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"POLITICO MAFIOSO" - 7 new articles
US has a compelling stake in India's success: John McCain Noting that the US has a compelling stake in the success of India, a top Republican Senator today called for continued bipartisan approach to the US-Indian relationship. Senator John McCain, a top leader of the Republican Party's that has gained majority in the House of Representatives in recent elections, said that India and the US should increasingly align their policies and instruments of national power to achieve three strategic goals. "First, to shape the development of South Asia as a region of sovereign, democratic states that contribute to one another's security and prosperity. Second, to create a preponderance of power in the Asia-Pacific region that favours free societies, free markets, free trade, and free commons. And finally, to strengthen a Liberal international order and an open global economy that safeguard human dignity and foster peaceful development," McCain said in his address to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think tank. "In South Asia, India's immediate neighbourhood, US and Indian interests could not be more congruent. India's former foreign secretary, Shyam Saran, put it well: 'India would like the whole of South Asia to emerge as a community of flourishing democracies.' That is the US aim as well, not just because it is good in itself for the peoples of the region, but also because a democratic South Asia is the greatest guarantor of regional peace and prosperity. This, in turn, can provide India with the stable periphery it needs to continue its remarkable rise to power," McCain said. "The main challenge to this common vision, as well as a central threat to US and Indian security, is the violent Islamist extremism emanating from Afghanistan and Pakistan. My last visit to India was, by chance, just days after the tragic date that Indians mark as 26/11, theterror attacks in Mumbai," he said. "Being in India then was like experiencing September 11th all over again, and the restraint shown by Prime Minister (Manmohan) Singh was an amazing act of statesmanship. This only reaffirmed my deep-seated belief that India has every sovereign right to defend itself, its people, and its democratic way of life. And the US should continue to support this goal through enhanced intelligence sharing and counterterrorism cooperation," McCain said. The emergence of a strategic partnership with India has been one of the most consequential bipartisan successes of recent US foreign policy, McCain said.  Jeff Flake for Appropriations - Stephen Spruiell - National Review Online It is time to shut down the House’s “Favor Factory.” John Boehner said it best Tuesday night: “This is not a time for celebration. . . . This is a time to roll up our sleeves.” There is a lot of work to be done, and the work will require a high degree of political savvy and a lot of labor if the GOP wants to stop the spending train that Obama, Reid, and Pelosi allowed to run out of control. Spending growth under the aforementioned triumvirate is on pace to exceed 11 percent per year — a modern record. We need to cut that number back, not to the 6.5 percent of the Bush years, but at least to the 4 percent of the Clinton-Gingrich era. For that kind of work, Boehner is going to need a few fearless stalwarts to clean up the House Appropriations Committee, which notorious influence-peddler Jack Abramoff once astutely dubbed “the Favor Factory.” There is no one better suited to this task than five-term Arizona Republican Jeff Flake. The Approps Committee (as House insiders call it) has become a grazing ground for congressional wildebeests of both parties; they’re happy to go along to get along as long as everyone is getting a nice fat cut for his or her district. If the GOP is going to make good on its promise to trim $100 billion plus from the discretionary side of the ledger, this committee needs to go from grazing ground to killing field. Flake is the kind of predator who could get the job done. Over the course of his ten years in the House, Flake has taken on the thankless task of educating himself on arcane procedural ways to challenge egregious spending, and used his knowledge to fight the free-spending ways of the DeLay-era Republican majority. But it is very difficult to trim appropriations bills at the margins once they make it to the House floor. Flake has learned the hard way: Most of his challenges to congressional earmarks, even obscene earmarks, have lost out to the leadership’s deference to the Approps Comittee. If Flake had a seat on the committee, however, he could stop a lot of this mischief before it got started. If Boehner sells the idea of putting Flake on the Approps Committee as his own, then he takes credit for showing a serious commitment to spending restraint on Day One. The move would immediately silence those who are telling the Tea Party, in condescending tones, that the movement has simply restored the spendthrift Republicans who held power from 2002 to 2006. But there are two more moves Boehner could make to give Flake some help on Approps and make it more likely that the committee will be an ally on spending reduction, rather than the enemy it has been in the past. One of those moves is obvious. The other is very counterintuitive. The obvious one is to give Flake some excellent allies on the committee. Names such as Jeb Hensarling, Scott Garrett, and John Campbell spring readily to mind. Those men all have seats and seniority on the House Financial Services Committee, from which it will be hard to lure them away. But there is a strong case to be made that at least one of them would be doing the party more good on Approps. An alternative to picking an established cutter would be combing the large crop of freshmen lawmakers for committed conservatives and stacking the committee with them. Either way, Flake will need some help. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE   By: Rep. Trent Franks OpEd Contributor November 2, 2010 In April of 1997, a group of 48 valiant souls in the Arizona state legislature, including 31 House members, 16 senators, and the governor of Arizona, united to pass the historic and revolutionary Tuition Tax Credit legislation. Those who understood the specifics and implications of the legislation realized, at the time, that a new day had dawned in America. The teachers union, sensing their autocratic control of education was in peril, called the bill "fiendishly clever" when, in reality, it was so very simple. It allowed taxpayers to receive a dollar-for- dollar tax credit when they made private, voluntary contributions to charities that use at least 90 percent of the contributions to provide private scholarships for children to attend the school of their parents’ choice. In the past, only wealthy parents could afford such an opportunity for their children. Now, even the poorest child became royalty in the system. The Arizona Tuition Tax Credit is far different from the long-debated voucher approach. The source of voucher funding is appropriated public funds, which affords leverage to the Left to bring constitutional challenges if religious schools are involved. However, whenever taxes are reduced, abated, or returned to their original owners in the form of tax credits, in spite of the attending stipulations, taxpayers inevitably gain greater freedom than when government collects and spends the money. Further, the Tuition Tax Credit becomes applicable only when individuals contribute their private money to a private charity to provide a scholarship to allow someone else's child to go to a private school of their parent’s private choice. The wholly private nature of the process drives the Left nuts, as they have for so long relied upon activist judges to help them maintain their stranglehold on American education. For 13 long years, the Left has continued to diligently search for any court that would strip off its constitutional robes in favor of leftist political ideology and magically declare that private funds voluntarily contributed to a private charity by a private individual (before that individual even fills out a tax return), are somehow, in fact, public funds; even though none of the money ever came near any government coffer. This is an astronomical reach for even the most left-wing judicial activist sitting on the courts today. Such a conclusion by the Supreme Court would be constitutionally indistinguishable from declaring every dollar in every taxpayer’s pocket in America to be public funds. The Arizona Supreme Court addressed this very argument when it upheld the Tuition Tax Credit in its earlier challenge, explaining that, "under such reasoning all taxpayer income could be viewed as belonging to the state because it is subject to taxation by the legislature." The other stated basis of the ACLU and the National Education Association (NEA) for challenging the Tuition Tax Credit is that families receiving the resulting scholarships choose a religious school for their child more than half of the time. So, does that then mean if parents chose nonreligious schools for their children more than half of the time next year, the Tuition Tax Credit would suddenly become constitutional again? What an incoherent postulation. Of course, obvious incoherence has never deterred the ACLU and the left-wing NEA before. They have now taken their challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court for the second time, and the Court has granted certiorari intending to fully adjudicate the case this time. Oral arguments are on November 3, and the case is Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn. I wonder if the Appellants have apprised the Supreme Court that striking down the Tuition Tax Credit would also constitutionally vaporize the G.I. Bill, or any special tax treatment or deductibility for contributions given to any charity that even remotely touches on anything religious. Your church, synagogue, and even the Salvation Army come to mind. Such a ruling would decimate America’s charities and would, for decades to come, be the basis of ubiquitous challenges by the ACLU and other groups obsessed with anti-religious zealotry. However, maybe this time the ACLU and the NEA have overplayed their hand. Maybe this time even the radical liberals appointed by President Obama to the Supreme Court will cast just one respectful glance toward logic and the Constitution. Perhaps they will even extend a gesture of hope toward the more than 100,000 children currently under scholarship along with the future generations who will be afforded the chance to walk in the sunnier places on the higher roads of life because of the Tuition Tax Credit. Thomas Jefferson said, “The purpose of education is to create young citizens with knowing heads and loving hearts.” Abraham Lincoln said, “The philosophy of today’s classroom is the philosophy of tomorrow’s government.” All of us intrinsically know that the spiritual, social, and academic principles inculcated into the hearts and minds of our children establish, more than any other mortal factor, the paradigm of America’s future. Will we primarily trust a government-run bureaucracy or the parents to determine those principles? It will be one of the two, and it is a question of inexpressible gravity. If the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Tuition Tax Credit, as I believe the justices will, the long-fought battle over who decides what academic and spiritual tenets will be placed in the minds and souls of America’s children will make a pivotal and historic turn toward Mom and Dad. It will be a very good day for America and her future generations. Rep. Trent Franks, R-AZ, is a former member of the Arizona state legislature and the author of the tuition tax credit measure.  "GOOD LIKE A-1 BEER"Growing up in Phoenix, I remember listening to Al McCoy's call of Phoenix Suns games. One of his first 'tag' lines was "GOOD LIKE A-1 BEER"!
 Secretary of State's Office: Daily update of remaining ballots, other election notes General Election Notes How many ballots are left to be counted? As of Thursday afternoon, there are an estimated 221,000 early ballots and 83,000 provisional ballots statewide that are yet to be processed and counted. Of these, Maricopa County has about 170,000 uncounted early ballots and 55,000 provisional ballots yet to be verified. Pima County is next, with 17,000 early ballots and nearly 13,000 provisional ballots to be processed. The other 13 counties account for the remainder. OK, so when will we have final, unofficial vote totals? State law gives the counties ten calendar days to verify and process the remaining early and provisional ballots. That gives them until the end of Friday, Nov. 12. A state canvass to certify official election results for federal, statewide and legislative races is scheduled for Nov. 29. What about voters who cast a “conditional provisional” ballot? These individuals had insufficient identification when they went to vote at a polling place. They have five business days, or until the end of Tuesday, Nov. 9, to return to their county elections office with proper ID (ie. an Arizona driver’s license, etc.). Recount, anyone? State law reads as follows: 16-661. Automatic recount; requirements; exemption A. A recount of the vote is required when the canvass of returns in a primary or general election shows that the margin between the two candidates receiving the greatest number of votes for a particular office, or between the number of votes cast for and against initiated or referred measures or proposals to amend the Constitution of Arizona, is less than or equal to the lesser of the following: 1. One-tenth of one per cent of the number of votes cast for both such candidates or upon such measures or proposals. Examples: In CD-8, a recount would be triggered if the margin between the top two candidates is less than or equal to 200 votes. A margin of less than or equal to 200 votes would also trigger a recount for each statewide proposition. Remember: There is no provision in state law allowing a candidate or ballot-measure committee to demand a recount. -30- Matthew Benson Director of Communications Arizona Secretary of State’s Office 602-350-2834 – mobile mbenson@azsos.gov Twitter: @therealAZsos  Death Panel By William Warren.jpg)  NET RIGHT NATION Must Reads for November 5, 2010 To view in your web browser, click here. Unemployment rate remains at 9.6%… The Tea Party Movement boosted the GOP in 2010 Dems destroyed in the heartland… Unions spend too much time on politics, not enough on their membership Americans vote for maturity Cartoon of the day, "The Death Panel" Mitch McConnell calls for Senate votes to reverse ObamaCare… Boehner: What the next Speaker must do Can Obama change? A return to the norm? Majorities don't last forever GOP victory was wide and deep Stossel: Did freedom win? Seizing control Read more at NetRightDaily.com.  More Recent Articles |
