Jim Tankersley A Fake Hunter?

I find it humorous when someone like Jim Tankersley tries to lay blame on an action on people other than who it belongs. He reports on Mike Huckabee’s pheasant hunting trip and an incident with reporters:

Republican Mike Huckabee took his presidential campaign for a quick pheasant-hunting expedition in Iowa on Wednesday, and at one point, a reporter asked why he hadn’t invited sporting enthusiast Dick Cheney along. “Because I want to survive all the way through this,” Huckabee replied, in a chuckling dig at the vice president’s accidental shooting of a quail-hunting partner last year.Any good sportsman, though, couldn’t miss a distinctly Cheneyesque moment in the press accounts of the former Arkansas governor’s morning hunt: At one point, Huckabee’s party turned toward a cluster of reporters and cameramen and, when they kicked up a pheasant, fired shotgun blasts over the group’s heads.

This, friends, is dangerously bad hunting form.

Your Swamp correspondent, the son of a longtime hunter education instructor, grew up plying the corn rows and stream banks of rural Oregon with a Labrador retriever and a Mossberg 20-gauge pump shotgun. On our hunts for pheasant, grouse and quail, merely swinging a gun barrel in the general direction of another person was grounds for day-long banishment to the truck (which smelled like wet dog).

Now perhaps Mr. Tankersley does have some modicum of hunting experience. But if he does, he is throwing it out the window for the sake of a story.

Contrary to Mr. Tankersley’s assertions that it was Mr. Huckabee that was in “bad hunting form”, the truth of this matter is that it was the reporters NOT Mr. Huckabee and his group that were at fault.

Why? Because no one should not be following around a group of hunters like these reporters were. That, my friends, is how people get shot.

When you are hunting, you spot your target, you follow your target and you fire at your target. You also should take a quick second to make sure nothing else is between you and your target, but as anyone who has ever hunted knows once you start to track you are not taking your eyes off the target. And despite what Mr. Tankersley would have you believe you cannot watch through your sites and turn your head all around to look at what might be coming next. Many hunters have had the perfect shot ruined because as they tracked game in their scope they fired just as a tree ran across their path.

Gaggles of reporters just lolly-gagging around in the woods looking for a story have to be aware of what is happening. When the pheasants go up, you go down. You don’t walk behind another hunter if you can ever help it and if you have to you make darn sure he knows you are there. You don’t stand around and look at the pretty bird. That is a good way to get shot.

Boy’s kidnappers promise revenge if family cooperates with authorities, mom says

Human traffickers are threatening family members of a Houston boy who was kidnapped in an apparent Christmas Eve dispute over $4,000 owed for smuggling his sister from Mexico, the boy’s mother said.

Francisca Torres, 37, said Wednesday she has received three calls at her home from smugglers since her son Luis Antonio Gonzalez, 14, was freed by authorities in Austin and returned to Houston late Christmas Day.

‘’They don’t want money. They are telling me to retract my statement, to say it was a mistake, a misunderstanding,” Torres said. ‘’It’s a big organization they have, and they could hurt us here and in Mexico.”

During the calls, she said the smugglers threatened relatives in Houston and Mexico with harm if they continued to cooperate with authorities.

Torres also said smugglers mentioned the location of her youngest daughter, who is expecting a baby and lives in Mexico.
One of the men who held her son told him they were connected to the feared Zetas, a group of Mexican military defectors who are assassins and enforcers for the Gulf Cartel drug trafficking ring.
‘’We are afraid — afraid of the smugglers and afraid of the immigration authorities,” said Torres, acknowledging they could be deported because they are illegal immigrants.

And at their modest home on Wednesday, the family seemed to be on edge. Every time a car would stop along the street outside, either Luis or his younger brother would peer out from the curtains.

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Obey Lost - Taxpayers Won!

After a wave of protest from CAGW and other public policy groups across the political spectrum, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) backed down from announced plans to conceal more than 30,000 earmark requests submitted to his committee until the last minute when he and his staff would have chosen which ones to insert into un-amendable House-Senate conference reports. “Democrats promised real earmark reform, but then took the first opportunity they could to find a loophole and get back to pork-barrel business as usual,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “The American people are sick and tired of the bait and switch from Congress, especially when it comes to their tax dollars.” Read more about Chairman Obey’s failed attempt to block earmark transparency.

Yes, Virginia, There really is a “Christmas Tree” !

Officials in the town of Queen Creek, Arizona have been advised by lawyers for The Alliance Defense Fund that the use of the word “Christmas” does not violate the Constitution.

“The American people, common sense, and the Constitution are clearly winning the war on Christmas waged by the Left,” said Gary McCaleb, ADF senior counsel. “Unfortunately, the misguided belief that we must sanitize Christmas to keep from offending a small segment of the population exists.”

Residents of the town recently sent dozens of emails to officials asking that the “Holiday Tree”, displayed at city hall, be returned to it’s original designation as a “Christmas Tree”.

“We understanding that there is often a great deal of misinformation surrounding public acknowledgement and celebration of Christmas,” the letter, signed by legal counsel Jeremy Tedesco, said.

“Consequently, ADF has assisted municipalities across the country in separating fact from fiction in regard to seasonal expression by public bodies like Queen Creek.

“Queen Creek does not violate the First Amendment when it uses the word ‘Christmas’ or incorporates religious references into its Christmas celebrations,” the letter said. “Certainly erecting a Christmas tree and recognizing it for what it is offends no constitutional principles.”

The letter noted the courts even have recognized the government’s display of a nativity scene as constitutional.

“One need not look further than the United States president to see that governmental entities and officials are permitted to reference religion, and specifically Christmas,” he said. “At this year’s lighting ceremony for the annual National Christmas Tree, President Bush made the following remarks:

“Christmas is a time of rejoicing and reflection. Each year at this time, we rejoice in the proclamation of good news, that in Bethlehem of Judea, a Savior was born. And we rejoice in the Christmas promise of peace to men of goodwill. We also reflect on the mystery of Christmas: the story of the Almighty, who entered history in the most vulnerable form possible â€“ hidden in the weakness of a newborn child…”

“It is our opinion that Queen Creek need not fear legal liability for calling a Christmas tree a Christmas tree. Indeed, any lawsuit challenging a municipality’s recognition of Christmas would be completely frivolous,” the letter said.

“I’ve always wanted it to be called a Christmas tree, and I’ve always wondered why we call it a holiday tree,” Mayor Art Sanders told the Associated Press. “If we’re going to have a holiday tree-lighting, it should be a Christmas tree, in the same way you wouldn’t call a menorah a holiday candlestick.”

“ADF will continue to protect the right to publicly celebrate Christmas as well as other constitutionally protected religious liberties that are attacked,” said McCaleb. “It is time to stop the ridiculous assault on a holiday celebrated by 95 percent of Americans.”

Clinton’s Silent Treatment

Senatorette Clinton has adopted an age old political strategy. When you speak do so in broad terms, don’t get pinned down and let people paint the blank canvas you give them. That seems to be her latest tact based on this report:

As she races through Iowa in the days before next week’s caucuses, Hillary Clinton is taking few chances. She tells crowds that it’s their turn to “pick a president,’’ but over the last two days she has not invited them to ask her any questions.

Before the brief Christmas break, the New York senator had been setting aside time after campaign speeches to hear from the audience. Now when she’s done speaking, her theme songs blare from loudspeakers, preventing any kind of public Q&A.

She was no more inviting when a television reporter approached her after a rally on Thursday and asked if she was “moved’’ by Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. Clinton turned away without answering.

Her daughter, Chelsea, had the same reaction when a reporter approached her with a question.

When you speak you risk offending someone. And as we know liberals hate to offend people. So she is going out and giving well crafted speeches and then running off.

Unfortunately, like everything else she does, this shows a lack of real leadership ability.

Risky Railroad Loan Derailed

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) stirred a media and public firestorm that ultimately derailed a risky $2.3 billion loan for the Dakota, Minnesota, and Eastern Railroad (DM&E). Instigated by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a former six-figure lobbyist for DM&E, this record federal loan would have required an annual service payment exceeding DM&E’s current yearly revenue. The Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) rejection of the loan “marks a huge victory in the battle against wasteful spending,” CAGW President Tom Schatz declared. “The DM&E loan coasted under the radar until activists expressed outrage over its financial, economic, and safety risks. The FRA heard the public’s concerns and made the right decision” that the loan posed an “unacceptably high risk” to federal taxpayers. Read more about the FRA’s denial of the DM&E loan.

Lou Dobbs to the Rescue?

By TEDDY DAVIS and KEVIN CHUPKA

CNN’s Lou Dobbs could come under pressure to run for president from a group opposed to illegal immigration if the GOP nominates former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Arizona Sen. John McCain or former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. “We still hope that we can get a comprehensive enforcement candidate out of the Republican field,” William Gheen, the president of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, told ABC News. “But if we can’t, we’re going to grab Lou Dobbs by the ear and drag him into the race.” Dobbs has not taken any formal steps to become a presidential candidate. But The Wall Street Journal reported last month that friends of Dobbs say he is “seriously contemplating a race for the first time, although it’s still unlikely.”

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GOP’s Big Tent Has Let Too Much Crap In

I’ve been saying it for years and people have been sloughing it off as just nonsense. But when the polls bear it out maybe people will start listening.

The GOP’s philosophy of the “big tent” has let too many socialists in and the members of the GOP agree.

Seventy-four percent (74%) of Republican voterssee Rudy Giuliani as politically moderate or liberal. Fifty-nine percent (59%) say the same about John McCain while 43% hold that view of Mitt Romney. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 41% now see Mike Huckabee as moderate or liberal and 39% see Fred Thompson in that manner.

Call them “moderates”, call them “liberals”, call them “compassionate conservatives”. It doesn’t change what they are. They are big government, unconstitutional government, tax and spenders. And they came to the party because the security guard was sent home.

They are “FDR Democrats” basically. They aren’t full fledged communists but they aren’t going to stop us from heading down that path and will help push us along every now and again in the name of “doing something”.

Enforcement Works: Fewer Illegal Immigrants Enter United States in Fiscal 2007

LOS ANGELES — U.S. border authorities arrested just under 877,000 illegal crossers in fiscal 2007, which ended in September, down 20 percent compared with the year before, The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday. A drop in apprehensions is often interpreted as a sign that fewer migrants are attempting the trip, the paper said. The growth rate of the U.S. Mexican-born population has dropped by nearly half to 4.2 percent in 2007 from about 8 percent in 2005 and 2006, the paper quoted an analysis of census data by the Pew Hispanic Center. Employment of foreign-born Hispanics increased at a markedly slower pace in the first quarter of 2007 than during the same period in the previous three years, according to the report.

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Officials call for stop to Fresh Direct audit

Elected officials at the city and federal level called on federal immigration officials last week to halt their audit of Long Island City’s Fresh Direct following a mass walkout of nearly 100 warehouse workers earlier this month.

City Comptroller William Thompson and U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-Ridgewood) joined a crowd of Fresh Direct employees at City Hall Friday to ask U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop the investigation, which caused a number of workers for the online grocery distributor to quit or be suspended because they could not fill out paperwork for the audit.
Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside) has also taken an intermediary role between Fresh Direct and the workers.

“Any practice that reeks of intimidation must stop now,” Thompson said. “These workers who spend so much of their day helping get food to the tables of so many New Yorkers need to be able to earn a living and put food on their own tables without fear of losing their jobs and their livelihoods.”

Fresh Direct, an online grocer that delivers to the five boroughs, could not be reached for comment.

Many of the employees, who could not prove they were authorized to work in the United States, were not able to pick up their paychecks after the walkout, said Sandy Pope, president of the Teamsters 805, which had recently been trying to unionize the factory’s 900 warehouse workers. The company’s delivery drivers are already unionized.

An ICE spokesman said the agency could neither confirm nor deny any investigation. Pope said that ICE was breaking its own internal policies by conducting an audit while a union drive was taking place. But an ICE spokeswoman said the agency’s policy would not prevent it from investigating a company if the department thought there was any irregular activity taking place.

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