1. Machine Gun Cheney
2. An Anniversary Kerry Won't Mark
3. The Pig Awards - Gluttonous Congressmen Pig Out
4. Even More Military Voters Likely to Be Disenfranchised
The Deck of Reagan
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1. Machine Gun Cheney
Dick Cheney is a proud gun owner and hunter.
In April the Vice President addressed the NRA to wild cheers and acknowledged his own interest in guns.
But a source close to the White House tells NewsMax that Dick Cheney is a true gun aficionado.
Cheney's collection, our sources say, is in the hundreds of guns, including pistols, shotguns and machine guns -- from antique Thompsons to the most modern European automatic machine guns.
To let off some steam (God knows he has some to let off these days), the Vice President has been known to go out to the federal training center in Maryland where the Secret Service does its own gun practice.
A typical Cheney visit, told to us by a person who attended one, included the Vice President bringing some 30 guns from his own collection.
On the ranger, Cheney would blow away his targets -- with Thompson machine guns, the latest German and Austrian machine guns, Lugars, MP5s, shot guns, you name it.
One after another an aide would hand the Vice President his latest armament, and Cheney would fire away, no doubt imagining al-Qaeda terrorists in his gun sights.
We're told Cheney is a good shot to boot.
Cheney is not shy about his shooting activities. Another Cheney friend tells us that at the Cheneys' Christmas party last year he showcased to guests a video of himself shooting while hunting.
2. An Anniversary Kerry Won't Mark
We receive a lot of worthy letters from readers and run as many as space permits in NewsMax Magazine. But the one below would be outdated in the next issue, so here it is now:
John Kerry and Paul Krugman are pounding President Bush for the one-year anniversary tomorrow of his carrier landing. A more poignant anniversary is today, April 30. For it was 29 years ago today that Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese and the process began whereby hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asians lost their freedom and their lives. John Kerry and many like-minded media types gave aid and comfort to the North Vietnamese and have so far never answered for the holocaust their actions helped to unleash in that part of the world. That's the anniversary that demands notice today.
3. Gluttonous Congressmen Pig Out
Some of our Congressmen are pigs, according to the "Pig Book," as it's known to anti-pork crusaders in Washington, D.C.
The "Congressional Pig Book Summary" is produced each year by Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW).
CAGW president Thomas Schatz said at the group's press conference, "Republicans and Democrats alike have shown a total disregard for the $521 billion deficit and $7.1 trillion debt." It is clear that our representatives and senators shamelessly pursued their pork -- with no regard for the economy.
Among the highlights:
$100,000 for a historic Coca-Cola building in Macon, GA
$200,000 for "recreational improvements" in North Pole, Alaska
$9,929,000 for projects in Iowa
$270,000 for livestock waste
$8 million for a viaduct in Ohio
$4 million for an "urban trail" in Baltimore
$2 million to buy a high-speed catamaran in Taxachusetts
$1 million for a parking lot in San Diego
The biggest gluttons were Sen. Robert Byrd, (D-W.Va.), Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Byrd has the dubious honor of the "Byrd Droppings Award" for his nearly $4.5 million slab of pork, which included -- appropriately enough -- $160,000 for poultry litter composting.
But we are sad to report that a Republican -- Stevens -- was the recipient of the Whole Hog Award, bringing home the most bacon per capita. And Republican Specter received the Hall of Shame Award for "23 years of pork barreling at taxpayers' expense."
Ironically, the CAGW press conference for its 2004 report featured Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who brought us the fiascoes of tobacco "settlements" and campaign finance "reform" and continues to seek a government solution and more bureaucracy for every perceived problem.
McCain noted that pork legislation is inserted "in the dead of night" and is an "insult to taxpayers. We're doing a terrible thing to young Americans."
CAGW says it has revealed $185 billion in wasteful spending since 1991.
4. Even More Military Voters Likely to Be Disenfranchised
John Kerry is fond of touting the number of people who attend his campaign events and likes to crack, "And that's not a Katherine Harris count."
But Kerry and other Democrats never mention when they whine about the 2000 election that ballots from America's military -- 75 percent of whom vote Republican -- were disqualified in greater numbers than ever before in history.
Unfortunately, things aren't looking any better for the disenfranchised military voters this year, Human Events reports.
An Internet absentee voting system was cancelled due to security concerns. And it takes sometimes up to four months for our servicemen and women to receive their mail.
After interviewing 127 servicemen in Afghanistan, the General Accounting Office released a report.
"Nearly half said that they waited more than four weeks to get their mail, and many commented that some mail took as long as four months to work its way through the system."
Much of the mail was just plain lost and at least 80 percent told the GAO they knew of some mail they never received at all. A GAO test affirmed those claims.
Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) wrote to Donald Rumsfeld complaining, "Military absentee ballots that are lost, incorrectly completed or delivered past local election deadlines disenfranchise the military voter."
And the senator's communications director, Rob Ostrander, said, "There doesn't seem to be the sense of urgency within the bureaucracy that is needed to address these problems quickly."
Worse, retired Rear Adm. Jim Carey, a former Federal Maritime Commission chairman and current National Defense Committee chairman, says "Given the sluggish military mail system that the GAO has described in its report, and with the increased military deployments to ever-more remote locations such as Iraq and Afghanistan, it's pretty obvious to me that even fewer servicemen will be able to vote this year than were able to in 2000."
Carey also criticized the cancellation of Internet voting, claiming "Both military and civilian organizations, governments and embassies, now routinely send sensitive electronic messages in a secure manner."
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The biggest gluttons were Sen. Robert Byrd, (D-W.Va.), Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Byrd has the dubious honor of the "Byrd Droppings Award" for his nearly $4.5 million slab of pork, which included -- appropriately enough -- $160,000 for poultry litter composting.
But we are sad to report that a Republican -- Stevens -- was the recipient of the Whole Hog Award, bringing home the most bacon per capita. And Republican Specter received the Hall of Shame Award for "23 years of pork barreling at taxpayers' expense."
Ironically, the CAGW press conference for its 2004 report featured Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who brought us the fiascoes of tobacco "settlements" and campaign finance "reform" and continues to seek a government solution and more bureaucracy for every perceived problem.
McCain noted that pork legislation is inserted "in the dead of night" and is an "insult to taxpayers. We're doing a terrible thing to young Americans."
CAGW says it has revealed $185 billion in wasteful spending since 1991.
4. Even More Military Voters Likely to Be Disenfranchised
John Kerry is fond of touting the number of people who attend his campaign events and likes to crack, "And that's not a Katherine Harris count."
But Kerry and other Democrats never mention when they whine about the 2000 election that ballots from America's military -- 75 percent of whom vote Republican -- were disqualified in greater numbers than ever before in history.
Unfortunately, things aren't looking any better for the disenfranchised military voters this year, Human Events reports.
An Internet absentee voting system was cancelled due to security concerns. And it takes sometimes up to four months for our servicemen and women to receive their mail.
After interviewing 127 servicemen in Afghanistan, the General Accounting Office released a report.
"Nearly half said that they waited more than four weeks to get their mail, and many commented that some mail took as long as four months to work its way through the system."
Much of the mail was just plain lost and at least 80 percent told the GAO they knew of some mail they never received at all. A GAO test affirmed those claims.
Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) wrote to Donald Rumsfeld complaining, "Military absentee ballots that are lost, incorrectly completed or delivered past local election deadlines disenfranchise the military voter."
And the senator's communications director, Rob Ostrander, said, "There doesn't seem to be the sense of urgency within the bureaucracy that is needed to address these problems quickly."
Worse, retired Rear Adm. Jim Carey, a former Federal Maritime Commission chairman and current National Defense Committee chairman, says "Given the sluggish military mail system that the GAO has described in its report, and with the increased military deployments to ever-more remote locations such as Iraq and Afghanistan, it's pretty obvious to me that even fewer servicemen will be able to vote this year than were able to in 2000."
Carey also criticized the cancellation of Internet voting, claiming "Both military and civilian organizations, governments and embassies, now routinely send sensitive electronic messages in a secure manner."
PLEASE NOTE - Check out our sponsor's link and some of our bestselling products:
If you are not an e-mail subscriber, get Insider Report and other breaking news alerts - Go Here.
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