Protestors Rally Against Bailout

Del. Craig Blair pushes for Drug Testing before receiving welfare

More anti-economic development propaganda sent out

Last week I got more e@mails from the anti-economic development group that is trying to stop windmill based jobs, tax revenue and lease revenue from coming into our community.

This time I got a story about why they are bad in Great Britain. Well I’m not real worried about what is best for Great Britain, but I am interested it what is best for my country. Well let’s look at the differences between the UK and the US.

First the UK power grid is much smaller than ours. We actually have three semi separate power grids in the US and we are in the largest of the three. Now the article states, “In 2006, according to U.K. government statistics, the average load factor for wind turbines across the U.K. was 27.4 percent.” Again what does that have to do with power generation in the US? Nothing!

Consider that the Isle of Great Britain is a little less than 600 miles top to bottom. The east coast power grid (which includes part of Canada) is over 2000 miles from top to bottom. While the UK power grid is small enough for the wind to stop blowing over the entire country, which is almost impossible in the US. While the wind may stop here in Mineral County for the day, the odds that the wind stops in Florida, Maine, Michigan, etc at the same time are not likely. The article even states, “Wind turbine advocates have claimed that this can be avoided by the geographical spread of wind farms, perhaps by creating an international ‘super grid’.” Well we already have the ‘super grid’ in place, so we are ready.

The article also talks about the need for gas turbines to back up the wind energy when the wind doesn’t blow. In the US we will have less of a need to back up the wind turbines, because of our large power grid and if when we do need back up it is locally produced coal firing our generators. We already have the system in place.

The article goes on to talk about tax breaks. These are UK tax breaks, not US tax breaks. Our wind generation industry has much less tax breaks than the UK. The facts are our local tax revenues to the county and state will increase when the wind farms are installed.

You have to be careful when making comparisons. You must have all the facts and details. You must compare apples to apples; Great Britain is not the United States. The anti-economic development group doesn’t want you to use your common sense, but when you do our community wins.

Open Primary vs. Closed Primary

The motion currently pending before the West Virginia Republican State Executive Committee to close our party's primary elections to all but registered Republican voters is beginning to draw public attention, as it should. The question is an important and weighty one which affects, ultimately, all West Virginians.

State GOP Chairman Doug McKinney has appointed a committee to investigate the issue and make a recommendation to the state Executive Committee at its Summer 2009 meeting. I'm honored to have been chosen to serve on that committee, which is made up of several distinguished West Virginia Republicans who will give this matter the attention it deserves.

My commitment to Doug, to our Republican elected officeholders, to all affected voters, and to you, our readers, is to consider this possibility fairly and make a recommendation based upon our view of what is in the best interest of West Virginians, Republican officeholders, and the Party.

One of the things I believe the committee should do is solicit public comment; I'll be reading newspapers and blogs, watching news reports, and listening to talk radio to hear the opinions of the voting public regarding this question. If anyone wants to weigh in on this issue, I invite you to do so. My e-mail address is tom@tomoneill.org

Lincoln Ranked First Among Presidents By Panel of Sixty Five Historians

Although not surprising that they picked Abraham Lincoln, frankly they got it dead wrong.

There is one single president that transcends the office even while defining it. No president faced the kinds of challenges overcome by this man. No other president comes close to him when one considers leadership ability, long term effect of his presidency, or any other standard of leadership.

It may be unfashionable to speak the obvious, but George Washington is and will always be the greatest president in United States history.

Before Washington there was no office of the president. The Constitution offered some vague details, but little in the way of guidance. Washington's generation had no contemporary examples to serve as models either. King George III? Thanks, but no thanks. The office of Prime Minister was too tied to the legislative branch for Washington's taste (Congress tended to grate on the Father of our Country's nerves.) Washington looked somewhat to the consuls of the Roman Republic, who held many of the same powers. Most of all he looked to his own common sense.

Washington strove to create balance. He needed balance in foreign affairs. A vulnerable infant nation in a world of rapacious Great Powers could not succumb to any one side, but needed to maintain a dignified neutrality. A nation with no economic growth in 1789 needed to balance the agricultural interest with his own vision of America growing into a commercial empire. He had to balance his attention between his two friends and colleagues Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Most importantly he balanced the need to enhance the respect of the people for the office of president while maintaining an air of republican simplicity.

In short, Washington had to define the office of president and also went a long way towards defining what the United States would be in its distant future. Lincoln was a great president, but no one has ever overcome the kinds of challenges faced by Washington so successfully.

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Predictably the list of presidents rated George W. Bush very low, even below Carter (who actually dropped since the last ranking.) Seven years of prosperity and security combined with a new respect for the United States around the world did not impress the historians. Of course none of them brought a sliver of bias to the table.

Surprisingly, Ronald Reagan, who used to be placed in the middle or near the bottom, reached number ten. George H. W. Bush, once criticized and ranked poorly because he left Saddam Hussein in place in 1991, rose to number 18.

Washington, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, James Madison, William McKinley, James K. Polk, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower are my top ten.

Why is Theodore Roosevelt as low as he is? The more I read about his domestic policies, the more squeamish I get. Yes the government needed to expand some regulatory powers, but his tended to follow his own whim rather than the rule of law. Were it not for a wildly successful foreign policy, I'd send him lower. I prefer McKinley who had a strong foreign policy and a more limited ideal of government power. Truman goes before Reagan by a hair because he recognized the Soviet threat before many others and challenged it almost from the beginning. James Madison was flexible enough to alter his position during the War of 1812, casting ideology aside in the greater effort to beat the British. I left out Jefferson because his foreign policy led directly to economic disaster. He also used the authority of his office to financially crush political rivals.

George W. Bush to me is definitely in the top 20. You cannot lay the current financial crisis at his feet since he tried to get both Republican and Democratic congresses to address the various issues that caused the problems. It would be like blaming Isaiah for the Babylonians conquering Judah. It's not his fault that nobody listened. The second Bush will climb as we get further from his presidency.

Byrd: Obama in power grab

Who Is John Galt? Do You Dare Find Out?

The most important book for any conservative or libertarian to read in 2009 is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. It extends for over a thousand pages and drags from time to time, but within the story lines of this novel emerges a philosophy that we as Americans must embrace again. If we do not, our nation has but two fates, empire or collapse. We must either brutally conquer to add resources to pay for our bloated government and increasingly depraved psyche, or our civilization will collapse due to over regulation, a culture of entitlement, and lack of initiative.

The book is about an America where industrialists who seek profit and their self-interest over a more vague concept of public service are demonized. Government forces business into cooperative ventures that play to the emotions of the populace and force unsustainable burdens on capitalists. Considering the plight that General Motors is in due to its attempt to conform to the ideal of "good corporate citizen," the message of Atlas Shrugged is more important than ever.

My only problem with Ayn Rand is her atheism. Her Russian Orthodox background led her to see Christianity not as an exercise in free will, but as another parasite on man's reason. To me, religion and that which is done in God's name is another choice that people make and the freedom to choose represents the lifeblood of dynamic humanity to Rand.

Below is a speech given by the main protagonist John Galt. In Rand's book, he organizes a strike of capitalists and intellectuals against a society that demands more and more while offering less and less tangible reward.

It will either reinforce your beliefs and help you to openly argue with socialized liberals, or it could radically change your mind. Seriously, if you read this book you will literally at some points step back and say "Whoa!"

For twelve years you've been asking "Who is John Galt?" This is John Galt speaking. I'm the man who's taken away your victims and thus destroyed your world. You've heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis and that Man's sins are destroying the world. But your chief virtue has been sacrifice, and you've demanded more sacrifices at every disaster. You've sacrificed justice to mercy and happiness to duty. So why should you be afraid of the world around you?
Your world is only the product of your sacrifices. While you were dragging the men who made your happiness possible to your sacrificial altars, I beat you to it. I reached them first and told them about the game you were playing and where it would take them. I explained the consequences of your 'brother-love' morality, which they had been too innocently generous to understand. You won't find them now, when you need them more than ever.

We're on strike against your creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. If you want to know how I made them quit, I told them exactly what I'm telling you tonight. I taught them the morality of Reason -- that it was right to pursue one's own happiness as one's principal goal in life. I don't consider the pleasure of others my goal in life, nor do I consider my pleasure the goal of anyone else's life.

I am a trader. I earn what I get in trade for what I produce. I ask for nothing more or nothing less than what I earn. That is justice. I don't force anyone to trade with me; I only trade for mutual benefit. Force is the great evil that has no place in a rational world. One may never force another human to act against his/her judgment. If you deny a man's right to Reason, you must also deny your right to your own judgment. Yet you have allowed your world to be run by means of force, by men who claim that fear and joy are equal incentives, but that fear and force are more practical.

You've allowed such men to occupy positions of power in your world by preaching that all men are evil from the moment they're born. When men believe this, they see nothing wrong in acting in any way they please. The name of this absurdity is 'original sin'. That's impossible. That which is outside the possibility of choice is also outside the province of morality. To call sin that which is outside man's choice is a mockery of justice. To say that men are born with a free will but with a tendency toward evil is ridiculous. If the tendency is one of choice, it doesn't come at birth. If it is not a tendency of choice, then man's will is not free.

And then there's your 'brother-love' morality. Why is it moral to serve others, but not yourself? If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but not by you? Why is it immoral to produce something of value and keep it for yourself, when it is moral for others who haven't earned it to accept it? If it's virtuous to give, isn't it then selfish to take?

Your acceptance of the code of selflessness has made you fear the man who has a dollar less than you because it makes you feel that that dollar is rightfully his. You hate the man with a dollar more than you because the dollar he's keeping is rightfully yours. Your code has made it impossible to know when to give and when to grab.

You know that you can't give away everything and starve yourself. You've forced yourselves to live with undeserved, irrational guilt. Is it ever proper to help another man? No, if he demands it as his right or as a duty that you owe him. Yes, if it's your own free choice based on your judgment of the value of that person and his struggle. This country wasn't built by men who sought handouts. In its brilliant youth, this country showed the rest of the world what greatness was possible to Man and what happiness is possible on Earth.

Then it began apologizing for its greatness and began giving away its wealth, feeling guilty for having produced more than ikts neighbors. Twelve years ago, I saw what was wrong with the world and where the battle for Life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality and that my acceptance of that morality was its only power. I was the first of the men who refused to give up the pursuit of his own happiness in order to serve others.

To those of you who retain some remnant of dignity and the will to live your lives for yourselves, you have the chance to make the same choice. Examine your values and understand that you must choose one side or the other. Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil.

If you've understood what I've said, stop supporting your destroyers. Don't accept their philosophy. Your destroyers hold you by means of your endurance, your generosity, your innocence, and your love. Don't exhaust yourself to help build the kind of world that you see around you now. In the name of the best within you, don't sacrifice the world to those who will take away your happiness for it.

The world will change when you are ready to pronounce this oath:I swear by my Life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man,nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine.

Something Is Rotten In the State of Denmark, Or At Least the District of Columbia

The latest news coming out of Washington is shocking to say the least.

New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg withdrew his name from consideration for the post of Commerce Secretary over some deeply disturbing revelations about Barack Obama's conception of executive power. The United States Census Bureau will, under Obama's plan, be removed from the Department of Commerce and placed under the control of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel. Of course Gregg was selected to give bipartisan cover for this plan which would raise more than a few eyebrows. Thankfully he stuck to his principles instead of accepting the honor of being a Cabinet Secretary, still an honor even if left nothing to do.

Excuse me? Yes, the White House Chief of Staff will run the census, not the Department of Commerce. To what purpose has Obama systematically cut out his major Cabinet selections when it comes to major jobs? Hillary Clinton has been shut out of any major world affairs issues. All of these thorny issues get special presidential envoys. Clinton has no chance to play the same statesmanlike role that Condoleeza Rice enjoyed.

Why, again, would the White House Chief of Staff need to run the Census? I am quite positive that congressional Democrats will find this as shocking and disturbing as the GOP. They thought they elected a visionary, what they got was a bumbling version of Old Man Daley, the Chicago political boss from the 20th century.

Obama has gone from charismatic male Oprah, to bumbling, to highly disturbing in the matter of a few weeks. It's time to demand that the Democratic Party reign this guy in. Better to nip this power hunger in the bud before it gets out of hand.

Steele Curtain Coming Soon!

Republicans have not felt this kind of excitement since 2004. Michael Steele won election as RNC Chair.

Most folks say, so what. Who cares who the party chair is?

This was a moment in history. Three of the last four candidates for the position were black, the other was incumbent Mike Duncan. With a dramatic flourish, Duncan stepped to the podium Friday and acknowledged the need of the GOP for new leadership. He pulled himself out of the race. It came down to Steele and South Carolina Chair Dawson. Dawson has spoken in the past about his experience growing up with segregated schools. Steele prevailed on the fifth vote.

What does Steele bring? He has a laid back charm in person, as many of us discovered last summer in Flatwoods. Steele does not bring an aura of superiority to interpersonal exchanges, unlike Obama. However he does bring energy and charisma to his speeches. Steele earned a heroes reception when he spoke in Flatwoods and at the national convention.

We need to move forward, reaffirming traditional principles with new methods. Americans are gaining a sense of buyers remorse from this election. Many voted for Obama because it seemed like time to elect a black president. Steele is the right man to open a new 21st century Republican era and beat back the leftist Democratic clique now running Washington.

State GOP backs Blair’s drug testing bill, agrees to study Primary election issue

State GOP backs Blair’s drug testing bill, agrees to study Primary election issue

CHARLESTON – Members of the West Virginia State Executive Committee on Saturday passed a resolution endorsing a bill backed by Del. Craig Blair that would require drug testing for anyone receiving welfare, food stamps or jobless benefits, and agreed to study whether to continue the practice of allowing non-affiliated voters to participate in the GOP Primary election.

While Blair’s proposed legislation won the backing of a solid majority of the state committee, the vote was not unanimous, after State Sen. Clark Barnes raised questions about its constitutionality and fairness, even though he said he respected Blair and understood his intentions with the bill. Del. John Overington had asked for the committee’s approval of the resolution, and state GOP Chairman Doug McKinney allowed Blair, who was also in attendance, to defend the merits of the bill after Barnes spoke. Eventually, a majority of committee members gave it their endorsement.

The committee, meeting in it annual Winter session, also agreed to study the issue of whether voters other than registered Republicans should continue to be permitted to participate in the GOP Primary election, a practice that began in the 1980s. Some committee members have indicated a desire to limit the Primary to Republicans only, although it is unclear whether they represent a majority of members. The state Democratic Party recently opened its Primary to non-affiliated voters.

McKinney offered a State of the Party address, reviewing the events of his tenure to date, and describing his decision to hire Gary Abernathy as executive director. McKinney told the committee that fundraising was strong, noting that February was on pace to match or exceed January’s showing of nearly $19,000 raised. A handout on McKinney’s activities since becoming chairman in the summer of 2006 showed that he had traveled nearly 30,000 miles attending more than 160 events, and personally donated more than $57,000 to candidates and the party, including in-kind contributions.

McKinney noted that GOP opposition to the federal stimulus bill was one of the biggest motivators in recent years for Republicans, and predicted much improved election prospects beginning in 2010, promising, “We will be ready.” At the conclusion of his remarks, McKinney received a standing ovation.

The committee heard an audit report from Vice Chair Tom O’Neill, who reviewed the findings of a recent examination of the party’s books. While reporting that all records appear to be accurate and in order, O’Neill said the committee was recommending several procedural changes. Treasurer Marti Riggall also addressed the committee and reported that many of the recommendations have been implemented, or soon will be.

Committee members also heard from 2008 candidates Beth Walker (Supreme Court), Dan Greear (Attorney General) and Michael Teets (Agriculture Commission), all of whom ran strong races while falling short of victory.

During lunch, committee members and guests heard from Dr. Russ Sobel, author of “Unleashing Capitalism,” who discussed findings of research regarding judicial reform that will be presented in a new forthcoming book.

In the morning meeting of county chairs, House Minority Leader Tim Armstead updated chairmen on the legislative session. Joe Garcia, chairman of Summers County and chairman of the county chairs, reviewed the 2008 election county by county, and asked the chairs for input regarding their vision for the future of the party.

In other business, the committee:

* Heard a resolution from National Committeewoman Donna Gosney to add former Gov. Arch Moore, Jr., and his wife, former First Lady Shelley Moore, as emeritus members of the committee. Because the resolution was not offered 30 days in advance of the meeting, it cannot be enacted until the Summer Meeting, but it seemed clear that members were strongly in favor.
* Agreed to examine the issue of removing members from the committee who have missed four or more consecutive meetings.
* Heard a report on Camp Lincoln from Brig. Gen. John “Doc” Bahnsen. Camp Lincoln is a summer camp open to West Virginia high school students, and teaches them about politics and government. Bahnsen said a special scholarship is available again this year for minority students.
* Heard a report on Internet developments at the party from webmaster Tommy Phillips.
* And approved the addition of new committee members Sue McKinney of Harrison County, Gary Howell of Mineral County, and Gary Dungan of Jefferson County.

After the meeting, McKinney expressed his delight at the number of young Republican activists who attended, including Lisa Peana , executive director of the West Virginia Federation of Young Republicans, who carried the proxy of WVFYR Chairman Ashley Stinnett.