Can this be the future of the GOP?

Steve Sibson is searching for the truth on his blog Sibby Online. He seems to think that he represents the core of the Republican Party. He represents the core of what is destroying it. And, that's the truth. His blog is here.

His most recent posts represent why the Republicans lost the election. Many Republicans, myself included, wish to no longer be associated with the RINO spitters (Republicans who spit "RINO" at every party member who disagrees with their radical views.)

Sibby tries to make it clear on his blog that Republicans who disagree with his radical religious views are Republican In Name Only. And when you read the actual content of his blog, (a difficult task since it is barely in English) it is easy to understand how reasonable Republicans don't wish to be painted with the same brush reasonable people use to paint folks like Sibby.

It is extremely difficult to embrace the ideas of an individual who presents those ideas with a healthy dose of venom and without benefit of a command of third grade grammar. It is little wonder to me why some people think Republicans are nothing but gun-totin' hillbillies who think The Flintstones was a documentary.

Is the Culture War Lost?

I have this friend. We'll call him Jay Stevens. Jay and I have shared a scotch or two in our time and these days we just don't get together often enough. Jay is well read, highly educated and extremely talented. I haven't a clue why he bothers with conversations with me.

Jay's one of my Slats Grobniks – like Terry Peak and GTO. (Slats was one of Chicago columnist Mike Royko's fictitious characters.) Terry argues with me on matters technical and local politics. GTO renders his opinions on legal matters. Jay, is just an all-around guy with expertise on numerous matters from music to engineering to blood donation to cross-word puzzles.

So Jay on occasion encourages me to read. And recently he encouraged me to read a Frank Rich column about how the culture wars have changed since Obama has taken office. Read it here.

Rich make some excellent observations – as he always does – about life in a representative republic. Here's a clip:

"Americans have less and less patience for the intrusive and divisive moral scolds who thrived in the bubbles of the Clinton and Bush years. Culture wars are a luxury the country — the G.O.P. included — can no longer afford."

I don't know if the culture war is lost, or if there is just a temporary cease-fire while we all try to count what little money we have left and worry about how we're going to pay our taxes with those meager crumbs.

Herseth Sandlin will run for re-election

That's my not-so-bold position. Woster at Blogmore has a post about the 2010 Governor's race. Powers over at the War College is suggesting Scott Heidepreim's frustrated over Herseth Sandlin's delay in announcing her intentions about whether or not she'll seek the Governor's office.

Woster's analysis is pretty good. Heidepreim has said he's not interested in Herseth Sandlin's House seat. He wants to be the governor. And he's been making more noises about it recently.

One has to assume that Democrats in high places in South Dakota talk to one another. And it appears that Heidepreim knows what Herseth Sandlin's decision is, as Wooster suggests. No Democrat in his right mind would run against Herseth Sandlin for any position she seeks. That Heidepreim is making more noise about a run for Governor suggests that Stephanie has decided not to run for that office.

It follows that Herseth Sandlin is not interested in the bloodbath that would be a Herseth Sandlin vs. Thune Senate race when she will likely glide back into her House seat without significant opposition.

Of course, if she continues to abandon her blue dog fiscal conservatism in favor of following the Democratic Party line on matters concerning national debt and taxes, Republicans in the state may actually find someone who could give her a race. If she votes in favor of any of the crazy gun legislation bouncing around out there, Republicans could run my Golden Retriever and win.

She's been real smart so far, with only a couple (albiet important) blown votes.

Meanwhile the Republican primary for the Governor's seat gets interestinger and interestinger.

Obama's first Supremes nominee

Troy Jones over at the war college has an excellent post about President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court. Read it here.

Simply put, Obama won the right to fill Supreme Court vacancies. He could have done much worse than this one and he really appears to have stripped the radical right fringe of the Republican Party of their ability to complain convincingly, not that it will do much good when they complain unconvincingly. And, they will.

Has Michael Vick Paid His Debt to Society?

Michael Vick has been released from jail and is serving the remainder of his 23 month sentence under house arrest. He copped a plea to charges he operated an interstate dog fighting ring and paid a $1 million fine.

According to the courts, he will have paid his debt to society upon successfully completing his sentence. But has he paid his debt to the NFL, which received a Niagara of bad publicity associated with the case?

I believe that if Vick had been anyone other than a high dollar football hero, his sentence would have been much lighter. On one hand, his actions were despicable. On the other, he owned up to it and has served his sentence.

When all is considered, I don't believe he should be in the NFL. I think the NFL, the NBA, the PGA and MLB should be populated by role models. Not a lot of role models in any of those organizations. Money will win in the end. He'll be playing soon.

When Nuts have Nukes

Kim Jong-il, North Korea's leader, and one of the world's most dangerous men, detonated a nuclear weapon in an underground test on Sunday.

North Korea has for some time had nuclear capabilities. What they don't have is a successful delivery system. That their rockets don't fly straight should bring little comfort to anyone in the United States. Kim has made no secret of its intention to sell nuclear weapons to others who would like to deliver them to the U.S., Europe and Israel.

Kim is one crazy dude. He is commander of the fourth largest army in the world. And, by the way, he hates our guts. There has been so much confusion about his health and who would succeed him, that you really can't believe any country's intelligence about him. We're not even completely sure he's alive or has been alive since there have been unconfirmed reports of his death and multiple strokes since 2003.

President Obama has said he wishes to meet with those who are aggressive against the U.S. to try to settle differences through diplomacy. That this nuclear test occurred when the United States honors those who fight and die for our freedom is likely not a coincidence.

North Korea is detonating nuclear weapons, Mr. Obama. Better start talking.

Another Policeman on the Bench?

The rumor about town is that Pennington County States Attorney Glen Brenner has the inside track on becoming the next judge in the Seventh Circuit.

I don't know Mr. Brenner. I've spoken on the phone to him a time or two. He has been the states attorney since unseating Dennis Groff. I don't have enough information about him to declare an opinion about his qualifications to be a judge.

But I've said on this blog and on others that I believe it is important for the judiciary to err on the side of liberty. That the bulk of Mr. Brenner's career has been spent as a prosecutor brings little comfort. I hope the judiciary committee has other options with broader trial experience than just a career-long effort to put more people in jail.

Dennis Noda Passes

Dennis Noda has passed away. He was an extraordinary bassist and music producer, most famous for his song "Land of a Thousand Dances," which he recorded with his band Cannibal and the Headhunters.

He was the bassist for the Classic Rock All Stars, which included Rare Earth's Peter Rivera, Sugarloaf's Jerry Corbetta and Blues Image's Mike Pinera.

Beyond his musical contributions to society, he was a fine man.

Welcome to Rapid City (hic-up) ........How do you like our vagrants?

I waited half the night last night for the Rapid City Common Council to do something newsworthy. Then at the end of a four-hour plus meeting, they went into executive session and returned to council chambers to suspend enforcement of all public drunkenness ordinances.

Citing SDCL-34-20A-93, the council says they are forbidden by state statute from doing anything with downtown sots other than haul them to de-tox. It appears that if you go to open your downtown retail establishment and there's a drunk aggressively panhandling your customers, you and the police are powerless to stop him.

34-20A-93. Intoxication not an element of criminal offense. Except as hereinafter provided, neither the state nor any county, municipality, charter unit of government, or other political subdivision may adopt or enforce a law, ordinance, resolution, or rule having the force of law that includes drinking, drunkenness, or being found in an intoxicated condition as one of the elements of the offense giving rise to a criminal or civil penalty or sanction.

It is not against the law to be an obnoxious public drunk in Rapid City. It is not against the law to aggressively beg for money from our visitors. It is not against the law to vomit and pass out in an office building's hallway. And, according to the state law cited, a municipality can't pass an ordinance to protect the people who collect sales taxes from abusive, aggressive and offensive drunks.

Looks like our legislators have a job to do.

The Rapid City Journal's stories on the problem, probably prompted the action. It's an excellent series.

Yusuf Islam

Some of us remember him as Cat Stevens. He recently appeared on Steven Colbert's television show and he sang.

He was wrongly accused of calling for the execution of Salman Rushdie after Rusdie published his book "Satanic Verses." Yusuf thought the book blasphemous. But he did not call for Rusdie's execution.

His conversion to Islam is sincere. He has lead a peaceful life in the service of those in need. I don't agree with his world view. But I don't agree with Obama's world view either. And I surely do not agree with Dr. James Dobson's.

If we believe in every man's right to choose a religion, then we must believe in Yusuf Islam's right to choose his. He has led his life as a man of faith and peace. He has said things in the past that were less offensive than Wanda Sykes' standup routine at the Correspondents Dinner, and has been reviled for them.

He is one of my generation's most significant poets and songwriters. He has a new record out "Roadsinger." He has not lost his talent for penning a striking message. Check him out here.

Cat Stevens is back. Consider welcoming him as Yusuf.

Time to stick a fork in her?

Is Nancy Pelosi done? I can tell you that if she had an (R) after her name in most press reports she would be. Her performance yesterday in a press conference to try to explain why her story has change four times about what she knew about enhanced interrogations during the Bush Administration, would indicate that she couldn't be more "done."

You don't need an expert to see that she was clearly lying through her china choppers. And worse, she was dumb enough to say that the CIA routinely lies to Congress.

I don't know if they do or they don't. But I suspect that even if they do, it is profoundly stupid to suggest so. And, many of us have known for a long time that Ms. Pelosi is not the brightest person to be Speaker of the House.

In fact, she has shown herself to be a disturbing swirling vortex of incredible stupidity. I suspect that Democrats who have known this all along, will soon be calling for her ouster.

Stupid is as stupid does

So I have this friend with whom I occasionally debate politics in a bar. He drinks. I'd don't...anymore. My friend (we'll call him Terry Peak) tells me I'll have a good deal more response to m posts if I dispense with the decorum and start throwing flames.

Since this came up in a conversation about the city's consultant selection process, he suggested, that since nobody has responded to any of my posts about the city's engineering department.

Terry says Rapid City and South Dakota, for that matter, is populated almost entirely by stupid people because they don't seem to care that wildlife is crapping in their drinking water and that the only thing the city's engineers seem to do is write RFPs for local engineering firms.

He may be right. The city is spending millions upon millions of dollars for consulting fees and design services that should reasonably be assigned to our own city engineers.

Are we all stupid?

Why Frankenfeld is cool

Leave it to Don Frankenfeld, Rapid City's own famous forensic economist to cut the whole medical and recreational marijuana issue to dollars and sense.

In Saturday's dead tree version of the Rapid City Journal (Page A7), Mr. Frankenfeld outlines excellent reasons for immediately legalizing, taxing and regulating medical marijuana and for researching the economic benefits of legalizing recreational Maryjane.

Mr. Frankenfeld's research indicates that jailing South Dakota's 3,666 marijuana criminals is costing every South Dakota taxpayer $300 annually.

The War on Drugs is lost. Frankenfeld's local analysis demonstrates that South Dakota's war is similar to the war that respected conservatives like William F. Buckley, Jr., Milton Friedman and Reagan's own George Shultz declared lost long ago.

What should we do about Pakistan, Hillary?

Tony Blankley of the Jewish World Review has a column on how America appears to be bewildered about the problems in Pakistan. It's a good read about how Secretary of State Clinton describes a nuclear Pakistan as a mortal threat to America, and the administration's response to the threat, which essentially is: Huh? Read it here.

We are not alone...

Patrick Kelley of the Emporia Gazette writes an interesting piece from the newspaper once owned by my journalism hero, William Allen White. You can find it here.

He describes the troubles the Republican Party is experiencing in my home state of Kansas. They look strangely familiar to those we experience here.

Newland on the War College

This post has been removed. I said when I started this thing that I wasn't going to allow name-calling. I meant it.

Pat Powers took exception to my saying his blog was ultra-right. He says Sibby calls him a liberal RINO. (I've yet to see anything liberal about the War College, but I'm not Sibby.)

In the comments, Powers implied Newland was an inmate. Newland has not been convicted of anything and is not an inmate. Newland used the initials for an expletive insult to describe Powers.

Boys will be boys, I suppose. But not here. Newland's original message was written well, made a point and did so without a reduction to blatant or profane insult, which is why I posted it.

People wanting to read Newland's piece on the War College can do so here.

Guess I'll go back to moderating every post.

GMS

Thomas Allen Heald

Writer Thomas Allen Heald died. He was 37. Thomas was an enthusiastic supporter of local music and a witty commentator from the political left.

Arlen Specter and Jack Kemp

Arlen Specter has barely left the Republican Party and already he's making inappropriate, stupid remarks about his former colleague Jack Kemp, who died of cancer on Saturday.

Specter's declaration that Kemp would be alive today if he had voted differently on funding medical research is dumb enough, disrespectful enough and callous enough to make me believe that far right Republicans were correct in their "don't let the door hit you in the ass" remarks after his departure from the GOP. Read it here.

Nobody knows if a cure for cancer would have been available for Kemp under any circumstances. Such a comment does no service to Democrats or Republicans and is no doubt hurtful to Kemp's family. Pennsylvania voters, Democrat or Republican, hopefully won't return this crass numb skull to office.

Kemp was one of the smartest fiscal conservatives ever to hold office. He was a man of faith and good will. He was one of this country's few recent statesmen. And he deserved better from the idiot from Pennsylvania.

Atheism and Christianity

Ric Anderson of the Topeka Capital-Journal has an interesting column on Nate Phelps, estranged son of pastor Fred Phelps. (Wikipedia bio of pastor Fred Phelps is here.) Nate Phelps, after growing up with one of the craziest of religious crazies, has embraced atheism while acknowledging the good religious people do in our society. Read Anderson's column here.

Anderson's column makes the important point that the country would do well if the societal chasm existing between the radical religious right and those from the left who ridicule them were filled with good old American tolerance for each point of view and all those in between.

Nate Phelps grew up with the most hateful man in religion. Fred Phelps is the "God Hates Fags,"-"God Hates Soldiers,"-"God Hates Jews,"-"God Hates America" steaming pile who pickets the funerals of fallen soldiers. He is the extreme's most extreme.

His son's views, as an atheist, are among the more sane I've seen in print. Republicans who believe they've lost control of this country because they aren't conservative enough take note of these words from a cab driver now living in Canada:

“The only issue I have with organized religion goes something like this: As long as a society says it is okay to suspend reason and logic to embrace an idea on faith alone, they are providing the framework and justification for extreme, destructive systems to develop that have no accountability to society for the damage they do,” he said. “Religion gets a free pass in society and we find our hands tied, even espouse keeping them tied, whenever evil is exhibited in the name of a god.”

The reason Republicans lost the election is that many were weary of the two-note song the religious conservatives in this country have sung to the point of driving true fiscal conservatives and new, younger voters away from the party. And, until they realize that those young voters and fiscal conservatives are not coming back into such a restrictive fold, they will continue to wallow in the gooey defeat for which they are responsible.