Obituary

Dave Sinkula, 40, Coon Rapids, MN, died on April 14th, 2010 after a long battle with melanoma. Services will be held at 10:00 a.m. at Eastgate Funeral Service Chapel, 2302 E Divide Ave, Bismarck, ND, with Rev. Paul Becker officiating. Burial will be held in Fairview Cemetery, 2929 E Century Ave, Bismarck, ND.

Visitation will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. at Eastgate Funeral Service, Bismarck.

Dave was born on March 8, 1970, in Bismarck, ND, to Donald and Lillian Sinkula. He lived in Bismarck, in the same house with his parents and his sister Karen, for 18 years. After graduating from Century High, he attended the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, ND, from 1988 – 1992, pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering. While at UND, Dave began his first of seven co-op work assignments with 3M Co., mostly in the St. Paul, MN area. In the fall of 1992 Dave transferred to North Dakota State University in Fargo, ND. He completed his Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering in December of 1994.

Following graduation, Dave went to work at Phoenix International Corp. in Fargo. Feeling an urge to leave the Red River Valley and start fresh, Dave left in August 1995, headed for the Twin Cities. He decided to meander a bit before arriving at his destination, passing through Austin, TX and Colorado Springs, CO to visit friends in a roundabout vacation before settling into job hunting full time.

It took until December of 1995 for Dave to find a job as an embedded software engineer for Interactive Technologies, Inc. in North Saint Paul, MN. He really enjoyed working at ITI with a wonderful group of people to both work and play with.

In the boom times that were the late 1990’s, Dave left ITI and began working at J. Gordon Electronic Design, Inc., Fridley, MN in 1998. Like ITI, Dave loved being with JGED both for the work and the people he worked with.

Boom gave way to bust, Dave was laid off; he later found a job with Ecowater Systems in Woodbury, MN.

Dave met Angie Olson at a friend’s wedding in 1997. The two have lived in their current residence in Coon Rapids since 1999. After a long period of getting to know one another and Angie’s daughter Brooke Jundt, the two were married on July 12, 2003 at Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Bismarck. Their marriage was blessed with a daughter, Heather Maggie Maye Sinkula, born on June 6, 2004.

Dave loved to laugh and was most fond of being a dad. Dave enjoyed fishing, hunting, camping, and loved to work in his garden. Most can agree that he spent quite a bit of time on his computer – often spent working with pictures and video, and later blogging and micro-blogging.

He is survived by his mother Lil; his sister Karen and nephews Michael and James Truong (Seattle, WA); his wife, Angie; his daughter, Heather; and step-daughter Brooke. He was preceded in death by his father, Donald (October 11, 2009).

Tax Day Tea Party - St. Paul, MN

Here are some pictures from the Tax Day Tea Party in St. Paul, MN.


Click here for a slideshow.

Still Not Ready for Prime Time

Obama seems to be sauntering still. Let's take a cursory look at a few examples.

No luck with foreign policy:

Poor Obama. He's "Too Tired"

Um, what exactly did this man and his cadre of buffoons expect?

He's the leader of the free world.

He can't afford the luxury of being "overwhelmed". This is further proof that he and his administration just had no clue what they were getting themselves into.

It's not just enough to win a campaign, and you can't run a country with speeches rife with rhetoric.

I guess I would be tired too if my goal was to demolish a 233 year old capitalistic democracy into a fully functioning socialist regime in a 5 week period.

Mr. Obama thought that running the government was going to be as smooth and easy as running his "well-oiled machine" of a campaign.

If he can't even accomplish getting dinner and gifts right with another family, what the hell kind of faith should we have in his ability to hold the office?

We're in trouble...

Too Tired For Diplomacy or Foreign Affairs? Not Interested? Or Overwhelmed By The Job?

And here we were led to believe Mr. Obama was this cool, multitasker under full control and able to handle everything the job entailed.

That’s what we were led to believe.

Some of us, however, said that of all the jobs on the planet this wasn’t the one for OJT. This isn’t a job where one aspect of the duties can be ignored to concentrate on others.

Guess which group looks more prescient at the moment?

Obama Reassures Nation: I Didn't Deliberately Snub Brits, I'm Just "Overwhelmed"

That's what I want to hear from my president -- that he's "overwhelmed."

This excuse is weak coming from a UPS customer satisfaction representative.

But then, this is the first real job Obama's ever held, so I guess we'll just have to bear with him as he gets on the job training at being at an actual job.

He's not filling me with confidence with his handling of the economy:

Is It Any Wonder The Market Continues To Sink?

[An extensive list.]

All this in barely a month's time. And to think that more of the same is on the way seems to be sinking in. Investors are watching closely and not caring for what they see. Sooner or later, the market will rally — but not without good reason to do so.

The President's Radicalism is killing the Dow

Any questions?

Or his ability to appoint a Cabinet...

Hope and Change: Another Cabinet appointee with tax problems

The good news? After the back taxes owed by Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle, Hilda Solis’ bill looks like petty cash. The nominee for Secretary of Labor became the third Barack Obama Cabinet appointee to have undisclosed tax problems.

[...]

That makes 25% of Obama’s original Hope and Change Cabinet picks comprised by tax evaders. Add that to the fourth scandal of Bill Richardson’s pay-for-play federal grand jury investigation, and we have a full-blown vetting disaster. And that doesn’t even count new Attorney General Eric Holder’s politicization of Justice ten years ago on behalf of Bill Clinton in the FALN and Marc Rich pardons, or the dozen-plus lobbyists hired by the President Who Hates Lobbyists.

[...]

Have we had a more incompetent vetting process in the White House over such a short period of time? When we criticized Barack Obama’s lack of executive experience, even we didn’t think it was going to be this bad.

What can you do other than laugh? And who better to help with that than iowahawk?

If I don't try to find some humor in this, I'd be stuck dwelling on the proposition that this country has elevated a completely unqualified individual to "lead" us in a time of great crisis, and that he might not have a clue as to what he's doing.

Update: Great minds think alike -or- I somehow managed to write up a piece right before someone else did it better: The 10 Biggest Amateur Mistakes By the Obama Administration So Far

More Thoughts on the Economy

There are a few more items on the economy I wanted to mention, continuing from earlier. First, income tax rates:

Now let's take a look at corporate tax rates. In general, corporate tax rates are falling:

AS THE effects of the financial crisis ripple out into the wider economy, businesses are struggling. With access to credit all but choked off and global demand falling, firms are keen for any help they can get. America's big companies have a friend in John McCain, who says he will cut the top federal corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%. Once state and local taxes are added, the combined rate amounts to an average 40% of profits, the second highest in rich countries. Over the past decade, corporate-tax rates have fallen considerably, especially in the countries of the European Union.

Why is it so difficult to consider that tax relief can stimulate economic growth?

Cut Payroll Tax Rates:

• For about the cost of the $825 billion House version of the stimulus bill, payroll taxes for Social Security could be cut in half, says former Federal Reserve Board member Lawrence B. Lindsey.
• A 3 percentage-point reduction in payroll taxes would increase workers' take home pay an average of $1,500.
• Reducing the employer's tax share by 3 percentage points would increase businesses' cash flow an average of $1,500 per worker.
• This tax cut would reduce unemployment by lowering labor costs.

Cut Corporate Tax Rates:

• Cutting taxes on future profits is much more likely to spur new investment.
• Congressional Republicans propose a step in the right direction: reducing the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent -- the average rate in the European Union.
• This would encourage businesses to hire additional workers, accelerate investment and make American companies more competitive internationally.

Cut Capital Gains Tax Rates:

• Republicans have also proposed reducing the capital gains tax levied on the increased value of an asset, such as stock or real estate, when it is sold.
• The current 15 percent rate is scheduled to rise to 20 percent as the Bush tax cuts expire.
• Making the lower rate permanent would be helpful.
• Past capital gains tax cuts have yielded an immediate increase in government revenue.

Lately in the news there have been Liberals griping about the Republican party being about nothing but tax cuts. Well, why not? It seems that in the US our taxes are still too high. And these high taxes are exasperating the effects of the recession we are now in. Or maybe they could at least consider that high small business corporate tax rates hurt the economy? Can we not at least consider tax competition?



The last piece I wanted to mention was The Optimum Government.

If you knew economic growth and new job creation begin to slow when total government spending is larger than about 25 percent of the economy, and you knew total government spending in the United States is about 36 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), would you propose policies to make government larger or smaller to create more jobs and boost economic growth?

Over the last few decades, many economists have done studies on the "optimum" size of government. A new study just completed shows the optimum size of government is less than 25 percent of GDP.

So we have a bit of evidence here to suggest that the highest marginal tax rate should be no more than 20%, and that the optimal size of government is around 25% of the GDP.

Rather than increasing the size of government, the empirical evidence shows that sharply reducing taxes, regulations, and government spending down to at least 25 percent of GDP would do the most to spur economic growth and create more jobs over the long run.

Again, is the Obama economic plan doing everything in its power to chase business out of the US?

Thoughts on the Economy

Did you ever run across an interesting item and then forget or lose a reference to it? Search as you might, you just can't remember the keywords that would ordinarily conjure it up in a search engine? I've had that happen more times than I care to recall, despite efforts to avoid just that. But occasionally good fortune smiles upon you, and something new brings it to you. I did have a bit of good fortune the other day, so I want to jot a few things down.

The item I was searching for was a chart in the article You Can't Soak the Rich.

The chart nearby, updating the evidence to 2007, confirms Hauser's Law. The federal tax "yield" (revenues divided by GDP) has remained close to 19.5%, even as the top tax bracket was brought down from 91% to the present 35%. This is what scientists call an "independence theorem," and it cuts the Gordian Knot of tax policy debate.

What happens if we instead raise tax rates? Economists of all persuasions accept that a tax rate hike will reduce GDP, in which case Hauser's Law says it will also lower tax revenue. That's a highly inconvenient truth for redistributive tax policy, and it flies in the face of deeply felt beliefs about social justice. It would surely be unpopular today with those presidential candidates who plan to raise tax rates on the rich – if they knew about it.

Mentioned in the WSJ article, the Laffer Curve might be quickly explained in this video I found here:



Thomas Sowell helps break down "the rich" a bit in his article, Who's Rich?

A number of other rich people have at various times likewise declared that they do not need what are called "tax cuts for the rich." But, whatever political points such rhetoric may score, it confuses issues that are long overdue to be clarified.

One of the most basic confusions is between income and wealth. You can have high income and low wealth or vice versa. We have all heard of athletes and entertainers who have earned millions and yet ended up broke. There are also people of relatively modest incomes who have saved and invested enough over the years to leave surprisingly large amounts of wealth to their heirs.

Income tax cuts apply to income, not wealth. So the fact that some rich people say that they do not need a tax cut means nothing because they are not getting a tax cut on their wealth, since their wealth is not being taxed anyway.

Looked at differently, high tax rates hit people who are currently earning high incomes -- usually late in life, after having worked their way up in their professions over a period of decades. Genuinely rich people who have never had to work a day in their lives -- people like Congressman Kennedy -- are unaffected by income taxes, except on what they are currently earning, which may be a tiny fraction of what they own.

In other words, soak-the-rich tax rates do not in fact soak the rich. They soak people who are currently earning the rewards of having contributed to the economy. High income taxes punish people for becoming prosperous, not for having been born rich.

The wealthy can elude taxes; they always have, they always will. Some might just choose to take their business elsewhere. The real question, to me, are:

• In this economy, why is Obama trying to Soak the Rich!?
• Won't that just drive us further to the right on the Laffer Curve, decreasing tax receipts and increasing our debt?
• And all done by way of the massive 'stimulus' plan which is already increasing our debt?

When you find yourself stuck in a hole, aren't you supposed to stop digging?

What's New Here?

The other day a news item popped up in my news reader:

Iraq Withdrawal Plan Gains G.O.P. Support

WASHINGTON – President Obama won crucial backing Thursday for his Iraq military drawdown plan from leading Congressional Republicans, including Senator John McCain, the party’s presidential nominee who spent much of last year debating the war with Mr. Obama.

As the president prepared to fly to Camp Lejenue, N.C., on Friday to announce his decision to pull combat forces out by August 2010 but leave behind a residual force of 35,000 to 50,000 troops, he reassured Congressional leaders from both parties that his plan would not jeopardize hard-won stability in Iraq.

I know that I was supposed to be thinking that this was Obama following through on his campaign pledge that "we will be out of Iraq in 16 months at the most". But to me it sounded more familiar; it sounded like the Patraeus plan begun under Bush:

US draws down forces as Iraqis stand up security forces

The plan for the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) to take over Iraq security is directly linked to the US plan to draw down forces and as briefed by General Petraeus in September 2007.

I recommend reading the whole article. Here I will just grab some numbers...

Reduction from 20 to 15 combat brigades.

Multinational Forces Iraq completed the drawdown from 20 to 15 combat brigades in July 2008.

Reduction from 15 to 12 brigades.

The decision to draw down forces will be made by September 2008 so that the drawdown can be completed by January 2009.

Reduction from 12 to 10 brigades.

The decision to draw down forces will be made by March 2009 so that the drawdown can be completed by July 2009.

Reducing from 10 to 7 brigades.

The decision to draw down forces will be made by September 2009 so that the drawdown can be completed by January 2010.

Reduction from 7 to 5 brigades.

The decision to draw down forces will be made by March 2010 so that the drawdown can be completed by July 2010.

Reducing from 5 to 0 brigades.

The decision to draw down forces will be made by September 2010 so that the drawdown can be completed by January 2011.

I was a bit slow in writing this, and I see that in the meantime I was not the only one who noticed this similarity. I found IBDeditorials captured my thoughts best:

The Bush Pullout
Iraq War: President Obama traveled to Camp Lejeune, N.C., on Friday to announce that the U.S. would stay in Iraq at least until 2012 and keep 50,000 troops there even after combat ends. Sound familiar?

Obama's withdrawal plan would take U.S. forces in Iraq down from a current 142,000 troops to 35,000 to 50,000. Under the status of forces agreement between the U.S. and Iran, negotiated and signed last year by the Bush administration, all forces must be out of Iraq by the end of 2011.

In short, though President Obama will get credit, it was Bush's plan — not Obama's.

Again, I recommend reading the whole article.

The devil, I guess, is in the Details:

The Status of Forces Agreement and Strategic Framework Agreement with Iraq have vanished from the White House web page - but they're apparently still being implemented.

It's official: any combat forces in Iraq after August 2010 will be called something else.

Of course, much of this was entirely predictable, given the logistics. Is there anything new here that Obama has done, other than twiddling numbers and dates a bit and claiming credit for others' efforts?

Hitting the Ground Sauntering

In one of his first acts as president, Obama signed several executive orders. I caught a clip of the press conference on the radio.



He first says the United States "will not torture". I'll get to that in a moment. My attention was really captured by, "we will close the Guantánamo Bay detention camp and determine how to deal with those who have been held there". At this point, I began to wonder what the hell the transition team was spending their time on if not determining what they were going to do Day 1. Then I wondered, "close Gitmo first, figure out what to do with them later?"

So I've got this initial bad taste in my mouth as I read some more details of things in the following days. The Truth On Gitmo brought to my attention What the President’s Executive Order really means:

. . . Contrary to reports, Obama did not shut down Gitmo. Rather, he issued an order saying he will (or, to be precise, he intends to and is willing to commit in advance to) shut down Gitmo in a year’s time. This, to mix a metaphor, is kicking the can as far down the road as he possibly can without being penalized for delay of game. Or, to mix yet another metaphor, Obama is promising to write a popular book in a year’s time and is happy to pocket a sizable advance of good will and commentary now; book to be written later. Until then, however, other actions, like the shuttering of other detention centers, will have an immediate impact.

About that Presidential Executive Order on Interrogations…, notes that far from being something new and different, Obama may have just rescinded and reissued Bush policy:

It’s not. It IS the Bush Administration’s 2007 Executive Order 13440.

About this point I'm thinking, "Great. Obama's big deal on torture is merely a regurgitation of existing US policy under Bush; but of course the press goes wild. Still we're going to close Gitmo and then figure out what to do." At this point I'm more or less speechless and shaking my head, rolling my eyes.

Then it turns out (and I'm shocked -- shocked!) that there is recidivism from Gitmo:

Return to Jihad

Two former Guantánamo detainees appear in a newly released al Qaeda propaganda video, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, an organization that monitors terrorist media. The former Guantánamo inmates have been identified as Said Ali al Shihri and Abu Hareth Muhammad al Awfi. Al Awfi is also known as Mohamed Atiq Awayd al Harbi, a kunya (or nickname) meaning that he is from the al Harbi tribe on the Arabian peninsula.

According to a report that first appeared in The New York Times last week, al Shihri was recently identified as the deputy of al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen and may have played a direct role in al Qaeda’s attack on the American embassy in Sana'a, Yemen's capital, in September of 2008. That attack killed ten civilians, along with six terrorists. Al Awfi has been identified as an al Qaeda field commander.

So what do we have here? Reissuing of bad old Bush interrogation policy under an Obama letterhead to placate the press, but effectively changing nothing? Kicking decision-making further down the road with regard to enemy combatants? What other big decisions will Obama put on the back burner? Maybe a Clear and Present Danger?

Before issuing such a "bold initiative" and "outreach" toward the theocrats ruling in Tehran, Mr. Obama's advisers should have shown their boss the report provided late last month to French President Nicolas Sarkozy from a nonpartisan parliamentary commission on Iran's nuclear program. The report details Tehran's success in circumventing U.N. sanctions and concludes that Iranian scientists already have the know-how to build a nuclear weapon and that unless action is taken to prevent it, they will possess all necessary technology, equipment and fissile material to deploy nuclear weapons no later than the end of next year, "perhaps sooner."

All of this reminds me of one of the things I really hated about the Clinton era: the opinion-poll presidency. I like to think of it as "the long-term goal of the month". There really wasn't much of an executive branch under Clinton. Maybe Obama will usher in a new Republican Revolution, but I'm not holding my breath. I think the stakes or more serious now than 15 years ago, and I don't feel that Obama is up to the task.

Roe v Wade Anniversary

Let me begin with an introductory link or two. In First Day, First Attack On Pro-Life Cause, we have a segue from the immaculation inauguration to the Obama Administration.

Thursday is the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, when thousands of Pro-Lifers annually descend on Washington for the March for Life.

So, it is “above his pay grade” to decide what human life is, but he can use MY TAX DOLLARS to kill human life without bothering his conscience a wit. That is the logic of Goebbels, not Lincoln or anyone else.

Yes. Isn't that quaint. Well, It Was 36 Years Ago Today…

Today though, on the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade – the Supreme Court decision that struck down nearly all state bans and restrictions on abortion — it seems somehow appropriate to discuss the matter.

First up, is there anyone who is willing to argue that Roe v. Wade is a well-written decision? Regardless of one’s position on the issue, it’s a mess. It invented entire legal concepts to back up its decision, and shows every sign of backwards reasoning — coming up with the decision on the case, then working from there to find some rationale to justify it. Other Supreme Court rulings have been just plain wrong-headed — Plessy v. Ferguson comes to mind — but they were usually based on existing laws and a careful study of the Constitution. Not here, though — Justice Blackmun found an implied right to privacy within the 9th and 14th Amendment, and declared that abortion fell in there somewhere.

It does seem appropriate, and I agree that it is a legal mess. The legal side is something I hadn't really thought about until I happened upon Roe V Wade - The Unconstitutional Decision. I not only recommend reading it, I also recommend revisiting it on occasion. I have quoted several paragraphs from the article here:

First, it would seem apparent that the unborn was not specifically mentioned at the time because the framers of the Constitution did not have adequate medical knowledge to know what we do now about the biology of the unborn; or, they assumed that it would be clear that the unborn was covered, since they didn't deem it necessary to specify that each stage of a person's development was constitutionally protected. The Court seemed perfectly content to ignore these very real possibilities, and placed the liberty of the woman above the unborn's right to live.

Secondly, The Ninth Amendment, which the Court used to justify their position in Griswold, ironically, directly contradicts this decision. As discussed earlier, the Ninth Amendment states that "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The word retain, designates that the rights expressly guaranteed by the constitutional text should not be interpreted so as to deny rights not specified, but that preexisted in the Constitution. One would assume that the Court would have questioned whether the "right" to terminate a pregnancy would "deny or disparage" a right "retained" by the people. Had the Court questioned this, its distinction between "potential" and "full" human life would have been seen as an obvious violation of the right to life.

The right to life? Yes, the right to life - ever heard of that? It's one of those unalienable rights that's mentioned in the nation's charter, the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence states that "all men are created equal" and are endowed by their Creator with the certain unalienable rights, one being the right to life. The Declaration is clear that this right belongs equally to all human beings. Thus, under this definition of the right to life, there can be no distinction based upon whether human life is "potential" or full. Yet, that is the core distinction of Roe v Wade, and it directly contradicts the right to life retained by the people according to the Ninth Amendment! So ironically, the Ninth Amendment was used to justify a newly found, unmentioned right to privacy that magically extends to the right to abort, when in fact, denying the unborn rights based on the fact that the unborn is inside, rather than outside the womb, contradicts the Ninth Amendment! In addition, the Court used the Ninth Amendment to justify this unmentioned right to privacy, yet then turned around and denied the unborn rights because the unborn child was not specifically mentioned! So how can we say that we have a constitutional right to privacy that extends to abortion even though it is not mentioned in the Constitution, and then turn around and deny rights to another human because the unborn wasn't specifically mentioned!? Roe actually extended this nonexistent right, saying the 14th amendment went even further than the Bill of Rights.

(Reminder to read the whole thing.)

Ridden with contradictions and highly debatable constitutional decisions, I hope that one day Roe v Wade is chalked up, just like Dred Scott v Sanford, as one of the grievous errors of the Supreme Court, and overturned. Until then, it seems as if the discrimination will continue against those who are unable speak for themselves - the type of discrimination the Constitution should fight against, not justify.

I find myself in very much agreement with the arguments presented above. In addition, I remember not long ago having happened upon “Right to life” vs. “License to kill”: A Libertarian Case for the Pro-Life Position. This article is well worth visiting in full as well. My thoughts on abortion are generally shared there in the mix of the last two linked articles.

Update: One more link for good measure: Why Roe v. Wade Needs to be Overturned.

Odds and Ends

RedState: America’s First African-American (Acting) President brought to my attention this bit of trivia:

The Volokh Conspiracy relays the legal analysis of one Professor Ken Katkin, who wonders in print who was president betwen the time President Bush’s term expired at noon on Tuesday, and President Obama took the oath of office late at 12:04. Its a thought experiment more than anything, but its a fun one.

Skipping ahead a bit...

(11) Accordingly, from 12:00 noon until 12:01 p.m. (when Vice President Biden took the oath of office and became Vice President), Condoleeza Rice was momentarily the Acting President of the United States, our first African-American President.

Congratulations, Condoleezza Rice, our first African-American (Acting) President, and first female president too! Which, of course, makes President Barack Obama our second black President.

Libertarian Republican: Sarah Palin: Ever the optimist, her hearts in the right place, but... I have to admire her persistent optimism.

iowahawk: Hope. Change. Apocalyptic Garbage Blizzards. Damn environmentalists.

Moonbattery: Hitler on Hollyweirdo Pledge of Fealty to Obama. Also, What Obamunists Want of Their God:

7. Ban private health insurance.
6. Revoke the Bush tax cuts, plunging us farther into recession.
5. Permanently close facilities to incarcerate bloodthirsty terrorists who are trying to kill us.
4. Waste still more fortunes on light rail boondoggles.
3. Stop teaching abstinence and train children how to fornicate.
2. Become the "greenest" country in the world, despite the totalitarian measures this would require and the economic collapse it would cause.
1. End marijuana prohibition.

American Thinker: The smoker-in-chief -- I've got no problem with that, maybe smokers will regain a shred of dignity.

Ace continues to make me laugh at titles like these:

• I Didn't See This Coming: WhiteHouse.Gov Says That If Iran Continues to Seek Bomb in Face of Tough Diplomacy, Obama Will Immediately... Step Up His Tough Diplomacy


• Geithner: I Take Full Responsibility for the Mistakes TurboTax Made (which brings up a nagging question about Geithner)

Here are some interesting observations from The Patriot Room: A Conservative’s View of Gandhi’s 7 Blunders.

Obama Tipping His Hand to the Military?

LGF notes that Obama Snubs Medal of Honor Ball:

Another milestone for our new President: he’s the first President in 56 years to snub the American Legion’s “Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball.”

The American Legion sponsors the ball, which recognizes recipients of Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award. It started in 1953 for President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s first inauguration.

Event co-sponsors include 13 other veterans service organizations, among them the Military Order of the Purple Heart and the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

DrewM has a few words on this as well:

No time for Medal of Honor and Purple Heart recipients or paralyzed vets? Yeah, honeymoon...over.

Obama did manage to make it to the Commander in Chief's Ball which was a good thing. Of course in 2005 George W. Bush managed to find time to make it to both balls.

Is this a sign of the respect our military can expect from President Obama?

Update: Whoops! Missed a post at BlackFive, where other inauguration balls that Obama did attend were pointed out. Priorities, I guess.