Fellow bar hoppers -
 
This site has been good to us, but to be quite honest, it just ain’t doing it for us anymore.
 
Thanks to your readership, The Shot & The Chaser have been exploding well past what we ever thought possible.  We thought we would top out around 500 unique hits a day, but thanks to you, we are now getting over 3,500 unique hits a day and over 60,000 clicks.  That means its time to expand.
 
And expand we have.
 
Please check out our new digs over at www.shotpolitics.com.

The Shot is still our unbiased collection of news.  The Chaser is still our insider tidbits, gossip, and sometimes biased view of the world.  Now they are just together in one nicely packaged bundle.
 
Thanks for your continued support.  Now, go on over to www.shotpolitics.com and take your daily shot of political news.
 
Sincerely,
 
Your bartenders

Rolling Stone published an intriguing article about Fred Thompson titled “Once a Pro-Choice Skirt Chaser, Now Standard Bearer of the Religious Right?”

There is some pretty interesting stuff even I didn’t know about Thompson. Here is an excerpt from the article:

“I do not believe abortion should be criminalized.” - Fred Thompson in 1996

“I was single for a long time, and, yep, I chased a lot of women. And a lot of women chased me. And those that chased me tended to catch me.” - Thompson earlier this year describing his 1985-2002 bachelorhood.

Here’s the deal about “Hollywood Fred” Thompson. It’s the same deal for most red-blooded American men who routinely face the prospect of inseminating a woman they’re not married to. Like bombing Iran, abortion is an option that needs to stay “on the table.”

When Fred was sleeping around, abortion was not the government’s business.

Now that he’s re-married with a new batch of young kids he’s changed his tune

I don’t know how many Republican primary voters read Rolling Stone, but I’m sure this information is going to surface on some more mainstream media outlets before all is said and done.

Yeah, we know there are some issues with The Chaser today.  We upgraded to the latest version of our blog software and things went a little nutty.

We will work on getting the issue solved later today.

Thinks for reading.

The South Carolina Federation of Republican Women is smitten for Mitt. At their meeting today the organization held a straw poll that was handily won by Romney. Here are the results:

Romney                29
McCain                 8
Huckabee             6
Rudy                     7
F. Thompson       9
Newt                     2
Hunter                  3

It might just be his debonair looks, but regardless of the reason the ladies of the SCFRW are clearly huge Romney fans.  

Jonathan Martin would like for you to think that he broke this “exclusive” story, but we are pretty sure you heard it here on The Shot first.

Here are two statements recently issued by the Giuliani Campaign that essentially blast the immigration compromise crafted by Sen. Ted Kennedy, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and Sen. John McCain.

Yesterday Giuliani indirectly assailed McCain for voting against the Vitter Amendment:

New York City – The Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee released the following statement today regarding the U.S. Senate’s rejection of the amendment put forth by Senator Vitter to the immigration legislation currently before Congress: 

“I commend Senator Vitter for his proposed amendment which echoed my call at the debate for making it mandatory that we identify every non-citizen who enters and exits this country.

“There is no guarantee in the current legislation that this will happen which is a fatal flaw.  We need to be able to determine who is in this country which is why it is so important to have a uniform, tamper-proof, biometric identification card, a national database, and the US-VISIT system fully functional so we can track who is coming in and out of the country.

“It is unfortunate the Senate defeated the amendment by one vote last night. I encourage the Senate to reconsider their action.”

###

This morning the Giuliani Campaign issued another strong statement:

New York – The Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee released the following statement today from Rudy Giuliani regarding the failed test vote on the immigration legislation before the United States Senate: 

 “The American people demand that their politicians enact an immigration reform bill that addresses security first.  I cannot support any immigration deal that compromises on this basic principle. 

“This bill failed to guarantee a uniform, tamper-proof, biometric identification card, a single nation-wide database of foreigners in our country, and did not mandate the full implementation of a biometric check-in, check-out system.   We can and must guarantee the American people that we know who is coming in and out of our country. 

“As President, my administration will dedicate itself to assuring the American people that we have a secure border.” 

###

A couple days ago we told you about an online immigration survey that Senator DeMint was doing.Well, it looks like DeMint was on the right side of this issue.  Pretty big gap in numbers.  Check it out:

DeMint Immigration Survey Results
 
95% Oppose Current Immigration Bill, 97% Say It Won’t Solve Our Immigration Woes
 
(Columbia, SC) – A new online survey of over 2,500 voters commissioned by the campaign of Senator Jim DeMint reveals that 95% of South Carolina respondents are against the current immigration bill.  97% say the bill will not solve our nation’s immigration problems.
 
Continue reading ‘DeMint finds 95% Oppose Current Immigration Bill’

This is an e-mail that was forwarded to us at the Shot. It appears that McCain lost the support of at least one county chairman due to his immigration policy. Please note the former Aiken County Chairman’s use of the word “amnesty”.

——– Original Message ——–
Subject:  RE: TIME TO CALL RADIO
Date:  Wed, 6 Jun 2007 22:15:22 -0400
From:  David Nix
To:  ’Adam Temple’
CC:  Mike Gibbons

Adam,
 
Please consider this my resignation as Aiken County chair for McCain. I am too far from him on the Amnesty Bill. I was hopeful that he could keep his nose clean this time around, but he can’t read the pulse of the American citizens.
 
Please pass my regrets on to Henry McMaster.
 
David Nix
Aiken County

—–Original Message—–
From: Adam Temple
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 9:24 AM
To: Adam Temple
Subject: TIME TO CALL RADIO
 
County Chairs,
 
As most of you saw last night, Senator McCain did extremely well last night.  The attached document includes much of what the media is saying about his leadership and the fact that he doesn’t back down from difficult issues.
  Continue reading ‘McCain Loses County Chair over Immigration’

Paris Hilton has been released from prison due to jail overcrowding.

Okay, before you guys start yelling at us and saying this isn’t a political story, we say - what about crime and jail overcrowding isn’t political? =)

Here’s the story:

TMZ has learned that Paris Hilton has not only had her sentence cut short, she is already out of jail!

Continue reading ‘Paris Out!’

One of our Statehouse friends told us today that we are getting boring for only talking about presidential politics. Well, please forgive us for talking about small potato issues like giving 12 million illegal immigrants Amnesty.  We are sure that voters are much more concerned about what’s going on at the Statehouse. We don’t know if it’s a teenagers birthday party or the annual circus, but we do know that voters could care less about this week’s power struggle, the blog rumors, or what happened last night at the cool kids reception.

Here’s what voters care about – claiming their $22,300,000.

Today we received this email.  If you are the next-of-kin or happen to be smoking crack today, you should call Abu Karim to get your $22,300,000.00.

Request from: Mr ABU KARIM
Director,Audit/Account Section
African Development Bank
Ouagadougou Burkina-Faso
   

Dear Comrade, 
 
How are you today? Hope all is well. Please be informed that I have decided to contact you for a fund transfer transaction worth the sum of US$22,300,000.00 into your reliable bank account as the sole NEXT-OF-KIN to the foreign deceased customer of our bank who was killed with his entire family by PLANE-CRASH in Central England atmost 3 years ago. Since his death occured, no body have show up as his next of kin for the claim because the account is untraceable. Upon the investigation I carried out from his records, I found out that his foreign business consultant who would have trace the account died earlier before the deceased. Therefore, this is a confidential and sealed deal.
 
For the success of this transaction, you should apply and act as the only existing NEXT-OF-KIN to the deceased which our bank will replace the deceased account information through proper documentation in position of your own account. This transaction is risk-free, it will never harm your good reputation in your society because no one can trace the account, and on the instant of the transfer of the fund into your account, the chapter of this transaction will be closed entirely.
Note that in a business of this nature, the bank dont want to know your difference between the deceased country, religion or believe because our bank inheritance law is against that. So, it is a preference for us achieve this success without any problem.

Please note down that once the fund get transferred into your account, you will take 39% of the total sum while the rest will be for me as I will arrange myself down to your country to take my share.
 
I need your urgent response and include your private telephone/mobile numbers for easy communication.Please reply if you can be trusted in this deal.

Thanks,
 
Mr ABU KARIM
Phone@ +22676072162

Today the Des Monies Register broke the news that the Giuliani Campaign doesn’t plan to participate in the famous Ames Iowa Straw Poll. In the Register’s report Campaign Manager Mike DuHaime said:

“We’ve made a decision as a campaign not to play in any straw polls this year, most notably, obviously, the Ames straw poll,”

Really?

Earlier this year the Giuliani Campaign did in fact make a concerted effort to win the nationally televised Spartanburg County Precinct Re-Org Straw Poll that aired on Fox News’ Hannity and Colmes. Giuliani finished second in the poll.

I don’t know about you but I think this post card constitutes “playing” in a straw poll. But I’ll let you decide.    

 

1 new Lexus sedan

4 years tuition at University of South Carolina

5250 BBQ Dinners

84,000 copies of the State Paper

Someone to organize a group of only five “Social conservative activists,” most of whom hardly anyone in the evangelical community has ever heard of, to endorse McCain.

By our accounts, McCain’s campaign has now paid their “Christian outreach consultant” $42,000 ($7,000 per month x 6 months). And what does McCain get for his $42,000? Five activists who have little notoriety and even less political experience. Personally I think the 5250 BBQ dinners will garner more votes than this “Christian outreach team”. But who knows they might be really good at pillaging church directories.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) floored an amendment to ban all felons, as well as illegal immigrants, already ordered to be deported from receiving a Z-Visa. While it would seem like common sense to prevent these criminals from gaining permanent legal status, the amendment was defeated by a vote of 51-46.

Ten Republicans voted against the measure that was introduced in order“to establish a permanent bar for gang members, terrorists, and other criminals.” The most notable party defectors on this amendment were Sen. John McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham, who chose to side with Sen. Ted Kennedy. According to a report from the AP, Kennedy said, “it would exclude hundreds of thousands from the benefits in this bill and undermine the bipartisan compromise that (senators) worked so long and so hard to produce.”

Personally I believe anybody who has not only come into out country illegally, but has also committed felony crimes in our country or their own nation have no business being allowed to legally stay in America on a permanent basis.

Democrats and a handful of Republicans were able to kill Cornyn’s amendment, which was co-sponsored by Sen. Jim DeMint, by proposing a more limited amendment that would prevent gang members and sex offenders from receiving the Z-Visa. But this amendment still allows people to receive the Z-Visa even if they have been convicted of other crimes like identy theft.

Opponents of the Cornyn amendment cited that their concerns with this proposal were soley based on fears that it would kill the entire bill. But one must wonder why they sacrificed public safety just so they can ram this awful piece of legislation down the throats of the American people.
 

Pundits, even the best, can only guess who won the debate. Pollsters can scientifically prove whose performance had the greatest impact with the electorate. Today one notable pollster, Frank Luntz, gave the victory to Mitt Romney.

Here is a clip of Luntz explaining how he reached this conclusion: 

Click here for Jim DeMint’s Immigration Survey

A note from Jim DeMint:

Dear Fellow Americans,

Conservatives have a legislative battle ahead, one that could significantly impact the future of our nation. This week we will continue to debate the Senate immigration bill. I have said it before and I will say it again, I don’t care how you try to spin it, this bill is Amnesty.

That’s why I will filibuster this bill if I have to.

But I need your help. The supporters of this bill can stop my filibuster with 60 votes. Help me persuade them that this bill is bad for America. Please take this survey and then forward it on to everyone you can. I will share the results with my Senate colleagues. Together we can send a strong message across the nation that we will not accept this bill and persuade my Senate colleagues to support my filibuster.

Sincerely,

Jim DeMint

3 debates down.  It’s time to call it for some of these guys.

No money.

No organization.

No standout performances in the debates.

No earned media. We get up every morning and go through hundreds of news outlets everyday and barely run across something on these guys.

Sam Brownback, Duncan Hunter, Jim Gilmore, Tommy Thompson, Tom Tancredo, Ron Paul - It’s time to get off the field. Unless God really does strike Rudy down and McCain, Romney, and Fred Thompson are standing close enough to get hit…you are cooked! You’ve had your chance.  You’ve said your piece.  Bye-bye!

Most disappointing to us is Sam Brownback. We expected more from him over the past couple months.

Mike Huckabee - We will give you another week or two before we call if for you, but only because we liked your performance the last two debates.

Seriously…all these guys on one stage is giving us, and everyone else, a massive headache.

And Fred Thompson – get on the field or shut up.

This isn’t the bill that I would have written? Excuse me? What does that even mean?

 

Last week conservative activist Drew McKissick penned an op-ed for the state paper titled “Who pays for Amnesty” which noted:

And speaking of selling, who’s going to pay for this bill?  It has been well documented that low-skilled immigrants receive far more in government benefits and services than they pay in taxes.  A recent Heritage Foundation study puts the number at a net cost of approximately twenty-thousand dollars per year per immigrant, which totals up to between 2.3 and 2.5 TRILLION dollars over the next two decades.  But what’s a few trillion dollars between friends.

Sen. Graham office has responded to this by pointing out this Congressional Budget Office study in an e-mail:

Here’s a story on that very question…from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)

The analysis found that over the next decade, newly legalized immigrants and guest workers would generate $48 billion in additional tax and Social Security revenues, while using about $23 billion worth of tax credits and social services. Thus, the newly legal immigrant population would contribute a net of about $26 billion over the decade, the report said.

But this CBO report only addresses the next ten years (the Heritage report examined the next twenty years). If you only look at the impact of the Senate immigration bill over the next ten years, you don’t get a complete picture of its total cost.

Social Security and Medicare are the two largest expenditures to our budget. Most of the immigrants who will be able to obtain legal status and eventual citizenship will not qualify for the benefits during the next 10 years. But in time, these illegal immigrants will reach the required age to receive these benefits, which will put an even greater burden on our budget. Medicare is projected to reach solvency by 2028 and Social Security will reach solvency by 2049. By adding 12 million more individuals to these programs, we will almost certainly see these projected solvency dates move up the calendar.

As a 23 year-old, I believe this legislation will likely leave my generation with highly expensive tab to pay. Something I hope the Senators backing this proposal will realize. The CBO report might make a good case to most reporters and bloggers, but as a person who never got a grade lower than a 97 on the four upper level political budgeting courses I took at USC, I can tell you that this portion of the report lacks key facts necessary to understanding the total expenses involved in passing this immigration bill.

But according to Graham anybody who opposes this bill is a “bigot”. I wonder if that still applies to me since my opposition to the bill is for totally fiscal reasons?

There are certainly some big names here. Anybody who has any clue about golf in the Southeastern U.S. knows about Jim Anthony’s real estate development “The Cliffs”. And Bill Hewitt might not have a last name like Ravenel or Maybank, but he is an esteemed member of Charleston’s exculsive high society. Also on board is Peter Brown who is the VP of Colite International. The group will be lead by the highly experienced Drea Byars, who spent last election cycle partnered with the Crunchy Republican Sunny Philips in advising numerous candidates on fundraising. Here is some more background information for those of you not familiar with these individuals.   

Jim Anthony (Pickens) – Anthony is the Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Cliffs Communities, Inc.  Prior to his founding The Cliffs, he spent more than 20 years as a telephone line repairman for Southern Bell, while building an active real estate development business on the side.  In 1999, Anthony was named “The Most Influential Greenvillian” by Greenville Magazine, and was a finalist for Greenville Magazine’s “1999 Business Person of the Year.”  In 2006, he was honored with the Blue Ridge Council of the Boy Scouts of America’s Distinguished Citizen Award.  Anthony also serves on the Society of International Business Fellows and the Upstate Alliance, an economic development cooperative of the Carolinas.

Peter Brown (Columbia) – Brown is Vice President of Colite International and a Managing Partner of Colite Outdoor, LLC. Colite International was recognized as the 2001 World Trader of the Year by the South Carolina World Trade Center. He has been an active Finance Committee member for DeMint for Senate. He served on Governor Mark Sanford’s finance team and was a member of Governor Sanford’s Inaugural Committee. Mr. Brown also serves as Chairman for the South Carolina Jobs-Economic Development Authority. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame. He was previously employed by Milliken & Company prior to the founding of Colite International, Ltd. in 1992.

Bill Hewitt (Charleston) – Hewitt is a Board Member and Chairman of Polymer Group, Inc.  He has served on numerous finance teams in the past including U.S. Senator Jim DeMint and Governor Mark Sanford.  He is a Trustee of the Medical University of South Carolina and immediate Past Chair of Spoleto Festival USA. Hewitt has served on five corporate boards. He is also the immediate past Chair at the Citadel and was a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Coast Guard with tours of duty including command of the USCGC Cape Morgan and teaching electrical engineering at the Coast Guard Academy. 

Senator Greg Ryberg (Aiken) – Senator Ryberg was first elected to the State Senate in 1993.  Senator Ryberg serves as the Chairman of the Labor, Commerce, and Industry Committee.  Ryberg is Chief Executive Officer of REI, Inc.  With his wife Betty, he used to own a chain of convenience stores in South Carolina and Georgia.  He is a graduate of Marquette University.

Background On South Carolina Finance Director:

Drea Byars Is A Republican Fundraising Consultant Based In Lexington, South Carolina. Over the last seven years, Drea has raised millions of dollars for South Carolina candidates and elected officials.  She currently serves as State Finance Director for United States Senator Jim DeMint.