Didn't whatshisname from Good Morning America, Gibson, say something about this was expected to last 10 minutes or so before it started?

Don't you think the "liberal bias" crap should stick to the mouth-breathers in the sticks? The article has no bias in it and simply reports facts. To compare Hot Air to Greg Miller is ridiculous. Miller is a reporter and his articles shouldn't be deemed "bias" simply because the paper he writes for has a liberal lean in their editorial section.

If there is something false in his article, then say it. But the "media bias" crap should be saved for the low IQ Rush crowd.

I don't think either side is happy, and never will be. The radical left and right are just people who turned government into a sport. It's not about the policies and not about whats best for the country. It's about winning the game. Rush said it best when he said he hopes Obama fails. The same can be said for the left who didn't oppose a moronic war hard enough because they knew they cared more about their political lives than American lives.

I agree ... because the reality of it is completely wasted on worthless liberal spawns of Satan who aren't fit to inhabit a planet with even remotely decent human beings. No sense wasting pearls before swine like that. Starting with the reality that the only way they avoid doing evil is by accident, since that's their very nature.

No, the ten minutes was for the opening statement.

Wasn't his best performance. It took him forever to get to the points (which I'm not what they were). I love the "tough" questions that look well, scripted.

I'd also like to see the WaPo reporter who asked about steroids be the last extraordinary rendition.

Oh yes, because there is such a difference between conservatives and liberals these days. Both sides are so messed up in the "game" they don't even know who is who. Bush was praised by guys like Rush and Hannitty while being more liberal than Jimmy Carter on most of his policies.

re: rendition

Political Punch: Obama Administration Maintains Bush Position on 'Extraordinary Rendition' Lawsuit

Not one of your more lucid moments, Jon.

Helen Thomas failed to deliver.

I'm really disappointed so far. And concerned.

Erm, read the post the led to mine again. I thought the thread had moved into "suddenly insert random hyperbole into the mix with as much venom as possible" territory & I was just trying to do my part.

+1 Admittedly, I only heard the first two 'answers' to the questions he received, but those responses were full of rabbit trails and linguistic sleight of hand. The whole change thing is going to dog Obama as long as he's president, but it would be nice, for a change, to see answers to a question rather than long-winded reviews of what we already know.

Ah, I can see it in that context.

:D

Well, four of Obama's nominees have withdrawn (and it should have been five (i.e. Geithner)). Judd Gregg finally came to his senses and won't shovel the shit that Obama spews.

I'd say Obama's administration is in shambles already and he's not doing very well at all considering by how much he won the election.

I wouldn't go as far as saying his administration is in a shambles...

but I would say he's certainly looking less messianic than he did in the general...and he certainly hasn't ushered in the openness and change he was talking about.

Of course, Pelosi and Reid certainly aren't making his job any easier.

Let me amend that to say that his administration is in shambles already considering by how much he won the election.

I don't get the power trips that Pelosi and Reid are on. They seem to be the cancer of the party.

Did anybody think they were going to?

And I don't mean that from a "Pelosi & Reid are blithering idiots" standpoint, I mean from a "isn't that cute, little Barrack won the election. Now run along & let the grown ups take care of business" sort of way.

Winning the election was just part of his battle, to actually run things he's going to have to overthrow a fairly entrenched portion of his own party.

They're the leaders of a co-equal branch of government. I know we've gotten used to seeing the Congress as lackeys of the executive, but Congress should stand up it's self.

Let's see, in less than a month in office he will sign a stimulus that's very close to what he asked for in January, the Fairpay Act, and an expansion of S-Chip. I know Republicans want him to fail, but he's on a pretty good roll for the first month on the job.

Or maybe not:

Stand up it's self? All Congress knows how to do is to add on more to what Executive or anyone else wants. More expenditures, more pork, more conflicting, overwrought legislation and more expansion of federal bureaucratic powers. The Legislative Branch have been exceeding their constitutional powers for a long time, and no one has had the guts to take them on or to reduce their powers.

Regardless of whether or not I or you agree with what Congress does, I think it's healthy that they aren't simply yes men for the current executive.

We'll see if the analysis will continue to be kept separate. Besides, you had me at "White House spokesman". We had not given much credence to what any WH spokespersons have said the previous 16 years and now all of a sudden, they are quoted for credibility??!!?? ;)

Or that Executive simply not sign everything passed by Congress.

Just a little balance to the all Republican quotes in your story.;)

At this point almost nothing gets passed that hasn't been pre-negotiated with the executive. Personally, I'd be fine with a little less cooperation between the legislative and the executive.

I would much rather have quoted a Dem for bringing up these concerns but they apparently aren't much into transparency. :p


I wouldn't expect that in a one-party government.

Did I see that the Fairness Doctine is being brought up again? Some of you guys said that I was off my rocker for even thinking that it could be brought up. Or was that yet another attempt to show your balance when you privately hoped that it would come to pass?

The libs can have talk radio and Fox, only if they hand over the NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC.

Fairness Doctrine is the new Beetle Juice.

I can agree with on that. However, it almost appears that they are trying to "be" the President, instead of working with him.

I just don't see it that way. They met the broad outlines of the President as well as many of the specifics.

Strange how as soon as the White House considers taking the census in house that Gregg runs from Commerce Secretary as fast as he can at the urging of Republican leaders. So, yeah, there wasn't going to be any funny business going on with the census if it had stayed in Commerce :rolleyes:

And major Republicans have never done anything shady to screw with representative government.

SI

What the hell was Diane Feinstein (sp?) thinking? If you hear confidential information that we're flying Predator aircraft out of a Pakistani base, DON'T SAY IT IN PUBLIC!!!!

Predator drones flown from base in Pakistan, U.S. lawmaker says -- chicagotribune.com

This is going to make relations with Pakistan a whole lot more difficult for Obama.

At this point, I actually think Reid & Pelosi are suffering from PTSD from their time of being overrun by the GOP in Congress and a Bush White House. They're acting as if they're still afraid of their own shadows.

They've got a commanding majority in the House, a majority in the Senate with the ability to flip a few moderate GOP votes as necessary, and a Democrat in the White House. Some of this legislation, to be honest, could have been rammed through much quicker than it has been. Seems like they'd rather draw out the process to amp up the partisan bickering.

I mean, it would be different if there were significant numbers of Republicans close to a compromise with the Democratic position on this bill, but clearly there aren't. All the Republicans in the House voted against it and all but the usual suspects in the Senate voted against it. Why drag it out? Why water it down? You aren't going to get these folks to change their minds anyway.

Ram it through, tell the Press that the GOP doesn't want to help Americans, and call it a day. Politics 101. You wouldn't see Tip O'Neill pulling this kind of shit.

A (prediction) Winner is me!!! :D

Don't forget the Associated Press, Rueters, the AFP, Politico, Yahoo! News/Google News Headlines, and of course, publicly funded NPR.

As Gregg has stated he's not running for re-election, why does he need to please "Republican leaders" in the first place?

You kooky lefties have to get back to reality.

My new wish is for someone to challenge Harry Reid for majority leader. Kind of a shame that Hillary left the senate -- she may have had enough political capital to pull it off well.

That would have been interesting (and favorable)

SI

Got it, so it's okay for the Dems to screw with it because the people they'll screw aren't saints either?

Here's an idea: why don't we instead come up with a fair and even way to do this, instead of saying the ends justify the means (since they, well, don't).

Didn't say that at all. Just said let's not pretend this wasn't a partisan thing to begin with. Considering who funds and executes the census, I'm curious to hear your big "fair and even way to do this"?

Or was "let Gregg run this from inside the Commerce department when he had shown obvious bias in last census" your "fair" idea?

SI

agree 100%

In his interview after turning down the Commerce post, Gregg had this to say:

"The person that the White House has proposed to manage the Census, Ken Pruitt, did it in 2000 when I was chairman of the Appropriations Committee that had oversight over Commerce Department. And I thought he did an excellent job. So I thought the people were going to be in place to do a pretty good job."

Bucc's quote: Dems bringing census in to WH will bias census results. Bad idea.

Your response to him: Repubs must have had plans to bias things themselves, since Gregg is now pulling out as his Commerce sec. Obvious partisan counterpoint to Bucc's concern about Dem bias.

My response to you: The problem isn't who's being biased. It's that it is biased at all. Your response to Bucc is an implicit support of Dems biasing the census, and you try to justify it by dragging Gregg and Repubs through the mud.

What you should have suggested and failed to do (unlike me) is suggest that there should be an effort to keep the census as unbiased as possible.

Your curiosity about how I would run it will have to go on, because I don't have an answer. If I did, I wouldn't be responding to your partisan slop here, I would be in Washington making a difference. There are smarter people than you or I who can do this. My point is, and it's a point both you and I can definitely grasp, is that this is a process that needs to remain as politically neutral as it can. And in fact, I don't know if Bucc had in mind that Gregg was in line to be the Commerce sec, but his point that running the census out of Commerce is less apt to be influenced than out of the WH is dead on target (which is true, whether the Dems or the GOP are in the WH).

I like how you try to sully me now with your last sentence. That is an ad hominem, calling my bias into question. Good to see you know how to use faulty logical reasoning to make your point, SI. :rolleyes:

I didn't even know Gregg was up for Commerce until reading this thread. Frankly, I don't watch the every day news items for what Obama's doing with his Cabinet. I don't even know who Gregg is actually. My assumption from your responses is that he's a Republican. I don't support either side influencing the census, whether from the WH or the Commerce dept, Dem or GOP.

All I am asking for is that you stop partisan and illogical arguing with Bucc and myself and instead put your support to trying to find an unbiased process for conducting the census (or as unbiased as can be done).

There is a term for that but I can't remember what it is. It's the calculated move of deflecting attacks away from what you personally hope to come true. By deflecting the attacks, you can succeed in acheiving your ends covertly or quietly. This is a good example because many (including those here) would love to have Dem-controlled gerrymandering - to ensure that their opposition stays weak. It is typical political gamemanship but to be defensive against calling what it really is, as have been through much of the 2008 campaigns, becomes laughable or hypocritical.

They can't though. To them it's a game, not what's best for the country. It's Yankees vs Red Sox, not what would be the best solution. One of the greatest tricks politicians have ever pulled is to turn Americans against Americans. If you're busy bashing the other team, you don't notice the people looting the vault behind your back.

And then you get the Libertarians shouting from a distant corner but the fat cats in red and blue pay them no attention. :(

From what I've read there's no evidence that the census is being handled in a different manner than previously. If it turns out that Rahm is making edicts to the census, that's obviously a bad thing, but I haven't seen anyone saying that's happening.

You're getting that backwards. We have our politicians because large groups of us strongly dislike other large groups of us. The politicians didn't create that, they're just a result of it.

I wouldn't say "we". I think partisians for the most part are the ones drawn into the political spectrum. Partisians tend to care more about what other people do with their lives than their own.

The rest of the country doesn't really care about other groups. They just wants our money spent wisely and our government and politicians to leave us the fuck alone.

And it's not backwards, it's how it's always been. Politicians will always get their people to hate something or someone to avoid being scrutinized themselves. It's why Iran's leader comes out and bashes Israel all the time. As long as his people focus their hate on them, they won't look inside at the complete incompetence going on in their own government. No different from when we've used immigrants, blacks, commies, muslims, mormons, indians, liberals, or conservatives to divide the country and deflect the attention.

I am inclining to agree with RainMaker, after watching the political process for over 30 years. There always have been divisions in this country, with a lot of segmentation but they were kept themselves (except in times of agitations) and not magnified through a pervasive media. This country, believe it or not, had been far more partisan than what had transpired during my lifetime but in a country of limited mobility, communications and segregation, it never drove most people's lives. I am not saying it does now but it seems that way.

Just rambling.

I read this the other day, and it struck a chord with me. But that might be because I'm probably the only person in the country that is a member of both the NRA and the ACLU. :D

"The real problem might be toleration, or more accurately, the lack of it. We wish our preferred freedoms to be respected, while applauding governmental crackdowns upon those freedoms we dislike or are indifferent to."

"Until pot smokers and gun owners and low taxers and sexual minorities recognize that liberty is indivisible and that we're all in this together, we're going to be picked off piecemeal by government officials all too happy to exploit our mutual antagonisms."

I am sorry but this is a crock full of shit. If President Obama signs the stimulus bill on Tuesday, he has no credibility in talking about fiscal responsbility.

Did you really think he ever would act with fiscal responsibility?

Congress no, but there was a hope for Obama. With the signing of the grossly fiscally irresponsibly stimulus bill (much like trillion+ spent on Iraq), he dug a very deep hole that even some analysts say that would be hard, politically, to roll back in a couple of years (again, much like Iraq). A lot of these items in the bill could have been handled during the normal budget process, which could still reflect the priorities in social spendings.

You had higher hopes than I did. In this, Obama is exactly who we detractors said he was--a fairly left leaning Dem, which means spending.

Can the 2010 elections come fast enough?

The Reps have been proven to be just as adept as the Dems in handing out billions in pork and authorizing hundreds of billions in wastful spending, while ramming through a bill without much thought or deliberations (i.e., Patriot Act).

+1

there's no winning in this regard, so i choose to vote with the party whose social stances more closely mirror mine+

Is it too early for impeachment? Will the country ever recover?

Oh, I agree, especially since Bush II got into office, and they did it with Reagan in the 80s, too. The GOP is still pretty good at cutting taxes, but they seem to have forgotten that that goes hand in hand with spending less, too. As a fiscal Republican, like you, I have been consistently disgusted by the spending by both sides, and it's just the continuing sign of how the GOP has drifted away from the values that once made it at least logical in its approach to governance.

But in any case, my earlier comment is targeted at the very well known fact that Obama==the high spending, strong left leaning Dem was one of the top criticisms we who were not enamored with him leveled at him, so to have people say now, "What, he's spending tons of money?" seems disingenious.

True. It's tough because I support the social-moral issues such as marriage, religious freedom, ect. as the Dems. However, I despise their entitlement programs and big government. Flip flap those two issues for the GOP, and it's the same. It's tough to pick one party for it's social issues and ignore their spending/taxing/entitlement stances.

No politician ever met an earmark he/she didn't like.

Well both sides spend, so I don't really see much difference between each party on this issue. So with those things being equal, I'll vote for the party that isn't 100 years behind the times on social issues.

Same with constituents though. When we hear about our representative bringing home millions for a big project in our community, we applaud. That's the problem we have. We hate Congress spending money except when it's in our district.

Not really relevant to what I said which you quoted, but thanks for contributing.

I just thought your comment was odd by automatically attributing someone on the left to spending. Especially since the last 3 Republicans Presidents have built up massive spending deficits and the last Democrat had a surplus.

It is not that simple. For one, congress writes the budget. Although there is no doubt that ALL of our politicians spend too much.

I haven't posted my hopes, but this is one of them (well, not this bill, but if it's all we can get until there is some Constitutional battle, then so be it).

Editorial - ‘We’ll Take It’ - NYTimes.com

For 2000-2006 of the Bush II years it's absolutely that simple as R's controlled Congress too.

From what I've read, the DC Representative bill looks like it could pass.

It's my opinion that at some point in the 1990s both parties started putting party before country on a regular basis and the explosion of cable news (later abetted by the explosion of on-line partisan outlets) provided even more enticement for politicians (especially on the national stage) to cling hard to party lines in what's unceasingly characterized as a pitched battle between the two.

Along the way we've lost much of the statesmanship and civility that once existed in our national politics.

And I know someone's going to pick an anecdotal example or two from the 19th century where two guys in Congress shot each other, but that's not my point. Look at the guys in the Senate in 1992. Look at the guys in the Senate now. There's a clear difference in the number of partisan hacks present, on both sides. Same with the House leadership, even though the House has always had considerably more partisan rabble in it.

I think a big factor has been the gerrymandering of districts over the decades. You now have strictly Republican or Democratic districts covering most of the country. Only about 100 that can even be considered purple (much less normally). This has led to strong ideologies from both sides getting in and polarizing the country.

If the districts were done without political motives, we'd have a lot more moderate representatives and a lot more bipartisanship.

Sadly I suspect you're right. It gives the D's another vote so they're going to be all over the opportunity.

I finally can agree with flere on something. :) Well said.

The anecdotal example was what I was alluding when we used to be far more partisan (esp. during the decades-long slavery debates). But not many people had a national outlet since all communications and actions were local, with a choice of which partisan newspaper to read. Nowadays, with the explosion of on-line partisan outlets, you have no choice but to buy into the red/blue game and to try to convince everyone else that your side is right and the opposition is the enemy. That's not different from 150 years ago, except now it is 1,000,000 times louder.

Actually I believe there is a compromise, 1 DC Rep only gets added if 1 Utah Rep gets added. Utah is the next state in line to gain a rep (as their population has gone up the most since the last census) and would be (you'd imagine) a Repub seat.

Myabe, but in context, your response made no sense. Bucc was saying he had had hope Obama would maintain some fiscal responsibility, to which I responded, why did he ever hope, Obama is exactly what people were saying he was, a spendthrift left-leaning Dem. There is nothing in there about the spending habits of Repubs. That wasn't relevant to what I was responding to, which is why it was really odd for you to bring that up, as if I had said something about that.

Yes, no, and yes. :)

It does appear it may pass. It's not "yet another vote" because Utah also gets one. Unfortunately I am afraid that in time it will be found unconstitutional? Do I agree that it is? Not necessarily -- Politicians like to selectively use the phrases in the Constitution that apply to "these united States" and determine which they think apply to the District and which don't. Ultimately I would prefer statehood; perhaps it is a better climate now than it was almost 30 years ago, but we've gone down that road once already. The nation just doesn't care.

Yikes!

Transportation chief eyes taxing miles driven - White House- msnbc.com

Transportation chief eyes taxing miles driven
LaHood's says current gasoline tax not enough to fund infrastructure
The Associated Press
updated 7:50 a.m. ET, Fri., Feb. 20, 2009

WASHINGTON - Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he wants to consider taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn — an idea that has angered drivers in some states where it has been proposed.

Gasoline taxes that for nearly half a century have paid for the federal share of highway and bridge construction can no longer be counted on to raise enough money to keep the nation's transportation system moving, LaHood said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled," the former Illinois Republican lawmaker said.

Most transportation experts see a vehicle miles traveled tax as a long-term solution, but Congress is being urged to move in that direction now by funding pilot projects.

The idea also is gaining ground in several states. Governors in Idaho and Rhode Island are talking about such programs, and a North Carolina panel suggested in December the state start charging motorists a quarter-cent for every mile as a substitute for the gas tax.

A tentative plan in Massachusetts to use GPS chips in vehicles to charge motorists by the mile has drawn complaints from drivers who say it's an Orwellian intrusion by government into the lives of citizens. Other motorists say it eliminates an incentive to drive more fuel-efficient cars since gas guzzlers will be taxed at the same rate as fuel sippers.

Thinking outside the box
Besides a VMT tax, more tolls for highways and bridges and more government partnerships with business to finance transportation projects are other funding options, LaHood, one of two Republicans in President Barack Obama's Cabinet, said in the interview Thursday.

"What I see this administration doing is this — thinking outside the box on how we fund our infrastructure in America," he said.

LaHood said he firmly opposes raising the federal gasoline tax in the current recession.

The program that funds the federal share of highway projects is part of a surface transportation law that expires Sept. 30. Last fall, Congress made an emergency infusion of $8 billion to make up for a shortfall between gas tax revenues and the amount of money promised to states for their projects. The gap between money raised by the gas tax and the cost of maintaining the nation's highway system and expanding it to accommodate population growth is forecast to continue to widen.

Among the reasons for the gap is a switch to more fuel-efficient cars and a decrease in driving that many transportation experts believe is related to the economic downturn. Electric cars and alternative-fuel vehicles that don't use gasoline are expected to start penetrating the market in greater numbers.

"One of the things I think everyone agrees with around reauthorization of the highway bill is that the highway trust fund is an antiquated system for funding our highways," LaHood said. "It did work to build the interstate system and it was very effective, there's no question about that. But the big question now is, We're into the 21st century and how are we going to take care of our infrastructure needs ... with a highway trust fund that had to be plused up by $8 billion by Congress last year?"

Report expected next week
A blue-ribbon national transportation commission is expected to release a report next week recommending a VMT.

The system would require all cars and trucks be equipped with global satellite positioning technology, a transponder, a clock and other equipment to record how many miles a vehicle was driven, whether it was driven on highways or secondary roads, and even whether it was driven during peak traffic periods or off-peak hours.

The device would tally how much tax motorists owed depending upon their road use. Motorists would pay the amount owed when it was downloaded, probably at gas stations at first, but an alternative eventually would be needed.

Rob Atkinson, president of the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission, the agency that is developing future transportation funding options, said moving to a national VMT would take about a decade.

Privacy concerns are based more on perception than any actual risk, Atkinson said. The satellite information would be beamed one way to the car and driving information would be contained within the device on the car, with the amount of the tax due the only information that's downloaded, he said.

The devices also could be programmed to charge higher rates to vehicles that are heavier, like trucks that put more stress on roadways, Atkinson said.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

What a dumb idea. The gas tax already does a decent job approximating miles driven. Coming up with a nationwide tracking system for every vehicle would cost a fortune and piss off 99.9% of the population.

If the current gas tax doesn't pay enough for bridge and road maintenance... sounds like it's time to raise the tax. Or maybe we should just eliminate that tax too and let our interstate system fall into disrepair and let our bridges collapse. Sounds peachy!

The level of stupidity in this kind of a idea is monumental. There's a ton of overhead in monitoring that kind of use tax.

Also not noted in this article is how transportation tax dollars often get funneled into other department on a regular basis in many states in lieu of actually just using the money to maintain roads. Missouri voters recently approved a ballot initiative that literally stated that all transportation tax dollars should only go to the maintenance of the transportation system. Lo and behold, we went from one of the worst road systems in the country to the top 10 in three short years. Amazing how that works.

Actually, as much as I hope & pray that you're right, that "no" very much remains to be seen. There's certainly no guarantee that Utah won't be screwed in the interest of politics while DC is unconstitutionally awarded a seat.

I wish there was, but there isn't, and I'd have to be a fool to count on it going down that way until I see it with my own eyes and the ink is dry on the whole thing.

Naturally making proper, reasonable, and logical use of the existing funds is completely off the table. I've seen too many poorly conceived pork projects for roads, highways, and bridges just in close proximity to me over the years to have any confidence about the accuracy of any claims about the status of funding good or bad.

Not really.

When you pay the yearly registeration fee for cars, they just check your mileage vs what was reported the last time you register. You drove 15,000 miles so, another $150 is tacked onto your car registration. (Like property tax in VA if I remember right)

Not saying I agree with a use tax, but not that much harder to do. Although, anything beyond that would be a monster to track.

And I'd like to know for sure it's unconstitutional -- I will have to do some research, but there are sections of the Constitution that apply to the "States" that are applied to the District -- why in this case is it suddenly unconstitutional?

Your kidding, right?

How about we spend the money that is "suppose" to go the transportation budget actually go towards it. Or maybe end pork, or fringe spending, in other departments and allocate that money towards this. Also, you better make sure these projects don't become like the financial sinkhole that the Big Dig project in Boston has become.

I'm guessing you didn't read the entire article. His proposal is to put new hardware including GPS positioning units in every single car made and monitor the usage 'big brother' style.

Translation.......he scratches the back of every corporation that makes the components for that hardware, the monitoring centers required, and the software to achieve those ends. I'd agree that your way of doing it isn't terribly burdensome, but that's not what he's proposing at all.

Didn't know if you were speaking about the specific use of GPS to track or just the idea in general.

Of course it's also ripe for quite a bit of corruption via the "accidental" typo for a small "consideration" to the clerk entering the data but I'll just leave that alone since the last thing that I want to see is GPS tracking for tax purposes of every vehicle in the US, no sense me making their argument for them.

Sorry, should have been more specific. Apologies.

That kinda tax would just be unreasonable and hard to balance. You aren't going to want to overtax at one time low income people who travel many miles just to work. So then you are going to have to take income into consideration, which will create more problems than it is worth.

It is just a horrible, horrible idea. Taxing gas encourages fuel efficient cars while doing a pretty good job of taxing miles traveled. Why would anyone think this and its potential problems is a good alternative solution?

Presumably because the more mileage efficient cars are, or the fewer miles we drive to save fuel (and fuel cost), the less revenue the gas tax generates. And politicians know that increasing something focused like that can become a third rail for them.

On the other hand if you roll out something new & say "hey, we're eliminating the gas tax" and people see prices go down at the pump, they might be stupid enough to think it's actually helping them or at least isn't hurting them.

Like everyone else, yes, stupid idea.

Now, if you wanted to jack the gas tax way up (I mean like $2 per gallon up) and funnel all of that money directly into alternative energy research while simultaneously changing people's usage patterns with that sin tax of sorts, I'd be all over that. I'm pretty sure suggestions like that in Congress get people thrown out.

(That said, how exactly does this fit into the "Obama- hopes and predictions" thread?)

SI

Sorry I missed this until now. You may or may not know, but the Texas State Rifle Association has actually worked together with the Texas chapter of the ACLU to get some legislation passed.

I'm going to be in the DFW area next weekend speaking at the TSRA banquet. Bring Tom Cochrane up with you and come say hi! :)

Hey, I'll be up next weekend as well. We'll have to meet for a beer, or at least a Sonic Cherry Limeade. :D