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."

Surprise, surprise!

The Dems in Congress want to spend more of your tax money.
Much more.

But wait.....there's more to the story. (hat tip: Fred Gregory)

Noteworthy:

"Democrats are proposing to change the rules in order to game the system and raise taxes and increase spending without a House vote. What are House Democrats afraid of?"

The voters in the 08 election...THAT'S who they're afraid of.

Just Dem business as usual.

Immigration "reform"?

I doubt it.

Seems more like "amnesty" to me, and it probably will do nothing to actually solve the problem.

Here's Power Line's take on the measure.

Yet even MORE links in the Saddam/Al Qaeda connection

One of the big talking points in the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" many BashBush/anti war tirades we hear incessantly is the "No ties between Saddam/Al Qaeda" lie.

Ray Robison drives yet ANOTHER nail in that particular talking point.

I wonder what new and innovative rationalization and spin we will hear from the Usual Suspects in another weak attempt to deny the facts of these matters?

Regarding Lefty/"Progressive" elitism

Professor Sowell, as always, gets it right on the money; this time it's in regard to the arrogant attitude of presumption the lefties/"progressives" think they're entitled to assert.

This passage has to rank as the Quote of the Year, at least to this point:


"The ignorance of people with Ph.D.s is still ignorance, the prejudices of educated elites are still prejudices, and for those with one percent of a society's knowledge to be dictating to those with the other 99 percent is still an absurdity."

Jerry Falwell has passed away

.....take a look at the how the Nutroots react.

Several of my favorites:

Here.

Here.

And Here.

UPDATE:

Here's a good analysis on the Lunatics' slime on Reverend Falwell's death, by Ericka Anderson at Human Events.

On a related note, look at the stuff over at Cone's on this subject, where one of our favorite Usual Suspects, Little Lord Lex is being his usual obnoxious self.

Lex thinks he's the "expert" (doesn't he always, on all things?) on Falwell. I'm getting ready to disabuse him of that notion.

As some of you may know, I worked as a newspaper reporter/editor in Lynchburg VA.

Alexander Cockburn's latest on "global warming"

Last week, I provided a quote from Alexander Cockburn regarding the lack of empirical evidence supporting anthropogenic CO2 as being the major factor in "global warming".

He's back, with more.

Noteworthy:


"No response is more predictable than the reflexive squawk of the Greenhouse fearmongers that anyone questioning their claims is in the pay of the energy companies. A second, equally predictable retort contrasts the ever-diminishing number of agnostics to the growing legions of scientists now born again to the "truth" that anthropogenic CO2 is responsible for the earth's warming trend, the melting of the icecaps, the rising of the seas, the increase in hurricanes, the decline in penguin fertility and other horrors too numerous for individual citation."



"As Richard Kerr, Science magazine's man on global warming remarked, 'Climate modelers have been "cheating" for so long it's become almost respectable.'"

The consequence? As with the arms spending spiral powered by the Cold War merchants of fear, vast amounts of money will be uselessly spent on programs that won't work against an enemy that doesn't exist."

Power Line takes on the DNC

....over their heavy-handed and obnoxious attempt tointimidate someone who said something they don't like.

Excerpt::

"In my view, the letter is sheer thuggery that recalls the same maneuever made on behalf of John Kerry in the 2004 campaign."

The slimeball tactics didn't work against the Swifties, and it won't work now.

Count on it.

Remember the Dems' babble about "lobbying reform"?

.....especially the "Republication Culture of Corruption" libel they used in the last election cycle?

Take a look at what they have actually done about "reform" in this area since they regained power in congress.

Key points:

"House Democrats are suddenly balking at the tough lobbying reforms they touted to voters last fall as a reason for putting them in charge of Congress.

Now that they are running things, many Democrats want to keep the big campaign donations and lavish parties that lobbyists put together for them. They're also having second thoughts about having to wait an extra year before they can become high-paid lobbyists themselves should they retire or be defeated at the polls."

"It's simple: they like lobbyist money. All that blathering about Jack Abramoff was a smoke screen, and considering how Reid and other Democrats like Tom Harkin and Robert Kennedy were knee-deep in cash from Abramoff clients, a rather obnoxious smoke screen at that. The Democrats have just as much culpability in pork and lobbyist love as the Republicans -- and to the extent that they are big-government expansionists, even more. Federal spending is what drives lobbyist cash to politicians, and the more government spending there is to exploit, the more money the lobbyists toss around."


Meet the New Boss.....Much worse than the Old Boss!

American health care outperforms European socialized medicine

Imagine that!

Noteworthy:

"It's funny how the supposedly equalized treatment of people under Western socialized-medicine models holds people back from new therapies and new medicines, while the American model of market-based medicine (with significant regulation) outperforms in this regard by a factor of 10. That response allows patients to start treating their cancers earlier, but what this report misses is that the American model also allows for earlier detection, thanks to the long waits for procedures like CAT scans and the like in Britain and other socialized systems.

And yet, the Democrats this year have already begun discussing how they will bring the American system closer to nationalization. Perhaps their presidential candidates should read this report first. Certainly American voters should familiarize themselves with it."

Indeed, people should familiarize themselves with this knowledge, and not let the "progressives" pull their usual shuck and jive on medical care.

Podhoretz: "I strongly suspect that the Democrats may already have blown the 2008 election. "

Details.


Noteworthy:


"In any case, the position the Democrats are now taking can only have the effect of revivifying and reinforcing the sense of them as weak on national security. And this was the very factor that led to the ignominious defeat of their presidential candidate, George McGovern, in 1972, when they also misread the public temper by paying too much attention to the left wing of their party."


Let's remember the words of George Santayana:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

It's '72 deja vu.

The Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" will never see what hit them.

Politicizing yet another natural disaster

You get three guesses as to which political faction, and their Nutroot blogosphere pals continue to shamelessly exploit tragedy to score political points.

Your first two guesses don't count.

Is there no end to their arrogance and pandering?

Note to Dems, Lefties, "Progressives", et al: National Security is NOT a game

It's real, it's a serious matter, and you need to stop trying to use it to make political points.

Excerpt:


"Further, agents were able to corroborate the intelligence provided by the informant through, yes, electronic surveillance — in this case, recordings the informant agreed to make of conversations in which he participated. This eavesdropping — or “domestic spying,” as the Left likes to deride it — specifically targeted people inside the United States, and was carried out in the absence of any court supervision or showing of probable cause.

All this was perfectly legal under federal law, which has long permitted the government to conduct warrantless monitoring of any conversation in which one of the participants consents to the eavesdropping—even if that participant happens to be an FBI informant."

Image of the Day

So now Edwards tells us he worked for Fortress?

And he expects us to buy the line about learning more about financial markets and their relationship to poverty?

From a HEDGE fund management group?

Does he really expect anyone besides his sycophant followers to believe that?

Excerpt:

"It was primarily to learn, but making money was a good thing, too," the 2004 vice presidential nominee said in an interview with The Associated Press."

I'm sure the money was a good thing.....just like in the good old days as a trial lawyer, wasn't it?

"He said the job was a compliment to his position as the head of a poverty center at the University of North Carolina."

Oh?

How do you figure that, Mr. Two Americas?

Unbelievable!

All in all, it's just a weak attempt at damage control.


Here's what WaPo said about this tawdry situation.

Noteworthy:

"Steve Jarding, a former top strategist for Edwards, said he would have advised the candidate to avoid the business and fundraising relationship with the hedge fund because it flies in the face of his political persona as a champion for the poor and an advocate for making the wealthy pay their share of taxes.

'It raises the question, "Is John Edwards the guy he says he is?"--- and that is not a debate John wants to have when he is trying to raise money and to move into that top tier of candidates,' Jarding said."

More True Believer attempts at censorship of "global warming" skeptics

....over the DVD release of The Great Global Warming Swindle video we discussed here before.

Amy Ridenour has details.

Quote:


"This isn't about censorship, it's a question of quality control."

-Bob Ward, former spokesman for Britain's Royal Society, on a campaign he is organizing to block the DVD release of a British documentary skeptical of the notion that human beings are causing catastrophic global warming.

Yeah, sure.


Meanwhile:



"Mr Durkin said: 'This contemptible attempt at gagging won't work. The reason they want to suppress The Great Global Warming Swindle is because the science has stung them. By comparison look at the mountains of absurd nonsense pedalled in the name of 'manmade climate change'. Too many scientists have staked their reputations and built their careers on global warming. There's a lot riding on this ridiculous theory. The DVD will be on sale shortly at a shop near you.' "

Just another in a long list of of thought control techniques these people use to keep their Big Lie strategy afloat.

In other words, business as usual for the "scientific consensus" on "anthropogenic global warming" religious cult......



Ready for more?

Read this.

Excerpt:

"The Union of Concerned Scientists is not about to relent in its green climate crusade. Yet UCS does not speak for the scientific community. Instead, it is a well-funded, left-wing pressure group, which politicizes science while claiming to be its true guardian. A partisan is no less a partisan because he has won the Nobel Prize, but a scientist is less of a scientist if he allows ideology to color his research."

The list of the "business as usual" fringe groups that support the Church of the True Believers goes on and on and on.....

McCain-Feingold needs to go!

It's clearly unconstitutional, and a new effort to bring it back to the Supreme Court is needed.

Mark Tapscott elaborates.

Noteworthy:

"Bob's basic point is the same one I have been making since before McCain-Feingold became law in 2002 - it is unconstitutional because it makes the definition of permissible political speech dependant upon the whims of Congress. That is in direct contravention of the First Amendment that mandates 'Congress shall make no law' governing speech."


Quoting Bob Bauer:

"The same 'interests'—special, corporate interests, in the lingo of reform—can still speak, only by new rules set by the state. The government’s argument is: what’s the difference, if the speech, by other means, is still possible? It will allow for speech, but it must be speech expressed in the form the government approves: it can impose its will and, when it does, it can show that the statute has, in the vindication of its authority, 'worked.'"

Empowering the garbage police

As many of you know, I do much of my work from my home office, which is positioned at a front corner of my home in northern Greensboro. This puts me in a position where I can easily monitor activity on my street.

More than once on our Tuesday garbage pick up day, I've seen a lady in a Toyota stop alongside the assembled containers on our street to lift the lid of the recycling container. She occasionally is seen to write a note to some of my miscreant neighbors threatening all kinds of nasty things should the accused folks fail to follow the rules. It's all reminiscint of Seinfeld's Soup Nazi.

I was reminded of this upon reading a Mark Steyn comment this morning at The Corner, where he discusses the way Brits monitor their garbage criminals.

Just think-- we could extend this sort of thing to all areas of our society in order to correct aberrant individual behavior, especially as it applies to what we've "decided" is our "scientific consensus" on "anthropogenic global warming".

Gosh!

Don't you think that's a GREAT idea? Think of all the good we could accomplish for Mother Earth that way!

Here's my favorite line in the Steyn piece:

"If George Bush put a microchip in your garbage under the Patriot Act, there'd be mass demonstrations across the land. But do it in the guise of saving the planet and everyone's fine with it."

Imagine that!

The passing of an American hero

You will be remembered, Wally........

In praise of academic and intellectual honesty by certain Libs

...who understand, despite their political inclinations, that the Second Amendment does indeed protect the individual's right to own firearms, as noted in the linked NYT article.

Read the article in this link regarding the discredited "prefatory language" line of attack that some "progressives" love to use in an attempt to claim that the Second Amendment doesn't say what it clearly says.

Excerpt:

"Think that any of this prefatory language limits free speech rights and the conduct of criminal trials? You shouldn't; as Professor Volokh shows, the existence of prefatory language in the granting of a constitutional right is entirely normal and when it comes to prefatory language creating two clauses in the granting of a particular constitutional right, these examples show 'how the two clauses might be read together, without disregarding either.'

So if we are not going to limit free speech rights or the conduct of criminal trials because of the existence of prefatory language in the constitutional provisions concerning those issues, why should we do so when it comes to the Second Amendment?"

Exactly.

Now if we could only get more academic and intellectual honesty from them on issues like "scientific consensus" on "anthropogenic global warming", we would REALLY be making some common sense progress, wouldn't we?

Quote of the Day

“The Left...views the world not as a conflict between good and evil but between white and black, male and female, and rich and poor... As a general proposition, subject to exceptions that accompany all generalizations, the Left has considerably more compassion for groups (racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and sexual groups it favors) than for individuals.”

—Dennis Prager

...from the Patriot Post US.

Read the story linked, which prompted the inclusion of the Prager quote.

Quote of the Day, "global warming" department

"In a couple of hundred years historians will be comparing the frenzies over our supposed human contribution to global warming to the tumults at the latter end of the tenth century as the Christian millennium approached.

Then as now, the doomsters identified human sinfulness as the propulsive factor in the planet's rapid downward slide. Then as now, a buoyant market throve on fear. The Roman Catholic Church sold indulgences like checks. The sinners established a line of credit against bad behavior and could go on sinning.

Today a world market in "carbon credits" is in formation. Those whose "carbon footprint" is small can sell their surplus carbon credits to others less virtuous than themselves.

The modern trade is as fantastical as the medieval one. There is still zero empirical evidence that anthropogenic production of carbon dioxide is making any measurable contribution to the world's present warming trend.

The greenhouse fearmongers rely on unverified, crudely oversimplified models to finger mankind's sinful contribution--and carbon trafficking, just like the old indulgences, is powered by guilt, credulity, cynicism and greed."

-- Alexander Cockburn

At least SOME Lefties get it, don't they?

Dems decide "global warming" more dangerous than Islamic terrorists

(Sigh)

The stupidity over this idiotic "global warming" agenda has come to this.

Excerpts:

"'Our job is to steal secrets,"' said Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

'There are all kinds of people analyzing global warming, the Democrats even have a special committee on this,' he told The Washington Times. 'There's no value added by the intelligence community here; they have no special expertise, and this takes money and resources away from other threats.'"

"'It's hard to imagine how anyone could believe that climate change represents a more clear and present danger to the United States than radical Islamic terrorists armed with bombs, but that's essentially what Democrats have concluded in this bill,' said Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican."

As if the six billion plus dollars we already spend on something we can do little or nothing to effect meaningful changes isn't enough money wasted......

RELATED:

This type of story was bound to show up, wasn't it?

Not only are they lying about the science and the math behind their alarmist gibberish, they're putting an all out effort to convince everyone that their version of "fixing" the supposed "problem" (anthropogenic global warming) isn't nearly as expensive as everyone thinks.

The facts say otherwise, but what the heck, why let facts stand in the way of fulfilling a cherished"progressive" social/political/economic agenda item?

Time Magazine's BDS is showing

Don Surber has the details.

Henry Luce has been spinning in his grave for quite some time now, but this may be enough to effect a complete resurrection.

(hat tip: Instapundit)

Heath Shuler: "Conservative" Democrat?

Let's take a look at the record.

Noteworthy:


"Indeed, if Shuler continues to vote in a manner that makes him less than distinguishable from Nancy Pelosi, he may very well find himself on the short end of the stick when the next elections roll around."



On the other hand, look at how the "progressives"/Nutroots howled about Shuler appearing at the recent Civitas gathering in Raleigh.

Is he trying to play both sides against the middle?

I had to chuckle at the comment comparing his brief congressional career in DC with his brief NFL career in DC.

As the saying goes, it's "Deja Vu all over again".......

Yet another hissy fit brewing in Libthink Land

First, WaPo reports that Dingy Harry, La Pelosi, and assorted pals are caving to the White House on Iraq timetables, after knowing that the Bush veto has made them look silly.

The story is quickly denied by the Dem wannabee leaders, and righteous indignation flows from the Nutroots.

Check out the babble, dribble, drool and spew in the comment section of the last link.

Noteworthy:

"The media's coverage of this focussed on the Democratic dilemma because they simply have no ability to retract their heads from Karl Rove's behind. In this Media position every fart Rove makes sounds loud and important."


"Greg, isn't the question you raised at the end of the piece the real problem with the MSM? They are not independent. Whether the cause is right wing ownership of media outlets, or fear of loss of access to the WH and other administration sources, the plain, obvious conclusion is that the MSM has been transformed into a state propaganda device. Unfortunately, there are no indications presently that this situation is changing in the current environment."

"The WaPo and its GOP masters may be figuring that if enough parts of the media report it this way that people will give up putting pressure on the Democrats to keep that language in the bill. Then Shrub 'wins', for some value of winning that I don't seem to get.

Who are the aides who keep saying this, and who do they actually work for? Because it sounds to me like Rove might have sleeper agents in the Democratic Party. Shame on the party if it falls over its own voters and caves again."

THAT is funny!

It's a perfect example of the Left's wacked out logic about the media, as exemplified recently in the Cone meme about the media being "willing cheerleaders for the War in Iraq".

And Cone thinks I'm a paranoid conspiracy theorist!

(hat tip: Instaoundit)

UPDATE:

Captain Ed has more.

Excerpts:

"The supplemental has to get passed and signed as quickly as possible, and that reduces the leverage of Congressional leadership. If they fail to produce an acceptable compromise bill by the time they leave for Memorial Day, the outrage will get directed at Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. The nation will wonder what they have been doing since the beginning of the year, since nothing much else has passed Congress since the Democrats took control in January. Had the Democrats really wanted to put Bush in a corner, they would have started out with this compromise from the beginning. They could have garnered Republican support and taken leadership of the direction of the war."



"Reid and Pelosi enabled Bush to look tough, presidential, and relevant -- and now they have belatedly discovered that since they don't have the testicular fortitude to yank the funding altogether, they have to find some way to accommodate the White House.

Welcome to the big leagues, Harry and Nancy. This time, try to keep up."

"We Win, They Lose"

It's time to let Dingy Harry, La Pelosi and their other conspirators know how we feel in no uncertain terms.

Memo to the members of our Lame Stream Media

.....and their "progressive" pals in the blogosphere, both nationally and locally:

Pay attention. You might actually learn something here.

Quote of the Day

“How many times have we heard the Dems insist that they support the troops? It’s one of their mantras. If something isn’t ‘for the children’, it’s to ‘support the troops.’ But it’s false, just as their insistence last fall that they wouldn’t cut and run was. All of that pales in comparison to one single fact: Reid and the rest of the Democrats do not condemn defeat. They do not say they would have done better to win, because the words ‘win’ and ‘victory’ never pass their lips. They never propose an idea that might lead to quicker, more decisive victory in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or the Horn of Africa, or Lebanon, or anywhere else.

No. The Democratic pathology is the same now as it was forty years ago... What, then, is the import of what Sen. Reid said? First, Reid and his ilk do not support the troops. When Reid says the war is lost, the troops hear. They understand that they are still risking their lives every day for a war the Democrats are content to lose. There can be no more destructive assault on their morale.”

—Jed Babbin

(from the Patriot Post US)

I think the authorities need to dig a little deeper

.....into this story. There's more here than meets the eye.

Might this just possibly be an effort to discredit and embarrass The Rhino, and has nothing to do with the KKK?

Might not this just be payback for the Bledsoe series on Wray and the GPD?