The Discerning Texan
-- Edmund Burke
Sunday, September 30, 2007
"I'm proud of my university today," Stina Reksten, a 28-year-old Columbia graduate student from Norway, told the New York Times. "I don't want to confuse the very dire human rights situation in Iran with the issue here, which is freedom of speech. This is about academic freedom."
Isn't it always? But enough about Iran, let's talk about me! The same university that shouted down an American anti-illegal-immigration activist and the same university culture that just deemed former Harvard honcho Larry Summers too misogynist to be permitted on campus is now congratulating itself over its commitment to "academic freedom." True, renowned Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo is not happy. "They can have any fascist they want there," said professor Zimbardo, "but this seems egregious." But, hey, don't worry: He was protesting not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presence at Columbia but Donald Rumsfeld's presence at the Hoover Institution.
At some point during this past week, it was decided that the relevant Ahmadinejad comparison was to Nikita Krushchev. The Soviet leader toured America in 1960, was taken to a turkey farm, paid a visit to Frank Sinatra and Co. on the set of "Can-Can" and pronounced the movie "decadent." And yet the republic survived. As one of my most distinguished fellow columnists, Peggy Noonan, put it in the Wall Street Journal, Krushchev's visit reminded the world that "we are the confident nation." And, as several e-mailers observed, warming to Noonan's theme, back then hysterical right-wing ninnies didn't get their panties in a twist just because a man dedicated to the destruction of our way of life was in town for a couple of days.
Whether or not this was a more "confident" nation in 1960, it's certainly a more post-modern nation now. I don't know whether Stina Reksten, as a 28-year old Norwegian, can be held up as an exemplar of American youth, but she certainly seems to have mastered the lingo: We've invited the president of Iran to speak but let's not confuse "the very dire human-rights situation" – or his nuclear program, or his Holocaust denial, or his role in the seizing of the U.S. Embassy hostages, or his government's role in the deaths of American troops and Iraqi civilians – with the more important business of applauding ourselves for our celebration of "academic freedom."
So much of contemporary life is about opportunities for self-congratulation. Risk-free dissent is the default mode of our culture, and extremely seductive. If dissent means refusing to let the Bush administration bully you into wearing a flag lapel pin, why, then Katie Couric (bravely speaking out on this issue just last week) is the new Mandela! If Rumsfeld is a "fascist." then anyone can fight fascism. It's no longer about the secret police kicking your door down and clubbing you to a pulp. Well, OK, it is if you're a Buddhist monk in Burma. But they're a long way away, and it's all a bit complicated and foreign, and let's not "confuse the very dire human rights situation" in Hoogivsastan with an opportunity to celebrate our courage in defending "academic freedom" in America. Ahmadinejad must occasionally have felt he was appearing in a matinee of "A Chance To Hear [Insert Name Of Enemy Head Of State Here]." Could have been Chavez, could have been Mullah Omar, could have been Herr Reichsfuhrer Hitler himself, as Columbia's Dean John Coatsworth proudly boasted on television.
His concluding lines are the most priceless of all:
Read the rest here. Priceless, as always.The pen is not mightier than the sword if your enemy is confident you will never use anything other than your pen. Sometimes it's not about "freedom of speech," but about freedom. Ask an Iranian homosexual. If you can find one.
Hillary Clinton has a chilly disposition and a chilling laugh. Starting with the Sunday talk show circuit last Sunday, she put the laugh on display in a big way. What is it about that cackle? In today's New York Times, Patrick Healy treats it as a subject deserving of serious attention. On the one hand, the laugh signifies Clinton's effort to simulate a normal person. On the other hand, it signifies Clinton's difficulty doing so. She is both controlled and controlling to an unnatural degree.
Before Hillary Clinton herself had given us the audible proof over the past week, Bill Clinton assured Time: "She has the world's best laugh." Now we know what he means. And his salesmanship on her behalf reminds us that this time around, as in 1992, we will again get two for the price of one.
I wouldn't buy an Ebola virus in a two for one deal either...
If the person emitting that maniacal laugh had not been Hillary Clinton, I am convinced it would have been covered by the media like the Howard Dean scream... In fact columnists like Joan Vennochi are somehow trying to get ignorant people to buy the notion that to ridicule this laugh is somehow a misogynistic attack on Hillary's gender. Right--just like the Dean scream was misogynistic... How about this: it sounded like the evil laugh of a B-Movie she-vampire (proof that life does imitate art...).
But that isn't really the point--other than being an opportunity for humor; the point is how differently the press is treating Hillary: with kid gloves. No matter about the Hsu scandal (what Hsu scandal?). No matter about the Chinese connections and the illegal fundraisers and Soros and his Media Matters hit squad. Nothing matters when it comes to her thighness and her being somehow heir to Bubba's "throne" (or is that "bone"?). What this says about the state of our media organizations is that they are a joke; a stain on the people who fought and died--and who served in office honorably--to make this country great. That doesn't include Bill and it damn sure doesn't include her. But you will only know that if you disregard the propaganda machine.
What a tragedy for all of us.
It is not like that isn't a given with almost anyone who has followed the Clintons over the years. The Clintons are proof that Democrats must keep themselves in a continuous state of denial to buy the message these serial liars continue to put out there.
But I guess we all knew that as well...
In any case, this can only be good news for Fred Thompson, who appears to be the most promising Reagan conservative that is still viable on the Republican side of the ledger, and for whom Gingrich has spoken very highly in recent months. Could Gingrich have cut a deal with Fred? (e.g. Gingrich gets VP, Fred serves only one term, Newt is then the frontrunner....)
But don't worry: the Democrat mouthpieces tell us nightly that 9/11 was a one-off and that our concern about Islamic terror is "fear mongering."THIS IS INTERESTING:
A KEY suspect in the alleged plot to mount an attack in Germany on the scale of 9/11 is on the run in Britain, German security officials disclosed yesterday.
Scotland Yard counterterrorism detectives are hunting the man, who escaped from Germany after a plot to explode bombs at Frankfurt airport and a US airbase. The collective power of the bombs would have exceeded those in Madrid and London in 2004 and 2005.
The plot was foiled on September 4 when three men were arrested at a rented holiday apartment near the central German town of Kassel. Police recovered chemicals and bomb-making equipment which investigators believe would have led to the biggest loss of life since the 9/11 attacks in America six years ago. . . . Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s interior minister, revealed last week that the three arrested men had acquired detonators that originated from Syria and had received direct orders to act from operatives in Pakistan. “We know that there is a clear network, highly conspiratorial,” he said.
Read the whole thing. And note this earlier report: "The prime suspect in a German terror plot that allegedly intended to blow up hundreds of people may have had contact with Mohammed Atta, who hijacked one of the planes that was flown into the Twin Towers."
We normally try to stay away from politics, but this weekend I actually had a friend of mine from college tell me that he thinks the Baptist Church is a bigger threat to America than is Islamic Terror. I have to admit: when I encounter such arguments my shock and alarm is exceeded only by fear, that--with otherwise intelligent people being this ignorant of the real world--we are all in deep, deep trouble, before people finally wake up. By then it may be too late. (And trust me, I am neither Baptist nor an evangelical...)
UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers, and thanks to Glenn for the link. I am glad this particular story resonated, because it really has been bothering me ever since it happened; not merely the fact that this kind of inane argument was used, but that it was used by someone I know well.
When conservative advocacy groups are compared to people--who lop off heads and blow up village markets, stone their "sinners" to death (e.g. for daring to venture out in public without a head covering...), and advocate "hate crimes" on an almost daily basis--something has gone terribly wrong.
Friday, September 28, 2007
- Laundering donations
- Bribing politicians for their later "endorsement"
- Covering their tracks
Read the rest here. And wouldn't you know it--the very same Winkle Paw has gone missing:Hillary Clinton certainly made off the best from Norman Hsu's political bounty, reeling in roughly one third of his $2.5 million in sketchy fundraising thus far uncovered. But a piece in today's Boston Globe ponders whether even Hsu's non-Hillary-bound cash had covertly Hillary-friendly aims.
Disgraced fund-raiser Norman Hsu did a lot more than just pump $850,000 into Hillary Clinton's campaign bank account: He also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for local, state, and federal candidates who have endorsed Clinton or whose support she courted.
...
In at least some cases, Clinton or her aides directly channeled contributions from Hsu and his network to other politicians supportive of her presidential campaign, according to interviews and campaign finance records.
...
[I]n February, when former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack ended his own White House bid, he was about $450,000 in the red. A month after dropping out, Vilsack endorsed Clinton, and Clinton agreed to help him retire his debts. (Both insisted there was no quid pro quo.)Over the next few months, some of Clinton's biggest fund-raisers gave Vilsack checks, including Hsu, who kicked in the maximum allowable contribution, $2,300, on May 3 after attending an event organized by Clinton's campaign, Newsweek reported this month. An associate of Hsu's, Paul Su, chipped in $1,000 on the same day.
And the next day, Susan Chilman chipped in $500. Yes, Chilman (aka TV actress Susan Pari) is on only my suspicious donor list and not yet widely accepted as a Hsu associate by the dead tree crowd, but for posterity, I'm pegging Vilsack's total known take at $3,800, not $3,300.
In other cases, Clinton helped direct Hsu's money to influential politicians who have yet to endorse her but hail from key presidential primary states. Clinton raised at least $6,000 from Hsu and his network last year for Governor John Lynch of New Hampshire, according to Lynch aides. Lynch has no plans to endorse anyone before the state's crucial January primary, aides said.
Interesting. I've only got $2,000 going to Lynch - all of it from our buddy Winkle Paw. Part of the difficulty here is the fact that New Hampshire's campaign finance disclosure is, well, lacking. Governor Lynch has an opportunity to do the public a great service by disclosing who contributed the other $4,000, so they can be added to the roster of Hsu bundlees. This is my e-mail address.
Again, there is much more where that came from.Winkle Paw, Hsu's most delightfully named associate, seems to have turned up missing.
According to campaign finance disclosures, Paw has served as everything from project analyst to CEO at a handful of Hsu's companies, including Components, Ltd., Next Components, Next Electronics, and CoolPowers (though that last one could've been a poor transcription of the word "Components" by a Tom Harkin campaign staffer). Paw was actually CEO of Next Components (one of those companies I couldn't seem to locate in my tour of Hsu's facilities) nearly two years before becoming a business analyst at the firm this summer, according to the filings, which is an interesting career trajectory.
Up through 2005, Paw also listed the (legitimate) investment management firm Franklin Templeton as his employer on more than two dozen filings, where he was also variably a "project analyst" or a "business analyst" (never making it to CEO though). A visitor from the firm's San Mateo office visited this site yesterday, linking in from a search on "Winkle Paw", possibly a concerned cube-mate wondering if she can stop watering his plants.
In all, Winkle made more than $150,000 in political contributions to at least 40 Hsu-favored candidates and committees since 2004. 6 other members of the Paw family (all holed up in that cozy green house in Daly City) gave another $143,000. Khin Mon, who may or may not be related to the Paws (but who, as reported here first, also resides in the Paw house), gave another $12,000 over the same period.
In addition to Winkle Paw's association with Hsu-owned businesses, I'm told that Hsu reportedly indicated to Martin Waters (the manager of the Orange County investment fund that Hsu is now accused of defrauding out of $23 million) that he had designated Paw an authorized signatory on his bank account, such that their business dealings could continue should anything happen to Hsu. According to an individual with knowledge of the situation, the day before the San Mateo court appearance that Hsu would fail to make, Waters (still presuming Hsu's business dealings to be legitimate) offered to step into Hsu's... well, shoes during any period of incarceration that might follow.
Well, well, well. Remember the good old days, when all those potential Whitewater witnesses went dead or missing. Except of course for Susan McDougal... wonder what she is up to today; relaxing on her yacht, perhaps?
Fast forward about 10 years: now we have one potential "witness" against the Clintons caught trying to skip the country. And now we have another--reportedly Hsu's "successor"--who has also gone missing.
Make no mistake: when you get between the Clintons and power, you want to watch your back. So here's a note to Flip and the others on the cutting edge of this story: be careful out there. Because these power hungry sociopaths don't play "nice".
UPDATE: Video here.
Photo courtesy of Power Line
Tom McGuire comments.
In the spirit of the old joke, "What do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?", defeating or otherwise retiring the Dems on this list would indeed be "A Good Start."
The US has had over 4 million births per year since 2000. The calculation is easy. In 2004, with 4,121,000 births, that would mean $20,605,000,000 dollars ... for just one year.
Where does Hillary plan to get that money? It's easy to talk about writing checks, but the federal budget already runs in the red, especially on entitlements. If we talk about spending even more money that we don't have, why stop at $5,000? John McCain wondered aloud in his blogger conference call whether $100,000 wouldn't sound more compassionate, as long as we didn't talk about how we plan to pay for the program.
This represents pandering politics at its worst. Want to get votes for an election? Promise to buy people off with free money! It takes the worst instincts of Norman Hsu to suggest yet another entitlement Ponzi scheme to get elected to office. The company Hillary keeps has started to rub off on her. Read Philip Klein for more.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Cartoon by Gary Varvel (click to enlarge)
A vibrant, powerful US Navy is all that the United States needs, and ever will need, to navigate the world's seaways. If the Law of the Sea treaty had been in place in 1962, the anti-American UN might have forbidden the US from blockading Cuba. And if it had done so anyway, the UN would then have "justified" in "requiring"millions of dollars of US fines for running an 'illegal' blockade. And the Sovs would have put its nukes into Cuba.
Yeah--give me some of that... just what America needs.
Is it just me, or is there anyone else reading this who is scratching their heads as to why the United States would even consider ceding such power or soverighity to any external government--especially a hostile UN, which seemingly lives primarily to foil pretty much anything the US sets out to do of any consequence, all paid for primarily by the US! So we should let guys like Kim Jong Il, Assad, and Ahmadinejad have any input whatsoever into how we conduct our business? Or some EU bureaucrats in Germany? It is worse than irresponsible; it is utter madness. It is insanity.
Whether or not this happens is up to us. If we don't do it, it isn't going to get done. We did it once for the Immigration Bill. We did it again when MoveOn tried to smear Petraeus. And yes, we have to suck it up and go through it all again. It is that important. Contact your Senators now. And the President. Tell them what you think of putting the United Nations in charge of where the US Navy can and cannot go.
On Republican consultants: "Let me be clear. I think Republican consultants are mostly very stupid. I think they have no education. I think they have no sense of history."On African-American voters: "No group in America has been served worse by government than the African-American community."
Also, this: "Other than Huckabee, none of these [Republican] candidates have the gumption to place themselves in the middle of that [African-American] environment ..."
On the current crop of candidates: "The most sobering thing about where we are right now is that the most effective candidate in the race is -- Hillary Clinton. ... Her answers are wrong, [but] she is a serious, competent, formidable person."
Doesn't sound like someone who isn't running to me...
You can listen to the whole thing here.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
A St. John's University freshman was arrested on the Queens campus with a rifle and President Bush, police said Wednesday.Police sources said the suspect, Omesh Hiraman, 22, told police that he was acting alone and walked across campus with the gun. Hiraman did not give any reason why, police said. St. John's University was locked down and classes were cancelled as a result.If the guy had been wearing a crucifix or was a member of some Republican organization, rest assured that you would have heard about it.
Only one problem: "Sheriff" Juan Williams--who will never be mistaken for "right wing" (or even the center for that matter...)--was at the 'jail house' to set the record straight: O'Reilly was actually speaking out against racism.
When big networks like CNN, MSNBC, and CBS go out of their way to twist someone's word in a bald-faced attempt to assasinate his character for partisan political purposes, the American news media has become little more than a mirror image of Pravda under the Soviet Union.
Watch the video of O'Reilly's Talking Points memo and also the interview with Leftist Juan Williams of NPR. Even Al Sharpton came to O'Reilly's offense. Other than the faked Dan Rather memos, this is the lowest I have ever seen the media go.
It is out of hand, folks. If you want to know why we are losing ground to our Islamist and Communist enemies, look no further than your own country's Big Media.
But don’t question her patriotism or anything, ok?
The former “Today” show anchor traced her discomfort with the administration’s march to war back to the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
“The whole culture of wearing flags on our lapel and saying ‘we’ when referring to the United States and, even the ‘shock and awe’ of the initial stages, it was just too jubilant and just a little uncomfortable. And I remember feeling, when I was anchoring the ‘Today’ show, this inevitable march towards war and kind of feeling like, ‘Will anybody put the brakes on this?’ And is this really being properly challenged by the right people? And I think, at the time, anyone who questioned the administration was considered unpatriotic and it was a very difficult position to be in.”
Yeah, those lapel pins are a real burden, aren’t they.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Kafir witnesses the decline of yet another bright Hollywood star as he flames out in the shadow of a Marxist megalomaniac:
Scratch another one off the list (maybe he actually believes he's Keyser Sose). But I have to agree that ol' Keyser he hasn't lowered himself to Sean Penn's level... yet.First I have to stop watching Mel Gibson movies because I am Jewish, and I refuse to support anyone who hates me because of it.
It would follow that I had to stop supporting the other half of the "Lethal Weapon" team, when Danny Glover began cozying up to Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez.
And now, yet another of my favorite actors has gone over the wall, meeting privately with Hugo Chavez for three hours yesterday.Why couldn't Kevin Spacey have just stayed on K-PAX, so I could continue enjoying his films in good conscience?
What's next? Napoleon Dynamite having a dinner party with Kim Jong Il?You'll notice I said nothing about Spicoli holding hands and swapping spit with fat-ass Chavez.
This entry is only about talented actors who associate with tyrants and dictators, not simpering has-beens who would have photo ops with Satan if it could help their miserable, failing careers.
That’s what has happened to Congress’s Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2007. The Senate passed a $14 billion version of this spending bill in May, which funds federal water projects, and sent it to conference with the House. The same bill emerged from conference last week, and passed the Senate overwhelmingly yesterday, as a $23 billion spending bill. That’s a 64-percent increase in just four months — sounds like a wildly successful hedge fund’s return, not the growth of a bill that authorizes spending for the federal government.Meet the new boss...
Where did all the extra money come from? Much of it is earmarks. But some of it — between $1 billion and $2 billion — comes from new “earmarks” that were not voted on in the original House or Senate versions of the bill. These were added quietly in conference committee, when the two houses negotiated the final bill they would both pass. There were at least 20 such earmarks added in conference to WRDA, which authorizes spending on projects for the Army Corps of Engineers. Because they were added in conference, neither the House nor the Senate has any chance to debate or amend them.
The practice of adding extraneous earmarks in conference was supposedly curtailed by the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 — the Democrats’ ethics bill that was signed into law two weeks ago by President Bush. I noted last week that this bill would do nothing to curtail or even force real transparency for earmarks added to authorization bills like WRDA. Already, this has come true. What earmark disclosure exists has been deliberately made so difficult to find and interpret that it amounts to no disclosure at all. A list of 20 earmarks was only obtained through tedious research by the staff of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and the non-partisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Former President Jimmy Carter says we shouldn't take the Iran threats seriously. "I think it would be almost inconceivable that Iran would commit suicide by launching one or two missiles of any kind against the nation of Israel," he said.Tell that to the hostages who were terrorized and beaten for over a year while you sat and did nothing, Jimmy; tell it to the families of the dead US soldiers in Iraq murdered by Iranian IED's and other weapons; tell it to the citizens of the Israeli towns and cities where it rained Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah missiles last summer...
Jimmy Carter has become a circus sideshow; a national disgrace whose lack of cojones is matched only by his revisionist view of history, his love for leftist authoritarian regimes, and his astonishing blindness to his own ineptitude.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy piled pressure on Iran at the United Nations Tuesday, saying it would be unacceptable for the Islamic republic to get hold of nuclear weapons.Sarkozy's comments came just hours before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was due to address the world body, in a speech expected to attempt to play down fears of Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
"Iran has the right to nuclear energy," Sarkozy told world leaders at the General Assembly's 62nd session here. "But allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons would mean an unacceptable risk for regional and world stability."
Sarkozy added there would be no world peace if the international community "shows weakness in the face of the proliferation of nuclear weapons," in a speech received with loud applause from the rest of the assembly.
If you have not yet read Sarkozy's autobiography Testimony, check it out.
- The Supremes are going to hear a case on whether or not requiring a photo ID to vote violates someone's Constitutional rights. A very interesting case, and its results will impact elections for years to come.
- In even better news, a Military Appeals Court has cleared the way for War Crimes trials of Gitmo detainees to begin. A big win for the Bush Administration.
The good news is that Bush gets 2/3 of the vote! But that is also the bad news for Democrats: it means 1/3 of the Democrat wing of the Democrat party are stark raving mad. Go here, page down, and read the comments (h/t Don Surber).
Monday, September 24, 2007
Well, gee, could that be because you are executing them all?
Oh, and he also questioned the "true cause" of 9/11 and questioned the Holocaust again... Damn, this guy is batting 1.000 for his visit:
- He parrots the DNC talking points on 60 Minutes
- He throws in with the 9/11 "truthers"
- He denies the existence of homosexuals in Iran
- He defends the Holocaust deniers
- He denies journalists have been sentenced to death in Iran
- He says that no where are women "freer" than in Iran
(Frankly I was not overly happy with the President's quote in that last story, but I can live with it because Bush will probably soon make his actions speak a lot louder than those words....)
UPDATE: Uncle Jimbo weighs in.
Read the whole thing.Here is what Coatsworth said in a Saturday interview with Fox News. So shocking were his comments that we quote verbatim to assure the reader that he actually said what he said: "If Hitler were in the United States and wanted a platform from which to speak, he would have plenty of platforms to speak in the United States. If he were willing to engage in a debate and a discussion, to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly run it."
Coatsworth is grievously wrong on so many counts. His belief that Hitler would be invited to speak across the U.S. is an insult to America's character. And his thought of engaging the guiding force of the Third Reich in collegial debate is simply monstrous. In your worst nightmare, you can imagine the topics. For example: Yes or no, are Jews truly subhuman? Even to conceive of such a colloquy is both soul-deadening and a wellspring of fury. Identical thinking - repugnant on its face and grossly insensitive to the Jewish community and to all good people - drives Coatsworth's event with Ahmadinejad.
Coatsworth's efforts to justify his remarks further showed he is absolutely ill-equipped for his post. He told the Daily News yesterday he meant "in 1939, [when Hitler] had not started the war and the Holocaust hadn't begun." Oh. So six years after Dachau, four years after the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws and a year after Kristallnacht, when Hitler's intentions were known to all, he'd be a fine speaker for Columbia?
As an aside: am I the only one who is also disgusted that CBS would give this guy a prime-time platform on 60 Minutes to sow further seeds of division within the US electorate? It is telling that all he did was to repeat DNC talking points ad infinitum, yet I doubt the Dems even minded having their views espoused by a mass murderer on prime time...it is as if they and the elite media were saying: 'yes, but he is our mass murderer...'
What a disgusting display of pandering and kowtowing to one of the world's true scumbags. A sad day for a country that supposedly stands for human rights.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Glenn Reynolds pointed to this quote, which represents my point of view on guns more so than anything I have seen on the subject:
“How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual… as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.”
~Texas State Rep. Suzanna Gratia-Hupp
If he gets in--and if he hasn't horribly miscalculating the timing--Gingrich could be a formidable candidate in both the primaries and the General Election. Stay tuned.
You will recall of course that all the Democrat candidates paraded like pilgrims to Mecca to the Kos Convention in Chicago earlier this year; and you are aware that the Kossaks are on the front lines of Democrat Party activism and fund raising.
So, especially you centrists out there: the next time you are in the polling place, keep in mind that the Democrats on your ballots--the same ones trying to portray themselves as "moderates" or "centrists"--have been taking huge sums from these nutcases (not to mention criminal "bundlers" like Norman Hsu and other sources eminating from Communist China...). And even nutjobs do not part with their money for nothing; they expect a little ROI. And men like George Soros have been pouring millions into organizations like MoveOn.
It is a fact that today's Democrat Party has become almost exclusively beholden to people who use smear tactics to slime outstanding Americans like Petraeus, and who openly display their affection for mass murderers who have been openly killing US soldiers, executing political dissidents, and mutilating, oppressing, and even killing their own wives and daughters. During the Vietnam War, it was only fringe radicals like Jane Fonda, the Black Panthers, and the Weathermen who used this kind of rhetoric. Today that exception has become the rule for Democrats. No wonder their rhetoric in the last several years has been so full of hate and venom, and so short on ideas that capture the imagination of the voting public.
You won't see slogans from MoveOn like 'Democrats for Wife Beating' or 'Clitorectamy Rights Now', but when you see posts like the ones linked above every week on the #1 most popular Democrat website, it is inevitable that independents who thought that Democrats would be an improvement over Republicans in Congress and the Presidency will eventually ask: "what in the hell was I thinking???" Especially as they continue to observe the so-called leadership of the party and Presidential candidates parading to kiss the hand of the Kossaks--and even to the capitals of our foreign enemies. Maybe it hasn't happened yet, but don't be suprised when it does.
It has long been a tenet that General Elections in America are won in the middle; it is my belief that the limits of how far Middle America can be pulled towards the lunatic-fringe left is rapidly reaching its breaking point--if it hasn't been breached already by the events since January of this year.
Still, it will continue to be a solemn responsibility of the Blogs, New Media and Talk Radio to raise the degree to which the radical left has co-opted the party to public consciousness--so that by the time the election is upon us, there will be broad knowledge of the sewer that was once the party of statesmen like Jefferson and JFK. That party is long gone.
(ps - In case the Kossaks go back and delete these above linked blog entries because of public outcry--which they have been known to do--the Gateway Pundit link has the screen prints.)
Last week freedom took another hit. Hillary Rodham Clinton unveiled her new health care plan. Unlike her old health care plan, which took longer to read than most cancers take to kill you, this one’s instant and painless – just a spoonful of government sugar to help the medicine go down. From now on, everyone in America will have to have health insurance.Read the whole thing. And be very afraid.
Hooray!
And, if you don’t, it will be illegal for you to hold a job.
Er, hang on, where’s that in the Constitution? It’s perfectly fine to employ legions of the undocumented from Mexico, but if you employ a fit 26-year-old American with no health insurance either you or he or both of you will be breaking the law?
That’s a major surrender of freedom from the citizen to the state. “So what?” says the caring crowd. “We’ve got to do something about those 40 million uninsured! Whoops, I mean 45 million uninsured. Maybe 50 by now.” This figure is always spoken of as if it’s a club you can join but never leave: The very first Uninsured-American was ol’ Bud who came back from the Spanish-American War and found he was uninsured and so was first on the list, and then Mabel put her back out doing the Black Bottom at a tea dance in 1926 and she became the second, and so on and so forth, until things really began to snowball under the Bush junta. And, by the time you read this, the number of uninsured may be up to 75 million.
Nobody really knows how many “uninsured” there are: Two different Census Bureau surveys conducted in the same year identify the number of uninsured as A) 45 million or B) 19 million. The first figure is the one you hear about, the second figure apparently entered the Witness Protection Program. Of those 45 million “uninsured Americans,” the Census Bureau itself says over 9 million aren’t Americans at all, but foreign nationals. They have various health care back-ups: If you’re an uninsured Canadian in Detroit, and you get an expensive chronic disease, you can go over the border to Windsor, Ontario, and re-embrace the delights of socialized health care; if you’re an uninsured Uzbek, it might be more complicated. Of the remaining 36 million, a 2005 Actuarial Research analysis for the Department of Health and Human Services says that another 9 million did, in fact, have health coverage through Medicare.
Where are we now? 27 million? So who are they? Bud and Mabel and a vast mountain of emaciated husks of twisted limbs and shriveled skin covered in boils and pustules? No, it’s a rotating population: People who had health insurance but changed jobs, people who are between jobs, young guys who feel they’re fit and healthy and at this stage of their lives would rather put a monthly health-insurance tab towards buying a home or starting a business or blowing it on booze ’n’ chicks.
That last category is the one to watch: Americans 18-34 account for 18 million of the army of the “uninsured.” Look, there’s a 22-year-old, and he doesn’t have health insurance! Oh, the horror and the shame! What an indictment of America!
Well, he doesn’t have life insurance, either, or homeowner’s insurance. He lives a life blessedly free of the tedious bet-hedging paperwork of middle age. He’s 22, and he thinks he’s immortal – and any day now Hillary will propose garnishing his wages for her new affordable mandatory life-insurance plan.
So, out of 45 million uninsured Americans, 9 million aren’t American, 9 million are insured, 18 million are young and healthy. And the rest of these poor helpless waifs trapped in Uninsured Hell waiting for Hillary to rescue them are, in fact, wealthier than the general population. According to the Census Bureau’s August 2006 report on “Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage,” 37 percent of those without health insurance – that’s 17 million people – come from households earning more than $50,000. Nineteen percent – 8.7 million people – of those downtrodden paupers crushed by the brutal inequities of capitalism come from households earning more than $75,000.
Yes Virginia, there is a huge problem with allowing Iran to have Nukes. We have to stop it.
Captain Ed has a nice take on why this does and should matter.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Theater of the Absurd: A Muslim screener valiantly protects our Homeland from a potential terrorist... Feel safer now?
Photographer caption here (click photo to enlarge)
ROTC: not welcome. Mass murderers: Let's Party! (image via Gateway Pundit--click to enlarge)
UPDATE: Ahmedinejad gets send-off parade with 'Death to America' and Death to Israel' signs.
Did I get sucked into a wormhole and no one told me? Am I in some kind of parallel universe where up is down?
I am not believing what is happening to my country. For over two hundred years, brave men and women have been giving their lives for this noble experiment--and we have let it come to this??
Our external enemies cannot defeat us without the help of our internal enemies. The Left is the internal enemy; it always has been. The sooner we wake up to this fact and take this fight to our enemies within as well as without, the sooner we can go about getting our country back.
Now illegals can legally plow into American cars and kill American families--and they can show their shiny new IDs and vote illegally too! What a great day for Democrats everywhere!
Unbelievable. And good reason to deny all federal funding to NY State. Assuming we can get a President and Congress with the cajones to patrol our borders, enforce the law, deport any illegals caught committing crimes or driving offenses, and protect our homeland from further attacks and/or invasion by non-citizens who are sucking the lifeblood from the American taxpayer.
This is similar to the "missile technology" that was cited as the reason for new sanctions on Special Report last night; stay tuned...
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has more details about the Syrian connection. Something is definitely up here...
UPDATE: Israel apparently seized nuclear material in a daring raid (Times of London)
Ace poses some questions; is anyone listening?
Questions For the Media and Prosecutor:
1) What kind of thief/hustler gives away so much of the money he's risked incarceration for? What is his motive for doing that? For "self-promotion"? Wouldn't it make more sense for him to "self-promote" by investing in Hollywood projects and "self-promote" among nubile young actresses? Why "self-promote" among the dreary past-middle-aged pot-belied gray-cheeked Democratic operative set?
2) Greed? How can greed be a motive for giving away so much "defrauded" money?
3) The media, and prosecution teams, are generally loathe to content themselves with the Lone Rogue Operative theory of a crime, especially when the crimes committed largely benefit others and not the Lone Rogue Operative himself. In the Plame case, in Abu Ghraib, the media, in particular, was furiously skeptical that Lone Rogue Operatives had simply acted with apparent criminal purpose for the apparent benefit of higher-ranking political or military figures. They still don't buy the Lone Rogue Operative theory in either case. And yet the media and the prosecutor seem almost eager to dismiss this current case as one of those Lone Rogue Operative cases here, as quickly as humanly possible. Why? Why the sudden onset of credulity that a criminal acts so selflessly to advance the interests of others, without their knowledge or at least connivance? Why has the Lone Rogue Operative theory become so tantalizingly plausible?
4) Why is it that Hsu's preferred candidates track so closely with Fred Hoechner's? Especially given that Hoechner was donating big to Democrats long before Hsu was? Was Hsu simply impressed by the slate of political actors that Fred Hoechner had been donating to? If so, why? Is Norman Hsu desperate to see HillaryCare universal health coverage? Or did he have... more tangible, more mercenary reasons for pushing Hoechner's field of candidates?
And finally:
5) Why is everyone so eager to wrap this case up nice and tidy and pinned on a Lone Rogue Operative/Patsy without asking all those "tough questions" the media claims it's uniquely qualified to ask?
Bonus: JackStraw sends this documentary of Hillary!'s shady fundraiser with the Shady Lone Rouge Operative Peter Paul (see a pattern) with the slugline "bombshell."
It looks to me like the Hochbergs have some 'splaining to do... In case you missed Flip's post (it is a must read):
10/24/05: Fred Hochberg contributes $2,000 to Ted Kennedy.
10/24/05: A Hsu donor in California contributes $2,100 to Ted Kennedy.6/6/06: Lillian Vernon contributes $25,000 to Eliot Spitzer.
6/7/06: Norman Hsu contributes $25,000 to Eliot Spitzer.1/26/07: Fred Hochberg contributes $2,300 to Hillary Clinton.
1/26/07: Hsu and various Hsu donors across the country make a total of 8 contributions to Hillary Clinton ranging from $1,900-2,100 each.3/28/07: Hsu and various Hsu donors make a total of 11 contributions to Clinton, totaling $23,400 (most at the $2,300 maximum).
3/31/07: Lillian Vernon makes 2 contributions to Clinton, totalling $4,600.5/3/07: Norman Hsu makes 2 contributions to Mark Pryor, totalling $2,500.
5/3/07: Fred Hochberg contributes $2,300 to Mark Pryor.6/5/07: Norman Hsu contributes $4,950 to Christine Quinn, his first and only direct contribution to Quinn.
6/5/07: Lillian Vernon contributes $110 to Chrinstine Quinn, for the first time in 4 years.
UPDATE: Captain Ed posts a question, directed especially at Left Coast Left Wing politicians:
Gee, I wonder why California didn't seem all that interested in arresting Norman Hsu? It couldn't be because he generated tens of thousands of dollars in contributions to Californians like Attorney General Jerry Brown ($5500), Senator Dianne Feinstein ($22,162), Senator Barbara Boxer ($5,000), Congresswoman Doris Matsui ($16,850), and Assemblywoman Fiona Ma ($27,600), could it? What possible motive would they have in keeping Hsu free? (via Suitably Flip)
With those friends, it doesn't seem all that difficult to understand why California never bothered to chase down their fugitive. That's no small question, either, as investors who lost millions start to ask pointed questions about how Hsu managed to remain at liberty to run ever-larger con schemes. California authorities have a lot of questions to answer.
Friday, September 21, 2007
There is a lot more, but you get the idea...If there's one thing that can be said about Clinton financial scandals, it's that they tend to be complex. And thus far, the Norman Hsu debacle is living up to the archetype.
This rabbit hole is proving to be a fair bit deeper than anyone might've guessed and we're about to plumb its depths. If you're reading this, it means you're taking the red pill.
Two of the biggest open questions were always 1) where is Hsu - a convicted con man and fugitive with no documented ability to turn a legitimate buck - getting these gobs of money, and 2) why is he squandering it on all these Democrats?
These specific Democrats.
We seem to have gotten at least part of the answer to the first question, as Hsu has recently been accused of swindling investors out of as much as $70 million in a variety of Ponzi schemes and other bogus investments. The second question though, has been naggingly impenetrable. After all, if Hsu was simply buying his way into the inner circles of various celebrity politicians, whether for his own ego or to project more credibility and gravitas to his marks (or both), why would his fundraising have been so unwaveringly partisan - targeting only members of the minority party and only very specific members of that party. Hsu's network finance the campaigns of more than 80 Democrats - from Presidential candidates to state legislators and town supervisors. From the newest newbies (including a majority of the first-time candidates who became Senate freshmen this year) to some of the body's dustiest relics (Kennedy, Biden, et al).
Yet Chuck Schumer, for example, Hillary's senior counterpart in New York, never saw a dime. Fellow New York politicians Eliot Spitzer, Andrew Cuomo, Anthony Weiner, Kristen Gillibrand, and others received hundreds of separate contributions, totalling many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Schumer: bubkes.
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI): $29,613... Carl Levin (D-MI): squat. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV): $23,000... Robert Byrd (D-WV): zilch.
You get the idea. The points is that Hsu's specific slate of favored candidates (itemized here) seemed to be deliberate and predetermined and was not satisfyingly explained away by any of his speculated motivations. This has actually been helpful in ferreting out Hsu's donor network though - when you happen on an individual with a huge string of contributions not only to Clinton and Obama, but to several specific Democratic committees and to specific Democrats like Tom Harkin, Patrick Kennedy, Kristen Gillibrand, Dianne Feinstein, and Hsu's other favorites, you've found someone worth looking into.
The mystery of Hsu's candidate slate is a vexing one. Enlightenment, however, appears to be tucked away in a single transaction listed in a NYC Campaign Finance Board disclosure.
The Heritage Foundation has more on this abomination:
Here is the God's honest truth: they think you are too stupid to see this subterfuge for what it is. Are they right?The DREAM Act (S. 774) is a nightmare. It is a massive amnesty that extends to the millions of illegal aliens who entered the United States before the age of 16. The illegal alien who applies for this amnesty is immediately rewarded with "conditional" lawful permanent resident (green card) status, which can be converted to a non-conditional green card in short order. The alien can then use his newly acquired status to seek green cards for the parents who brought him in illegally in the first place. In this way, it is also a backdoor amnesty for the millions of illegal aliens who brought their children with them to the United States.
What is less well known about the DREAM Act is that it also allows illegal aliens to receive in-state tuition rates at public universities, discriminating against U.S. citizens from out of state and law-abiding foreign students. It repeals a 1996 federal law that prohibits any state from offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens unless the state also offers in-state tuition rates to all U.S. citizens.
On its own, the DREAM Act never stood a chance of passing. Every scientific opinion poll on the subject has shown over 70 percent opposition to giving in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens.
If so, this would make all of the hard work we did to stop the Shamnesty bill earlier this year for nought. Don't let the Democrats steal our country from its citizens. Keep the pressure on, before it's too late.
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin is still tracking the nose count. I notice that Hutchinson has still not committed. C'mon, fellow Texans, help the rest of us out here.
This could be related to intelligence shared with Israel learned as it took out that "undisclosed target" in Syria, believed to be Korean Nuclear technology. And it almost certainly will invalidate the so-called agreement that the State Department recently brokered with Pyongyang.
Now we see where talking and making deals with monsters and madmen gets us. (Of course we should have known this after Hitler in Munich and Clinton's first "agreement" with the North Koreans. Hopefully we now know better.)
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Read the rest.I already knew this: Daily Kos headline: “I Don’t Support the Troops … oops, there, I said it”
Honey, I already knew that. They never did. All that garbage about wanting to end the war to spare the lives of troops was a lie to many on the left.
Kos was a PFC in field artillery. He thinks this makes him an expert on the military. I flew in a plane once so I suppose this makes me as expert on aeronautics as the CEO of Boeing.
The post itself is by “lurxst” but it represents Kos now. It’s his site, his post. Until he takes the damned post down (and check for an update if that happens) Kos endorses this idea. He set it up so that others speak for him. You want to brag about how you are changing politics, enjoy the results.
At least in Kossak-land they admit their true sentiments. But what of all those Democrats who parade to the Kos Konvention to Kiss the hand of the Grand Dragon himself? Surely not them, too?
Yeah, right.
With city shelters filled and a surge of further refugee claimants expected to flood into Windsor, Mayor Eddie Francis is pleading for financial help from Ottawa.
"When there is a possibility of adding thousands to the local social assistance system as a result of refugee claimants crossing the border into Windsor, we will become overwhelmed and our current resources will not suffice," Francis wrote in a letter sent Wednesday to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Over the past three weeks, 45 families and 31 individuals -- approximately 200 people -- entered Canada at the Detroit River crossings and applied in Windsor for shelter and social assistance after filing refugee claims with the Canada Border Services Agency. Municipal agencies dealing with the sudden influx of mainly Mexican refugee applicants are renting out hotel rooms and bracing for predicted thousands more to come.
"We don't have the means, ability or capacity to deal with this additional cost. We are not able to deal with this potential crisis locally," Francis wrote Harper.
"I don't believe that Windsor's residents and taxpayers should have to foot the bill for U.S. immigration policy," Francis told The Star. He was referring to the suspected source of the problem -- a recently begun crackdown on illegal immigrants in economically struggling regions of the U.S. South
I get it--well absolutely we American taxpayers should pick it up, have I got that right?
Meanwhile, Dick Durbin's stealth DREAM bill has a date with the Senate, reportedly tomorrow. Call or write your Senators NOW. Tell them not to end debate on the DREAM Amendment to the Military Appropriations Bill... sleazy Democrat politics at its finest.
Coalition forces in the Iraqi capital Baghdad arrested some 12 “suspected terrorists”, one of whom is believed to have ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – Qods Force (IRGC-QF), the United States-led military announced.
The coordinated early morning operations targeted a senior Special Groups leader directly linked, according to sensitive intelligence, to several other high-ranking terrorists operating in and around Baghdad, the Multi-National Force – Iraq (MNF-I) said in a statement on Monday
“Those in custody are believed to be involved in smuggling and storing weapons from Iran used to attack Iraqi civilians and the security forces that protect them”, the MNF-I said.
“Intelligence further indicates that the group is linked to the production and distribution of deadly Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs) and the supporting of foreign terrorist operations”, it added.
Wake up America; you are being played as imbecilic fools by Marxist demagogues disguised as "having compassion for all Americans." This is right out of Stalin's playbook, and any student of history can see it.
