By Greg Walker
Appeared in the Rutgers Daily Targum
With all the bad news for conservatives that the media have been trumpeting, from the not-at-all suspicious simultaneous investigations of Republican leadership to the Harriett Miers nomination, I figured I’d help raise conservatives’ morale around campus by sharing some good news. And so, I proudly present the Targum’s first ever Conservative Good Newswire:
WASHINGTON, D.C. Karl Rove participated in a fourth – and probably last – testimony before a grand jury convened to investigate the alleged leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity. CNN reported that Rove’s lawyer, “Robert D. Luskin, said Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald ‘has not advised Mr. Rove that he is a target of the investigation and affirmed that he has made no decision concerning charges. The special counsel has indicated that he does not anticipate the need for Mr. Rove’s further cooperation.’” The grand jury’s term ends October 28.
TRAVIS COUNTY, TX. The walls may be closing in on Travis County district attorney and democratic political hack Ronnie Earle, whose last-minute indictment against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Tex., caused the latter to step down from his leadership last month. It should be noted that DeLay had knowingly urged his companions in the House to refrain from doing away with the rule that forced him to step down, an act which ought to speak to his character. FOX News reported that, after the first indictment against DeLay proved in court to be the flimsy accusation conservatives knew it was, Earle pursued a second indictment. The grand jury refused. Though Earle received an indictment from a third grand jury, DeLay’s legal team filed their own subpoena against him, accusing him of engaging in unethical legal procedures. In completely unrelated news, Earle’s son Jason Earle last week announced his candidacy for state legislature…
WASHINGTON, D.C. Despite a massive displacement of American workers resulting from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the number of jobs lost rolled in at just 35,000, according to CNN/Money. While this alone hints at an overall strengthening economy, the Institute for Supply Management released the highest manufacturing figures in eleven months. And for those of you discouraged by spending, the Congressional Budget Office stated that despite record highs in government spending, spending as a percentage of the gross domestic product is still lower today at twenty percent – and that’s with wartime spending factored in! – than from 1975 (21.3 %) to 1995 (20.7%), with a high of 22.9 percent in between.
NEW YORK. Al Franken’s partner on Air America, Katherine Lanpher, took an unexpected and open-ended leave of absence last week, citing a book deal she’d supposedly snagged. The explanation left even Franken’s fans unsatisfied. NewsMax reported that “the troubled network has recently come under investigation by the New York State attorney general’s office over an $875,000 loan obtained under suspicious circumstances...” In other good news, Franken has told listeners that he may leave his show to run for Senate in his home state of Minnesota. Dear readers, I have been to Minnesota; he will lose.
NEW JERSEY and VIRGINIA. In the two gubernatorial elections this fall, conservatives have reason to smile. Rasmussen Polling reports that Virginia’s Republican candidate Jerry Kilgore is maintaining his months-long lead over Democrat Tim Kaine, forty-six to forty-four. In New Jersey, Republican Doug Forrester has shrunken Democrat Jon Corzine’s lead to between three and six points; according to Realclearpolitics.com, some polls put as little as one point between the two, down from eleven points in September polls.
BERLIN. Yahoo News reported last Monday that German conservative Angela Merkel will lead a new governing coalition, displacing Leftist Gerhard Schroeder and becoming Germany’s first female chancellor. Her Christian Democrat Party edged Schroeder’s Social Democrats out of majority in September’s elections.
WARSAW. Last Friday, two conservative candidates in Poland’s presidential election won almost sixty-nine percent of the vote nationwide, leaving the former communists with less than sixteen percent, reported the BBC. Donald Tusk, a pro-market economic conservative of the Citizens Platform Party, and Lech Kaczynski, a social conservative of the Law and Justice Party, will face off in a run-off on October 23. Kaczynski’s twin brother Jaroslaw heads the legislative branch of Law and Justice, which swept the parliamentary elections last month. Those September 25 elections left the former communists with fifty-five seats in the 460-seat lower house, and none in the upper house.
BAGHDAD. Reuters reported last Wednesday that, due to concessions made by Iraq’s Shi’ites and Kurds, at least “one prominent Sunni group” has agreed to take part in voting on Iraq’s new constitution. Speaker of Parliament Hajim al-Hassani, a Sunni Muslim, said, “The main bloc in the National Assembly has agreed to make the necessary amendments in the constitutional draft. We hope all Iraqis will vote 'Yes' to the constitution so that the building of Iraq can begin.” As I am writing this one day before this historic vote, I want to wish the Iraqi people well, and say that whether or not the constitution is approved, what matters most is turnout. Now that a large number of Sunnis will be partaking in the election, civic duty is beginning to take hold; that is the most pressing need now.
Lastly, a word to naysayers about body armor for the troops: ceramic-based body armor is not quick or cheap to make, and it is taking the Pentagon time to have every troop outfitted with the newest equipment. Before everyone can get the newest armor – there is no such thing as a soldier in Iraq without some body armor – the troops in frontline combat get first pick. Eventually, all of our troops will be outfitted. Bothering the military in the process is not certainly helping get the job done faster.
With Conservative Good Newswire, I’m Greg Walker. |
