Political Football

2009 will require strength (both mental and physical) and attention to detail.

more later – I will continue to post interesting links here, but a year end note will be in a later post.  Pray for peace in 2009.

http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk

I just subscribed to this (link above) – you can see the Israeli perspective of what’s going on in GAZA there.  How DO you protect your citizens from terror attacks when the enemy places their military hardware in residential areas.   You will not see this perspective from the Main Stream Media.

IDF Foreign Press chief Maj. Avital Leibovich explained the YouTube channel by saying, “The blogosphere and new media are another war zone.”

Another good source is the site that uncovered most of the faux-photography (photo-shopped) in the last attacks is Little Green Footballs.  They open subscriptions periodically, subscribing allows you to post.

We must become the new international communication vehicle.

I must admit this vacation is going too fast.  My TO DO list has not diminished.  With a closet implosion and furnace problems and general laziness (current excuses) I have to step up the pace if I want to feel good about this time off.

One of my goals is to alter this site slightly to conform with rules of publication, not posting complete articles, but perhaps one paragraph and links and more personal analysis from me.  I don’t like to cut posts for archiving purposes because typically the links that I’m posting will not be generally available after a period of time, but I do want to conform to standard practices.

I got this from a friend of mine and it’s worth sharing.   -pf

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I am not happy about the outcome of this recent election. My wife wisely tells me that I need to get over it – and that if I don’t like it, to do something about it.  I’m exercising my right to free speech (while I still can) to tell you how I plan to “redistribute” my hard earned dollars.

We live in a small town and do a lot of shopping either by mail order catalogs or by internet. Today I emptied a stack of catalogs out of the mailbox and happened to be looking at Fox News website at Noon. There is an interactive map here (http://elections.foxnews.com/states_map/index.html ) that shows how the election turned out in the United States.

All the states are either blue for Democrat or red for Republican. By clicking on a state you can see how the counties in each state voted. By entering a zip code you can see how that area voted. Out of curiosity I entered a zip code off the back of a catalog. Blue state, blue county – into the trash it went. Hmmm…I may be onto something here.

I’m choosing to spend my money in the areas of the country that didn’t vote for socialism, redistribution of wealth, erosion of civil rights and tossing out the Constitution of the United States of America.

I need a new coat: LL Bean – Freeport, ME (blue county in a blue state – trash) Cabelas – Sidney, NE (red county in a red state) My favorite microbrewery is New Belgium in Ft Collins, CO (blue county in a blue state) but I also like Shiner in Shiner, TX (red county in a red state).

My daughter is having a birthday and Christmas is coming up: I have toy catalogs from VA (blue), MO (mostly red but still counting), MA (blue), VA (blue) & TX (Red) Howdy y’all!

Vacations: Colorado and New Mexico are out for weekend trips. Maybe we’ll check out Oklahoma this next year. I was planning on taking my family to Disney World in Dec 2009. (Orlando, FL – blue county in a blue state) I’ll have to weigh my values against the promise I’ve made my daughter here… maybe I can talk her into Six Flags Over Texas.

Movies and the liberal media? Don’t get me started.

Obama had the largest political donations EVER. He has not published his donor list (or birth certificate, resume, college transcripts, bar exam…) but, Liberals gave him that money. I found a searchable website that gives names, amounts and to which party the donation was made. www.newsmeat.com

And another site is www.followthemoney.org – be informed.

If I buy something from a liberal, some of that money may go to Obama 2012, the DNC, the PLO, ACORN, the Karl Marx Appreciation Society or any other bunch of left wing boneheads. If I buy from conservatives maybe the GOP or the NRA get some money.

My guess is that conservatives have more disposable income than the college kids and the unemployed that elected him. But probably not as much as Oprah.

I’m just one guy and my small amount of cash doesn’t mean much. Together we can make a difference.

Be sure to let those blue companies know why they aren’t getting your business or they’ll blame their economic down turn on President Bush.

I’m still buying from Americans; I’m just choosing which Americans to buy from now.

If you agree with me, tell your friends.    God bless America!

Myths and Facts About the Real Bush Record

By Ed Gillespie
As the year draws to an end and President Bush enters his final month in office, there is much commentary about the Administration’s record over the past eight years. Unsurprisingly, many of these stories assail and distort the President’s record and recycle myths and unfounded allegations that have been leveled for the better part of his two terms. Historical accuracy requires a response to the litany of attacks leveled against President Bush, and while there’s not enough space to respond to all of them, here are five of the most egregious:

Myth 1: The last eight years were awful for most Americans economically and President Bush’s deregulatory policies caused the current financial crisis.

Reality: President Bush’s time in office is ending as it began, with our economy under stress. The recession President Bush inherited as he entered office ran through the attacks of September 11, 2001, but during the recovery that followed, and due in no small part to the tax relief President Bush worked with Congress to provide, this country experienced its longest run of uninterrupted job growth – 52 straight months, with 8.3 million jobs created.

This reflected six consecutive years of economic growth from the Fourth Quarter of 2001 until the Fourth Quarter of 2007. From 2000 to 2007, real GDP grew by more than 17 percent, a remarkable gain of nearly 2.1 trillion dollars. This growth was driven in part by increased labor productivity gains that have averaged 2.5 percent annually since 2001, a rate that exceeds the averages of the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. In the same period, real after-tax income per capita increased by more than 11 percent, and there was a 4.7 percent increase in the number of new businesses formed. The current economic challenges, which the President and his Administration have responded to aggressively, threaten to reverse some of these gains – but the gains cannot be denied.

As for the current crisis, the President and his economic team have taken unprecedented actions to stabilize the financial sector and avert a collapse. While there are a number of causes of the housing and credit crises that are at the root of our current economic troubles, deregulation by the Bush Administration is simply not one of them. In fact, one of the circumstances that contributed to the crisis was the failure of the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which President Bush long tried to subject to greater regulation. In April 2001, three months after taking office, the President warned in his first budget that the size of the two GSEs were a “potential problem” that “could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting Federally insured entities and economic activity.” In 2003, the Administration began calling for a new GSE regulator, and over the next five years, the Administration continued to call for GSE reform only to be accused by Democrats in Congress of creating artificial fears and advocating for ill-advised proposals. By the time Congress finally acted in 2008 to provide the oversight the President requested, it was too late to prevent systemic consequences. Had the Administration’s initial reform proposals been adopted, some of today’s turmoil in our financial markets may have been averted.

Myth 2: President Bush’s tax cuts only benefitted the wealthy and were paid for by sacrificing investments in health care and education.

Reality: There are not 116 million “wealthy Americans,” but that’s how many taxpayers benefited from the President’s tax relief. The across-the-board tax cuts provided tax relief to every American who pays income taxes, created a new bottom 10 percent bracket rate, doubled the child tax credit to $1,000, and actually increased the share of the Federal income tax burden paid by the top 10 percent of individual earners from 67 percent in 2000 to 70 percent in 2005. Furthermore, this Administration removed 13 million low-income earners from the income tax rolls completely.The economic growth spurred by tax relief also spurred growth in Federal tax receipts. In fact, the Federal Treasury realized the largest three-year increase of revenue in 26 years, and tax receipts grew more than $542 billion between 2000 and 2007. And yes, much of that money went to investments in health care and education.

President Bush provided more than 40 million Americans with better access to prescription drugs by creating the market-based Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. And it is one of the rare government programs that actually costs less than expected. Projected overall program spending between 2004 and 2013 is approximately $240 billion lower, nearly 38 percent, than originally estimated, thanks to the market-oriented principles included at President Bush’s insistence.

Despite the heated rhetoric over children’s health insurance (S-CHIP) legislation last year, estimates from a 2007 Federal survey show that the number of uninsured children under the age of 18 actually declined by 800,000 from 2001 to 2007. From 2007 to 2008, the number of people covered by affordable and portable Health Savings Account-eligible plans increased 35 percent. Additionally, since President Bush took office, more than 1,200 community health centers have opened or expanded nationwide, which has helped provide treatment to nearly 17 million people.

Federal spending on education has increased nearly 40 percent under President Bush. Additionally, Pell Grant funding nearly doubled during the Administration, which is expected to help more than 5.5 million students attend college in the 2008-09 school year, 1.2 million more students than were assisted by Pell Grants in the 2001-02 school year. This financial aid assistance also helps account for the fact that 66 percent of high school graduates from the class of 2006 enrolled in colleges, compared to 63 percent in 2000.

Perhaps more importantly, the President’s No Child Left Behind Act has delivered tangible results to students. Since the law was enacted, fourth-grade students have achieved their highest reading and math scores on record, eighth-grade students have achieved their highest math scores on record, and African-American and Hispanic students have posted all-time high scores in a number of categories, narrowing the gap between minority students and white students.

Myth 3: The President’s “go it alone” foreign policy ruined America’s standing in the world.

Reality: Rarely can one see revisionist history occurring in the present, but this charge is nothing short of that. The United States acted with a multilateral coalition of partner nations to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq after he failed to comply with the will of the international community, including numerous United Nations Security Council Resolutions. To ignore this fact is not only a distortion of history, but it is also an insult to the service members of our coalition partners who sacrificed their lives to contribute to the success we are now witnessing in Iraq. And in Afghanistan, approximately forty countries are currently deployed with American forces, including every one of our NATO allies.The President also created a worldwide coalition of more than 90 nations to combat terrorist networks by sharing information, drying up their financing, and bringing their leaders to justice. To date, we have captured or killed hundreds of al-Qaeda leaders and operatives with the help of partner nations. Furthermore, the Administration established the Proliferation Security Initiative, which now includes more than 90 nations, and other multilateral coalitions to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The President successfully pushed for expanding NATO membership, generated international pressure on Iran to stop it from developing nuclear weapons, and organized the Six-Party Talks, which have resulted in North Korea committing to give up its nuclear weapons and abandon its nuclear programs. Verifying North Korea’s commitment will be a challenge, but at the most recent Six-Party Talks meeting, there was strong consensus among the five parties that North Korea must submit to a comprehensive verification regime that accords with international standards.

U.S. ties in Asia have been strengthened over the past eight years, and the Administration has built strong relationships with China, Japan, and South Korea, among others. We have signed an historic civilian nuclear power agreement with India, reflecting a fundamental change in our relationship. Pro-American leaders have been elected in Germany, France, and Italy. Eastern European countries such as Georgia, Ukraine, and Kosovo treasure their relationships with the United States, and no president has done more to improve health and security in the nations of Africa. We have also strengthened cooperation with Latin America, including initiatives with Brazil on biofuels and with Mexico and Central America on fighting organized crime. Finally, when the President took office, America had trade agreements in force with only three countries, versus 14 today – with three additional agreements approved by Congress but not yet in force and agreements with three countries that are awaiting Congressional approval.

Myth 4: The war in Iraq caused us to “take our eye off the ball” in Afghanistan and with al Qaeda.

Reality: Iraq and Afghanistan are two fronts in the same war, and while the success of the surge in Iraq has been visible, we have also had a quiet surge in Afghanistan. The U.S. has continuously and aggressively fought side-by-side with Afghans and our allies to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The United States has provided nearly $32 billion for security, political, and economic development assistance and the international community has provided more than $55 billion to Afghanistan since 2001.An additional U.S. Marine battalion deployed to Afghanistan in November and they will be followed by an Army combat brigade of about 3,400 troops in early 2009. U.S. forces now total approximately 31,000, and are joined by nearly as many coalition troops. The United States and our allies are working with Afghanistan to help it nearly double the size of the Afghan National Army over the next five years, from 79,000 now trained to 134,000 in 2014.

We have also deployed Provincial Reconstruction Teams to ensure security gains are followed by real improvements in daily life, and we have helped local communities strengthen their economies and create jobs, deliver basic services, improve governance and fight corruption, and build or repair key infrastructure such as roads, bridges, hospitals, and schools. More than six million children, approximately two million of them girls, are now in Afghan schools, compared to fewer than one million in 2001.

In this Global War on Terror, we do not have the luxury to fight on one battlefront at a time. To defeat the terrorists, we must fight them overseas so we don’t have to fight them here at home. Since 9/11, we have successfully captured or killed dozens of al-Qaeda’s senior leadership and hundreds of al-Qaeda operatives in two dozen countries, removed al-Qaeda’s safe-haven in Afghanistan and crippled al-Qaeda in Iraq, and disrupted numerous al Qaeda terrorist plots against the U.S., including a 2006 plot to blow up passenger planes traveling from London.

Myth 5: This Administration has been bad for the environment and ignored the problem of global warming.

Reality: Given the liberal media’s failure to acknowledge this Administration’s true record on alternative energy, conservation, and climate change, it’s not surprising this charge has stuck. But here are some irrefutable data points: From 2001 to 2007, air pollution decreased by 12 percent, and fine particulate matter pollution is down 17 percent since 2001. Ethanol production quadrupled from 1.6 billion gallons in 2000 to 6.5 billion gallons in 2007, wind energy production has increased by more than 400 percent, and solar energy capacity has doubled. In 2007, solar installations increased more than 32 percent and the U.S. produced 96 percent more biodiesel (490 million gallons) than in 2006. The Administration also provided nearly $18 billion to research, develop, and promote alternative and more efficient energy technologies such as biofuels, solar, wind, clean coal, nuclear, and hydrogen.This Administration has improved and protected the health of more than 27 million acres of Federal forest and grasslands, protected, restored, and improved more than three million acres of wetlands, and established the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the world’s largest fully protected marine conservation area (nearly 140,000 square miles).

Much of the misperception about the President’s environmental record is born out of the President’s withdrawing the United States from the Kyoto Protocol, which did not include the effective participation of major developing countries such as India and China. Instead, the President worked to address climate change by launching the Major Economies Process, which convened the leaders of the world’s major economies, both developed and developing, to work on ways to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy security without harming our economies or giving any nation a free ride. Finally, the President set the country on course to stop the growth of greenhouse gas emissions below projected levels by 2025 and invested more than $44 billion in climate change-related programs.

Some other items that are infrequently mentioned about the real record of the Bush Administration but are worth noting: Teenage drug use has declined 25 percent; in 2007, the violent crime rate was 43 percent lower than the rate in 1998; between 2005 and 2007, the chronically homeless population decreased approximately 30 percent; funding for veterans’ medical care has increased more than 115 percent; and as of 2005, the most recent abortion rate is at its lowest since 1974.

And one last fact: Our homeland has not suffered another terrorist attack since September 11, 2001. That, too, is part of the real Bush record.

Ed Gillespie is the Counselor to President George W. Bush.

Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/12/myths_and_facts_about_the_real.html at December 22, 2008 – 06:45:33 AM PST

Link to video

There’s enough blame to share, but these bad policies started in the Carter Administration in the 70’s and were made worse in the Clinton Administration in the 90’s.

A methodical breakdown of a financial crisis is contained in the video link above.  If you have 15 minutes to spare, you’ll book mark this and recommend this to others.

And when it comes to pushing us out of this problem – we need to remember this.  The government doesn’t HAVE any money.  What money it HAS is from taxes paid by us.  So all these new jobs programs?  The money has to come from somewhere.

The next President has promised a lot already but has yet to say where he’ll get the money to pay for it.

We need to think more about pretty simple things too, moving forward – Like where credit card companies get all their money for fancy buildings and salaries…  they certainly have never made a penny on me. I should have paid more attention in ECON classes in school, I guess.  But my Parents advice of “if it looks too go to be true, it probably is” or “live within your means”…  always worked for me.  Although I did break a mold and bought my first “foreign” car this year.  But that can be another post later…

Just watched Sen. Corker, (R-Tenn) on CSPAN with Brian Lamb this evening.  I like his sense….

BTW – I’m old enough and remember Dinah singing that song in Black and White on an American Made TV.   But holy crap, I did not know some of this stuff.  96000 workers and provides health benefits to 1 million?  what the HECK business sense does THAT make!

BTW II  – relating to or having sclerosis; hardened (“A sclerotic patient”) I had to look it up.  -pf

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LINK

Can You Still See the USA in Your Chevrolet?
Route 66 is looking ever more like a one-way dead-end street to Bailoutistan.

By Mark Steyn

‘See the USA in your Chevrolet!” trilled Dinah Shore week after week on TV.

Can you still see the USA in your Chevrolet? Through a windscreen darkly.

General Motors now has a market valuation about a third of Bed, Bath And Beyond, and no one says your Swash 700 Elongated Biscuit Toilet Seat Bidet is too big to fail. GM has a market capitalization of just over two billion dollars. For purposes of comparison, Toyota’s market cap is one hundred billion and change (the change being bigger than the whole of GM). General Motors, like the other two geezers of the Old Three, is a vast retirement home with a small loss-making auto subsidiary. The UAW is the AARP in an Edsel: It has three times as many retirees and widows as “workers” (I use the term loosely). GM has 96,000 employees but provides health benefits to a million people.

How do you make that math add up? Not by selling cars: Honda and Nissan make a pre-tax operating profit per vehicle of around 1600 bucks; Ford, Chrysler and GM make a loss of between $500 and $1,500. That’s to say, they lose money on every vehicle they sell. Like Henry Ford said, you can get it in any color as long as it’s red.

In the 20th century, most advanced nations made automobiles but only America made them mythic: “Drive the USA in your Chevrolet!” sang Dinah. “America’s the greatest land of all!” America had road movies. With car chases. Thelma and Louise drove their vehicle off the cliff and, unlike the Old Three, they didn’t demand American taxpayers come along for the ride. But, if you didn’t want to hit the open road, you could just hang around being cool. In Chuck Berry’s immortal quatrain:

Riding along in my automobile

My baby beside me at the wheel

Cruising and playing the radio

With No Particular Place To Go…

Not if you were a European teen. Cruising was an American activity. A Saturday night out for a Brit meant hanging around at a rain-streaked bus shelter hoping the night service would show up. Even if you had a particular place to go, you had no means of getting there.

So many areas of endeavor that once embodied the youth and energy of this great land are now old and sclerotic. I include, naturally, my own industry. I loved the American newsrooms you saw in movies like The Front Page, full of hardboiled, hard-livin’ newspapermen. By the time I got there myself, there were no hardboiled newspapermen, just bland anemic newspaperpersons turning out politically correct snooze sheets of torpid portentousness. The owners of The Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune recently filed for bankruptcy protection. The New York Times is mortgaging its office to fund debt repayment. The Detroit Free Press is cutting out home delivery except on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, thereby further depressing sales of delivery trucks in the Motor City.

The newspapers blame the Internet, just as Detroit blames Japan. But the Japanese have problems of their own. One day they’ll get theirs. That’s the beauty of capitalism. Nothing is forever. The big railroad barons smoking cigars and enjoying pheasant under glass in the dining car on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe thought Henry Ford was a schmuck. Who’d want to ride around in that thing? Next thing you know everyone’s getting their kicks on Route 66:

You’ll see Amarillo

Gallup, New Mexico

Flagstaff, Arizona

Don’t forget Winona

Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino…

Ah, California. The Golden State! To a penniless immigrant called Arnold Schwarzenegger, it was a land of plenty. Now Arnold is an immigrant of plenty in a penniless land. What’s the motto on the license plates? “Ah’ll be back …for more of your money!” In California you don’t have to be an orange to have your pips squeezed. The Terminator makes Gray Davis look like Calvin Coolidge. Care to terminate a government program, Governor? Hey, great idea! We’ll hire 200 people to do an impact study on terminating the Department of Impact Study Regulation and get back to you in a decade. And when Governor Girlyman has run out of state taxpayers to fleece for his ever more bloated bureaucracy, he’ll go to Washington to plead for a federal bailout of Cantaffordya.

California! The state that symbolizes the American Dream! If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere! No, wait, that’s New York. “This is the worst fiscal downturn since the Great Depression,” announced Governor Paterson. So what’s he doing? Why, he’s bringing in the biggest tax hike in New York history. If you can make it there, you’ll be paying state tax on it, sales tax, municipal tax, a doubled beer tax, a tax on clothing, a tax on cab rides, an “iTunes tax” on downloads from the Internet, a tax on haircuts, 137 new tax hikes in all. Call Albany today and order your new package of tax forms, for just $199.99, plus 12% tax on tax forms and 4% tax-form application fee partially refundable upon payment of the 7.5% tax-filing tax. If you can make it there, you’ll certainly have no difficulty making it in Tajikistan.

Hey, and who needs to make it there when you can just get appointed there? Governor Paterson is said to be considering appointing Princess Caroline of Kennedy to Hillary Clinton’s vacant Senate seat. After two and a third centuries of republican experiment, America has finally worked its way back to the House of Lords. “Friends Say Kennedy Has Long Wanted Public Role”, Anne Kornblut assured readers in an in-depth Washington Post tongue-bath. She hasn’t “long wanted” it to the extent of, you know, running for dog catcher in Lackawanna and getting — what’s the word? — “elected”, but, if you have a spare Senate seat, she’s graciously indicated that she’d be prepared to consider accepting it. As lady-in-waiting Anne Kornblut pointed out, she is highly qualified, being “the author of several books”. It’s true! She’s an experienced poetry editor. She edited The Best-Loved Poems Of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Jackie Kennedy wrote poems? Of course! She wrote so many poems that some are better loved than others.

See the USA from your Chevrolet: An hereditary legislature, a media fawning its way into bankruptcy, its iconic coastal states driving out innovators and entrepreneurs, the arrival of the new Messiah heralded only by the leaden dirge of “We Three Kings Of Ol’ Detroit Are/Seeking checks we traverse afar”, and Route 66 looking ever more like a one-way dead-end street to Bailoutistan. Boy, I sure could use a poem by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis right now, even one of the lesser-loved ones.

“I feel like I lost my country,” said the Hudson Institute’s Herbert London the other day, wondering whatever happened to the land of opportunity and dynamism. But I’m more of an optimist. Maybe Princess Caroline will be appointed CEO of GM and all will be well. Or maybe Bed, Bath And Beyond will put wheels on the Swash 700 Elongated Biscuit Toilet Seat Bidet.

And on that cheery note let me wish you a very Hopey Changemas.

This is a newsletter I got from Senator Rants – an Iowa State Senator that must be running for Governor or something…

Well I thought the current Governor’s memo to state employees was creepy myself… saying “this is not our fault” when gee – in the NOVEMBER elections all the Republicans in the state were talking about how much money the Dems were spending and there really is a deficit – they cooked the books….   and the Dems were saying the budget is balanced, life is good yada yada…

you can download the Governor’s letter at the bottom of this page.  -pf

Culver’s Cuts: What, Why and When

Culver Takes Action

This morning many of Iowa’s news outlets, reporters and columnists alike, are giving kudos to Governor Chet Culver for announcing a 1.5% (one and a half percent) across the board reduction to the state budget.They aren’t wrong – Culver did the right thing. But before we heap to much praise on the Governor for his courageous actions lets first consider why he did it, and look a little more precisely what it is that he actually did, and more importantly didn’t do.

It’s Bush’s Fault?
First, let’s peer into the inner workings of Culver’s motivations. How can we know what he’s thinking? Why, his own words of course. The following comes from an email that Culver sent to all state employees yesterday (full text is on my blog):“As you know, we are in the midst of an economic challenge that is historic in its scope. While its cause comes from actions on Wall Street, supported by misguided federal policies from Washington over the past eight years, the result has been an economic recession that is hitting Main Streets and factories and farms and families – and state governments – across the nation.”

Translation – “its Bush’s fault.”
No where in the letter does Culver acknowledge that before the Revenue Estimating Conference met, that the Auditor, the press, everyone was telling him that there was a $550 Million “spending gap” (the difference between expected revenues and already committed expenditures).

I understand Culver wanting to blame someone. I get the Democrat talking points at play here – that they can blame Bush for anything, after all, it worked pretty good in the elections. But I guess I missed how Bush forced Culver to sign into law an additional billion dollars in new spending in just two years with out the money to pay for it.

Remember….

$550 M – Budget gap before Revenue Estimating Conference.

$779 M – Budget gap after Revenue Estimating Conference.

Also from his letter:

“And I am confident that, in January, President-elect Obama and Congress will immediately go to work on an economic stimulus package that will make a difference to critical financial issues facing all States, such as funding for Medicaid, improving our infrastructure, creating new jobs, and rebuilding our economy.”

Why is that important? Because it’s a clear signal that rather than take immediate action to balance our budget, Culver and the Democrats are going to wait.

Oh, they’ll jump on a plane and head to DC (that part of the travel budget isn’t getting cut) to plead for alms from the Federal Treasury. But aside from that action, they are going to play the waiting game. Wait for the Feds to take care of Iowa’s problems.

From the letter: “We did not cause this economic crisis. But the responsibility falls to us to respond to it.”

He’s right, but so far Culver has only responded with $180 M of cuts to solve the problem.

The problem is $779 M. He can blame Bush for $229 M of it, but what about the first $550 M? Don’t Iowans deserve to know where the rest of the reductions will come? Absolutely.

I know many are worried that rather than make reductions, Culver and the Democrats will raise taxes. Take heart. Culver also wrote “I will protect our State’s fiscal position, and I will do so without raising taxes on Iowans.”The problem is, that action Culver took yesterday will raise taxes on some Iowans.Here is why.

The Governor’s across the board cut impacts the amount of money the state gives to local school districts. It does not change the allowable growth formula, which sets the amount of money that schools can spend, that allows local school boards to back fill those cuts with local property tax dollars. Not all of them will, but some will. Others will use their cash reserves and refill that fund with a levy.

That’s why earlier this week, when I presented a list of options, I suggested cutting more, and using those other state dollars freed up to prevent this kind of property tax increase shenanigans.

For now, however, let’s ignore these pesky little details and take Culver at his word. No tax increases from the state. So how does he plan to close the gap? $779 M spending gap, $180 M in cuts. That leaves $599 M to go.

That’s roughly the size of what he started out with – back in April….

Read Culver’s letter here

This is a piece of James Taranto’s “Best of the Web” 12/17/08 produced by the Wall Street Journal online – a particularly good day – and good read…

Foot in Mouth
In the twilight of his presidency, George W. Bush gave Iraqis a final opportunity to thank him for liberating their country. But as Agence France-Presse reports, one Iraqi “journalist,” Muntazer al-Zaidi, seems to have preferred the old regime:

Zaidi jumped up as Bush was holding a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Sunday, shouted “It is the farewell kiss, you dog” and threw two shoes at the US leader.

The shoes missed after Bush ducked and Zaidi was immediately wrestled to the ground by security guards and frogmarched from the room.

Zaidi seems to have borrowed the idea from some hippie in Oregon, who in February 2005, as the Associated Press reported at the time, tossed a shoe at Richard Perle, a former assistant defense secretary. Perle was debating Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a proponent of the Iraqi status quo ante, at Portland’s Pacific University. The unidentified footwear-flinging freak shouted “Liar! Liar!” at Perle.

As for Zaidi’s heel-hurling, AFP reports it was “hailed by many in the Arab world as an ideal parting gift to the unpopular US president,” and it actually quotes Arabs praising this silly action:

“Throwing the shoes at Bush was the best goodbye kiss ever . . . it expresses how Iraqis and other Arabs hate Bush,” wrote Musa Barhoumeh, editor of Jordan’s independent Al-Gahd Arabic newspaper. . . .

“All US soldiers who have used their shoes to humiliate Iraqis should be brought to justice, along with their US superiors, including Bush,” said Ali Qeisi, head of a Jordan-based Iraqi rights group, calling for Zaidi’s release.

“The flying shoe speaks more for Arab public opinion than all the despots/puppets that Bush meets with during his travels in the Middle East,” said Asad Abu Khalil, a popular Lebanese-American blogger and professor at Stanislaus University in California at angryarab.blogspot.com.

If these comments are representative, they tell you something about the intellectual impoverishment of Arab culture (and of the culture of American higher education, habitat of both Asad Abu Khalil and, one presumes, the Portland Perle projectile perpetrator). Zaidi is a hero in the view of these men for his childish, impotent and potentially (though not actually) harmful expression of unreasoning rage.

Meanwhile, AFP reports that “Saddam Hussein’s former lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said he was forming a team to defend Zaidi and that around 200 lawyers, including Americans, had offered their services for free.” Of course Dulaimi did not end up doing all that well by his last high-profile client, who as far as we know is still dead. If Zaidi is smart, he’ll hold out for a white-shoe firm.

Uday and the Lions
Don’t get Thomas Schaller wrong. He misses Saddam Hussein as much as the next Salon writer does:

Look: Bush has wreaked havoc on Iraq. Death, dismemberment, disfiguring, displacement and political disarray are all part of his tragic legacy. Al-Zaidi has many legitimate reasons to be angry.

Yet there is this caveat:

But his actions and the subsequent lionizing of him are not helpful.

Somehow this reminded us of a July 2003 report in the Times of London:

A chief executioner to one of Saddam’s sons has revealed how he helped drag two victims into a cage to be devoured by lions.

The executioner said that he was ordered to seize two 19-year-old students and take them to a farm of Uday Hussein, Saddam’s oldest son who was killed by American forces last week.

As soon as they arrived the students were dragged to a cage containing the lions and forced inside. “I saw the head of the first student literally come off his body with the first bite,” he said. He then had to stand and watch the animals devour the two young men: “By the time they were finished there was little left but for the bones and bits and pieces of unwanted flesh.”

He was told later that the two young men “had competed with Uday where some young ladies were concerned.”

“Lionizing” meant something quite different back when Saddam was in power.

The Neediest Cases
It’s easy to think of the economic downturn in abstract terms: the rising unemployment rate, the falling Dow Jones Industrial Average. But behind these numbers is a great deal of human suffering, and reporters at the New York Times have been laboring heroically to tell the stories of the people who are hurting. Here is one such story:

Jodi Hamilton began her senior year of high school in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., this fall on the usual prosperous footing. Her parents were providing a weekly allowance of $100 and paying for private Pilates classes, as well as a physics tutor who reported once a week to their 4,000-square-foot home.

But in October, Jodi’s mother lost her job managing a huge dental practice in the Bronx, then landed one closer to home that requires more hours for less money. Pilates was dropped, along with takeout sushi dinners, and Jodi’s allowance, which covers lunch during the week, slipped to $60. Instead of having a tutor, Jodi has become a tutor, earning $150 a week through that and baby-sitting.

“I just thought it would be responsible to get a job and have my own money so my parents didn’t have to pay for everything,” said Jodi, who is 17. “I always like to be saving up for something that I have my eye on–a ring, a necklace, a handbag.”

We cried because we had no Kobe beef until we met a girl who had no sushi.

Accountability Journalism
This is what now passes for “news” at the Associated Press:

When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can’t avoid.

Since Clinton’s inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton’s second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it. . . .

Mother Nature, of course, is oblivious to the federal government’s machinations. Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it’s thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

USA Today has a smart op-ed piece today noting the similarity between global warmism and religious myths of apocalypse. There seems to be a basic human need to believe the end is nigh. Perhaps it somehow diverts us from contemplating our own inevitable demise.

Biden Brings Back the Bucket
If the idea of having Joe Biden a heartbeat away from the presidency worries you, this report from Politico will offer some reassurance–at least as long as Barack Obama’s heart continues to beat:

Joe Biden is laying plans to significantly shrink the role of the vice presidency in Barack Obama’s White House, according to an official familiar with his thinking. . . .

Biden will not begin every day with his own intelligence briefing before sitting in on the president’s. He will not always be the last person Obama speaks to before making a decision.

He also will not, as a transition official calls it, operate a “shadow government” within an Obama administration. . . .

Biden’s goal of restoring the office to its “traditional role” is something he and Obama agreed on before the Delaware senator was named to the Democratic ticket, the transition official said.

As part of that understanding, Biden is unlikely to have a specific docket of issues.

The traditional role of the vice presidency was best described by John Nance “Cactus Jack” Garner, vice president during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first two terms, who said the position was “not worth a bucket of warm spit.” (Actually, rather than “spit,” FDR’s No. 2 used a vulgar term for No. 1.)

Although it may be that Obama is looking to uphold another tradition, from his hometown of Chicago: no-show jobs.

LINK to source

not too far away, you know

did you hear there was going to be a train?

Philly to WASH D.C. so the common folk could see him.

States in trouble

WAIT!!! the Dems said in the elections in NOVEMBER that we in IOWA were fine – flush – balanced!!!

Why are we bbblllluuueee

A great Hawkeye blog worth reading – this post at least – I found it when I signed up for TWITTER…     The Greene Party

BTW Shonn won the Doak Walker award – excellent…

The Other American Auto Industry
Plenty of car makers make a go of it in this country–they’re just non-union and not headquartered in Detroit.
by Fred Barnes
12/22/2008, Volume 014, Issue 14
West Point, Georgia

Drew Ferguson IV is a 42-year-old dentist whose family has lived in this town, population 3,300, “since God put us here.” To be precise, the family arrived eight generations ago. Ferguson went off to the University of Georgia, then on to dental school, after which he came back to West Point. He and his wife, whom he met in college, have four kids. A year ago, Ferguson was elected mayor. “There’s a reason I live in West Point,” he says. “I love it. There’s a sense of place here.” No doubt, but West Point is located in what might also be considered the middle of nowhere. It’s pinched between I-85 and the Alabama border. Atlanta is a good hour’s drive away.

West Point today isn’t the same town Ferguson grew up in. Textile company executives used to live here. But when the textile industry collapsed in the 1980s, the victim of foreign competition, they moved away. Thousands of jobs were lost. A few small technology firms took up some of the slack. But the high-tech bust of the late 1990s proved to be another job killer. “We survived without a federal bailout,” Ferguson says sarcastically. Now, while much of America wallows in the gloom of a recession, there’s great joy in West Point. “West Point will have more economic growth in the next 24 months than anywhere else in the country,” Ferguson boasts. And he may be right.

KIA has come to town. The Korean automobile manufacturer is building a huge assembly plant, which will employ 2,900 workers when it begins turning out cars a year from now. KIA suppliers will employ thousands more nearby. When KIA accepted applications last winter–only online, not in person–43,000 people applied. Just last week, a 2.5-mile, four-lane road that runs along the 2,200-acre plant site was completed. Naturally it’s called KIA Parkway. A Korean barbecue restaurant opened a year ago, as Koreans began moving into West Point. It was formerly a Pizza Hut.

KIA donated one of its cars to Georgia governor Sonny Perdue, who is said to drive it occasionally. Ferguson drives a KIA Sorento. “I had to buy mine,” he says. In the election last year, Ferguson ousted Billy Head, who is 30 years older and was a two-term incumbent. Ferguson says the voters in West Point “were ready to take a new direction. We have a chance to completely reinvent this town. For an old textile town, we’ve really done pretty well.” Ferguson recently hired a second dentist to join his practice.West Point has entered the auto industry’s alternative universe. Foreign car manufacturers, the so-called transplants, have been setting up shop in the South for a quarter century now, starting with the plant that Nissan opened in Smyrna, Tennessee, in 1983. It’s still operating. Nissan added a second plant in Canton, Mississippi, in 2003. Two years ago, Nissan moved its American headquarters from southern California to Cool Springs, Tennessee, just south of Nashville.

The auto production numbers in the South are staggering. A dozen years ago, Alabama produced zero cars. Now it turns out 750,000 annually at Mercedes, Honda, and Hyundai plants. Three years after Mercedes opened its SUV factory near Tuscaloosa in 1996, it doubled the size and output. A Honda plant halfway between Birmingham and Atlanta went on line in 2001, and the next year the company spent $450 million to expand it, adding 2,000 more workers.

The southern auto industry mocks Detroit. The transplants make money and aren’t asking for help from Washington. The recession has curtailed car sales temporarily, causing the transplants to slow production. But they are expected to expand again once the economy recovers. Volkswagen is currently building a plant outside of Chattanooga, which will produce 150,000 cars a year. But VW, with ambitious plans to increase its American sales, obtained an environmental permit that allows it to make 512,000 autos at the site. Volkswagen, by the way, has moved its main American office from Auburn Hills, Michigan, to Herndon, Virginia.

Embarrassed by the success of the foreigners, the Big 3 car makers and the United Auto Workers (UAW) claim the tax and other “incentives” the transplants get from state and local governments in the South are no different from the subsidies they’re seeking in Washington. But that’s not quite true. “There’s a big difference between a subsidy and an incentive,” says Michael Randle, president of Southern Business and Development and an expert on the southern auto industry. “A subsidy pays to keep jobs. An incentive pays to bring them. If you’re paying to keep them, it means somebody wants to leave.”

Southern officials don’t apologize for luring foreign companies, nor should they. “The distinction between foreign and domestic cars is totally gone now,” Democratic governor Phil Bredesen of Tennessee told me. “Most Volkswagens are just as American as a Chevy. They’re built here. They’re built by Americans. The management at the [Chattanooga] plant is largely American. They’re not bringing in parts from Germany.” The plant manager happens to be a Texan named Don Johnson.

It’s no longer politically risky for a governor to offer transplants costly incentives. Alabama’s Democratic governor Jim Folsom Jr. was criticized for the $250 million package the state gave Mercedes, and the issue contributed to his defeat in the 1994 election. But when Bredesen and other Tennessee officials, including Republican senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, attracted VW with $577 million in tax breaks and other enticements, they drew cheers.

Government payouts aren’t the only inducement to automakers or even the most important one. There’s also the attraction of a pro-business political community, relatively cheap labor, inexpensive or free land, lower cost of living and of doing business, warm climate, and the big one that the auto companies are wary of talking about–no UAW.

The southern auto belt from South Carolina to Texas, home to eight German, Japanese, or Korean plants (plus three more under construction), is right-to-work country. In these states, workers can’t be compelled to join a union or pay dues, and not many are inclined to sign a union card anyway. The result: The UAW has failed miserably to organize workers. No Mercedes, VW, Honda, Toyota, Hyundai (KIA’s parent), BMW, or Nissan plant in the South is unionized.

There’s a simple explanation. It’s what I call the progressive anti-unionism of the transplants. It consists of one factor: They pay well. Workers not only make far more than the prevailing wage in the rural areas where most plants are located but also considerably more than every state’s average wage. With overtime, they can earn $70,000 or more a year at some plants. Average pay and benefits: roughly $45 an hour.

Unlike the timid auto executives, politicians in the right-to-work states are quite candid in crediting the enormous appeal of their non-union status. “If you don’t have right-to-work laws, you end up like those guys [the Big 3] are today” in Detroit, Corker says. “Right to work,” says another top state official, “is a huge issue.”

“We don’t have a culture that values union organizing,” says Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi who persuaded Toyota to locate a Prius plant in Blue Springs in northern Mississippi. “Our workers like overtime and pay for performance. They feel like they get a better deal without the union.”

The UAW, of course, is partly responsible for lofty non-union wages, though the threat of a successful UAW organizing drive is remote. A union workforce doesn’t fit the business model pursued by the transplants. They dislike inflexible union work rules, grievances, an adversarial relationship between management and labor, indeed any intermediary between plant managers and workers at all. And they especially hate strikes.

Michigan, though a union state, made an aggressive bid for the Volkswagen plant that wound up in Tennessee. It was one of three finalists. But when a VW site selection team made its final visit in May, a UAW local in Michigan was striking against a Big 3 supplier. “Fear of the UAW probably drove the final decision,” a local business leader told the Detroit Free Press.

In truth, the transplants don’t have much to worry about from organized labor. The UAW has been able to force only three elections at the foreign-owned plants. The union lost overwhelmingly at Nissan’s Tennessee plant in 1989, failed in another election there, and lost at the Mercedes plant in Alabama. The UAW might fare better if “card check” is approved by Congress next year, allowing organizers to succeed without the need to win a secret ballot election. But the transplants should still have little trouble thwarting UAW organizers.

The UAW’s problem is that it has little to offer. High pay? The workers have that. “If you’re making $50 an hour, what do you need a union for?” says Randle. Job security? Workers tend to rate a successful company as a better security bet than a union whose members are losing jobs by the tens of thousands. A voice on the assembly line? Transplant workers have that, just not through a third-party like the UAW.

So the UAW is left with a handful of weak arguments about on-the-job accidents, overworked employees, and sweatshop conditions. “Why would a worker in Alabama or Texas making far and away the best wages he ever could want to join the UAW?” says Washington attorney Richard Wyatt, who specializes in labor issues. “The UAW has no story to tell these people that makes any sense.”

In courting transplants, southern states have another great advantage besides right-to-work laws and lucrative incentive packages. They try harder because their need–especially to raise the South’s standard of living–has been greater. They are better at beckoning business because they’ve been doing it for decades, first to attract textiles and furniture, now autos. They treat campaigns to capture transplants like military exercises. Georgia’s plan to win over KIA was dubbed Project Pine Tree. Also, nearly all elected officials, Republicans and Democrats, are favorable to business. The efforts are bipartisan.

And they put far more time and ingenuity into charming foreign auto chiefs. When Tennessee officials negotiated with Nissan over shifting its headquarters to Nashville, they learned the wife of the top Nissan executive in the United States was a fancier of African violets. So they arranged to have a new type of the flower named after her. To meet with KIA’s chief executive in West Point, Georgia officials replaced their Fords with a fleet of rented KIAs to drive around the proposed plant site.

Since Tennessee’s Nissan breakthrough in 1983, states in the southern auto corridor have been willing to up the ante to attract the transplants. Nissan got $66 million in incentives. Two years later, Toyota accepted $125 million to put a plant near Lexington, Kentucky. That included $35 million for buying and preparing the site. The latest was Tennessee’s $577 million package for VW this year.

So far, these investments have paid off handsomely. Michael Randle points to the case of Alabama, which has delivered $1.2 billion in incentives to four automakers. The companies, in turn, have spent $20 billion in salaries alone to their employees. “If Warren Buffett took $1.2 billion and turned it into $20 billion in 10 years, he’d be called a genius.”

Randle argues that the “sum of the southern auto industry is so much greater than its parts.” The auto plants have a multiplier effect on local economies. They usually hire younger workers who might not be able to buy a home until their 40s if they worked at WalMart. “With these [auto] jobs, they buy a house at 28 or 29.” At least that’s Randle’s theory.

Drew Ferguson is a believer. He initially got an inkling that KIA was coming from his father, Drew Ferguson III, a banker in West Point who heads the town’s economic development commission. “Son, I’ve got some good news,” he said several years ago. “But I can’t tell you.” The news was KIA’s interest in West Point. Georgia officials, it turned out, had tried in vain to sell KIA on a fully developed site outside Savannah. But a member of KIA’s site selection team had picked out the West Point site as he drove between Atlanta and Montgomery, Alabama, home of a Hyundai plant.

Once KIA announced its decision, excitement in West Point bubbled over. But there was a problem with the site. It was divided among 35 separate landowners. The elder Ferguson had the job of buying out all of them. It took him just 35 days. The town itself has put $80 million into the KIA project.

The mayor talked optimistically last week about West Point’s future as he drove me around the town and down the new four-lane parkway past the half-built plant. “This community was able to survive when the textile industry went away,” he told me. “At the height of the tech boom, we had 2,000 jobs, but we lost a lot of those. Now we have a remarkable opportunity to turn this old textile town into the largest economic development in Georgia’s history.”

Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Duty, Honor, Country

First to fight for the right, And to build the nation’s might,
And THE ARMY GOES ROLLING ALONG,Then it’s Hi! Hi! Hey!
The Army’s on its way.Count off the cadence loud and strong.
For where’er we go, you will always know,
That THE ARMY GOES ROLLING ALONG…

W enjoying himself at the Army-Navy game.

More later about two Tipton, Iowa connections @ West Point.

Link

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Kirk Ferentz has led the University of Iowa football program to two Outback Bowl games and he can’t wait for trip No. 3.The Hawkeye head coach said that his staff knew following a 55-0 thumping of Minnesota on Nov. 22, that eight victories (five of them against Big Ten Conference competition), would send the black and gold to either the Alamo, Capital One, Champs Sports or Outback bowl.

“We knew we were going to a good bowl,” Ferentz said Sunday evening at a media conference inside the Hayden Fry Football Complex. “When you talk about San Antonio, Orlando or Tampa, you can’t go wrong and we know that first-hand. We knew we would be playing a good opponent, that comes hand-in-hand with those destinations. It’s nice to know this was going to have a good outcome and we’re thrilled to death with the way it turned out.”

An understandably upbeat Ferentz opened Sunday’s conference with a reference to a tongue-in-cheek comment he made Nov. 11 about his disdain for the holiday drink egg nog.

“I want to start out by apologizing if I offended anybody on the egg nog front last month,” Ferentz said. “I didn’t mean to. Anderson-Erickson was very kind. They sent us probably a months-load of egg nog which is upstairs in our refrigerator and everyone in our office has been enjoying that. It’s not that I hate egg nog, believe me. It’s just that I didn’t want to sit around drinking it in Iowa, so maybe I’ll have a glass when we’re down in Tampa.”

The Hawkeyes are playing in their fifth January bowl game in seven seasons. Kickoff against South Carolina will be 10 a.m. (Iowa time) on Thursday, Jan. 1 from Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

“The people down there are hospitable and everything about the Outback Bowl is great,” Ferentz said. “We’ll enjoy it. It’s nice to be down there. The Outback Bowl does a great job of not over-burdening the players, but they provide real nice opportunities. You want the guys to enjoy the experience, you want them to focus when they have to and get their work done, but also to have the chance to relax and have fun, too, and enjoy the area a little bit.”

Iowa is 3-3 in bowl games under Ferentz. The Hawkeyes defeated Florida 37-17 in the 2004 Outback Bowl (following the 2003 season) and dropped a controversial 31-24 decision to the Gators in 2006 (following the 2005 season).

Much has been made of Iowa’s young team and qualifying for a bowl game provides an invaluable chance for an extra month of practice.

“That’s great side benefit of going to a bowl game,” Ferentz said. “We missed out on that opportunity last year. It’s great for the team to be together for another month. You talk about the value of having younger players around guys like (Matt) Kroul, (Mitch) King, (Rob) Bruggeman, Shonn Greene — that’s a pretty powerful thing. It’s hard to find anything bad about bowl games. I always go back to what (former UI defensive coordinator) Bill Brashier said: `There’s no such thing as a bad bowl. Some are better than others, but there is no such thing as a bad one.’ I think you can say that about the experience in general. We would have been thrilled to go anywhere.”

“I know having our fan support is a real plus for us. That helped us, but I also feel like for anybody who selected us, it wasn’t going to be hard to sell this team, mainly because of the way we finished. Then we have a few players who are interesting for people to take a look at. I don’t think anybody has to be embarrassed about picking us and we’re certainly not embarrassed about the season we put together this year.”

UI head coach

The bowl-seasoned Hawkeye players will also be counted on to show the bowl rookies the proper way to approach the postseason festivities.

“The older guys will help the younger guys understand what they need to do,” Ferentz said.

Sunday was not an opportunity for the media to receive loads of information about the Gamecocks. UI defensive line coach Rick Kaczenski was offensive line and wide receivers coach at South Carolina from 1999-2001.

“I know Kaczenski worked there and I know they have a famous head coach (Steve Spurrier),” Ferentz said. “Outside of that, I don’t know much else. Being a (Southeastern Conference) team, I know they’re going to be extremely talented and there’s a reason Coach Spurrier has won that many games there. They’re going to be ready to go.”

Last season the Hawkeyes were bowl-eligible with a 6-6 record, but were not invited to a bowl game. Ferentz said that adds extra significance this season.

“It’s like a player missing a year,” he said. “I think they appreciate their opportunities a little more. Certainly for us to be back and playing in a great bowl, that’s going to make it that much better for us, so we’re thrilled.”

As he has done many times throughout the season, Ferentz emphasized that his staff and the Hawkeye players do not take their incredible fan support for granted. Ferentz said the Hawkeye fans always impress the bowl scouts and combining that with the Hawkeye performance on the football field makes for a noteworthy combination.

“I know having our fan support is a real plus for us,” Ferentz said. “That helped us, but I also feel like for anybody who selected us, it wasn’t going to be hard to sell this team, mainly because of the way we finished. Then we have a few players who are interesting for people to take a look at. I don’t think anybody has to be embarrassed about picking us and we’re certainly not embarrassed about the season we put together this year.”

Iowa won its final three games and five of its last six to finish the regular season 8-4 overall.

The entire media conference wasn’t spent talking about the Outback Bowl or South Carolina. After being asked if any current student-athletes could become academic casualties at semester, Ferentz put an end to gossip that has been circulating of late.

“I did hear a rumor the other day that one of our notable players wasn’t going to class,” he said. “If he’s not, then our academic support folks are way off base. We just had an academic meeting the Monday before Thanksgiving and got great reports there. That one might go into the same category that he was up to 280 or 300 (pounds) at one point. I think you can put both those in the same box.”

Shonn Greene Data 

It’s only starting for Shonn Greene; and it couldn’t happen to a nicer young man.  Brown (currently #2 in the total yardage race) has a game this weekend, so he will probably out pace Shonn of that national honor but we’ll see – I think they add Bowl games into the final totals.

Go Hawkeyes – hoping for the January 1 – the Capital ONE Bowl against South Carolina!!!

===============

chicagotribune.com

SILVER FOOTBALL WINNER

Iowa’s Shonn Greene wins Chicago Tribune Silver Football

10th Hawkeye to take home honor

By Teddy Greenstein

Tribune reporter

10:02 PM CST, December 4, 2008

(IOWA CITY) A reporter handed Shonn Greene a 2008 Big Ten football media guide and asked him to look at Page 20, which listed Iowa’s preseason depth chart.

First-team running back: Paki O’Meara.

Second team: Nate Guillory.

“Wow,” Greene said. “No me.”

So if you were taken aback by Greene’s three-month rise from nowheresville to the nation’s leading rusher, you’re hardly alone.

A year ago Greene was taking classes at Kirkwood Community College in Iowa City and working at a furniture store for $8 an hour. Bad grades had cost him his scholarship.

But after running for 1,729 yards and 17 touchdowns for the 8-4 Hawkeyes, Greene earned the 2008 Tribune Silver Football, awarded annually to the Big Ten’s best player as determined by a vote of conference coaches. Greene won in a landslide, garnering seven first-place votes. (Coaches can’t vote for their own players.)

Greene is Iowa’s 10th Silver Football winner and the Hawkeyes’ first since quarterback Brad Banks, who similarly rose from anonymity to the league’s top gun in 2002.

Greene is the only Division I player to top 100 rushing yards in all 12 games this season.

“This guy is clearly an elite player,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said.

Greene has a year of eligibility left. But the 5-foot-11-inch, 230-pound back will turn 24 in August — he attended a prep school before Iowa — and could go as high as the second round if he declares for the NFL draft. Greene said he would decide after Iowa’s bowl game.

“I told him that when the time’s right, we can put him on the phone with three or four people who know what the draft board looks like,” Ferentz said. “I also said, ‘Keep your options open.’ ”

Greene’s options look way better than they once did.

2008 Silver Football results

Republicans Call for Committeewoman Resignation

(MUSCATINE)—Republican committees and officials from Linn, Johnson, Muscatine, Wapello, Jefferson, Washington, Cedar, Henry, Jones and Louisa Counties have joined together over the past several weeks to call for the resignation of the state Republican National Committeewoman, Kim Lehman.

The group of Eastern Iowa Republican committees and leaders are asking that Lehman be ousted after she used her group, the Iowa Right to Life Committee, to negatively characterize a Republican Congressional candidate during the 2008 election cycle.

Michael Gaeta is the chair of the Muscatine County Central Committee, who was the first to call for Lehman’s resignation. 

“It is one thing to advocate for or against a candidate, but Ms. Lehman’s IRL Committee distributed half-truths and lies about a Republican primary winner. This action is in direct conflict with the duties of our party leaders,” said Gaeta.  “Ms. Lehman has done irreparable damage to her credibility within the party.”

Trudy Caviness, the chair of the Wapello County Republicans stated, “Kim Lehman went too far. We ask our elected officials to take courageous stands for Iowa all of the time. Now it is time for our state central committee to do the same. Kim Lehman needs to go.”

The state party does not have the power to remove Lehman from her position but they can issue a vote of no confidence. 

Republican State Representative, Jeff Kaufmann was joined by Senator Jim Hahn, an 18- year veteran in the Iowa Legislature in calling for Lehman to step down immediately.

“I am proud of our county committees for doing what is right. This is not about one particular candidate, nor is it about the pro-life movement. Most of us demanding Lehman’s resignation are pro-life. This is about Kim Lehman choosing her own self-interests above her party and her state. Anything short of her resignation will affect the credibility of the state party. A person lacking credibility can barely lead, let alone apply a self-defined litmus test to candidates,” said Kaufmann.

The state central committee meets Saturday, December 6, 2008 in Des Moines.

[UPDATE LINK to article]

Republicans to call for censure of party leader

CEDAR RAPIDS — Eastern Iowa Republicans will call for the censure of one their state party’s leaders, arguing her actions as a leader of another group are in conflict with her duties as a party leader.

David Chung of Cedar Rapids plans to ask fellow members of the Republican Party of Iowa State Central Committee to censure Republican National Committeewoman Kim Lehman, who also serves as executive director of Iowa Right to Life. Chung and other 2nd District Republicans seek her ouster. The committee, essentially the party’s board of directors, meets Saturday in Des Moines.

At issue is a pre-election flyer Lehman’s pro-life group published containing “half-truths and lies” about GOP U.S. House candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks, suggesting Ottumwa physician should get the “Great Pretender Award” for her statements about opposing abortion.

In doing so, Lehman “has done irreparable damage to her credibility within the party,” Trudy Caviness, chairwoman of the Wapello County Republicans, said. “Kim Lehman went too far.”

Most of those calling for Lehman’s resignation are pro-life, according to Rep. Jeff Kauffman, R-Wilton. However, in putting “her own self-interests above her party,” Lehman destroyed her credibility within the party.

“A person lacking credibility can barely lead, let alone apply a self-defined litmus test to candidates,” he said.

Officials from Linn, Johnson, Washington, Cedar, Jones and other counties in the 2nd District wrote to the Central Committee seeking Lehman’s ouster.

The Central Committee has no authority to remove a national committee member elected by the delegates to the state convention. Lehman and Steve Scheffler of West Des Moines were both elected this past summer.

So Chung will ask that Lehman be censured or for a vote of “no confidence,” a step that might lead to Lehman’s resignation.

Lehman did not immediately return phone calls from The Gazette.

n Contact the writer: (319) 398-8375 or at james.lynch@gazcomm.com