The 'We're Smart, You're Dumb' Principle

Reposted as history. Originally posted in April of 2005

The ugly truth is that Democrats habitually treat voters like children. It's the basis of their philosophy.

David Gelernter - April 29, 2005 - Los Angeles Times

For legislators to announce that getting a photo ID is too tricky for their constituents is downright amazing. Wouldn't you expect those constituents to say, "Drop dead! Stop treating us like morons!"?

This is an article that could not ever, ever, ever possibly show up in the pages of the Los Angeles Times ...... but it did. What in the world is happening? Since when does a Main Stream Media paper attack the democrats for insulting their supporters? Are democrats that far gone? Or has blogging got the MSM running scared?

Something weird is going on in the world. This year I have seen many articles like this in locations and in media that I would never have expected. I am amazed, but people are even attacking Times Magazine for their recent hatchet job article on Ann Coulter. Of course it doesn't help that Times used a picture of a counter anti-war protest by conservatives holding up sarcastic signs like "Liberating Iraqi Children from Tyranny - It's Costing too Much". Times Magazine mistakenly claimed it was anti-war protesters!

I guess the liberals at Times Magazine don't recognize sarcasm whether it is by Ann or by anyone else. The conservative group was delighted with the notoriety. Times Magazine has not been delighted with their mistake.

The greatest proof that democrats are out of touch is they cannot see how ridiculous some of their positions show them to be. An example is the ridiculous premise that people cannot be allowed school vouchers under the argument they can't be trusted to decide how their children are educated. How can any parent ever vote democratic again after they are told that?

Disinformation On Judges

Reposted as history. Originally posted in April of 2005

Thomas Sowell - April 26, 2005 - TownHall.com

The courts are the last hope for enacting the liberal agenda because liberals cannot get enough votes to control Congress or most state legislatures. Unelected judges can cut the voters out of the loop and decree liberal dogma as the law of the land.

If you listen to the Main Stream Media they clearly believe that they have defeated the Republicans. The 200 year history of giving judges an up or down vote has been subverted first by the liberal democrats politicizing the courts to get laws passed that they cannot get the people to support. Second, in the face of losing this recent power, they are abandoning the practice of giving judges a vote.

If all you listen to is the MSM democrats appear to be winning the public relations game by LYING repeatedly that they are not changing historical practice, and FALSELY claiming that it is the Republicans who are doing this.

Will they get away with it? Do the democrats really think the American people are that stupid? Thomas Sowell frames the issue in his usual easily readable style.

A Little Lady Who Started A Great War

by Mark Joseph - April 26th, 2006 - TownHall.com

As a responsible citizen I'm supposed to be outraged at the actions of Wenyi Wang, the Chinese woman who disrupted ceremonies honoring Chinese President Hu at the White House last week. To be sure, I do generally have a position against such outbursts at least in those places where a constitution guarantees the right to free speech and freedom to assemble. But when it comes to people who live under brutal regimes that suppress free expression, I find myself rooting for the shouters.

One of Ronald Reagan's favorite stories went like this: a Russian and an American were talking about their respective countries. The American was telling the Russian how free he was. "Why I can march into the White House, pound my fist on President Reagan's desk and tell him I don't like the job he's doing." "So what," replied the Russian. "I can go to the Kremlin, pound my fist on President Gorbachev's desk and tell him I don't like the way President Reagan is doing his job."

Getting heckled is now part of public life but throwing food at Ann Coulter or shouting down Hillary Clinton are simply not the same as what Wenyi Wang did on the South Lawn.

What we as a free nation do to people who heckle foreign leaders is complicated. Granted, diplomatic immunity and diplomatic courtesy means we cannot allow people to physically harm a foreign leader. However the threat that we will send this lady to jail seems to be a different form of political persecution than we have ever previously allowed. It is a complex problem, as we need to protect our own diplomats by not allowing things to go to far. The question comes down to, how far does our current government feel it has to go in stripping those in America of freedom of speech to protect diplomats in countries such as China? Would we not be better off simply ending diplomatic relations when things are as bad as they are now?

I wish I trusted George Bush more but this is another issue where he sometimes seems to be deaf to what our citizens want.

Conservative Southern Dems Disappearing

Reposted as history. Originally posted in April of 2005

Jeffrey McMurray - April 25, 2005 - Associated Press (Myrtle Beach Online)

WASHINGTON - In consecutive days last month, Alabama lost two legends from a disappearing movement - Southern Democrats who were powerful in Washington because of their party's majority and powerful back home because of their tendency to buck it.

Look around Congress these days and you'll find few conservative Democrats in the mold of the late Sen. Howell Heflin or Rep. Tom Bevill.

Howell Heflin and Tom Bevill? These are democrat "conservatives"? Do you really think their record makes them conservative (That is if you have ever heard of them!)? This article is very interesting for its attempt to claim there are still conservatives in the democratic party.

Two different issues are driving politics in America; Money (how it is spent) and political ideology.

The issue of money is all about spending versus taxing. There are still enough Americans who hate taxes that the "blue dog democrat" group still exists. It is however mostly a group that wants to hold down taxes somewhat and be somewhat frugal with what is spent. It is a far cry from an organization that is conservative, though compared with democratic leadership it is far to their right. It is still far left of the political center in this nation and can hardly be considered conservative.

The major national dialog on political ideology, the battle of ideas, is being waged between two groups in the Republican Party, neo-conservatives and paleo-conservatives. The "politically correct" doctrine of democrats has muzzled the intellectual leaders of their party or driven them out of the party. Democrats are thus on the sidelines in this discussion.

I think the reasons for the decline of the democrat party are different than the claims of this article. They are bleeding members nationwide because so many democrats are not in step with their leaders on most issues.

*Most members of the democrat party are patriotic, but party leadership is virulently multi-lateralist, favors open borders and is effectively anti-American.

*Most members of the democrat party are morally Christian, but party leadership is adamantly pro-homosexual, pro-abortion and anti-Christian.

*Many members (but not most) of the democrat party support free enterprise, but party leadership is socialist, pro redistribution of wealth and in favor of government control of private property (without compensation).

Many party members who have historically voted democrat are resistant to giving up on the party out of habit. Almost all conservatives have left the democrats, though it is noted that 10% of people who are clearly conservative still vote democratic even though the people they are voting for share none of their views. Can there be any reason but "habit" that would cause them to do so? However moderates are also leaving since the democrat party really does not offer moderates a reasonable home any longer either.

The Republican Party now has a number of people who are in it for the money. As the majority party they are now the major dispensers of pork, the role that democrats used to hold. That is my number one disastisfaction with the party. However that sin alone has not yet offset the reality that democratic leadership makes it the party of socialism, globalism and immorality. That is not America and that is why they are losing elections despite the historical advantage they hold in party loyalty.

Benedict Could Pour Petrol On America’s Cultural Fires

Editorial by Andrew Sullivan - April 24, 2005 - The Times (UK)

This is one reason why Ratzinger’s election has sent shockwaves across America. In the debate between reformists and traditionalists, there was no figure more polarising. Many of us Catholics thought he would be a big influence in the conclave. But after his fire-and-brimstone homily before the conclave on Monday, we assumed he would cede to a unifying, moderate candidate. How wrong we were.

In this article the homosexual advocate Andrew Sullivan joins the liberal press denuciation of the new Pope. Though it is well known that Sullivan is homosexual, there are enough people who are not aware of his personal biases that an honorable treatment by The Times (U.K.) would have included this piece of information with the article.

This is a valuable article for two reasons however; It provides the list of issues on which Pope Benedict XVI will be denounced in the coming weeks and shows the out of context quotes that will be used to denounce him.

Sullivan is one of many who wish that the Catholoc Church would change it's beliefs to accept homosexuality and same sex marriage so that they can stay Catholic and practice homsexuality too. Sullivan should accept that when you do not agree with a group's basic beliefs, you have already left the group. He is not a Catholic no matter how many times he says he is.

Dissident President

George W. Bush has the courage
to speak out for freedom.

by Natan Sharansky - Monday, April 24, 2006 - The Wall Street Journal (Opinion Journal)

Now that President Bush is increasingly alone in pushing for freedom, I can only hope that his dissident spirit will continue to persevere. For should that spirit break, evil will indeed triumph, and the consequences for our world would be disastrous.

I really don't agree with George Bush on immigration. However he is the best President we could hope for on the issue of islamofascism, the single most important issue of our times. From the first he has pursued a reasoned campaign to democratize the middle east, even when his own party did not support him. No article could make this case more powerfully than this article by Natan Sharansky. I only hope his supporters on the left do not turn on Sharansky as they have turned on Christopher Hitchens and Tony Blair, two other noted liberals who understand and support the importance of Bush's commitment to democracy and freedom.

If democracy does not get established in the middle east, we will see nuclear bombs going off in America. It is this simple premise that most concerns many of us. Iran, and the other middle eastern states, are dominated by people unlike the rulers of Russia back when we faced nuclear war on a daily basis. There were always enough rational people in Russia, and the motivations of the soviet rulers were always surriciently personally based, that bringing down the world was not a high priority. The islamofascists do not see it this way.

If nuclear bombs do start going off here in America, it will not be because of George Bush. The liberals and progressives of the democrat party are the ones who are giving these middle eastern terrorists the hope of facing a weak and waffling America ruled by pacifists. It is the dream of winning which fuels their hate.

Blacks Split On Support For Illegal Immigrants

by Oscar Avila - April 23, 2006 - Chicago Tribune

When more than 100,000 protesters marched through the streets of Chicago to support illegal immigrants, Rev. Gregory Daniels and other African-American leaders took notice.

Daniels is trying to mobilize his own community, matching workers with jobs that pay well. In his Englewood office, he has mounted poster boards with lists of workers he has connected to construction jobs at Donald Trump's new building and other sites.

He's sympathetic to the marchers, but Daniels says illegal immigrants undercut Englewood residents by flooding the market with workers willing to take less money.

"Let me tell you what the mind-set of the African-American is when they see those marches: `They are here to replace us,'" Daniels said. "We've got to be careful because I don't want to see an eruption between the blacks and the browns over the immigration issue."

The following are the kind of facts that heavily influence the debate:

"A Pew Hispanic Center poll released last month found that 41 percent of African-American respondents in Chicago said they had lost a job to an immigrant compared with 15 percent of white, non-Hispanic respondents."

"Harvard University professor George Borjas released a report in 2004 that found that African-American wages fell 4.5 percent--a larger drop than among white workers--during an immigration boom between 1980 and 2000."

What seems obvious is that liberal democratic and black leadership are enthusiastically embracing the illegals as they count on them to vote democratic and liberal. The black workers who are losing their jobs and losing income are expected to continue to vote democrat, no matter what leadership does on the issue of illegals, and so the concerns of black workers and their families are simply ignored.

'We Would Have Been Close Even If 9/11 Hadn't Happened'

By Con Coughlin - April 23, 2006 - London Telegraph

[Tony Blair] "My view of this has probably evolved since September 11. My view is that the origins of these security problems - with their mixture of secular dictatorships, religious fanaticism, failed nation states, governed, in every sense, by oligarchies - are the Middle East. This is a struggle that will only be won when, across the whole of the Middle East, there is a place for greater democracy, human rights, religious toleration and so on…"

[Con Coughlin] That makes you sound like a neocon, you know that?

"Yeah, but I think spreading democracy and human rights is very progressive. I can't quite get this idea it is supposed to be neocon."

The neocons, I pointed out, originally came from the Democrat wing of American politics.

"I just go with my instinct. But I keep saying to people: one of the greatest failures of progressive politics in my lifetime has been that, in the anti-American parts of the progressive Left, we have ended up on the wrong side with someone as evil as Saddam. Even now, when we have been there with a UN resolution, we are on the wrong side of the battle between terrorism and democracy. I can't understand how progressive people can be on the wrong side of that argument."

This is one of the most intriguing articles I have seen in quite a while. Tony Blair is clearly one of the world's leading progressives (socialists), but like another liberal (another branch of socialism), Christopher Hitchens, he is also very smart and very honest. What he is saying here is clearly heresy to the progressives in the democratic party.

I am in general agreement with much of the neocon agenda, as I think they are more "on track" with their analysis of the international situation than any other of the major political philosophies (including conservatives or libertarians) that are being espoused today. The neocons landing in the Republican Party is still one of the most amusing ironies of our current political alignment. They would still be democrats if socialists had not used "political correctness" to run them out of the party.

That said, the hostility with which the current political climate is permeated owes much of its intenstity to the recognition and embarrassment by many on the left that they are simply WRONG on the issue of islamofascism and muslim extremism. When hard core dedicated and unwavering liberals like Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens are excoriating the progressives in the democratic party for the error of their position, you would think that at least a couple would listen.

'Positive' Dean Calls GOP 'Brain Dead'

By Donald Lambro - April 23, 2005 - The Washington Times

Howard Dean, who promised to change the way Democrats speak about the issues, has accused Republicans of being "evil," "corrupt" and "brain dead," attacks that are reminiscent of the angry language he used against the Republican Party in the 2004 campaign.

The fiery former presidential candidate and Vermont governor was elected to run the Democratic National Committee after promising to reach out to voters, especially in Republican states, with a new and more positive outreach message aimed at expanding his party's shrinking base.

But a review of his speeches on the stump in the past month or more shows that his shoot-from-the-hip style remains as angry as ever.

Dean is more caustic and far less humorous than Ann Coulter. The differences between the treatment of Republicans and democrats by the Main Stream Media is quite obvious and does point out the liberal bias. Conservative Ann Coulter is an outsider with no formal political power but she is reamed for her jokes about democrats by the MSM even though she has no active say in the Republican party. The insider and leader of the DNC, Howard Dean says much worse things about Republicans (without humor) that are ignored by the MSM. Add this to your list of examples proving every MSM denial of being biased in favor of liberals is simply a joke.

Growing Pains

Reposted as history. Originally posted in April of 2005

Kathleen Parker - April 22, 2005 - TownHall.com

I know I'm supposed to be happy as politicians reiterate the positives: the boost to local economies, an expanding tax base, jobs. But as a native Floridian, I've traveled this freshly paved path before and know where it leads. Put it this way: Where once there were oceans of orange groves stretching to the horizons, today there are salt flats of trailer parks and RV "resorts."

Now I read the terrific news that the South's population is about to explode.

This article is depressing, and wrong. Fly over Florida and there are still hundreds of thousands of acres of orchards. Florida keeps shipping more orange juice very year. Where does this lady think it comes from? Just because orchards near big towns have been replaced by housing, (which is, by the way, occupied by real human beings in far more cases than her whining about empty houses would acknowledge) does not mean that there are fewer orchards. They are simply created on land further from towns.

If conservatives are going to start spouting the anti-growth drivel that we have had from democrats for 60 years, this nation is finished. Every prediction that growth would destroy the world for the last 200 years has been wrong. Each hand wringing plea for laws to stop growth has resulted in the destruction of an economy and driven the middle class to ruin. How can Town Hall tolerate this? Have they joined the socialists?

Growth is simply life. Opposing growth is opposing life. Usually someone else's life, like say for your children?

The Borking Of Bolton

Reposted as history. Originally posted in April of 2005

by William Kristol - From the May 02, 2005 issue of The Weekly Standard

To dismiss the assault on John Bolton as farcical and inconsequential is to miss its real meaning, and its impact if successful.

THE MISREPRESENTATION of Robert Bork's views and character in 1987, and his subsequent defeat by the Senate for a Supreme Court seat, may not have risen quite to the level of tragedy. But a serious blow was delivered to the political health of the nation, and to the prospects for restoring sound constitutionalism to the Supreme Court.

The assault on John Bolton, on the other hand, seems to be a farce. The notion that bureaucratic infighting and occasional abruptness of manner should disqualify one from high office is laughable.

The tactics of democrats have long been one of the most egregious affronts to civility in our political system. It is one thing to insult your opponents in a political campaign. It is quite another to start a campaign of lies and disinformation about a Citizen to strip him of his reputation. Though democrats scream McCarthism about any criticism of anyone in their party, they are regularly guilty of more contemptible behavior than McCarthy was ever accused.

The latest recipient of their venom is John Bolton, an honorable man whose only transgression appears to be that he does not think the U.N. works well. For democrats who think that our foreign policy should be dictated by anti-American globalists at the U.N., this is unthinkable. They have thus started a smear campaign based on ...... nothing.

Welcome Stop for Warriors

Reposted as history. Originally posted in April of 2005

By Tony Perry - 04/20/2005 - Los Angeles Times

"Locals in Bangor, Maine, are on a mission to greet every military plane, at any time, in any weather. Their tally so far: 200,000 troops."

As the call came over the loudspeaker to return to the plane, the young Marine reluctantly pulled something from his back pocket. It was his Purple Heart."He said he was embarrassed to wear it," Guptill said. "I told him: 'You wear it. You earned it. You wear it for all the guys who didn't make it home.' "

This is what America is about. Brave men who sacrifice so we can be free. And equally patriotic people who help remind the troops how much we appreciate what they do. Please make sure you come out for the Salute to Soldiers at Hope House in Windsor on May 21st to show your support!

Can't You Hear The Whistle Blowin'?

by Jonah Goldberg - April 17th, 2006 - TownHall.com

Journalism, like politics, depends on a slew of useful fictions. They're too numerous to list here (besides, they make for so many useful column topics, I'd hate to pre-empt myself). But it is worth pausing to watch as a new myth is sculpted before our very eyes.

Over the last decade or so the media has carefully cultivated an ingenious distinction. Call it: whistleblowers versus leakers. You've surely seen both of these mesmerizing creatures on display in the carnival menagerie that is your nightly news. "Whistleblowers" reveal things "America needs to hear." "Leakers" have grubby agendas.

This is a very interesting article to anyone who cares about truth, rather than political correctness. The stubborn refusal by the MSM and others on the left to acknowledge that Joe Wilson is a liar constitutes one of the glaring examples of why liberals and conservatives are simply unable to talk without rancor. When such a contemptible duplicity continues to be defended, it stands as proof our nation has lost the most important element required for democracy, common ground that lets us talk with even a modicum of acceptance of the difference between truth and opinion. "Truth" has become a word that means nothing more than this is my opinion and if you disagree I consider you evil. Our nation is the loser.

Sam Donaldson Says "Network News Dead"

Reposted as history. Originally posted in April of 2005

By Bill McConnell -- Broadcasting & Cable News - 4/19/2005

Former ABC News reporter/anchor Sam Donaldson is ready to say the last rites for network news because it will soon lose its dominant position as Americans' primary source of news. "I think it's dead. Sorry," he said during a breakfast panel Tuesday at the National Association of Broadcasters' convention in Las Vegas. "The monster anchors are through."

The really important opinion in this article is the last one, "The three also agreed that that Internet bloggers have had a generally positive impact on news because mainstream reporters are forced to better verify their information and pare opinions out of their work or face the wrath of scrutinizing critics".

Blogs are making news more accurate. Truth is necessary for democracy to work.

Who Killed Slavery?

By Michael Zak (Editorial) - April 17, 2006 -Washington Times

Now more than ever, Republicans should take great pride in our Party's heritage of civil rights achievement.

They should remember the words of Joseph Rainey, the South Carolina Republican and former slave who was the first African-American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives: "We love freedom more, vastly more, than slavery; consequently, we hope to keep clear of the Democrats!" And, it was Mary Terrell, an African-American Republican who co-founded the NAACP, who declared: "Every right that has been bestowed upon blacks was initiated by the Republican Party."

Today, the District of Columbia celebrates "Emancipation Day" -- commemorating when . . . the Republican Party abolished slavery in the District.

More and more conservative African-Americans are discovering that the Republican party is not just the historical party of anti-slavery, it is the current party that favors treating individuals with dignity.

Coming Home

By Greg Moore - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - Wall Street Journal (Opinion Journal)

It may take my wife and children a long time to realize that while I look the same, I am not the same person who said goodbye to them many months ago. I will never be the same again--thankfully so.

Each day now I am acutely aware of what makes me happy, and what it is I do that makes other people happy. Walking point through the volatile streets in Iraq helped me see this much more clearly, and I will make every effort to preserve that awareness for the rest of my days.

When I look through my photo album I think about the men I served with, and learned to count on, who are no longer by my side. The men who had their bodies pierced by the hatred of terrorists, men who left their last breaths in a place far away. Great men doing a job that allows this noble country the freedoms it deserves.

Incredible article. Thank God for the men and women who keep us safe.

Pie Throwers And Goon Squads

Reposted as history. Originally posted in April of 2005

Washington Times
Editorial - April 11, 2005

When two assailants attacked conservative columnist Ann Coulter with pies while she was giving a speech at the University of Arizona in October, most people, including the speaker, dismissed it as a prank.
............................

The media should highlight these cases not as the jokes they are perhaps intended to be, but as unacceptable perversions of the First Amendment. So far, however, the mainstream media has failed to do so. It also gave scant attention to last year's election-oriented violence directed almost solely against Republicans. Perpetrators shot at Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters and attacked volunteers and destroyed campaign offices across the country, to cite a few examples.

Here in the Roanoke Chowan area most people accept the "pranks" that are being committed in this story as pranks. I have a different perspective. I have shared with a few friends some of my stories about participation in the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor of California. The look in their eyes tells me that they find it hard understanding what is happening outside our area. That is because politics around here has not yet reached the vicious levels that it has in most of the country.

During the election for Arnold, I was spit on several times. They always liked to do it when there were several of the "demonstrators" around and you were alone. They would spit on you after you walked by. When you turned around they all just laughed because you could not tell who had done it. The amazing thing is that there was never a single day when democrats did not line up outside the campaign headquarters and berate us.

The democrats also regularly had someone with a bullhorn outside our headquarters, and they loved to get about 6 inches from your ear and bellow their insults and attacks as you walked towards the headquarters. Rapist. Nazi. Groper. Fascist. These were the non profane insults we endured on a daily basis. But profanity was a daily experience too. They continuously tried to incite people to anger, as they would then file exaggerated charges against anyone who displayed the least bit of irritation at their actions. The only intelligent answer is to smile at people who are so stupid this is the only way they can think of to disagree.

In all my years in politics I have never seen a group of Republicans gang up outside a democrat headquarters and hurl insults and epithets at the people who worked there. I have personally observed this behavior by democrats in 5 different campaigns, including one campaign back when I was still a democrat. I did not understand it then. Now I think I do.

What is the logic of this? These pie hurling incidents are just a continuation of a hate driven campaign by democrats to treat Republicans as evil people not deserving of civility. Every time it happens, the democrats say they are justified because "you started it first". However they cannot ever show any specific incident where Republicans did anything similar.

I think the Washington Times article is correct when it compares what is happening in these incidents with the escalation that happened in Holland. There too it started with pie throwing. But it ended with Pim Fortuyn's death. Does some Republican have to die before we will take this seriously?

[Update - 4/14/2005]

I have heard the argument of local democrats that "we don't do those things here". In reality, democrats have knowingly aligned themselves with people who do. How does that not make them equally guilty? Several people told me when I came back to Bertie County that this was democrat country and "You better not say you are a Republican". What is this but a threat that if I don't "keep quiet" the violence will escalate? The reality is that Republicans are no longer willing to "keep quiet". One reaction is to make fun of both the perpetrators and the people who tolerate these acts. After her attackers were set free by the local D.A., a rash of new attacks on other conservatives set Ann in motion with her usual sardonic style.

It's Only Funny Until Someone Loses A Pie
Ann Coulter - April 14th, 2005 - AnnCoulter.org

I'm not sure how these descriptions square with the fact that liberals keep responding to conservative ideas by throwing food. (Remember the good old days when liberals' "fact-driven" ideas only meant throwing money at their problems?)

If you don't think this article is funny, you're probably part of the problem.

War On Democracy?

No court nominee has ever been filibustered before the democrats started to filibuster the nominees of George W. Bush. This has never happened in over 200 years. Robert Byrd led democrat campaigns on several occasions to get rid of the filibuster when it was used against legislation that he favored. Now Byrd is going ballistic that the same act he favored several times, banning filibusters, is being proposed for something he disagrees with. I think we used to call that bigotry.

However legislation, the basis for Byrd's desire to change the rules, is not protected by a Constitutional provision that denies the Senate use of a filibuster. Court nominees were specifically exempted from any form of supermajority requirement when the Constitution was written. They only require the President nominate them and a majority of the Senate vote in favor. This means that a filibuster to stop them is itself un-Constitutional.

This is the background to the current attempt by democrats to claim that they will bring America's government to a halt if Republicans change the Senate rules to get rid of the un-Constitutional filibuster for court nominees. Please remember, this has never before been used for court nominees in our history until democrats started doing it in the last congress. Also please remember, the Senate rules can be legally changed by a majority of Senators. The democrats have used this process for the last two centuries. Changing rules only became the object of rage and a hate filled campaign to denounce it when the Republicans decided to do it for this purpose.

The latest pack of MSM editorials just came out, and this one from "The Nation", America's premier magazine for liberal positions is typical, calling it on their front page "A War On Democracy". It uses extreme language to denounce any Republican mentioned in the editorial and misstates the position of democrats by overlooking their threat to stop government if they lose. It also uses standard socialist demogoguery to exaggerate what the Republicans are doing, calling it "extreme".

The Nation
Legislative BOMB
Editorial - April 7, 2005

The nuclear option could take a variety of forms. Under the most likely scenario, Vice President Cheney, president of the Senate, would rule that filibusters against judicial nominees are unconstitutional. If a bare majority of the Senate upheld the move, such filibusters would for all practical purposes be eliminated, and only fifty-one votes would be needed to approve a nominee. Democrats would effectively lose their last tool for blocking Bush choices not just for the lower courts but also for the Supreme Court seats that are all but certain to open before his term ends.

Democrats have illegally used the courts to "create" legislation that they could not get citizens to support for nearly 60 years. This illegal judicial activism has become so common that democrats seem to forget, it is NOT democracy. Judges who do these things are not elected and enjoy lifetime job protection with power that the average citizen can only dream of.

Having packed the courts with liberal judicial activists who are legislating from the bench, the democrats are now claiming that to end this politicizing of the courts is an act of .... politicizing the courts.

Truly bizarre logic.

Judge Sentences Spammer To Nine Years

Reposted as history. Originally posted in April of 2005

By Matthew Barakat - Apr 8, 2005 - MyWay News (AP)

LEESBURG, Va. (AP) - A man convicted in the nation's first felony case against illegal spamming was sentenced to nine years in prison Friday for bombarding Internet users with millions of junk e-mails.

However, Loudoun County Circuit Judge Thomas Horne delayed the start of Jeremy Jaynes' prison term while the case is appealed, saying the law is new and raises constitutional questions.

Actually the judge in this case did more than delay the sentence. He signaled that he is sentencing the man to the time the jury recommended only so that the case can go forward to an appeals court where it is clear the judge hopes the case will be overturned.

In a typical situation for our courts the judge is arrogantly indifferent to the millions of victims of the fraud that Jeremy Jaynes committed. He is only concerned with the CRIMINAL'S rights since that is all that judges or most lawyers ever care about. Victims and society are never their concern. This judge has already dismissed the conviction of Jessica DeGroot even though the jury found her guilty. Who is surprised that a judge ignores the jury? The guarantee of a jury trial for society has been subverted by activist judges into a mockery of justice that judges overturn at will. As far as judges are concerned we have no rights.

Too bad. The people who run these spamming and phishing mills are stealing millions from society. We are the victims. It would have been nice for the judge to let this convicted criminal spend a little time in jail before turning him loose.

Our revolving door joke of a criminal justice system has got to be fixed.

We Want God

Reposted as history. Originally posted in April of 2005

The Wall Street Journal - Opinion Journal
Peggy Noonan - Thursday, April 7, 2005

When John Paul II went to Poland, communism didn't have a prayer.

.... But I think I know the moment Soviet communism began its fall. It happened in public. Anyone could see it. It was one of the great spiritual moments of the 20th century, maybe the greatest.

This is a powerful article, talking about powerful events that made news at the time, but not as much news as the events deserved. John Paul II is a man that we all need to know more about. This is a man who, while speaking to one people in one nation, touched all people in all nations.

The crowd responded with thunder. "We want God!" they shouted, together. "We want God!"

I highly recommend it to all who believe. It is inspiring.

Stupid Airport Security

Reposted as history. Originally posted in April of 2005

Walter Williams - April 6, 2005 - TownHall.com

You're a detective. A woman reports a rape. How would you go about finding the perpetrator? Would you confine your search to males or would you include females as well? You say, "Williams, that would be stupid to include females!" But not if Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta were your supervisor.

George W. Bush will someday have to answer for passively embracing the most egregious fascist excess this nation has ever experienced. It is amusing how democrats wail about locking up some terrorist suspects, but have never uttered a peep about the greatest threat to freedom that is happening in our nation. It is intolerable that the useless ignorant invasion of freedom happening at our airports is becoming the norm. People are getting used to it. The idiot Norman Mineta is slowly grinding us down to where we tolerate this abuse.

When will be the right time to stop giving George a free pass on this, as well as his unacceptable tolerance for open borders and the invasion of illegal aliens? That time is coming.

A good starting point might well be to deny him the ability to fix social security. Then we could let the democrats who invented this ponzi scheme figure out how to fix it. However .... that really is another subject.

Hanoi Jane rides again

Reposted as history. Originally posted in April of 2005

Michelle Malkin - April 6, 2005 - Townhall.com

Jane Fonda just won't shut up. And her crocodile tears will not stop flowing.
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And now, Hanoi Jane is everywhere, everywhere, issuing what many in the mainstream media have characterized as a so-called apology for her betrayal of American troops in Vietnam.
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The woman delivered numerous broadcasts on Radio Hanoi claiming tortured POWs were in "good health," calling her own president a "new-type Hitler" on enemy airwaves, and accusing American pilots of being "war criminals."

My feelings can be summed up by this quote from Henry Mark Holzer, co-author of "Aid and Comfort: Jane Fonda and North Vietnam".

She committed treason. She exploited and misused American POWs. She gave the North Vietnamese communists, with whom we were then at war, propaganda that American POWs endured unimaginable torture not to give them, she gave it to them for free. And, indeed, she caused the deaths of American fighting men and the deaths of our allies as well.

She has not apologized, and she never will. She is still a traitor.

Gas Hike Is Crude On The Wallet

Reposted as history. Originally posted in April of 2005

By Cal Bryant - 3/19/2005 - Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald

Maybe I'm way off base here. Maybe the local retailers are forced to immediately pay a higher rate based upon the new per barrel price. If that's the case, then I apologize for thinking that they are solely out for a profit. Or are they?
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Okay, I'll shut-up whining and complaining. I've got to pump gas in my truck in order to drive to work, where I can make some money in order to visit the gas station again. I guess all I'm asking for is fair trade. Sell what you have at a reasonable price based upon its wholesale cost.

Have you ever noticed that whenever one of the newspapers in this country write an article about gas prices it is never intelligently researched and always ends up blaming "business"? Their assessment always includes a bunch of anecdotal emotional evidence that has nothing to do with the problem. The recent News-Herald editorial by Cal Bryant kept this practice alive. Cal doesn't just blame "business" but goes so far as to blame "local retailers". As forward thinking as the newspaper is in other areas you would think that someone on the paper would point out to Cal that gas is not sold under a free enterprise system. It has not been for years.

Since it is not a "free enterprise" product why would wholesale prices directly equate with the price at the pump? And since Cal never mentioned what wholesale prices were, why does he assume the "local retailer" did not receive a price increase anyway? His anecdotal evidence is not relevant.

Cal might start by checking out how gas prices are determined at "How Stuff Works". He would find that after adjusting prices for inflation, the $2.59 per gallon price at the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency is the worst we have ever seen. Today's inflation adjusted price is $1.79. To get prices under control what we need to understand is why prices are going up and what can be done to reduce them. Blaming "local retailers" is not helpful since they aren't the problem.

For two generations government at every level has interfered with the process of providing gas to the point that gas is the most regulated item that we buy. None of this government regulation has helped to keep prices low or supplies available. Government regulates importation, drilling, distribution, formulation, availability, pricing and competition between companies. It also taxes every aspect of the process egregiously.

For the last 35 years government has banned the construction of new refineries. Not one new refinery has been built in America in this period! This has resulted in a serious shortage of refinery capacity as gas consumption during this 35 years has grown steadily. The result? Higher prices.

For the last 35 years government has restricted the construction of new pipelines, moving more and more of the distribution of gas to trucks, the least safe, most manpower intensive and most taxed of the methods that gas can be transported. The result? Higher prices.

For more than 35 years government has imposed restrictions on automobile engines and fuels that significantly reduced the efficiency of engines and reduced the miles per gallon attained from each gallon of gas. This process has also been implemented in a chaotic pattern where (already short of refineries) we have ended the commodity nature of gas by requiring dozens of different formulas for gas. This means gas cannot be moved from one state to another to alleviate spot shortages. Clean air is desirable but the stupidity of the regulation has meant we do not have air as clean as it could be. The other result? Higher prices. During spot shortages, very high prices.

For more than 35 years government has opposed drilling for new oil anywhere in America, resulting in greater dependence on foreign suppliers. We then blame the beneficiaries of this policy, OPEC, for charging whatever they want for the gas we buy from them. The result? Higher prices.

During the last 35 years government has continuously raised taxes on gas through higher import duties, direct taxes, indirect taxes, sales taxes, excess profit taxes, regulatory burdens, licenses and fees. The result? Higher prices.

There is a AAA site on the web "Daily Fuel Gauge Report" that tracks the price of crude versus the price of gas at the pump. The price of crude has gone up from $.90 per gallon of refined gas to $1.30 per gallon since last May. That is a 45% increase. During the exact same period the national average for gas at the pump has gone up from $1.94 to $2.20 per gallon. That is a 10% increase. If it had increased as much as the price of crude it would be over $3.00 a gallon. Does this sound like the local gas stations are the problem? Does it even sound like the refineries are the problem?

Crude prices are going up. However understanding the problem requires getting past the simplistic "benchmark crude" price per barrel formula that newspapers focus on. Crude oil does not come in that grade alone. Crude is measured by a scale that is roughly described as sweet to sour. What it describes is how much sulfur and other undesirable elements are mixed in with the oil that must be extracted to make gas. The price of the best grades of crude are often far more volatile than the benchmark crude price the newspapers track. Since we cannot use the lower grades here in America, the actual price volatility of the oil that makes it into our gas is usually far higher than the simplistic assumption of liberal writers who can only blame "business".

Government is the problem. The supply of domestic oil has been reduced. Little has been done to encourage conservation because people don't want to conserve. Liberals have been so busy jacking taxes on gas to pay for government programs that they have failed to concern themselves with the consequences for you when you fill up at the station. They are, however, quite determined that you will not ever know what they have done.

Gas prices are higher than needed. However they will continue to go higher over time. That is due to the growth in energy demand in the world. It is not useful or helpful for writers like Cal to try and scapegoat "business", especially "local retailers". The highest gas prices we ever paid were when liberals truly messed up the system under democrat Jimmy Carter. It has been quite a while since that fiasco but we cannot forget and let them do it again. We need a rational response to what is a clear problem.

So what should be done?

We need to increase supply. That means we need to drill where the oil is with the modern environmentally safe procedures that have been developed. We need to redirect all the taxes on fuel into processes that reduce fuel consumption. (Better roads do this but we have dramatically reduced spending on better roads in the last 35 years.) We need to go back to gas as a commodity. That means standardizing the formulas nationwide so all refineries are making the same fuel. We need to reduce distribution costs, which means we need to build more refineries and pipelines to keep the fuel flowing smoothly and evenly to the point it is needed. And we need to re-introduce the competition of a free market that always drives out excess profits. If you want to understand any of the details of these proposals, a good place to start is with the very clear explanations on the Energy Information Administration (Part of the DOE) "Primer on Gasoline Prices"

What about it Cal? Can you stop blaming "local retailers" long enough to help pass real solutions to the real problems that will actually work? The only thing you and I seem to agree on is that prices need to go down.

(Followup on this article - a reader sent me a humorous perspective on gas prices. It was a list of other items we regularly buy titled "Think Gas Is Expensive". A couple of items that caught my eye:
- Lipton Ice Tea 16 oz $1.19 ...........$9.52 per gallon.
- Evian water 9 oz $1.49..........$21.19 per gallon!)

Back In The Day

Melissa St. John - March 31, 2005 - TownHall.com

In 1993 America Online had just launched its Windows platform and gone public on NASDAQ at $11.50 a share. Nobody surfed the web - Microsoft Internet Explorer didn't even exist. Do you remember when people talked about the mysterious "Information Superhighway"? And here we were creating a "Graphical User Interface" (GUI) for internet message boards that only MIT students were using with any frequency. It was a crazy idea!

It was not too long ago that any letter to the editor was filtered through the politcally correct thinking of people who were far to the left of mainstream Americans. Then the Internet allowed for small news sites that could provide information that was not filtered, and when you sent a "letter to the editor" in disagreement or agreement (by posting on a message board), it would not be edited to reflect the views of the editor.

This was the start of Internet News Sites. Over a quarter of all Americans now get their news from the Internet. Until I read this article, I did not know that a local lady from Raleigh was one of the three people who helped to launch this revolution that has become such a technological and cultural phenomenon.

For those who do not remember the Internet before the World Wide Web existed, I can only explain that to do anything in those days was 20 times harder and more time consuming that it became a few years later, and 100 times harder than today. To visualize what the Internet could become and act on it at that time is still impressive, even to those of us who shortly joined the revolution.

I am always amazed at how fast history goes in the world of technology. We are talking about only 12 years ago. And yet it is 4 generations ago in the technology we use to build web portal systems today. Today it is easy. Then, it was amazing that anyone could forsee the value, much less master the process. No one had ever done it before.

Read this article ... and while you are doing it remember that the revolution in news coverage these people started is still changing our world. (Ask Dan Rather!) TownHall was the pioneer in Internet news ... and they are still the best news site on the Internet.

Judging Terri

Reposted as history. Originally posted in April of 2005

Jan M. LaRue - April 1, 2005 - TownHall.com

It all comes back to how one (emphasis added) agent of government decided the facts, the evidence and the law.

Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Greer is the one agent of government who alone decided Terri's fate. This article is the best indication yet that the focus of most of the passionate anger in this case has been on the wrong person. Our courts are completely out of control if this is how they work.

When every appellate judge gives deference to the trial judge even where there is more than enough evidence that the judge in question abused his power, there is simply no question our courts have ceased to care about justice.

The truth is ..... judges in America don't care about justice. They care completely about their own prerogatives and the prerogatives of the judicial system. As in this case they will ignore all evidence to defend the right of any judge to rule as they wish .... even to order someone's death in the absence of a legal basis for that order. It has long been clear they care nothing about the victims of crime. Why should it be a surprise they care nothing about justice for Terri?

If you care about justice, read "Judging Terri". It will shock you.