Warming hysteria despite new data

Friends,
I am posting an article by a guest columnist who writes periodically for the Colorado Springs Gazette. I have known Andy for almost 20 years and have found that when he takes pen to paper (or tickles the plastics) it is definitely worth taking reading. I hope you enjoy it.

By ANDY PICO, GUEST COLUMNIST
Global warming hysteria continues to make its impact on our state, national and global economies with increasingly devastating consequences. Severe impacts to food and energy supplies and prices are a direct result of some of the policies adopted to "fight global warming," including the conversion of agricultural resources from food to fuel and intentionally restricting energy supplies in order to force energy conversion. These results were predicted by many with scientific or economic credentials.

Dr. James Hansen, the corrupt director of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, celebrated his testimony from 20 years ago this July by once again warning the Congress of manmade greenhouse gas warming; testifying of imminent catastrophe and calling for the criminal prosecution of "deniers." Warmers would deny the rights to free speech, academic freedom and open scientific research. The warmers deny that 32,000 scientists who have signed the Oregon Petition or the Manhattan Declaration (www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=1) against the fraud of manmade climate change should have a voice.

Twenty years ago, GISS predicted significant warming and its annual reports have shown an accelerating increase in global temperatures. The GISS monthly data, as well as the data from every climate monitoring agency, show otherwise.

In June 1988, the reported station and land-ocean anomalies were .84 and .67 degrees over the century average and Hansen projected that by June 2008, the temperature would increase by another degree. When he testified to Congress in June of runaway warming, the temperatures had declined to .26 degrees for both over the century average.

Predicted mid-troposphere warming is the key component of the theory of greenhouse gas warming, but actual midtroposphere temperatures have declined by .2 C over these two decades. All of the climate reporting centers; NASA GISS, Hadley, RSS and UAH satellite coverage have reported sharply declining temperatures since January 2007.

It is significant that 20 years of warming have been reversed in a year and half with the trend headed sharply down interrupted only briefly in July, which most of us call "summer." The sea level rise has also stopped, Antarctic ice cover remains above average, and the Arctic summer ice melt continues to trail last year's levels by a significant margin. All these measures run counter to the catastrophic predictions and continue even while the CO2 level continues to rise.

This decline in global sea surface, land and atmospheric temperatures correspond to the decline in solar activity as measured both by sunspot numbers and solar cycle length and the shift in oceanic circulation patterns to the cool side. This sharp cooling trend is particularly notable in that both the IPCC and GISS estimated that today's temperatures would be about a degree higher than they actually are. The decline was predicted by those of us who have pointed out the solar connection, amplified by atmospheric and oceanic circulation, as the principle driver of terrestrial climate changes.

During this Holocene Interglacial period the prevailing temperatures have been higher and lower in a regular cycle. During the initial Holocene Climactic Optimum at the end of the last Ice Age and beginning of this warm Interglacial period, the temperatures were several degrees warmer than now.

Several cool periods and warm periods alternated on a regular cycle over the millennium with a pre-Roman cool period, a Roman Warm Period several degrees warmer than now, a Middle Age Cold Period, the Medieval Warm Period that was at least another degree warmer than now, and the Little Ice Age at least a degree colder than now which the current Modern Warm Period has only slightly recovered from.

Recent archeological finds have located a Roman road crossing a pass in the Alps that is still mostly covered by glaciers. The Romans were certainly advanced in their engineering accomplishments for their time, but how and why they would have built a road underneath a glacier is an interesting question for the global warming hysterics to answer.

The cooling trend is now well established and correlates with the current, extended solar minimum. A number of independent solar scientists are predicting a multi-decade quiet and cold period. It is clear that climate change is a natural phenomenon.

Pico, of Colorado Springs, is a retired navy commander, naval Flight officer and economist. He is a signatory of the Manhattan Declaration.

This column may be viewed at:https://webmail.si-intl.com/OWA/redir.aspx?C=7f5a83b97ba442dbb6af073ef370373f&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.gazette.com%2fsections%2fopinion%2fguestcolumnists%2f

The Russian Incursion Continues

Friends,
A couple of days ago I received the email below from a trusted friend. He says that it is authentic and that is good enough for me. Forgive me for removing the names; I’m sure you understand the reason.

Begin forwarded email.
Capt _____ provides input from someone inside Georgia. If he emailsit, it's reliable. FYI

-----Original Message-----From: Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 12:42 PMTo:

Subject: FW: Georgia
Admiral, Sirs,
Word from Inside Georgia. Sad news.
v.r.CAPT
Counter-Terrorism & Defense Operations
-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 11:38 PM
Subject: Georgia
By all accounts, the Georgian Coast Guard was essentially destroyedyesterday by Russian regular army troops in Poti. No people killed orinjured, as there was no resistance. Three ships seized and destroyed.Buildings on the base damaged and/or destroyed, including the commandcenter. Other GCG vessels had left Poti before this and were not taken. Theradar station at Anaklia was destroyed. Not yet at Supsa, the Russians wereexpected to destroy that station as well.

It has chilled me to hear of all of this, as so much of that infrastructurewas built or improved as a part of my work these past years. It can be rebuilt if the money is found but i t pains me nonetheless.

It is the destruction and looting in the villages near Abkhazia, and aroundSouth Ossetia that is so horrific. There is no foreign aid to help familiesrebuild their lives. The Georgia, Osset and Abkhaz youth who are a part of it are thugs and criminals easily brought to the Russian fold in return for free reign. There is no reasonable explanation on earth for what theRussians are now doing in Georgia. It does not equal the genocide of Darfur,but it is all here in my backyard.

My family is terrified, and the patriotic rhetoric is maxed out in volume.Thankfully it appears that the Russians will not press on to Tbilisi. Amazingly we still have electricity and phone service. And water.

Gracefully yesterday provided a moment of peaceful irony - at the Olympicsin Beijing Georgian athletes won 2 gold medals. The first was in judo. The second was in wrestling. The Georgian defeated - a Russian! And in Olympicappropriateness the two combatants threw their arms around each other inexhaustion and respect. I think all of Georgia was standing for their anthemduring the medals ceremony.

Best wishes,

End of forwarded email


Click on map to see full size

As I pointed out in my last Political Discourse, Putin wants to put the old Soviet Union back together. It seems that Georgia’s crime was being friendly with the West and specifically their desire to join NATO. When the rebelling region of South Ossetia tried to break away and rejoin with Russia, Georgia went in for the purpose of putting down the rebellion. That was the excuse that Russia needed/wanted to attack Georgia.

North Ossetia has long been aligned with Russia. In the map insert above, North Ossetia is the area marked as Alania. While South Ossetia has strong ties to Russia, has long been considered a part of Georgia.

Russian forces have been in South Ossetia, theoretically as a peacekeeping force, but their wonton actions against the Georgians as noted in the above email goes beyond merely protecting allies and preventing further violence. Georgia has also had peacekeeping forces in the area.

As of this morning, 16 August 2008, the Russians and the Georgians have signed a cease-fire agreement, stipulating that Russian forces are to return to their previous positions in South Ossetia with the ability to patrol the Georgian border. General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of the Russian military staff has stated that a return of Georgian forces to South Ossetia would not be acceptable.

To slightly shift gears, the Associated Press reported today that Poland and the United States have concluded an agreement to place anti-ballistic missiles in Poland. The negotiations have been going on for 18 months with the stated goal to place missiles in Poland to protect from any current or projected IRBM/ICBM capability within Iran or other potentially unfriendly Middle Eastern country. Russia believes that the anti-ballistic missiles are a direct slap in the fact to them and has threatened retaliation in the form of its own nuclear arsenal.

Two days ago, Russia also made the statement that Georgian borders are no longer sacred, the same with any rebellious region within any of the former Soviet states that ask for Russia’s assistance.

Given the bellicose stance Russia has taken in the recent past, it would be reasonable to expect all of the former Soviet states to be in danger of re-absorbs ion. Russia is already looking with laser focus on the Baltic States.

After my last posting, a number of commentators as well as several of my friends have commented on the similarity between the current Russian actions and the incursion of German troops into the Sudetenland on 01 October, 1938. This incursion was due to the appeasement mentality of the Europeans at that time. The current actions of the Russians and the world’s desire for peace today make it feel like it must have in the late ‘30s. How many more of the former Soviet satellite states are going to be given to Putin?

Since the pull-out of US forces from Viet Nam, and the Marines from Lebanon, the United States has come to be viewed as a country that does not go the extra mile to back its friends. I believe that it is time to reverse that trend and show the world that we do back our friends. In the past, the Russians have typically responded only to adversaries that come to them from a position of strength. Giving in to their bullying in Georgia and Poland removes any semblance of strength. If we do not stand up for our friends now we could see a resurgence of Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe and a renewal of the Cold War.

As always, I welcome your comments/discussion.

Dan

The Russian Bear Out of Hibernation

Friends,
On June 12, 1987, President Reagan made the famous demand, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” in a speech to the people of West Berlin. It was also heard on the East side of the wall. This was the prelude to the greatest peacetime implosion of a multilithic regime this world has ever seen. Today, 21 years later, we still laud Reagan for his courage to even make this challenge, after all of his advisors counseled against it.

In December of 1991, after the erosion of the Soviet world from the edges, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. A painful period of the Russian version of democratization began. The newly wealthy grew out of the corrupt officials that had run the country. Still, there was some hope that the new Russian Republic would work through these growing pains and come out the other side as a democracy, governed by the rule of law. The old hard-line Communists were suppressed and it looked as if Boris Yeltsin might just be able to pull it off, if his health held up. At least that is the short version.

Now fast forward to 2000. With the succession of Vladimir Putin to the presidency of Russia, another KGB professional was again in power. For the past eight years Putin has been consolidating and confirming his power.

In the run-up to the 2003 parliamentary elections, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the wealthiest of the new Russian billionaires, financed opposition parties running against Putin’s United Russia Party. For this indiscretion, the government charged Khodorkovsky with fraud and tax evasion. The sentence was for eight years. Under the Russian legal system, he was eligible for release in 2008. Removing this source of financing, Putin’s ruling party easily won reelection. In early 2007 Khodorkovsky faced new charges of money laundering and embezzlement in preparation for the upcoming 2008 elections. Putin could not take a chance of losing his legislative mandate.

Putin and the ruling party have recently taken to flexing their collective muscles in the old ways. In August of last year, Putin announced the resumption of long-range bomber flights because of security concerns. This renewed assertiveness now can be viewed as the first overt step in a campaign to reestablish the regional power base that the Soviets had established after World War II.

In the past week, Georgia has sent troops into the break-away enclave of South Ossetia to discourage thoughts of independence. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, South Ossetia has claimed to be independent from Georgia. This urge for independence was further enhanced with the recent declaration of independence by Kosovo.

Russia has been claiming that they are just acting as peacekeepers. But Russia is goaded by NATO’s promise to admit Georgia. Last week, Russian forces rolled into the area in support of the separatists. Two days ago, 8 Aug, it was reported that Russian troops had moved into South Ossetia with 150 tanks plus assorted other vehicles. Today, it was reported that Russian and Georgian forces are engaged. There are also reports of the Russian Navy blockading Georgian ports.

With the aforementioned examples of Russian expansion of control, both internal and external, it could be argued that Russia under Vladimir Putin is attempting to rebuild, at least partially, the Soviet power bloc of the Cold War days. While the West has been watching developments related to Muslim Terrorism, Putin has been restoring the Russian military which had fallen into abject disrepair; this repair and modernization being paid for by proceeds gained from re-nationalized industries such as the petroleum industry.

This is a complicated world, made more so by the resurgence of Russia as a power with which to be reckoned. Only time will tell the lengths to which Putin will go to achieve the level of his desired power.

As always, I welcome your comments and discussions.
Dan

The Cowards of Palestine

Friends,
I am going to start this off with a disclaimer. This posting will be very slanted. I hate cowardly murderers. They remind me of hyenas; they wait until their prey is completely defenseless and then they strike. They will normally take great delight in causing pain and shock whenever they know that they are not in the line of fire. You now know my leanings and you can read the rest of this with that knowledge.

Several weeks ago it was announced that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Olmert was considering a prisoner swap with Hezbollah in the name of peace. This swap was negotiated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Hezbollah is not in the habit of making one-for-one exchanges when these swaps are negotiated.

What the Israelis got were the bodies of sergeants Elad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. What the Israelis gave to Hezbollah were five prisoners. All five of these were Lebanese; but one, Samir Kuntar is considered to be one of Israel’s most reviled prisoner. What did he do? Just exactly what did this coward do?

On the night of April 22, 1979, when Kuntar was only 16 years old and already a veteran of terrorist training in Lebanon, he and one other Hezbollah coward rowed their rubber boat ashore in northern Israel with the intent of kidnapping Israelis. During the raid, they invaded the home of Danny and Smadar Kaiser in Nahariya, six miles south of the Lebanese border. Smadar and their daughter Yael, 2, hid in the attic but Danny and their daughter Einat, 4, were taken to the nearby beach when they heard the police coming. They made Einat watch while they shot Danny to death and then killed Einat by beating her in the head with the butt of a rifle. This was a defenseless man but worse was the cowardly killing of a four year old girl. This is an abbreviation of the raid that the New York Times says “went horribly wrong.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/world/middleeast/16kuntar.html The rest of the story can be read at http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110008710 in the Wall Street Journal.

The government of Israel has bent over backwards time after time to try to bring peace to their country. So far, nothing has worked. They have had the “Land for Peace” program, this program, that program, and numerous prisoner swaps. Each time, the cowards from Palestine come out way ahead. Now, it looks like the cowards have done it to the Israelis again. They murder two brave soldiers and give back the bodies and get, in return, bloody cowardly terrorists.

When Kuntar crosses the border into Lebanon he will receive a hero’s welcome. You see, the Hezbollah honors baby murderers. What they seem to be unable to understand is that these actions exemplify their lack of manhood. They recruit children to strap on bomb vests to blow themselves up in the name of the Allah. If martyrdom were so glorious, why don’t the adults to it? This is obviously a rhetorical question because we all know they don’t do it because they only have conviction for martyrdom if someone else is getting killed.

Just the fact that the Israeli government would even consider giving these animals back is disappointing and shows the level to which the Olmert government has sunk.

Looking at the political situation in our own country, there are people here in the US that believe that we can just take these cowards aside and “dialog” with them, and they will “play nice” with us. To these people, I say, “Wake up and smell the cordite.” These animals have proven that they cannot play nice with anyone. This was foretold in Genesis 16. When the angle of the Lord spoke to Hagar about her son who was soon to be born he said:
“Behold, you are with child,
And you will bear a son;
And you shall call his name £Ishmael,
Because the LORD has given heed to your affliction.
12 “He will be a wild donkey of a man,
His hand will be against everyone,
And everyone’s hand will be against him;
And he will live to the east of all his brothers.”
This is how it has been with the descendants of Ishmael and how it will be. These cowards revel in their perversion and we here in the United States, as well as all of the free world, had better know who the enemy is.

As always, I welcome your comments and discussion.

Dan

The Government Crush

Friends,
In this election year, there is a lot of discussion on the economy, the environment, the terrorist threat, the oil/price crisis, entitlements, and a myriad of other “hot buttons.” What I hear precious little about is what is really great about our country; what is really great about our people.

When we look back on the accomplishments that have come out of the USA we cannot help but marvel at the ingenuity and perseverance of American entrepreneurship. However, when we look back at the golden age of the Industrial Revolution, one thing that stands out as different from today is the lack of government regulation and taxation.

Back when Carnegie, Rockefeller, and the other industrial titans got started they were not hampered with such onerous regulations as Sarbanes Oxley. They were not taxed to the point that exploration and experimentation were activities that could only be undertaken after all of the government regulations and accounting had been satisfied. That was a day when the entrepreneur was able to let his ideas soar.

Today, the entrepreneur is buried under a mountain of regulation and is often taxed out of existence. If this intrepid entrepreneur is foolish enough to take on five or more employees, he comes under the laser beam of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Here is a true story. I know a man who is the safety engineer for a company that cleans meat packing plants. One of the safety requirements of the workers is that when they are working over a certain height off the floor they must wear a safety harness to arrest their fall in case of a mishap. This requirement was/is well briefed and enforced for all employees. During one shift a few years ago, an employee neglected this rule and fell off a catwalk and tragically died. This happened several hundred miles from my friend’s office. My friend was not at the site of the mishap when it happened. Enter OSHA. The OSHA inspector wanted the US Attorney to prosecute my friend for murder because the worker neglected to fulfill his responsibility to protect his own life. Fortunately, the US Attorney did not deem it a credible case and did not prosecute.

This is only one example of the crushing bureaucracy that the federal government has placed on us. There are such examples as declaring a farmer’s field unworkable because a mouse lives there or a forest cannot be logged because an owl has taken up residence ten miles away. The worst case for the United States is banning oil exploitation in that massive wasteland called ANWR. If you have seen photos of this barren frozen desert you would be as aghast as I am.

Our current Democrat-controlled Congress is crushing the very livelihood out of our country. Please do not mistake my ire as to be aimed only at Democrats. There are plenty of Republicans out there who are complicit in this crush. We are at a point where we are going to finish sliding all the way down that slippery slope into a totally socialistic society where the government controls every facet of our lives, or we are going to take it back and re-take our position as the world leader in innovation and entrepreneurship. It is time we stop living with our hands out for our daily pittance and take responsibility for our own actions and living. It is time for the federal government to discontinue its evolvement into what Lenin made of Russia. It is time to return to the ideals of conservation of the US Constitution.

As always, I welcome your questions/discussion.

Dan

Friends,
One of my readers has sent the following for posting. I am doing so without comment except to say that it is well thought out and expressed.
Dan

Why I must vote for John McCain

I want to start this off from the beginning. I had never planned on voting for John McCain. Matter of fact I told many friends that if John McCain won the nomination I would switch to the Independent party. Now that was quite shock for my friends considering one of my favorite sayings is, “An Independent is someone who can’t make a decision.”

I started with supporting Mike Huckabee. Later I realized that his views and mine weren’t quite inline, but I was willing to overlook it since there was no other candidate that came as close. I ended my Primary journey supporting Alan Keyes. To this day I believe he is the best candidate for America.

Then the bad news struck. John McCain won the Primary. I was extremely disappointed and decided I was going to vote for Alan Keyes anyway.
However, I decided I would pull a Benjamin Franklin and get a piece of paper and write down the pros and cons for voting for John McCain. The cons filled up fast, but there was one glaring pro that caught my eye and made me think. Supreme Court Judges!

Most likely, over the next four years, a handful of liberal judges will be retiring. Who will take their place? Well, if Obama gets elected I have a pretty good idea, liberal judges. If John McCain wins, at least there is would be a chance for more constructionist judges.

Most people today think that the war on terror is the main issue.
Perhaps that issue is neck-and-neck with the economy. Some people believe that gay marriage is at the top of the list. But I believe that Supreme Court Judges are the main issue. Why? Since the start of our country, but even more in the last 40 years, Supreme Court Judges have been writing law with their decisions. Over the next four years (and most likely even longer) a judge will determine whether we even fight the war on terror, how we will fight the war on terror and to some degree when we fight. A judge will determine whether the states are separate governments or simply a map point made available so google maps will work easier. Now don’t get me wrong, I do not think judges should have that kind of power, but since the American people have allowed them to have it, I want judges who will use that power sparingly.

For those who plan on sitting out this election out or who just can’t seem to bring themselves to vote for McCain I completely understand, but I would like to plea with you to think about this. Can we really afford 30 more years of liberal Supreme Court Judges?


--
Shawn Mullen

Friends,
Since I started these postings, I have never hidden the fact that I am a strong supporter of Congressman Lamborn. His campaign has asked me to forward the following. The only comment I will make regarding the blog contained within is that I have met Mr. Crater and am familiar with the Wilberforce Center. I have found Mr. Crater to be a highly intelligent individual who fully understands and espouses Conservative Values. You are invited to consider this posting.
Dan

Subject: The Transparency of Congressman Doug Lamborn

In the Interest of Full Transparency...

In the interest of full transparency Congressman Doug Lamborn has released his funding requests. http://lamborn.house.gov/issues click on FY2009 Funding Requests

"There are only 110 lawmakers in the House and Senate who either don't request any earmarks or disclose their earmark requests." - Steve Ellis, Vice President of Taxpayers for Common Sense

Taxpayers for Common Sense is a nonpartisan group that demands and promotes fiscal responsibility and government accountability. They vigorously watch for and report on earmarks.

Congressman Lamborn's funding requests simply divert existing funds in the defense budget to areas with higher priority and away from failing or stagnant projects. This does not raise overall spending.

The Congressman has repeatedly been acknowledged and praised for his fiscally responsible and conservative actions.
Among these acknowledgments are:

- The "Taxpayers' Friend Award" from the National Taxpayers Union.
- A 100% anti-pork rating from the Club for Growth.
- A 100% rating from the American Conservative Union.
- A 100% pro-growth rating from the Club for Growth.

In fact, National Journal has ranked Congressman Lamborn as one of the top eight most conservative members of Congress.
______________________________________________________________________________
Here is a blog entry we found interesting and informative.
We thought you might want to read it.
Defend Doug
By Dave CraterJune 8th, 2008
http://backboneamerica.net/2008/06/08/1017/
“If You Care About Taxes, Spending, and Earmarks, Defend Doug”
It’s Republican primary time, when ambitions, conservative promises, and Reagan invocations are in full flower. And the only way to tell real conservative defenders from perennial conservative pretenders is to examine their records..

Let’s start with the record of incumbent congressman Doug Lamborn of Colorado’s Fifth Congressional District. Mr. Lamborn is finishing his first term in Congress and in that time, according to Congressional Quarterly, he voted against the Democrat agenda in Congress more than any other Republican (“CQPolitics.com Candidate Watch,” Congressional Quarterly, Aug. 10, 2007). This includes social, economic, and fiscal votes.

Mr. Lamborn was also one of five members of Congress – that’s five out of 535, and only three of the 435 members of the U.S. House – that the nation’s leading fiscal conservative group, Club for Growth, has given a rating of 100% for 2007. Club for Growth tracked votes on a range of tax, fiscal, and regulatory issues in the last Congress and determined that Mr. Lamborn voted correctly every time. See the entire 2007 Club for Growth scorecard here:
http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2008/05/the_2007_congressional_scoreca.php

This is no new pattern. Over the twelve years he was a member of the Colorado legislature, Mr. Lamborn consistently led both the Colorado House and the Colorado Senate with his record of opposition to big-government spending, pork projects (these days fashionably referred to as “earmarks”), and tax increases.

With this kind of record, it is striking that Mr. Lamborn has a Republican primary opponent, Jeff Crank, attempting to criticize him on his fiscal record. It is well-known that, in justifying his own candidacy against a man who for a decade and a half has consistently defended all the things Mr. Crank claims to believe in, Mr. Crank has settled on one fundamental, earth-moving issue that gets the blood boiling of every principled Republican everywhere: franking expenditures.
That’s right, franking expenditures.

The franking privilege dates to the founding of the United States and covers expenses members of Congress incur in sending mail to their constituents. The purpose is obvious: communication between congresspeople and their constituents is a good thing. Clearly, this privilege like any legitimate privilege can be abused, so there are processes in place in Congress by which all franked mailings must be approved. Mr. Lamborn is a first-term congressman whose constituents need to get to know him and what he is doing on their behalf – again, this is not empty campaign-speak, but a rationale endorsed by the framers of American government – and all his mailings have been approved by congressional leadership. All such mail, moreover, is paid for out of a congressman’s official budget; what he does not spend on constituent communications he is fully authorized to spend on other things, and what he spends on constituent communications is not available for other things.

The use of this kind of issue against someone with the fiscal record of Mr. Lamborn says more about Mr. Crank than it does about the Congressman: from the standpoint of conservative policy, there simply is nothing more substantial on which Mr. Lamborn can be criticized.
Mr. Crank raised the franking issue most recently in a May 30 opinion column in the Colorado Springs Gazette, where he also offered glowing promises to, if elected, “rock the boat” of the Washington establishment, eliminate earmarks, eliminate the federal departments of Education, Commerce, and Energy, and cut federal spending by 20%.

Aside from the fact that even Ronald Reagan was not able to accomplish such heroic feats, if Mr. Crank were sincere in these convictions, he would be supporting Mr. Lamborn for Congress rather than running against him.

No Republican in the last two years, and very few Republicans in Colorado in the last half century, have more consistently, philosophically, and courageously opposed Washington (and Denver) excesses than has Doug Lamborn. It is the lack of people in Washington like Mr. Lamborn, and the interest of too many self-proclaimed conservatives in running against them, that is at the heart of the very Washington excess Mr. Crank now decries. It is also at the heart of the national Republican malaise that is quickly heading the GOP toward an electoral cataclysm in November.

Mr. Crank waxes poetic against earmarks. Again, if this conviction were superior to his personal ambition, Mr. Crank would be supporting Mr. Lamborn. Here are all Mr. Lamborn’s funding requests for fiscal year 2009, a list the Lamborn office has made public. All directly relate to defense spending, a core purpose of government, all Mr. Lamborn has offset in the budget by equivalent cuts in other programs so that there is no net increase in the federal budget, and all ironically recall Mr. Crank’s criticism of Mr. Lamborn during the 2006 campaign for allegedly not being as strong as Mr. Crank on defense:

Land Acquisition for Peterson Air Force Base
Missile Defense Integration and Operations Center
ACES 5 Ejection Seat
Expeditionary Alternative Power Generator
Radiation-Hardened Memory Technology
Digital Engine Technology
Military Information Management Software
Space and Electronic Warfare Analysis Tools
High Altitude, Long Endurance Communications and Surveillance System
Improved Ground Access to Peterson AFB
Improvements to Ft. Carson Gates 5 & 6

With requests like these, and with Mr. Lamborn now occupying a seat on the House Armed Services Committee, it is no wonder the defense criticisms have given way in Mr. Crank’s rhetoric to complaints about franking. As with his fiscal record, Mr. Lamborn’s history at the state level on issues of national security and defense was as impeccable as his federal record has now become.

As a side note, if Mr. Crank should criticize Mr. Lamborn for the above funding requests and call them “earmarks” as if they were pet pork projects, Mr. Crank should explain why as a lobbyist on behalf of a defense company in 2005 he requested, according to public lobbying records, “increased spending for the HH-6OL program” in defense authorization bills. The name of Mr. Crank’s lobbying company was Rocky Mountain Government Relations, and the HH-6OL is the Blackhawk medical evacuation helicopter now in use in the Army and National Guard. Earmark, or legitimate modernization of the armed forces that defend us and that are such central issues in the Fifth Congressional District?

In addition to franking, Mr. Crank can regularly be heard calling for better “leadership” in Washington, presumably implying that Mr. Lamborn’s leadership is somehow defective. For starters, here is a short summary of Mr. Lamborn’s legislative resume, a kind of resume of which Mr. Crank has not the beginning: Colorado House of Representatives, 1995; House Republican Whip, 1997; Colorado Senate, 1998; Senate President Pro-Tem, 1999; U.S. Congress, 2006; U.S. House Armed Services Committee, 2007. Mr. Lamborn is also a member of two other U.S. House committees.

Moreover, here is a quotation from a letter written to Mr. Lamborn last week by the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Crank’s former employer, concerning Mr. Lamborn’s funding requests. The letter is dated May 28, 2008 and is signed by the Chamber’s CEO.
“Your policy of only making requests that promote our nation’s defense, as well as providing full disclosure on these projects reflects not only their legitimacy, but also their important role in improving our nation’s defenses…It is with great pleasure that we offer our support, on behalf of the Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, for not only the appropriations you’ve requested, but also the manner in which you have done so. In a time where real transparency is lacking in Washington, your actions provide a refreshing change of pace.”
Sound suspiciously like leadership?

It should be noted clearly what many noted during the 2006 primary contest between Mr. Lamborn and Mr. Crank. Nobody doubts that Mr. Crank maintains a coherent conservative philosophy of government and a genuine desire to serve his country. Given Mr. Lamborn’s stellar record at both the state and federal levels, what is in doubt is Mr. Crank’s ability to subordinate his ambition to his desire to see the things he believes implemented in government. There simply is no improvement he could possibly make to the record of Mr. Lamborn, and plenty of ways he would not likely match Mr. Lamborn; indeed, at least according to the Club for Growth, there are only a handful even among current members of Congress who are in Mr. Lamborn’s league.

There is only one wise route for Fifth Congressional District Republicans on the ground to follow this August: ignore empty criticisms and empty promises, and say a prayer of thanks that in this age of messianic Democrats and the empty-headed crowds who love them, Colorado and Colorado Springs have a congressman with the kind of real wisdom, real mettle, and real leadership that will far outlast the latest political fad and the latest self-promoting Republican challenger.

The author can be reached at crater@wilberforcecenter.org