Charles Shiflett Column September 18, 2005

Time To Unload A Few Things

I'm in a little bit of a mood today, so I figured it would be relaxing for me to unload on a few issues near
and dear to my heart. Hang on…

He's A Hero: Hopefully he won't be prosecuted for anything… Shawn Roberts should never see one
day in a courtroom. Instead Cobb County officials should hail him as a hero. Roberts saw a man
beating a woman and turned his vehicle around to come back and help. Brian Clark had carjacked
Kimberly Boyd. As Roberts' vehicle approached, Clark drove off again with Boyd in the passenger
seat. Moments later the carjacker made a mistake and a cement truck plowed into the passenger side
of the SUV killing the woman.

The carjacker, still alive, tried to flee the wreck on foot and was gunned down in the middle of the road
by Roberts. Initial reports claim Roberts shot the suspect in cold blood. That story quickly changed
and it was stated that the suspect was armed and raised a weapon… giving Roberts the opportunity to
shoot in self-defense. Regardless, we can be thankful that taxpayer money will never have to be used
to prosecute and incarcerate our now dirt napping carjacker. Of note, Clark has also been implicated
in the recent rape of an Acworth woman.

Shame On You: While thousands of New Orleans residents desperately waited to be rescued,
Democrat Congressman William Jefferson commandeered scarce National Guard resources to go
check on his personal property in a flood-ravaged section of town. If he were white and Republican he
would be lambasted as a racist. Instead, as a black Democrat he was only checking on his district…
yeah, right!

Shame On You #2: We all saw the heart-wrenching pictures of victims of Katrina suffering from
hunger and thirst at the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center as they desperately
waited on buses to take them out.

Now we learn that FEMA had already arranged for the Red Cross and other organizations to deliver
food and drink and they were standing by. However, state and local authorities refused to allow them in
believing that providing food would cause people to want to stay. Keep the victims hungry and they'll
be more likely to get on that bus to Houston. Blame Bush? Hardly.

Bush Hates The Poor & Minorities: Here are some numbers that put that argument to bed. In 1996
during the Clinton administration, the federal government spent $191 billion dollars on entitlements for
the poor. This represented 12% of the U.S. budget.

In 2006, federal spending on entitlements for the poor will be $368 billion. This represents 15% of the
budget. Liberal Democrats like Teddy Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, and Chucky Schumer are deliberately
misleading the public and engaging in a sickening game of race baiting.

Bush Is Not A Fiscal Conservative: I totally agree… see above.

Thank Goodness For Ted Kennedy: Watching Kennedy's buffoonery during John Roberts' Senate
confirmation hearing this week was validation of why the Democrat Party is in serious decline. I wish
they had 10 or 20 more just like him and Cynthia McKinney. Kennedy for president! On second
thought, last time Teddy was seriously considered we ended up with the worst president in my
lifetime... Jimmy Carter.

Al Gore Doesn't Walk The Walk: All Gore, at a Sierra Club convention in San Francisco earlier this
month, blasted President Bush for his failure to adequately address the issue of global warming. After
giving the speech Gore left the convention center in a gas-guzzling Cadillac Escalade SUV.

Gore wasn't alone… fellow global warming alarmist Arianna Huffington jumped into her behemoth
Chevy Suburban when she departed. It is rumored that Gore and Huffington weren't the only
environmentalists there that day who own SUV's.

Want A Job? There is tremendous opportunity in New Orleans and along the Gulf coast for those
willing to work. All across the nation, entrepreneurial types are loading up trucks with power tools and
construction equipment and are preparing to head that way. Anyone willing to work will be able to find
a job down there.

The question of course is how many of the displaced poor from that region will see the rebuilding of the
Gulf Coast as an opportunity to extract themselves from the poverty they have been mired in?

Nuke'em Till They Glow: A revised draft by the Pentagon to change U.S. nuclear weapons doctrine
would allow our military upon presidential approval to use nukes to destroy enemy stockpiles of
chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. It would also allow nuclear strikes to preempt an attack by a
nation or group planning to use weapons of mass destruction. It's about time.

Who'll Cut The Ribbon? Most of the local election excitement this year will focus on our neighbors
in Kingston as former Mayor Margo Martin jumps into the mayoral election. The winner gets to cut the
ribbon on Kingston's latest water well… assuming they finally hit water.

I'm feeling better now… beats the heck out of reading about little fuzzy bunny rabbits doesn't it?