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Welcome to TVRC
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We Have T-shirts For Sale |
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Written by Ralph Weber
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Tuesday, 08 May 2012 08:05 |
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We now have TVRC T-shirts for sale. They are available at any of our regular monthly meetings. Pictures of a shirt are attached to this post, or come see it modeled at our next meeting.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 08 May 2012 06:26 |
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Please join the TVRC for our monthly Breakfast |
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Written by Ralph Weber
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Tuesday, 08 May 2012 08:00 |
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Please join the TVRC for our monthly Breakfast
at the Port O'Madison Restaurant at The Inn at Madison
(formerly Holiday Inn)
9035 Madison Boulevard, Madison, Alabama 35758
Saturday, April 14th, 2012
Coffee, Talk, and Breakfast Buffet at 8 - 9 AM
Speakers and More Discussion at 9 AM
Come early - we sometimes start before 9 AM to accommodate our speakers! We finish by 10 AM
The optional breakfast buffet is $11 and very good, $2 for coffee only. Click here for a map.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 08 May 2012 06:26 |
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Written by Ralph Weber
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Tuesday, 08 May 2012 07:26 |
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Our May Program
For May we have invited Mike Potter (pictured right) and Jim Patterson to speak to us.
Mike is a member of the MPO, the Metro Planning Organization. Mike is the Vice Chairman of the Citizen’s Advisory Committee (CAC) to the Huntsville Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). He has been involved in the Huntsville Area’s MPO as an advocate for the city of Madison since 2004. He is also the chairman of the Madison Planning Commission and is knowledgeable in how transportation planning impacts a city’s economic development. Mike will provide us an overview of the Metropolitan Planning Organization and how it functions.
Jim is a member of the Alabama House of Representatives. He was elected in the 2010 GOP sweep and now represents House District 21. Jim will catch us up on the the legislature as it approaches the end of the 2012 regular session and prepares for a special session to do redistricting. District map.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 08 May 2012 06:31 |
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What You Missed if You Did Not Attend the April TVRC Meeting |
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Written by Ralph Weber
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Tuesday, 08 May 2012 07:20 |
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What You Missed if You Did Not Attend the April TVRC Meeting
For April we were visited by the GOP candidates in the April 24 primary runoff election. These included candidates for Madison County Probate Judge Patty Demos and Amanda Gentle, Madison County District Court candidates Linda Coats and Chris Messervy (pictured left to right).
We will also heard from Alabama state representative Phil Williams (far right). Phil spoke about the ongoing session of the legislature and plans for charter schools.
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Written by Ralph Weber
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Saturday, 07 January 2012 10:24 |
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Stupid Budget Tricks by Ralph Weber
Last month our Congressman, Mo Brooks (R-AL 5) told us of the deep trouble that the country was headed toward if spending was not restrained. But it appears that restraint is the last thing happening in D.C. We, the people, are funding programs that are just plain dumb.
In December, Senator (Dr.) Tom Coburn (R-OK) released his annual “Wastebook” profiling 100 “unnecessary, duplicative, or just plain stupid projects spread throughout the federal government.” The total cost of these programs is $6.9 billion. Cutting these programs would only account for roughly 40 hours of our debt, but we must start somewhere. Here are some of the greatest hits:
- $120 million in retirement and disability benefits to federal employees who have died.
- $30 million to help Pakistani Mango farmers
- $550,000 for a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union
- $10 million for a remake of “Sesame Street” for Pakistan
- $764,825 to examine how college students use mobile devices for social networking.
- $113,227 for a video game preservation center in New York
- $765,828 to subsidize a “pancakes for yuppies” program in Washington, D.C.
- $100,000 for a celebrity chef show in Indonesia
- $175,587 for a study on the link between cocaine and the mating habits of quail
- $606,000 for a study about online dating
- $17.80 Million in Foreign Aid to… China – (Department of State & U.S. Agency for International Development)
- The Super-Bridge to Nowhere – (Alaska) $15.3 Million
These incredibly ridiculous expenditures are emblematic of the (even more incredibly ridiculous) budget process that has been in place in recent years. If we are going to pass 1200-page bills that fund the entire government with short notice, we will invariably continue to fund these projects.
I hope Congressman Brooks will do his darndest to stop this wasteful practice. I encourage each of you to let him know what you think of these appropriations. His email is in the column to the right.
If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law. Winston Churchill
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Last Updated on Saturday, 07 January 2012 10:50 |
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Written by Ralph Weber
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Saturday, 07 January 2012 10:23 |
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Republican-ness by Ralph Weber
On December 12, 2011 the Madison County Republican Executive Committee (MCREC) denied ballot access to long-time Democrat and State Senator Tom Butler. I was there.
“Monday night, a divided Madison County Republican Party executive committee approved a motion that bars Butler from seeking the GOP nomination for the open District 2 County Commission seat.”
“But he was unable to convince the party's candidate committee of his conservative credentials. That group, formed to vet local GOP candidates, recently voted 6-0 to keep Butler out of the March 13 Republican primary election.”
Randy Hairston, a member of the candidate committee, said there were ‘strong reasons and clear reasons’ to deny ballot access to Butler and another would-be commission candidate that he declined to name.
‘Tom Butler is a likable gentleman and a good, moral man, ’GOP Executive Committee member Hugh McInnish told The Times before the meeting. ‘But he's a Democrat and a liberal, and he does not fit the Republican Party.’"
One of the points I tried to make to the MCREC is that the Candidate Committee was not instructed on any criteria to use in judging candidates. This led me to ponder “Republican-ness”. I just coined that word which means, espousing political beliefs compatible with the Republican Party platform. OK. So far so good. Now what? Could I write a short set of statements that could guide a candidate committee or voter who does not know the candidate? I began by looking on the internet, perhaps someone else has solved the problem for me. That would save me some work.
Then I went to an article I had written for the TVRC eNewsletter after seeing a similar one on the state party’s site. Read it here. There I found a full page of statements on Republican-ness, here are a few:
- I believe the strength of our state and nation lies with the individual and that each person’s dignity, freedom, and responsibility must be honored.
- I believe the traditional family structure is the best means available for instilling the virtues of honesty, self-discipline, and mutual respect which are the foundation of a free society.
- I believe honest government begins with honest elections. I am committed to preserving the integrity of the election process.
- I believe in equal rights, equal justice, equal opportunity, and equal responsibility for all, regardless of race, sex, age or disability.
Those are pretty good, but the entire list is too long. It ought to be possible to state what we Republicans believe in less than a full page. Then I was reading K. Carl Smith’s Frederick Douglass Republicans. In it, Mr. Smith reflects on Frederick Douglass’ values that led him to become a lifelong Republican. They are:
- Respect for the Constitution - “The American Constitution is a written instrument full and complete in itself. No court in America, no Congress, no President, can add a single word thereto, or take a single word there from. It is a great national enactment done by the people, and can only be altered, amended, or added to by the people.” ~ Frederick Douglass
- Respect for Life - Douglass championed women’s rights and was the face of the Abolitionist Movement.
- Belief in Individual Responsibility - Douglass viewed entitlements as a detriment to freed slaves because it robs one the chance of self-sufficiency.
- Belief in Limited Government - Douglass believed the role of government is to protect the freedom of opportunity for its citizens.
Four simple statements that, I believe, capture the essence of what it means to be a Republican, our Republican-ness. I recommend that the MCREC candidate committee be charged with judging future potential candidates Republican-ness by their positions on these four principles because I believe that all the rest of the stuff about which we argue are embodied in them. The rest is extraneous and divisive to our party.
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. Winston Churchill
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Last Updated on Saturday, 07 January 2012 10:49 |
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Written by Ralph Weber
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Saturday, 07 January 2012 10:21 |
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In Victory, Magnanimity by Thomas Scovill
Winston Churchill was the prime minister of the United Kingdom during most of World War II. He began his six volume history of the war with “Moral of the Work - In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity; in peace, good will.”
Having been a minority party for 136 years, long-time Alabama Republicans are quite familiar with resolution and defiance. Now that Republicans are the majority we should not be too reluctant in embracing magnanimity and good will, especially those of us who wish to keep majority status.
Accepting Democrats into the party is a case in point. Party switching is part of politics. Churchill crossed the floor from Conservative to Liberal and back again. And in the last year at least 50 Democrat office holders have switched to the Alabama GOP. Now in Madison County we have controversy with respect to long time Democrat legislator Tom Butler and his wish to run for office in the March 2012 Republican primary.
In the article below, Ralph Weber points out that we have no established statement of Republican beliefs by which to measure potential converts, and he proposes a solution to the problem. I applaud his effort in starting a serious discussion in Madison County which may also have broader applicability across the state.
Subscribers to this eNewsletter were also emailed my thoughts on the subject. I think that Tom Butler would be much easier to defeat in a GOP primary than at any other time, that this would be a great opportunity to talk about what it means to be Republican, and that the meeting the Madison County Republican Executive Committee held to approve rejecting Tom Butler was a travesty of procedure and an affront to minority rights.
It's easy to maintain the ideological purity of a minority party. Keeping a majority is much harder. I think it's best to get the voters on our side by beating bad ideas with better ideas.
The only thing necessary for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing. Edmund Burke
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Last Updated on Saturday, 07 January 2012 10:49 |
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Written by Ralph Weber
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Tuesday, 06 December 2011 16:50 |
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Thanksgiving Thoughts by Ralph Weber
In a November 16 th article, John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, wrote a column on job creation for the Wall Street Journal. Its premise is that freedom breeds success. I'm not going to quote his policy prescriptions here, but I do want to share with you his view of America.
"Is the United States exceptional? Of course we are! Two hundred years ago we were one of the poorest countries in the world. We accounted for less than 1% of the world's total GDP. Today our GDP is 23% of the world's total and more than twice as large as the No. 2 country, China.
"America became the wealthiest country because for most of our history we have followed the basic principles of economic freedom: property rights, freedom to trade internationally, minimal governmental regulation of business, sound money, relatively low taxes, the rule of law, entrepreneurship, freedom to fail, and voluntary exchange.
"The success of economic freedom in increasing human prosperity, extending our life spans, and improving the quality of our lives in countless ways is the most extraordinary global story of the past 200 years. Gross domestic product per capita has increased by a factor of 1,000% across the world and almost 2,000% in the U.S. during these last two centuries.
"In 1800, 85% of everyone alive lived on less than $1 per day (in 2000 dollars). Today only 17% do. If current long-term trend lines of economic growth continue we will see abject poverty almost completely eradicated in the 21st century."
In spite of the challenges we face today, I believe all of us can be thankful to be Americans. We are the descendants of the patriots who declared that "All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Those words inspire us still and bring hope to millions around the world. With all of America's problems, we are still the nation that represents man's last best hope on earth. I pray that in the weeks ahead, each of us will work harder to give this nation a "new birth of freedom" so that America can again be a "shining city upon a hill."
If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law. Winston Churchill
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Written by Ralph Weber
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Tuesday, 06 December 2011 00:00 |
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GOP Ballot Access by Thomas Scovill
An important job of the Republican party apparatus is to determine who gets placed on the GOP primary ballot, who gets listed on the general election ballot as a Republican, and who does not. In Alabama the GOP has official organizations at county and state level to determine ballot access. Getting on the ballot is usually merely a matter of filing at the right time with the right committee.
None the less, ballot access can be an important issue. For example, in 1988 the Democrats would not place Charles Graddick on their slate for the 1986 general election. In the Democrat primary, Graddick asked Republicans to vote for him in the runoff election for the nomination for governor. Graddick won, but Democrat leaders denied him the nomination because they were offended by his appeal to Republicans. Republican Guy Hunt won the general election in large part because the Democrat electorate fractured over the Graddick issue. Since then Don Siegelman is the only Democrat to win an election for governor of Alabama. He is now a convicted felon. Graddick was appointed to the 13th judicial circuit in 2004 by GOP Governor Riley and was then elected to the same seat as a Republican. Graddick is now running in the Republican primary for chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama.
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Last Updated on Thursday, 08 December 2011 14:23 |
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A Weak Alabama GOP Jobs Plan |
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Written by Ralph Weber
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Tuesday, 06 December 2011 00:00 |
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A Weak Alabama GOP Jobs Plan by Thomas Scovill
On November 16 the GOP leaders of the Alabama legislature announced their jobs agenda for the 2012 session. The agenda is neither bold not imaginative. It smacks of leadership that is more concerned with appearance than it is with results. The good parts of the agenda are things that government should be doing continually.
There are tax initiatives to give incentives and tax credits to various favorites. This is too much like crony capitalism of ObamaNomics and there is no reason to expect Republicans to do better at picking winners and loser than Democrats. It would be much better to eliminate the corporate income tax and thereby give all businesses and employers a tax break and incentive to do more business in Alabama.
There is a proposal to give tax credits for hiring veterans of the armed forces. This will not create more jobs, it will merely deny job opportunities to some and give them to less qualified veterans. This is unwarranted pandering and it does not belong in a jobs bill. There are better ways to help veterans.
Another idea is to give "businesses a bigger voice in determining the technical training programs offered by the state's community colleges so that they produce enough graduates to fill fields with shortages, such as welding." Industry is saying our community colleges are not producing enough graduates with the needed skills. This points to problem with schools. If they are not doing the job now, it's hard to see how a new law will make them do better. We have lots of college administrators getting paid big money and they seem to not be doing a good job. Maybe we need new administrators.
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Last Updated on Thursday, 08 December 2011 14:29 |
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Copyright © 2012 TVRC. All Rights Reserved.
Tennessee Valley Republican Club, PO Box 1802, Madison AL, 35758.
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