With the announcement of the now former, Delaware State GOP Chairman, John Sigler, that he would be resigning effective immediately, a lot of names are being bandied about as to who the new Chairman should be.

It is no surprise that one name keeps coming to the top, Jeff Cragg, former GOP candidate for governor in the state of Delaware.

I say that it is no surprise because I know Jeff Cragg, and I know that he is well qualified to chair the state GOP Executive Committee.

The two best reasons for Jeff Cragg to be selected as the new chairman would be number one his intelligence, and number two his intelligence. Anyone who has ever taken the time to sit down and have a conversation with Mr. Cragg knows this, they also would know that he has a wit and a manner that puts people at ease.

More reasons that Jeff Cragg would make a great chairman, is that as a former statewide candidate he has the experience of running a statewide race and could pass that experience onto others. He has a firm grasp of the issues facing the state of Delaware. During his campaign he made numerous political connections that would serve him well as chairman.

Jeff Cragg is also a person who sees, if there is to be a future for the GOP, it will require leadership skills that I personally feel Jeff has. Jeff Cragg is a person who also understands that the Delaware GOP is made up of many differing view points and opinions, Mr. Cragg has always been a person who believes that we as a party must work together, and he has worked to make that happen.

I have known him to be a person who can work to find a compromise, even when there is not one hundred percent agreement.  As for myself, well Mr. Cragg and I do not see eye to eye one hundred percent of the time, more like ninety, yet somehow he is able to put up with my constant beating of the drum.

Jeff Cragg is a businessman, he is a family man.  He is everything that we would want in a state chairman. And still, I personally hope that he does not seek the office.

Now you may be wondering why? Well for all of the reasons I listed above, because the very things I listed above that would make him a great chairman, would also make him a great choice to again run for a statewide office. I helped in my own small way with his gubernatorial race because I believed in him. I would gladly help him in anything he seeks to do to move the conservative movement and the state of Delaware forward(okay that was a bit of a whoring move I know).

I am concerned that if he were to take on the role of chairman, that he would damage his future as a candidate. Let’s face it, the position of chairman is a thankless job. The only people who ever seem happy with the chairman is the opposition party when he makes a mistake. The chairman must make decisions that may end the hopes of some candidates, while working to help others to win, the chairman will always be hated by some part of his own party. To do the job correctly, the chairman will make life-long political enemies.

If Jeff Cragg decided to take on the role of state chairman, then he will do it because he believes that he is the right person for the job, and I will support him for the same reason. If on the other hand he decides to step back from this cliff, then I will support him in that decision as well, because I know that no matter what, Jeff Cragg will play a leadership role in the Delaware GOP, one way or another.

It was announced this morning in a letter to the state GOP Executive Committee that newly re-elected State Chairman, John Sigler, would be resigning, effective immediately.

Mr. Sigler stated that his reasons for resigning had nothing to do with politics, but that certain circumstances had arisen, that he could not elaborate on at this time, that made it impossible for him to continue to serve as the state GOP Chairman.

We will leave this as an open thread for discussion of the impact that this announcement will have, not only on the Delaware GOP, but on Delaware politics in general.

 In honor of those who lost their lives while serving our country, we would like to share with you President Ronald Reagan’s 1986 Memorial Day remarks at Arlington National Cemetery:

Today is the day we put aside to remember fallen heroes and to pray that no heroes will ever have to die for us again. It’s a day of thanks for the valor of others, a day to remember the splendor of America and those of her children who rest in this cemetery and others. It’s a day to be with the family and remember.

I was thinking this morning that across the country children and their parents will be going to the town parade and the young ones will sit on the sidewalks and wave their flags as the band goes by. Later, maybe, they’ll have a cookout or a day at the beach. And that’s good, because today is a day to be with the family and to remember.

Arlington, this place of so many memories, is a fitting place for some remembering. So many wonderful men and women rest here, men and women who led colorful, vivid, and passionate lives. There are the greats of the military: Bull Halsey and the Admirals Leahy, father and son; Black Jack Pershing; and the GI’s general, Omar Bradley. Great men all, military men. But there are others here known for other things.

Here in Arlington rests a sharecropper’s son who became a hero to a lonely people. Joe Louis came from nowhere, but he knew how to fight. And he galvanized a nation in the days after Pearl Harbor when he put on the uniform of his country and said, “I know we’ll win because we’re on God’s side.” Audie Murphy is here, Audie Murphy of the wild, wild courage. For what else would you call it when a man bounds to the top of a disabled tank, stops an enemy advance, saves lives, and rallies his men, and all of it single-handedly. When he radioed for artillery support and was asked how close the enemy was to his position, he said, “Wait a minute and I’ll let you speak to them.” [Laughter]

Michael Smith is here, and Dick Scobee, both of the space shuttle Challenger. Their courage wasn’t wild, but thoughtful, the mature and measured courage of career professionals who took prudent risks for great reward—in their case, to advance the sum total of knowledge in the world. They’re only the latest to rest here; they join other great explorers with names like Grissom and Chaffee.

Oliver Wendell Holmes is here, the great jurist and fighter for the right. A poet searching for an image of true majesty could not rest until he seized on “Holmes dissenting in a sordid age.” Young Holmes served in the Civil War. He might have been thinking of the crosses and stars of Arlington when he wrote: “At the grave of a hero we end, not with sorrow at the inevitable loss, but with the contagion of his courage; and with a kind of desperate joy we go back to the fight.”

All of these men were different, but they shared this in common: They loved America very much. There was nothing they wouldn’t do for her. And they loved with the sureness of the young. It’s hard not to think of the young in a place like this, for it’s the young who do the fighting and dying when a peace fails and a war begins. Not far from here is the statue of the three servicemen—the three fighting boys of Vietnam. It, too, has majesty and more. Perhaps you’ve seen it—three rough boys walking together, looking ahead with a steady gaze. There’s something wounded about them, a kind of resigned toughness. But there’s an unexpected tenderness, too. At first you don’t really notice, but then you see it. The three are touching each other, as if they’re supporting each other, helping each other on.

I know that many veterans of Vietnam will gather today, some of them perhaps by the wall. And they’re still helping each other on. They were quite a group, the boys of Vietnam—boys who fought a terrible and vicious war without enough support from home, boys who were dodging bullets while we debated the efficacy of the battle. It was often our poor who fought in that war; it was the unpampered boys of the working class who picked up the rifles and went on the march. They learned not to rely on us; they learned to rely on each other. And they were special in another way: They chose to be faithful. They chose to reject the fashionable skepticism of their time. They chose to believe and answer the call of duty. They had the wild, wild courage of youth. They seized certainty from the heart of an ambivalent age; they stood for something.

And we owe them something, those boys. We owe them first a promise: That just as they did not forget their missing comrades, neither, ever, will we. And there are other promises. We must always remember that peace is a fragile thing that needs constant vigilance. We owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady gaze and, perhaps, a resigned toughness, knowing that we have adversaries in the world and challenges and the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong.

That, of course, is the lesson of this century, a lesson learned in the Sudetenland, in Poland, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, in Cambodia. If we really care about peace, we must stay strong. If we really care about peace, we must, through our strength, demonstrate our unwillingness to accept an ending of the peace. We must be strong enough to create peace where it does not exist and strong enough to protect it where it does. That’s the lesson of this century and, I think, of this day. And that’s all I wanted to say. The rest of my contribution is to leave this great place to its peace, a peace it has earned.

Thank all of you, and God bless you, and have a day full of memories.

A federal court has found that Sheriff Joe Arpaio, of Maricopa County in Arizona, was guilty of racially profiling Latinos during his immigration patrols. If this is true, I put up this short post to ask the question.

Does this make the Sheriff a racist?

I will allow commentary on the topic, but I am looking more for yes and no answers on this one , just to get a sense of the gut reaction, rather than each sides rhetoric.

I also have to give a shout out to my friend Jared Morris for stealing the title of the post. Thanks dude.

It would seem that once again there is a rush to bring the Bible under the control of  government. In this case it is again an attempt to put a public school district in charge of teaching about the Bible.

As  a Christian myself, I can never understand some of my fellow Christian’s fervor for the idea of putting government, in the form of public school teachers, in charge of teaching about faith and religion.

This time around, it is the Cape Henlopen  School Board, or I should say, certain members of the Board, who recently attended a school board convention in San Diego, where they were presented with the idea of a Bible study course by the Bible Literacy Project, who by the way sells the text books used in the course. So basically the board members were given a sales pitch to buy some text books.

On a side note, one must ask the question, who paid for the trip to San Diego?

But the real rub here is, that several of the board members decided to bring up the idea of adding this course to the  curriculum, and they did so at the board meeting, instead of going through what seems to be the normal process for a curriculum change. A fact that upset District Superintendent Robert Fulton.

The course would be an elective, meaning that it would not be mandated for all students to take in order to graduate. This in my opinion at least, means that there should be no problem with a separation of church and state claim, also this course is being taught in other schools.

The course would teach about the impact of the Bible on literature throughout history and into modern times. Supposedly the course would be taught without touching on the religious aspects of the Bible, but would merely treat the Bible as a story. Which it is, but to Christians it is the word of God, and is the one truth.

This is where I feel the wheels come off the bus. I do not believe that any human being can teach about the Bible without their personal beliefs coming into play. Whether that be, that they believe the Bible is the word of God or they don’t.

It seems to me that in their passion to bring the Bible back into the school system in any way possible, that some of the board members are losing sight of the bigger picture and the possibly negative impact that this course could end up having on how the Bible will be perceived by future generations.

My concern is that a course such as this may actually diminish the message within the Bible. Let us considering for a moment that teachers who will teach this course will be so guarded about not crossing the line of church and state, that they will go out of their way to insure that the students understand that the Bible is merely a work of literature. How many students will leave this course with no further idea of the Bible beyond this course?

We would be subjecting children not to the truth of the Bible, but they will be told only that it is a great work of literature, they may even come to believe that it is fiction. For how can a teacher even hint at it being true without touching on the faith aspect of believing it?  And not cross the line of separation?

This would seem to be another case of board members and others who wish to instill their beliefs upon as many people as possible. However I would warn these passionate Christians against putting faith and religion under the strong-arm of government in any form. Keep your faith in your churches, your communities, and your homes. But beware those who would allow government any say over it, it is a dangerous game of chicken to play.

It matters little whether you dump dirt into water, or water into dirt, you still get dirty water. Do not hand over your faith to government. A course such as this would allow the government to dictate how the message within the Bible would be presented, and this my friends was never the role of government nor the intent of our Founders, and anyone who says otherwise is little better than the Taliban.

President Obama wants you to believe he is the Sergeant Schultz of unlawfully targeted IRS harassments: “I know nussink! I see nussink! I didn’t even leave ze fundraiser zees mornink!

President Roosevelt used the IRS to intimidate and exact revenge on political enemies. Richard Nixon, JFK and Clinton co-opted the agency into a partisan sledgehammer designed to ruin lives and crush honest political opposition.

John Andrew’s 2002 book, “The Power to Destroy,” unearths these dank political corpses, destroying whatever naive notions you may have of those storybook figures.

What’s most heinous is that a President would use the IRS to intimidate and harass ordinary Americans who believe a smaller, more effective government is best for their country and legally enjoy their constitutional right to assembly, sharing knowledge and education with fellow citizens.

Apparently, that’s a serious threat to Mr. Obama.

The idea that a small group of rogue Midwestern agents decided to ruin their careers by illegally targeting nonprofit organizations whose names include the words “Tea Party” or “Patriot” and had a mission of constitutional education is absurd. It’s even more absurd when you know the history of former presidents who have misused the IRS combined with the history of President Obama.

Here are some examples of the President’s previous duplicitous behavior:

Mr. Obama has often regaled supporters with an emotional delivery of his “Thanks for your vote; I wish I could close Guantanamo” monologue.

Constitutional lawyers have written gigabytes on how Obama can close Guantanamo.

The ways to do it include applying the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, giving the president power to wage war against al-Qaeda and its affiliates. The NDAA authorizes the president to detain enemy combatants and forbids him from transferring Guantanamo detainees to American soil.

The NDAA does not ban the President from releasing detainees. Lawyers have written that section 1028 authorizes him to release them to foreign countries that will accept them. That’s all he has to do. It may not be a very bright thing to do, but he can do it.

The President also has the power to end the hostilities with al-Qaeda by declaring our War on Terror with al-Qaeda is over. Ended. Done.

Such a declaration would result in the release of all the Guantanamo prisoners.

Do you think he really believes in the green energy schemes and was tricked by really smart campaign bundlers, or, rather, that he knew all along from government accountants and analysts that these companies were going bankrupt and he just wanted their millions of campaign dollars?

Report after report shows the Obama administration knew these companies were going bankrupt and that some of their technologies would not work. Still, the millions of dollars in bundled campaign contributions from their executives and commissioned venture capital firms flowed into Democratic bank accounts.

Billions of taxpayer dollars then flowed into the green scheme accounts of companies like bankrupt Solyndra, Abound Solar, SpectraWatt and Evergreen Solar.

He has used his executive power to obstruct the investigation into ATF gun-running to Mexican drug lords and is blocking the testimony of a Benghazi whistleblower.

His marketing group, Organizing for America, is engaged in a smear campaign of another Benghazi whistleblower, veteran diplomat Gregory Hicks.

President Obama and Eric Holder have also been caught spying on Associated Press reporters, stealing records of outgoing calls for both the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery.

If you can ignore these behaviors and many more, then perhaps the idea that our President was unaware of his IRS illegally intimidating and harassing innocent fellow Americans is possible.

Perhaps you can also believe he wasn’t behind this illegal harassment and intimidation of innocent fellow Americans that just happened to occur during the last Presidential election cycle.

Perhaps.