NOT the law-bomb lobbing Bob Loblaw Law Blog.

I was hoping to put together a longer article with links and citations, but since Saxby's people have been beating the drums all day about Sarah Palin, I've been provoked into posting some quick thoughts. If you're a Saxby supporter, or you're on the fence between the two candidates, here are some things you need to consider. If you believe in small government or divided government, here are some good reasons why Jim Martin is your candidate and why you should fire Saxby Chambliss.

Saxby is bringing Sarah Palin in as his "special guest" at his final fundraiser. He's rented out the Gwinnett Arena for it. Folks, this is the kind of person that Saxby respects as a politician. When Saxby tells people that he doesn't know what "recession" means, when he tells people that he voted for the bailout because "the smart people on Wall Street told us they needed it", when he said with a straight face "Let me be clear: There is no stronger advocate for civil liberties in the Senate than myself." despite voting for the Patriot act twice... this is a man whose lack of intellectual depth is in line with Sarah "I help keep an eye on Moscow" Palin. And this is a man whose politics is the cause of the rottenness within the GOP.

If you're concerned that a vote for Jim Martin will help give Democrats a filibuster-proof majority, you're wrong. The Democrats will use the same "nuclear option" majority vote to end debate that the Republicans were going to use against Democrats whether Saxby is there or not. Turnabout is fair play, after all. It doesn't matter whether it's Saxby or Martin's ass sitting in that seat- the Democrats will get what they want at the end of the day.

If you're concerned that Martin will support big-government policies, you need to take a closer look at what Saxby has been up to. Do you really want someone up there who will defer to the same "smart people on Wall Street" who made the stupid choices that got them into this mess in the first place? Saxby voted for every one of Dubya's budgets.

The GOP says that Jim Martin supported "the largest tax increase in Georgia history". But they don't tell you what it was- a $0.01 increase in state sales tax. Well, here's the situation. The legislature felt they needed the revenue, and they were going to get it one way or another. Martin supported getting it via Saxby "Fair Tax" Chambliss' favorite method- the sales tax. This is another example of Chambliss' hypocrisy. AND- despite the increased revenues the sales tax increase brought in, the Republican politicians who have been running Georgia are STILL facing severe budget problems. Saxby has been an unabashed supporter of the Corporate Farmer Bailout, AKA the Farm Bill, which keeps our food prices artificially high.

The GOP says that Martin's only beef with the bailout is that he didn't think it went far enough, implying that Martin wanted to give MORE money to Wall Street. This is also untrue. What Martin said he wanted was regulatory reform rather than financial bailouts. Would his reforms cause other problems? Probably. But the difference between Martin's boneheaded reform plans and Saxby's bailout is simple- Martin's regulatory reform would have been acted through laws that were transparent and on public record. They could be tweaked or repealed at any time in the future. Saxby's bailout plan involved giving Wall Street billions of dollars and giving Paulson and Bernanke nontransparent powers to do what they please with our economy. To this day, nobody, not even Congress, has been able to get Paulson to reveal what he's doing with our tax dollars. I'd rather take Martin's plan, thank you very much.

In short, Saxby Chambliss is a poster child for what's wrong with the GOP. And he's unrepentant about it. Saxby Chambliss should be FIRED like the rest of the social conservative, small-minded big-government RINOs that plague the GOP. This past November 4th, you kicked a lot of the bums out. This December 2 you need to finish the job.

Update: Jason Pye has also posted an excellent debunking of Saxby here.

I gotta admit, I felt good yesterday when McCain announced Palin as his running mate. Romney or Huckabee would have been horrible.

GOP supporters spent the day slapping themselves on the back. They had a "maverick" VP candidate (to counteract the non-maverick presidential candidate) who is a lifetime NRA member (coming from Alaska, that's not surprising). Some went on (and on and on and on...) about how she was "hot".

On further consideration, I'm still very unconvinced. Her views on social issues are very disagreeable. Some small-government folks like to counter this problem by pointing out that she's fiscally conservative. Some bloggers are beginning to challenge this idea. Her "windfall tax" on oil companies in Alaska has led oil companies to look outside the state:

In Alaska, the government takes 75% of the price on a barrel of oil at current prices, which gives them no incentive to work there. (source)

So I'm really unconvinced. She's had less than two years of executive government experience, running a sparsely-populated state that is completely unique from any other US state. At least we won't hear any more comments about Obama being inexperienced. Maybe now the candidates can actually talk about issues? Naahh.

On review, I notice that the above-linked blog article was written by Jason Pye! He's fast...

So, since Russia is all about letting people secede into new states in Georgia, one can only assume that they'll be letting Chechnya spin themselves off into a new country Real Soon Now.

John McCain appeared on Jay Leno last night. The exchange went like this:


Leno: “Sen. McCain, for $1 million, how many houses do you have?”
McCain: “I spent five and a half years in a prison cell, without — I didn’t have a house, I didn’t have a kitchen table, I didn’t have a table, I didn’t have a chair.”


This is, of course, the same as a politician answering pointed questions by shouting "9/11 Changed Everything!!" over and over again. Remember when politicians actually made an effort to directly address questions? Yeah, me either.

But, further examining McCain's answer, it makes you wonder what all the hubbub is about. It's not like he was tortured while he was over there. That's not my opinion- that's the view of some highly placed Bush administration officials, such as John Yoo, George Tenet, David Addington, Dick Cheney, and, oh yeah, George W Bush as well. It turns out that McCain was only subject to "enhanced interrogation techniques". You have to imagine Cheney sitting somewhere watching the Jay Leno rerun and snapping "What's he bitching about? That's not torture and he knows it!".

So far the McCain campaign has been incredibly disappointing. Attack ads rather than issue ads and floundering messages meant to demean Obama that only point out just how bad his own candidacy is (You're labeling Obama a "celebrity"? Because lots of people like him? Doesn't that just highlight that your own likability isn't so hot?).

The campaign also highlights a problem I see in the Republican party. Many Republicans may not like McCain, but they'll begrudgingly line up behind him because he's the party's nominee. The problem is- this is the sort of lock-step crap that got us stuck with George W Bush for eight years. Republicans supporting and voting for Dubya, even though they KNEW he was a terrible, terrible president because he had a (R) after his name. I'm sure the Democrats have the same problem, but possibly less so, as they seem less cohesive to me. And from the sound of their convention so far, they're working hard to blow another shot at the White House anyway.

So it looks like Jim Martin has beaten Vernon Jones in the Democratic runoff to become the guy that Saxby Chambliss will beat in the fall. Here's the best part- Vernon Jones couldn't even get close to a majority here in his own county. Just goes to show you what a crappy CEO he is. If the Democrats had managed to unite on one opposition candidate to run against him last time, he wouldn't have won IMHO.

Speaking of the county CEO, Burrell Ellis has beaten the race baiting idjit Stan Watson to become the next DeKalb County CEO. Stan Watson is the racist idjit who sent this flyer to black voters and this flyer to white voters. Give me a break.

Having seen the two really bad candidates lose, it's time for bed...

Gravel courts Obama Girl..



On a serious note (not that anything related to Gravel is serious), why would you even want Obama Girl's support? It's not like she's actually going to vote or anything.

I have to wonder how well he's going over in the Libertarian Party, especially considering that he pushed national health care when he was a Democratic candidate. Any of my Libertarian peeps want to comment?

Nobody can design a get out the vote effort like Robert Mugabe. Unfortunately this time it looks like he forgot to send out his enthusiastic armed teams of thugs^H^H^H^H^Hparty workers to threaten^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hencourage Zimbabweans to vote for him and the ZANU-PF.

But it's not too early to get a head start on drumming up support for the next election.

There were rumors floating around last week that Mugabe was in private talks with the MDC to quietly leave office. Considering all the heat he's under, and his age, that would certainly seem to be a reasonable option. I was never completely convinced that he'd do such a thing, though. He's way too much of a firebrand to just quietly walk away. And now, with his supporters running amok again while the electoral commission continues to delay releasing any presidential vote results, any chances that he might be using this election as an opportunity to retire gracefully are fading very fast.

Also- late last week, there were reports that ZANU-PF "war veterans" were occupying white farms again. Are there actually very many white farmers left in Zimbabwe?

If you saw their first attempt at singing, I don't need to say anything more for you to understand just how bad this one is gonna be.



From Wonkette: "The McCain Girls are working overtime to ensure that their candidate never, ever gets elected, by anyone. Watch their latest installment in their thousand-year campaign to secretly crown Hillary Clinton America's permanent dictator."

Apologies to those of you not living in DeKalb County. You can ignore this post.

State Rep Mike Jacobs is hosting a community meeting on county government reform. He's working on several pieces of legislation that would make changes to county government that would remove some of the power that the county CEO holds and place it back with the commission at large. Right now, the CEO wields quite a bit of power over the commission, including the power to set the agenda at meetings, and to veto actions of the commissioners. This has led to quite a bit of controversy, as the current CEO Vernon Jones has shut down several actions that held popular support.

The meeting announcement from Rep. Jacobs after the cut..
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So, we're in the middle of another water shortage in Atlanta. This one is worse than most- Lake Lanier apparently only has enough water to supply the metro area through January. Well, had enough water to supply us through January- the Corps of Engineers is about to start dumping even more water from the lake to keep shellfish wet in Florida.

Some people (like the Governor and most elected officials) are pointing the finger at the Corps of Engineers for getting us in this mess. They accidentally released way more water from Lanier last year due to malfunctioning measurement equipment, supposedly about a month's supply. Gov. Perdue is making all sorts of noises about suing the Corps to prevent them from releasing more water from the lake.

But is the problem really with the Corps of Engineers? Water experts quoted in the AJC talk about how Atlanta has been severely overtaxing Lanier and the Chattahoochee River for years. We've had summer watering bans and talk of potential water shortages going back to at least the early 1990s or late '80s. And yet state and local governments have been pushing ever onward with development in the area. Atlanta has grown like a weed over the last 30 years, and while government officials happily sell building permits and rake in extra taxes from new residents and businesses, they sure haven't been spending these revenues to upgrade the infrastructure to actually support all the growth.

Governor Perdue and the rest of our elected officials have spent the last few decades ignoring this situation and trying to shift blame elsewhere. The blame belongs squarely on our state and local government officials who would rather waste time fighting the perceived menace of gay marriage and other junk than actually dealing with real problems that actually affect real people. Perdue has known for years that the Corps controls water releases from Lake Lanier, and that they're required by federal law to release enough to supply downstream power plants and keep Florida shellfish wet. There's nothing he can do about that... is the Corps expected to cut off power to parts of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida just for Atlanta?

Why hasn't our state looked at building additional reservoirs to handle the ever increasing need for water in north Georgia? According to the AJC, a study is being commissioned to look into this possibility.... but.... any actual new water reservoirs are years away from happening. We know so little about the water situation in Georgia that nobody can even guess what effect a new reservoir of X capacity would have on the metro area's supply. So this new study is going to have to start at zero. And you can't just add a reservoir- you've got to obtain the land, build a dam, etc. And there are negatives to reservoirs- they can severely impact the health of a river, and the increased surface area of a lake increases the rate of water loss through evaporation. Expect years of studies and debates just to get the basic information needed to determine where to start on a water plan. Meanwhile, expect our elected officials to blame the Corps of Engineers out one side of their mouth while they cut deals with developers out of the other side.

(note: I'm not saying there's anything wrong with developers and development. I'm saying that there needs to be appropriate resource planning to go along with it.)

Courtesy of jdhenchman, watch almost all of the GOP presidential candidates dither on a simple question: Does the President need Congress's permission to go to war?

Full text of their responses

Abbreviated response summaries:

Romney: Go talk to your lawyers, they'll tell you what to do.
Hunter: Go to Congress only if you have time.
Paul: The Constitution says you have to, so you have to.
Huckabee: If you have time and feel like it, then sure, go to Congress. But otherwise, let's go bomb Iran.
McCain: Talk to Congressional leaders at a minimum, because you want them to be your friends and like you and stuff.
Thompson: Talk to Congressional leaders, and maybe even Congress, because it'll "help you with the American people".
Giuliani: It's nice to go to Congress and follow the laws and stuff, but you might not be able to.

You have GOT to be kidding me.

Many of my friends (and probably many enemies, too) have gotten really excited about the FairTax over the last few years. The idea of getting rid of the IRS is a popular concept, and growing popular support has brought some legislators (such as Rep. John Linder and Sen. Saxby Chambliss) on-board as well.

I've never been sold on the idea. I'm not an economist, but I'm concerned that the push for FairTax passage is based more around it being something that sounds good, rather than something that works well fiscally. Politicians are good at rallying people around ideas that work well as sound bites but may not work out so well in the real world (see: Iraq, Patriot Act, any politician who utters the phrase "do it for the children", Social Security, etc). There are some really misleading numbers being thrown around by some FairTax supporters (like Rep. Linder and radio host Neal Boortz), such as the idea that the national retail sales tax would be 23%. That's true, if you suddenly decide to start calculating sales taxes in a completely different way than anyone ever has before. When you calculate it the way sales taxes are actually calculated, the number is 30% (if you buy something worth $1, you're charged $.30 tax on it- 30%. FairTaxers get their lower number by saying that $.30 is only 23% of $1.30). I've always thought this was very dishonest- and that makes me wonder what other numbers are being fluffed here and there. If it's such a good idea, why do you have to mislead people into supporting it?

Saturday's Wall Street Journal has a scathing editorial from Bruce Bartlett, former deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury, on the FairTax. I'm including the text of the editorial after the cut, but I want to digress for a minute on a bit of information that was incredibly enlightening about where the idea for the FairTax came from in the first place.


It [the FairTax] was originally developed by the Church of Scientology in the early 1990s as a way to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service, with which the church was then at war (at the time the IRS refused to recognize it as a legitimate religion). The Scientologists' idea was that since almost all states have sales taxes, replacing federal taxes with the same sort of tax would allow them to collect the federal government's revenue and thereby get rid of their hated enemy, the IRS.


Wow. I mean, wow. Cultists are behind the Fairtax? I'd never heard this before. So I did some googling around. The World magazine did an article on Citizens for an Alternative Tax System (CATS), the original group behind the FairTax (or national retail sales tax (NRST) as they called before adopting a catchier name). But they're now charging to read it. That's OK, someone else has posted the text elsewhere. There are more links out there on them and their Scientology roots.

I can see the "DEFEAT XENU! SUPPORT THE FAIRTAX!" tshirts now. Or maybe the bit about the FairTax supposedly being 23% is a tip that the whole FairTax thing is a Discordian joke, as 23 is a Discordian cosmic number. Maybe if I look at the FairTax website text long enough, I'll be able to see the fnords.

Thank god there's Wikipedia out there to explain the obscure references in my jokes :-)

The editorial:
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The Nigerian presidential election is tomorrow....

and the ballots haven't even arrived in the country yet.

There is no way they're going to be able to distribute ballots to every polling place in every state by tomorrow morning. I already thought they were pushing it getting new ballots out in less than a week... but less than a day?

I've been meaning to make a post about the Nigerian election situation, but I keep procrastinating.

While I'm putting my big post together, an update as to what's going on there now: BBC: Nigeria parties demand poll delay.

In brief: Local/state elections were held last Saturday, and there are lots of reports of polling problems. Voters near Enugu complained that there was no voting at all in some alreas. Several governors were kept off the ballot because of corruption allegations. However, the Nigerian Supreme Court ruled Monday that the INEC (the commission that oversees elections) didn't have the power to exclude candidates from the ballot unless there was a court order. This ruling also affects vice president Atiku Abubakar, who is running for president as an opposition candidate after falling out of favor with the president.

Abubakar was excluded from the ballot by the INEC because of purported corruption (the FBI has also raided one of his homes in the US). He has been suing to be reinstated, but courts haven't found in his favor until now.

So... you're less than a week away from a presidential election. A major candidate has just been added. He isn't on the ballots. There are more than 60 million ballots. There's no time to reprint them, much less worry about how to properly distribute them over the entire country while making sure the old ballots are destroyed. On top of this, there are now new major candidates that you should have allowed to run in separate elections held the previous weekend, along with voting irregularities. Oh, and election monitors aren't going to be watching the elections at all in the Niger Delta and other areas with security problems. The army has been deployed to quell riots in your largest northern city, and opposition parties just issued a call for citizens to (nonviolently) reject the upcoming presidential vote. INEC could postpone the election (which would seem like a good idea), but the idea of postponing elections will also be controversial in Nigeria (think MKO Abiola).

I'm not feeling particularly good about the coming election. I'll write more about what's going on and who the players are in the next day or so.

The Bush administration is once again enjoying the new powers granted to it by our Congress.

"In a little noticed provision included in the Patriot Act reauthorization last year, the Administration's authority to appoint interim U.S. Attorneys was greatly expanded. The law was changed so that if a vacancy arises the Attorney General may appoint a replacement for an indefinite period of time – thus completely avoiding the Senate confirmation process"

The DoJ has recently asked at least seven US Attorneys to resign without cause.

Feinstein, Patrick Leahy, and Mark Pryor have introduced a bill that tries to close this loophole. Except there's one interesting thing about this- Leahy is the only one of the three who actually voted against reauthorizing the Patriot Act.

I'm really starting to like the Read The Bills campaign's idea that all bills must be read and legislators must legally confirm that they've read the bills they vote on. All the bellyaching by legislators about the Patriot Act by people who voted to pass it is disgusting.

For the political addicts out there, here's a quick link to the SoS website with the live election returns. Only 26 minutes until the polls close in GA..

There are several constitutional amendments on the ballot this election:

Amendment 1: To restrict the use of eminent domain. “Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to prohibit the use of eminent domain by certain non-elected authorities and to prohibit the contested use of eminent domain except for public use as defined by general law?”

I support this. It's not worded as well as it could be, but it's what we've got. The Institute for Justice has endorsed this amendment as "some of the nation’s most complete protections from eminent domain abuse".

Amendment 2: To protect the traditions of fishing and hunting. "Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to provide that the tradition of fishing and hunting and the taking of fish and wildlife shall be preserved for the people and shall be managed by law and regulation for the public good?”

This is a silly amendment that states the obvious, but I'll probably vote yes on it anyway.

Amendment 3: To authorize the General Assembly to dedicate revenue from special motor vehicle license plates. “Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to authorize the General Assembly to provide for special motor vehicle license plates and dedicate the revenue from such plates for stated purposes, including dedications for the ultimate use of agencies, funds or non-profit corporations where it is found that there will be a benefit to the state?”

This is a big NO. The state should not be in the business of fundraising for private organizations, especially now that political groups (like GA Right to Life) are coming out with their own license plates. The state does already do this with some plates (like the wildlife tag), but that is in violation of the state constitution. Making it legal doesn't change the fact that this is without a doubt an area the government has no business being.

Tax Referendums

I used to vote for all tax cut referendums. But I've thought about it and realized that spot tax cuts only lead to spot tax increases elsewhere. Overall government revenue isn't going to decrease- the legislature will just find other places to get money to make up for it. So there are now only a few times I'll vote for spot tax breaks. Still, I could see voting either way on most of these, so your mileage may vary here, and I'm not really going to argue much over them.

1: To expand the ad valorem tax exemption for farm equipment. "Shall the Act be approved which expands the ad valorem tax exemption for agricultural products and equipment to include certain additional farm equipment held under a lease purchase agreement?"

No. It could be argued that this is ok, since it's just giving leased equipment the same treatment as purchased equipment, but I'm still iffy on it.

2: To expand the ad valorem exemption for veterans organizations to include organizations which refurbish and operate historic military aircraft for educational purposes. "Shall the Act be approved which expands the ad valorem tax exemption for veterans organizations to include certain additional nonprofit veterans organizations which refurbish and operate historic military aircraft for educational purposes?"

No. This is a tax cut for a legislator's specific pet project.

3: To expand the ad valorem tax exemption for property of charitable institutions. "Shall the Act be approved which grants an exemption from ad valorem taxation on property owned by a charitable institution which generates income when that income is used exclusively for the operation of such charitable institution?"

No.

4: To provide a homestead exemption to certain residents who are senior citizens with respect to state ad valorem taxes. "Shall the Act be approved which provides a homestead exemption for senior citizens in an amount equal to the actual levy for state ad valorem purposes on the homestead?"

No.

5: To provide a homestead exemption for the surviving spouse of a peace officer or firefighter killed in the line of duty. "Shall the Act be approved which provides a homestead exemption for the full value of the homestead with respect to all ad valorem taxes for the unremarried surviving spouse of a peace officer or firefighter who was killed in the line of duty?"

Yes. Firefighters and other peace officers get paid next to nothing (if they get paid at all) for risking their lives.

6: To provide that a surviving spouse shall be entitled to a continuation of the base year value under a base year assessed value. "Shall the Act be approved which provides that with respect to base year assessed value homestead exemptions, the surviving spouse of a deceased spouse who has been granted such a homestead exemption shall receive that exemption at the same base year valuation that applied to the deceased spouse so long as that surviving spouse continues to occupy the home as a residence and homestead?"

Yes. There's no reason for a home's value to be recalculated when someone dies for purposes of that year's homestead exemption.

In the election for state Supreme Court, you have a choice between Mike Wiggins (R) and Carol Hunstein (I)(D). Here's what you need to remember.... Wiggins has never been a judge. He may be a smart lawyer, but he's never had to judge a case. Shouldn't he get a little experience before he runs for Supreme Court?

And for those Republicans who want to vote for Wiggins just because he has an (R) after his name, consider that even Republicans like and have endorsed Hunstein... Mike Bowers, Oscar Persons (Gen. Council of the GA Republican Party), Wendell Willard (chair of House judiciary committee), etc, etc. Even crypto-Republicans like Zell Miller endorse her.

I forgot a couple.

Sec. of Education: David Chastain Yes, I'm voting for the Libertarian. Denise Majette shouldn't be allowed anywhere near an elected office again. She's completely unqualified. And, like a ferret around shiny objects, Majette will run for any office that's availible. Kathy Cox has actually not done a bad job, but her push to remove evolution from science textbooks shows she's one egg short of a dozen. While I disagree with some of David's political ideas, his plank of making the Sec. of Education an appointed education professional rather than an elected political official sounds like a good idea to me.

Georgia House 85th district: Stephanie Stuckey Benfield (D-Decatur) She's the legislator to thank for the fact that you can now buy high gravity beer in Georgia. And she's open to potentially loosening or removing completely the regulations that prohibit out of state wine shipments to Georgians. She's also worked to reduce property taxes.

I'm not particularly happy with many of the candidates running this year, so I'm not endorsing several races. I take a little different view of some races than many of my fiscally-conservative friends. I'm fiscally conservative, but I'm also socially liberal. In my opinion, these two things go together very well. I think that there are a limited number of areas the government should be involved in, and regulating what people do on their own time in their own homes is out of their jurisdiction. I think the recent focus of the government on the ten commandments, gay marriage, and flag burning is a complete and utter waste of time and money. And so I can't support any legislator who runs for office on a platform of "vote for me and I'll ignore real issues while bloviating about things that don't matter one bit!".

The quick crib sheet for people in the 4th District: Write in Loren Collins for Congressional District 4.

Secretary of State: Karen Handel. She's fiscally conservative and not a nut on social issues. Say what you will about her backpedaling on some issues during her campaign, this is politics and in order for her to get elected she has to appeal to voters. She's already made her real opinions clear, IMHO.

Attorney General: Thurbert Baker. His opponent makes silly statements like he will "stand up to the ACLU to stop them from preying on Georgia’s communities" He's on the record as equating gays with pedophiles. And he wants to spend state money to defend any government in Georgia who decides to post the ten commandments on public property. I think the state has more important things to focus on, as well as better ways to spend the public's tax dollars.

State Supreme Court: Carol Hunstein. Her opponent Mike Wiggins is ex-Homeland Security. He's an advocate of his own flavor of judicial activism. He's never been a judge. He's too socially conservative. And he's pro-"giving the president whatever powers and tools he needs to do whatever he wants". Plus, some of his under-the-board campaign activities are highly distasteful. And did I mention that he's ex-Homeland Security?

House Rep, district 4: Loren Collins (write in candidate). Let me make a plea for people to consider Loren. First, Catherine Davis is never in a million, zillion, zillion years going to win. Hank Johnson has this in the bag. But Hank's main platform was "I'm not Cynthia McKinney". While that's a great platform for the Democratic primary, he has yet to really expand beyond this for the election. Loren is a fiscally conservative, socially liberal candidate. In fact, he may actually be the candidate I most support this year, and certainly the one I'm most excited about voting for. His website is: www.voteloren.com. Just remember to write his name down and take it with you to the polls to make sure you spell it right. And besides, don't you want to see how write in candidates work with our new electronic voting system? :-)

State Senate district 41: Steve Henson (D-Tucker). He's a good guy, and his the postcards his opponent has been mailing me get more and more amusing (implying that allowing illegal aliens to drive will cause you to die in a horrible car crash and that Henson apparently supports child sex slavery). Auman isn't even a serious candidate- he ran simply so voters would have a choice, his campaign mailings are all funded and mailed by the state Republican party, and he doesn't even have a website. The Republican party is insulting the intelligence of voters in my district if they think that people will vote for someone just because there's an "R" after his name on the ballot.

State House district 82: Steve Schultz, but just barely. His website is incredibly skimpy when it comes to issues (He's for education and against taxes and traffic- that's his entire platform). But he signed the RLC's Liberty Compact, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he'll be a good representative.