Free Traitors

I am all for free trade between nations. But what is now being called “free trade” really isn’t honest free trade. It’s a false name. That’s one reason why I am against it. The other reason I am against it is that it is helping to destroy the middle class in this nation while enriching a few at the top who don’t mind making money off of people who are virtually slaves.

Indeed, the “free trade” advocates of today have a philosophy that fits right in with the plantation owners of the 1840’s. Were they a foreign country in our times the “free traders” would no doubt decide, “If they can get the cotton cheaper, then let’s do business.” The world’s largest plantation today is Communist China.

You can’t have honest free trade with an un-free nation. They can’t hold up their end. Think about what “free trade” is and you will see what I mean. A free market is one in which people have free choices to engage or not engage in an economic activity. It is also one in which people have a free flow of information so that they can make those choices rationally, and not from ignorance.

So how does that happen with a nation whose government will not let the common citizen leave the country of their own accord? That’s a captive labor market, not a free one. How does one have free trade with a nation whose media is state controlled and communications are censored? If the factory down the road is poisoning its workers and polluting your village, will the media tell you about it, or will they stay silent because of bribes or because the government is “partners” in the business? How can a worker decide, “I will not work at that factory unless they pay me more because of the poor safety record it has” if no such information is available?

People in Communist China cannot make free choices about whether or not to seek a better life elsewhere, nor can they make informed decisions about their choice of work within China. Therefore, while they have rip-roaring capitalism in China, China is not a free market. It’s the world’s largest concentration camp. It is the equivalent of a plantation owner claiming a free market because of the way he sells his cotton and buys and sells his slaves. It’s a free market for him, but not his workforce.

In an honest free market the costs of a good or service are born by those who benefit from the good or service and not transmitted to others. A thief selling hot stereo equipment to a fence represents a free market transaction, but not an honest free market transaction, because costs are born by the original owner of the stereo even though he does not get benefit from the exchange.

Another example of profiting at the expense of others: factories in China dump pollutants into the ocean, and into rivers. They shift the costs of their mess unto the rest of their country, while keeping the profits. Cost-shifting is a sophisticated form of theft. In the store where I work, all of the cloth sofas are made in the USA, almost all of the leather ones are from China. Why? Because we can compete on a level playing field, but processing leather is messy and there are a lot of chemicals involved. Here, we make factories clean up their mess. In China, they can just cost-shift it. “Free trade”, as the global corporate media is defining it, is making slaves of us all.

Baker and Beebe Conspired Against Permit Holders

Pictured: State Senator Gilbert Baker (R?, Conway) who is running for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate.
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Thanks to some friends for pointing out a big story I had missed from Steve Jones at the Fort Smith Examiner. The story began when lefty Max Brantley at the Arkansas Times used the state's FOIA stature to publish the names of all of the concealed carry permit holders in the state. Wonder if ole' Max would publish the names of all of the women who had an abortion? After all, the right to keep and bear arms is actually spelled out in the constitution, so any "right to privacy" should certainly apply. The "right" to abortion however, is nowhere spelled out in the Constitution, and had to be invented out of whole cloth by an over-reaching judiciary determined to impose bench-legislation on the nation. The casualty rate from that monstrosity equals a 9/11 every day. But I digress....

Legislators were determined to close this loophole and protect the privacy rights of concealed carry permit holders. But Governor Mike Beebe used his influence in the Senate to push for a much-watered-down version of the bill. It would not have been enough to stop the original strong bill, except for the machinations of Sen. Gilbert Baker. I quote from the article...

" One thing that was never pointed out however was the fact that Senator Gilbert Baker could have stopped the whole hijacking had he just voted for the bill when it first came up before the committee. He was the swing vote that could have passed the bill through committee, "as is."

The bills sponsor Randy Stewart told us that Baker had told him that he had a talk with Beebe and could not support the bill as written. That day I watched from the sidelines as Baker refused to answer a "yes" or "no" vote when his name was called."

Republicans May Have Found Candidate for Governor

Democratic Governor Mike Beebe has been highly popular in the state. So much so that with the filing deadline two weeks away there had not been a name floated by Republicans in the race for Governor. They were having great trouble finding someone to take on Beebe. Now it appears that they may have their man. Jim Keet once served as a state legislator and was successful in running a restaurant and in real estate before moving to Florida. About a year ago he returned to the state.

Mayor Frank Gilbert has also expressed interest in running for Governor on the Constitution Party ticket.

Roby Brock has more details on his business talk website.

Gunner DeLay Announces for 3rd District

And I don't think we are through yet. This primary is going to be an excellent example of why we need instant run-off voting for all races.

DeLay has connections in Sebastian county and some name ID. In a divided field, it may be enough to get him in a run-off.

A Look at the Swiss Model of Government

Thoughtful piece by Ron Holland.

Sample...

"We are in the death throes of the grand experiment of top down, special-interest-controlled government and fake prosperity based on unlimited debt. The time is up for Brussels, sell-out national politicians and Washington. I hope the political elites and international financial interests who screwed the people of the world and future generations all for short-term profits and political gains should be held accountable. "

Patriots on Watch Radio Talks With CP Candidate for Governor Mayor Frank Gilbert

Tune in Tuesday night from 9-10PM or listen later on archives.

Mayor Frank Gilbert of Tull in Grant County is our guest. Mayor Frank has expressed interest in running for Governor of Arkansas on the Constitution Party ticket. He has the political skills, and the platform, to do some good.

Federal Reserve To Help Illegals Siphon Dollars Out of the US

Read it and weep.

Benton County Congressional Candidate Forum

Photo from Stephani Buhajli, her notes on the event here.
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Seven candidates for the Arkansas’ 3rd District Congressional seat vied for support Saturday at an event held at Christ Ambassador’s Academy, a private Christian school in eastern Bella Vista known for its outstanding science program. The event was hosted by the Benton County Tea Party.

I am going to try to call this thing as straight as I can, but I have a bias. One of the candidates, Gravette City Councilman Kurt Maddox, has hired me to consult with him on a very part-time basis. I like what I see and hear from him. Judging from the crowd response I’d say Maddox was the second-best received candidate, topped only by General Bernard Skoch, who has been in the race building support for months.

In addition to Maddox and Skoch, the candidates were Rogers Mayor Steve Womack, State Senator Cecile Bledsoe, Boone County Judge Mike Moore, Former DEA Agent Steve Lowery, and businessman Damon Wallace.

The most fireworks from the night actually came from the candidate’s opening statements. The questions were such that there was general agreement on the answers and so there was no way to distinguish the candidates based on that segment of the program. One thing that did get my ears perked up was when Mayor Womack, who has a reputation for being tough on illegal immigration, said that he favored “some sort of glide path to citizenship” for illegal aliens so that we could “hang on to the good ones”. I always thought we had such a glide path, called “legal immigration”.

At any rate, if the only distinguishing feature on issues was that Womack sounded a little softer on illegal immigration than the others, it shows you that as a group the candidates are tough on that issue.

Skoch was challenging John Boozman before Boozman jumped into the U.S. Senate primary. The rest of them came into the race after Boozman left. You can tell Skoch has been at this a while, he sounded confident and direct. He has also built up a base of support.

Skoch also threw the most elbows at the event. “Peer into our eyes and ask yourself which of us is not a part of the problem” he said. This was seen as a shot at Senator Bledsoe and Mayor Womack, who are widely perceived as the “establishment” choices in the race. But he rebuked all of the candidates when he chided them for waiting until Boozman left the race before jumping in.

Judge Moore was not having any of it. “Whether or not we got into this race months ago has no bearing on whether, or how much, we love our country.” Moore addressed the issue of whether a man from outside of vote-rich Benton County could win the nomination. “How many of you are going to pick your Congressman based on what county they are from?” Moore asked. “I’m with you” he said when no hands went up.

Bledsoe emphasized the positives in her record. “I did not know that being in public office was such a bad thing, I thought it was a good thing” she said. She also said that the people in her district, which includes NE Benton County, will tell you that she has not forgotten them.

Agent Lowery had some good ideas and a good line, “I’ve been shot at in Bolivia and lied to in Washington”, but could not match some of the others in public speaking. Damon Wallace spoke very well and cut a handsome figure, but did not give any compelling reason to back him over others in the race.

Seven Hustles Wall Street Banks Put On America

Long, profanity-filled Matt Taibbi read about the bailouts that is an outstanding explanation of what is really going down. The writer explains seven practices and shows how they operate just like traditional schemes that con men use.

We have noticed that Main Street was being starved of credit even while Wall Street was already raking in record profits and bonuses by returning to the exact same practices that got us into this mess. The article has a paragraph that supports these observations: "Wall Street is flooded with government money, and interest rates that are not just low but flat are pushing investors to seek out more "creative" opportunities. (It's "Greenspan times 10," jokes one hedge-fund trader.) Some of that money could be put to use on Main Street, of course, backing the efforts of investment-worthy entrepreneurs. But that's not what our modern Wall Street is built to do. "They don't seem to want to lend to small and medium-sized business," says Rep. Brad Sherman, who serves on the House Financial Services Committee. "What they want to invest in is marketable securities. And the definition of small and medium-sized businesses, for the most part, is that they don't have marketable securities. They have bank loans."

In other words, unless you're dealing with the stock of a major, publicly traded company, or a giant pile of home mortgages, or the bonds of a large corporation, or a foreign currency, or oil futures, or some country's debt, or anything else that can be rapidly traded back and forth in huge numbers, factory-style, by big banks, you're not really on Wall Street's radar."

The article ends: "The most valuable part of the bailout," says Rep. Sherman, "was the implicit guarantee that they're Too Big to Fail." Instead of liquidating and prosecuting the insolvent institutions that took us all down with them in a giant Ponzi scheme, we have showered them with money and guarantees and all sorts of other enabling gestures. And what should really freak everyone out is the fact that Wall Street immediately started skimming off its own rescue money. If the bailouts validated anew the crooked psychology of the bubble, the recent profit and bonus numbers show that the same psychology is back, thriving, and looking for new disasters to create. "It's evidence," says Rep. Kanjorski, "that they still don't get it."

More to the point, the fact that we haven't done much of anything to change the rules and behavior of Wall Street shows that we still don't get it.

Rove Says Tea Parties Should Not Merge With GOP

So is he an evil genius hoping those outsiders don't take over The Boyz private club or is he just giving sound political advice? I don't care about his motives, I agree with his logic, but you be the judge.

Ron Paul Wins CPAC Straw Poll

Ron Paul's CPAC Speech, with boisterous intro...
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Ron Paul wins the CPAC straw poll with 31%, ending Mitt Romney's three year string of victories at the event. Romney came in second place this year with 22%. Sarah Palin did not attend the event, and garnered only 7% of the vote. Mike Huckabee trailed with 4%

Unemployment Map Over Last Three Years

Click here and be very afraid. This is what the beginnings of a Depression look like.

FOX News Lets It Slip

The National Republican Party has hand-picked candidates for political offices, according to this FOX News report.

Grassroots activists have long maintained, over the loud denials of some, that the RNC picks favorites in state races.

The main thrust of the article was that RNC Chairman Micheal Steele was meeting with 50 Tea Party leaders from around the country. To quote the article.....

"The meeting was part of a broader effort by national Republicans to reach out to Tea Party activists rather than risk their hand-picked candidates being run over by the movement."

Holt Back on Track

Some of you may have noticed that I have not given former State Senator Jim Holt much credit for form during his early campaign efforts. I keep saying things like "if he returns to earlier form" to describe how good his chances are. I described his earlier communications in unenthusiastic terms.

The reason for this is simple, the audio and video I have seen of him as he announced and in the days that followed, was not that impressive. I had seen him do better, and had been waiting for that Jim Holt to show up. Well, I just saw him. His KTHV interview was like the Jim Holt I knew. It looks like Holt is back in form. Just in time too. It looks pretty clear that the insiders are attempting to impose Bailout John Boozman on the grassroots, and Holt is the only guy who can stop them.

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UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

We have someone on this thread vaguely accusing Holt of not being impressive while touting the awesomeness of Gilbert Baker. I thought I would give you an example of that awesomeness so that you the reader can decide for yourself. Here is Gilbert Baker evading Conrad Reynold's question about Baker telling the Washington County folks that he was running for Senate to set himself for Governor in 4 years, conveniently after the terms of unstoppable killing machine Mike Beebe expires. Baker shucks and jives, and spends most of the time explaining why he can't run for Governor THIS time.

Patriots on Watch Net Radio Tonight

I was going to take on the issue of science getting hijacked as a political tool for those who want to expand the role of government, along with presenting facts challenging not only global warming, but the macroevolutionary hypothesis. That will have to wait until Summer. There is too much on the political burner right now. Tune in live from 9-10 tonight or catch it on archives later.

Mayor Frank Gilbert for Governor

The Constitution mystery candidate for Governor has gotten less mysterious. It's the former Vice Chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, the former state Chairman of the Libertarian Party, and current Mayor of the town of Tull in Grant County, Frank Gilbert.

"Mayor Frank" was one of the key leaders in pushing the state's term limits initiative, and he is choosing to term limit himself to two terms as the Mayor of Tull. There are lots of small town Mayors out there, but this guy is actually in Gov. Mike Beebe's league in terms of glibness and good 'ole boy charisma. I hope you get a chance to listen to this guy sometime. He's good. And in a year when the GOP is struggling to find someone to oppose "unstoppable killing machine Mike Beebe", maybe he is the guy you should vote for.

This was his message in a Constitution Party E-mail....

Fellow Constitution Party Supporter,

Hi, Mayor Frank Gilbert here. I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and to tell you that I am considering running for Governor of Arkansas as a Constitution Party candidate.

I hope you will help me in that decision making process.

First, if you would email me back or call me (numbers redacted because this was for their list only) on my cell I’d love to talk to you about the future of our Party and where you would like to see it go. I will be open to anything that you wish me to know.

Second, I’d ask you to invest $50 in my campaign. Arkansas tax law allows you a tax credit of that amount on your return. If you make the donation before April 15^th you can even claim the credit on THIS year’s return. After that time you must claim it on next year’s return. Either way, you get the money back on your taxes!

The initial step for the Constitution Party and any candidates it may run is a petition drive to get 10,000 signatures. Party leaders and others are working to that end right now. Once that process is successfully completed, we will be able to run candidates for state, district and local offices.

Your help with the petition drive will be a crucial first step toward giving Arkansas voters a real choice in elections this November and in years to come.

Because the campaign season is so close, there are things that need to done even before the petition drive begins. I sincerely hope you will invest your time and $50 in that process now!

Thanks for your consideration,

Frank Gilbert

Mayor of Tull

Stunning Number: 8% Say Incumbents Should Be Relected

According to this NYT poll, only 8% of Americans say that incumbents should be re-elected. 81% believe that "its time to give new people a chance." This brings two questions to my mind, "8% sounds kind of high to me, was that within their margin of error?" and "Is John Boozman leaving Congress to run for Senate anyone's idea of "new people"?"

Constitution Party Will Have Candidate for Governor

The Republicans have not given any hint of finding an opponent for unstoppable killing machine Gov. Mike Beebe. The little-known Constitution Party IS giving such hints. They already have someone lined up to run. It only remains to be seen if they can get ballot access. Here is a message to the members from Chairman Tom Mayfield....

We are quickly approaching the November election in Arkansas and throughout the nation. I want to supply everyone with some general information about candidates and registering to run as a Constitution Party Candidate.

1) We will have to get ballot access to run candidates in the November election. We will start working on ballot access the middle of March. Once we start we will have 90 days to get it complete. Right now we have to get 10 thousand signatures on petitions. I am waiting on information from the Election Office of the SoC to know the exact form and manner of doing this. I will be passing information along in a few days on this.

............

5) We will have a candidate running in the Governor’s race. We hope to support this candidate and capture more than 3% of the vote. If we can do this then we will be on the ballot next election without having to do ballot access.

6) Thanks to all the County Chairmen and people throughout the state that have been working to build the CPA this past year. We have experienced large growth in membership. I will be sending out notification of a state wide convention in the coming weeks. We would really like to have as many attend this meeting as possible.

Again thanks to all and I will be sending more information out soon.

Rasmussen: 35% Say New Party is Needed

The only block that is strongly against it is the group they call "the political class".

My feelings are it would be higher than that if some were not afraid a third party would split the votes of their side. That's why we need to implement instant run-off voting for all elections to remove the problem of vote-splitting and allow voters a realistic choice besides the two DC-controlled political gangs we now have in much of the country.

Lincoln-Boozman Debates Pose a Health Risk

Fortunately Rep. John Boozman (Corporate Sellout, AR) stopped talking in time to avoid having to rush the man on the right to the hospital.


Here Senator Blanche Lincoln (Corporate Sellout, AR) puts herself to sleep with a rousing speech about farm subsidies.
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Here is a FOX News article entitled "You Really Can Be Bored To Death."

I believe that is the threat faced by thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of Arkansans should John Boozman win the Republican primary and face Senator Blanche Lincoln in the general election! A debate between them would be so awkward, so devoid of eloquence and originality, that if anything on earth really is capable of boring someone to death, a debate between those two should do it.

So obvious is it that they are both painfully boring is that John Brummett and I agree on it, and that does not happen much. Rather than debate for U.S. Senate, they should have a debate for who is the most boring public speaker in America. Each could argue that the other is the most boring, and any audience members who survive the exchange can be the judge.

Only the Republican primary voters of this state can save us from this looming catastrophe!

POW Radio: The Long Road Home

Click here to listen from 9-10PM tonight, or catch it on archives later.

I interview gun store owner Jim Snow about news of a disturbing memo from the government. Boozman enters the US Senate race. Tea Party speakers. America's Master Class is looting the country. The threat of collective orthodoxy.

Picking Your Own Way to Heaven

Those who take offense at God for only honoring the one Way of salvation through faith (in Him, and not in any other) defend an absurd position, if one bothers to think it through. If God was somehow morally obligated to accept a second path, then why not a third, or a forth? The end of this absurdity is that God becomes obligated to accept any number of paths to salvation which man might dream up. This of course, reverses the role of God and Man. It takes us right back to original sin where we wanted to be "like God", indeed even be God's judge!

It can only end in two ways: God must either accept any person's standard of righteousness, in which case even Adolf Hitler would demand admittance to Heaven on the grounds that he was true to his beliefs. The other option, if one holds to a collective orthodoxy that is becoming so in vogue in these times of mental and moral confusion, is that God must admit to heaven anyone whose beliefs are approved by 51% of the vote of the mass of mankind.

In such an instance, modern politics has shown us that Hitler can still get into Heaven. He must simply form the right coalition as in "you ignore what you don't like about me and I will do the same for you" in order to cobble together those votes. Those who will be most likely to be left out of such a coalition will be Bible believing Christians and Jews, who would not be willing to compromise their faith. Christians who stand by the Gospel as the only way to Heaven, as Christ and the Apostles taught, would likely be among the only ones excluded from heaven under this perverse arrangement.

Unemployment Fund Insolvency

AW has warned you before, via Mark Martin's Off the Marble, about the indebtedness of our state unemployment fund. Is it good news or bad news that Arkansas is not the only state that has let things get this far out of hand?

Zero Hedge reports that "At this point there is no question that the vast majority of the hardest hit states now subsist exclusively due to the generosity of the Federal Government." They have borrowed many billions from the Federal government to pay out unemployment benefits.

I also like the colorful turn of phrase that the author uses to describe the situation when the Treasury can no longer find foreign buyers to finance this bailout of the states; "look for states to gradually reign in unemployment checks whether they like it or not, which would likely lead to some very interesting demonstrations of the broader population's lack of solidarity with Mr. Blankfein's $100 million, or whatever it may end up being, bonus number."

The intent of our state constitution is that our government should not be able to put us in debt without a vote of the people. So how did we wind up borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Federal government without a vote of the people to do so?

Our Archaic and Dishonest Highway District System

NOTE: Names of commissioners on the map don't necessarily mean they were serving during the period (97-07)in which the data for this report applies.
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State Representative Donna Hutchinson (R, Bella Vista) gave some infuriating information on the state's archaic and unfair state highway system. In my view, the system is holding the state back. It's unjust, and it's even counter productive. I'd like to share with you a few pointers from her presentation:

1. Above you see the lines of the 10 districts. Although it was not originally set up this way, each member of the highway commission represents two districts. The lines were laid out in 1935 when Arkansas had seven Congressmen (note the comment that disputes this point).

2. Since then, the population has changed, but the district lines have not. What this means is gross under-representation of some districts and the reverse in others. District six has almost five times the population of three.

3. The State Highway Commission gets 2/3rds of the state fuel tax for their use. They decide how to spend most of this money, which adds up to billions of dollars in the last decade.

4. There is a clear correlation between under-represented regions and underfunded regions. From 1997-2007 discretionary funds spend by the Highway Department ranged from $195 per household per year in district 3 to just $40.90 a year in district six and a pitiful $18.49 per household per year in district four. ****There is some dispute about who was over these districts during the time in question so I have withdrawn a sentence about it naming a name***** The weak numbers in 4 and 9 represent the Republican northwest part of the state being looted by the rest of the state which tends Democrat.

5. 80% of the most congested roads are in the districts with the least per household funding. Instead of giving more help to the areas with the worst roads, they actually siphon money out of those areas in order to spend it in districts that are already the best funded.

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In a personal note, I don't even think that the current Highway Commission system works well in the areas that are looting the northwest. When I lived in El Dorado almost everybody wanted a four lane to Little Rock. But the highway commissioner from our district was from Warren and what we got was a shiny new (and little used) road from El Dorado to Warren.

Dougherty on America's Impending Master Class Dictatorship

Kitco has a long but good read up. I only went there at first because I thought it was by the Mogambo Guru, who has a similar last name. Its not. That guy is funny when he talks about the impending collapse to due the greed and madness of our ruling class. This guy just lays it on the line.

A Little Graphic For The Faithful

How the GOP Base Feels

The socialist Daily Kos has a poll out on how self-identified Republicans feel. They were horrified at the results, even though real Americans would love it!

An example:

Do you believe your state should secede from the United States?

Yes 23
No 58
Not Sure 19

42 percent of Republicans aren't really patriotic. They pretend to love America only when they approve of the president. These traitors don't believe in democracy, in our nation's founding ideals, or in our flag. To them, those colors run. They are cowards.

Note, secession sentiment is MUCH stronger in the South than elsewhere -- 33 percent want out, compared to just 52 percent who want to stay. In the Northeast, "just" 10 percent want out, in the Midwest, its 18 percent, and in the West, it's 16 percent.

The Daily Kos did not have any results from people like me- independents because the GOP has gone too far left.

Polls: The Fix is In

It looks from here like Public Policy Polling is working for John Boozman in the U.S. Senate race. I say this on the basis of their recent poll results where they start by saying "John Boozman will enter the Arkansas Senate race this weekend as the frontrunner." They say this as if he had no primary opponents. Its true that he has a large lead over the unpopular Senator Blanche Lincoln (Sellout, AR), but one little problem. They did not poll Lincoln against any of her other Republican opponents! Or if they did, they dared not release the results.

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Looks like they DID poll Lincoln against "little-known State Senator Gilbert Baker, viewed as the GOP frontrunner before Boozman's entry, leads Lincoln by a 50-35 margin." That little snippet was in this more obscure PDF. The-name-they dare-not-mention (Holt Holt Holt Holt Holt) is who I considered the frontrunner, since the only poll which compared both Holt and Baker to Lincoln had Holt beating her by a wider margin.
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The failure of Public Policy Polling to compare Boozman-Lincoln with Holt-Lincoln makes the poll more valuable as a propaganda tool for John Boozman and the DC based GOP than it does anything else. All it tells us is what every other poll for the last four months has told us- about anyone can beat Blanche Lincoln. Even they give this away when they admit, "Boozman’s strong early standing probably has more to do with voters strongly disliking
Lincoln than necessarily liking him."

Then there is the issue of his high negatives-"Boozman is not all that well known- a 43% plurality of the state's voters have no opinion about him one way or the other..... Among those who do 32% view him favorably to 25% unfavorably."

That favorable to unfavorable ratio is significantly lower than that of any other Republican candidate in the race (I guess the people who DO know him know about his support of the Big Banker Bailouts). His favorable to unfavorable ratio is 1.28 while every other candidate on the Republican side has a favorable to unfavorable ratio higher than two. Jim Holt for example has a ratio of 2.71 while Gilbert Baker is at 2.2. Clearly, among people who know Boozman, there is a much higher percentage of people who view him unfavorably compared to his two main rivals. Boozman also ranked behind Holt in total name ID 54-62. Those figures are from two different polls, since PPP was pretending that there were no other Republicans in the race against Lincoln, still the gap is significant.

The Morning News had Mason-Dixon conduct a poll that actually included Jim Holt. This poll showed Holt had the widest margin of any of the other candidates against Lincoln. The poll had the race closer than the Rasmussen polls have had them, but Holt and Baker still came out ahead of Lincoln, Holt up by seven and Baker up by five. The lesser known candidates were a little behind Lincoln in this poll.

Even though the Morning News paid for the poll, they blew their coverage of it. The guy who made the graph reversed Holt's numbers so it looked like he was the worst candidate against Lincoln when in fact he was the strongest. Is the fix in? Is it a conspiracy or simple incompetence? Hey newspapers in this state, please do something to make us believe that you are playing it straight!

Then comes the new Rasmussen poll. For a long time the Holt camp complained that Rasmussen did not include Holt in their polls. Critics countered that Holt had not yet announced. So he announced. A new Rasmussen poll comes out. Holt is still not in the poll, but John Boozman, who has not yet announced, is in the poll. This one showed that Boozman's spread over Lincoln was no greater than Gilbert Baker's. That lends more credence to the idea that the PPP poll was skewed toward Boozman.

So am I crazy to say the fix is in or is it crazy to deny it? Time after time one thing after another keeps skewing coverage so that the citizens of this state are repeatedly denied access to this one critical piece of information: Jim Holt is currently the strongest candidate for U.S. Senate. You have to go to a blog like this one to actually be able to look at the links and put the facts together.

At least that Rasmussen poll compared Boozman to SOME other GOP contenders. And the results of the poll showed that, contrary to the PPP's contentions, that Gilbert Baker had just as big a spread against Lincoln as Boozeman did. Of course in the Mason-Dixon poll, the only one that dared mention the existence of Holt, Holt had a spread two points greater than Baker. So if Baker ties Boozman and Holt beats Baker then does that mean........

Why yes it does Virginia. But you have to go here to read it.

PS- Holt even out-raised "frontrunner" Boozman last quarter.

PSS- If you want to hear audio of your humble reporter "going off" on Boozman for his defense of his loathsome bailout vote then click here.

Patriots On Watch Net Radio- Tonight at 9 PM

Tonight I go off on Boozman for trying to defend his bailout vote. I also talk with Warren Phillips about NAIS.

Quarterly Fundraising Reports Coming In

Senate Candidates

G. Baker (295K)
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J. Holt (60K)
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Boozman (46K)
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Cox (31K)
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Coleman and Reynold's numbers are not available, but Coleman has warned supporters of a tough quarter and Reynolds has said goodbye to his staff. Hendren is rumored to be dropping out of the race and his consultants have moved on. The other candidates report less than $10,000 raised, and so don't appear on the graph above where each star represents ~$10,000 raised.

The 3rd district congressional race is just being re-made, but the 2nd district has numbers to report.

Griffin (261k)
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Wallace (37K)
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Meeks did not pass the 10K threshold.

In the newly developing first district race, Rick Crawford did decently with almost $60,000 raised. Expect new entrants to shake that one up.

AIG Bailout: How US Taxpayers Saved Europe's Banks

The full story here. Thanks Boozman, Lincoln and company.