Father knows best!

The gents at Powerline direct our attention to this article (via the Washington Times) in Foreign Policy magazine.

"Across the globe, people are choosing to have fewer children or none at all. Governments are desperate to halt the trend, but their influence seems to stop at the bedroom door. Are some societies destined to become extinct? Hardly. It’s more likely that conservatives will inherit the Earth. Like it or not, a growing proportion of the next generation will be born into families who believe that father knows best."

Count this household in that number!

There is much good information in the article that you really should read, but I would like to point you to a couple of paragraphs in particular that spell good news if you are of a conservative bent (as we here at Savage Republican are).

"Falling fertility is also responsible for many financial and economic problems that dominate today’s headlines. The long-term financing of social security schemes, private pension plans, and healthcare systems has little to do with people living longer. Gains in life expectancy at older ages have actually been quite modest, and the rate of improvement in the United States has diminished for each of the last three decades. Instead, the falling ratio of workers to retirees is overwhelmingly caused by workers who were never born. (ed - or were aborted????) As governments raise taxes on a dwindling working-age population to cover the growing burdens of supporting the elderly, young couples may conclude they are even less able to afford children than their parents were, thereby setting off a new cycle of population aging and decline."

Which is exactly why Social Security reform is essential. Without reforms that will allow younger workers the opportunity to take care of themselves, we will never be able to take care of the elderly.

" By comparison, nearly 20 percent of women born in the late 1950s are reaching the end of their reproductive lives without having had children. The greatly expanded childless segment of contemporary society, whose members are drawn disproportionately from the feminist and countercultural movements of the 1960s and 70s, will leave no genetic legacy. Nor will their emotional or psychological influence on the next generation compare with that of their parents.
Meanwhile, single-child families are prone to extinction. A single child replaces one of his or her parents, but not both. Nor do single-child families contribute much to future population. The 17.4 percent of baby boomer women who had only one child account for a mere 7.8 percent of children born in the next generation."

Our family, sadly, is part of that 7.8% of the population that only had one child...and it was not by choice. I'm certain that the use of DES in our parents generation had something to do with that.

"This dynamic helps explain, for example, the gradual drift of American culture away from secular individualism and toward religious fundamentalism. Among states that voted for President George W. Bush in 2004, fertility rates are 12 percent higher than in states that voted for Sen. John Kerry. It may also help to explain the increasing popular resistance among rank-and-file Europeans to such crown jewels of secular liberalism as the European Union. It turns out that Europeans who are most likely to identify themselves as “world citizens” are also those least likely to have children."

And there is the rub dear readers. This explains the rancor, the bile, the vitriol and the anger that you hear out of the left. They know that as divided as this country is, they will soon be outnumbered by those of us in "Jesusland". I will leave the final word, to author Phillip Longman.

"Societies that are today the most secular and the most generous with their underfunded welfare states will be the most prone to religious revivals and a rebirth of the patriarchal family. The absolute population of Europe and Japan may fall dramatically, but the remaining population will, by a process similar to survival of the fittest, be adapted to a new environment in which no one can rely on government to replace the family, and in which a patriarchal God commands family members to suppress their individualism and submit to father."

From tiny acorns...morality vs justice vs fairness

Where I go to church there is a real nice sounding movement called "Social Justice". A few years ago we closed down our counseling center and made it into "The Center for Spiritual Formation". Very catchy title. Really bad formation. This center has had seminars on "White Privilege", "Writing your Congressman " ( on how to force more programs out of Congress and on to us), how to lobby for "affordable housing" which is a code word for subsidized housing. All this and so much more under the rubric of Social Justice.
Now, this is supposedly a Christian Church. And yet, I'd be willing to bet that not a one of the "Spiritual Formation" leaders has a clue, even the vaguest notion as to the genesis of the "Social Justice" movement. And that they haven't the smallest notion that the social justice movement was born from ungodly men to topple God off His throne and replace Him with the worship of His creation in its highest form-us! Viola'-secular humanism and its vehicle, socialism.
The following is excerpted from Thomas Brewton's fine site "The View From 1776" (I urge you read the entire timeline here to learn about the growth of socialism and social justice in all its subtle entirety).
1750 - 1780s - French philosophers of the Revolution (Rousseau, Diderot, Condorcet, Turgot, Voltaire, et al) begin propagandizing for social justice via revolt against the monarchy and the Catholic Church.

1825 - Henri de Saint-Simon systematizes revolutionary doctrines into socialism; publishes The New Christianity, which calls for a catechism of socialistic morality, called social justice, to replace the religion of Christianity. Government is to be by councils of intellectuals and managers empowered to regulate all economic activity. Education will be under intellectual control to insure that only socialism is taught.

1822 - 1842 - Auguste Comte in 1822 publishes System of Positive Philosophy, which is carried to Germany by his young pupils studying with German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, thus cross-pollinating German statist and French socialist philosophies. Comte's socialist positivism becomes widely studied in German universities. Comte's Positivism denies existence of God and reality of religion and morals; only reality is things detectable by senses like sight, smell, and hearing; creates The Religion of Humanity, which says that the object of worship is humanity itself; "discovers" the Immutable Law of History that supposedly pushes human society inevitably toward perfection under a government of socialized regulatory control directed by intellectuals.

1870s - German universities, medical science, chemistry, physics, historical and classical scholarship become the finest in the world. American scholars who aim for advancement in American universities attend German universities, where they absorb the prevailing Hegelian statist and French socialist philosophy. Harvard and Yale convert from schools to train ministers of the Gospel to secular universities, focusing in the social sciences on promulgating the new "scientific" socialism. Johns-Hopkins University is established, modeled on the German universities. Only about 2 percent of Americans go to college, but those who do emerge as the first American liberal-socialists. The first group of American women go to college, emerge openly socialists, working predominantly in the social services such as Jane Addams's Hull House settlement house in Chicago and similar organizations in other cities. Their goal is to convert America from private property ownership to socialized regulation of the economy. Caring for the less fortunate is transformed from a moral issue, handled by churches and local social organizations, into a national political issue of socialistic "fairness.

Notice the modern morphing from the old moral issues of poverty into fairness now being a moral issue.And what has never been explained to me is how, from a Christian Church where we supposedly worship a God who calls force and coercion evil, Who specifically wrote a commandment against stealing (meaning taking what doesn't belong to you) and another against coveting (meaning wanting something that doesn't belong to you), how these people in this church call for "Social Justice" that inflicts injustice, by force, against people who are innocent bystanders. The Social Justice anarchists mob (there, I finally said it. I feel much better now) force programs on the citizens of the United States.,force them to work to pay for these programs that are neither effective, efficient nor lawful according to the commandments of my God at least, and supposedly the god they say they worship. But Social Justice is not justice. It is force. It is evil (there, I feel even better now). And the genesis of Social Justice was in the realms of secular humanism, to dethrone the God of Jacob, the God of the Founding Fathers.
Yup. I'm always amazed at how incredibly subtle satan is. He makes what is incredibly evil sound and look so good! And The Lord warns us, and warns us very pointedly about calling evil good and good evil in Isaiah 5:20, with the greatest admonition in the Bible: "Woe to you".
satan is excellent at what he does. The saving grace is that God is perfect at what He does.

TO ARMS! PROTECT THE FIEFDOM!!

In the bowels of a story there sometime lies bits of incredible truth.
Anna Nicole Smith's case has made it to the Supreme Court. And I'm always interested in stories where the feds have an interest in a state case. And deep in this story is a another reason that we supposedly have a federal and not a national constitution.
"The Bush administration is siding with Smith as a technical matter, arguing that the justices should protect federal court jurisdiction in such disputes." Never mind if there was ever supposed to be federal jurisdiction here at all. Just protect it once the feds have it.
Yup, as one of my friends at CCRN said "It's good to be the king!"

About those non-existant WMD's

A couple of articles have come out recently that give lie to the oft repeated myth that "Saddam had no WMDs" and that "Saddam had no connection to al Qaeda". The first is this from the American Thinker magazine. The second is this from Investors Business Daily about the Saddam tapes.

War foes have long asserted that Saddam halted his WMD programs in the wake of his defeat in the first Gulf War in 1991. Saddam's abandonment of WMD programs was confirmed by subsequent U.N. inspections.
Again, not true. In a tape dating to April 1995, Saddam and several aides discuss the fact that U.N. inspectors had found traces of Iraq's biological weapons program. On the tape, Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law, is heard gloating about fooling the inspectors.
"We did not reveal all that we have," he says. "Not the type of weapons, not the volume of the materials we imported, not the volume of the production we told them about, not the volume of use. None of this was correct."

Say it isn't so...Saddam didn't reveal all of the WMD's that he had to UN inspectors???? Impossible...or so the left would have you believe.

Take this, combined with the articles here and here and you can see that maybe, just maybe Saddam not only had WMD's but he might have indeed had ties to Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks!

So now feeding them is abuse?

I'm stunned! For months we have heard about "detainee abuse" out of the Gitmo detention center. This week the NY Times breathlessly reported the newest abuse...force feeding detainees that are trying to starve themselves to death!

So let me see if I understand this.....we feed them gormet hilal food, they refuse to eat it or they purge themselves (bulimic) and when we try to make sure that they get enough food to stay alive we are the ones in the wrong?????

There is nothing that our troops can do to make the prisioners OR the NY Times happy so why do they even try? Do whatever it takes, within the letter of the law and nothing more. The prisioners at Gitmo want to kill Americans - something that our government can and should not let them do. Why should the same Americans that they want to kill make it easier for them to do so??????

Now they decide to do something about this?

Every time an evangelical church gets involved in "politics" the ACLU starts screaming about separation of church and state. Yet that does not stop Democrats from campaigning from the pulpit. This week, the Washington Times reports that the IRS finds this kind of activity "disturbing". Oh NOW they say that....

"We want to stop improper activity during -- not after -- the election cycle," said IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson. "Now is the time to act, before it is too late" to prevent churches and charities from becoming deeply embroiled in politics and the fundraising process.

The article goes on to talk about the over 100 complaints that were filed with the agency. Here is a hot tip for the IRS...don't wait for complaints to be filed. When there is a news story about any candidate campaigning from the pulpit, consider that to be the complaint! We should not have to file a formal complaint for the IRS to do it's job.

Here's the deal...if the left does not want the "religious right" to campaign in their places of worship, they should not be inviting candidates to be campaigning from their pulpits. The law works both ways and we need to make sure that the law is enforced both ways!

This is what universal health care gets you

This is one reason why we should resist universal health care. What is wrong with humanity when we will refuse to administer care to an ailing child. The death with dignity people will say that the child is terminal and her suffering should not be "prolonged". But what about the patients in Canada who had to sue to get private health care or are routinely denied lifesaving services because of expense or made to wait to get care (as they are in the UK).

Even Canadians are recognizing that their once touted system has sometimes fatal flaws. Here in the US, as we creep closer and closer to a universal system, we are running into the same problem. Seniors are denied doctor prescribed therapy because they are only allotted a certain dollar amount a year for that therapy and they have already surpassed their amount! More and more hospitals are cutting services because the costs of providing those services are not picked up by HMO's and Medicare.

We do have a health care crisis brewing in America and it is called universal health care. We do need to fix our current system, no doubt, but replacing it with a Canadian or UK style single payer system is not the fix that we need.

Headlines?

If you went by the headlines, you would think Iraq was a lost cause. The press breathlessly tells us how the "Violent Cycle of Revenge Stuns Iraqis" and "More Clashes Shake Iraq; Political Talks Are in Ruins "(NY Times), or "Reprisals kill scores in Baghdad" (WaTimes) or "A Nation Teeters on Brink of Civil War" (LA Times). They aren't so quick to tell you about this or this or this.

I understand the old news adage "If it bleeds, it leads", but really. Just once I would like to see some of the Good News out of Iraq lead. There is progress being made over in Iraq. The media needs to start writing about it.

If you want to know what is really going on in Iraq, you need to be a better consumer of the news. Do not rely on our friends in the MSM. Instead, rely on the word of people who are living through the good and the bad in Iraq. I recommend sites like Iraq the Model or any of the other Iraqi blogs listed on their blogroll.

For the sake of the children

Tracy started a very thoughful discussion on partial birth abortion Wednesday over at Anti-Strib. I bring this up because there were some comments made in the discussion that tie into what I am about to talk about.

MN Education Reform News Scholars Notebook tells us that the MN Legislature is considering the possibility of mandating mental health screening for all pre-school children. This would require that all children be screened at least once before the age of 3. BEFORE THE AGE OF 3 PEOPLE!!!!! The "logic" of this plan is to try to identify "at risk" behavior as early as possible and administer the appropriate medications to control said behavior. What kind of behavior you ask? From EdWatch MN:

"An eligible child is one who has “been removed from child care, Head Start, or preschool for behavioral reasons or is at risk of being so removed” or “been exposed to parental depression or other mental illness.”

So if your child gets suspended for misbehaving, "drug 'em". Parents have depression "drug the kid"....the worst part is this is part of the No Child Left Behind Act!

Then we had two letters to the editor of the Fishwrap from Tuesday where the authors are advocating that government mandate pre-screening of all infants for genetic diseases. The "logic" for this intrusion??? It's "for the children"....which leads me back to the abortion discussion. Along the course of discussion, one of the commenters mentioned that if there is testing that shows that the fetus has a "terminal illness" (the example was hydrocephalis) then maybe we should allow a 3rd trimester abortion. My problem with that is where do we stop? Do you test for Tay Sachs disease (a genetic disorder that effects people of Jewish lineage)? How about sickle cell disease? Or hemophelia or AIDS? If we test for these kinds of diseases, do we test for physical or mental handicaps? If we do that, do we choose to abort babies who have Down Syndrome? Where does it stop?

I got pregnant (late in life) with the Junior Logician. As part of my pre-natal care, I was given the option to test for Down Syndrome in utero. I chose not to in part because of the risks to my unborn child and partly due to the fact that I felt that if I did have a Down Syndrome child (which was a distinct possibility due to a number of reasons) I would handle it. I want to stress that this was an optional test!

What strikes me as odd about this is that the same people who are advocating the intrusion of government in this medical condition are the very same ones that demand that government stay out of it when they choose to kill their unborn child! Where is the logic in that?

Update: This via the Chicago Sun Times.....genetic manipulation to determine the gender of your baby. Again, just where does this end?

Can we PLEASE question their patriotism now????

For years Republicans have been "scolded" for questioning the patriotism of the anti-war left. Can we finally question it? Why you ask? This story in the Prairie Pravda will tell you.

"The concert, dubbed "Bring 'Em Home Now!" will be held at the Hammerstein Ballroom on March 20, the 3rd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Rufus Wainwright and Bright Eyes will also perform, organizers said Wednesday."

Sigh.....when is it time for us to finally start questioning their patriotism?????

When push comes to shove...

I got a strange phone call the other night. A recorded voice asked me if I approved of the President's handling of something or another and to press 1 for yes and 2 for no. Out of curiosity I pressed 1 and then the recorded voice asked me if I approved of the government's handling of a case that I have never heard of. I hung up on the call on principle. I refuse to participate in any unsolicited call that involves pre-recorded questions. If you really want to know what I think on an issue, have the decency to ask me in person!

In reading today's Washington Post, I found out that I was on one end of a push poll call. I have always found push polls to be odious at best and downright deceptive at the worst and I refuse to take part in them.

Attention all you candidates and pollsters - ditch the push poll! Polling is a dubious science as it is and push polling is it's seemy underbelly. We have all heard the horror stories out of the 2000 Republican primaries in South Carolina. You don't want your campaign tainted by that...do you????

Rome, the Pilgrims, de Tocqueville...and hogs.

Late last night I was talking to one of my clients. He is in his late 70's. He made a comment that what we needed were more programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration from the New Deal.He felt that with all welfare recipients working and getting a paycheck would be a real boon. I mentioned that the reason that the Great Depression came about was that the Federal reserve horrible monetary policy. And that a great many of the New Deal programs and more Fed Res policy made it incredibly difficult for employers to create jobs.I sent him to a great site on the Great Depression and how it all came about because of government meddling and was made worse because of government programs.
I then saw a link asking if we are going the way of Rome ? It started by telling a story about wild hogs and the seemingly impossible task of capturing them. It then told the history of Rome going from a republic to an empire to a welfare state to ruin and finally to eclipse.
And as I read the where Emperor Aurelian started to make government bread an inherited right (welfare rights in other words. Sound familiar? How do you feel that there are people who say that other people have a right to your money that preempts your right to your money? Just curious. And that the government does this by threatening you with confiscation or jail or both if you don't fall in line.)
And as the story unfolded, I was reminded of the real story of the Pilgrims (which had not been known until the discovery of Gov. William Bradford's lost diaries) and their one growing and harvest season experiment with socialism (that nearly killed them).
I was then reminded of de Tocqueville's comments on this experiment he called Anglo-America. He traveled America in the early 1830's and mused that this great experiment would last just up until the time that people realized that they could take what belonged to their neighbors by whom they voted into office.
Just look at the Katrina hurricane people (I refuse to call them victims as they chose to live in an area that was at or below sea level and prone to hurricanes). And how they demand your money to pay for their choices.
And GWB is giving them $200,000,000,000 of your money. And he's considered uncompassionate because he's not taking enough of your money, by force, to give to them. As the article states, the government can only give what it first takes.
Read the article, fellow Roman.

VETO!!!!! Part II

Last night I was listening to Frank Gaffney and John Podhoretz on Hugh Hewitt. The topic, as Frank is an expert on national security issues and John is a political columnist of the first rank , was the UAE port deal. And always remember, in politics, perception is reality. Gaffney and Podhoretz interviews are on Radio Blogger. Read them.
Right now I'm listening to Rush and he is vainly trying to support GWB in this.And he's going into minutiae. And when you have to explain a position in this much detail you've already lost the argument. (This reminds me of the "Guest Worker Progam" where I got a number of emailed talking points from the National Republican Committee as to the GWP NOT being an amnesty. When the RNC thinks we need that many talking points, it's an amnesty. Perception=reality).
Rush. Let it go. Now! You're morphing from an apologist to a syncophant.
Podhoretz says that in this situation there is no Krauthammer strategy (Harriet Meirs, ex SCUS appointee, could just take her name out of consideration). Gaffney blends the security with the politics. And he also refers to the security issues with the spread of radical Islam into Africa and its financing centers in the Middle East.
And again, here is GWB talking veto, and even those who usually support him are saying that a veto WILL be overridden.
There is NO upside to this for GWB, it's all a down side for him and he's handing a very timely political story to the lefties who, as Podhoretz says , are naked on national security to this point and the President has given the Dems at least a loin cloth. And if that's not bad enough, he's got Jimmy Carter on his side! Now, that makes a point that will bring the real consevatives out in droves this fall! Hugh Hewitt was not aware that Jimmy was on board with GWB and he nearly swallowed his microphone when John McIntyre of Real Clear Politics laid that on him!
BTW, also read the Bill Frist and John McIntyre (Real Clear Politics )interviews on the Radio Blogger site, all on the UAE port deal.

Port Authority

I had not posted on this issue yet for a reason. Partly because I felt that I did not know enough about the subject to speak on the issue and partly because it has been covered so very thoroughly by Michelle Malkin. My initial gut reaction is that this was not a good thing. That reaction was cemented today when I heard this on my way into the office this morning.

President Bush is taking a battering from fellow Republicans, even the governors of New York and Maryland, over the administration's support for a decision that gives an Arab company control of some commercial operations at six major seaports -- including Miami-Dade's.
But he got a boost Monday from an unlikely source, frequent critic and former president Jimmy Carter, who downplayed fears that the deal poses a risk.

Why am I suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to sing "Whatever it is, I'm against it"? For those of you who are much younger than the Lady Logician, that song is one of the classic Marx Brothers songs. Grouch Marx opens the movie "Horse Feathers" with it.

I don't care what they have to say
It makes no difference anyway
Whatever it is I'm against it!- Groucho Marx in "Horse Feathers"

If Jimmy Carter is for it....whatever it is, I'm against it!

I see where my friend Amendment X has chimed in on the issue as well. I share his disappointment with the President on this issue. He can't be bothered to veto any out of control spending but he can be moved to veto this????? Unreal!

The ABC's of why government doesn't work

I like simple. Truth usually is and I blogged on the elements of truth that I've found .
Here is an excellent article on why federal, or for that matter state subsidies, "initiatives" and the like have not and will not work. Ever!
Here in Minnesota the ethanol subsidy is nothing more than politicians buying farmers votes with your hard earned money. Period! Ethanol is a waste. Period. It doesn't work nearly as efficiently as oil.Period.
And yet, with all that evidence, state and federal governments just keep on spending and subsidizing ethanol.
And I'm amazed that people just keep on electing those who keep all this gross waste and stolen liberty in force.

Education California

Why am I not surpirsed that this story comes out of San Francisco?

"For the politically correct Bay Area parent, the "Curious George" children's books are a minefield of cultural horrors through which to tiptoe. Imperialism. Animal abuse. Bad parenting.

"The books are really irresponsible to me. It's sickening, really," said Robin Roth, managing editor of www.arkonline.com, an animal welfare Web site.

Roth, a high school English teacher in Los Angeles, writes on her animal rights Web site that "Curious George" reveals "the sinister side of a corrupt wildlife trade with perilous roots in Western imperialism." When the mischievous George is sent to jail, "the picture of the forlorn little primate alone in his cell conjures haunting images of countless monkeys lingering in laboratories, suffering silently and alone."

Oh my head hurts!!!!! Make it stop!!!!!

HEY LADY - here is a hot tip for you. Curious George is a story - fiction - made up - NOT REALITY!!!!!

What is it going to take for us to walk away from the land of the "perpetually offended" and into the land of reality? This is a classic piece of children's literature. What's next? "Make Way for Ducklings"??????

Addicted to eggs

I cringed with every mention of the term "initiative" from GWB in the SOTU. And non-thinkers immediately took on the form of an intellectual bobble head doll when the President said "We are addicted to oil". I've blogged on the failures of ethanol and all other "alternative" energy ideas that are just an absolute waste of taxpayers money. If these energy sources that have been explored over the past three decades were economically viable, they would need no subsidy.
Dr. Walter E. Williams as written a article on the subject of the term "oil addiction".

Education Minnesota

Saturdays St Paul Pioneer Press had an intesting article about the school system that everyone needs to read. It is about how one school in St Paul handled cultural conflict.

Executive Director Bill Wilson said he had concerns for some time about how to reconcile the school's art curriculum with the views of Muslim families, but the departure of the art teacher at the end of last school year gave him a window to act.

This fall, he hired ArtStart, a St. Paul-based nonprofit organization, to offer more options for about 150 kindergartners through second-graders, including visual arts and drumming. But parents were still upset that their children were drawing figures, Wilson said, and some pulled their children out of art class altogether.

Wilson then sat down with teacher and parent liaison Abdirahman Sheikh Omar Ahmad, who also is the imam at an Islamic center in Minneapolis, to work with ArtStart in determining how to meet state standards without running afoul of Muslim doctrine.

Pardon me?????? Since when did religious leaders have any say in what was taught in ANY school (other than a religious school)? And where are those very vocal advocates of "separation of church and state" that are screaming bloody murder any time a Christian parent tries to have a say in what their children are and are not taught (like with evolution)? Where are the advocates of diversity going to say when the Imam decides that (for example) GLBT issues are not to be taught because they "offend" Islam? Where does this stop?

Dave over at Downing World had a post on this and he raises a good point. He points out that educators and artists seem to have no problems with insulting Christians and Jews as often as possible, but two wrongs do not make a right. Our education system should be sensitive to what a parent is teaching their children at home (vis a vis religion) but if it is going to cater to one faith's religious beliefs then it needs to cater to all of them. You can not cater to just one because that religion happens to be the "politically-correct flavor of the day".

Building society like roads

I read and have linked Thomas Brewton's site "The View from 1776".
As a born again Christian, I'm aware that satan is incredibly subtle.
And so is the liberty stealing left. They can call themselves Liberals, Progressives, whatever, but they are still in the busness of running your life and stealing your liberty reminding me of a quote from C.S. Lewis:" Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. " And also from Daniel Webster" Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
An article that's been posted shows how that subtly works it way into so many aspects of American life, just like the Bible says a bit of yeast works its way throughout the whole batch.That the genesis of social engineering was the thought that human behavior can be constructed and directed just as a highway or roadway can be built from point A to point B.
Also notice that Teddy Roosevelt is not, repeat not a conservative-at all.

VETO!!!!!

GWB has finally found the courage to threaten a veto! Normally I'd say GREAT. However:
Is it a veto to really cut (not just slow down) federal spending? No.
Is it a veto to that will finally honor the Presidential oath of office and stop one of the myriad unConstitutional progams that have gone across his desk? Not this time.
His first ever veto is being threatened to be used to block any attempt to stop or prevent an Islamic nation from running our port facilities.
Even the most ardent GWB supporters are saying that this is just a suicide move politically.
And THIS is what will finally draw out a presidential veto?
What an absolutely incredible let down! Incredible!

Guns in SouthTexas..and it's not what you think

When you hear about guns in South Texas near Corpus Christi, the MSM would have you believe that only VP Cheney is carrying. Well what you didn't hear was this:
"Hey hysterical media chum suckers, if you want to obsess about a gun (or guns) in South Texas, why don’t you travel a little further southwest from Corpus Christi to Laredo where U.S. authorities just snatched ready-to-detonate IEDs, materials for making 33 more, military style grenades, 26 grenade triggers, large quantities of AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles, 1280 rounds of ammo, silencers, machine gun assembly kits, 300 primers, bullet proof vests, police scanners, sniper scopes, narcotics and cash from Mexican dope dealers? Now, Dave, there’s an all-beef patty for you and all the other reporters suffering from mad cow disease to sink your teeth into."
From Doug Giles at Townhall.com referring to Dave Gregory at NBC.

Amendment X (Oh yah. What's it mean again?)

I read Joseph Sobran (from Drudge) usually once a week. I don't always agree with him, but as I've said before, there is more to unite us than to divide us.
This weeks posting concerns the 10th Amendment, the last within the Bill of Rights, the one I use as my nom de plume. What I find interesting about the Bill of Rights was that the Founders and writers of the Constitution felt that the Constitution was complete on its face. But, there were those that wanted a very pointed explanation of what was and was not allowed. They wanted the guarantee spelled out that there would never be an imperial, far reaching and intrusive federal government.And therefore the Bill of Rights.
Here is a brief and on point history of the sorry state of what I reagard as the once but now faded and ignored linchpin of liberty here in the United States:

The Reactionary Utopian

February 2, 2006

PENUMBRAS, EMANATIONS, AND STUFF

by Joe Sobran

You could easily get the impression that the U.S. Supreme Court has banned public displays of the Tenth Amendment. Actually, this hasn’t happened, at least not yet. Anyway, adults can still read it in the privacy of their own homes, if they can lay hands on a copy. And in the age of the Internet, it would be hard to suppress completely.

But a conspiracy of silence, if observed by enough people, can be as effective as an outright ban. And since at least the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt, that lump of foul deformity, most employees of the Federal Government have tacitly agreed to avoid all mention of the Tenth, which encapsulates the meaning of the U.S. Constitution.

The silence was broken in 1996 by Bob Dole, who, in a desperate attempt to salvage his losing presidential campaign, said he always carried a copy of the Tenth in his wallet. Not that anyone would have been led to suspect this from his long voting record.

The Tenth is often referred to as “the states’ rights amendment,” but that’s not quite accurate. It speaks of powers, not rights. It says that the powers that haven’t been “delegated” to the Federal Government in the Constitution are reserved to the individual states and the people.

This was an attempt to make the Constitution foolproof. Nice try! At the time, it may have seemed that nobody, not even a politician or a lawyer, could miss the point: The Federal Government could exercise only those powers listed in the Constitution. Whatever wasn’t authorized was forbidden. The basic list was found in Article I, Section 8. It was pretty specific: coining (not printing) money, punishing counterfeiters, declaring war, and so forth.

In principle, simple. Unfortunately, however, it runs up against the politician’s eternal credo: “In principle, I’m a man of principle. But in practice, I’m a practical man.”

So the politicians, all practical men, began their endless but fruitful search for powers other than those listed—“implied” powers that weren’t spelled out in the text, but were “necessary and proper” for the execution of the explicitly enumerated powers. The very practical Alexander Hamilton argued that a national bank was necessary and proper in this sense; but Thomas Jefferson hotly denied it, and soon the two men were wrangling over what “necessary and proper” meant, reaching an impasse over the word “and.”

Among the most creative interpreters of the Constitution was Abraham Lincoln, who found he needed all the implied powers he could get his hands on in order to prevent peaceful secession by the exercise of violence. As Professor Harry V. Jaffa approvingly puts it, Lincoln soon “discovered” a huge “reservoir of constitutional power” that suited his purpose. Nobody had discovered this “reservoir” before. Later such reservoirs would also be called “penumbras, formed by emanations.”

But the richest cache of penumbras and emanations was later found in Congress’s power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.” Especially since the New Deal, the part about “the several states” has gotten quite a workout. It is now interpreted to mean that the Federal Government can “regulate” just about everything we do, from sea to shining sea. This makes the rest of the Constitution pretty much superfluous.

Where does this leave the Tenth Amendment? Oh, that. The Supreme Court has held that it’s just “declaratory,” a mere “truism,” a trivially true acknowledgment that the states retain any powers they haven’t actually “surrendered” (the Court carefully avoided the fraught word “delegated”).

To call all this “legislating from the bench” is an almost imbecilic understatement. It inverts the plain meaning of the Constitution, making it mean the opposite of what it actually says. It’s nothing less than revolution by means of “interpretation.”

If the power to “regulate commerce ... among the several states” had been as broad as the courts now say, Congress could have abolished slavery, imposed (and repealed) Prohibition, and given women the vote by mere statute, without all the bother of amending the Constitution twice.

Notice that the Tenth Amendment is one of the few passages in the Constitution in which the Federal judiciary hasn’t discovered reservoirs of penumbras and emanations. I wonder why.

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Culture of Corruption

If you listen to the Democrats, you would think that the only ones to have taken lobbyist money EVER has been the Republicans. Well a report came out this week that says otherwise!

"Since the 1990 election cycle, Democrats have accepted more than $53 million from lobbyists while Republicans have taken more than $48 million for their election campaigns, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. "

Remember, this is the group that has been leading the charge against Tom DeLay! Even they admit that the Dems are equally culpable in this. Not only do we have the Abramoff ties to Dems (Harry Reid for one did indeed help Abramoff clients contrary to his denials) we have this:

"Then came the allegations last August that Jefferson had orchestrated a corruption scheme. Federal investigators are targeting the Democratic congressman, 58, for allegedly demanding cash and other favors for himself and relatives, in exchange for using his congressional clout to arrange African business deals. A former aide recently pleaded guilty to bribing Jefferson and is cooperating with authorities, and sources familiar with the case say a plea agreement with the lawmaker is being explored."

It just goes to show (yet again) that the Dems have nothing to offer the electorate (since they refuse to put out an agenda) other than attacks that are not based in any sort of fact.

Budget cuts?

With the 2007 budget announced, the spin over who is getting what is in full swing. For example, when speaking before the SD35 DFL, Coleen Rowley spoke about how Defense spending was the big winner (only if big winner equates to the 3rd largest piece of the budgetary pie that is). However, the thing that has been the most upsetting is the talk of massive budget "cuts" in discretionary spending.

The San Diego Union Leader had a good dissection of this spin here.

"The President would increase Medicare spending by about 66 percent over the next five years. Under the proposed 2007 budget, Medicare would grow by 7.7 percent a year. Where’s the cut? There isn’t one. "

Well, not according to Senators Harry Reid and Arlen Specter. According to the dynamic due, because the increase is only 7.7% instead of the 8.1% from this last budget we are looking at "massive cuts". That dear reader is the reality of Washington DC. If your rate of budget growth does not match what you got last year, it is a budget cut!

"Despite the lies and demagoguery of the left, if entitlement spending is not restrained it will consume more than 60 percent of the federal budget in just 25 years. The President and Republicans must have the backbone to push real entitlement reform no matter how many times they are deceitfully called heartless and cruel. If they let the demagogues win, our children will be the ones who pay, and pay big. "

This is why these mid-term elections are so very, very important! Washington needs a dose of reality. Your budget (and mine) doesn't get an automatic increase every year. Why should Washington get one?

Minorities leaving the Dems?

I'm catching up on some articles that I had set aside to write on while I was ill last week.

Front Page Magazine ran this article written by Dick Morris (a former Clinton advisor). It brings to light a phenomonon that has the Democrats running most scared.

" Far away from the speeches of Jesse Jackson, the demands of Al Sharpton and the ranting of Louis Farrakhan, a quiet revolution is taking place in the role African-Americans play in politics. In the very heartland of the nation — in Pennsylvania and Ohio — the Republican Party is getting set to nominate black candidates for governor in the coming elections. In a nation that has not a single African-American governor — not one — from either party, this is its own little revolution. "

The Republicans are running viable candidates for Governor in two states. In Pennsylvania, the GOP just endorsed former Pittsburgh Steeler running back Lynn Swann for Governor and Ken Blackwell, who has already won election to statewide office, is running in Ohio. Couple that with the Senatorial campaign of Michael Steele (current Leiutenant Governor) in Maryland with the push for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (whom I greatly admire) to run for President and you can see why they are scared. The Democrats have long taken the minority vote for granted. However, their continued leftward lurch has left many of those minorities (like myself) looking for other representation. We (minorities) are finally starting to realize that the tax and spend, rely on others to take care of you instead of taking care of yourself policies of the Democratic party are not in our best interests. We want to be able to grab our American Dream and government hand outs are not going to get it for us.

Expect the shrill rhetoric of the left to grow louder as the minority vote becomes more and more in play for rather than come up with ideas to keep us engaged, they are going to try to scare us back "on to the plantation".

Don't get a cold in Minnesota

At least not on Mike Hatch's watch anyway. According to this in today's Star Tribune, Attorney General (and Gubernatorial candidate) Hatch is going after the pharmaceuticals companies for making cold medicines that can also be used in making meth.

"Hatch said he plans to sue giant international drugmakers such as Pfizer and Merck on grounds that they long have known that large quantities of their legal products have been diverted to illegal meth labs, spurring an epidemic of addiction, crime and shattered lives across America."

Well shoot....if we are going to go down that road, why don't we sue car manufacturers because they know that their legally manufactured products are being used illegally every day by drunk drivers for one and 100% of all car accidents involve cars...and we can sue the manufacturers of ski masks and nylon stockings because they know that their product is being used illegally every day in robberies. How about we sue the manufacturers of baseball bats and hockey sticks? Their legally manufuctured products are used to illegally assult people.

"It seems that this solution seeks to punish people who make a legitimate and needed product because other people are misusing it," said Wanda Mobius, spokeswoman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), a trade group in Washington. "

Count me as one of those people that AG Hatch wants to punish. Cold medicines that I routinely use legally are already behind the counter and everytime I want to by a package of it I have to sign an affidavit that says I am using them legally and I am not allowed to buy too many packages out of the fear that I might do something illegal with it!

I have no doubts that this little bit of grandstanding is calculated to keep his name in the headlines. Every time his name is mentioned in a news story, it has "and gubernatorial candidate" tied to it! Let me ask you this candidate Hatch...much has been made of the rapidly rising costs of health care. Health care is a core DFL issue. How is suing big pharma over the illegal activities of the end users of the their legally manufactured products going to reduce these out of control drug costs?

UPDATE: Midwest Jay points out that S.C. Johnson could be next since they make Ziplocs (tm) bags which are used to package drugs! Who's next Mr. AG??????

Free speech for all?????

Three things have happened recently that, taken separately are relatively unremarkable, but when put together are concerning.

First, when I was at the SD35 DFL meeting to listen to Coleen Rowley speak, one agenda item was "John Kline sending campaign literature at taxpayer expense". Second, much has been made in the last 2 weeks of the Governor's radio program on WCCO. It appears that some are upset that the program is still on the air even though the Governor is "running" for re-election. Third is the reaction to the Progress for America "Midwest Hero's" ad campaign.

The mailings that had the Dems so upset was a flyer that came out in one of the local papers. It was one of those typical "here is what I have accomplished in DC" flyers that all Senators and Congresspeople send out year after year. While I am not a lawyer, I do know that as long as the literature does not say "Vote for John Kline" it is not campaign literature. It is simply a report back to the constituency.

Second is the Governor's radio program. Several of the DFL candidates for Governor are demanding that WCCO pull Governor Pawlenty's weekly radio program, calling it an "illegal campaign contribution". They have been going (almost daily) to their willing accomplices at the Star Tribune to complain. MDE has all of the documentation as to why that is wrong! The bottom line is that the FCC law says that this is not "illegal" campaigning until July 20 which is when his name will be certified for the ballot!

Lastly are the Progress for America ads - I had not posted on these ads, mostly because the rest of my fellow MOBsters have more than adequately covered this issue. It was not until I read about this that I started to really get upset. The fact that one of our major political parties would activly campaign to stifle free speech that they do not agree with set my teeth on edge. For month after month, during the 2004 election, the airwaves were filled with "embellishment and fabrication" (as one commenter on MDE described the video) of thousands of issue ads from all sides of the political spectrum. Were there calls to pull them from the public airwaves? I don't recall any - at least none that were this organized. OK - scratch that....the Swift Boat Vets got the same treatment....do you sense a trend here?????

Nick Coleman wrote at length - devoting two columns to the issue - on these advertisements in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. In his second column, he even had the audacity to imply that the step-mother who raised one of our dead soldiers had "no right" to speak for this young man. Several Iraq War Vets, including Eagan's own Col. Joe Repya, have written letters, to the editor to the Strib, to Mr. Coleman directly and to the DFL refuting these assertions. To date the Star Tribune refused to print the letters from Col. Repya.

Putting all of this together, one gets the distinct impression that the Minnesota DFL has no problem with free speech - as long as it is their own.... anyone who disagrees with them apparently has no such rights. And they wonder why they continue to lose elections.

Crime wave

I ran across this in the NY Times the other day. It appears that a lot of "smaller" metropolitan areas (they are called tier 2 cities in my industry) are experiencing a sharp rise in violent crime. That statistic is not a surprise to those who live in Minneapolis. Well, I should say that those who live in the Minneapolis area and who read Rambix and the Red Star on a daily basis. Rambix has been detailing the rising crime rate in Minneapolis for quite some time. This blog will (I'm sure) be influential when the 2006 Senatorial race comes along because his posts are great documentation as to just how successful Amy Klobuchar has been in her job as Hennepin County Attorney. Please make it regular reading.

"Those People"

I got this in an email yesterday. As I read it, I was touched by a sense of deja vu. Why deja vu? I grew up a child of the 1960's and specifically the civil rights movement. My father faced discrimination growing up because of the color of his skin. Because of that, the whole mindset of judging anyone by their race is repulsive to me and something I simply can not understand.

"In school in Gaza, I learned hate, vengeance and retaliation. Peace was never an option, as it was considered a sign of defeat and weakness. "

Then I came across this in the New York Times. It is along the same line of thought. What caught my eye though, was an exchange that was shared in the article.

"At a coffee bar in Karachi with four of my female friends — two schoolteachers, a lawyer and an interior designer — I asked, "Were the cartoons meant to be provocative?"
"Yes!" The response was unanimous.
"So is there a conspiracy to provoke Muslims into reacting violently?"
Here, everyone's certainty diminished. "No, not a conspiracy," one of the schoolteachers said, and the others signaled agreement...
..."What is the point of the provocation?" I pressed on.
"Who ever knows what's going on?" one of the schoolteachers said. "It's something internal going on in those places. Or something to do with their own politics about, who knows, Iran, Israel. It could be anything."

There it is...It's something internal going on in those places...with those people! The two words that, when put together, cause this child of the '60's to cringe in pain! I thought the whole purpose of the "everybody's beautiful in their own way" generation was to get away from the "those people" kind of comments and yet there it is. It happens, day in and day out throughout this country. "Those people" just don't live like we do..."those people" don't look like we do, "those people" don't think like we do, "those people" don't worship like we do, "those people, "those people".....

The sad thing is that we get a lot of the "those people"s out of the political party that claims to care the most about "those people". However, if you read their statements, you realize that the opposite is true. "We need to keep abortion an option because 'those people' can't be expected to take responsibility for their actions" or "we need to increase welfare spending because 'those people' can't take care of themselves". Oh to be sure, they couch it in pretty language - "it is a woman's choice" or "we want to make sure that they have adequate healthcare" but the bottom line is all the same..."those people" need to be kept dependent on big government to take care of them because they can't! But then again, look at what is being discussed in these articles....it is all couched in pretty double talk.

Please, dear readers, go read both articles and weep with me for the generations that are being taught to hate, who have been taught that there is no hope. For the generations that are taught to be dependent on others and who are being taught to kill.

A WHAT?????

As I said here, I am not a hunter. However, even I know just how laughable this headline is:

Cheney Lacked $7 Hunting Credential

To the authors.....it's called a stamp...a quail stamp....

Hunting 101 class dismissed!

More Al Franken

Hot off of his appearance on the Michael Medved program, Al Franken did a live chat today with the Olympian (H/T MDE). It was a little bit friendlier audience today which made for a couple of softball questions like....

"David, Seattle: After you are elected to the U.S. Senate, who in your opinion will be the second-funniest senator? "

and

"Timothy, Olympia: As a noted comedic writer, you have had a very impressive career. What has been your personal highlight? And can I still get the Lincoln Medallion?"

But there were a couple of good questions:

"Joel, Maple Grove, Minn.: What is it about being in the entertainment industry that makes entertainers such as yourself become heavy-handed political advocates? You starting losing me once you became so partisan. "

Ohhhh good question Joel. Al????

Franken: Well, I guess I started becoming more partisan when I left SNL, because I never felt it was appropriate for the show to have a dog in the race, but once I left I felt free to express my political views. And I feel like the country is going in the wrong direction now. Take Dennis Miller for example, I admire the fact that he chose to have a dog in the fight and he did what he did. There's a difference between a comedian and a satirist and an advocate, and I'm kind of all of the above. I get that from people who are Republican or totally political, and I've chosen to do what I do for a reason and I'm not going to change because of that question.

If there is a difference between a comedian and a satirist and an advocate, how can you be "all of the above"?????

Peggy, Elma: How might we go about changing our economic system to a social system similar to Scandinavian countries'? Is there any chance we can elimination the "personhood" of corporations so people once again can run the country?
Franken: I think that there are certain things we can do that other industrialized countries have done that would be a huge improvement such as national health insurance and public financing of elections. I'm an entrepreneur and I'm a firm believer in entrepreneurship, not that the questioner isn't, and I do think corporations have far too much power in this country.

Well thank goodness Al is a firm believer in entrepreneurship, but what is nationalized healthcare doing to small business in these Scandinavian countries???? Just wondering...

Missing from today's dialog....talk of a nuclear Iran and the cartoon riots and a lot of other things that are really important. Al needs to start becoming aware of these issues if he is indeed going to run, because these are issues that the Senate will be dealing with now and in the very near future. What good will universal heathcare be if the mullah's in Iran drop a nuke on New York City?????

Al Franken on Michael Medved

Well Blogger did not want to co-operate. So rather than live blog, it's going to be reactive blogging.

Michael Medved started out talking about a NY Post article covering the yet to be announced Senate campaign. The Post said the comedian said he is still undecided but that "his reluctance is only a matter of convenience" because when he does announce he will have to give up his 3 hour radio show. Meved asked "do you think the Post is right?" No Franken responded "I really have not decided yet...I don't know." Medved asked was that one of your reasons for moving back to MN to establish residency. I guess sure, Franken said, "I moved back home because I could. I'm an empty nester." When you live in NY people either considers themselves as New Yorkers or from where ever they are from and I have always considered myself to be a Minnesota. Medved asked what will be the main factor in the decision to run? Franken - I would have to see if I was viable as a candidate - I have been traveling around the state and talking to people (Medved commented "you sound like a candidate to me") I am doing the kind of things you have to do if I run." Medved asked "Is this like the Hillary Clinton "Listening Tour"? Franken replied "Not exactly because I'm not listening as much. I just yak at these people and they go "well why are you here then". I am seriously considering it and if I do run I would have had to have done these things. So all of that looks like I have decided, if you were of a suspicious mindset but I really haven't. I'm also doing this stuff for other candidates - progressive candidates and progressive organizations like Wellstone Action. We also have a website "Midwest Values PAC" people can go there and see what we are doing and we are trying to get people to get active. He said that the reason that Sen. Kerry lost in 2004 was that the Republicans were better at organizing their base (ed - no Al it was because the Dems still don't have a message!)

Now to the callers - one caller asked if Al connected with some of the spokespeople for the far left - specifically Michael Moore and Al Gore. He was asked for his reaction to Al Gore's remarks in Saudi Arabia on Sunday. Al started to follow the DNC talking points ("well there have been cases"). The caller pressed Al for specifics. He danced around the issue until Medved pressed him on the issue. He mentioned a case in Houston where a doctor had been detained for 9 days on a case of mistaken identity. Medved conceded that there may have been some "excesses" at which point Franken jumped in asking Medved to "name them" - classic Democrat "gotcha" games. Franken closed this question by saying that he could not comment on the issue because he had not heard the comments in context! (More on this at the end)

Another caller (from Medina MN) asked Al how he could be taken seriously after all of these years as a humorist. He also asked how Al would address agricultural issues. Al asked if the caller had listened to his show which he admitted he had not. Al mentioned all of the people he had on the program to discuss ag issues, but he did not put forward any answers or proposals. He did mention that he "didn't know about the saw grass" alternative fuel that President Bush just spoke about until he interviewed someone on his program on ag issues.

The book that Franken is promoting "The Truth with Jokes" talks about what Franken considers to be the "profound lies" of the Republican Party and the Bush campaign of 2004. When asked to give an example for the most egregious of those examples Franken said " it's really about how they won - smears, fears and queers" (I think Al forgot just who brought up the gay daughter of the candidate in the VP debates)...the "3 horsemen of the Republican Apocalypse" he called them. Coming back from a break, Medved mentioned that the last time Franken was on his program, Swift Boat Vet John O'Neill was on the program. Franken had listed the Swift Boat Vets under the "smears" category in his book (even though they (the Swift Boat Vets) were there and Al was not). Al didn't like it because Medved had "invited me on and then there was John O'Neill" (this was at the RNC Convention in New York City). "I don't want to debate John O'Neill on a subject he has debated his whole life on (ed - at least he admits that O'Neill knows what the heck he was talking about) - I felt very blindsided". Franken then goes on to discuss the issue in his book - how brave.

A liberal caller called in trashing the Bush Administration's "compassionate conservatism" He really didn't "ask" a question, so Medved said "Al's the candidate, let's let him answer" (Al did not correct Medved's statement as an aside). Franken gave the Bush administration credit in foreign policy however, he took the administration to task for "cutting student loans when he is looking to make the tax cuts to the wealthy permanent". That led Medved to ask "why is it fair for people who will not send a child to college to tax them for sending your child or my child to college." Franken came back with the "Bush tax cuts only benefit the rich" canard. Medved countered that it was a regressive tax on the poor to pay for college loans that they can not or will not use. Medved turned it around so that it looked like Franken was for the rich and against the poor.....

Another caller asked about the Peter Switzer accusations that Franken does not practice what he preaches. The Switzer accusation is that Al Franken says he is all for affirmative action, but he does not hire minorities. To wit he says that Franken has 114 employees and only 1 is black - what do you say about that? "Not true - absurd" He said that Switzer takes projects that he was involved in as "producer or something" and he counts me every time but he did not count every employee. How many black employees now the caller asked. "2 out of 10" Franken replied. Medved asked don't you think these conversations are stupid - don't you hire the best available? Franken said "I believe in affirmative action". Medved - I'm shocked because I only have 2 employees, to which Franken replied "I am the hardest working guy in show biz/politics". Medved responded "I'd argue that".

The next caller said getting back to Michael Moore, Al Gore and the far left (AF - "Al Gore is hardly on the far left") the caller commented that it seemed surprising that these guys are saying things that Franken "did not much know about and that it your job to know about it". The caller finished with "I don't know is not a option for you as a political commentator" GREAT CALL! Franken admits that the left hears the "outrageous things" that the right says where the right hears the "outrageous things" the left says.

Another caller asked "can this administration is capable of ever telling the truth ". Franken responded "They have a hard time telling the truth...the worst was in the lead up to war in Iraq". Medved asked "you don't believe that the president deliberately lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction?" Franken responded "I believe that he wanted to go to war and that he didn't want to hear anything" contrary to that then they cut to the break. When they came back from break Medved resumed on the point - "Why did GWB want to go to war?" Franken responded "I don't know why...I didn't say that I said that...I said that he closed his mind to alternatives." Part of it was an "adolescent" want to "do something great". Medved asked "do you think he was sincere...that he took us to war because he thought it would help the United States of America?" Franken responded yes but that he thinks the President was "deluded" in that thinking.

The last caller was one of the best. He said that you hear all of this talk about the about the Democrats hating George Bush. The caller said that he thought that they were "profoundly jealous that a dumb hick from Texas could be elected President" and not an elitist like him. Franken's answer "my dad didn't graduate from High School and his dad was President". Now I don't know what that has to do with anything, but I do know that Franken does not realize that "elitist" is not a state but an attitude. An attitude that "I know better than you how you should live your life" and that is something that the left is full of and until they get that idea through their heads, they will continue to loose elections.

Sometimes being ill is good

I have been battling bronchitis and laryngitis for the last couple of days. I was sitting at home listening to AM1280 the Patriot when the Michael Medved program started. Michael announced at the start of the program that Al (I want to be Senator) Franken will be on the program later today. I will try to live blog the program so that those of you who are unable to listen to the program will be able to see what this man is all about. Stay tuned dear readers....this could be fun!

Why I blog as Amendment X

Ya know, there are times like this I don't even know where to begin.
I'm listening to Rush and he's on a roll about the fraud from Hurricane Katrina relief.
Not to mention 10,000 trailers stuck in the mud and absolutely unusable. $250,000 spent per household in relief (what would you be able to do if you had been given $250,000 in the last five months?). Even Snopes has an entry on the fraud!
And all the lefties will scream that this waste is the fault of GWB, Chertoff, mean and nasty Republicans. And they continue to believe that the government can be, should be or can be made to be efficient and effective. That big is only good when it comes to government. That their ideal model is the UN ( yah-read what Mark Steyn has to say about the UN and incredible corruption that you'll never hear about).
Again, the only reason that lefties will tell you that big government doesn't work are one or more of the following:
1. Not enough time has been given to socialism/communism (150 years just isn't quite there yet).
2.Not enough money has been spent ($7,000,000,000,000 on the War on Poverty Programs and we still have the same % of "poor people" . So, we lost the war).
3. The right people just haven't been in charge (the corollary to this is that the program just needs to be "fine tuned").
The truth is so clear, so obvious, so pronounced.
And so ignored.

Cheney v ALMOST President Gore- and a near hit!

OK. In contrast to the Lady Logician, I AM a hunter. And I may be defined as a gun nut.
And I know that you never lag behind your hunting party. One of the first things I was told when I started walking the fields with my Dad, Grandpa Johnson and my Uncles at age six was you never walked ahead or behind the hunting party. That you knew where everyone was. So, shame on at least one member and possibly two in that party.
And now, to the Washington press corps-what a bunch of self absorbed twits! What a gaggle of whiney brats! Missing (nah, they were ignoring) the real story of substance in Saudi Arabia. The ALMOST President Gore was in Saudi Arabia inflaming radicals in the hotbed of radical Islamists (Whabiism) by lying about American abuse of Arabs.
Way to go ALMOST President Gore! I'm sure it just eluded you that more than half of all the 9-11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia. Perhaps you were thinking that...you know, I really haven't a clue what ALMOST President Gore was thinking.
By the way, wouldn't it be much more consistent with ALMOST President Gore's usual ranting to be excoriating the Saudis as what they export to America is the primary source of supposed global warming? Why isn't he screaming at them for killing snail darters and spotted owls and the Amazon and melting the polar ice caps?
Looks like we dodged a real bullet (pun intended) when Vice President Gore became ALMOST President Gore.

Hunting accidents

I preface this post by saying I am not a hunter. I am not a "gun nut", I am dreadfully uncomfortable around guns in spite of the good intentions of the Logical Husband and many, many friends. Disclaimers thus out of the way.....

Vice President Cheney (aka the "Prince of Darkness") was involved in a hunting accident this weekend. The VP's party was out shooting quail, which I am told is a difficult game bird to hunt, when a member of the party walked into the VP's line of fire and was shot. The press reports that I have read, seen and heard say that the man shot had left the party to try to find a bird that he had shot and when he returned to the party unannounced he came up out of the VP's line of vision.

I emphasize "unannounced" for a reason. Even I, a non-hunter, know that you do not leave your hunting party and if you do leave the party, you let them know where you are when you return for this very reason! I also know (thanks to living in Minnesota and Wisconsin where hunting and fishing are rights of passage) that hunting accidents happen every gun season. It is a given.

Now the White House Press corp is up in arms. It seems that they were not told of the accident for 18-24 hours after the accident had occurred. Helen Thomas even asked if the VP had or intended to "tender his resignation?" In answer to the question "what took him so long to notify somebody?", Scott McClellan (White House Press Secretary) answered:

"You know what [the vice president's] first reaction was? His first reaction was: Go to Mr. Whittington and get his team in there to provide him medical care,"

Get the man medical care or call the press? What to do, what to do??? Call the police (and an ambulance or Helen Thomas? Dang, that's a toughie...

The MSM is in high umbrage over the delay in telling them about the accident. I certainly don't remember such umbrage back in 1969, when Senator Teddy Kennedy accidentially drove his car into Poucha Pond. If you recall, Senator Kennedy waited until the next morning (after he had talked to several people including his lawyer) to report that Mary Jo Kopechne was still in the submerged car.

The Truth is out there

One of my favorite political websites is a site called Project Vote Smart. It allows the average voter to look up the record of politicians (mostly state level and up) on specific votes. No spin, no glorification, no shading - just a straight "did they vote? how?" and what was the bill about. Now while this is generally a bad thing for incumbents (Sen Kerry for example) it can, on occasion, bite a challenger or two. Thus may be the case with Coleen Rowley.

The Rowley campaign has accused Congressman Kline of voting against Veterans benefits 11 times. Now the Vote Smart site is partially under construction so the records are not complete, but the records seem to be closer to Congressman Kline's version of the story (here) than they do Ms. Rowley's version.

I have asked the Kline campaign for a list of the votes in question so that we can do our due diligence, but based on what I have seen so far, the "truth" seems to be in the Congressman's corner.