Due to some technical difficulties I only caught the last part of today's bloggers briefing, which meant missing most of Rep. Kevin Brady's remarks on the recently launched House GOP’s Fiscal Integrity Task Force. No worries though, David will have some exclusive coverage of FIT Force later this week here at TechRepublican.

I did catch Iain Murray of CEI talk about his recently released book, “The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You to Know About—Because They Helped Cause Them.”

Murray was asked what he would question John McCain about regarding his recently unveiled environmental policy?

1) Why does he think cap and trade will reduce energy costs? All the evidence from Europe goes against this plan.
1) The world has not warmed since 2001, but his plan is based on faulty science models that assumed it would, how does he defend that?

Mary Katherine Ham noted that she though the environment was an issue conservatives need to have a better stance on, and wondered what a conservative message on the environment ought to sound like.

Conservatives need to push for the central role of free-markets and property rights.

The passenger pigeon went extinct because no one owned it. The wood duck is doing fine because sportsmen have a vested interest in conserving it.

Also, the role of stewardship is a conservative notion. As conservatives, we're traditionalists and protecting the environment means being a good steward of God's creation. If we can work to combine free-markets and the idea of stewardship we'll have a strong environmental policy that actually works.

What we have to avoid though, is to just adopt the lefts' environmental policy because it has immense costs associated with it.

If you're left craving more environmental reading, check out Heritage's research paper analyzing the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill and the economic impact it would have on America.

I came by this week's bloggers briefing at Heritage expecting to see some fireworks as Representative Jo Bonner, the newest member of the House Appropriations Committee joined us to talk about earmarks and spending.

As I said, I was expecting a rough reception - given many bloggers well-stated preference for Rep. Jeff Flake to fill the available seat on Appropriations and Bonner's poor record on earmarks.

Working the Room
Bonner got things off on the right foot though by walking into the room and introducing himself to everyone present, taking the time to shake our hands and make small talk. Standard political fare to be sure, but it was a nice touch and helped put people in a friendly mood.

Quin Hillyer helped arranged the meeting as he was a former neighbor of Bonner's and used to write at a local paper in Bonner's home district of Mobile, Alabama.

Quinn described Bonner as a "quiet reformer" who works from inside the system to get things done.

Bonner then explained that as a former hill staffer of 18 years, he "understands that there are many different ways to skin a cat."

Bonner was self-deprecating, noting that he isn't a national figure, but that he wears the label of a "reformer" with pride.

He described his commitment to transparency, and referenced a document from his office detailing his "Commitment to Reforming a Broken Process."

Earmarks
* A disconnect remains between House Republicans and the conservative base. We need to bridge it.
* No consensus on earmarks in the GOP caucus. Some want to abolish earmarks, others want a one year moratorium, and others like earmarks - think it's a Congressional responsibility.

Transparency
*Bonner articulated his support for and plan to increase transparency in the appropriating process. He argued that Congressmen ought to be required to publicly stand by their earmarks and explain why the American taxpayer should fund the earmark, not just put their name on a piece of paper in the dark of night.

Question - What's the benefit of a one-year hiatus? If you're opposed to earmarks, you're opposed to earmarks.

The purpose was to get the Democratic leadership on board with the ban. This failed.

Also, what is an earmark? Many members of Congress feel that the President's budget request to Congress is basically composed of earmark requests.

Bonner also noted that President Bush in his State of the Union asked Congress to cut its earmark requests by half, and that's just what Bonner has done, cutting his requested earmarks this year to 21, from 42 last year.

My Two Cents
Rep. Bonner's emphasis on increasing government transparency is spot-in. It's an issue that can garner bi-partisan support, and helps reduce government waste and spending.

Regarding earmarks, it's one thing to argue that we need to take incremental steps towards a goal, while keeping our eyes on the larger goal. As a conservative I understand the prudence of baby-steps in policy-making.

Therefore I can accept a one-year moratorium on earmarks with the understanding that this is step one on the path to abolishing the current earmarking policy and restoring the GOP's brand when it comes to fiscal responsibility. But I'm not convinced that Rep. Bonner sees a one-year moratorium as a first step, but instead as a bone to throw out to the base to get us to go away.

Bonner acknowledged that Republicans have to "earn back our brand" as Leader Boehner puts it, but he doesn't follow through on this point. Because Republicans don't win back the trust of voters by promising to earmark 50% less then the Democrats, or to not earmark for 12 months. We win back voters' trust by saying we're different then the Dems, not Democrat-light.

While I didn't walk away convinced that Rep. Bonner was right on earmarks, I am convinced that he's a sincere and intelligent legislator and I commend him for coming by to talk to us, and share his views.

At the end, Bonner said he was pleased be the first appropriator to come by the bloggers briefing this year, but that he won't be last. Cheers to that.

I was able to make it to this week’s conservative bloggers briefing, after a one week hiatus. This time the briefing was hosted by the Coalition for a Conservative Majority at their offices in Eastern Market and Congressman Jeff Flake (R-AZ) joined us to talk about his top issue – earmark reform.

The Congressman was 20 minutes late, but when he did arrive, he began by thanking everyone who’d pushed hard for him to win the open seat on the Appropriations Committee.

He said he might be planning to make another go of it, as six seats will be open on the committee next January.

I asked the Congressman what he thought of the NRCC’s recent fundraising woes and to share with us his realistic appraisal of House GOP prospects this November.

Whether we have a message that sells, remains to be seen.

For the past several years we (house Republicans) have run without a message, instead relying on things like re-districting and passing out pork and then counting on the NRCC to protect incumbents by doling on money.

He went on to note that this system is busted, but we "still haven’t thrown out that playbook."
Rob Bluey followed up by asking whether or not Flake agreed with NRCC chairman Tom Cole’s recent statement that:

Earmarks are not the reason we lost in 2006.

Flake emphatically disagreed, noting that we lost several appropriators in 2006 – putting to bed the idea that pork spending is a useful form of incumbency protection.

He also referenced Senator McCain as being right on this issue, "It wasn’t the war in Iraq (that lost the GOP the 2006 election) it was spending and corruption."

He said that earmark reform is a signal to voters that Republicans are fiscally responsible.

If you’re unwilling to agree to a one year earmark moratorium, then how in the world can you stop entitlement spending?

Amen to that Congressman.

No doubt, Rep. Flake is one member of Congress that anyone interested in a fiscally responsible government will want to see on the House Appropriations Committee – let’s hope he decides to run again come January.

Also check out Human Event’s Ericka Andersen who has more on Flake’s comments.

Today’s bloggers briefing was right down the hall from DAG's new offices at ATR. David already blogged about some of Grover Norquist's remarks, but I'm going to add some more fodder to the blogosphere, because Grover talked at length about his new book Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government’s Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives, and what he had to say was top-notch.

In his book Grover describes two coalitions that formed during the Reagan years, the Leave Us Alone Coalition and the Takings Coalition. The Leave Us Alone Coalition, as it’s aptly named, basically wants the government to stay out of their affairs, whether it’s gun owners who want to be free to hunt, business owners to earn a profit, or home schoolers who want to educate their children – the coalition is united by the common desire to keep the government out of their lives.

Each one says of the others ‘that’s not how I’m going spend my time’ but they tolerate other parts of the coalition because they're united in a common goal.

The Takings Coalition on the other hand is the heart of the tax-and-spend left and is made up of those who, on their primary vote moving issue, want the government to take something from one group and give it to another. Their coalition is made up of trial lawyers, labor-union leaders, government employee’s unions, recipients of government grants, those locked into welfare, and those who earn a living making sure welfare recipients never leave welfare.

The Takings Coalition has more rules then Leviticus and theirs are slightly more tedious.

The other team is evil, not stupid.

There isn’t one policy idea among the Democrat presidential candidates that will make your 401k bigger.

Some highlights from Grover's remarks:

*What’s Your Top Issue

We need to always keep in mind the difference between intensity and preference.

A lot of times people say they care about an issue, but what’s important is whether or not the issue moves their vote.

*Stockholders

The biggest demographic shift of the past twenty years has not been in Spanish speaking immigrants, it’s been of stockholders. Currently, 60% of adults and 2/3 of voters own stock.

Every tax on business is understood by voters as the government reaching into their own pockets.

*Gun Rights

Concealed carried permit-owners are much more dedicated to second amendment rights then hunters.

Except for two weeks out of the year, hunters might as well not be gun owners.

*Branding the GOP
95% of GOP lawmakers at the federal level have signed the taxpayer protect pledge.

At the federal level we spent a lot of time branding the GOP as the party of tax cuts.

Republicans who vote for tax increases are rat heads in a coke bottle. They hurt all Republicans, because they harm the GOP brand.

After listening to Grover, I dug into his book and found this interesting quote from the intro,

I also worked hard to avoid writing a book that could be summarized as a “longer version of a good magazine article.”

This strikes a real cord with me because I’ve read quite a few books on politics that left me with that exact thought – “good point, but this doesn’t need to be a 200 page book.” After listening to Grover talk non-stop for an hour, while keeping everyone in the room completely enthralled, and skimming the book for this post, I'm confident this book will have plenty of heft to it.

I’ve also been thinking long and hard lately about the future of the GOP, conservatism, and American politics in general (big thoughts, I know). After listening to a talk last week about how the millennial generation (which I’m a part of) is primed to vote Democrat, I’ve been feeling a bit dejected about the future of conservatism. That coupled with the fact that I've been searching for a good paradigm to describe where the American political system is heading, means that I'm looking forward to reading Grover’s book; I think it may have some of the answers I've been searching for.

I missed last week’s bloggers briefing, because I was down with the CPAC flu like almost everyone else who attended the conference. But I was back in the saddle for today’s briefing where we heard from Alfred Regnery, the publisher of the American Spectator, who came by to talk about his new book, “Upstream: The Ascendance of American Conservatism.”

I walked in about a half hour late, just in time for questions, but missing most of Regnery’s talk about the history of the American conservative movement from the post-war period through Reagan.

You should check out Ericka Andersen’s post for more on Regnery’s remarks, but below are some notes from what I caught.

When Rush Limbaugh says that he won’t support McCain over Hillary, it’s the ultimate statement of principal.

We can withstand a bad election. Ideas are the most important.

Obama vs. Goldwater

There are certain similarities. There was a passion for Goldwater that never existed before.

With Goldwater It wasn’t about himself. But with Obama, it’s all about Obama.

What’s the greatest insight you’ve gleaned from writing this book?

The conservative movement is a very interesting coalition between intellectuals and philosophers and very practical politicians.

Conservatives when running for office, go to the philosophers.

For example, when elected to lead the Republican Study Committee, Mike Pence bought copies of “The Conservative Mind” for everyone on the committee.

Is McCain a conservative with that same philosophical underpinning?

No, he isn't, but neither is George W. Bush.

But McCain wakes up in the morning and says to himself in the mirror.

“Duty, Honor, Country.”

I have a copy of Russell Kirk’s “The Conservative Mind” on my book shelf, and it’s one of the best books I read while in college, even if it was never required reading for any college course I took. So I’m looking forward to reading Upstream, because as the old cliché goes, you can't know where you are going until you know where you have been.

At today's bloggers briefing at Heritage we heard how the Bush Administration's Department of Justice is siding with the District of Columbia as its 1976 gun ban law is challenged in the Supreme Court. We also got the scoop on Ustream.tv, a new web service that lets anyone quickly and easily broadcast streaming video online.

The DC Gun Ban
Alan Gura, the lawyer who is arguing the pro-Second Amendment side in the DC gun rights case currently before the Supreme Court and John Lott, author and scholar at the University of Maryland, joined us by phone to update us on what's up with the Justice Department filing a brief that effectively supports the District’s gun ban.

Here’s an except from Lott’s recent article in NRO that explains how the case is shaping up:

The Department of Justice argument can be boiled down pretty easily. Its lawyers claim that since the government bans machine guns, it should also be able to ban handguns. After all, they reason, people can still own rifles and shotguns for protection, even if they have to be stored locked up. The Justice Department even seems to accept that trigger locks are not really that much of a burden, and that the locks “can properly be interpreted” as not interfering with using guns for self-protection. Yet, even if gun locks do interfere with self-defense, DOJ believes the regulations should be allowed, as long as the District of Columbia government thinks it has a good reason.

Factually, there are many mistakes in the DOJ’s reasoning: As soon as a rifle or shotgun is unlocked, it becomes illegal in D.C., and there has never been a federal ban on machine guns. But these are relatively minor points. Nor does it really matter that the only academic research on the impact of trigger locks on crime finds that states that require guns be locked up and unloaded face a five-percent increase in murder and a 12 percent increase in rape. Criminals are more likely to attack people in their homes, and those attacks are more likely to be successful. Since the potential of armed victims deters criminals, storing a gun locked and unloaded actually encourages crime.

When asked to handicap the Court’s likely decision, Gura said:

I think we’ll win, we’re writing the brief right now, there’s a good chance that they’ll go along with us.

Ustream.tv
Brad Hunstable, one of Ustream's founders, walked us through the service and talked about the opportunities for political candidates and non-profits to get up and running with Ustream. David's already blogged about Ustream today, but here's more for ya.

While the service is free, Brad talked about their plan to sell advertising, and add a Pay-Per-View feature.

The Pay-Per-View functionality can be used for fundraisers, for example: to see the Chuck Norris and Mike Huckabee BBQ, you have to contribute to the campaign.

While there's advertising on the homepage, there's currently none on the interior pages, or embedded in the videos. Brad stated that he wasn't keen on using pre-roll or post-roll ads and that he'd like to go with in-video product mentions, where the video host would talk up an advertisers product.

Rob Bluey asked if Ustream had thought of streaming Congressional committee hearings.

Lots of committee meetings take place that are never recorded, and Liberal members are getting away with saying and doing nutty things in the hearings, and there's no sunlight in the process.

Brad said he'd look into it, noting:

The Mainstream Media can’t cover everything, and we’re trying to fill that gap.

Blogs for Life 2008
Next Tuesday the Family Research Council is hosting Blogs for Life and our weekly bloggers briefing at their DC headquarters. They've got a great line-up of speakers including Star Parker.

I'll be there live-blogging it for you loyal techRepublican readers. Should be fun.

Today was the first bloggers briefing of 2008 and to kick things off, Bruce Bartlett came by to plug his new book, Wrong on Race, which sets the record straight on the Democrats record on race relations. Jim Pinkerton told us about his new project, Fence by Date Certain, which is a pledge he wants all lawmakers to sign that will build a fence to secure the US border by a set date. We also got the scoop on the Supreme Court's upcoming decision on an Indiana photo ID law that will have wide-ranging implications for vote fraud in the US.

Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried
Bruce Bartlett joined us to discuss his new book Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past. He explained that there two major misconceptions that black voters have about the GOP regarding race. One is that the South is all racist, therefore since the South now votes Republican, Republicans are all racist. The second is that the GOP is held to a ridiculous double-standard. So when Trent Lott compliments Strum Thurmond, he’s pilloried in the media, but when Chris Dodd praises Robert Byrd, a former leader in the KKK, no one utters a peep.

Bartlett noted that the Republican message was appealing to the black voters. He gave the example of Tom Tancredo speaking to the NAACP in Detroit. He was the only Republican to show up for the NAACP’s debate and he,

Gave anti-immigrant rant, and got a standing ovation.

When asked how the Democrats nomination of Barack Obama would affect Republican efforts to reach out to black voters, Bartlett responded that while Barack would certainly pull a lot of support from the black community, his nomination would still be an enormous advantage for the GOP, because we’ll see new leadership take charge of the black community pushing aside the Jesse Jackson’s and Al Sharpton’s, who are extremely liberal.

Fence by Date Certain

Jim Pinkerton, Newsday columnist and Fox News contributor told us about his latest effort, the "Fence by Date Certain" pledge.

According to Pinkerton, the pledge is:

dedicated to one clear-cut goal: We want the US government to build a secure double fence across the US-Mexico border. And we want federal politicians to pledge to do so by a date certain.

Heritage’s Conn Carroll thought that the pledge was too focused on terrorism, and needed to talk more about economic issues.

Pinkerton agreed and stated that he had no qualms about other people/groups using or modifying the pledge, and actively encouraged people to do so.

Pinkerton also described a conversation he had with Mike Huckabee about illegal immigration, wherein Huckabee told him that the first question he always got at town hall meetings was on illegal immigration.

Pinkerton thought that politicians like Huckabee and Mitt Romney, are behind this issue, because:

When politicians see a winner, they tend to ride it.

Vote Fraud

Michael Thielen from the Republican National Lawyers Association came by to give us the run down on tomorrow’s Supreme Court Decision about an Indiana photo ID law.

Thielen noted that this issue is a top concern for Barack Obama. He‘s single-handedly blocking the White House’s nominees to the FEC over this issue, and the biggest bill he has in the Senate would put a major chill on poll watching.

Thielen explained that every year we lose elections because of vote fraud, and the same thing will happen this cycle; but the best way to prevent vote fraud is by having strong, enforced Voter ID laws on the books.

Rob Bluey wrote a great column for Townhall on the Voter ID issue as well, that you should check out.

At today's bloggers briefing, the folks behind the State Department's new blog, DipNote told us about the blog’s genesis, and how they've managed to run an authentic blog while still representing a Federal bureaucracy. We also heard from Ralph Reed, and NTU's new president, Duane Parde.

DipNote
Heath Kern, director of digital media and Editor in Chief of DipNote, and Foreign Affairs Officer Tara Foley, one of the State Department’s top bloggers told us about DipNote, the State Department's new blog.

DipNote launched less than three months ago, and its site traffic immediately took off. According to Kern, they have four thousand subscribers to their RSS feed (one of those being myself).

Kern explained that they try to keep the editing of the blog posts to a minimum, and have fast-tracked the clearance process to make sure new content gets up quickly.

I asked Kern when we could expect Secretary Rice to wade into the blogging pool.

She said she’s spoken with the Secretary and they’re waiting until the new year to put something out there. She stated that they want the Secretary’s first foray into the blogosphere to be memorable.

I also asked if the State Dept. was planning to have blogs in foreign languages, since diplomats have begun commenting on popular Arabic language blogs.

Kern said that her staff was too small to handle a project like that right now, and that because of Federal laws, there’s two sides to the State Department's public online presence: www.state.gov which Kern's runs, is targeted at US citizens and www.usinfo.state.gov run by the office of Public Diplomacy which is aimed at non-US citizens. So right now she doesn't have the mandate to post content in foreign languages.

After listening to Kern, I feel a wee bit better about the state of America's public diplomacy, and if you haven’t already, make sure you add DipNote to your list of daily reads.

American Environmental Coalition
We also heard from Ralph Reed, who's leading a new organization, American Environmental Coalition, that's looking to "bring balance to the debate" over the environment and global warming.

The group is a coalition of 39 conservative organizations, whose total membership numbers over four million.

AEC believes that the best way to preserve the environment, is to have a strong economy. I'd point you to AEC's website, but the site, www.AmericanEnvironment.org doesn't appear to be up and running just yet.

NTU's New President
National Taxpayers Union’s new president, Duane Parde, came by to introduce himself to the blogosphere. Parde told us he is, "Looking forward to enhancing our online presence in the coming year."

NTU is already doing some good work online. Here's their latest video, explaining the negative impact of a government subprime mortgage bailout.