A widely reported study by the left-wing Center For American Progress suggests Arizona’s tourism industry suffered a $141 million loss as a direct result of the passage of its illegal immigration reform bill. No nonpartisan group has produced an economic impact study of the effect of these boycotts.

What the Center for American Progress doesn’t tell you is that tourists spend $19.3 billion in Arizona each year. In other words, the boycott of Arizona, which has received tremendous coverage in the national media, caused a three-quarters-of-1-percent drop in tourism revenue, according to the calculations distributed by this one partisan group.

Has the boycott been successful? Let each reader decide for themselves, but I for one am not impressed.

Tourism is a $31.3 billion industry in Georgia. It is understandable that folks in that industry would work to protect Georgia’s image. However, those who say Gov. Deal should veto HB 87 because of the potential of a less than 1 percent drop in tourism revenue are on shaky ground.

An improving national economy will have a greater positive impact than any negative effect from organized boycotts.

The opposing viewpoint is here.

“…she thought I was crying because it’s like Santa Claus is not real. I was crying because no one was coming with enough power to save us.”

Much like the film “The Lottery,” parents seek to get their kids out of failing schools and into better Charter schools. “Waiting For Superman” however spends a lot of time trying to figure out what’s wrong with failing schools and what can be done about it. Not every child can attend a charter school, and not all charter schools are good, so bad public schools need to be fixed.

The central conclusion of the film is that you can’t have great schools without great teachers. The film says we need to do all we can to develop more great teachers, reward them, and get poor performing teachers out of the schools. The film shows some examples of just how hard it can be in certain places to get poor performing teachers out of the classroom.

New York has what they call “rubber rooms” where teachers who have been accused of wrongdoing sit, sometimes for years, waiting for their situation to be resolved. In Milwaukee, poor performing teachers are shifted from school to school in what they call the “lemon dance.” In both of those cities, as well as many others, it’s almost impossible to fire poor performing teachers. Georgia of course is a right to work State so no union protections exist for teachers. How this impacts things here in Georgia I’m not very sure at this point.

“Waiting For Superman” has drawn criticism for appearing to blame teachers for all the problems in education. I don’t think the film blames teachers but rather demonstrates how crucial teachers are to a successful education. Firing poor performing teachers is a controversial subject and a fight that will continue as the debate over education reform continues.

One final comment. DC School Chancellor Michelle Rhee is featured in the film (as well as in the trailer below). Yesterday she resigned her position after the DC Mayor who had appointed and supported her lost reelection.

“Waiting For Superman” is in theaters now. We in the Atlanta area can see it at the Tara on Cheshire Bridge Road. I’d urge anyone interested in how to make our schools better to see this film.

Love him or hate him, you can’t ignore Limbaugh, nor can you ignore his impact on the American political landscape. You must also acknowledge Rush’s impact on radio broadcasting. As Chafets says: “political talk radio, on the left and on the right, is Rush’s creation.”

I was fortunate to have received an advance copy of the book, read it and thoroughly enjoyed it. If you want to learn more about a major player on today’s political landscape, you need to read this book.

I hope you enjoy this interview.

Right click to download or simply click to listen.

If (thanks to people like Erick and Jenny Beth) Georgia becomes known as the epicenter of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, we Georgians will be unable to drive through Missouri anymore.

The Mumbai attack is unique from past terror strikes carried out by Islamic terrorists. Instead of one or more bombings at distinct sites, the Mumbai attackers struck throughout the city using military tactics. Instead of one or more bombings carried out over a short period of time, Mumbai I entering its third day of crisis.

An attack of this nature cannot be thrown together overnight. It requires planned, scouting, financing, training, and a support network to aid the fighters. Initial reports indicate the attacks originated from Pakistan, the hub of jihadi activity in South Asia. Few local terror groups have the capacity to pull of an attack such as this.

While it is early to know exactly what happened in Mumbai as the fog of war still blankets the city, multiple press reports from India allow for a general picture to be painted. An estimated 12 to 25 terrorists are believed to have entered Mumbai by sea. After landing, he attack teams initiated a battle at a police station, then fanned across the city to attack the soft underbelly of hotels, cafes, cinemas, and hospitals. Civilians were gunned down and taken hostage, while terrorists looked for people carrying foreign passports.

Announced almost simultaneously with the Mumbai attacks was a “Madrid style” threat to Penn Station in New York:

A terror suspect arrested in Pakistan by the FBI in recent days provided authorities with details of a bomb plot against the Long Island Rail Road and other information that led to series of high level intelligence and law enforcement conference calls over the past 24 hour and the issuing of a bulletin warning of an unspecified holiday attack on the New York City region’s commuter rail system, ABC News has learned.

The suspect – according to some reports the arrest took place in Pakistan – recently met with Al Qaeda leaders and was able to provide authorities with significant detail as to how the plotters would have carried out an attack if their plans had gotten beyond the so-called “aspirational” stage.

Terrorists make plans and issue threats on a regular basis. Perhaps the Penn Station threat was not credible or has been thwarted. However, while pondering the events of the past few days I recalled a comment made by then VP-Candidate Joe Biden:

“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.

Biden’s comment was less than helpful to the Obama campaign as it highlighted Obama’s relative inexperience on foreign policy matters, a place the campaign didn’t want to go. Nevertheless Biden got it half right. I fear Obama will indeed be tested, not by the world, and not like JFK, but by radical Islamic terrorists just like Presidents Clinton and Bush.

Consider this: Bill Clinton was sworn in as the 42nd President on January 20, 1993. On February 26, 2003 Tower One of the World Trade Center was attacked with a truck bomb. Ramzi Yousef as his cohorts intended to knock the Towers down with the blast. Al-Qaeda and Yousef failed in 1993, but just eight months into George W. Bush’s first term al-Qaeda terrorists brought down both World Trade Center Towers, attacked the Pentagon, and intended to attack another target in DC with United flight 93.

On January 20, 2009 Barack Obama will be sworn in at the 44th President of the United States. The preceding two Presidents were “tested,” to use Biden’s term, by radical Islamic terrorists. Radical Islamic terrorists this week carried out brutal attacks in Mumbia India and made noise about a “Madrid style” attack on a US subway system. I think it’s clear, we need to be on guard for an imminent attack on our homeland.

Democrats face a similar problem this year. Did the public endorse a radical left agenda that would include the Fairness Doctrine, the Employee Free Choice Act, the Freedom of Choice Act, and endless investigations of George Bush? I don’t think they did and if Democrats place these items at the top of their agenda they will suffer for it.

Danger of misinterpretation is at the doorstep of the Republican party as well. Why did the GOP lose in 2008? The debate rages within the Party. Some think the main cause of recent GOP losses flows from giving Big Business free reign in Congress and the abandonment of fiscally conservative principles such as controlling government spending. Others blame the Party’s social conservatives for forcing unpopular topics such as gay marriage and abortion onto the front pages.

Aligning herself with the later group is columnist Kathleen Parker who today wrote this:

As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.

Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.

I’m bathing in holy water as I type.

To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn’t soon cometh.

Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth – as long as we’re setting ourselves free – is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.

The choir has become absurdly off-key, and many Republicans know it. But they need those votes!

So it has been for the Grand Old Party since the 1980s or so, as it has become increasingly beholden to an element that used to be relegated to wooden crates on street corners.

Short break as writer ties blindfold and smokes her last cigarette.

Which is to say, the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle.

Here’s the deal, ‘pubbies: Howard Dean was right.

Setting aside the sneering aspects of her column, I think she flat out wrong about why the GOP lost.

If there is one reason McCain and the GOP lost it wasn’t Sarah Palin or “G-O-D” it was the credit market collapse. Fair or unfair the Republican Party in general, and John McCain in particular, were punished by the voters for the economic problems we currently endure. Additionally, were religion or social issues really an issue pushed by McCain? I don’t think so. In fact, Barack Obama spent more time talking about his respect for religion and seeking common ground on social issues than McCain did.

Another major problem for Parker comes from this report in the Wall Street Journal:

Down the campaign homestretch, Mr. Obama’s tax-cutting promise became his clearest policy position. Eventually he stole the tax issue from the Republicans. Heading into the election, 31% of voters thought that a President Obama would cut their taxes. Only 11% expected a tax cut from a McCain administration.

The last Democratic candidate to win the tax issue was also the last Democratic president — Bill Clinton. In fact, the candidate who most credibly promises the lowest level of taxes has won every presidential election in at least the last 40 years.

Am I saying the GOP should just carry on as they have for the past few years? Absolutely not. There are many problems we must deal with from a failure to embrace social media and other technological forms of communicating with voter, to a failure to adhere to fiscally conservative principles. In short, we must get back to the Contract With America model; one of seeking to enact policies which enjoy the broad support of the American people.

However, if a majority of my fellow Republicans side with Parker’s view and seek to drive social conservatives from the GOP, the wilderness to which we been exiled will remain our home for a very long time.

When Thomas finally got the chance to speak for himself he said:

This is not a closed room. There was an FBI investigation. This is not an opportunity to talk about difficult matters privately or in a closed environment. This is a circus. It’s a national disgrace. And from my standpoint as a black American, as far as I’m concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the US Senate rather than hung from a tree.

Thomas was eventually confirmed and has served with distinction on the Court.

Fast forward to 2008 and we find another trailblazing nominee in Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Like Thomas, Palin thinks differently than we’re told she should. She’s a woman, pro-life, otherwise socially conservative, and most importantly, nominated to be the first female Vice-President in our nation’s history. This has the left-wing outraged and they have unleashed a smear campaign the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Thomas nomination.

Almost immediately the press and influential left-wing bloggers have cooked up the most ridiculous accusations including that Palin “faked” a pregnancy (amazingly dailyKos seems to have removed the post but this one still remains). The press dutifully went after the story as evidenced by this outrageous report on CNN.

Now that Palin family broke the news that their 17 year old daughter is pregnant, the condescension has reached new heights with male and female news anchors lecturing us about the dangers of teaching abstinence, wondering how a woman can be Vice-President and a mom as the same time, and many other remarks that if made about Hillary Clinton would have been denounced as sexist. It’s as if Bristol Palin is the first teenager in history to ignore her parents advice.

Oh, I almost forgot, apparently Sarah Palin is a fornicator a Nazi-sympathizer, and secessionist white trash.

To his credit, Barack Obama said families are off limits, but this won’t restrain the dailyKos crowd and other whacko groups who are attempting a high-tech lynching of Sarah Palin. I hope she’s up to the task.