Obama An Appeaser? How Dare You

by Mark Steyn - May 17th, 2008 - Orange County Register

"That's enough. That – that's a show of disrespect to me."

That was Barack Obama, a couple of weeks back, explaining why he was casting the Rev. Jeremiah Wright into outer darkness. It's one thing to wallow in "adolescent grandiosity" (as Scott Johnson of the Powerline Web site called it) when it's a family dispute between you and your pastor of 20 years. It's quite another to do so when it's the 60th anniversary celebrations of one of America's closest allies.

President Bush was in Israel the other day and gave a speech to the Knesset. Its perspective was summed up by his closing anecdote – a departing British officer in May 1948 handing the iron bar to the Zion Gate to a trembling rabbi and telling him it was the first time in 18 centuries that a key to the gates of the Jerusalem was in the hands of a Jew. In other words, it was a big-picture speech, referencing the Holocaust, the pogroms, Masada – and the challenges that lie ahead. Sen. Obama was not mentioned in the text. No Democrat was mentioned, save for President Truman, in the context of his recognition of the new state of Israel when it was a mere 11 minutes old.

Nonetheless, Barack Obama decided that the president's speech was really about him, and he didn't care for it. He didn't put it quite as bluntly as he did with the Rev. Wright, but the message was the same: "That's enough. That's a show of disrespect to me." And, taking their cue from the soon-to-be nominee's weirdly petty narcissism, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Joe Biden and Co. piled on to deplore Bush's outrageous, unacceptable, unpresidential, outrageously unacceptable and unacceptably unpresidential behavior.

Honestly. What a bunch of self-absorbed ninnies.

The 1930s-era senator whom Bush quoted in his speech as saying, "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided," was Sen. William Borah -- a Republican. If Bush is ridiculing a Republican for being an appeaser, why are Democrats so defensive?

"Now, that's exactly the kind of appalling attack that's divided our country and that alienates us from the world," Obama said.

"And that's why we need change in Washington. That's part of the reason why I'm running for president of the United States of America." What reason is that Barack, so we can be proud of appeaasers?

"I'm a strong believer in civility and I'm a strong believer in a bipartisan foreign policy, but that cause is not served with dishonest, divisive attacks of the sort that we've seen out of George Bush and John McCain over the last couple days."

Divisive? I will tell you who is being divisive. The LIAR Barack Obama. George Bush never attacked him. Obama's claim that he did is the lie. Obama went on to say, "They aren't telling you the truth. They are trying to fool you and scare you because they can't win a foreign policy debate on the merits. But it's not going to work. Not this time, not this year."

I keep saying that Barack Obama is a socialist, and certainly with this attack he is practicing the standard socialist technique of telling the BIG LIE. It has already been accepted as "truth" by the MSM that Bush attacked Obama. It is obvious that Obama and his campaign are trying to get the discussion about why we are at war behind them early in the campaign. That way they can campaign on their strengths towards the end. They were successful in diverting the discussion from Obama's lies about what Bush said to the discussion of appeasement and Obama's insistence that he is not an appeaser. Obama made a lot of progress in confusing the issue and defusing it. If this campaign goes like this we will shortly have our second socialist President. I predict that the economic consequences of Obama will be as severe as the consequences of the first socialist President, Carter.

The GOP Must Stand for Something

by Karl Rove - May 15th, 2008 - Wall Street Journal

Republicans received a hard shot in Mississippi. Greg Davis (for whom I campaigned and who was a well-qualified candidate) narrowly lost a special congressional election in a district President George W. Bush carried four years ago with 62% of the vote. Democrats pulled off the win by smartly nominating a conservative, Travis Childers, from a rural swing part of the district who disavowed Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and hit Mr. Davis from the right.

This blow to the GOP came after two other special congressional election losses in recent months. Republicans lost former House Speaker Denny Hastert's Illinois seat and Rep. Richard Baker's Louisiana seat.

George W. Bush, Karl Rove and Dennis Hastert have destroyed the Republican Party. It is the height of arrogance for this populist political consultant, the primary architect of Republican destruction, to talk about this problem as if he did not cause it.

No one knows what the Republican Party stands for any more. Newt Gingrich, a populist like Rove, helped to defend the liberal Walter Jones here in North Carolina. Jones was helped to secure his re-election by evangelical support. Evangelicals embraced Jones constant bragging about his Christianity, even as he voted with the liberals to abandon the Iraq battlefield and bring our troops home in defeat.

Evangelicals are the same group who embraced the socialist Mike Huckabee and worked hard to defeat Mitt Romney, not based on his policies, but based on hatred for Mormons. Evangelicals consider Mormons a cult. There is more hate for Mormons than hate for Islamo-fascists among evangelicals.

Travis Childers of Mississippi will be like Heath Shuler of North Carolina. He campaigns as a conservative. However that is all talk. He will vote as a liberal in Washington and his constituents will still send him back.

The Republican Party is in the process of imploding. For those who recognize the anti-American underpinnings of Barack Obama, it is extremely discouraging to realize, no campaign against him will be successful as long as the Republican Party is so fractured.

As a blogger on Lucianne noted, "W is more worried about polar bears than the two border guards rotting in jail." On most of the conservative blogs what is written is anger at the party about one issue or another. What you realize though is that it is the conservative bloggers who have given up on our Representative Democracy. Conservative bloggers take the position that you must agree with them 100% or they will abandon you. And they have.

Various flavors of conservative, religious conservatives who demand adherence to their position on abortion, cultural conservatives who demand adherence to their position on closed borders, patriot conservatives who demand adherence to their position on defending America, fiscal conservatives who demand adherence to their position on capital gains taxation, social conservatives who demand adherence to their position on gay marriage, rational conservatives who demand adherence to their position rejecting global warming, traditional conservatives who demand adherence to their position opposing earmarks, and so on ad infinitum. Each fraction of the conservative movement has some part of the Republican constituency that they hate as much as they hate socialists, progressives, Marxists . . . and moderates who will tolerate anything. Each in their own way have defined some part of the Republican Party they demean as RINOS. That is the imprecise label affixed to their enemies.

They have stopped supporting the party with money and, in many cases, with their votes. Some have even reached a point where they do not understand the reason Parties are so important to our nation succeeding. People cannot and will not spend the time to understand where someone stands on all the issues. Parties allow for a governing majority to be formed.

Today, the only governing majority that is holding together is the greed and tyranny based socialists of the Democrat Party. All the various factions of the Republican Party have conceded the day to their worst enemies, people who oppose them on every important issue, not just one or two. The Republican Party will not be an effective agent in this nation until it reforms with people who accept some compromise for the greater good.

Don’t Freak Out

Interview with Bjørn Lomborg - May 14th, 2008 - National Review Online

We need to “cool our conversation, rein in the exaggerations, and start focusing where we can do the most good.” So Bjørn Lomborg writes in his recent book, Cool It!: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming. This Danish statistician and “skeptical environmentalist” (the title of his earlier book) was recently named one of the “50 people who could save the planet” by the Guardian. Impatient with the overheated rhetoric and hyper-pessimism of conventional climate politics, Lomborg takes a cold, hard look at the empirical facts, and weighs the costs and benefits of global warming (which he does not deny) and the policy solutions advanced to restrain it. His recommendation: Calm down. In an interview with National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez today, Lomborg offers that same advice to Senator John McCain, while throwing some cold water on the Republican’s climate-change speech in Oregon this week. “Wishful thinking is not sound public policy,” Lomborg tells NRO.

It is clear that any rational assessment of what we should do about "global warming" needs to include how to best deal with the consequences if it is real. How to deal effectively with any needed consequences is what has been lost in the dialog. Many people who think man is causing global warming still recognize that the solutions being proposed are ridiculous and lack perspective.

It is clear the Republican Presidential candidate is not maintaining any perspective at all.

John McCain’s daughter recently told GQ magazine that her dad is “freaked out” by climate change.

I think freaking out is the worst thing that any of us can do. There’s a lot of hysteria about this problem, which means that we don’t look at the full picture.

For example, McCain mentions that global warming means that there’ll be more heat-waves which will claim lives. That is correct. But it’s also true that rising temperatures will reduce the number of cold spells. And cold is far deadlier than heat. According to the first complete peer-reviewed survey of climate change’s health effects, global warming [assuming it is even true] will actually save lives. It’s estimated that by 2050, global warming will cause almost 400,000 more heat-related deaths each year. But at the same time, 1.8 million fewer people will die from cold.

When we get “freaked out,” we don’t see the big picture.

It is frustrating to many of us who disagree with the whole idea that man is causing global warming, that the evidence of the Renaissance period is not given more recognition. We have not yet reached the temperatures of that period of global warming and the Renaissance was a great time for mankind. Food production was way up as a result of the warming across the world. Why can more people not see that if global warming was good back then, it is not likely to be the disaster the chicken little morons are predicting?

As an example, we can use malaria, one of the disaster predictions of the global warming hysterics. Forget for a moment that intelligent use of DDT would have saved millions and millions of lives with no ecological damage if instead of banning it we had simply improved its intelligent use in focusing on just malaria.

The same attitude is the problem with trying to save people from malaria by controlling CO2. As Bjørn Lomborg notes:

But when you look at the facts, you find that climate-change policies are a very poor way of dealing with these sorts of problems.

Compare the spending dollar-for-dollar. With malaria, for every time we could save one person from malaria through climate change CO2 cuts, we could — simply by spending the same amount of money on actual malaria policies like bednets and therapies — save 36,000 people. It’s an astonishing fact but also a very powerful one: the better option is obvious.

So you can save 36,000 times as many people by dealing with global warming intelligently, instead of the stupid way proposed by Al Gore.

Can you see now why those of us who are unpersuaded that global warming is even real are so angry about the current state of the dialog? The global warming fanatics are about to destroy our world for nothing. As noted, the Al Gore solution will only give us a 5 years delay over the next hundred years when there are better solutions. Why would such a hopeless delay justify the insane costs?

At least Bjørn Lomborg is one global warming believer who is not also a raving lunatic.

The Assimilation Factor

by Howard Husock - May 13th, 2008 - The New York Sun

A hundred years ago, there was a pro-assimilation movement led by the nation’s cultural elite. Across the country, more than 400 settlement houses — from New York’s Henry Street to Chicago’s Hull House — were established. Their mission, taken up by the privileged of that era, included Americanization of newcomers. Indeed, the Pledge of Allegiance, first published in 1892, was written as a primer of America’s values just when immigration was hitting its peak.

Today, the pledge is regarded as chauvinistic, particularly by those who should be leading the assimilation effort. We can’t bemoan low levels of immigrant assimilation if 21st century America’s most fortunate lack the cultural self-confidence to promote it.

It is true. America is in the process of losing on so many fronts because so many of our most successful feel guilt and self hatred, not pride, for their success and the success of our nation. Compare Teddy Roosevelt's attitude (shown below) to the attitude of the socialist, pacifist, group grievance dominated Democrat Party of Barack Obama.

Even more dramatic, compare the whining about our economy with its current reality. We have the lowest unemployment of any major society on earth. We are at all time highs in home ownership. Our poor are better off than the middle class in almost every other nation with 75% owning their cars. Yet all we can focus on is the "possibility" that it might not keep going up at a "good enough" rate.

We have had growth, even though weak, for the last two quarters. Nevertheless our nation is now whining about the fact that it is not good enough. Chicken little politicians are claiming that it is the fault of the party that opposed the major causes of economic weakness. The cause is high energy prices. For years Democrat dominated energy policy has been based on the hypothesis that there is global warming and man is causing it, or that environmental requirements demand we must not drill for oil. Therefore we have committed to not drilling for oil in our nation, even though any rational analysis proves that only if all nations stop drilling could it make any difference. NONE of the rest of the world who have oil have stopped. Therefore our not drilling is useless. I repeat, NOT DRILLING FOR OIL IS USELESS.

In addition, it is Democrat dominated policy that has left our assimilation of immigrants in shambles and our borders open to illegal foreign invasion. No country in history has been as stupidly ruled as the Pelosi-Reid dominated America has been ruled.

How have these two been allowed to persuade the country that their control of our legislature still leaves them blameless for the problems they have caused?

How Times Have Changed

On immigrants -- Theodore Roosevelt 1907

In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace , or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, [like the hyphenated African-American? or Hispanic-American?] isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

This used to be the liberal view back before liberals became anti-American and anti free enterprise.

What Do I See As Important?

In the aftermath of this year's primary battles, I have spent the last couple of days thinking about what is important for our nation in moving forward. Milestones are always an important time to regain perspective. Certainly I was not pleased with what happened in the primaries and I believe it is important to understand why things are not going well for my State and Nation.

I believe in democratic selection of our representatives. However it concerns me that here in North Carolina, the Democrat Party has used its power to overturn the reality that Republicans get the most votes. They have so gerrymandered legislative districts that Democrats control government despite losing the elections. How is that democracy? That, along with the abandonment of party principals by Republican leadership in Washington, has left Republicans dispirited. This year, Republican voters stayed home in droves. We are coming closer and closer to one party rule in America . . . and that party is socialist.

In response to the primary results, these are a few of my thoughts on what our nation needs to focus on for the future.

I still believe that education is the most important issue, long term, for our nation to deal wih. Our kids are getting inconsistent education results that are politically biased. A few wealthy and some middle class children are getting a good education. Most poor kids and some middle class are getting a terrible education. The result is a widening job success gap that robs our nation of its heritage of equality. However even the best educated in our nation are coming out of our schools ignorant of some of the key philosophies they need to deal with life successfully. Socialism has always been around in the world. Socialism is not new, other than by name, and it has always failed to deliver national wealth. Today, the vast majority of our teachers believe in socialism anyway. Our schools have been politicized beyond belief into secular institutions that advocate a failed economic system while expressing hostility to our Judeo-Christian roots. As a result our children have become blase about this tyranny to the point that the young, even in the Republican Party, see nothing wrong with socialism. This may well be the undoing of our nation.

Short term, there is no issue more important than energy. We have a quasi religion going around insisting that man is causing global warming, or global cooling, or climate change, or something . . . They can't make up their minds. (Some of their "Wild Predictions" here.) However enviro-extremists (Al Gore in their lead) are sure that the solution is to give them the political power to run our nation. The want to stop us from using cheap energy, specifically petroleum and nuclear. They use fear of DISASTER as the motivation to let them take control with their chicken little predictions.

However the only disaster is if they are given control. Man is not causing global warming. Man's contributions to greenhouse gases is trivial. Greenhouse gases have gone up significantly the last 10 years while the temperatures have remained stable. This is in complete contradiction to all the enviro-extremist temperature models that claim man is causing the Earth to get warmer. How many times do these people have to get it wrong before their lunacy is recognized and accepted? We need energy and it needs to be the least expensive energy possible. We must abandon the idiocy of biofuels that is driving world food prices up and resulting in starvation in poor countries. (Why is his support for biofuels not reason enough to denounce Al Gore?) Alternative energy has value only to the extent it is cost effective in keeping air pollution under control. Start drilling now. Start building nuclear power plants now.

Protecting our borders has to be the most compelling long term and short term fight we face. Our culture is under attack from the failed economies of Hispanic nations to the South. They have two motivations to invade us. One is economic. The other is cultural. In both cases the result is an unofficial invasion that is supported by governments to the South. Pretending these governments are not actively, if covertly, supporting the invasion is myopic. These Hispanic nations, with Mexico at the front, believe that their country's failures are our fault because 150 years ago the expansion of our nation resulted in areas, that were ruled by Spain at the time, to become part of our nation. This has been interpreted as "stealing" these areas from nations that did not come into existence until later. Radical Islam, which I call Islamo-fascism, is using us as the primary focus of their goal to become rulers of the world under a restored Caliphate. We are their bogeyman because we are currently the strongest nation on earth and they feel buying oil form the rulers of their nations make us responsible for their flaws. The two cultural invasions, along with the global socialist movement to subvert free enterprise, have left America in a position of vulnerability. We are under attack and we better start to resist all three global movements. Otherwise, like Rome, we will cease to exist.

Court corruption will destroy our nation if Judges continue using the pretense they have found hidden rights in the Constitution to rule as they wish to exempt certain issues from the legislative process. Roe v. Wade is critical to our nation, not because it has resulted in clear errors such as "partial birth abortion", but because it institutionalized "the rule of judges". This process, "the rule of judges", is subverting respect for the courts. "The rule of law" (and respect for it) is critical to survival of a representative democracy such as ours. When the people do not believe they can get justice from government, they work to subvert the way government works in order to get the justice they expect. Democrats are arguing that undoing their politicizing of the courts is politicizing the courts. This is a bizarre argument.

The basis of the power of America is individual freedom. However the problems we are currently facing are aggravated by the reality that individual freedom is being suppressed in favor of some supposedly greater good. When America is no longer free, she will no longer be a great nation. It is likely to result in the disintegration of our nation in the process too.

Is that our future?

Fred Smith Concession Speech

I have known Fred Smith for 3 years and have been a supporter since I met him. He is a good man. Lorie Byrd filmed his concession speech and has made it available for those of you who wanted to know how Fred handled the loss. I don't think you will be surprised, that he handled it with dignity.






Best wishes to Fred and his family.

Why The Dems Could Lose

by Steve and Cokie Roberts - May 6th, 2008 - Jewish World Review

Since Feb. 19, seven states have voted. Clinton has won four — Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island —building up a popular-vote margin of 483,000. Yet her total gain in delegates was exactly five. In Texas, she won by more than 100,000 votes, but because of that state's ridiculous rules, she actually came out five delegates behind.

Last night was a sad night for me. I was more pleased from a moral perspective with the results of the Democrat election than I was with Republican voting here in North Carolina. My main example? Rush Limbaugh is committing moral suicide with his "chaos" program to prolong the Democrat primary between Clinton and Obama. I thought Ronald Reagan taught us a lesson. Take the moral high ground and ultimately we win. How is it moral for Republicans to be sabotaging the primary of the Democrat Party? I am glad the attempt to spoil the Democrat selection process so clearly failed.

As far as messing up their process, it is noted by Steve and Cokie, the Democrats seem intent on doing themselves in without our help anyway. Because they are the party of government, they are really good at using anecdotal evidence to smear Republicans. We have handed them a doozy with "chaos". Even though it clearly had no impact, they will be using the unfairness of "chaos" to motivate and GOTV against us for years. Is this truly helpful?

As far as Republican voting, last night we allowed the selection of Republican candidates to be controlled by political consultants and advertising tricks. Pat McCrory, a late entry Gubernatorial candidate backed by party insiders, won the Governors contest by running massive ads against a man who had displayed a solid commitment to the principals of the party. Additional advertising by Bill Graham, a man who could not win the contest, swung last minute deciders to his camp in a hopeless cause also. How can we allow a man like Pat McCrory who has well over a decade of governing experience proving he does not share our values to defeat a man like Fred Smith who has shown he shares our values? Simple. Political consultants and their smear ads are influencing Republican primaries more than the principals of our movement. This does not bode well for the future of our party or the libertarian-conservative movement that Ronald Reagan espoused.

That was also proved when Republicans allowed John Tyson, a conservative Judge, to be defeated by TWO liberal Democrat Judges. In the fall, the seat will be contested by two DEMOCRATS.

Another example of the same insanity, the corrupt traitor who sabotaged Republican control of congress here in NC a few years back was elected by Republicans to be our candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction. Are Republican voters insane? Why and how can this man get elected to anything with Republican votes?

Even worse, Republicans will not open up their check book and back candidates of moral commitment to the overall principals of the party. Instead, contributions are based on single issue constituencies. That is for the paltry contributions we do provide. Democrats out raise Republicans around 4 to 1. Our process for deciding to contribute? Do you adhere exactly to the abortion agenda of the pro-life groups? Do you adhere exactly to the close the borders groups? This is the only basis for Republican contributions, and again as noted, they are paltry.

This has resulted in the Democrat candidates gaining a huge advantage. This money advantage wins a great number of races for Democrats, continuing the control of government that allows them to practice corrupt politics at will.

The article by the two Roberts quoted from above is another example in a long line of articles that really makes it clear, for Democrats, the party of government, it is all about controlling government. Republicans seem to make it pretty clear, they are not willing to do anything to end that control.

I am not sure I agree with Steve and Cokie's fears. The Dems will not lose if John McCain wins. He is closer to the Democrat Party principals than he is to Republican Party principals anyway. Republicans are losing.

Stupidity Foils The Black Prince

by Paul Sheehan - May 5th, 2008 - The Sydney Herald

This column is about stupid black men, a sub-group now in the process of undermining the first ever realistic and galvanising tilt for the White House by an African-American.

Such a statement could not be made by someone here in America without there being an immediate poltically correct assault on the person denouncing them as racist. They would be driven from public life. The rest of this article would never be read. The race baiting hate mongers of the Democrat Party would make sure the point of the article would be subsumed in a tidal wave of denuciation.

What is the article about? It lists comments by conservative blacks talking about the reality of the Obama phenomenon. They are comments that blacks and whites in America need to be discussing intelligently. Instead, the comments are ignored, and the dialog is dominated by people such as Howard Dean who loudly proclaims that to even bring up the names of left wing fanatics such as Jermiah Wright, or Bill Ayers, or Rashid Khalidi, or corrupt enablers such as Tony Rezko, constitutes race baiting. Even if you accuse Obama of being a socialist, his defenders insist that charge is race baiting.

That is the reality of political dialog in America today. Barack Obama is immune from the same open dialog that everyone else running for President is subject to.

This article is a must read for anyone who truly wants to understand, not just the current political campaign, but the state of race relations in America today. You will read intelligent voices rarely permitted to be heard by our MSM.

The Opinionator

Opinion - May 3rd, 2008 - National Post (Canada)

"Global warming is indusputably caused by man" - William Connelley

Wikipedia is full of rules that editors are supposed to follow, as well as a code of civility. Those rules and codes don't apply to [William] Connolley, or to those he favours.

"Peiser's crap shouldn't be in here," Connolley wrote several weeks ago, in berating a Wikipedian colleague during an "edit war," as they're called. In such a war, rival sides change the content of a Wikipedia page from one competing version to another, often with bewildering speed. (Two people, landing on the same page seconds apart, might obtain entirely different information.)

In the Peiser case, a Wikipedian stopped a prolonged war by freezing a continually changing page, to prevent more alterations until the dispute was settled. As occurs on such occasions, readers are alerted that Wikipedians are warring over the page, and that Wikipedia was not endorsing the version of the page that had been frozen. To Connolley's chagrin, however, the version that was frozen cast doubt on claims of a consensus on climate change. Although this was done within Wikipedia rules, Connolley intervened to revert the page and ensure Wikipedia readers saw only what he wanted them to see.

Peiser is Benny Peiser, a distinguished U.K. scientist who had convincingly refuted a study by Naomi Oreskes that claimed to have found no scientific papers at odds with the conventional wisdom on climate change. The Oreskes study -- cited by Al Gore in his film, An Inconvenient Truth -- is an article of faith to many global warming doomsayers and guarded from criticism by Connolley et al.

Peiser and other critics of Oreskes's study, meanwhile, get demeaned.

Global warming fanatics like Connolley ignore that most responsible scientists DO NOT accept the global warming hysteria. Because the MSM are addicted to politically biased Wikipedia, Connolley has a great deal to do with the impression by most people that there is a consensus.

The truth is that global warming is highly suspect, and the case for man being the cause has no credibility at all.

Bill (O'Reilly), Hillary Rodham Clinton, And The "Problem" Of Human Freedom

by Austin Hill - May 4th, 2008 - Townhall.com

Most telling, in my view, was his line of questioning - - and her answers - - regarding America's energy policy, and her plans to change it. O’Reilly launched into this subject noting that Hillary has recently proposed a suspension of the federal gas tax, and called her proposal the “same old politician stuff” because the Democratic Party has opposed ANWR drilling, and because Hillary herself has voted seven times in the Senate to oppose nuclear energy.

After some back and forth during which Clinton would only blame “we, the people” - - and of course, “corporate America” for the problem, we finally get to her answers on what to do about the energy crisis. In Hillary's view, refusal to drill for oil or build nuclear reactors is not the problem. People driving SUVs and charging what the market will bear for the limited supply of oil is the problem. Her solution.

“Well,” Mrs. Clinton responded. “Here's what I'm going to do, and I've said this very clearly. In the short term, I do want a gas tax holiday, but to pay for it by putting a windfall profits tax on the oil companies…”

O’Reilly challenged Mrs. Clinton on what she meant by taxing the “windfall profits” of oil companies. After dodging some more, she finally stated that she wants to “set a baseline” (presumably she means some level of profits that she believes is “okay”), and when oil companies achieve beyond that baseline, then she intends to “tax the profits.”

From here, Mrs. Clinton went on to disclose her intention to “take-on OPEC” (O’Reilly assured her that, being in Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, the OPEC bosses “don’t care what you say”), and explained that she will “change the law” so American citizens can file anti-trust actions against OPEC, as well.

When O’Reilly noted that her plans to “take action” against OPEC would likely cause oil prices to rise even further, Mrs. Clinton insisted that “we're not going to be sitting idly by acting, you know, like we can just get away with this. We've got to change the way we behave, the way we drive….”

Please note; HIllary Clinton has no intention of allowing us to drill for oil or build nuclear power stations. She plans to make you drive smaller cars shorter distances. The problem is not that the Democrat Party has banned drilling for oil and building nuclear electic facitilities. The problem, to the Democrats, is that Americans will not be "responsibile".

You are just too free to choose the type of vehicle you want and drive whenever you feel like it. That is what has to change . . . as far as Clinton and the Democrats are concerned.

Talk about tyranny.

London Falls . . .

. . . as Gordon Brown bloodied in May Day election massacre.

by Philip Webster - May 3rd, 2008 - London Times

Boris Johnson sealed a nightmarish first electoral test for Gordon Brown, surging to a hugely symbolic victory for the Conservatives in London.

Mr Johnson claimed the largest prize of a triumphant day for David Cameron by ending Ken Livingstone’s eight-year reign as London Mayor. He said that he did not believe that his victory meant that London was a Conservative city, but pledged to work “flat out” to earn the trust of those who doubted his capability and commitment to the job.

Mr Livingstone, fighting back tears, said that the fault for his defeat was entirely his own.

Mr Brown suffered humilation across the country as the party lost an astonishing 331 seats. It was Labour’s worst election night for 40 years, leaving its local government and campaigning base severely weakened and ministers fearing for their survival at the next general election.

Think there is no prejudice shown by the staff of the London Times, calling an election victory by conservatives, a "massacre"?

The way politics works I don't think that the socialists in the Labor Party of England are really headed for the dustbin of history, but it is interesting how again and again socialist parties around the world are regularly thrown out of office when they grind their economy into failure.

Then again, what else does anyone expect socialists to do but destroy the economy?

Democrats here in America keep insisting that their anti-American socialist compatriots in other countries all hate America. Now however, we have had several years of anti-American governments being thrown out by their voters and replaced with people who appreciate America. Amazingly, Al Gore still talks daily about gaining the respect of nations . . . who have thrown out the leaders he seeks respect from and replaced them with people who support our efforts. Since the 2004 elections the people in Germany, Canada, France, Italy and now the United Kingdom have all switched their governments to pro-American.

The reality is that there is a global socialist movement and the leaders of the American Democrat Party are total adherents to this movement. They think that socialism is winning and are flabbergasted when losses to conservatives, here or abroad, prove that the world has not yet abandoned the concepts of free enterprise and individual freedom.

A Silver Coating In The Fight Against Microbes

by Monica Heger - May 2nd, 2008 - Scientific America

A new technique in paint making could soon make almost any surface germfree. Researchers have made paint that is embedded with silver nanoparticles known for their ability to kill bacteria and other microbes, in the hope that hospitals will coat their walls and countertops to fight infection.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than one million people a year contract bacterial infections in hospitals. Silver itself is an excellent bacteria fighter, and in nanoparticle form it is even more potent at killing microorganisms. So far it has not shown any adverse effects in humans.

Some scientists, however, are concerned that silver nanoparticles may not be as harmless as they appear.

In all the time that I have been reading Scientific America and blogging, I think this is the first article that I have posted from that great magazine. In any event I am posting this one because of the lack in the article of any mention of what is the most obvious use for this new material. If it really resists bacteria as described, why would the very first use of it not be for door handles, door knobs, toilet flushing handles, handles on hot and cold water faucets and handles on food dishes that get passed around our family tables? The greatest transfer of disease from one human to another is by these necessary contact points. It could eliminate most colds and flu.

Interesting article about something that could make a real difference in the transmission of disease.

Obama's Changing Moral Equivalence

by Charles Krauthammer - May 2nd, 2008 - Townhall.com

Guess it's time to disown Granny, if Obama's famous Philadelphia "race" speech is to be believed. Of course, the speech was not just believed. It was hailed, celebrated, canonized as the greatest pronouncement on race in America since Lincoln at Cooper Union. A New York Times columnist said it "should be required reading in classrooms across the country." College seniors and first-graders, suggested the excitable Chris Matthews.

Apparently there's been a curriculum change. On Tuesday, the good senator begged to extend and revise his previous remarks on race. Moral equivalence between Grandma and Wright is now, as the Nixon administration used to say, inoperative.

One of the more intriguing issues that has been getting press over the last few days has been the argument about whether Obama has been adequately identified as extreme. The North Carolina Republican Party felt it had sound justification and felt they could therefore call two NC Democrat politicians who endorsed Obama extreme also. The issue played out over whether calling Obama extreme was an issue of race or not.

My own reaction was that John McCain is still tone deaf. He looked at an ad about two NC politicians and could see nothing but the impact on his race for President. I guess that is in line with McCain's blindness about the issue of free speech. He saw stopping free speech as an issue about his right to run for office without other people interfering with his campaign message. He therefore came down on abandoning free speech in favor of his right to incumbency. On the issue of the NC ad he called the NC GOP racist. I guess he probably thinks Charles Krauthammer is a racist too. I think the Krauthammer article is a brilliant analysis of the evidence against Obama for his dishonesty on the issue.

What is interesting is that the issue of whether Obama is post racial or not has been festering out of the public eye for some time. Many non-mainstream newpapers covered it for more than a year before the Wright issue burst onto the main stream media stage. Now it is dominating coverage.

Another, far more damaging issue has been festering for some time now as well. Barack Obama calls Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn Ayers, "respectable members of the political mainstream." This is according to Barrack Obama's own campaign web site.

"The Friends of Barack Obama" is a blog posting on Powerline that delves into the issue of how radical is Obama? It is a great listing of current extreme statements, made in the last year or two, by the two unreprentant and still radical extremists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn Ayers. They are not just quotes, but actual recordings of the two radicals making anti-American statements that have been unearthed by a radio station that has been researching the issues. Bill and Bernadine Ayers have actively supported Obama his entire political career. Though Obama claims they have no "relationship" but are "friendly", the two radicals hosted the first campaign fund raiser ever held for Obama, at a time when he was just getting into politics.

These two are clearly radical. Bernadine Dohrn Ayers recently called America "the monster". She has praised the Manson murders. Bill Ayers as recently as 2001 insisted that he did not do enough and he should have bombed America more. Just last year he insisted the war against Islamo-fascism was an "empire resurrected . . war without end" for a "new kind of jingoistic patriotism." Fighting Al Qaeda is "jingoistic patriotism"?

These are the two people that Barack Obama insists are "mainstream" America. According to Powerline Obama's "relationship with Ayers and Dohrn, like his relationship with spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright, raises important questions about Obama's own political beliefs." I agree.

Obama's mild demeanor does not really denote some who is "mainstream" as he calls the radical America hating Ayers couple. The mild demeanor hides his true feelings. Obama hangs around with too many people who hate America to be a patriot. He thinks hating America is "mainstream"? I disagree. I call that extreme and I do not trust him.

Democrats And The Killing Fields

by Arthur Hermann - May 1st, 2008 - The Wall Street Journal

After nearly two decades of devastating war and 58,000 American combat deaths, the U.S. left Southeast Asia. As the last helicopter lifted off from Saigon, the New York Times's Sydney Schanberg wrote an article with the title, "Indochina Without Americans: For Most, a Better Life." And the Times's columnist Anthony Lewis asked, "what future could possibly be more terrible than the reality" of a war that had cost so much in lives and treasure?

With the North Vietnamese Communists and the Khmer Rouge taking over, the world was about to find out.

At least 65,000 Vietnamese were murdered or shot after "liberation" – the equivalent in terms of Vietnam's population at the time, of killing three-quarters of a million people in today's U.S. The new communist regime ordered somewhere between one- third to one-half of South Vietnam's population to pass through its "re-education" camps, where perhaps as many as 250,000 died of disease, starvation, or were worked to death (the last inmates were not released until 1986).

That number does not include the thousands of "boat people" who tried to flee the totalitarian nightmare of communist Vietnam, and perished at sea.

Cambodia's fate was even worse. At least one and a half million innocent Cambodians were butchered or starved to death in the Khmer Rouge's killing fields and re-education camps, put to death by a fanatical regime that believed that anyone who wore eyeglasses must have "bourgeois intellectual tendencies" and be shot.

To this day I have a friend here in the Inner Banks who denies all of this. He is proud of having helped to drive us out of Vietnam and he insistes that none of this holocaust ever happened.

Please note, he does not try to argue that Democrats are not responsible. He denies that the holocaust in Southeast Asia happened.

Wonder why Republicans and Democrats can't seem to get along? I am confident this different view of reality is a major cause. No one who understands what happened in Vietnam can tolerate the anti-war, pacifist, appeaser mentality of Barack Obama. We consider it idiocy. The damage to the economies of this area are proof of the failed socialist concept. Except to socialists like Barack Obama. Obama thinks he will be a "uniter", but he starts with an expectation we will accept his insane belief in a socialist system that has never worked and a pacifist world view that is appallingly naive. How can I unite with someone who has no rational grasp of history?

I ask the same question of my friend and I get a blank stare.

Start Drilling

by Robert J. Samuelson - April 30th, 2008 - Washington Post

It may surprise Americans to discover that the United States is the third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits. These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. By government estimates, these areas may contain 25 billion to 30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion barrels of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 tcf of proven reserves).

What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity.

I could not help but be dispirited when the man I am supporting for Governor informed me that he believed we should keep bans on drilling in place and expand the biofuels idiocy that is starving people to death. The "sheer stupidity" assessment is right. However it astounds me how many otherwise bright people have accepted the argument that we must not drill for oil.

A footnote to the above article, though government estimates are that the areas blocked from exploration are equal to our current reserves, oil industry experts believe that the amount is nearly double that. Which means we could triple our own production, eliminating the need to import oil, if we would free our industry to drill. The writer of this article is right. START DRILLING.

Getting To Know John McCain

by Karl Rove - April 30th, 2008 - Wall Street Journal

. . . Col. Bud Day, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, fighter pilot, Vietnam POW and roommate of John McCain at the Hanoi Hilton.

[snip]

Mr. Day relayed to me one of the stories Americans should hear. It involves what happened to him after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war. When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, "I told you I would make you a cripple."

The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at "a goofy angle," as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.

But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in place.

Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complemented the treatment he'd gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.

There is absolutely no question that John McCain is a man of courage and integrity. He is a good man.

A little background. I find it interesting that this article is by Karl Rove. Rove is more responsible for the current shambles in the Republican Party than any other man alive. I believe he, more than any other man, led George Bush to embrace the socialism inherent in his "compassionate conservative" governing philosophy that has so violated the principles of the party. However George Bush is a good man personally. Karl Rove is a good man personally. They are smart. Yet they have misunderstood and failed to appreciate the ultimate tyranny that will transpire because of the long term consequences of their actions.

There can be no better candidate than John McCain to continue this legacy. As noted, John McCain is a good man. He is however, like George Bush, unwilling to appreciate that doing good things for short term gain can be evil in the long term. McCain is one of the authors of the McCain-Feingold act to destroy free speech in America. He is just as shortsighted on other key issues for our future, such as amnesty. However it will be necessary to support McCain in this election. The alternatives are worse. As Karl Rove's article indicates, there is much to admire about this man. However getting America back on a course that leads us away from our growing fondness for the evil of socialism will not happen on John McCain's watch.

Obama's Chickens Come Home To Roost

by Robert Tracinski - April 30th, 2008 - Real Clear Politics

To the National Press Club, Wright reiterated his claim that AIDS was created by the United States government as a racist plot to kill blacks; he explained that Obama's "distancing" himself from Wright was only a political calculation "based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls"; and he also repeated his praise for Louis Farrakhan--the anti-Semitic, quasi-fascist, dictator-loving leader of the Nation of Islam--as "one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century." This part of his message was reinforced by the entourage he brought with him to the event. The Washington Post explains that the audience included Marion Barry--the crack-smoking former mayor of Washington, DC--Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party, and Jamil Muhammad of the Nation of Islam. And adds: "a member of the head table, American Urban Radio's April Ryan, confirmed that Wright's security was provided by bodyguards from Farrakhan's Nation of Islam."

All of this is the polar opposite of the image Obama has projected to the world--except in one respect. Wright's main defense against criticism of his views was taken directly from Obama's March 18 speech on the subject of race in America. In this celebrated speech, Obama tried to make the Reverend Wright's views seem reasonable, to put him into an excusable "context"--and in doing so, he [Obama] is the one who unleashed Wright.

I am distressed at the direction this provocation seems to be taking. In trying to keep this socialist and pacifist amateur from becoming President, we are letting his naive embrace of the most racist elements of the black community tar the black community with an image that will hurt race relations for years. There are a huge number of black Americans who have resisted this element of their community and who are fighting for the American dream. How do we uphold the dream of Martin Luther King and continue to treat them as individuals when it is so clear that a large number in the black community are harboring feelings of hate for all whites? To date, no moderate blacks have walked away from the dream that Obama might be President and denounced his duplicity. He is still getting 90% support.

Are there really that few in the black community who understand the damage this is doing to their chances for King's dream to become reality? This is not good for America. This is unleashing the hate mongers on both sides.

Barack Obama, The Weather Underground, And The Spirit Of Revolution

by Sandy Rios - April 28th, 2008 - Townhall.com

My first memory of the impact of it all was when I was 13, sitting in my sister’s apartment, watching the evening news with Walter Cronkite. “103 American GIs killed today,” he intoned, as film of soldiers shooting Vietnamese rolled by. The nightly news always began that way … never a story of heroism or victory, just body bags and carnage as the anti-war media chose to report it.

Next was footage of Los Angeles burning, riots and looting, shootings on college campuses, all with flag burning as a backdrop. In the midst of it all, my sister’s Middle Eastern boyfriend gleefully shouted, “Come on America, destroy yourself!” I wanted to hit him. I tried to argue, but he mocked me. Because of my youth, I was no match for his vocabulary and knowledge. I felt inadequate to express the overpowering emotions of anger and rage. And pain. My beloved country, falling apart at the seams with a representative of one of its future enemies sitting right next to me, cheering it on. War vs. peace, communism vs. freedom, law vs. lawlessness, racism, anarchy and the future threat of radical Islam—all converged in that one room. And the passion that comes from love of country and all that is good began its deep roots in me.

Wow. This is a powerful article. The damage done to our country by revolutionary agents from the 60s is only exceeded by the insanity that we have tolerated in our Universities. A great number of these evil people, people who hate our nation, are today tenured professors and we treat them as honored citizens. The quote that is most enraging is the one by Bernadette Dohrn Ayers, unrepentant revolutionary, law professor and wife of the equally evil hater of America (and the couple who held the first fund raiser for the Presidential candidate Barrack Obama to get him in to politics). “We have extraordinary responsibility inside the heart of the monster,” she warned in 2007. “Guilty as sin and free as a bird,” boasted Ayers of her continuing hatred for America.