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In July�945 the USS Indianapolis sank to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean less than twelve minutes after being fired upon by torpedoes from a nearby Japanese submarine. The ship had just delivered the atomic bomb that was to be dropped on Hiroshima to bring an end to WWII. Only 317 of the nearly �,�00-man crew survived.

Following the end of the war, the blame for the sinking was affixed to Captain Charles Butler McVay III by way of a military court-martial verdict, despite an array of errors, oversights, miscues, and negligence in several areas of the Pacific operation. Furthermore, information that would have clearly exonerated the captain was withheld because it was classified.

Years later, a young boy in the navy town of Pensacola, Florida, was watching the movie “Jaws”, and asked his father about a scene in the movie which described the horror the sailors of the Indianapolis faced when their ship sank. Upon hearing his father’s reply, then eleven-year-old Hunter Scott embarked on a task that ultimately changed the way a historic event was recorded and, in the process, corrected a serious miscarriage of justice.

Although Hunter already had aspirations to attend the U.S. Naval Academy, his immediate concern was a project for the local history fair. His research would ultimately provide the basis for which the Congress of the United States would, in effect, reverse the ruling of the military court martial of Captain McVay by passing a resolution exonerating him of the loss of the USS Indianapolis. An overwhelming challenge for someone of any age, what Hunter Scott undertook would appear to be infinitely impossible for a boy his age.

As Republicans, we constantly survey the challenges that face our party. The national scene paints a mighty bleak picture with legislation pending on matters such as “cap and trade” and socialized healthcare, along with the effects of an economic recession. If you are like me, you probably watch Fox News and seethe over the day’s reports of the efforts by President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Reed, and Congressman Franks to counter seemingly everything we stand for as conservatives and, more significantly, Americans. Despite my reaction, there is really not a whole lot I can do about any of those mentioned above. So, what can we -- you and I-- do as a local county political party?

We are extraordinarily fortunate to have built a strong, and indeed, dominant Republican Party in Shelby County. There are thirty-six elected Republican officials with either jurisdiction, residence, or both in Shelby County. Furthermore, our state party is very strong, with only three elected statewide offices not held by Republicans. The challenge facing Republicans in Alabama is gaining a majority in the legislature. As it has been noted “Alabama is a Red State with a Blue problem.” The expectations facing the Shelby County Republican Party are from statewide candidates who rely heavily upon the extraordinary Republican vote margins generated here in the general election.

Rather than facing insurmountable odds, we are presented enormous opportunities for success. As of July �4 (and a special legislative election in District ��), Republicans are within 9 seats of a majority in the Alabama House

Chairman’s Corner By Freddy ard

Editor-in-ChiefFreddyArd

ExecutiveEditor CopyEditorMattFridy AlanReyes-Guerra

AssociateEditor FeaturesEditorBobHess JessicaBreland

CreativeEditor CalendarEditorLauraJoseph GeneWeingarten

ManagingEditorsJeffVreeland,AndrewPlaster

PhotographersTomFridy,JessicaBreland

ContributingEditorsBethChapman,KimberlyFridy,AnnLeopard,AndrewPlaster

CamWard,JoeSarver

Paid for by the Shelby County Republican Party1920 Valleydale Road, Suite 154

Birmingham, AL 35244205-994-6497 • www.shelbycountygop.org

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of Representatives. Mike Hubbard, Chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, has implemented an ambitious plan to deliver a Republican majority in both houses of the Alabama legislature. Likewise, the Shelby County Republican Party has developed its most aggressive and comprehensive political plan ever. Victory is imminent, and the only missing element is your support and involvement. While you might consider your part insignificant -- or like the challenge facing young Hunter Scott, overwhelming-- there is an immediate way you can begin to do your part.

Joining the Shelby County GOP Club is your way to immediately, consistently, and regularly provide your financial support for our county party as we work to thwart the liberal Democrats. We are not asking for huge campaign contributions; rather, the monthly membership can cost as little as $5. To

help both our county and state party, the membership is only $�5 monthly. Joining is convenient; simply visit our website at www.ShelbyCountyGOP.org, click the “DONATE” tab, and in moments you can establish your support and identification with the Shelby County Republican Party.

Common excuses to avoid involvement in the all-important political process include: lack of knowledge, ill-prepared, not enough time, it’s already too late, the task is too enormous, or I’m too old/too young. Certainly all those applied to Hunter Scott, yet he moved forward to change the record of history. We are not asking you to change the past, but we urge you to join others like you with your membership in the Shelby County GOP Club as we work for a better future for Shelby County, the state of Alabama, and our great nation.

On Tuesday, August 11, at 7pm, the Executive Committee will hold its quarterly meeting at the Shelby County Services building in Pelham. Our guest speaker will be Gary J. Palmer. Gary Palmer is the president and co-founder of the Alabama Policy Institute, a research and education organization whose purpose is to identify, develop, and promote sound public policies that emphasize a limited government, free markets, the rule of law, and the preservation of healthy families. Gary is responsible for setting the strategic vision for the organization and managing its overall operations.

In the �8 years since co-founding the institute, Gary has become widely recognized for his ability to address issues strategically and with clarity and is a

popular speaker at civic and professional groups statewide. He writes a weekly column that is published and cited in Alabama as well as in other venues nationwide, and he has been interviewed by a variety of national and local media. In addition, he has authored and contributed to numerous newspapers and articles on state and national policy.

Gary was appointed by Governor Bob Riley to the Governor’s Task Force to Strengthen Alabama Families. Prior to that he served as an advisor to the Alabama Aerospace, Science, and Industry Task Force and served on the Governor’s Welfare Reform Commission during the Fob James administration. He is a founding director of the State Policy Network, the professional service organization for America’s state-based,

free-market think tanks, and has served on the SPN board of directors for six years, the last two as president.

Gary has been recognized nationally with various awards and citations, including the Roe Award. The Roe Award recognizes effective think tank leadership, innovation, and accomplishment and pays tribute to those in the state public policy movement whose achievements have greatly advanced freedom.

Please join us in welcoming Gary Palmer as our special guest at our next quarterly meeting on August 11 at 7pm. The Shelby County Services building is located at 1123 County Services Drive, right off I-65 in Pelham.

aLaBama PoLiCy insTiTuTe’s Gary J. PaLmer To sPeak aT auGusT 11 QuarTerLy meeTinG

Quarterly Executive Committee Meeting

Tuesday,August11

7:00PM

ShelbyCountyServicesBuilding

1123CountyServicesDrPelham,Alabama

*Opentothepublic.

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All of a sudden, Obamacare doesn’t look quite as inevitable as Washington thought it was in the spring. The early cost estimates are frightening some Democrats, as are the ideas being thrown about for how to pay for the cost. The health-care industry isn’t staying united behind the Democrats. The party’s schedule for producing legislation is starting to slip, and Republicans are starting to get their act together.

A June CBS/New York Times poll, criticized by Republicans for including too many Democrats, nonetheless found that only 44 percent of the public

approves of the job that President Obama is doing on health care. President Clinton had slightly better numbers in January �994.

Today’s Democratic majority is more committed to enacting major health-care legislation than the one Clinton had back then. But the Democrats are encountering several obstacles, some of them of their own creation.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that the public is not solidly on their side. Many Democrats are still in denial about public opinion. Liberal health-policy guru

Jacob Hacker recently urged Democrats not to make too many compromises since “there’s little question about the popularity of bold action on health care.”

At that level of abstraction, Hacker is right. But the public is not deeply committed to any specific set of actions. Gallup recently tested twelve different, and clashing, health-care proposals from across the political spectrum. It found majority support for all twelve. The Kaiser Foundation’s polling in June found a similar pattern. Respondents like the sound of almost any proposal. Expose them to obvious counterarguments,

oBama’s heaLTh-Care GamBLe:The sTakes For The PresidenT are hiGh By ramesh Ponnuru

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though, and support evaporates. More than two-thirds of the public favors “requiring employers to offer health insurance to their workers or pay money into a government fund that will pay to cover those without insurance.” But if that requirement caused layoffs, 64 percent of the public would oppose it.

The overall impression the polls create is that the public dislikes the cost and insecurity of health insurance. But most people are reasonably satisfied with their coverage, and do not want any “reform” that might cause them to lose it or pay more for it. Right now most people think that they will come out ahead or even from reform. But it should not be hard to persuade a lot of people that reform will cost them. Stanley Greenberg, a pollster who worked for Clinton during the �993-94 debacle, recently asked the same questions he asked then and found, to his dismay, that in general “the desire for change and support for reform was slightly stronger �6 years ago.”

The passage of time is a second problem. Roy Blunt, the congressman charged with coordinating House Republicans on health care, says, “I think if Tom Daschle had become secretary of health and human services in January, then [the Democrats’] overconfidence may have been justified. But the longer this issue stays out there, the more Americans see the real pitfalls and the likely long-term bad consequences of the president’s approach.”

The administration felt compelled to enact a large stimulus bill early this year, but that too has made its task on health care harder. The stimulus increased public concerns about federal spending and the deficit. And this has left Obama with unattractive options.

The public concern about the deficit, combined with his own desire to portray liberal health-care reform as a boon to the economy, has led him to claim repeatedly that his policies will reduce health-care costs and even protect the federal government from bankruptcy. The potential for savings has been Obama’s central message on health care. So there is added sticker shock when the Congressional Budget Office reports that Democratic health-care legislation will add at least a trillion dollars to the deficit

over the next ten years. Those estimates not only raise the price tag of Obama’s reforms, but call into question his rationale for them.

To pay for reform, some congressional Democrats have suggested limiting the existing tax break for employer-provided health benefits. The White House has signaled its openness to the change, but it is in a delicate position. As my colleague Jim Geraghty has pointed out, Obama’s campaign spent $44 million last year savaging John McCain for seeking to end that tax break (and replace it with another, which the campaign ads did not emphasize). The political danger goes beyond the flip-flop. Limiting that tax break enough to raise serious money would amount to the largest tax increase in 16 years — and the largest middle-class tax increase since even before then. That middle-class taxes would not rise was another of Obama’s campaign promises.

The administration also says that it can pay for reform by cutting $600 billion out of Medicare and Medicaid, something it claims can be done without making patients worse off. If that is true, it suggests that we might want to be careful about spending new money on government health-care programs. We also may want to wait until the savings materialize before we start spending them.

The cost of Democratic plans is one of their biggest vulnerabilities. The other is the possibility that people will lose their existing coverage. Here, too, Obama has compounded the political risk by saying again and again that everyone who likes the health care he has will be able to keep it. The truth is that no comprehensive reform plan, including a free-market one, can live up to that guarantee. The Democratic plans certainly don’t. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that under one of the leading Senate Democratic plans, 10 million people would find themselves

losing their employer-provided coverage and enrolling in a new government-run insurance program. (Another �0 million would choose to make the switch.)

In recent days, President Obama has been wavering on this point. First, on June �9, an AP story reported that an anonymous White House aide said that the president’s promise that people who like their coverage could keep it shouldn’t be taken literally. Then Obama himself, in a June �3 press conference, said that what he meant was merely that “the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform.” The next day, in his ABC special on health care, he reverted to the old line. You can see the difficulty Obama is in: He has to say both that the system is a complete mess and that people can keep everything the way it is if they so desire; remembering his lines must be tricky.

Whether reform should include a new government-run insurance program is probably the hottest topic in the Beltway debate about health care. The American Medical Association is against it, as are private insurers and the pharmaceutical industry. Republicans are united in opposition, and moderate Democrats are wary. The Left is ecstatic about the idea, though, and Obama has come out in its favor.

The president has employed a clever bit of sophistry in its defense. If a government-run plan would do a poor job, he says, then nobody will choose it. If it is as expensive as the critics say, the argument continues, private insurers have no need to fear being undercut by it. The argument proves too much: It is an argument for government to set up a new company in every industry. It is also fallacious: Government programs have ways of passing their costs to their competitors. Medicare and Medicaid, for example, use their bargaining power with providers to keep their prices down, but private insurance costs more as a result.

And there is little doubt that the Left wants to use the government plan — what it calls the “public option” — to take the country toward a government health-insurance monopoly. The House Democrats’ health-care plan allows the public option to tell doctors who participate in it that they cannot

Obama, in the ABC broadcast, suggested that

doctors and hospitals be given incentives not

to provide allegedly unnecessary care.

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participate in private plans. Obama, in the ABC broadcast, suggested that doctors and hospitals be given incentives not to provide allegedly unnecessary care. Doubtless the public option would increase the government’s ability to create the incentives it deems proper.

Whenever he starts to have trouble in a debate, Obama reaches for straw men. During the fight over the stimulus bill, he claimed that his Republican critics did not want to do anything to combat the recession. As June ended, he was returning to the theme: Now Republicans are supposedly delighted with the current health-care system and want to make no changes. Meanwhile the president and his aides are scrambling to make a deal, any deal, that keeps the interest groups and nervous congressmen on board.

President Obama has not staked his presidency on health care as overtly as Clinton did in 1993. But no piece of legislation is more important to his claim to have inaugurated a new political era in which Clintonian compromise with conservatism is no longer necessary. If the Democrats cannot enact a liberal bill, Obama will have proven unable to deliver the change liberals have been waiting for. His presidency will, on its own terms, have failed. That does not mean that Obama cannot go on to have a successful presidency — but if he does it will be different, and less liberal, than the one he hopes to have.

At some level Democrats understand the stakes. Right now that’s the biggest thing Obama has going for him.

© 2009 by National Review, Inc., 215 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10016. Reprinted by permission.

Republican April Weaver has announced that she will run for District 49 of the Alabama House of Representatives. The seat is currently held by Representative Cam Ward who has announced he will be a candidate for the Alabama Senate next year.

As a member of the Alabama Republican Executive Committee, the Shelby County Republican Party, and the Bibb County Republican Party, Weaver has been a strong advocate for voters and businesses of District 49. In �006, Governor Bob Riley appointed her to the Statewide Healthcare Coordinating Council (SHCC), a position to which he reappointed her earlier this summer. Governor Riley also appointed her to the Alabama Child Death Review System. In addition, she holds the position of Chairman Emeritus for the Alabama Healthcare Public Relations and Marketing Society.

A lifelong resident of District 49, Weaver is an active community leader. She is a graduate of Leadership Shelby County, a board member for the University of Montevallo Student Affairs Department, an Advisory Board Member for the Baptist Health System Congregational Health Program, a team member of the Central Alabama Rural Action Commission, and a member of the strategic planning committee for the Greater Shelby County Chamber of Commerce. She has also been an active community volunteer for area events such as Alabaster City Fest, Helena Buck Creek Festival, and Brierfield State Park Music Festival. In 2006, the Birmingham Business Journal named her to its “Top 40 Under 40” list of young professionals.

Weaver began her healthcare administration career sixteen years ago at Bibb Medical Center (BMC) after she received her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Alabama in �993. While maintaining her job at BMC, she returned to college and became a registered nurse in 1997. She joined Brookwood Medical Center in �999, quickly rising to the rank of Director of Public, Community and Government Relations. She joined Shelby Baptist Medical Center in 2002 and presently serves as its Director of Business Development and as a member of its administrative team. She completed her MBA in 2006.

“I am excited to announce my candidacy for the Alabama House of Representatives,” said Weaver. “As a lifelong resident of this area, I intend to be a proactive representative of the people of District 49. I was born and raised a Republican, and I will be a strong, conservative voice for the voters of this district. My good friend Cam Ward has been an enthusiastic and hardworking representative on behalf of District 49. I intend to follow in his footsteps and to be the kind of responsive public servant that the people of this district deserve. Every day I am in Montgomery, I will fight to ensure that the conservative values and principles we share are reflected in every piece of legislation that is sent to the Governor’s desk.”

Weaver is married to Dr. Darrel Weaver, a local physician. Her daughter Holly is a second-grader at Kingwood Christian School in Alabaster. The family attends Westwood Baptist Church in Alabaster.

aPriL Weaver To run For house oF rePresenTaTives, disTriCT 49

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Alabaster City Council President Jim McClain announced on May 21, 2009 he will seek the Republican nomination for the Alabama House of Representatives in District 49. The seat Mr. McClain seeks is currently held by Cam Ward (R-Alabaster), who announced he will run for the Alabama Senate in �0�0.

Jim McClain is co-owner of SMMS, Inc in Alabaster. He is married to Bonnie McClain of 29 years, and they have four sons, Robbie, Cory, Jamie and Colby.

His website is http://www.mcclainforhouse.com.

aLaBasTer CounCiLman Jim mCCLain seeks house disTriCT 49

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT I understand how important small businesses are to our state and our local communities. I will bring a common sense approach to stabilizing our state’s economy by proposing incentives which will encourage the creation and expansion of small businesses. Small businesses create nearly 70 percent of all new jobs, and we must do all we can to help them grow.

I will ensure that Alabama stays at the forefront of recruiting new businesses and industry by continuing to offer incentives for new business growth. Because of sound management and thoughtful planning, certain areas in our district have experienced tremendous economic and job growth. We need to bring these same types of results to other parts of our district. Because I have seen firsthand how smart economic growth can be accomplished, I will be an able advocate for our district. As your State Representative, my number one priority will be to bring new economic opportunities to District 49.

EDUCATION I understand the impact public education has on the lives of our children. We currently spend too many dollars on operating expenses and not enough on classroom instruction for our children

I will support our teachers, and I will make sure they have the supplies and technology necessary to provide the best education possible for our children. The time has come to stop our public education system from suffering from political bickering. Instead, we should find a common ground, which I think is founded in supporting our teachers and our students.

ETHICS REFORM Many candidates say they are for ethics reform while campaigning, but once they go to Montgomery, they fall victim to wining and dining by lobbyists. I will work to ensure that Alabama passes some of the nation’s strictest ethics law. We should ban PAC-to-PAC transfers, all state spending should be posted online, and lobbyists should be required to participate in online reporting of their spending on lawmakers. We must restore trust in state government, a trust which is founded on transparency. As a citizen lawmaker, I will fight to make Alabama state government the most transparent state government in the nation.

heLena’s JaCk Gray Joins raCe For house disTriCT 49

Jack Gray of Helena has announced his intent to seek the Republican nomination for the Alabama House of Representatives, District 49, a seat currently held by Cam Ward who is running for the Alabama Senate.

Gray, 61, has lived in Helena since �988 and has served as chairman of the Helena Planning and Zoning Committee since �99�. He is a member of the Shelby County Republican Executive Committee, the Helena Buck Creek

Festival committee, and the Helena Kiwanis Club. He was also a member of the Helena Civitans for eight years.

“I have always worked hard to make Helena an even better place to live and would like to continue this effort to help all of District 49,” Gray said. “I am a very strong supporter of education and also feel that we need to improve our infrastructure such as roads and public safety to make sure District 49 is prepared when our economy improves.”

Gray has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from UAB. He is retired from BellSouth after 30 years and currently works as a communications consultant.

He and wife, Stephanie, have been married for �6 years and have four grown children- Paul, Sharon, Thomas and Melanie, and one grandchild- Mary Elizabeth.

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The Shelby County Republican Party held its �009 Annual Dinner and Reception on June 27 at the Wynfrey Hotel in Hoover. As always, this event is a showcase for Shelby County, and the 2009 event was no exception. Rev. Ron Cox, the retiring senior pastor of Kingwood Church, gave the invocation, and Mike Vest, a member of the Shelby County Executive Committee, was back by popular demand to sing our national anthem.

Congressman Spencer Bachus, who serves Alabama’s 6th district in Congress, was the featured speaker for the evening. Congressman Bachus, with a precise mixture of both humorous and somber tones, gave his unique perspective on a number of topics of critical importance to our nation. The congressman was introduced by State Senator Hank Erwin, who represents Shelby County and District 14 in the Alabama Legislature.

State Representative Mike Hubbard, who represents District 79 in the Alabama legislature, also is chairman of the Alabama Republican Party. Chairman Hubbard, in addition to bringing greetings and remarks from the State Party, served as the special presenter for the �009 Republican of the Year.

State Representative Mike Hill was the recipient of the prestigious award presented annually by the county party. Rep. Hill, who has served in the Alabama legislature since 1987, represents District 41 in Shelby County. Rep. Hill, in accepting the award, offered remarks of appreciation to both the county party, as well as to a number of individuals with whom he graciously shared the credit for this recognition.

Shelby County GOP Chairman Freddy Ard, who served as the master of ceremonies, recognized the success of the event, noting that it produced record proceeds to benefit the Shelby County Republican Party and expressed appreciation for the record attendance. A remarkable number, 4� in all, signed

up as members of a most impressive host committee, members are listed at right.

Among this diverse group are entrepreneurs, constitutional officers, farmers, legislators, physicians, optometrists, attorneys, builders, cattlemen, administrators, commissioners, mayors, judges, investors, miners, broadcasters, businesses, and associations.

The financial success of such an event could not have been achieved without the generosity of the sponsors, for which the Shelby County Republican Party is most appreciative. Leading the list of sponsors for the third year was silver sponsor and reception host, the Birmingham Auto Dealers Association. The bronze table sponsors, whose contributions produced over half the proceeds for this event, included: the Honorable Lindsey Allison, Steve Bradley, the Honorable William J. Cabaniss, Child Education Centers, Inc., Mr. and Mrs. Charles “Butch” Collum, Drummond Company, The Honorable James Fuhrmeister, Greater Birmingham Association of Home Builders, Home Builders Association of Alabama, Tim James, John McMillan, the Honorable Dan Reeves , Regions Bank, The Shelby County Legislative Delegation, Gene and Pam Smith, Michael E. Stephens, Hall Thompson, and the Honorable Cam Ward.

Serving as this year’s Co-Chairmen were State Representative Mary Sue McClurkin and Alabama’s Republican National Committeeman Paul Reynolds, whose names provided enormous credibility to the event.

An event like this does not happen by accident. The Shelby County GOP has no paid staff, so a number of dedicated volunteers attended to the enormous array of details. With great passion, zeal, and excellence, they tirelessly dedicated what is measured in days, not hours, of toil toward a most successful evening. To all our volunteers “thank you” for a job exceedingly well-done!

TheHonorableLindseyAllison

TheHonorableDr.&Mrs.RobertBentley

SteveBradley

TheHonorableBradleyByrne

TheHonorableWilliamJ.Cabaniss

The Honorable Greg Canfield

ChildEducationCenters,Inc.

TheHonorableBethChapman

Dr.WalterD.Clark

Mr.andMrs.Charles“Butch”Collum

MartyConnors

TheHonorablePaulDeMarco

Mr.andMrs.RandyA.Dempsey

DennisandJanieDollar

DrummondCompany

Mr.FrankC.“Butch”Ellis

TheHonorableHankErwin

WilliamW.Featheringill

Mr.andMrs.JeffreyH.Flannery,Sr.

TheHonorableSteveFrench

TheHonorableJamesFuhrmeister

GreaterBirminghamAssociationofHomeBuilders

TheHonorableMaryHarrisandMr.PhilHarris

TheHonorableRobbieHayes

HomeBuildersAssociationofAlabama

TheHonorableMikeHubbard

TheHonorableKayIvey

TImJames

TheHonorableTroyKing

BrettMcBrayer

TheHonorableJimMcClendon

JohnMcMillan

TheHonorableTonyPetelosandTheHonorableTeresaPetelos

RegionsBank

RickandShannonShepherd

GeneandPamSmith

MichaelE.Stephens

LutherStrange

HallThompson

TheHonorableJaboWaggoner

TheHonorableCamWard

AprilandDarrellWeaver

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State and County Parties Alabama Republican Party - www.algop.org - For information about the State Party, log on to its website or contact Phillip Bryan (pbryan@algop.org).

Bibb County Republican Executive Committee - Meets third Thursday of every month at 7pm at the Saw Mill Restaurant in Brent. Contact Bob Jameson (rsj4@bellsouth.net) for more information.

Jefferson County Republican Executive Committee - www.jeffco-gop.com – Meets quarterly on the fourth Tuesday of the month at 6:30pm at the Homewood Library. Contact Gilbert Douglas (ke4nrl@bellsouth.net) for more information.

Shelby County Republican Executive Committee - www.shelbycountygop.org – Meets quarterly on the second Tuesday of the month at 7pm at the Shelby County Services Building.

St. Clair County Republican Executive Committee - www.stclairgop.wordpress.com – Meets third Thursday of every month at various locations around the county. Visit website for meeting times and locations or contact Joey Stevens (jstevens@centurytel.net) for more information.

Talladega County Republican Executive Committee - www.talladegacountygop.com - Meets third Thursday of every month at 6pm at the Golden Eagle Restaurant in Talladega.

Tuscaloosa County Republican Executive Committee - www.tuscaloosagop.org – Meets first Monday of every month at 7pm at the Tuscaloosa County Courthouse Annex. Contact John Merrill (john@tuscaloosagop.org) for more information

Local Republican Clubs EARC Eastern Area Republican Club - Serves eastern area of Jefferson County. Meets last Thursday of every month at 6pm at the Golden Corral in Roebuck. Contact Wayne Turner (fwayne0216@aol.com) for more information.

GBRW Greater Birmingham Republican Women - www.greaterbirminghamrepublicanwomen.com - Meets second Monday of every month at 11:30am at B&A Warehouse. Contact Holly Lollar (shepherd_holly@hotmail.com) for more information.

GBYR Greater Birmingham Young Republicans - www.gbyr.us - Meets second Thursday of every month at 6pm at the Fox and Hound Restaurant in the Colonnade. For more information, contact Chris Brown at cb@southerninsights.com.

MARC Mid-Alabama Republican Club - Serves Jefferson and Shelby Counties. Meets second Saturday of every month for breakfast and program at 8:30am at Piccadilly Cafeteria in Hoover. Contact Paul DeMarco (pauldemarco@pljpc.com) for more information.

RWOS Republican Women of the South - www.rwos.org - Meets fourth Wednesday of every month at 10:30am at the Vestavia Hills Country Club. Contact Cindy Douglas (candouglas@bellsouth.net) for more information.

RWOT Republican Women of Trussville - www.republicanwomenoftrussville.org - Meets second Thursday of every month at 10:30am at the Grayson Valley Country Club. Contact Leigh Ann Corvin (lacorvin@republicanwomenoftrussville.org) for more information.

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CaLendar oF area rePuBLiCan evenTs

WARC Western Area Republican Club - Meets third Monday of every month at 11:30am at Home Plate Diner in Hueytown. Contact Gerald Hicks (hickssg9@aol.com) for more information.

On Tuesday evening, August 11, the St. Clair County Republican Party will host a Republican gubernatorial forum. Bradley Byrne, Tim James, Bill Johnson, Kay Ivey and Robert Bentley are scheduled to appear. The event will be held at St. Clair County High School in Odenville. The candidates will participate in a reception line beginning at 6:00 p.m. and the forum will begin promptly begin at 7:00 p.m. For more information, contact Joey Stevens at jstevens@centurytel.net.

The Tuscaloosa Republican Party will host its annual Lincoln-Reagan Dinner on Thursday evening, August 13, at the Bryant Conference Center. The event will honor Governor Bob Riley. Former Congressman Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, will be the keynote speaker. The event is open to the public. Sponsors will enjoy a VIP reception that begins at 5:00 p.m. A silent auction, open to everyone, will begin at 5:00 p.m. as well. The dinner will begin at 7:00 p.m.

For additional information, visit www.tuscaloosagop.org, or contact John Merrill at (205) 657-8799 or john@tuscaloosagop.org.

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Shelby County Fair (Volunteers Needed!)

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Shelby County Fair (Volunteers Needed!)

EARC

Shelby County Fair (Volunteers Needed!)

Shelby County Fair (Volunteers Needed!)

Shelby County Fair (Volunteers Needed!)

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Tuscaloosa GOP GBYR, RWOT MARC

Jefferson GOP Straw Poll(

GBRW Shelby GOP (Steering Committee)

Bibb GOP, St. Clair GOP, Talladega GOP

WARC Cotton Festival at Old Baker Farm

(Volunteers Needed!)

Cotton Festival at Old Baker Farm

(Volunteers Needed!)

RWOS EARC

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Recently, Money Magazine recognized Helena, once again, as one of the Top �00 places in which to live in the United States. The publication also included two other Shelby County cities on its 2009 roster – Alabaster and Calera. While these three Shelby County communities should be proud of the recognition, the fact of the matter is that Money Magazine is only stating that which all Shelby County residents have already discovered, that, when it comes to quality of life, Shelby County stands head and shoulders above the rest.

My Shelby County experience began just over six years ago, when my wife and I were looking for a place to live around Birmingham. Due to an employment situation, she could no longer commute to Birmingham from Montgomery. After conducting hours of research online, we settled on Shelby County as the focus of our search; we have never regretted our decision. The low crime rate, the education system in Shelby County, the home values, and the affordability all seemed too good to be true. The more we looked, the more we recognized that Shelby County was the place we wanted to call home.

In all of our research, my wife and I never considered why Shelby County was such a great place in which to live. Why did it afford such a high quality of life to its residents? Why was the education system on par with the best our nation has to offer? Why was the crime rate so low? As I read a few days ago about the Money Magazine award, it finally struck me where to attribute credit for the Shelby County standard of excellence and why our communities have gained national attention. I think there are two factors in this formula that are symbiotic. One factor (the people), feeds the second (conservative Republican leadership), which in turn feeds the first. The demographics of Shelby County show a predominance of young, middle class, conservative citizens. The most important things in their lives are families,

sheLBy CounTy seTs The sTandard For GroWTh and ProsPeriTy ThrouGh PrinCiPLed, ConservaTive LeadershiPBy roBerT CLark

community, youth sports, and education for their children. They are happy with their location, and their voting is directed to those who work for the betterment of the community. Shelby County’s conservative Republican leadership has focused its efforts on making Shelby County an example of success and prosperity.

Over the last ten years, Shelby County has been the fastest growing county in Alabama. The unprecedented residential and commercial growth that Shelby County has experienced, and the reason that Money Magazine ranks three Shelby County towns in its list of the 100 best communities in America, is not because of heavy taxation, burdensome regulation, and massive government spending. It is the result of responsible planning, effective management, and, above all, fiscal discipline with an eye toward keeping taxes low. As of 2008, the cost of living index in Shelby County was 84.7, well below the national average of �00. The median income was $66,39� compared to $40,554 for the state of Alabama. Young, conservative citizens

with high incomes means disposable income, income distributed not to the government but through venues such as the Alabaster City Fest, the Buck Creek Festival, concerts at the Verizon Wireless Music Center, and numerous other events in our area that speak to our high quality of life and make Shelby County a most attractive place in which to raise a family.

Because the list of positive attributes about Shelby County could consume this entire publication, and because the editors have allowed me only a single page, I will simply say that growth, prosperity, excellence, and popularity do not happen by accident. The success of Shelby County is directly related to the leadership we elect, and the attention we give to our communities. As election cycles loom and candidates speak, make sure you vote in affirmation of those conservative principles that have made Shelby County, undeniably, the best county in this country in which to live and raise a family.

Robert Clark is a member of the Shelby County Republican Party and a proud Helena resident.

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FiGhTinG BaCk aGainsT BiG GovernmenT & deFiCiT sPendinG By ConGressman sPenCer BaChus

There has been a disturbing pattern in the legislation proposed by President Obama and the Democrat majority in Congress. With the so-called stimulus, the bailouts, energy, and health care, instead of you making the choice, the government is choosing what is appropriate for you.

Another common denominator is more government, soaring deficits, and higher taxes. The unprecedented spending spree on which the President and Congress have embarked will add trillions of dollars to our national debt. My fear is that we are headed toward a financial shipwreck by accumulating massive debts that will imperil our national creditworthiness and impose a crushing tax burden on our children and grandchildren.

This is a far cry from President Reagan’s success in reviving the U.S. economy after the Carter years. He knew that tax cuts, limited government, and unleashing America’s entrepreneurial spirit were the keys to economic growth. As Reagan said, “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few phrases: if it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

This year started with a $787 billion dollar “stimulus plan” funded entirely by borrowed money. The promise was that it would be spent quickly and reduce unemployment. In voting no, I said borrowing and spending got us into this problem and more borrowing and spending would not solve it.

Sadly, that has proven to be all too true. Where are all those jobs? The economy has lost more than �.6 million jobs since the “stimulus” was passed and

unemployment in Alabama is above 10% for the first time in 25 years. In the meantime, tens of millions of dollars have been wasted on dubious pork barrel projects like beaver management control, covered bicycle garages, and swine odor research. All the stimulus did was stimulate more government.

As Ranking Member of the Financial Services Committee, I have also seen the government try to pick “winners and losers” when it comes to financial bailouts. The government has essentially gotten into the business of running car companies and banks while saddling taxpayers with trillions of dollars in potential liabilities.

This is not a proper function of government and I have joined with Republican colleagues in proposing reforms that will end the bailouts, stop the government from picking winners and losers, and restore market discipline.

The “cap and tax” bill is another example of government intrusion with harmful economic consequences. This national energy tax on carbon emissions will have a devastating impact on Alabama in particular. There is a bias against American coal, nuclear, and, outrageously, against hydropower, the original renewable energy that our state has in abundance. The mandates in the legislation will force our consumers to buy expensive green power from other states, raising energy costs across the board. One study has projected that the typical family in Alabama could eventually see electricity costs alone rise by more than $�500 a year. Higher energy costs will make our manufacturers less competitive, and Alabama and the rest of the country will lose jobs to nations like China,

Korea, and Mexico, which have lower energy costs.

Under the “offset” provisions in the legislation, U.S. taxpayer money could be used for clean coal projects in China or India or tree planting projects in Brazil or Borneo. As much as China needs to clean up the environment, should Americans pay for it? Should a tree planting project in Borneo allow the discharge of more pollution in America?

On the House floor, I also expressed great concern about the creation of a virtually unregulated two trillion dollar derivatives market for carbon allowances. If you liked what Wall Street did with the securitization of subprime mortgages, you’ll love what they are going to do with carbon derivatives.

Both the stimulus package and “cap and tax” were rushed to a vote without consideration of the cost or consequences and without giving the public adequate time for review. The same rush to judgment is taking place with health care.

While healthcare needs to be more accessible and affordable, the answer is not a government-run system. You don’t want the federal government coming between you and your doctor. When a loved one is seriously ill, only the best care is good enough. The government cannot provide that quality.

Government-run systems tend to share three characteristics. Private choice with regard to medical care is eliminated, care is rationed, and quality declines.

continued, page 17

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�5

Ralph Reed wrote those words after the Republicans lost the election — the election of �998.

Since then, Reagan’s reflection has faded still more. Yet the tendency Reed lamented has only gotten stronger. Reagan’s death, the reevaluation of his presidency by historians (including liberal historians), and, above all, the political failure of George W. Bush have made conservatives cling to Reagan’s memory more fiercely. In 2008, during the first presidential-primary campaign since Reagan died, each of the Republican candidates presented himself as his reincarnation. After Republicans lost the election, conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly offered familiar advice: “Republicans should follow Ronald Reagan’s example.” Conservative congressman Patrick McHenry is running a PAC that seeks “to return the Republican party to its Ronald Reagan roots.” The Heritage Foundation’s website seeks to resolve today’s policy debates by asking, “What would Reagan do?”

Much of the debate over the Republican party’s future concerns Reagan. Should the party return to Reaganism, as the “traditionalists” argue, or move beyond it, as the “reformers” say? At a recent party gathering, Jeb Bush was reported to

have thrown in his lot with the reformers and urged the party to let go of Reagan’s memory. (There are conflicting accounts of what Bush said.) Several conservatives who had previously been fans of the former Florida governor attacked him lustily and in public for the alleged slight.

Liberals deride the Right’s fixation with Reagan, and even some conservatives roll their eyes about it. When invoking Reagan, conservatives are prone to two characteristic vices: hero-worship and nostalgia. To hear some conservatives talk, you would forget that Reagan was a human being who made mistakes, including in office. You would certainly forget that movement conservatives were frequently exasperated with Reagan’s administration.

Nostalgia is the more serious charge. Conservatives may be looking for a presidential candidate to present himself as “the next Reagan” — the Republican field in 2008 certainly thought so — but the public at large is not. It has, after all, been more than �0 years since Reagan held office. The country has changed, and many observers say that his agenda and even his political vision are now obsolete. “I love Reagan too,” Republican strategist Mike Murphy recently wrote in Time. “But demographics no longer do.”

Liberals may disdain what they call the “cult of Reagan,” but Republicans’ affection and respect for the man who won the Cold War seems a lot less cultish than their own infatuation with President Obama. Reagan was the most consequential president of the last 35 years, the most successful Republican president of the last century, and the president most associated with the conservative movement. Of course conservatives should try to learn from his example.

If, that is, they can decide which Reagan to learn from. There are quite a few on offer. There is the sunny, irenic Reagan. At a reception following the unveiling of a statue of Reagan in the Capitol, RNC chairman Michael Steele said, “You never heard a harsh word come out of his mouth.” (What about the “evil empire” and “welfare queens”?) There is the libertarian Reagan: Former congressman and media personality Joe Scarborough recently complained that Republicans had gone astray by forgetting the maxim, which he attributed to Reagan, that the government is best that governs least. (This was right after Scarborough complained that Republicans had gone too far in deregulating Wall Street.) The liberals’ Reagan, meanwhile, is defined less by his principles than by the compromises he made to them: less by the large tax cuts he won than by the smaller tax increases he accepted.

The conservatives who summon Reagan’s ghost for use in today’s arguments usually use him as a stand-in for doctrinal purity. He illustrates the alleged axiom that true-blue conservatism — these days we would probably have to say true-red

The GiPPer sTiLL has Lessons To TeaCh - JusT noT The ones We usuaLLy hear

By ramesh Ponnuru

“Republicans have attempted to lead with one eye on the rear-view mirror, gazing at the fading reflection of Ronald Reagan. . . . But Ronald Reagan cannot win the victory for Republicans in [the next election], and the party had best get busy finding fresh ideas and new leaders.”

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— wins elections. His leadership of his party was bookended by moderate-Republican failure. Presidents Nixon and Ford brought their party so low that in their aftermath it considered changing its name. The elder President Bush wasn’t just a one-termer; his vote in successive elections dropped more than that of any president since Hoover (another moderate Republican, as historically minded conservatives will inform you). Many conservatives draw the lesson that the GOP is better-off without its non-Reaganite politicians, now dubbed RINOs, for “Republicans in name only.”

Such Republicans regularly put up roadblocks in President Reagan’s path, and he was frequently tart about them in his diaries. Yet he never supported primary campaigns against them. He challenged an incumbent Republican in a primary himself, of course, in 1976. But he did not support his former aide Jeffrey Bell in his 1978 primary against New Jersey senator Clifford Case. His White House even supported Jim Jeffords of Vermont. After he won the battle over the basic direction of the party, he seems to have concluded in practice that further intra-party fighting was counterproductive. He may have been on to something. It is melancholy for conservatives to contemplate that yesterday’s liberal Republican senators have been replaced far more often by liberal Democrats than by conservative Republicans.

Reagan’s practice ran counter to our superficial impressions of him in other respects, too. “It’s true hard work never killed anyone,” he famously quipped, “but I figure, why take the chance?” Reagan had his reasons for wanting his political career to seem effortless. It can be useful for a politician to be underestimated, and for his utterances to sound like pure expressions of common sense. But we now have an extensive documentary record that shows that Reagan worked extremely hard both on his policies and on his rhetoric.

As a cnservative spokesman, the governor of the largest state, and then a presidential-candidate-in-waiting, Reagan had taken and defended positions on a multitude of issues. Compared with some later Republican leaders, such as the first Bush and Sen. John McCain,

Reagan cared about a broader range of policies and knew more about them. He didn’t make up positions on the fly or go with his gut. He had also honed his explanations of why he sought some reforms and rejected other proposals. Steven Hayward, the second volume of whose excellent history The Age of Reagan appears this summer, points out that it took practice and attention as well as talent for Reagan to become the Great Communicator. Reagan could ramble through responses to questions and even occasionally flub his lines. But he concentrated on getting his most important messages across, and doing it succinctly.

Are Reagan’s would-be successors willing to follow this example? Bush, Dole, Bush, and McCain didn’t. None of them could talk, and some of them seemed to disdain the enterprise. One hopes that Sarah Palin is doing her homework on national policy issues behind the scenes, prepared to reemerge with an unquestioned mastery of them. In her career in national politics, she has given one fine speech, at last year’s party convention. Nothing as good has followed.

Contemporary Republican politicians might find two features of Reagan’s rhetoric instructive. The first is that when he was not appearing before movement audiences, his conservatism was rarely explicit. He did not advertise his conformity to a school of thought even when he did, in fact, conform. He did not, that is, sell his policies on the basis of their conservatism. Rather the reverse: He used attractive policies to get people to give his conservatism a look. Hayward notes that Reagan’s televised speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign was “quite ideological,” but that Reagan presented the choice before Americans as “up or down” rather than “left or right.”

The second is that the American Founding loomed large in Reagan’s rhetoric. The political scientist Andrew Busch has found that during his presidency Reagan mentioned the Founders more than his four immediate predecessors combined. He mentioned the Constitution ten times in his memoirs, compared with zero for those predecessors. Those of us who believe that our political inheritance from the

Founders is what conservatives ought to be trying to conserve will naturally find this fact heartening. No serious student of Reagan can believe that his constitutionalism was other than sincere. It also served him well politically. It promoted unity among his sometimes fractious supporters. It rooted him in American tradition even as his opponents called him a radical. It provided a connective thread, a coherence, a seriousness, and even a nobility to his politics that it might otherwise have lacked.

Reagan’s constitutionalism puts him squarely in the “traditionalist” camp of today’s intra-conservative debates. Taken in full, though, his record shows how misconceived those debates are. Some of his current admirers make him out to be a supremely gifted exponent of a timeless conservative platform, as though he were merely Barry Goldwater with better public-relations skills. Yet Reagan differed in both his program and, especially, his emphases.

John O’Sullivan has written that “Reaganism was not an innovation in political thought”:

It was conservative common sense applied to the problems that had developed in the 1960s and 1970s. To the stagflation of the economy, it applied tax cuts and the monetary control of inflation; to the market-sharing cartel of OPEC, it applied price decontrol and the “magic of the marketplace”; and to the revived threat from the Soviet Union it applied a military build-up and economic competition.

These policies were what most conservatives would have recommended as answers to these problems at most times in [the �0th] century. The only novel thing about them is that they were actually carried out.

That is not quite right. Reagan was an innovator in key respects. It is true, for example, that most conservatives harbored a preference for lower spending and lower taxes. But the previous conservative orthodoxy was content to wait until some future day when spending was lowered to embark on tax cuts. Hence Goldwater voted against Kennedy’s tax reductions. Reagan

17

redefined the conservative orthodoxy on this issue.

I quote Sullivan at length because he nonetheless grasps something that other admirers of Reagan have scanted: Reaganism succeeded as statecraft because it applied characteristically conservative insights to the challenges of his time. Reagan wanted to reform entitlement programs, just as Goldwater did; but he saw that the country had more pressing needs, such as for tax reduction. The tight connection between Reagan’s agenda and the nation’s circumstances tends to elude us these days — so much so that we misquote one of his signature lines. Everyone remembers that he said in his first inaugural address that “government is not the solution, government is the problem.” Everyone forgets that the line began “In this present crisis.” He wasn’t saying that government was always “the problem,” let alone that it would always be the problem in the same way that it was in �98�.

It is thus a mistake to assume that keeping true to the spirit of Reaganism requires contemporary conservatives to press forward with his administration’s program: to keep trying to reduce the top income-tax rate, for example, with the same urgency he brought to the task. A conservative today should share Reagan’s conservative preference for lower taxes and a less socially harmful tax code. But he might conclude that, in part because Reagan changed our circumstances, the tax that most needs lowering today is the payroll tax. Or he might conclude that a free-market reform of health care is more important now than any changes to the tax code.

Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana says that Republicans must be the party of hope, not the party of memory. Reagan managed to lead both parties simultaneously. George Will, correcting a widespread misunderstanding at the time Reagan took office, said that he did not wish to take the country back to the past: He wanted to restore the past’s way of facing the future. Conservatism must constantly adapt. Burke knew it. So did Reagan. He was simultaneously a traditionalist and a reformer. Let all conservatives be so.

© 2009 by National Review, Inc., 215 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10016. Reprinted by permission.

seen & noTed:

aLaBasTer CiTyFesTThe Shelby County Republicans were on hand at the Alabaster City Fest to register voters and sign up volunteers. Thank you to all of our volunteers for giving their time to staff our booth!

If you are interested in volunteering for an outreach or voter registration event, please contact Jessica Breland at (205) 621-5908.

“Fighting Back Against Big Government

& Deficit Spending“, continued

The State of Oregon’s government health plan told a cancer patient that it would not pay for treatment but would pay for medicines for her to commit assisted suicide. It’s unconscionable for a government bureaucrat to make that type of decision.

Moreover, the cost of a government takeover of health care is staggering. For example, the House Democrats have proposed a $�.5 trillion bill that includes large tax increases, including higher taxes on small businesses at a time when they are already struggling. And not only is the House Democrats’ bill fundamentally flawed on the basis of both its philosophy and its staggering cost, it is counterproductive of the goals that even the Democrats have set: the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has determined the House Democrat plan will actually increase, not reduce, healthcare costs.

There are better solutions rooted in time-honored conservative principles. To promote economic growth, cut taxes and reduce government spending. To solve energy challenges, use a balanced approach that includes nuclear power. To address health care, promote – don’t discourage – choice and competition and control costs, including tort reform for frivolous malpractice claims.

The strength of America is the ingenuity and spirit of our people, not the government. When we put capital in their hands, they put it to use, supporting their families, building their businesses, and creating jobs. We must return to the principles of individual freedom, personal responsibility, and free enterprise that have made our country great.

Congressman Spencer Bachus represents Alabama’s Sixth Congressional District, which includes Shelby County, in the United State House of Representatives.

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When it comes to a consensus on global climate change, there really isn’t a consensus among scientists, and apparently there isn’t among the Democrat majority in Congress either.

On the evening of June 26th, the Democrat majority in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a massive tax increase (H.R. �454) commonly known as the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, by the non-consensus vote of ��9 – ���.

Also known as a “cap-and-trade” bill, this legislation is truly an unprecedented tax increase in the form of an “energy tax” that will affect everyone, regardless of income level.

Obviously, this will offend some adherents

CaP-and-Trade LeGisLaTion WiLL TorPedo The ameriCan eConomy By Gary PaLmer

to the climate change religion but a tax is exactly what this is. And everyone will pay it in some form or another – higher utility bills, higher gasoline prices, higher food prices and higher prices for anything which requires energy to manufacture, transport, warehouse or stock.

If this bill becomes law, it will go into effect in �0�� which means we will start paying higher prices almost immediately. According to the Heritage Foundation, the average family of four will see their energy bill increase by $436 the first year; it could reach as much as $�,�4� by �035, or an average of $8�9 per year over that time period. That’s just the energy cost impact. The cumulative cost of living impact is estimated to average $2,979 per year. The first five years of this bill could

cost the average family of four almost $15,000; the first ten years would be almost $30,000.

In addition, the Heritage Foundation projects unemployment will increase by two million the first year of the program. The Heritage Foundation is not alone in this estimate. The Brookings Institute, a liberal think tank, and the National Black Chamber of Commerce both project job losses in the millions and similar economic losses.

The sheer size and scope of this massive energy tax increase should drive Americans to the streets in protest. The bill totaled �,�00 pages prior to the 300-page amendment which was added at 3 a.m. the morning of the vote. Consequently, it is likely that few, if any, of the ��9 members of the House who voted for it read the entire bill prior to voting.

Moreover, those who voted for this bill are either unaware of, or chose to ignore, the growing body of scientific research which counters the theory that human activity is causing global warming.

It’s not just Congress who is ignoring the scientific evidence on global climate change. Alan Carlin, a senior research analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), submitted a report based on research he initiated himself that documented scientific findings that human activity has had minimal impact in terms of global warming.

He also cited data that shows we may now be in a period of global cooling. Carlin’s supervisor refused to pass his study on to the department responsible for EPA’s climate change program.

Critics of Carlin, who has worked in the EPA for 35 years, have tried to discredit him by claiming he is an economist, not a scientist. Carlin, in fact, also has a degree in physics.

Carlin is not the only critic of the science behind the push for cap-and-trade legislation. An in-depth report just released by The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) documents in great detail the errors in the United Nations report on climate change. The authors state that the UN’s Fourth Assessment Report “…

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seen & noTed:

4Th oF JuLy Tea ParTyThe Rainy Day Patriots held another Tea Party on July 4, 2009. The Shelby County Republican Party sponsored a booth at the event and volunteers were on hand to register voters and recruit volunteers. Approximately 3,000 people attended the event. Music and fireworks were enjoyed by all!

If you are interested in volunteering for an outreach or voter registration event, please contact Jessica Breland at (205) 621-5908.

is marred by errors and misstatements, ignores scientific data that were available but were inconsistent with the authors’ pre-conceived conclusions, and has already been contradicted in important parts by research published since May 2006.” Furthermore, the NIPCC report says the UN report “… violates many of the rules and procedures required for scientific forecasting, making its ‘projections’ of little use to policymakers.”

The report also includes a petition signed by 31,478 American scientists, including 9,0�9 individuals with PhDs, endorsing the statement that there is no scientific evidence that human-released greenhouse gases are a threat to the Earth’s atmosphere.

The bottom line: the cap-and-trade bill passed by the House is not about saving the planet from catastrophic climate change, it is about catastrophically changing the American economy and society. President Obama and his liberal mates in Congress are going full-speed ahead in their efforts to remake American society and they will torpedo anything that gets in their way, including the American economy.

Gary Palmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.

Copyright © 2009, The Alabama Policy Institute – Reprinted with permission.

The table above, from the Heritage Foundation, breaks down the negative economic impact by Alabama Congressional district.

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Taco Salad� can of black beans � cups of shredded cheese � cup of diced onions and bell pepper � cups of ground beef, cooked � cup of sour cream � cup of salsa � cup of black olives 1 package of flour tortillas

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix the first seven ingredients. In an oven-safe bowl, layer the mixture between flour tortillas. Cook in oven for 10 minutes. WiTh Cam Ward

In this edition, we are in the kitchen with Cam Ward, State Representative for District 49

“Our family has events on average four or five nights a week, so we need something easy to cook for our family nights. This is a quick and easy way to spend good time with each other without a whole lot of cooking or preparation. When it comes to being in politics, an easy meal is the best meal.”