (includes access to after party): $500 per person. “From Hope to Higher Ground” book signing prior to Gala Dinner 6:30pm – 7:00pm
Late Night Party Hosted by the Huckabee Children Featuring Gov. Huckabee & his band Capitol Offense following GalaIndividual Tickets for after party access only: $50 More Information