Rett Hatcher & Company

If you don’t think gas is having an effect on people think again…Last year at the same time where we vacation, you couldn’t find a parking spot and the place was packed…This year the vacation spot is about 60% full…Big difference…Gas prices are forcing people to cut back on vacations right now…how long until the pinch is stopped…?

Yet the right showed little ire when he aired an ad last month touting his environmentalist bona fides: “John McCain stood up to the president and sounded the alarm on global warming five years ago.”

That’s because the day before that ad went up, McCain offered an energy plan that called, among other things, for a repeal of the federal moratorium on off-shore drilling—a reversal of his previous position on the subject. It’s an idea that big oil companies eager to gain access to new potential reserves have backed for years and that had emerged over the preceding weeks as a cause célèbre for conservative activists and bloggers.

For now, at least, his support for off-shore drilling has papered over the divide on environmental issues between the party and its candidate.

It’s also inspired hope among the “rightroots,” the undersized kid brother of the left’s far more robust political Web presence, that this could be the moment and the issue that catalyze the emergence of online conservatism as a force in its own right.

Mitt Romney can’t help the ticket but yet the media wants to keep pumping him up…If somebody working for the campaign really believes that a flip flopping mormon will help the ticket, they got another thing coming…While I myself wouldn’t stay home, I do know quite a few conservatives who would not be to thrilled with a McCain-Romney ticket…The bottom line is that yes this guy could raise a ton of money…But his money didn’t help him in the primary and I doubt it is worth the trade off for the mormon problem he brings…

One of the chief reasons the Massachusetts governor is looking so attractive is his ability to raise huge amounts of money quickly through his former business partners and from fellow members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormons.

McCain sources tell Politico that they believe Romney could raise $50 million in 60 days. One close Romney adviser said it could even be $60 million.

Romney’s other advantages, according to people involved in McCain’s screening process:

— Squeaky-clean and fully vetted by the national media.

— Has presidential looks and bearing and immediately would be a strong campaigner who could be trusted to stay on message.

— Family’s Michigan roots would help in a swing state that went Democratic in 2004.

The importance of a McCain Victory…

A victory by the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, would probably mean preserving the uneasy but roughly balanced status quo, since the justices who are considered most likely to retire are liberal. A win for his Republican counterpart, John McCain, could mean a fundamental shift to a consistently conservative majority ready to take on past court rulings on abortion rights, affirmative action and other issues important to the right.

We have added a new blogger to the site…My longtime friend Grant Lewis…Here is his bio…

Grant Lewis is a soldier in the United States Army, and current campaign manager for Ann Clemmer who is running for State Representative in District 29. He has been politically active in various local campaigns with the latest being Jim Magnus, 2002 for Senate District 22. Our nation has seen its share of change within the last decade, and Grant Lewis believes that a change for the positive starts at the local level of politics. A conservative student at the University of Maryland , he is among the minority.

We don’t always agree on some issues but we do have the same solid core princples and his point of view will be a welcome one…Did I mention that he is a great american patriot who served a year in Iraq…He is a true hero…

Having intro’ed Grant let me tell you that I will be on Vacation this week…yeah for me bad for you…Posts will be light…

1 topic I want to touch is this…

If he wins in November, a former legislator running to return to the House seat gave up after being accused of molesting a teenage girl could face an attempt to block him from being seated.

Several House members have discussed refusing to let former House member Dwayne Dobbins of North Little Rock take his seat, if Dobbins wins the general election, when the Legislature convenes in January, the House majority leader said Friday.

Rep. Steve Harrelson, D-Texarkana, told the Fayetteville Political Animals club it would be difficult to refuse Dobbins his seat because Dobbins has an opponent in the general election. The Green Party of Arkansas nominated Richard Carroll last week to challenge Dobbins for the District 39 seat.

“If you refuse to seat a member who had no opposition, you can say that the voters had no choice,” Harrelson said. “It’s a different ball game when he has opposition. It will be more difficult to go against the voters.”

Harrelson said Carroll has a good shot at winning the seat because “Democrats in that race are not enthused about their candidate.”

Republicans also have talked about what could be done about Dobbins.

Rep. Bryan King, R-Berryville, the House minority leader-elect, said Friday the GOP caucus discussed the idea and said he expects an attempt to be made to block Dobbins from being seated if he is elected.

“Now the idea is just on the table … we need to wait until the outcome of the (general) election,” King said. “No one wants a convicted child molester … in the House of Representatives. I think that would be a concern that would be addressed.”

Dobbins was in his second term in the state House in 2005 when he was charged with felony sexual assault after a woman reported that he improperly touched her at her home in September 2004, when she was 17.

Dobbins later pleaded guilty in Pulaski County Circuit Court to misdemeanor harassment and resigned from the Legislature as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors. He was sentenced to a year’s probation, fined $1,000 and ordered to undergo counseling.

Dobbins’ wife, Sharon, ran for his vacant seat and was elected to the House in a special election.

On March 10, the last day of the state’s week-long political filing period, Dwayne Dobbins filed to run for the House seat instead of his wife. No one else filed to run for the seat.

I’m all about the voters having a choice…But the bottom line is that child molestors don’t belong in the legislator and if this comes to a vote…This blog will be taking note of all those who vote for him to remain in that seat…What would you do if it was your child?…Believe me I’m all for the Louisiana law that got struck down…Those that brutally rape a child deserve the death penalty…Since SCOTUS took that option off the table….We will have to resort to life…any legislators that choose to defend this child rapist should think twice…

Excellent job by Mac…

I support the efforts of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution between a man and a woman, just as we did in my home state of Arizona. I do not believe judges should be making these decisions.”

This is another positive step…

McCain will meet with Jack Willke, one of the founders of the National Right to Life Committee; Harvey Hook, a Christian leader from Columbus; Lori Viars, the executive director of the conservative group Family First; Mike Gonidakis, executive director of Ohio Right to Life; Phil Burress, an ardent opponent of gay marriage and president of Citizens for Community Values, an Ohio affiliate of Focus on the Family; and Chris Long, president of the Ohio Christian Alliance.

If Obama can overcome his name, color of his skin, and Liberal elitist view he can win…If not then McCain should win…Reading below you get the idea that if he picked Hillary it would all be over…

The poll responses also show Obama has more work to do to quell fears among voters like Kirstie Hartle of Rome, N.Y., a registered Democrat who has never supported a Republican presidential candidate. With Clinton out of the race, Hartle said, “I’m Republican all the way now.”

She said she doesn’t like Obama’s name and thinks he has a questionable background. She also said she thought Obama was deceitful when he broke from his church after it hurt his campaign, and she doesn’t trust him to handle the Iraq war.

“It sounds to me like a Middle Eastern type of name and whether or not he’s born here in the United States, he doesn’t seem like, to me, somebody who is trustworthy,” Hartle said in a telephone interview. “You can’t trust anybody these days, so who’s to say he’s not a terrorist and we just don’t realize it yet?”

When asked an open-ended question about the first words that come to mind about Obama, some former Clinton supporters used words like Muslim or terrorist. Those misconceptions have been fueled by Internet rumors that point out his name is Barack Hussein Obama but otherwise lie about his background.

“I refuse to vote for an Arab to be in my White House,” said retired salesman Dean Johnson of Lanett, Ala. “That is the only factor. Otherwise, you couldn’t break both my legs and make me vote for a Republican.”

The Obama campaign has been addressing the rumors with fliers distributed at churches, a fact-checking Web site and a television ad about his American roots. Obama is a Christian who was born and raised in the United States. His father was from Kenya, but left when Obama was a toddler and he was brought up by his American mother and grandparents in Hawaii.

Sixty-year-old Ann Burkes of Broken Arrow, Okla., said she has a “gut feeling” that she doesn’t trust Obama and is leaning toward McCain because he is more experienced. But she said all that would change if Obama picked Clinton as a running mate.

“If he chose her, I would be back in a heartbeat,” Burkes said.

They struck it down rightfully so…

The court’s 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact.

The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual’s right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

This is like Folgers in your cup…John Brummett, the Liberal Heavyweight columnist for Arkansas News Bureau, responds to a column yesterday by David Sanders, Conservative featherweight….We will start with David’s article…

Gov. Mike Beebe and his administration have been the subject of glowing, one-sided profiles in Democrat-friendly publications - the relatively new Talk Business Quarterly and the Arkansas Times. The long-form pieces were written by Democratic?leaning (and award-winning) journalists, who showered Arkansas’ popular Democratic governor with endless and, at times, discomforting personal and professional praise.

For example, both pieces hailed Beebe and Morril Harriman, his chief of staff and former state Senate colleague, as the two smartest guys in state government, which these two sharp-dressed compatriots earned the hard way.

Well cataloged was Beebe’s near domination over the Legislature during his long career in the state Senate. On one hand, nothing happened without his and Harriman’s approval; one would easily conclude they were the two cogs in the wheel that kept everything in state government moving.

But, on the other hand, Beebe, the legislative “fixer,” had nothing to do with state Sen. Nick Wilson or his illegal schemes that ultimately landed him in the federal penitentiary. The two men only shared indignation and animosity toward each other that had built up over years of a strained relationship.

The other side of the Beebe-Wilson narrative, which was excluded from both stories, alleges that Beebe was passive and unwilling to challenge Wilson.

In fact, the Arkansas Times printed Beebe’s reassuring account of a how a female FBI agent investigating Wilson’s corruption told him he was OK. “She said one thing she’d learned during the investigation was that a senator was either a Beebe man or a Wilson man,” Beebe told the Arkansas Times. It was unclear if the journalist made any attempt to corroborate Beebe’s story.

David Sanders is a conservative writer in a state full of Democrats…He does an excellent job and hopefully one day, should conservatives in Arkansas rise to power, David will be aptly rewarded and his efforts truly appreciated…It does puzzle me though that as conservatives in Arkansas, some continue to beat a dead horse with this Nick Wilson issue…It was a worthy gamble in 2006 that didn’t payoff…It may be true…Who knows….But one thing is for sure…unless there is new evidence I don’t know about…The public at large isn’t buying that argument and we need to move on to something else…Before 2006 about 500 people outside of Nick Wilson’s district had heard of him and now that number may be around 750….People don’t care about this guy and they certainly don’t care about his connection to “I’ll have it both ways Beebe”…Sanders, IMHO, would be much better off if he opined about Halter’s idiot lottery proposal that will do nothing but take money from the poor and give the government more money and more power…Nick Wilson is a dead issue…

Now on with the Heavyweight Liberal, John Brummett…

Our junior columnist here at the Arkansas News Bureau - David Sanders, a former low-level aide to Mike Huckabee - publicly took me to task the other day.

Though he lacked quite the nerve to name me, he clearly was using his column to call me out.

It transported me to those glory days of yore when other featherweights, people like John Robert Starr and Paul Greenberg, would presume to move up to my weight class to go a round or two.

Sanders’ first paragraph seemed backward to me. He wrote, “When opinion journalists substitute objectivity and proportionality for something less desirable - personal bias, political predisposition or blind ideological ties - their work becomes hard to distinguish from partisan advocacy.”

Actually, it’s when you substitute the bad stuff for the good stuff that your work suffers, or so I think he meant to say.

Some people would contend that I, with far greater seniority and readership, should ignore this junior featherweight. But I think the eager lad advances a worthy public discussion.

Now Brummett is a Liberal Journalist in a state controlled by Liberals and a few DINO’s who still think that they should pose as Democrats even though the standard bearer for that party is now a Elitist named Barack Hussein Obama who won’t even wear his Flag Lapel pin and advocates more taxes, more rights for gays, and more gov’t control…But I digress…Brummett is mainly free to say and do what he wants because of this and for the most part he is fair (for a diehard Liberal)…But he is also smart and sneaky and was deservedly checked by David Sanders…Is it going to matter any…?…NO…Is it nice to see that we have a scrappy fighter like Sanders on our team….?….YES…So Kudos to Sanders on this one…But drop the Nick Wilson deal…it’s a losing proposition for our cause and we should instead focus our efforts on Liberals like Kathy Webb (Global Warming Commission among other things), Steve Harrelson (who by his seeking to elect a partisan speaker, shows he’s eager for some partisan attacks), Bill Halter (seriously do you need ammo on this guy), and the other 40 or so Liberal members of the legislator…

Gay GOP group met with Mac the other day according to Ben Smith… Now its not uncommon for this kind of thing…Even Huck would meet with this group…But with Huck we know he’s not going to push their agenda or even budge a bit…With Mac…Conservatives really don’t know…I know he’s against the Federal Marriage Amendment…And the fact that he is secretly meeting with this group does nothing to light his candidacy on fire for me…