Good for Congressman Dingell!

He's calling his fellow Dems' bluff and illustrating the political grandstanding over "global warming" and the whole bogus carbon "cap and trade" illusion.

Excerpt:


" 'I sincerely doubt that the American people will be willing to pay what this is really going to cost them,' Mr. Dingell said on C-SPAN last week.

That's why most politicians prefer policy artifice that disguises the cost of raising energy prices. These policy tricks include higher automobile mileage standards and a 'cap and trade' regime for swapping 'credits' for carbon emissions. These schemes shift the direct costs onto businesses, which then pass them along indirectly to unwitting consumers. These policies still amount to taxes on energy use, but they allow politicians and green lobbyists to pretend that you can 'save the world' for the price of a concert ticket."

Little Bobby Kennedy continues to embarrass himself

...with his whacko rhetoric over his "Global Warming" nonsense.

He's now saying that politicians who disagree with him on climate change are commiting treason.

Excerpt:

"This is treason and we need to start treating them now as traitors."

(sigh)

This is the mentality we have to deal with on this issue, isn't it?

Why are we not surprised to read this?

Algorepalooza was a major flop.

Excerpt:


"Apparently the spectacle of celebrities lecturing people on lifestyle has little appeal even for a country more sympathetic to the issue of global warming."


Especially hypocritical "celebrities", like Algore The Prophet himself.

Meanwhile, check out the stats from Rasmussen.

Noteworthy:

"Adding to the skepticism, an earlier survey found that just 24% of Americans consider Al Gore an expert on Global Warming."

Ahh, but 100% of the engorged algore considers himself an expert.

That's the only thing that matters, right?

Regarding the (Non) Fairness Doctrine revival

“At first the liberal Democrats were coy about reports that they wanted to impose government control on talk radio. When it was reported that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had discussed the matter with Sen. Barbara Boxer, both denied it.

That is characteristic. They lied to the public. Now the Democrats admit to this assault on the First Amendment. There was no point in continuing to lie when it was time to take action against the Rush Limbaughs of this world...Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin [said], ‘It’s time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they’re in a better position to make a decision.’ Well, at least he admits that he is old-fashioned.


Unfortunately for him, history really has moved on. The so-called Fairness Doctrine, used for years to keep diversity off the airways, was instituted when all we had in the communications system was radio and fledgling television. Perhaps in those days it was admissible to believe that there were only two sides to a ‘story,’ as Durbin puts it.


Today there are many sides to stories, and no government body is equipped to judge what should be on the broadcast media and what is too marginal. In other words, it ought not to be left to government to decide what the sides are in a debate. That is anathema to free debate.”

—Emmett Tyrrell

(hat tip: Patriot Post US)

Fisking algore's "The Assault On Reason"

Here's a short list of Gore's inaccuracies and/or lies.

(hat tip: Wendell Sawyer)

Excerpt:

"Many of the assertions Gore makes in his movie, ''An Inconvenient Truth,' have been refuted by science, both before and after he made them. Gore can show sincerity in his plea for scientific honesty by publicly acknowledging where science has rebutted his claims."

Gore?

Admit he was wrong?

What's the chances of that ever happening?

More bad news for the Church of the True Believers

....from NRO'S Planet Gore blog:


"It means that although we are now confronted with global warming, the whole ice sheet will not melt and bring about the tremendous sea-level rises which have been the subject."



Yet another setback for those followers of Al the Messiah, but I'm sure they'll be able to overcome this they way they always manage to do.....namely, by ignoring those Inconvenient Facts that they don't like.

Mark Steyn live blogs Live Earth

As usual for Steyn, it's right on the money and way too funny for the Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" crowd to appreciate.

Meanwhile, Tim Blair has some info on the business end of the algorepalooza hypocrisy.

R.I.P., Detroit

No one from the ranks of The Church of the True Believers' wants to talk about how the Law of Unintended consequences will adversely affect our economy, and especially individuals, as a result of their totally wrong headed and obstinate approach to their "Scientific Consensus" on "Anthropogenic Global Warming".

Eric Peters discusses the disastrous impact that this religious cult will have on our domestic automobile industry.


Key points:


"For domestic automakers -- already reeling from the effects of exorbitant health care and pension "legacy costs" -- an EPA diktat that effectively outlaws the larger vehicles they specialize in (and which remain one of the few segments where they've been able to retain market share and make a profit) could be the straw that finally breaks the camel's back. The mainline Japanese automakers -- who specialize in smaller cars -- are much better positioned to absorb such a blow. If it seems like the early '70s all over again, you're not alone in so thinking. We (or at least our leaders in Congress) seem to have an instinct for national economic suicide when it comes to passing laws that cripple our own manufacturing base while giving huge artificial advantages to foreign competitors."




"Passing laws and issuing potentially strangling regulations on the basis of speculation -- especially when it is as politically charged as is the issue of human-caused global warming -- makes about as much sense as taking that homeless-looking guy with his "The End is Near" cardboard sign off the street and putting him in front of the controls of a 747 at 40,000 feet."

Covering Babs Boxer's "Global Warming" Senate hearing

It sounds like it wasn't the usual Dog and Pony show for the benefit of the Church of the True Believers, despite Senator Babs' best intentions.

Excerpts:


"While the science implicating human activity on global warming is uncertain and speculative, the economic costs of cap and trade legislation are certain and severe."



"However, although Kyoto would provide no discernable climate protection, it would cost the U.S. economy tens to hundreds of billions of dollars in higher energy prices, lost jobs, and lower GDP."




"It seems to us that the leadership of this Congress, with the support of the Majority of this Committee and some Republicans, are intent on helping Mr. Gore and those of his ilk in achieving his unquestionable legacy, which will be the destruction of American lives and more death as a result of his hysterical global goofiness, with no environmental benefit...
Some wealthy elitists in our country and many in our Congressional leadership, particularly from California and New England, and in the entertainment industry, including Mr. Gore, who cannot tell fact from fiction, have demonstrated an Olympian detachment from the impacts of draconian climate change policy. For them, the jobs and dreams destroyed as a result will be nothing more than the statistics and cares of other people. The consequences are abstractions to them. But, they are not to me, as I can name many of the thousands of American citizens whose lives will be destroyed by these elitists' ill-conceived "global goofiness" campaigns."


"Global Goofiness".....what a superb (and accurate) label for all the nonsense!

algore's Live Earth: Mixing "Global Warming" and radical Islam

And it still didn't sell well, despite the political and cultural sympathy that a significant number of True Believers must hold for those who promote terrorism.

It's no big surprise the organizers would try to combine two theologies like this.

Their big mistake was not getting Osama to headline the event alongside algore, instead of Cat Stevens.

I understand his rap routine is pretty boring, though.

Libby's sentence is commuted by the President

There is no doubt that was the right thing to do.

Excerpt:

"A sense of proportionality argues in favor of eliminating Libby's prison term. This was an unusually harsh sentence for a first offender convicted of a nonviolent and non-drug-related crime. Sandy Berger, national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, was not sentenced to prison for sneaking documents out of the National Archives, destroying them and then lying to investigators. For his actions, Berger received no jail time, a fine one-fifth of that imposed on Libby and 100 hours of community service."


It's likely that Libby will ultimately prevail and become completely exonerated through the legal system.

Oh, one more thing....

Ignore the babble, dribble, drool and spew about the commutation that's out there in full force from every stripe of Dem/Lefty/"Progressive"/Nutroot you can imagine.

It's not worth wasting your time and energy.

News flash: I'm afraid I've been.....

(sigh)......just call me Martin Luther Bubba.

Quote of the Day

"I think the American people in November 2008 are going to select the person they think is strongest to defend America against Islamic terrorism. And it is not going to focus on--as some of the media wants it--just Iraq. I think Americans are smarter than that."

-- Rudy Guiliani

Read about it here.

More:

"'I think that the president we elect in 2008 will determine how long it takes to prevail against the terrorists,' Mr. Giuliani says. 'If you select somebody that is going to go back on defense, it's going to take a much longer time and there are going to be more casualties. If you select a president that's going to remain on offense, and even improve on it, it isn't going to be easy, but it's going to mean less casualties, faster.'"

That Was The Week That Was

Mark Tapscott mulls over the events of the past week, and the implications these events may hold for the conservative cause.

For a well-rounded analysis, be sure to follow the links that Mark provides.

So was this a pivotal week for conservatism?

Too early to tell, in my opinion.

And once again, the AP does its part

.....in the media dis-information battle that has been such an important part of the propaganda war against the war in Iraq.

Doing the right thing:

"The Associated Press, Reuters, and Voices of Iraq should immediately apologize for publishing this completely false story, and push for immediate retractions. The Associated Press should admit full responsibility for not following good journalistic practices of verifying a story though legitimate responsible sources, as they were in a headlong, reckless rush to publish."



Pardon me if I don't hold my breath waiting for something like that to happen.

Cartoon of the Day

..... so say our wise sages who think things like this are all designed to keep us afraid.

Just ask a certain local blogging luminary, who has made his opinion quite clear on this subject.



Meanwhile, let's see what the New YorkTimes had to say about this latest reminder that the ho hum/politics as usual attitude of some folks on this issue is flat out dangerous.


Noteworthy excerpt:


"A multiple choice question for readers: is this latest bomb plot an example of (a) blowback from Iraq, (b) the continuation of al Qaeda’s war against the West, or (c) the continuation of the New York Times’s war against the Bush administration? To ask the new ombudsman of the New York Times, Clark Hoyt, for the correct answer, write to public@nytimes.com."

Anticipating the rise of the True Believers

......from a piece more than 30 years old.

What a collection of astute observations and prognostications!

Why don't we take the sage advice offered?

SCHIP: First steps toward the "universal health care" agenda goal

It's the first step toward achieving one of the most cherished items on the agenda of the "progressives".

Excerpt:

"Most Republicans don't understand health care, so don't want to talk about it; many grimace at voting down money for 'kids'; quite a few face tough elections and would rather not jump into an unknown debate. Reformers also aren't getting cover from should-be allies. Insurers and lobby groups like PHRMA--who ought to understand that a bigger Schip is a threat to their long-term business--are instead focused on short-term profits and PR images. Republican governors--who'd be huge beneficiaries of an individualized market--seem to only care about keeping federal dollars flowing into state coffers."

The ugly truth about New Orleans

Violence prevails to an even greater extent than before Katrina.

And no, it's NOT George Bush's or the federal government's fault.

Excerpt:

"Since Katrina, things have gotten so bad that New Orleans’s only effective criminal-justice presence has come from outside the city.

Early this year, the Department of Justice gave federal agencies in New Orleans extra resources, including nearly three dozen new agents and attorneys, to get criminals off the streets by bypassing the local justice system altogether. The FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms have embedded agents with NOPD officers in some crime-ridden neighborhoods, and they take suspects into immediate custody if it looks as if a federal crime has been committed—carrying an illegal weapon, say, or peddling a rock of cocaine."

Quote of the Day

Rod Dreher:



"You would get about as far questioning Creationism at a backwoods Bible college as you would questioning Diversity at a US university, corporation or whatnot. In fact, that's a good comparison, because it's the secular left that's always cracking on religious people for ignoring science when it doesn't suit their ends."



Related blog entry here.

Fisking the True Believers' religious doctrine

Last Saturday I blogged about Scott Armstrong's challenge to algore, regarding the theology Gore wants to impose on all of us, as the High Priest of the Church of Global Warming.


Read the full report from Armstrong.

Conclusions:

"The Stern Review concluded that, “The scientific evidence is now overwhelming; climate change presents very serious global risks, and it demands an urgent global response” (Stern 2007, p. xv). We have not been able to find any scientific evidence to support such a claim. We can only hope that before committing resources, decision makers will insist on scientific forecasts rather than accept the opinions of some scientists."


"One might say that it is important to consider steps to prevent global warming, but we have the same level of confidence in saying that we should take steps to prevent global cooling. The more important question is 'what is the best way to invest our resources for the benefit of mankind?'"



"Those who advocate various positions on the climate owe it to the people who would be affected by the policies they recommend to base their advocacy on scientific forecasts that address all four of the key areas that are necessary for a rational analysis of the problem."

Economics 101

A woman comes into a butcher shop.

She tells the butcher she wants some chickens. But she wants to pay the same price as the butcher across the street advertises in his window.

"Your prices are too high", she says.

The butcher asks, "Why don't you go across the street for your chickens?"

"They haven't got any", she replies.


....from a discussion about price controls, oil, and unrealistic expectations found here.

A food crisis?

While many in the private and public sector are worried about rising energy costs, we are not talking about this problem, which is potentially MORE serious than all our concerns both foreign and domestic.

Key point:



"The American consumer lifestyle took off thanks to low-cost fuel and food. Once families could drive and eat cheaply, they had plenty of disposable income for housing and consumer goods.

But if they can't do either anymore, how angry will they get as they buy less and pay more for the very staples of life?"

Unsafe CAFE standards: Who really bears the true costs?

You get three guesses as to who and the first two guesses don't count.

Pertinent excerpts:


"CAFE standards already result in the deaths of approximately 2,000 Americans every year, since smaller cars are less crashworthy. By failing to acknowledge this in their policymaking, Congress has cost thousands of Americans their lives. Now Congress is poised to compound the dangers by raising CAFÉ standards still further -- so much so, it may kill the domestic auto industry itself."



"Environmentalists argue that increasing the miles per gallon of the cars we drive would save more energy than increased drilling could produce. But the data show that fuel consumption goes up whenever automobile fuel efficiency goes up. Nearly all the gains in fuel efficiency disappear once we account for the demonstrable increases in driving that such investments produce."



"The increase in the costs of accidents and congestion fully offsets and probably outweighs the social benefits resulting from greater fuel economy."



"However, CBO does find that, given current estimates of the value of decreasing dependence on oil and reducing carbon emissions, increasing CAFE standards would not pass a benefit-cost test."



"Thus, the impact of the Markey-Platts bill will hurt American car companies most where they are especially vulnerable -- at a time when they can least afford another legislative knee-capping."



"The argument that increasing CAFE standards will reduce global warming is grossly overstated. Even if greenhouse gas emissions due to human activities are significantly, and harmfully, raising global temperatures, which remains a subject of debate, increasing CAFÉ standards would have scant impact."




“Consumers want more fuel-efficient cars and we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But workers are part of the environment too, and drastic proposals which destabilize our industry won’t do anyone much good in the long run.”




"Advocates of higher CAFE duck this issue by claiming that new technologies eliminate the need for a trade-off between fuel economy and safety. This claim is false. If you take the most high-tech car imaginable and add a hundred pounds to it, two things will happen. Its fuel economy will drop, and its crashworthiness will increase. In short, there will still be a trade-off."




"If energy security is the rationale for CAFE standards, America needs to increase domestic coal and natural gas production, find out whether potential supplies of oil exist in Alaska, invest in more refinery capacity, and build nuclear power plants. We've done none of these."



"Unfortunately, ailing automakers and gas suppliers simply present too soft a boogeyman, and feel-good environmental platitudes too easy a justification."






Gee whiz, outside of those few minor and insignificant issues, there's absolutely nothing to stop us from adopting these standards, is there?

As usual, you and I bear the burden of poorly thought out policy decisions.

Are you really surprised to hear that?

It's time to announce, Fred

The Rasmussen numbers say so.

Excerpt:

"Thompson, preparing to formally announce his candidacy, leads the pack in the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey with 27% support. That gives him a four-point advantage over former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani who is currently preferred by 23% of Likely Primary Voters. A week ago, it was Thompson 28% and Giuliani 27%. Two weeks ago, they were tied at 24%. Prior to that time, Giuliani had been on top in every weekly Rasmussen Reports poll for five months."

A number of folks think Fred just might be an unbeatable candidate in '08.

We shall see.

The truth about "multiculturism" and "diversity"

It's not what the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives"are trying to make us all believe.

Excerpted:

"Think about what multiculturalism preaches in its high-minded rhetoric. Then WATCH WHAT IT BRINGS ABOUT in real life. It is in the tribal and entitlement behavior that you begin to see the toxicity of this dogma; as well as the essential oppressive nature of the politically correct behavior that adherence to the religion of multiculturalism demands of us."



"Why, in other words, would universal brotherhood--or even peaceful coexistence for that matter--result from a dogma that is antithetical to the concept of the universalism of human experience that is the bedrock of civilization; and instead glorifies culturalnand tribal differences, no matter how insane or irrational, violent or destructive are the cultural practices or beliefs that bring about those differences?"


Why, indeed, except to justify some mis-begotten world view?

New idea for increasing local government revenue

Do what my old home state of Virginia does to its citizens.

Eric Peters has details.

Excerpts:


"Unlike standard traffic fines, which are at least subject to a judge's discretion, the new 'civil remedial fees' are completely non-negotiable. Fail to pay and the hounds of the state (and debt collectors) will pursue you to the ends of the earth. Plus your license will be suspended or revoked until such time as you "stand and deliver" -- as stage coach robbers once so nicely put it.

That phrase is particularly apt since the 'civil remedial fines' were passed precisely to fund highway projects and maintenance. Its chief sponsor, Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax) says, 'Hey, roads cost money -- and there's no road fairy.'




"In essence, the state grows ever more hard-hearted toward relatively trivial offenses that almost never involve either violence against individuals or even against property -- while at the same time it becomes ever more blithe toward real crime and real criminals.

It is a loathsome state of affairs. And when it's done for the most cynical of reasons (to raise revenue to fund state projects) and in the most cowardly manner imaginable (by state lawmakers too timid to fund needed projects via normal budgetary means) with the effect being a vicious and disproportionate impact upon minor transgressors -- it is the very definition of tyranny."

How innovative!

"Civil Remedial Fees".

Just business as usual to the tax/spend bureaucratic mindset.

Watch for this idea to spread to bureaucratic mindsets everywhere......including Greensboro and Guilford County.

Guantanamo a "gulag"?

Please.....spare us your self-righteous indignation.


It's nothing of the sort.


Noteworthy:


"Critics liken Guantánamo Bay to Soviet gulags, but reality does not match their hyperbole. The supporters of David Hicks, the detainee popularly known as the “Australian Taliban,” asserted that Mr. Hicks was mistreated and wasting away. But at his March trial, where he pleaded guilty to providing material support to a terrorist organization, he and his defense team stipulated he was treated properly. Mr. Hicks even thanked service members, and as one Australian newspaper columnist noted, he appeared in court 'looking fat, healthy and tanned, and cracking jokes.'"

It's a cinch algore won't take this bet

Despite his overwrought public piety on the issue, I think that he actually knows his stance on "scientific consensus" on "anthropogenic global warming" is as big a loser as he is.

(hat tip: Fred Gregory)



Excerpt:

"Armstrong said that he discovered that most climate-change forecasts use bad methodology.

'We've been unable to find any scientific forecast, and what we have are forecasts by scientists,' he said."

There is a good reason why algore will not debate his apocalyptic theocracy in a public forum.

There's no way he can frame the issue in a way that he can't be scrutinized in real time, which is the case with his speeches, or his visual propaganda.

Here's the link for the Armstrong web site.

Yet another chapter in the hypocritical essence of John Edwards

More evidence that John Edwards is mainly concerned with John Edwards, not the issues he professes to champion.

(hat tip: Piedmont Publius)

Excerpt:

"Mr. Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets of nearly $30 million, came up with a novel solution, creating a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty. The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and — unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students — the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Mr. Edwards himself, tax filings show."

Imagine that!

Even Democrats are starting to realize the extent of Edwards' imposture.

Public confidence level for Con-gress at an ALL TIME LOW under Dem control

Read it here.

Note that the rating is DEAD LAST on the list of 16 institutions, behind HMOs, Big Business, Television News, and Newspapers.

And Reid/Pelosi/Kennedy, et al, ad nauseum, have the nerve to babble on about Republicans and the Presidency!

Unbelievable!

"A Nation of Cowards"

This article is just as valid now as it was some 14 years ago.

The Second Amendment is too important to our society to let it be misused and abused by the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives".

(hat tip: Fred Gregory)

Excerpt:


"This is the uncompromising understanding reflected in the warning that America's gun owners will not go gently into that good, utopian night: "You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands." While liberals take this statement as evidence of the retrograde, violent nature of gun owners, we gun owners hope that liberals hold equally strong sentiments about their printing presses, word processors, and television cameras. The republic depends upon fervent devotion to all our fundamental rights."


And NOT, I might add, to the co-opting and misuse/abuse of those fundamental rights by those who have a particular "progressive"/secular World View Agenda to advance.

Once again, there's MORE bad news for the True Believers

Here's more evidence that solar activity (NOT "anthropogenic CO2") drives climate change.

(hat tip: Fred Gregory)

Excerpt:

"Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world...."



Ah, but this guy Patterson must be one of those "fringe scientists/kooks/oil company hacks", right?

Cartoon of the Day

Freedom........it's all in the Constitution, right?

(click to enlarge image)

Regarding "Universal" health care

It's not the solution......and it would make the problem WORSE.

Sad but true true tales to be told:

* The sad story of a British man who can't see because the British National Health care system hasn't gotten around to removing his cataracts -- for three years. (He has a kidney stone, too, and Britain's "universal" health care system won't fix that, either.)

* A fellow in Canada who has been waiting eight months (so far) for heart surgery.

* A Canadian with a malignant brain tumor who fled to New York for medical treatment, rather than (most likely) die on a Canadian waiting list. His best friend had died on a waiting list for heart surgery.

* A South African man who dies after "elective" surgery he needed to save his life was cancelled seven times (socialized medicine systems artifically manipulate waiting list statistics to meet bureaucratic benchmarks by scheduling more surgeries than they can accomodate, and then cancel the surgeries at the last minute -- at incalulable personal cost to patients). Read the family diary to which On the Fence Films links for a fuller story of what this man and his family suffered.

* Three stories: A Canadian girl whose heart surgery was cancelled; an Australian man who has been on a 90-day waiting list for two years; a couple who had to schedule care for three disabled family members in order for the man to have surgery -- which then was cancelled.

Addressing health care: How Republican candidates should respond

The Dem candidates are talking about it during their debates, and most of their talk has been about some form of "universal" health care.

The Republicans should be talking about it too.

Here are ideas about what they should be saying.

Excerpt:


"Most universal-coverage plans accept the least rational features of our health-care system — its reliance on employer-based coverage and on “insurance” that covers routine expenses — and merely try to expand that system to cover more people." Republicans should go in a different direction, proposing market reforms that make insurance more affordable and portable. If such reforms are implemented, more people will have insurance.

Oh my! The True Believers won't like this at ALL!

The father of scientific climatology says "scientific consensus" on "anthropogenic global warming" is a bunch of hooey.


You're too kind, Professor.

Excerpt:

"Naturally whenever scientists who do know what they are talking about offend the dogmatists, they are said to be going against the 'scientific consensus'. Science is science. Consensus is politics. And close examination of many of those part of that "consensus" reveals they are not climatologists,but grant seekers."

Justice is (partially) served

Nifong is disbarred.

Excerpt:


"The bar's three-member disciplinary panel unanimously found Nifong guilty of fraud, dishonesty, deceit or misrepresentation; of making false statements of material fact before a judge; of making false statements of material fact before bar investigators, and of lying about withholding exculpatory DNA evidence."

Here's the next step for justice to be served in this sordid misuse and abuse of power.

The final step has to do with money.

LOTS and lots of money.

More about the Dems plan for massive tax increases

Hillary, Obama, and of course our favorite hypocritical Class Warrior himself, John-Boy Edwards are all talking about the forthcoming HUGE tax burden they want to impose on all of us under the guise of "taxing the rich."


"Point is, whether we're talking individuals, corporations or cap-gains, if you tax something you get less of it. If you take away the tax advantages from private partnerships, future deals will dry up. Or they will go offshore, where no taxes will be paid at all. And since capital is the seed corn of future economic growth, the Democratic war against prosperity will soon include the middle class as collateral damage."


The worst tax of all is the economic malaise caused by a stagnant economy when a foolish and greedy Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" tax policy is enacted.

We've seen it before, and we'll see it again if people like the Dem presidential candidates and the Dem congressional leaders get there way.

Let's make sure that they don't.

Kill the Bill, Round 2

Via Michelle Malkin, second only to Ann Coulter in bringing out the misogyny of the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives".

Quote of the Day

“Listening to the recent debates among the candidates, monitoring their Websites and reading the poll numbers, one gets the impression that the Republican and Democratic primary electorates are living in two different nations—or the same nation that faces two very different threats.

The Republicans want to protect us against Islamist terrorists. The Democrats want to protect us against climate change.”


—Michael Barone

"It ain't over 'til the alien wins"

Here's some facts regarding certain politicians' above described attitude about the revived Illegal Alien Amnesty bill.

Noteworthy:


"Open-borders Democrats led by Ted Kennedy bleat about the lack of 'due process' for downtrodden aliens, but immigration lawyers and their clients know the deal. Whether the Bush-Kennedy bill passes or not, it ain’t over ‘til the alien wins."

Health insurance is not health care

Here's something for those who don't know, or don't acknowledge the truth about this particular issue.

Key point:

"As the experience of other nations shows, however, universal health insurance often leads to very restricted access to health care..."

CBS: "It's not Katie's fault she's a failure....

It's the fault of you miserable, misogynist, and sexist viewers."

Excerpt:


"It's a strange strategy. Does Moonves really think that he can attract new viewers by accusing them of being chauvinist pigs?"


Ah yes.....the same old story.


It can't POSSIBLY be CBS' or Katie's fault. It's got to be those evil societal forces at work.


Yet another boost for the enablement of entitlement and victimism.

The effect of John Edwards' legacy

....has been felt in the medical field.

Excerpts:

"Edwards specifically has made much of his fortune suing doctors for not performing C-sections, arguing that they help prevent cerebral palsy in children. In 1970, six percent of all births were C-sections; in 2003, that number had climbed all the way up to 28 percent.

However, as John Stossel reports, there had not been a decrease in prevalence of cerebral palsy during that time. Hence, although Edwards' lawsuits have not, apparently, prevented anycases of cerebral palsy, they have, at least in part, yielded a great increase in the occurrence of C-sections. Now doctors do C-sections "just to be safe," meaning safe from lawsuits, though the procedure is not so safe for mothers.

While C-sections are not overly dangerous, women are four times more likely to die during a C-section than during vaginal birth; this is not an insignificant risk."

"Medical malpractice was his specialty, and he reportedly tried more than 60 such cases, winning more than $1 million in over half of those. Most involved Ob/gyns. Indeed, he was so feared, according to the Center for Public Integrity, "that doctors would settle cases for millions of dollars rather than face him at trial."

Edwards' specialty was cerebral palsy, a set of permanent conditions affecting control of movement and posture that usually appear at toddler stage. There is no cure, although stem cell studies in both humans (umbilical cord cells) and rats (neural cells) have produced promising results. More than 10,000 U.S. children are diagnosed with it yearly. Edwards claimed the disease developed because negligent doctors ignored fetal heart monitors indicating the child might not be getting enough air during birth and thus failed to deliver it immediately through cesarean surgery.

Yet Edwards won his cases not because scientific evidence favored him but because of his smooth-talking "trust-me" demeanor -- and heart-wrenching pleas in which he ghoulishly sometimes pretended to be the voice of the unfortunate child crying out for justice."

How and why the Illegal Immigrant Amnesty bill failed

Captain Ed has details.

Excerpt from the memo circulating around The Hill:




"There are three primary reasons the bill failed:

* The complicated legislation, constantly being tweaked by the White House and Deal-Makers, is full of loopholes and problems that deserved amendment and full consideration -- consideration denied by the Democrats.

* The White House, certain Democrats and the Deal-Makers blatantly disregarded the legislative process -- drafting the bill behind closed doors, skipping the committee process, jamming the bill through the system, limiting the number and type of amendments that could be offered and trying to close down debate on the bill long before appropriate concerns with the bill had been addressed fully.

* The American people rightly refuse to buy what the Deal-Makers are selling -- the rewarding of legal status in our country to millions who ignored our laws in exchange for yet another promise to fix our broken immigration system."

The bill's supporters are trying to resurrect it.

Let's see if they learned their lesson.

The war against the War on Terrorism

This type of nonsense is WAY out of hand.

It's past time to put a stop to it.

Key points:

"Virtually every aspect of the administration's war on terror-related policies--from the USA Patriot Act, to the use of military commissions to try captured al Qaeda members for war crimes, to the National Security Agency's Terrorist Surveillance Program, so-called data mining, no-fly lists and related transportation security measures--has been challenged in court. On balance the courts have upheld the administration's actions, or required relatively modest changes--or additional congressional action in the case of military commissions. Significantly, the Supreme Court has accepted the legality of the president's adoption of a 'laws of war paradigm.'"



"Leaving aside the lack of legal merit, the ACLU's claims are part of a highly troubling new trend. They are of a piece with a number of other ATS lawsuits brought against government contractors, actions filed last year against telecommunications companies alleging that they violated federally protected privacy rights by cooperating with the NSA's data-collection efforts, and an action, filed last March in Minnesota, against several airline passengers who had reported what they believed to be suspicious activity by a group of Muslim imams."



I can hear the wailing and the howls of protest now regarding this point of view.

Save your breath.

ALL of your talking points on this matter have been proven to be bogus.

algore attempts to coverup his hypocrisy

It's a little too late for damage control, don't you think, Al?

Excerpt:

"Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, the group that initially criticized Gore, said the 'renovations are obviously in direct response to our finding that he's a hypocrite on the issue of global warming.'"

One other point to make here.

Those of you who fear that algore MIGHT get elected President can put your minds at ease.

Electing the High Priest of the Church of the True Believers to the presidency is clearly a violation of the separation of church and state the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" always like to talk about when that particular point can be used against Christianity.

A brief history on the Surrendercrats

It really is important to understand their heritage.


Noteworthy:


"There was one other common feature in all of these wars that Democrats seemed almost innately unable to grasp. To stake out the role of peace-activist or to proclaim certain failure on the part of the United States always runs the risk of events proving them completely -- one could almost say foolishly if not obtusely -- wrong."

Why the Illegal Immigrant Amnesty legislation died a deserved death

Rasmussen has detail on the reality of the matter.



Noteworthy:


"The key to building support for such a compromise is convincing voters that the government is serious about controlling the border. That’s where this particular compromise has failed in the court of public opinion--just 16% believe it will actually reduce illegal immigration."

"From the beginning, the President and most other Beltway politicians have misunderstood the public debate over immigration. The initial discussions in Washington implied a debate that was either pro-immigration or anti-immigration. Those who favored some form of legalization or earned citizenship were pictured in official Washington as pro-immigrant while those who favored border control were thought to be anti-immigrant, ignorant, and perhaps racist.

However, Rasmussen Reports data shows an entirely different picture."



Don't believe some of the nonsense spewed by the Nutroots about the reason for this bill's failure.

In addition, don't expect to read very much from our Usual Suspect Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" counterparts about the actual will of the people here.

Toward responsible immigration reform

The dead duck amnesty bill wasn't a responsible and workable piece of legislation. Now that its gone, let's get busy on a better one.

Here are some ways to get started.

Key point:

"Congress should try an alternative approach:

(1) Deny amnesty to people here illegally that will help deter future illegal migration and make the point that we insist everyone respect the rule of law.

(2) Enforce workplace laws on the books and gain back control of our southern border.

(3) Create more practical and flexible legal opportunities to come and work in the United States. Together these measures offer a real strategy for breaking America’s addiction to undocumented labor."

This strategy is not only realistic. It is within our grasp."

Bush's victory means the effective end of the Kyoto nonsense

....and it's a setback of great weight to the cause of the faithful at the Church of the True Believers.

Excerpt:

"Under the vaunted Kyoto, from 2000 to 2004, Europe managed to increase its emissions by 2.3 percentage points over 1995 to 2000. Only two countries are on track to meet targets. There's rampant cheating, and endless stories of how select players are self-enriching off the government "market" in C02 credits.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., under the president's oh-so-unserious plan, U.S. emissions from 2000 to 2004 were eight percentage points lower than in the prior period."

Imagine that!


Here's the finish:


"Will congressional Democrats prove as pragmatic?

Even as Europeans have wised up, the left has been pushing for a Kyoto here. Should Democrats start to stumble on the difficulties, they could always ask Mr. Bush--that new international climate ambassador--for some advice."


The entrenched theology behind the "global warming" thought control and its rituals may be a bit too embedded in the for the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives"/True Believers to just come to their senses about their folly.

The Amnesty bill is dead

There is SOME common sense in Congress after all.

Let's find another direction, and actually FIX the problem.

We start by closing the border, and enforcing the laws already in place.

Everything else is negotiable.

The lessons of D Day

Victor Davis Hanson gives us a prospective that the Surrendercrats and their lefty/"progessive" counterparts don't want you to understand.

This tale might make you come to realize the nonsense that passes for foreign policy and domestic security on the part of the not-so loyal opposition.

Excerpt:

The American lesson of D-Day and its aftermath was how to overcome occasional abject stupidity while never giving up in the face of an utterly savage enemy. We need to remember that now more than ever."

Considering the unintended consequences of "global warming" hysteria

Why is it that the True Believers never want to talk about the unintended consequences of their overwrought alarmism?

Excerpts:

"Global warming hysteria - a boon for the ethanol and other biofuel enterprises - has boosted demand for crop-based fuels worldwide. This now threatens to reverse a half century of gains not only against world hunger, but also in holding the line against conversion of undeveloped land."


"As long as global warming is hyped as the world's most important environmental problem - as many politicians and environmental pressure groups claim - it will be virtually impossible to rationally evaluate other options in dealing with climate change, or confront the unintended consequences unleashed by global warming hysteria."




UPDATE 6-7-07 9:22 AM

Speaking of unintended consequences......

Here's the final nail in the coffin for the illegal alien amnesty legislation

It won't work.

We already know how outrageously expensive it will be to implement; now we know it is doomed to failure.

Why don't we put this thing out of its misery, and start over again with the measures that will actually solve the problem?

We start with actually sealing the border first and foremost, before we even consider other measures.

Understanding the truth about who bears the impact of "political correct" policies

The Enviroquacks and the True Believers never want to tell you about who among us pays the REAL price for their insistence on political correctness.


Noteworthy:


"The WWF, Greenpeace, Oxfam, Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network and other multinational activist corporations battle mines in Romania, Peru, Chile, Ghana and Indonesia; electricity projects in Uganda, India and Nepal; biotechnology that could improve farm incomes and reduce malnutrition in Kenya, India, Brazil and the Philippines; and DDT that could slash malaria rates all over Africa, where it kills 3,000 children every day."


"Agitators use global warming and “corporate social responsibility” to force companies to acquiesce to their agendas – and ignore human rights to energy and technology, and people’s desperate cries for a chance to take their rightful places among the Earth’s healthy and prosperous people. They promote little solar panels on huts, but never enough electricity to help communities emerge from poverty and disease."


"Why haven’t the UN and its Human Rights Council spoken out about the institutional racism that is being perpetrated in the name of “saving the planet”? Where are the US civil rights groups, news media and churches? The leaders of these poor countries?"



I'll tell you why they haven't, Mr. Innis.

They are too busy fulfilling their political/social/economic agendas, or too busy filling their pockets with the extorted funds they squeeze out of those who are easily duped, or those who are eager to be complicit.

Krauthammer on the immigration idiocy

"Comprehensive immigration reform" isn't.

Not by a long shot.

Examples:

"Until now we’ve had a special category for highly skilled, world-renowned, and indispensable talent. Great musicians, athletes, and high-tech managers come in today under the EB-1 visa. This apparently is going to be abolished in the name of an idiotic egalitarianism.

I suspect this provision is a kind of apology for one of the few very good ideas in the bill — taking skill, education, and English proficiency into account rather just family ties, and thus cutting back on a chain -migration system in which the Yemeni laborer can bring over an entire clan while the engineers and teachers desperate to get here languish in the old country."



"But the campaign for legalization does not stop at stupidity and farce. It adds mendacity as well — such as the front-page story in last Friday’s New York Times claiming that “a large majority of Americans want to change the immigration laws to allow illegal immigrants to gain legal status.”


We are quite aware that information is bogus, as Krauthammer proceeds to illustrate..

The more we know about this disaster, the worse the reality becomes.

Why has this thing not been totally scrapped yet?

Why are the lame streamers and the politicians ignoring the public?

Have they all gone completely whacked out on us?

Illegal immigration, illegitimacy, and our growing U.S. underclass

A social crisis of massive proportions is coming our way.

Noteworthy:


"Given what psychologists and sociologists now know about the much higher likelihood of social pathology among those who grow up in single-mother households, the Hispanic baby boom is certain to produce more juvenile delinquents, more school failure, more welfare use, and more teen pregnancy in the future."

"To grasp the reality behind those numbers, one need only talk to people working on the front lines of family breakdown. Social workers in Southern California, the national epicenter for illegal Hispanic immigrants and their progeny, are in despair over the epidemic of single parenting. Not only has illegitimacy become perfectly acceptable, they say, but so has the resort to welfare and social services to cope with it."


"The fathers of these illegitimate children are often problematic in even more troubling ways. Social workers report that the impregnators of younger Hispanic women are with some regularity their uncles, not necessarily seen as a bad thing by the mother’s family. Alternatively, the father may be the boyfriend of the girl’s mother, who then continues to stay with the grandmother. Older men seek out young girls in the belief that a virgin cannot get pregnant during her first intercourse, and to avoid sexually transmitted diseases."



"Hispanics now dominate the federal Women, Infants, and Children free food program; Hispanic enrollment grew over 25 percent from 1996 to 2002, while black enrollment dropped 12 percent and white enrollment dropped 6.5 percent. Illegal immigrants can get WIC and other welfare programs for their American-born children. If Congress follows President Bush’s urging and grants amnesty to most of the 11 million illegal aliens in the country today, expect the welfare rolls to skyrocket as the parents themselves become eligible."

"The social-services complex has responded with barely concealed enthusiasm to this new flood of clients. As Hispanic social problems increase, so will the government sector that ministers to them."


"From an intellectual standpoint, this is a fascinating social experiment, one that academicians are—predictably—not attuned to. But the consequences will be more than intellectual: they may severely strain the social fabric. Nevertheless, it is an experiment that we seem destined to see to its end. Tisha Roberts, a supervisor at an Orange County, California, institution that assists children in foster care, has given up hope that the illegitimacy rate will taper off. “It’s going to continue to grow,” she says, “until we can put birth control in the water.”


Coming soon, America......a huge permanent underclass that will dissolve the very basis of our social fabric into useless tatters.

Count on it.

Another story to add to the" Vast Left Wing/Dem Culture of Corruption"

Yeah, we can really trust Dems like this to lead the way in eliminating corruption in Congress, can't we?

Excerpt:

"Murtha and his fellow Democrats pretended that the intelligence bill contained no earmarks, but Rep. Jeff Flake eventually found 26 of them. By the time he did so, however, it was too late to offer amendments."

Why didn't this crook get nailed to the wall in the aftermath of Abscam?

He hasn't changed, has he?

Memorial Day

"We who are left how shall we look again

Happily on the sun or feel the rain

Without remembering how they who went

Ungrudgingly and spent

Their lives for us loved, too, the sun and rain?"


~Wilfred Wilson Gibson

George Will on immigration legislation

"Americans are skeptical about the legislation, but not because they have suddenly succumbed to nativism. Rather, the public has slowly come to the conclusion that the government cannot be trusted to mean what it says about immigration."

Michael Yon's Memorial Day message from Iraq

....from Power Line.

Noteworthy:

"I wonder whether those children know how hard many here in America are working to turn them over to the tender mercies of those who operated the Diyala prison."

I would hope not.

They don't need to know about those Americans who only use them for selfish political reasons.

Cartoon of the Day

(click to enlarge)

The fallacy of "Peer Review", as mis-used by the Global Warming True Believers

Here's a a good example that explains the process.

Excerpt:

"Here is the cookbook for modern climate “science”:

1) Run a “General Circulation Model” (GCM). These are large computer simulations designed to calculate global temperature changes as atmospheric chemistry is altered by human activity.

2) “Downscale” that model to a region or a state. In this case, a fine-scale grid laid across California.

3) Input the output of that model to some regional process, like viticulture or urban death.

4) Submit the result to a major journal for sure publication and a cursory peer review."

there's more.......

"Why could a paper be published in such a prestigious journal that is based upon a model that did not work? Why weren’t the authors cognizant of the Paper of the Year, which just happened to be on urban warming and death statistics? How could the reviewers miss this?

Patrick Michaels has a new book coming out on this issue, called Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media. It describes dozens of papers in the scientific literature that are as flawed as this one.

Why do they continue to appear? The reason is obvious. The scientific community is supported by gloom-and-doom, which gets us money from our single sugar daddy, the Federal Government. No one ever leveraged billions out of or Nation’s Capital (the current annual outlay for “global change” research is 4 billion) unless they threaten the worst. Then the political process takes credit for saving us from certain destruction and gets itself re-elected.

And don’t expect scientific peer-review to stop this process. Those who sit in judgment of science are those who receive the same largesse. Who would rationally derail this gravy train? That is why papers using models that don’t work, or that ignore critical citations that might spoil an otherwise perfectly apocalyptic hypotheses, are the rule rather than the exception. Which is what just happened in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

And then we have perhaps the most outrageous abuse of "peer review" as it pertains to "global warming" in the case of Bjorn Lomborg.

Here's author Michael Crichton to tell the story:

"I believe that as we come to the end of this litany, some of you may be saying, well what is the big deal, really. So we made a few mistakes. So a few scientists have overstated their cases and have egg on their faces. So what. Well, I'll tell you. In recent years, much has been said about the post modernist claims about science to the effect that science is just another form of raw power, tricked out in special claims for truth-seeking and objectivity that really have no basis in fact. Science, we are told, is no better than any other undertaking. These ideas anger many scientists, and they anger me. But recent events have made me wonder if they are correct. We can take as an example the scientific reception accorded a Danish statistician, Bjorn Lomborg, who wrote a book called The Skeptical Environmentalist.
The scientific community responded in a way that can only be described as disgraceful. In professional literature, it was complained he had no standing because he was not an earth scientist. His publisher, Cambridge University Press, was attacked with cries that the editor should be fired, and that all right-thinking scientists should shun the press. The past president of the AAAS wondered aloud how Cambridge could have ever "published a book that so clearly could never have passed peer review." )But of course the manuscript did pass peer review by three earth scientists on both sides of the Atlantic, and all recommended publication.) But what are scientists doing attacking a press? Is this the new McCarthyism-coming from scientists?
Worst of all was the behavior of the Scientific American, which seemed intent on proving the post-modernist point that it was all about power, not facts. The Scientific American attacked Lomborg for eleven pages, yet only came up with nine factual errors despite their assertion that the book was "rife with careless mistakes." It was a poor display featuring vicious ad hominem attacks, including comparing him to a Holocaust denier. The issue was captioned: "Science defends itself against the Skeptical Environmentalist." Really. Science has to defend itself? Is this what we have come to?
When Lomborg asked for space to rebut his critics, he was given only a page and a half. When he said it wasn't enough, he put the critics' essays on his web page and answered them in detail. Scientific American threatened copyright infringement and made him take the pages down.
Further attacks since have made it clear what is going on. Lomborg is charged with heresy. That's why none of his critics needs to substantiate their attacks in any detail. That's why the facts don't matter. That's why they can attack him in the most vicious personal terms. He's a heretic.
Of course, any scientist can be charged as Galileo was charged. I just never thought I'd see the Scientific American in the role of mother church.
Is this what science has become? I hope not. But it is what it will become, unless there is a concerted effort by leading scientists to aggressively separate science from policy. The late Philip Handler, former president of the National Academy of Sciences, said that "Scientists best serve public policy by living within the ethics of science, not those of politics. If the scientific community will not unfrock the charlatans, the public will not discern the difference-science and the nation will suffer." Personally, I don't worry about the nation. But I do worry about science."


This little story exemplifies the absolute corruption of science that passes for "peer review" by those who talk about "scientific consensus" on "global warming".

It's a despicable example of academic and intellectual fraud on the part of the True Believers.

There is more.....MUCH more to be said about this process of corruption.

"Peer Review" is only one small aspect of the attempt to legitimize the flagrant dishonesty being peddled as fact.

Garbage......just pure, unadulterated political garbage

So Fitzgerald wants a three year sentence. for Scooter Libby


"'Mr. Libby, a high-ranking public official and experienced lawyer, lied repeatedly and blatantly about matters at the heart of a criminal investigation concerning the disclosure of a covert intelligence officer's identity,' Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald wrote in court documents."


Pure, unadulterated attempt to criminalize politics, and it's pure, unadulterated bullshit.

He knew from the very beginning who provided the information to Novak. He couldn't indict anyone for a crime in the original case that he was investigating, so he scrounged for something, ANYTHING that would keep him from being a complete failure.

Fitzgerald is a political hack.

He makes Mike Nifong look like an ethical prosecutor.

Let's send him off to chase ambulances for a living.

UPDATE:

Valerie Plame Wilson's perjury substantiated.

So where's the indictment?

The fallacy of "guest worker" programs

Robert Samuelson wrote this over a year ago. It's still valid.


Excerpts:


"Guest workers would mainly legalize today's vast inflows of illegal immigrants, with the same consequence: We'd be importing poverty."


"What we have now -- and would with guest workers -- is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico. By and large, this is a bad bargain for the United States."


"Among immigrant Mexican and Central American workers in 2004, only 7 percent had a college degree and nearly 60 percent lacked a high school diploma, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Among native-born U.S. workers, 32 percent had a college degree and only 6 percent did not have a high school diploma. Far from softening the social problems of an aging society, more poor immigrants might aggravate them by pitting older retirees against younger Hispanics for limited government benefits."


"What's more perplexing is why liberals, staunch opponents of poverty and inequality, support a program that worsens poverty and inequality. Poor immigrant workers hurt the wages of unskilled Americans. The only question is how much. Studies suggest a range "from negligible to an earnings reduction of almost 10 percent," according to the CBO."


Why do some insist on creating a perpetual underclass in America? Isn't that what we have sought to eliminate for many, many years?

Quote of the Day

Regarding North Carolina's very own Harold Stassen:

"There is a war against radical Islam that's out to get us. That's a fact, and to deny it or to minimize it and to mitigate it the way that Edwards appears to be doing is a complete sellout to the anti-war left. "

-- Charles Krauthammer

Bad news for the Dems

Your Nutrooters/Looney Tooners are really upset with you!

Noteworthy:

"Enraged by what they considered capitulation by Democrats, anti-war leaders vowed to redouble their efforts at defeating the next funding request when it comes up as expected in September. The group MoveOn.org, which previously had been an ally of the Democratic leadership on the war issue, in a statement raised the specter of 'in-district advertising and recruitment of primary challengers' as punishment for Democrats who supported the deal."

These Rocket Scientists didn't learn their lessons from the last election, did they?

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

Well darn! THIS isn't convenient for the True Believers!

WaPo reports US carbon dioxide emissions down last year.

Quick!

Find a way to Blame Bush!

"This is more proof that this President just doesn't get it when it comes to combating climate change," Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said in a statement yesterday. "The house is on fire, and he's trying to douse the flames with a watering can. The science tells us that we need to reduce our emissions by 60-80% by 2050 in order to avoid catastrophic damage."

Whew!

Thanks!

For a while there, I thought we were going to actually get through an entire WaPo article without getting some political posturing by a Dem/Lefty/"Progressive", or a member of the High Church of the True Believers.

Hat tip to Jay Reding, whose conclusion is on target:


"Michael Chrichton had it right — the environmentalist movement operates from religious rather than scientific principles — which is why it’s important that policymakers stop encouraging the indulgences of carbon credits and the ritual shunning of nuclear power and concentrate on what works. That may not be what the environmentalist movement wants, but we all need a cleaner environment and a more efficient economy, and to get there we need to balance the needs of both."

Q: When are free speech rights not free speech?

A: When the ACLU says and thinks so.

Excerpt:

"Given its focus on student rights and religious liberty (one of the ACLU's priorities), it's hard to explain the ACLU's apparent equanimity about the violation of Mr. Harper's First Amendment rights--unless you consider the content of his speech.'

Congressional illegal immigration legislation not supported by the public

Is there really any wonder why that is so?

Excerpt:


"The data is so compelling, one has to wonder why Congress hasn't realized that they could offer a win for everyone by focusing exclusively on border security as an entrée to immigration reform. They literally would please every possible constituency by doing so, and would almost overnight dial down the emotion over the rest of the issue. Only in DC could the governing class be so out of touch with the national mood."


Let's hope those wiser voices out there prevail.

Bob Kerrey: "Iraq is central in the fight against radical Islam"

.....which is something those of us who have had our eyes wide open on this subject have known for a long, LONG time.

Details at Opinion Journal.


Key point:

"With these facts on the scales, what does your conscience tell you to do? If the answer is nothing, that it is not our responsibility or that this is all about oil, then no wonder today we Democrats are not trusted with the reins of power.

American lawmakers who are watching public opinion tell them to move away from Iraq as quickly as possible should remember this: Concessions will not work with either al Qaeda or other foreign fighters who will not rest until they have killed or driven into exile the last remaining Iraqi who favors democracy.


The key question for Congress is whether or not Iraq has become the primary battleground against the same radical Islamists who declared war on the U.S. in the 1990s and who have carried out a series of terrorist operations including 9/11. The answer is emphatically 'yes.'"



Kerrey has it pegged.


What part of what he said does the appeaser/surrender faction not understand?

Newt on Immigration Bill: "Disaster of the First Order"

It doesn't matter which side of the political fence you find yourself.

This immigration bill needs to disappear.


Excerpt:

"In 1986, I voted for the Simpson-Mazzoli immigration bill. We were promised that in return for amnesty for far fewer than three million illegal immigrants we would get:


* Control of the border;

* Enforcement of laws requiring employers to know someone is here legally before hiring them;

and

* No more amnesty and no more tolerance of illegality



The government broke its word on every one of those provisions. We eventually amnestied three million people who had broken the law, and we sent a signal to the world that it is okay to break the law and come to America. Now, 20 years later, we are told to trust Washington while we amnesty 12 to 20 million more people who have broken the law."


In addition to the general amnesty, the tax amnesty is an insult to all who pay taxes.

Then there's the little matter of a special pardon for the gang-bangers, no matter how violent the crimes committed.....

This whole thing gets worse the more we learn about it.
Let's make this thing GO AWAY.

NOW!


UPDATE

Let's also not lose sight of the costs we bear from illegal immigration.

Conclusion:

"U.S.immigration policy should encourage high-skill immigration and strictly limit low-skill immigration. In general, government policy should limit immigration to those who will be net fiscal contributors, avoiding those who will increase poverty and impose new costs on overburdened U.S. taxpayers.

Recent proposed legislation in the Senate will do exactly the opposite.[2] By granting amnesty to illegal immi­grants (who are overwhelmingly low skilled) and creating massive new "guest worker" programs that would bring millions of additional low-skill families into the nation, such legislation, if enacted, would impose massive costs on the U.S. taxpayer."

The Immigration Bill: Bad Deal all Around

Congress and the White House should be ashamed. It doesn't solve the problem and just maintains the status quo.

Here's an analysis from Red State on the White House fact sheet.

Make your voice clearly heard.

It's poor policy all the way around.

Just business as usual.

And, as usual, the American public figuratively and literally pay the price.

Cartoon of the Day

Click to enlarge.


(hat tip: Dr. Sanity)

Update to the Dem "Tax and Spend" budget

It's even worse than I thought.

MUCH worse.

Noteworthy:

"The tax cuts sparked an economic expansion that continues to this day, one which has increased revenues to the federal government by 22% since their full implementation. The lower rates improved capital investment in the economy, created jobs and lowered unemployment to 4.5%, and expanded prosperity.

What has been the Democratic response? Not only to raise taxes back to the pre-expansion level, but to add even more federal spending on top of it. It envisions a 5% increase over FY 2007 spending just to start. That's the largest single-year increase since 2002, and it comes on the compounded increases of 3-4% year-on-year of the Republican Congresses of the Bush term. It represents a whopping 40% increase from FY 2000, when the budget came in at $2.1 trillion."

"Within four years, the Democrats want to push the budget to $3.274 trillion, an increase of 10% over their proposed spending for next year, and an an increase of almost 20% over this year."


Bend over, folks.

The Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" are in power.

And be sure to protect yourself financially against the economic disaster that's on the way......

Here's evidence that there is at least one energy company executive

.....who has the cojones to step up and speak the truth about the "global warming" hysteria.


Noteworthy:


"You won't hear many of Mr. Murray's energy-biz colleagues mention him; they tend to avoid his name, much as nephews avoid talk of their crazy uncles. GE's Jeffrey Immelt, Duke Energy's Jim Rogers, Exelon's John Rowe--these polished titans have been basking in an intense media glow, ever since they claimed to have seen the light on global warming and gotten behind a mandatory government program to cut C02 emissions. They'd rather not have any killjoys blowing the whistle on their real motives--which is to make a pile of cash off the taxpayers and consumers who'll fund it.


And yet here's Mr. Murray, killjoy-in-chief at the global warming love-fest. 'Some elitists in our country can't, or won't, tell fact from fiction, can't understand what a draconian climate change program will do [to] the dreams of millions of working Americans and those on fixed incomes,' says the chairman and CEO of Murray Energy, one of the largest private coal concerns in the country."



"The science of global warming is speculative. But there's nothing speculative about the damage a C02 capture program will do to this country. I know the names of many of the thousands of people--American workers, their families--whose lives will be destroyed by what has become a deceitful and hysterical campaign, perpetrated by fear-mongers in our society and by corporate executives intent on their own profits or competitive advantage. I can't stand by and watch."



"'So what you are really doing with a global warming program is getting rid of low-cost energy,"'he says. The consequences? Americans have been fretting about losing jobs to places such as China or India, which already offer cheaper energy. 'You hike the cost of energy here further, and you create a mass exodus of business out of this country.'"



The True Believers never want to talk about the points Murray brings up.

Why is that?

WHEN will common good sense prevail, instead of the agendizing and hysteria that is the case for "scientific consensus" on "anthropogenic global warming"?

Here's a site worth bookmarking

Solutions Factory, by Eric Cantor (R-VA)

The first item on the list should comand our immediate attention. The Dems are determined to stop the influence of conservative talk radio, and this is their best chance to do so.

Cal Thomas on Jerry Falwell

He makes the point I've been making all along:

"The flaw in the movement was the perception that the church had become an appendage to the Republican Party and one more special interest group to be pampered. If one examines the results of the Moral Majority's agenda, little was accomplished in the political arena and much was lost in the spiritual realm, as many came to believe that to be a Christian meant you also must be "converted" to the Republican Party and adopt the GOP agenda and its tactics."


Also:


"Jerry Falwell did not fit the stereotype many sought to impose on him. He had a wicked sense of humor and he could be very generous. I once took him to a meeting of inner-city pastors and disadvantaged children in Washington, D.C. One young boy particularly impressed him and Jerry asked the boy to ride with him to the airport. The boy told him he'd like to go to college and Jerry gave him his phone number, saying, 'When you graduate from high school, call me. You will have a full scholarship at Liberty University.' The boy's father cried. So did I."