Darryl Sharratt takes John Murtha to the woodshed in this ad. This November, Murtha faces some serious competition from Lt. Col. Bill Russell. Here’s Blackfive’s description,
He’s an Army vet, 9/11 survivor, and small business owner who is challenging smear merchant/corruptocrat Rep. John Murtha. I saw Russell at the fantastic Pennsylvania Leadership Conference last month (where the photo above was snapped). He is a staunch conservative, a true American patriot, and he deserves your support. If there were ever a time for the grass-roots to come together and help an underdog Republican candidate make a difference, this is it.
We were fortunate enough to get to know both Darryl, and his son Justin, one of the six Haditha Marines exonerated so far.
Haditha Marine Justin Sharratt,
We also spoke to Justin’s father Darryl on several occassions, inlcuding after he spoke to Congressman Murtha. You see, Congressman Murtha, who convicted these Marines in the press, is the Sharratt’s congressmen. Can you imagine. Even worse, it took the Sharratt family more than fifty phone calls before Murtha gave them the time of day.
In a second interview, we talked to Darryl about the stress this incident has put on his family,
All of our Haditha coverage can be found here.
Commenting on a rule banning lobbyists from being on the floor of the House of Representatives, a Democratic state representative said,
“I think it’s important for us to have the appearance and reality of impropriety.â€
That sums it up nicely!
Manny to the Marlins is a perfect match. Nobody who lives in Miami gives two hoots about the Marlins, and Manny feels the same way about the fans. Perfect. He’ll be playing is a stadium that has 47,662 seats and only 15,686 bodies filling them.
Who will notice or care if Manny turns a single into a triple playing in legitimate left field? Who will care if he dogs it to first base on a grounder in the gap, during the 7th inning of a game when his team is being no hit at home? Nobody. Manny won’t care either, because as Peter Gammons explained on Sports Center last night, all Manny cares about is making $100M on his next contract. Manny has demonstrated, multiple times each season, he does not care about his teammates, or the fans. He cares about one thing, money. Ok, two things. Money, and being left alone.
When asked about the thought of going to the Marlins, here’s what Manny had to say,
“Oh, yeah!” Ramirez said as he walked through the clubhouse. “Tax free! Stay at home!”
That says it all about him doesn’t it? He went on to tell ESPN Desportes,
“Their goal is to paint me as the bad guy. I love Boston fans, but the Red Sox don’t deserve me. I’m not talking about money. Mental peace has no price, and I don’t have peace here.”
If this is how he shows his love for the fans, by quitting on the team, not hustling and phantom injuries, then how would he behave if he didn’t love them? Scary thought. I’m pretty confident in saying that the Red Sox goal is to win another World Series, and to have the highest paid player in team history show up for work every day, play hard and produce. It is Manny who has instigated this mess, and nobody else. Manny will have all the mental peace he can handle in Florida playing for the Marlins.
I’ve been called an irrational Manny basher here, here and here. Why? Because I told the mighty Hub Blog this,
I would gladly give back the 2007 WS win if the Sox dumped him at the time of my original post (three years ago). Gladly. I just find it appalling that I’m forced to root for this guy 160+ nights per year. How many times are we supposed to be offended and sit there and say “Thank you sir, may I have another.”
That’s right. A World Series is less important to me than being forced to cheer for someone like Manny, who has so little respect for the fans and his teammates. Irrational? Maybe, I certainly wouldn’t argue otherwise, it’s just where I am after a half dozen years of Manny’s attitude, insolence and arrogance.
Good riddance to a great ballplayer and a despicable human being. How anyone who can cheer for someone like that is beyond me. I love the Sox, love watching games and rooting for the team. His presence on the team, no mater his production, is a black mark for me a as fan. I’d rather lose without him than win with him. That being said, the Sox will survive life without Manny. They have the talent and the resources. Manny-free ballclubs will be far more enjoyable, for me anyway, to root for.
Now, get ‘er done Theo, get er done! Go Sox!
UPDATE: Exhale. Manny traded to Dodgers. In the end, I didn’t care where he ended up, so long as it wasn’t Fenway Park.
UPDATE II: This is a great deal for the Red Sox. The Sox gave up Craig Hansen (a disappointment) and Brandon Moss (4th outfielder) and get Jason Bay in return.
Meet your new left fielder, Jason Bay:
Avg. 282, 22 HR
11/17/05: Signed four-year, $18.25 million contract ($1 million signing bonus).
2008: $5.75 million, 2009: $7.5 million, 2010: Free Agent
Through the end of the 2009 season, the Sox would have had to pay Manny $27M. They will pay Jason Bay a little more than $8M ($15M if you include the $7M the Sox are paying the Dodgers this season). Their production is comparable, Bay is a better fielder and he won’t disgrace the uniform.
UPDATE III: Thanks for the laugh BostonsportZ.com
Via Powerline,
Just for fun, I did the math. Properly inflating your tires can improve gas mileage by 3%… How does this stack up against “all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling?”
ANWR: 10 billion barrels
Outer Continental Shelf: 18 billion barrels (estimated; the actual total is undoubtedly much higher, since exploration has been banned)
Oil shale: 1 trillion barrelsSo, on the above assumptions, it would take only 11,308 years of proper tire inflation to equal “all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling.”
No doubt that my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren will celebrate Obama’s gift of energy independence.
The McCain campaign is out with a new ad mocking the Cult of Obama.
Barack Meets Brittney, part one
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank is also snarking over Obamamania, “President Obama Continues Hectic Victory Tour“,
Barack Obama has long been his party’s presumptive nominee. Now he’s becoming its presumptuous nominee.
Fresh from his presidential-style world tour, during which foreign leaders and American generals lined up to show him affection, Obama settled down to some presidential-style business in Washington yesterday. He ordered up a teleconference with the (current president’s) Treasury secretary, granted an audience to the Pakistani prime minister and had his staff arrange for the chairman of the Federal Reserve to give him a briefing. Then, he went up to Capitol Hill to be adored by House Democrats in a presidential-style pep rally.
Along the way, he traveled in a bubble more insulating than the actual president’s.
Good news for Republicans! Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) Indicted
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. Ted Stevens declared his innocence Tuesday after his indictment on charges that he concealed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts and services from a company in his home state.
“My public service began when I served in World War II. It saddens me to learn that these charges have been brought against me. … I am innocent of these charges and intend to prove that,” Stevens said in a statement released by his office.
In the indictment, Stevens is charged with lying about receiving gifts worth more than $250,000 from Veco, an Alaska-based energy company on whose behalf he intervened in Washington.
Nice use of the WWII card by Stevens. That’s not gonna fly. It didn’t work for another corrupt GOP member of congress, the legendary Vietnam fighter pilot Duke Cunningham.
This guy is the poster child for a GOP that has gone off the rails since the 1994 “revolution”. Arrogant. Entitled. Proud of his wasteful spending. In short, he’s part of the problem.
On the plus side, he did provide some high comedy, with his unforgettable description of the Internet,
“It’s a series of tubes!”
As Bruce McQuain said at QandO,
Frankly, we need to see a few more of these arrogant yahoos who abuse their power and the intent of their office to be frog marched off to jail. And Stevens will be a nice start.
Good riddance to Ted Stevens. The GOP, and the senate, are better off without him.
UPDATE: Eagle eyed Jake Tapper at ABC News has highlighted his favorite nugget in the Stevens indictment,
But my favorite detail from the indictment — in the Spring of 1999, the indictment alleges, the CEO of oil services company VECO, Bill Allen, traded Stevens a brand new 1999 Land Rover Discovery, worth about $44,000, for Stevens’ 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang and $5,000.
Stevens’ Mustang was at the time worth less than $20,000, the indictment says.
One of the biggest reasons those who support Mitt Romney for VP is that he is supposedly an “economic conservative” who will shore up support among “pocket book conservatives.” As I and others have been saying for quite a while now, Romney’s actual record proves that he is neither socially conservative nor fiscally conservative.
Today’s Wall St Journal editorial provides further proof that Romney’s “signature” achievement as governor, his government run quasi socialist “universal” healthcare plan, has been a total bust which is no surprise since government mandates and price controls always lead to contrived scarcities, decreased quality, and inflated costs.
Here is what the Wall St. Journal had to say about Romneycare:
Most of this growth in coverage has instead come via a new state entitlement called Commonwealth Care. This provides subsidized insurance to those under 300% of the poverty level, or about $63,000 for a family of four. About 174,000 have joined this low- or no-cost program, a trend that is likely to speed up.
As this public option gets overwhelmed, budget gaskets are blowing everywhere. Mr. Patrick had already bumped up this year’s spending to $869 million, $144 million over its original estimate. Liberals duly noted that these tax hikes are necessary because enrollment in Commonwealth Care is much higher than anticipated. But of course more people will have coverage if government gives it to them for free. The problem is that someone has to pay for it.
Thus the extra tab of $129 million, which may need to go higher because it relies on uncertain federal funds from Medicaid. For now, Mr. Patrick wants one-time (yeah, right) charges of $33 million on insurers and $28 million on providers, plus some shuffling of state funds. The balance comes from an estimated $33 million boost in the state’s “pay or play” tax: If businesses don’t offer “fair and reasonable” insurance to their employees, they get hit.
This is a textbook example of how business taxes evolve into “pay or pay,” the first recourse of state-funded health systems. Politicians love levies on business because they disguise the overall bill from voters. But such taxes are merely passed along to workers in the form of reduced take-home pay, since all health costs are part of compensation.
With healthcare reform already a major issue in the election, the last thing McCain needs is to pick a running mate like Romney whose signature healthcare plan/economic reform that was endorsed by Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, and Planned Parenthood, has been a total failure.
And while the WSJ limited its analysis to the economic effects of Romneycare, it is worth noting that his healthcare plan accomplished what no other Democrat has been able to in establishing tax payer funded abortion with a 50 dollar co-pay as a “healthcare benefit.”
If McCain picks Romney, McCain will lose whatever tactical advantage he may have right now on the healthcare issue in my humble opinion.