What a strange headline.  Anyway, according to Dale Jackson at WVNN Senator Jeff Sessions will be at an area Kangaroo gas station today.  The event is open to the public.

What: Pumping Gas and Speaking To Huntsville Area Drivers about High Energy Costs

When: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 7:30 a.m. CT

Where: Kangaroo Gas Station, 540 Jordan Lane

According to Rasmussen Reports John McCain has a commanding 55% to 37% lead over Barack Obama in Alabama.  Biggest stat from the poll: 61% of voters view McCain favorably, while 57% view Obama unfavorably.

In the Senate race Jeff Sessions is crushing Vivian Figures 58% to 31%.  Sessions has a 64% favorable rating.  A whopping 65% of respondants said, “Who the hell is Vivian Figures?”  OK, I made that last one up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was pretty close.

Senator Jeff Sessions is publicly putting a hold on a bill known as the Presidential Records Act Amendment of 2007 (H.R. 1255).  Just what is this bill?

The legislation would narrow a 2001 executive order from President George W. Bush that gives broad authority for former presidents to prevent public disclosure of their administration records — and for the first time extends the power to former vice presidents.

…

The new records act would establish a 40-day deadline for a former president and the current president to object to the release of records by the federal Archivist.

It would also limit the power of former presidents to withhold their presidential records. Under Bush’s executive order, if a former president asks the current president to object to the release of a record on the grounds of executive privilege, the current president must back that claim. Under a previous executive order issued by Ronald Reagan, the former president could make the request, but the current president was under no obligation to assert the privilege. The legislation under hold would revert to the Reagan system.

The legislation would also eliminate a former vice president’s right to assert executive privilege. “The bill restores the long-standing understanding that the right to assert executive privilege over presidential records is a right held only by presidents,” the coalition said.

Seems quite reasonable.  Open government is in the publics best interest.  You can read the text of the bill here.

The bill passed the house by a vote of 333-93 with 7 not voting.  Alabama’s delegation was nearly split down party lines with Democrats Bud Cramer and Artur Davis being joined by just one Republican, Jo Bonner, in voting yes.

Has anyone read much about the bill?  I’d certainly like to know how Sen. Sessions thinks the public is best served by blocking the bill.

Tucked within the bloated omnibus spending bill recently passed by Congress and signed by President Bush were over 9,000 earmarks worth more than $7 billion. I took a few minutes to parse the list of earmarks provided by Sen. DeMint for all of the ones specific to Alabama and totaled them for all to see. The waste is profligate. Our tax dollars are being used to study catfish genetics, build a kitchen, and to renovate a theater just to name a few - and that is just in Alabama. The list also includes the recently announced project to tear up a perfectly good road in Huntsville and replace it with a bridge.

Senator Richard Shelby predictably led the pack with $27 million in earmarks. Sen. Jeff Sessions rang up a more svelte $3 million tally. The leading porkers in the house were Mike Rogers, Bud Cramer, and Robert Aderholt. Spencer Bachus, Terry Everett, and Artur Davis showed considerably more restraint with our money.

Remember folks, you just paid for their campaign advertisements!

From Mary Orndorff’s Sweet Home Potomoc blog on AL.com: Sessions and Clinton team up; Earth continues to spin on its proper axis

Interesting tidbit: Jeff Sessions has spent over thirty hours this year speaking on the floor of the senate, which leads all GOP senators.

I was just outside D.C. this past week on business and due to a slight change in my work schedule after I had booked my travel I found myself with a few spare hours on Friday morning.  I could have done some sightseeing or slept in, but I’ve seen most of the sights before and I’ll get all the sleep I need when I’m dead so I decided to be a good citizen and seek out my elected officials.  I actually found out about my free time a week early and was able to schedule a face-to-face meeting with my representative in the House, Bud Cramer.  I knew my time was short, so I didn’t try to schedule a meeting with Senators Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby as well.

I arrived on the Hill a couple of hours before my meeting with Cramer was scheduled so I wandered between the various House and Senate office buildings in the slim hopes that I might be able to briefly talk with certain legislators.  Offices I stopped at included Jeff Sessions, John Linder, and Ron Paul.  I struck out on each and didn’t have time to visit Shelby’s as well.

I arrived a few minutes early for my meeting with Cramer and one of his staffers took me through the legislators’ underground transit system to a room that I believe was in the Capital, where Cramer was in a meeting.  He stepped out of his meeting and sat down with me for about twenty or twenty five minutes.  The topic du jour was the FairTax.  I’ve met with some of his senior staffers before about the FairTax, but this was my first opportunity to meet the big man himself.

I should say that it is easy to see how he has been reelected numerous times.  He comes across as an affable, sincere individual - he’s not the stereotypical slimy politician.  I personally don’t have any major qualms with his voting record.  He’s frequently shown the courage to break ranks with his party and vote on principle (principles I often agree with), which I personally find important.  I am, however, a strident supporter of the FairTax and I would like to see him share my opinion.

Our discussions were semi fruitful.  Simply agreeing to meet with me knowing that the FairTax would be the primary topic shows that he is interested in listening and engaging in dialog.  I didn’t get the opportunity to let him know that I write a blog (it all happened so fast!) so I’ll keep the particulars of the discussion outside of the public sphere.  I would not want to betray any confidentiality that may have been implicit since he likely assumed our conversation was private.  Suffice it to say that I thought it was a productive meeting, but I don’t expect him to sign up as a cosponsor in the near term.

I did enjoy the opportunity to talk with him and I’m quite appreciative that he took time out of his busy schedule to meet with me in person.  I would encourage fellow constituents to contact his office to arrange a meeting if you visit D.C.

Now for a little “small world” story.  My return flights took me from Dulles to Atlanta and then on to Huntsville.  The flight from Dulles to Atlanta was delayed a little over an hour due to weather (we were already on the tarmac, which was not terribly pleasant).  The flight was delayed just long enough to cause me to miss my connecting flight in Atlanta.  I secured a seat on the next flight, but had a little time to kill so I went to the food court in Terminal A.  As I was walking towards my restaurant of choice who do I see sitting by himself eating a chili dog?  Senator Jeff Sessions.

I typically try to be respectful of well known public officials and celebrities during my infrequent encounters with them in public.  I figure that they get hassled enough and don’t need to be accosted by yet another random person.  But I just had to walk up to the senator and introduce myself and shake his hand.  I figured that since I did take the effort to visit his D.C. office that same day that it wasn’t out of line to interrupt his solitary dinner for a couple of minutes.  As it turned out his flight from D.C. was also delayed long enough to cause him to miss a connecting flight.  He was very polite and I tried to make haste so that he could return to his peaceful meal.

So, I ended up getting to talk to two of my three legislators that day.  Not too bad.

Freshman Virginia senator Jim Webb proposed an amendment to the defense authorization bill currently being debated that would have mandated that troops be granted home leave between deployments of at least as long as their previous combat tours.  Seems like a bill that anyone who supports our troops would like, right?  Well, both Alabama senators were among the 41 who blocked the amendment.  It’s kind of hard to argue that you “support the troops” when you vote to return them to harm’s way in a more expeditious manner.

Click here for Sessions’ interview on NPR.  Such weak support from a devout Republican certainly spells trouble for the AG.

Political parties.  Case in point is the SackSessions blog that was started a little while back.  The header of the site says is all, “Sending an Alabama Democrat to the US Senate.”

I understand if you don’t like Sessions, he exhibits little autonomy and is only slightly less painful to listen to in interviews than George Bush with every second word being “uh” or “um.”  He does have some redeeming qualities in my opinion, including strict fiscal discipline and a desire to level sentences for persons convicted of crack possession (primarily blacks) in line with those who are convicted of cocaine possession (primarily whites).  I would actually much rather see a ShelveShelby site and get that pork barreling sun of a gun out of the Beltway, but his term doesn’t end until 2010.

The problem I have with the SackSessions theme is that they disdain Sessions simply because of his party affiliation and they simply want him replaced with some faceless Democrat - any Democrat.  How about Larry Darby?

Currently, the state and national Dems are trying to turn Alabama Ag Commissioner Ron Sparks into a challenger for Sessions’ seat.  They rolled Sparks out on the DailyKos - a huge tactical error in my opinion.  Alabama remains a conservative state and introducing Sparks on a very liberal blog will likely be used against him in a campaign.  The manufacturing of Sparks as a legitimate candidate (at this point) continued with one blog inexplicably saying that Sparks was “wildly popular.”  I blog and try to follow state politics very closely and here was my lukewarm endorsement of Sparks for Ag Commissioner last year:

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I, an informed voter, didn’t even know enough about him or his duties as Ag Commissioner to say anything more than that.  How in God’s green earth can he possibly be “wildly popular?”

Now the anti-Sessions/pro-any-Dem crowd have taken to mocking Sessions’ physical attributes and making racially stereotypical comments (kudos to Lee).

I was meeting a friend for a quick bite when I spied the diminutive Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Munchkinland) dining with a group of no lipped whiteboys that looked to include his press guy and other staffers and/or lobbyists.

In our double standard society that is perfectly acceptable.  Yes, it was a regurgitation of a Wonkette piece (for those of you who don’t know, Wonkette is a sharp, crude political blog), but it was obviously not posted with any recriminations for it’s content.  Just imagine if the politician in question had been a black man and the person said something offensive like, “with a group of fat lipped black boys.”  There would be hell to pay and we all know which two “reverends” would be on the airwaves.

But such is the nature of political parties.  People check their own minds at the door when they join up.