Steve Greenhut Leaving GOP Party

I was sad to read that Steve Greenhut, senior editorial writer at the OC Register, is leaving the GOP party. I can hardly blame him. Today's GOP is a far cry from the one that Ronald Reagan re-invigorated during the 80s. For myself, I'm going to stay within the party structure to try to get it back on course. There's plenty of blame to go around for the party straying from its base. President Bush, the Congress, the gov, etc have all contributed to the current situation that the party finds itself. Instead of slowing down and turning back on course, the above mentioned parties are going full steam ahead into the iceberg laying in front of us.

Back To Square One....errr I Mean One Square

I can't let Sheryl Crow's ridiculous statement about toilet paper usage go unanswered. This is Exhibit A why no one's word in Hollywood/the entertainment industry should be taken seriously. For those who have been incommunicado the last few days, here's how Sheryl Crow thinks we can help save the planet from ourselves. It has to do with our spendthrift toilet paper usage.

"only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required"

In fairness to her, she has come out today and said that this was a just a joke. I think she saw how much ridicule and scorn she was getting from people and now says it was a joke. Her problem was that people are so conditioned now about hearing idiot Hollywood leftists and their elitist opinions that people thought she was actually serious. The whole thing is hilarious. So to end this post, I have to get this off my chest....I used more than one square of tp today during my morning visit to "drop off the kids at the pool". Is there some place I can buy some toilet paper credits so I can feel better about myself that I'm carbon neutral on my tp usage?

CRA Roundup

So I spent all of Saturday & Sunday morning out in Ontario at the annual CRA Convention. I missed Friday's dinner with Duncan Hunter. I'm told he gave a great speech. He must have because Rep. Hunter faired very well in our CRA Straw Poll which I'll talk more about in a minute. Saturday I had a chance to finally meet and speak with the best Representative in the US Congress. That would be Rep Ron Paul of Texas. Ron also gave a great speech before our assembled delegates. He faired well in the straw poll too. A few times during his speech he was rudely interrupted by a few delegates who weren't happy with his stance on the War in Iraq. Our Sergeant-at-Arms Aaron Park quickly restored order. Rep. Paul ripped the neocons in the GOP for their warmongering. I was pleasantly surprised by the reaction from most of the delegates on this subject, aside from the few that I previously mentioned who weren't happy about it. After the speech was over, I was speaking to Ron's campaign manager Kent Snyder about my willingness to have the Congressman back in OC for a fundraiser. He wants this to happen. So consider this a shout out/invitation to all like minded conservative/libertarian GOPers. Would you be interested in coming to a Rep. Paul fundraiser here in OC? Please email me and let me know.

Saturday evening I attended a couple of hospitality suites. The first was an ice cream social for Assemblyman Bill Emmerson of San Bernadino. The Assemblyman tells me he is doing great work on the illegal immigration problem in the state. His staff has been reading my blog! I'm always grateful that people appreciate what I have to say from time to time. The other suite was for Angel Sanchez who is running for the seat of termed out Assemblyman John Benoit. I also met up with John Paul Ledesma who is running in the 71st district. John has his work cut out. There are four strong announced GOP candidates already for this seat. It's great to see all the CRA candidates running for these Assembly seats. We need a lot more of them.

Lastly I want to talk about the wrongly convicted Border Patrol agents, Jose Compean and Nacho Ramos. I had a chance to speak one on one with nacho's father-in-law Joe Loya for about twenty minutes Saturday. I got to hear firsthand from Mr. Loya some of the despicable details of this case. They're not pretty. I could write pages about how wrong a message this sends our guys protecting the border, but I won't. President Bush needs to pardon these agents ASAP. It's ironic about the political heat President Bush & Alberto Gonzales are taking for their mishandling the firing of the US Attorneys. He should have fired Johnny Sutton who prosecuted this case a long time ago. I've never seen a President so tone deaf on one issue in my entire life.

So we wrapped up the weekend with results from our straw poll. The winner was surprising.

1. Fred Thompson: 28 votes
2. Duncan Hunter: 22 votes
2. Mitt Romney: 22 votes
3. Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX): 14 votes
4. Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO): 9 votes
5. (tie) Former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA): 8 votes
5. (tie) Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani: 8 votes
6. US Senator Sam Bownback (R-KS): 3 votes

John McCain, Former Cabinet Secretary Tommy Thompson, ex-Arkansas Guv Mike Huckabee all received ZERO votes. Hehehehe

Thoughts On The Va Tech Massacre

The media feeding frenzy has kinda calmed down a bit from Monday's horrible tragedy at Virginia Tech. I was reflecting to myself a bit of the pain that the families of all the victims must be going through right now. Our prayers are with them all.

This tragedy could have been avoided though. Just think if one or a couple of the students or teachers would have had a concealed weapon on them. Instead of 32 people dead, the carnage could have been a lot less. I was thinking to myself what the victims were thinking to themselves knowing that they were going to get shot one by one. What a horrible way to die. They were completely helpless. Calling 911 didn't and will never cut the mustard in these situations. Someone needed to pull a concealed weapon out and shoot that lunatic dead before he shot everyone else. I know this is not a very PC opinion, but what's more important...political expediency or saving your own and others lives. In fact I was doing some searching and came across this great piece by Ted Nugent. Please read it. It sums up my feelings exactly.

Pray for the families of victims everywhere, America. Study the methodology of evil. It has a profile, a system, a preferred environment where victims cannot fight back. Embrace the facts, demand upgrade and be certain that your children's school has a better plan than Virginia Tech or Columbine. Eliminate the insanity of gun-free zones, which will never, ever be gun-free zones. They will only be good guy gun-free zones, and that is a recipe for disaster written in blood on the altar of denial. I, for one, refuse to genuflect there.

Got Politics?....I Do For The Next Few Days

I'll be pretty busy with political events the next few days. Tonight we have our elections of new officers for the Irvine Republican Council. It's going to be a pretty exciting political season next year with an open seat for the Presidency. The county & state GOP are going to need a big GOP turnout in Irvine like we did in 2004 to the tune of 90% to help offset liberal votes from LA and nocal. Lynn has been nominated for 1st Vice Chair and is running unopposed. We also have as a guest speaker at the meeting our esteemed Assemblyman Chuck DeVore. I can't wait to get our Sacramento update from him.

This weekend I'll be out in Ontario for the CRA state convention. I was appointed as a delegate by Karl Heft who is running for Vice Chair of the CRA. I'm really excited about Saturday because the best Representative in the entire Congress, Ron Paul of Texas, will be giving the keynote for the luncheon Saturday. Ron also happens to be running for President I'm excited to say. I'll have more to say about Rep Paul when the convention is over. Suffice to say he is the best choice IMO for President to get the country back on the right track. Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, Joe Loya - Father-in-Law of wrongly convicted Border Patrol Agent Nacho Ramos, will all be there as well as state GOP heavyweight Tom McClintock. I'll have a full report Sunday night hopefully of everything that went on during the convention.

Bay Area Weekend

Lynn and I took a quick roadtrip this weekend with up to San Francisco to be with my sister Amy when she(and I) lost our hair. She of course is starting to lose her hair from her chemo treatments and I decided to lose my hair in solidarity with her. I along with a few other cousins and some of my sisters fellow Electronic Arts co-workers had our heads shaved along with my sister to raise money for the Lymphoma Society. It was a huge success. We raised over $15k through a silent auction filled with lots of cool stuff. We had a Tiger Woods signed 18th flag pin tie from the PGA Championship course in Medina,OH(Amy & Tiger are good friends through their work together on his EA Golf video game through the last few years. Tiger even sent my sister some flowers and called her the night before the Masters to see how she was doing. Not only is he the probably the greatest golfer in the world, he is a great human being as well). We had a signed Tom Brady Patriots jersey, signed Muhammad Ali pair of boxing gloves, Dave Matthews concert tickets, signed Robert Horry San Antonio Spurs jersey and many other items. Here is a before and after pic of me and my sister:

My sister Amy and me

Amy, me, and Lynn wondering why the hell I'm doing this.

"Just A little off the top please"

Going, going, gone.

It was a great weekend for a great cause. My sister has everyone in her corner cheering her on. There is no way she is not going to get cured. Please check out her new blog if you haven't done so yet:

I Choose Hope

View entire slide show of the weekend here.

Here's A Shocker.....

Most people in Santa Ana can't speak or don't speak English very well according to this article. This is a news story? What are they going to write about next....that the sky is blue, that 2+2 actually equals four? It's really amazing. Here's a few choice quotes from the article

Business owners are screaming for workers, but they need them to speak English

If you can't speak English, you might not find a good job," Weisman said. "You might not buy a home. You might not do many things. It's a problem affecting all of central Orange County

This guy speaking must be in MENSA

Bob Clark, Director of A Christmas Story Is Killed By A Drunk Illegal Alien Driver

Sadly this headline is becoming far to common. Of course the LA Times doesn't mention the fact that the driver was an illegal alien in the headline. A Christmas Story is my favorite modern day movie about Christmas. I still think the best ever Christmas movie is It's A Wonderful Life. The carnage continues.

There was also a heated debate on O'Rielly's Show last between Bill and Geraldo Rivera about a similiar story that happened in Virginia. Here's a link for it. Virginia Beach is an illegal alien sanctuary city so they bear the brunt of the blame, but you can also pin plenty of blame on George Bush. His lack of leadership on this issue continues to amaze me every day.

Patterico has a good post and comment thread going over it his site. He keeps watch on the LA Times.

Is The GOP In Danger Of Going The Way Of The Whig Party?

I would argue in the affirmative on this question. How long it will take for the party to implode is the only question. For those that need a short history lesson about the Whig Party, click here. Basically the Whigs were divided over slavery and the party kinda just went away and the modern Republican party was formed out of the ashes. Anyone else see any parallels today? Today's GOP Party is split over illegal immigration and all the issues surrounding it. The country club wing/Hugh Hewitt wing of the party wants to compromise away our country for the sake of power and the almighty dollar. They want to keep the modern day slave labor trade alive and kicking.

Today the Whitehouse rolled out their amnesty proposal that if enacted, I believe will implode the modern day Republican party. Read it & weep here. It talks about "triggers" and enforcement, but who are they kidding. We know the WH doesn't want enforcement by their current and prior actions. 20 million illegals are going to get amnesty if this passes plus their families back in Mexico & Central America will get to jump to the front of the line for the sake of "re-unification". The costs to this country when this happens will be not be able to be calculated.

One word About My Sister Amy....Inspiration

Some may have noticed in the comments section of some past posts my reference to my sister Amy getting diagnosed with Non-Hogdkins Lymphoma. She is an absolute inspiration. In fact she has started her own blog(it must run in the family. LOL) called ichoosehope.com. I'm going to reprint her initial post here at Powder Blue:

Welcome to my blog: ichoosehope.com
Friends and Family,

It's almost springtime and there is nothing like a new blog to bookmark in this new season, right? I figured you can spring-clean your bookmarks list on your browser, and make some room for a new one. This one is called ichoosehope.com. I selected this for the name of my blog for a reason that is hopefully quite clear. After being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma on March 5, 2007, I have been filled with nothing but hope. Hope for so many great things.

My plan is to have this blog serve as a hub location for all of those that are on my team while I take this journey. It will have lots of information, stories, photos, healthy ideas, party recaps, fund raising updates...etc. I will need all of you, so I hope you are ready to participate with me. As cliche as it may sound, the tremendous and constant flow of love and support from everyone has been so inspiring for me. Feeling lifted up and knowing that every corner I turn there is someone cheering for me makes the days much easier. It truly is like a marathon. Some miles have been easy, some...not so much.

I truly believe this experience will be full of silver linings and amazing stories of friendship, love, healing, and compassion. We all just need to look hard enough for them. They are there. I have experienced all of them already in a very short time. I also believe that there is a reason that we are all being united to do unbelievable things together. We might not know why just yet, and that's OK too. There is a reason.

I hope you will check this site often for progress, and feel free to share your comments and stories with me and everyone that will be visiting. My goal for this is to be a place for the team to huddle up.

Upcoming event: I have had reports of people not receiving the Evite for the Fund-raising event on April 14th @7PM - Horseshoe Tavern in San Francisco. Lots of great silent auction items have been donated so be sure not to miss it. Sports memoribilia, tickets to events, an afternoon with Sandy Sandoval... (just kidding, Sandy, but that would be cool!) This is a benefit for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and also the night I will be having my head shaved. My hair will be taking about a 6 month hiatus. It will not be auctioned on eBay like Britney Spears. I will try to scan-in some of the interesting wig options from my doctor's office. The brochure is called Chemo Savvy (not joking) and I think it was last printed in 1970. I will also scan-in the prescription I received from my oncologist, Dr. Priya. It said: "Hair prosthesis (wig)". The word wig was actually in parenthesis. NOT JOKING! I guess insurance covers it. Hilarious. I think I am more headed down the scarf and big Hollywood sunglasses route than the Dorothy Hamil wigs they have in the brochure. I have already sported the Dorothy Hamil 'do (which is actually a "don't") in 2nd grade. Thanks, Mom. :)

Much love & hope,

Amy

Hugh Hewitt Blames Tom Tancredo For GOP Losing Last Election......

No really, I'm not joking. So I'm driving home yesterday from work and I happened to tune into Hugh Hewitt's show for a minute to listen to his so called "intelligent talk radio". It was nothing of the kind. He was interviewing Rep. Tancredo about his run for President, but he used the interview to bash the Congressman for his continued leadership on the illegal immigration issue. He even had the gall to blame GOP loses last year on the Congressman. It really was a train wreck of an interview. I felt sorry for Hugh. He was totally rude and condescending to the Congressman. The reason we lost was because of the Iraq War, profligate spending, and corruption Hugh. The sooner you get that through your head, the better off you will be. If amnesty had passed last year, the GOP loses would have been even worse. I'm happy to see Hugh getting crushed on his blog by the commenters about this interview. Here is the link to listen