The National Whig

Secession, the Palins and Leftists' Short-term Memory

2008-09-06T08:58:00.003-05:00

The selection of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as John McCain's vice presidential runningmate has brought to the surface an issue that has not been mentioned in the United States for some one hundred sixty years. Thanks, in part, to the Liberal media the issue of secession has been brought up as a serious offense by Sarah Palin given her husband's seven year long affiliation with the Alaskan Independence Party from 1995 to 2002. The AIP's primary goal is to win enough seats in the Alaskan legislature and bring to a vote seceeding from the United States. But Sarah Palin is not the only one involved in this presidential race with connections to secession. Both of the Democrats on the top of that Party's presidential ticket have voted for a bill that would allow for the secession of the state of Hawaii.

The bill that would pave the way for Hawaii to seceed from the Union was sponsored by Democrat Senator Daniel Akaka back in 2006 and it was voted on during the summer of 2006. It failed to reach the 60 votes required to bring it to the floor of Senate by a vote of 56 to 41, and among those fifty-six yea votes were Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Now the Akaka bill, as it is known, is not overtly secessionist, for all it does is allow for native Hawaiians to from their own government based on race, but its author in Senate admits that it could very well lead to secession. During the lead up to the vote and its aftermath there wasn't a whole lot of talk in the media about Akaka being anti-American, as there is today with Palin. And of course, there is not any mention by the press about Obama or Biden being anti-American either for their votes in the affirmative on the bill. But rest assured Sarah Palin is not and will not be given the same type of benefit of the doubt when it comes to her patriotism.

In an L.A. Times piece penned by staff writer Michael Finnegan not only is the AIP made out to be a bunch of kooks, but so is Palin and her husband. Finnegan writes, "With McCain's campaign emphasizing patriotism -- his latest slogan is 'Country First' -- the Palins' links...could prove awkward." Although Mr. Finnegan never asks or reports on anyone asking about Obama's lack of emphasis on patriotism, he sees fit to question McCain's and Palin's when neither of the two have gotten as close as Obama or Biden to actually succeeding in allowing a state to leave the union.

The premise behind the "anti-American" label if you support secession is wrong. Secession is a means used when states feel affronted by the federal government outside of the stipulations of the Constitution. Secession has been linked to slaveholders, and, as such, has been discredited as a fringe, racist action. However, it should be noted that the first attempts at secession in the United States were by northerners agitated over the issue of taxation. The best philosophical explaination for supporting secession was brought forth by John C. Calhoun--Andrew Jackson's vice president--following a tariff that had pernicious economic outcomes for his home state of South Carolina. In his epic book,
The Rise of American Democracy, Sean Wilentz explains Calhoun's philosphy thus: "The only cure for majority despotism, Calhoun argued, was to recognize the undivided sovereignty of the individual states that, he asserted, was anterior to the Constitution. Just as the federal government could annul any state law ruled binding, so aggrieved states could void, within their borders, any federal law they deemed unconstitutional. Should three-quarters of the states then fail to revise the Constitution, under the amending power, to make the offending law constitutional, the nullifying state would have the option of seceeding from the Union. Calhoun would always insist nullification was not secession, which was literally true. But in seizing on the theory of original state sovereignty, he offered a theoretical justification for both nullification and secession." In essence, what Calhoun is saying is that when a state feels coerced into doing something emplemented by a majority in the federal legislature, but deems the act unconstitutional, it can act, first, by rectifying the unconstitutionality of the majority or, second having the first option failed, can leave the Union all together.

This is exact reasoning behind the Alaskan Independence Party. Back to Finnegan's
L.A. Times piece: "Leaders of the party say many of its 13,681 registered members have joined out of frustration over restrictions that the federal government has placed on the use of its vast land holdings in Alaska. Beyond the secession vote, the party also advocates gun rights, home schooling and abolition of property taxes." The members of the AIP feel affronted by the federal government and, knowing that the federal government will never be made to act under the Constitution, they have resolved to convincing their fellow Alaskans that secession is the better course of action. This philosophy runs true for Hawaii as well. For the Alaskans, it is not so much that they want to be governed outside of the Constitution, but that they feel that they are not being governed that way and as such must leave the jurisdiction of the federal government, a reasonable course of action.

The media are making a lot of noise about Sarah Palin's husband being connected to the AIP, a group that the media have labeled anti-American. But it cannot be forgotten that Obama and Biden, both Democrats, have supportted a bill on the Senate floor that would, as the bill's sponsor admits, lead to the secession of Hawaii. It is likely that this issue will not stick, and the American people will receive Sarah Palin hospitably. But it also must be stated that secession is not anti-American, particularly when it is pursued as a means to get back to being governed under the auspices of the United States Constitution. Let us not forget that the whole reason for the existence of the United States comes from our separation from England as articulated by Thomas Jefferson: "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Amidst Success, Utter Failure

2008-09-01T08:41:00.002-05:00

In most aspects of life success will breed interest. For instance, prior to winning their first World Series in 86 years, fans of the Boston Red Sox were quarantined in the North East while the Yankees, winners of twenty-five percent of all World Serieses, controlled the masses of fans. After having won two Serieses in the past five years, the stock of the Red Sox has risen drastically. There are even BoSox fans in Pensacola Florida. But in the political world success is the midwife of insouciance. In politics, no one is willing to discuss an issue that has been successfully resolved. In fact, it is rare to see an issue successfully resolved dominate the frontpages of newspapers or the lead segment of news programs, falling under the old adage of the news business of "if it bleeds, it leads." Iraq, once a media drumbeat of failure now turned toward complete success, is certainly among this phenomenon.

The number one indicator that Iraq--and on a more general scale the War on Terror--has been moved, not to the back burner of politics but, off of the stove completely is where this issue falls in regards to importance for voters in this year's presidential election cycle. The latest polls show that the economy is the number one issue by far with anything remotely close to terrorism barely garnering over ten percent of the voters' concern. Some polls even show that Republicans are overwhelmingly more concerned about the economy than they are about terrorism. This sentiment among the voters is the primary reason why there is a good chance that a candidate that they view as woefully unqualified and inexperienced--Barack Obama--is running just a few points ahead of John McCain in most polls. Many view Obama can do a better job of steering the economy in the right direction than McCain can, while it is just the opposite in regards to terrorism. (Nevermind the fact that the economy is actually doing well with the last quarter showing GDP growth of 3.3 percent.)

The reason for this nonchalant attitude toward Iraq/War on Terror is the overwhelming success that there has been over the past three years. In Iraq, today marks yet another major advancement towards success as the US has handed over control of Anbar province to the Iraq government. The BBC reports that this will mark the handing over of controll of eleven of the eighteen provinces to the Iraqis. A major step forward in Iraq. Couple this with talk of there being a major military pull out of US troops from Iraq by 2011 and it becomes clear why Obama can get away with saying that he will completely pull us out of Iraq within his first two years of office. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan there has been a drastic decline in the harvest of poppies--a key ingredient to heroin--that has hurt the ability to fund terror operations in Afghanistan. Granted Afghanistan still needs help, but there have been many successes in the still fledgling country.

The biggest failure in the War on Terror has been the inability of the Bush administration to keep the focus of the American voter fixed on the task at hand while the mainstream press has done everything in its power to push it to the peripheral and replace it with stories of an ailing economy. Again, looking at the polls one might say that the media has accomplished that task. Of course part of the Bush administration's problem stems from two-thirds of the American people holding a rather low opinion of the administration, and as such, making it rather difficult to get the good news out about Iraq and Afghanistan. When people glaze over with disapproval, they are real quick to not hear anything that is being said. It is going to take the next President to explain what is going on in the Middle East.

Not since 2003 has there been a sense that the American military has been on the offensive and completing any of its objectives. Unlike 2003 though, the American people are not paying any attention to these successes. They are wrapped up in the so-called ailing economy, the emergence of the Messiah-like Obama and McCain's pick of Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as his runningmate. It is often stated that success has a million fathers. That is only true if you are discussing successes outside of the political arena, where success is as much an orphan as corruption. This is the reality of politics in America, it is as much a fixture of our culture as baseball is. Which begs the question, how many games back behind Tampa Bay is the Red Sox?

A Conservative on the Ticket

2008-08-31T09:07:00.002-05:00

There is newcomer to national politics in this year's presidential race that is causing a lot of buzz and excitement. This newcomer was relatively unheard of until just a few days ago when John McCain named her as his running mate on the top of the Republican ticket this year. Her name is Sarah Palin and she is the governor of Alaska. And she has Conservatives doing a lot of talking about how excited they are to not only vote for McCain, but to actually donate money to his cause, some thing that has been lacking this year.

Governor Palin has a pretty solid resume with real accomplishments on it. She has been a mayor, a city council member, a reformer and most of all a mother of five. She has Conservatives excited because she has lived conservatism. Sitting on the Republican ticket as the Vice Presidential candidate, she will give John McCain the much needed boost that he has been looking for from the base of the Republican Party.

With all of this good news, comes the actual test. Will she be able to convince the American voter that being slightly inexperienced as a Vice President is not near as bad as being completely inexperienced as President? Democrats, almost immediately, went on the attack that she has no experience and that the McCain campaign is hypocritical for denouncing Barack Obama for being inexperienced and then nominating as a running-mate some one who is inexperienced. There are two main differences in this argument: 1) Obama wants to be President and 2) Palin, as VP, will be in a position to learn from her boss. Obama is looking for the top job with no experience outside of being a state senator and then a U.S. senator. He decided to run for President barely a year after being elected to his first term as U.S. senator. Prior to him holding elected office he was a community engineer, which means that he did nothing while sitting in an office operated by some liberal charity. Gov. Palin has a much more accomplished resume than the Democrats' Presidential contender. But if they want to make hay of the Republicans' number two being less qualified then their number one, so be it. And that leads into the second point. Palin will have a great opportunity to learn while VP. Look at it this way, she is a rookie quarterback learning from the veteran while the coaching staff determines when she is ready to start. She may be in the better position.

The bottom line is that Republicans are enthusiastic about actually voting for McCain as opposed to voting against Obama and that is a much better position to be in. The other plus is that she is intelligent, some thing Liberal women have a hard time convincing others that they are. And also, unlike Liberal women, Palin is easy on the eyes.

What Next for Georgia?

2008-08-16T11:37:00.002-05:00

It has been a week since Russia invaded the small country of Georgia over what the Russians claim to be a humanitarian effort to stop the Georgian army from tyrannizing South Ossetia, a province of northern Georgia. However, given the push by the Russian military deep into Georgia, there can be little doubt that this is not a humanitarian effort by the Russians. There is something deeper going on here and it has nothing to do with the good will of the Russian government toward the people of South Ossetia.

Let us begin with a couple of reasons for Russia's quick launch of an invasion of a country that was once part of its Soviet empire. The number one reason is the expansion of NATO all the way to the border of Russia, and as a result, Russia's feeling vulnerable to diplomatic conquest. Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are all member states of NATO. Ukraine and Georgia have been seeking membership for much of the decade. Russia feels threatened and, it is quite possible, flustered over watching its former empire become members of an organization created during the Cold War with the sole responsibility of making sure that the influence of Soviet Russia did not spread further into Western Europe. It seems that Georgia's attmepts to gain NATO membership was the last straw, and so Russia acted in the only way it knew how.

The first signs of Russia's determination to prevent Georgia from moving further away from its influence surfaced in September of 2006 when Georgia arrested what they claimed to be spies. Accordingly, Russia's foreign and defense ministries denounced the accusations and demanded that the detainees be released. The situation worsened when Georgia refused to release the Russian army officers and, in response, Russia withdrew its diplomatic arm in Tblisi and refused to issue Russian visas to Georgian citizens. Eventually the Georgians released the accused, even as Russia implemented economic sanctions against Georgia. Finally, Georgia began accusing Russia of giving support to separatists in two of Georgia's provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Now, it looks like Russia is on the verge of completely conquering one of its old satellite states.

So, does this all stem from Georgia wanting to be a member of NATO? And, aside from that, what is next for Georgia? It is clear that the current wisdom regarding Georgia's peril stems from their desire to be inducted into NATO. Do a quick Google search and you can see for yourself that the NATO issue is on everyone's mind when explaining how all of this came to fruition. There is some credibility to this line of thinking, though it should be encouraged to take in a contrarian's view. The main explaination is more likely to be centered around Russia's desire to recapture its old glory by reconstituting the empire it claimed when it was the U.S.S.R.

As for Georgia, its future rests in the hands of Europe and the United States. Russia's dominance of the Georgian military has rendered it helpless in repelling the invaders and thus is, as of right now, unable to regain its sovereignty. It would seem that the only way forward in saving Georgia is to have the Europeans get involved, but so far the only involvement has come from the US in the form of telling Russia to get out. Poland has decided to allow the US to place a missile defense shield there--much to Russia's displeasure--but the US insists that it is to protect from a nuclear Iran. Russia's response has been to declare that it will not rule out a nuclear strike against Poland. Europe also has to think about the energy repercussions of a Russian dominated Georgia.

The war in the Caucasus is going to put a major strain on Europe, and even though there is not as direct a strain put on the US, this does set the table for future rows between the East and the West. Russia is free to run rough-shod over its neighbors because Europe is unwilling to use any type of force, even to protect their own back yard, and the US is busy with the terrorist threat in the Middle East. It is going to be difficult to slow down the advance of the bear, but the West better act quickly and with one voice or it faces another Cold War.

Trouble in Asia, and All We Hear About are Tire Gauges

2008-08-09T10:05:00.002-05:00

Every four years in the United States we experience two great phenomenons bourne out of two creations of man. The first is the gaining of an extra day due to our keeping of time not actually coming out to an exact 24 hours. The second is the campaign for president of the United States. The leap year is rather boring though when compared to the fireworks that usually accompany a presidential campaign. But this year, in light of some of the events that have transpired over the course of the past eight months, the presidential contest seems to be lacking.

Yes, it is true that this year features the first ever black candidate to be nominated by one of the two major political parties. And yes, it is also true that this year will produce our first elected president to come out of the Senate since John Kennedy. But take a look at some of the other items that this campaign has brought us. We have been treated to a campaign that features using tire gauges as means to dispell our energy crisis. We have been treated to articles about what the two candidates like to watch on TV. We have one candidate--John McCain--who claims a fictitious president as his example of the type of leader he would like to be. And then there is the Messiah-complex of Barack Obama. But one thing that has not been brought up at all in this campaign is the role that the United States will play on the stage of world affairs. This week displayed two major events that should have leapt out in the forefront of presidential politics.

The first is a bit subtle, yet nonetheless important. China hosts the Summer Olympics and on the opening day ceremonies, while every one in the stands was cheering the festivities, there were millions of people in China suffering for no other crime but speaking their minds and thinking freely. Underneath the surface the story of protest has been bubbling over, but it has yet to catch on among the presidential candidates. The United States used to view the Olympics as an avenue to rebuke inhumane Communist regimes, but that time seems to have passed.

The second major event to not garner any attention from either presidential candidate is the invasion of the Republic of Georgia by Russia. This crisis has been left to boil for some four to five years at the least only to have the water boil over this week. Quickly, to get you up to speed, Georgia is having problems with separatists in the northern province of South Ossetia and so they responded by marching in to crush the rebels. Meanwhile, Russia has used this strife as a means to provoke Georgia into a confrontation. You might recall in the past couple of years Russia claiming that Georgia had detained some of its diplomats, while Georgia maintains that these "diplomats" were in fact spies. Well, needless to say, this all came to a head on Friday August 8 when Russian war planes began bombing runs inside Georgia and Russian tanks crossed the border. In response, Georgia is doing everything they can to repell the Russians, even withdrawling their forces in Iraq. President Bush has urged a quick resolution and rest assured that there are plenty of behind the scenes talks going on in Beijing. But what is missing is what a President McCain or a President Obama would do.

Granted there is not much that either can do right now to bring about a cease fire, as they are both just Senators, but this is a grand opportunity to bring up a larger issue--one that matters by the way--to the American people. We have been treated to eight years of the Left telling us that the foriegn policy of the Bush administration is the equivolent of the foriegn policy of a chimp. Well what would an Obama administration do in a scenario such as this? How exactly would Obama go about bringing this thing to a close favorable to the US? What about McCain? He seems to have all the answers when it comes to conducting a war, but what answers does he have in regards to international intrigue?

These two global events are ripe for a presidential candidate to display the type of leadership that would be employed in the next administration. Should we or should we not deal with China on any level so long as people there suffer due to political incarceration? Will we stand with allies who are bullied by a former power looking to regain its former glory, even as those allies stand with us in an unpopular war? These are questions that need to be answered now before the next president takes the oath of office. Some would claim that we didn't truly know what we were getting into when Bush first came to office, well now is the time to know about the next guy. But I guess for now, we will have to do with what TV shows our candidates enjoy and how much pressure-per-inch should we put in our tires in the hopes of saving ANWR from drilling.

Military Tribunals Work; Hamdan Guilty

2008-08-06T12:42:00.002-05:00

Today marks the end of the first military tribunal involving one of the Guantanamo Bay detainees, Salim Ahmed Hamdan. Hamdan was captured in Afghanistan during the military operations that served as the response for the September 11 terrorist attacks. What was Hamdan found guilty of? A jury of six found him guilty of material support to terrorists; however, they aquitted him for the more serious charge of conspiracy to commit terrorist acts. It is the aquittal that has many anti-Bush administration pundits laughing and saying "see, this tribunal stuff doesn't work." But let's just keep in mind that the conviction for material support came as a result of Hamdan being the driver for Osama bin Laden. People in the press are saying that this is the "lesser" crime, and it really is when compared to a conspiracy charge. But it's not like the jury just convicted the driver of a get-away-car used in a bank robbery.

Executive director of Amnesty International USA Larry Cox claims that the military tribunal process is "fatally flawed." Well, if this process is flawed then A) why was it used to begin with and B) how could a jury picked by the Pentagon convict for the "lesser" crime? Mr. Cox's use of the phrase "fatally flawed" would signify that the error has caused the life of Hamdan to end, but it has done no such thing. What the process has done is held Hamdan for seven years while his leftist lawyers argued that the military tribunal process violated US and international law and managed to win over the jury in regards to the aquittal for the conspiracy charge. Rand Beers has basically asked "seven years and this all that happened?" Well, Mr. Beers might be reminded that it was his buddies on the left who initiated the Supreme Court process. Navigating a court case all the way to the Supreme Court is not something that happens over night. So, Mr. Beers, Hamdan very easily could have met justice sooner had it not been for the left's insistance that a foriegn individual employed by the number one terrorist in the world was entitled to have his court case heard in the US justice system as opposed to military tribunals.

As to the material support charges Hamdan was found guilty of, there will most likely be an appeal by Hamdan's lawyers. The rationale for the appeal is that material support should not be considered a war crime. Well on the face of it, that would be a sensable reaction, but we are talking about bin Laden's driver not the driver of some two-bit criminal in the US. Furthermore, Hamdan is not a US citizen and should not be given the same access to the justice system that you or I would get.

The American Left has made it a point to compare the holding of terrorists in Guantanamo Bay to that of the Nazis holding Jews in concentration camps. Hollywood has made propaganda films depicting an overzealous political leader making up a threat all for the purpose of taking dictitorial control over the country. Leftist politicians repeatedly make the charge that what is being done in GETMO is inhumane. It is time for the American people to wake up and realize that by the left doing this they are putting all of us in grave danger. Barack Obama and the Democrat Party will not fight the terrorists. They will go back to issuing subpoenas and indicting terrorists in other countries only after terrorist attacks and the death of innocent Americans.

The Triumphant Return

2008-07-20T08:08:00.004-05:00

It seems like an eternity since there has been any words published in this space. I wish to extend appologies all around to those who have missed The National Whig. I had to go away for a couple of months on business and was not able to keep all of you updated as to my whereabouts. But I can now.

I visited a couple of places that I would like to recommend to all of you: Crete, Lisbon, Portugal and Bahrain. First of all, all three places are full of culture that you will not find anywhere here in the States. Crete is one of those islands carefully tucked away in the Mediterranean. The weather is great during the summer, meaning that it is not too hot, and the people are very friendly to Americans, meaning that you don't have to walk around with an English-to-Greek dictionary. The prices are also very comparable to prices here in the States, although they are on the Euro, so you will be paying about fifty cents more on everything given the exchange rate. But do go; the scenery is not to be matched. I have never before seen water so blue in my life. Plus, the history on the island is so rich that you feel like you have been placed in a time that the history of the US cannot possibly touch.

Speaking of history, go to Lisbon. Again, the people are friendly and very courtious to Americans--be on guard for the street venders that try to sell you sun-glasses and then pitch drugs to you when you have declined the glasses. While there, I stood in two Catholic cathedrals, one dating from the late 16th century and the other dating all the way to the 12th century. Both were beautiful and very inspiring--you could definitely feel the presence of God in each one. The younger of the two cathedrals housed the tomb of the queen who commissioned the building of the church. There she was laid to rest right there in the church, never missing a mass. But it was the awe inspiring 12th century cathedral where one truly gets the feeling of the Holy Spirit. Walking through the doors and you are instantly transported to the Middle Ages and you might half expect to turn a corner and see a knight kneeling before his journey to the Holy Land to crusade begins. The lighting inside is provided by stained glass windows and what seems like thousands of candles. And don't hesitate to place a lit candle on the prayer request table, I certainly didn't.

Bahrain is where my journies began. Let me begin by stressing to all of you that it is brutally hot there. Nevertheless, it has much to offer. The biggest attraction to me was the outdoor market that the locals like to call the Souq (pronounded Sook). This place is full of cheaply made knock off brands and also local items that are just beautiful. But it is the atmosphere that is its main attraction. While walking through this area of the island--Bahrain is an island just off of Saudi Arabia--you are suddenly thrown into an Indiana Jones movie searching for some ancient treasure, but no, you are in the here and now. The native Bahrainis are very friendly to Americans, but be aware that Saudis go there to "play" and many of them are not at the least friendly. (If by chance a Saudi offers to shake your hand and extends his left hand, he is insulting you and you should follow suit and offer your left hand.) The bottom line is just get out and experience the Muslim culture, don't be afraid. The first time you hear a call to prayer will be unnerving at first but then you, after a while, you come to see the beauty of it and begin to wish that American Christianity would offer something similar.

Americans are often critisized for not getting out and experiencing other cultures, and, however true this may be, it is important to go and visit other places to gain some small understanding. It is true that not all Europeans look down their noses at Americans and not all Muslims want to behead us, and you can only come to that conclusion if you visit with them and eat their food and walk their streets. Remember, those of us who inhabit this great country all originate from Europe and it would be wise to appreciate our heritage and visit our cousins from across the pond every now and then. So go, live and experience something that you will most certainly not regret.

Obama Done in by Whitey

2008-04-23T09:14:00.003-05:00

If you have been paying any attention to the Democrat primary in Pennsylvania, you might have heard a couple of reports or read a couple of columns bemoaning the possibility that white males would determine the winner. Nora Ephron penned a column on Monday over at The Huffington Post claiming that Pennsylvania's white male population would have to decide who they hated more, women or blacks. Last night, before the polls in the Keystone State closed, CNN's Wolf Blitzer aired a report discussing the power that white males have when it comes to voting. One of the interviewed yuppies claimed that is was dirty to imagine the power weilded by white men, but that it was definitely the case in Pennsylvania's primary. Well, as shocked as many Liberals may be today, there was a little bit of truth to what they were saying leading up to yesterday: Whitey did have a lot of power, enough to give Barack Obama a bloody nose, but it wasn't white men and their racism. No, it was white women and their sexism.

Go over to CNN.com and see for yourself. The exit polls that they have show two striking percentages, both of which favour Hillary Clinton. The first one is "Is gender of candidate important?". Between the men who said yes or who said no, the percentages are split fairly evenly, much the same as with the women who said no. However, the women who said yes--and there were 14 percent who said yes--broke for Hillary by a percentage of 77%. In other words, 14 percent of the women who voted in Pennsylvania yesterday did so primarily on the basis that they wanted a woman to win and not a man. Democrats and Liberals alike enjoy caricaturing Conservatives as those who vote based on physical characteristics like gender or race, so where are the cat calls from the left claiming that these 14 percent of women are sexists? Not going to happen.

The second striking statistic gleaned from these exit polls is the breakdown of how white/black men voted and how white/black women voted. The black community overwhelmingly went for Obama, but they only made up a total of 14 percent of the votes cast. White men and women made up 81 percent of the vote according to CNN, and of that percentage white women comprised 47 percent of the vote. White women went for Hillary Clinton 66 to 34 percent. Granted white men went for Hillary too, but they only made up 34 percent and the margin of victory for Hillary was eight percentage points. So, if we follow the logic of the Nora Ephons of the world, white women are not only sexist, but they are racists as well, extremely more racist that white men.

Frankly, it is time to put all of this identity politics behind us. Unlike the pundits out there speculating and predicting what is going to happen and which voter block holds the key, the majority of voters go with who they think has the best ideas or who will make a better commander-in-chief. It would be hard to imagine a vast majority of the voting population making their decissions based race and gender alone. American voters make their decissions based on ideas, no matter how deleterious or down right stupid those ideas may be. This can be said because in the very same CNN exit polling used for this piece, the majority of voters claimed that race or gender had no bearing on their decission. No matter which Democrat gets the nomination, race and gender won't have any bearing here either. They are both socialists and need to be beaten come November.

Do-It-Yourselfers, Or so They Claim

2008-04-16T08:59:00.003-05:00

The United States has an entire sector of our market devoted to doing things yourself: gardening, general home improvements, automobile maintenance, even brewing your own beer. There is another sector laden with self-help snake charmers claiming that they have what it takes to inspire you to become a better you. And apparently there are enough Americans out there willing to fork over large sums of money to either be a weekend warrior in their front yards or attempt to improve themselves vis-a-vis the words of some one who doesn't even know them. All of this would be encouraging if it would only transpire a desire to decrease the persistant encroachment into our lives by the federal government.

It is common knowledge that the top issues for voters this year are the economy and health care. People perceive the economy to be on the brink of recession because of a number of things such as the housing/loan troubles that have sprung up of late and the seven year drum beat by the liberal media that President Bush and the Republicans have destroyed the economy by giving tax cuts to "their wealthy friends." Health care is in a shambles due to the cost and the number of uninsured that there are in this country, but there could be a case made that it is not quite as bad as it seems. All that said, there are legitimate problems going on right now with the economy and health care, problems that need to be solved with a quickness, but what seems to be the solution according to the American people? Their solution is probably the worse solution of all: more government.

Just as polls show the economy and health care being a huge issue for voters, these same voters also claim that the Democrats have better solutions to these issues than Republicans. Well, if the Democrats are said to have better solutions, what would they be? More government--I mean we are talking about the Democrat Party for crying out loud. So the voters, the people who try to do-it-themselves when it comes to home improvement, are seeking the government to solve these particular problems. There is a great mentality in this country for Americans to think of themselves in a certain way, but when put to the test they just shrink away from their own perceptions of themselves. People are willing to build their own deck in their backyard, but they are unwilling to do what it is that is necessary to improve their own economic standing. Suggestions to do so are met with "oh, it's too hard" or "my uncle so-and-so lost his job and doesn't have anywhere else to go." So it's too hard and there is nowhere else to go turns into we need more government handouts. And worst of all, we are starting to hear this from sectors of the American public who are not traditionally viewed as being on the government dole.

So far all this year--and election year mind you--there have been articles after articles shouting from the mountain tops that capitalism has fail yet again. E. J. Dione Jr. of the Washington Post penned a column discussing how he doesn't want to hear anymore about the brilliance of capitalists because of the recent government bailouts that some Wall Street banks have received in the past couple of months. The dirty little secret is that these loan houses on Wall Street wouldn't be in such trouble had the federal government not come along some years ago and told them that they had better give loans and mortgages to high risk borrowers or they were going to feel the wrath of Washington. Well what do you think happens when you loan people money that either won't pay it back or not in a financially stable position to pay it back, which leads to the do-it-yourselfers. Now, the fact is that many mortgage owners are making their payments, only five to six percent aren't, but look at how everyone is reacting to the state of the economy. Now listen to what some are saying should be solutions.

Health care is the same way. It is rather expensive and there aren't going to be any quick fixes to health care in this country. But what is the number one stated fix for the American voter? Yup, universal health care, or as it should be called, let-the-rich-pay-for-my-health-care. That's right, universal health care is just another way to tell the do-it-yourselfers out there that some one else is going to do this one for them. There is no attempt by the people in this country to take on health care the same way one would take on home improvements. This mentality has been around in the U.S. for quite some time beginning with social security, which is just some one else paying for some one else's retirement.

It is a great feeling to think of one's self as independent and self reliant. Many of us were told as children that this country was founded by rugged individuals who had no help from anyone, and that is a romantic ideal. Today many around the country look at themselves as self reliant, but when examined closely, there is no self reliance there. So the next time you put that waterseal on the deck that you built last spring for your home, or the next time you are changing the oil in your car, don't think about what a great handyman you are. Ask yourself, "Have I thanked my boss for the taxes that he pays which enables me to have universal health care and social security?"

Barack, Hillary, What's the Difference?

2008-03-08T10:18:00.003-06:00

This presidential election year is one full of historical possibilities. First, and this is a certainty, we will elect the first senator as president since John F. Kennedy. Then we have the not so certain possibility of electing either the first black man or the first woman as president. Of course we have to wait for the Democrat voters to decide whether we get the option of the first black man or first woman. Right now, at least on a technical level, the odds are good that the Democrats will be giving us the first-black-man option; however, the scheming has been well at work at giving us the first woman option. All of these firsts are uplifting, at least to an extent, but when we are talking about leaders of a great nation, a discussion that ought to be based on ideas and not superficial things such as race and gender, what difference does it make whether we get a socialist president that is black or a woman?

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are separated only by physical traits. There is absolutely no difference between their views about how the United States should be run. They both advocate a government run healthcare system in the hopes of giving all Americans a sound piece of mind when it comes to healthcare costs. They both wish to punish success by, first, allowing the taxcuts of President Bush to sunset in 2010, and then, after claiming that an economic slowdown can only be helped by more govnerment spending, advocating an increase in taxes on who they consider "rich." Both are arguing that the housing/credit crisis can only be solved by having Washington set lending policy for the banks, whom Barack and Hillary deem to be the culprits in people not being able to pay off their debts. And finally, they both seem to think that the best way to fight terrorism is to talk to Iran, leave Iraq and let loose those in Guantanamo Bay which we captured while fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda in 2002. But when you look at the Democrats in the crowds of Obama or Clinton no one seems to care about what it is their particular candidate is saying. These supporters just cheer whenever they hear a certain keyword or combination of keywords. So one could argue that the race for the Democrat nomination for president is based, not on substance, but on who sounds better when they say that they are going to turn the US more into a socialist state: style over substance.

The worst part of this style-over-substance campaign that the Democrats are running this year is that the "average" American voter doesn't care, they want to partake in history. All throughout this campaign season there has been numerous examples of the American voter responding to stump speeches as though they were mind-numbed robots. All one has to do is watch an Obama speech and wait for him to say "change," "hope," or "Bush" and you can hear the sheep bleeting as loudly as possible. Or go over to a Hillary speech; you won't hear "hope" but you can hear "change" and "Bush" and, of course, the bleeting. And though there is no substance, there are key words that lend to the appearance of substance, but alas, there is no there there. For instance, the two history makers are keen on saying that NAFTA has caused the loss of manufacturing jobs in middle America, but the facts are that those jobs have more than likely gone over to China than Mexico and, aside from that, there really hasn't been that great an exodus of jobs considering that since NAFTA our unemployment levels haven't risen above 6 percent--one of the legs needed for economists to claim a recession. But the American voter doesn't want to hear that, they want to pump their fists and scream "They took our jobs!".

The greatest example of the American voter being driven by style or superficial characteristics comes from Juan Williams of NPR. The other day on "Morning Edition" Williams was discussing the possible Vice President selections for John McCain. Among the many names on the list was former Maryland Lt. Governor Micheal Steele. Now, Williams's explaination for this choice did not focus on whether Mr. Steele was a Conservative, which he is, or whether he has an exemplary intellect, which he does. No, the reason, according to Williams, for choosing Micheal Steele is because he is black, and in the current political environment it would be beneficial for the GOP to try and capitalize on the current emotions of the time. (I want it known that I would vote for Mr. Steele if he was purple with a big extra head, because it is important for me that he is a Conservative.)

This is not the first time that the American voter has reacted purely out of emotional rationalization rather than substantive rationalization. In the mid-term election of 2006 the Democrats won majorities in both chambers of Congress based on a platform that can stripped down to this: Vote for us, we aren't them. It worked well enough to win back control of Congress and completely disspirit the Conservative movement coming into this election year. This is how the GOP ended up getting represented by John McCain, he is assumed to be the most electible.

Emotions are determining the course of the United States, and that is a deleterious thing. Considering that while the American voter will be celebrating the making of history this year, their taxes will be increased, their economic prospects are going to deteriorate, and their national security will be limited and there doesn't seem to be a care about any of that, puts a bit of a taint on the thought that Americans are rather cutting edge thinkers. Electing the "first" of some one to power is a good thing, but it shouldn't be the driving force behind making the decision regarding who to vote for. It is about ideas, that is the only thing that matters not the physical aspects of where those ideas come from.

WFBjr-R.I.P.

2008-02-28T11:28:00.002-06:00

February 27, 2008 will always be remembered by Conservatives as the second most grieved day of the past twenty years. William F. Buckley Jr. passed away in his study and with him the closing of a very long chapter in the book that is American Conservatism. He was 82 years old, and all accounts say that he was working on a new book--one of many, I might add--in his study when the time came for him to be called up to Heaven. All Conservatives will say that WFB was a huge influence, and I will be more than honoured to join their ranks.

I never got the opportunity to meet Buckley in a face-to-face scenario despite being in Washington during the 50th anniversary of National Review. However, I did get the chance to interview him over the phone back in March of 2003 while I was working for a radio news network based in Dallas Texas. He was pushing his latest novel, Getting it Right and I was nervous as could be about interviewing such a titan of a mind. But after just a few minutes into the interview, I found him to be a very down-to-earth man with the inherent ability to set you at ease. The interview was maybe ten minutes, but they were the best ten minutes of my professional life.

No one is going to replace him within the Conservative movement, nor do I think anyone could. The only thing that Conservatives could do to show their utmost respect for their fallen leader and founder is to get back to first principles: limited government, individual freedom and adherence to the Founding Fathers. William F. Buckley Jr. not only showed us the way, but he taught us how to do it, and for that he will be greatly missed. We love you Bill. God bless you and your family.

John McCain Wins Florida, The GOP Loses

2008-01-30T02:10:00.000-06:00

Senator John McCain has been riding a wave of independent voters to victory pretty much since New Hampshire and it would seem that he did the same in Florida. The first sign of this came when the South Florida Sun-Sentinal reported a story of how an independent voter went into a polling place and admitted to not being registered in any party and yet was still allowed to vote in the Republican primary. And now, with the vote count finished and McCain annointed the leader, we see that the exit polls show that McCain received 44 percent of the independent vote, which made up 17 percent of the total vote in the Republican primary. Two assessments can be made from this fact: 1) independents were allowed to vote in the primary and 2) Conservatives do not like McCain.

First, everyone following this process knows that you cannot vote in the primary in Florida unless you are registered the particular party that you wish to vote in. So how in the world did John McCain--Mr. Independent--get independent votes in a state where the primary is closed to party members? Perhaps it was Charlie Crist, Florida's Governor who endorsed McCain, that managed to get a last minute rule change or maybe it was individual polling place workers who took it upon themselves to put the fix in for McCain. No one knows as of yet, but I will say that something stinks.

Next, is the lack of support for McCain from the base of the Republican Party. According the exit polls on CNN, McCain lost the Conservative vote to Mitt Romney by nearly ten percentage points. It has been that way for McCain the entire primary season. He is winning the Republican Party nomination race without winning the one segment of the Republican Party that makes up the base. It is looking like Huckabee is staying in it just to badger Romney and siphon off enough of the Conservative vote from Romney, giving McCain the victory. Maybe McCain and Huck have made an arrangement for the Huckster to be his running mate, I don't know. I do know this: Florida has set McCain up to be the Republican nominee and he has yet to garner a majority of the Conservative vote.

At this stage in the game, I am pretty certain that Hillary is going to be the Democrats' nominee, and as much as I do not want those two back in the Oval Office, I will never, ever vote for John McCain. I have gone through McCain's faults numerous times in this space, so there is no need to do so now. The only observation I will make is that it seems to me that the Republican Party is having their nominee stolen from them by the likes of a McCain/Huckabee agreement. Many pundits are making the case that the Republicans are looking for the candidate most likely to win in November, but that is not the case when you look at the current frontrunner and his support from Republicans/Conservatives. What Liberals and Moderates could not accomplish in 2000, they are doing in 2008 and it is at the detriment of the Republican Party.

Go here to look at the CNN exit polls:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#FLREP

Here's the Sun-Sentinal piece:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sfl-129electionday,0,6968764,print.story

Nostalgia for Reagan is not the Problem

2008-01-20T07:47:00.000-06:00

With the current Republican field beating each other up over who is the "real" Conservative in the primaries, there is a huge battle going on as to whether or not the Conservative movement is dead. Rush Limbaugh got into it with NY Times columnist David Brooks and over at National Review Online Mona Charen sings the praises of a new book by David Frum where he says, among other things, to "drop Reagan" and advocates a carbon tax. Now, over at The Weekly Standard Bill Kristol is picking up the mantra of drop Reagan and make a new conservatism.

Mr. Kristol begins by listing off the top Republicans and their good points and then tells Conservatives to overlook their other trangressions. He begins with John McCain and his "lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 82.3." McCain's lifetime ACU rating is fine, but let's look at recent history shall we? McCain's support for Campaign Finance Reform, amnesty for illegals, voting twice against President Bush's tax cuts, joining Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman in wanting to fight man-made global warming are all signs that McCain cannot be trusted to govern even as a quasi-conservative. McCain's ACU rating would be well into the 90's had it not been for his support of these items. But above all, McCain's biggest fault is his insistance that the people down at Guantanamo Bay are sadists and torture the detainees there. There can be nothing more distrubing than for some one claiming to support the troops to call some of them sadists.

Next on Kristol's list is former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Kristol says that the Huckster is staunchly pro-life and pro-gun--which is great--but then goes on to make a major mistake in saying that Huckabee "is consistently supported by the most conservative primary voters." Huckabee has not been getting tremendous support from Conservative voters in the primaries; he's been getting his support from Evangelicals that are also identified as Conservatives. According to the exit polls from CNN's "Politics" page, Huckabee received 35 percent of the Conservative vote in South Carolina. The combined Conservative vote of McCain, Romney and Thompson swamp Huckabee's total. Just the combonation of Romney and Thompson alone are enough to tie Huck's total. In the Iowa caucuses, those who identified themselves as "somewhat to very" Conservative, again Huckabee got 34 and 35 percent respectively. Once again not enough to total the Conservative vote that went to Romney and Thompson, 45 and 36 percent. In New Hampshire Huckabee gets demolished by Romney among Conservatives, 18 to 38 respectively. Romney won Wyoming handily and there can be no question that the majority of voters there are Conservatives. In Michigan, Romney won that state as well with the support of 41 percent of the Conservative vote, while Huckabee received just 20 percent. And finally in Nevada, which Romney won the entire primary with 51 percent, Conservatives voted for Romney with 56 percent support. Huckabee garnered only 8 percent. It looks as though Mr. Kristol needs to go look at the exit polls and revise his comments about the Conservative support of Huckabee.

Now, I am singling out McCain and Huckabee because these are the two candidates that Conservatives are having a hard time voting for. If you listen to Limbaugh or go over to RedState.com, you will find out real quick that Conservatives have a hard time getting behind McCain or Huckabee. And yet, in leading off his column telling us to drop Reagan, Kristol goes with McCain and Huckabee. It should be known that Kristol is a huge John McCain fan and he knows the troubles that McCain has in getting Conservative support. It would seem that Kristol is urging, not so much a dropping of Reaganism, but a redifinition of it to suit his chosen candidate's recent political stance. And that is where I, Rush and a whole host of Conservatives have a problem with the current wave of inside-the-Beltway wisdom. Why should we have to redefine Conservatism in order to win elections? Conservatism is being narrowly defined by people wanting to redefine it so as to make the case that it needs to be "modernized." They tell us that taxes are low, the Soviet Union is gone, crime is low and welfare has been reformed, so why do we need to hold on to Reagan's strand of Conservatism? The answer is quite simple: Reagan wasn't about specific issues, he was about leading a movement that happened to solve those specific issues.

Yeah, taxes are low today compared to when Reagan first took the oath of office, but they are creeping back up. When you combine all the taxes paid by the top income earners, you will see that they are paying nearly 45 percent on their income. Thanks to "man made global warming" regulations on the private sector are coming back and in worse ways than before. The energy bill that was signed last November by President Bush contained a little passage in it that outlaws the use of regular old light bulbs by 2012. Sure, welfare has been reformed, but we are no closer to downsizing the Federal government and that is because Conservatives haven't won the battle on dependency. It is a striking scene when you tell the American people that their Social Security will not be solvent by 2025 and give them a solution to fix it and then have them tell you no, leave it how it is. The amount of dependency in this country is striking and Conservatives are not going to turn the tide by "modernizing" the ideology.

What Conservatism needs is leadership from the elected side of the house. Conservatives have leaders such as Rush and National Review, but we need some one running for office to lead the movement and show us that it wins. We need some one to get into office and show us that Conservative principles work when implemented. There is no elected leadership in the Conservative movement. That's what ails us, not a clinging nostalgia for another Ronald Reagan.

Game On!!

2008-01-08T20:42:00.000-06:00

Presidential election season 2008 is upon us and it has already delivered some rather exciting fireworks. On January 3 the people of Iowa kicked things off with their famous caucus in which two surprise victories happened, one for Barack Obama and the other for Mike Huckabee. Now, January 8, we have the first-of-the-nation primary in New Hampshire. As I write this, it is a close match for the Democrats between Obama and Hillary Clinton. For the Republicans, it was called early for John McCain. So at this very moment we still have a wide open race, at least for now.

Obama

Barack Obama, the junior Senator of Illinois, went into Iowa and won handily over Hillary Clinton. And he is giving another great performance in New Hampshire, trailing Clinton by 4000 votes. After Iowa, he was looked at as the frontrunner going into the Granite State, and rightfully so. All the polls leading up to today had him leading and the actions from the Hillary camp were anything but confident. There is an electricity in the air--so we're told--when Obama enters a room to give his stump speech. He is particularly liked by younger voters. But after all of this, he is still trailing Clinton.

Clinton

Ah, Mrs. Inevitibility! She came in third in Iowa, getting beat by, not just Obama, but John Edwards. She has had a tough weekend in the press between then and tonight. And yesterday, she was holding back tears when explaining why she so badly wants to be president. Well, New Hampshire may just be the spark that ignites the inevitibility of Clinton to where it was just four months ago. It is looking pretty good that she is going to take New Hampshire and then the Democrats go on from there. The next state is South Carolina and the question is whether or not the predominantly black Democrat voters will support her or Obama. Many of the Democrat leaders within the black community are not sold on Obama so she may just come out on top, we'll see. One thing is certain, if you are an inevitible candidate, you do not loose even in Iowa.

Romney

On the Republican side, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has plenty of money and--according to him--the best organization. He spent more than any other Republican in Iowa and came in second to Huckabee. In New Hampshire, he went up against John McCain and again came in second. Seems that we have a running theme. A couple of things stand out though. In Iowa, Romney beat all Republicans when it came to non-evangelical caucus goers. There other thing is that the conventional wisdom said that, because of New Hampshires open primaries, McCain was going to have to court the independents in order to beat Romney, meaning that the Republicans like Romney despite some of the hangups that have been flung around his kneck. One more observation: Romney has plenty of money to make it to the end and he is the only Republican to finish where he was the state before.

McCain

He didn't really spend much time in Iowa and he technically came in fourth behind some one who was considered lazy when it comes to campaigning, Fred Thompson. New Hampshire was supposed to be his to loose, after all he beat a sitting president there in 2000 and is well liked in New Hampshire. McCain's biggest problem is that the Conservative base does not like him, and let's be honest, Iowa and New Hampshire are not good indicators into the preferences of the Conservative base. He has to go to South Carolina where it is expected that he will not do quite as well as he did tonight. The other state that is looking for McCain is Michigan, but he will have to do battle with Romney there once again and it will not be easy. McCain could be considered the darkhorse in the Republican race, but realistically I don't see him winning.

Huckabee

The victor in Iowa came in....third in New Hampshire. Not too surprising. Huckabee is running on his evangelical credentials with a splash of economic populism. He is going to South Carolina where his chances are remarkably better than they were in New Hampshire. He poses a great threat to the other Republicans because the Conservative coalition is heavily populated with evangelicals. He also poses a great threat to the Conservative movement because many within the movement that aren't evangelicals will have a hard time voting for him due to his economic acts while governor or Arkansas.

Gulliani

America's Mayor is waiting until February 5 when Florida and a whole host of other states are voting. Something like 22 states will be casting ballots, and Rudy is hoping that those states, many of which are friendly to him, will be there to propell him to the top. It's a gutsy move giving the rest of the field a whole month to gain momentum and peel off some of the states that the mayor is banking on. He, like Romney, does have a substantial amount of money, so with him skipping out of the hardcore campaigning in the early states he will have some ammo come February 5. The question for the Rudy camp is will it be enough.

The bottom line for both parties is that their nomination race is wide open. For the Democrats it is really a two person race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, while for the Republicans it is a little more wide open. The Republicans can claim no real frontrunner and right now it looks like a four way race. No one has won back to back and only one has held steady at second place with a lot more game to be played. The Democrats are going to have decide if they want to add more fuel to the dynasty fire that has risen since '88 when Bush 41 began the alternating presidencies. Or are they going to want to go with the guy that is being compared to the second coming of Bobby Kennedy. Either way, this year is going to be one of the most exciting presidential elections in my memory.

Benazir Bhutto was not Killed by al Qeada

2007-12-28T21:51:00.000-06:00

It was the day after Christmas, I was spending the holidays with my in laws when I went to check my email. Before I got to hotmail, I went over to Drudge's website and there it was in big bold letters in the space that Matt uses to post big news and boy was it huge. Benazir Bhutto had been killed while campaigning for Prime Minister of Pakistan. The elections are scheduled for January 8. Normally, with a headline like that I would have been scouring the net for information about what happened and who was responsible, but all I could do was see the headline, afterall it was the holidays and I was with family. Now that I am back at work ready to begin the new year, I have had time to read all the opinions and wires about what happened. One thing stands out from all of the stories that I have read from National Review Online to AP: everyone is already blaming al Qeada and not even telling the story of Bhutto's anti-US stance in the 90's.

Over at NRO, there is a huge section dedicated to the assassination of Bhutto with columns by Rich Lowry and Stanley Kurtz lamenting the brutality of the terrorists responsible for this atrocity. The teaser for Lowry's piece claims that Bhutto was "a frank voice against Islamism" and Kurtz's teaser makes the assertion that support for Bhutto in the pre-election polls was not because of her anti-Islamist stance, but in spite of it. Now, I have to come clean; I love the guys at National Review. I am on their side ideologically and frankly I wish I was on their payroll. But I cannot help but feel a little embarrassed that they would be so quick to jump on the al Qeada-did-it banwagon. Normally, I can always rely on NR to take a measured stance to big stories and wait and see what really is going on. But on this story it seems that they, like all the rest, have missed the story that lies underneath the surface of a pretty obvious conclusion. (Given the obviousness of blaming the terrorists, I really don't have too much of a problem with blaming them.)

Lowry's piece begins by comparing the murder of Bhutto with that of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. You will remember that Hariri was killed because of his anti-Syrian stance and wanting to expell Syria's influential hand from the affairs of Lebanon. To compare Bhutto's misfortune to that of Hariri's is a bit contrived. Then Lowry goes on to explain how the death of Bhutto will only weaken the support of Musharraf by the United States. I am not too sure about that seems how Musharraf's lack of zeal for hunting down terrorists in the border regions has not hurt his standing with President Bush. Then you have Kurtz's piece which can be summed up this way: Bhutto is a better alternative than Nawaz Sharif because Sharif is soft on terrorism/Islamists. Kurtz wants us to believe that Bhutto's enthusiastic support stems from her Socialist policies that would seemingly help the poor of Pakistan. This support comes in spite of her anti-terror, pro-War on Terror stance. Both of these pieces--Lowry's and Kurtz's--are full of false hope. I am rather surprised in this because I hold both men up to be among the brightest stars in the punditry galaxy.

I am not convinced of the conventional wisdom of the al-Qeada-did-it crowd because of a book written by an expert on Islamist terror in the past two decades: Yossef Bodansky. I will get right to it, in his book Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, Bodansky explains how Bhutto was not just soft on terrorism during her terms as Prime Minister but actively helping in the efforts of Islamist factions to unite and rule the entire Middle East. Quoting directly from pages 92-93 of his book, Bodansky writes, "Pakistan's growing role in this anti-US buildup was one of Bhutto's personal priorities.....The most important elements were stronger strategic agreements with Iran and North Korea." During a conference organized by Sudanese terrorist Hassan Abdallah al-Turabi, Bhutto's government "left no doubt that Pakistan saw itself as an active and loyal member of the Islamic bloc led by Iran." Within the borders of Pakistan, Bhutto appealed to Turabi to assure the Islamists "that the Pakistan People's Party would not attack Islamism or abolish Islamic law and of Islamabad's commitment to their common cause." This blatant support for Islamist terrorists began to take its toll on US-Pakistani relations, causing the Pakistani Intelligence survice to "create an area of deniability between Bhutto's government and its support for Islamist terrorism."(pg. 109)

So who are we to believe, the conventional wisdom or the writings of Bodansky who spent the 90's advising the security apparatus of the US on the threats posed by Islamist terror? There are three serious questions that need to be answered before there can be any hope of getting to the bottom of this. First, given Bodansky's book, why would al Qeada want to kill a political leader on the verge of regaining power who was a big ally during the 90's? Second, why would the terrorists want to help Musharraf by killing his biggest political threat? Last, why is Musharraf not cancelling the January 8th elections allowing the Pakistani People's Party time to get a new candidate? I do not want to jump right off the cliff by saying that Musharraf did it, but no one is going to convince me that the Islamists did it without the use of some pretty hefty intell reports and very thorough investigations into Bhutto's murder.

(As I was writing this, I had Hannity & Colmes on and Richard Miniter raised the suggestion that it could have been an inside job. Rich Lowry was filling in for Sean Hannity.)

Back From Thanksgiving Vacation, and Still Thankful

2007-11-27T11:58:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving is over. The turkey is being used to fill lunches for a full week of work. And the many pies and other various sweets are thankfully gone, no longer tempting those of us who wish we hadn't had that last piece of pie in between NFL games on Sunday. But with all the Thanksgiving festivities finished there are still reasons to be thankful.

I first want to begin by saying that there are hundreds of men and women serving their country in Iraq and Afghanistan that didn't get to be with loved ones on Thanksgiving. They were busy protecting me and you so that we could enjoy giving thanks with family and friends. This generation of war fighters is following in the footsteps of the WWII generation, the Civil War generation and the Revolutionary generation, missing cherrished holidays so that we may be free. To them I give thanks and pray for their quick, safe return.

Next on the list is the continuous gift of family and friends. There is no greater support system for an individual than their family and friends. A person with no friends is the poorest person in the world; a person with no family support is deserving of the most charitable giving. With all the political bickering between the two ideologies, we should keep in mind that none of that matters compared to our families and friends. We should remind ourselves everyday of the joy that our spouse delivers to us.

My third choice for reasons to remain thankful even after our Day of Thanks is the very fact that we live in the United States. Folks, we live in the most prosperous country in history with the most liberty. Yes, we our system of government has its flaws and our history is not perfect, but where would any of you rather live all other things being equal. I am thankful to be a citizen of the United States. I am thankful for the gathering of minds that birthed our great nation. And I am thankful that there have been millions of people who have gone out to defend it from threats. God has truly blessed this nation and indirectly me.

Yes, we should always celebrate Thanksgiving on the third Thursday of November, but we should always carry the sentiments of the day with us in our everyday lives. One day out of the year is not enough when it comes to giving thanks for all that we have and for all that we have not had to suffer.

Conservatism, What Does it Mean?

2007-10-15T18:26:00.000-05:00

This presidential election cycle has brought out many interesting scenes already, and the play isn't even really out of the beginning stages. On the Democrat side of things we have the contest of who can empty out the nation's treasury the quickest with entitlements and spending that will reach well into the trillions of dollars. There is also the underlying tension of who is actually running the Democrat Party, is it the Washington based machine or is it the netroots led by Markos Maulitos of the Daily Kos? That scene is humorous only because the feuding sides will have the same detrimental effect on the nation regardless of who comes out victorious. The Republicans on the other hand are actually providing some real intellectual food for thought.

It seems that every twenty years or so, since the fifties, the Republican Party has had a huge battle within to find out if they are going to be the home of the Conservaitve movement or led by northeastern countryclub types with no real ambition to be a majority party. In the fifties, led by William F. Buckley Jr. and the editorial board of National Review, the decision was support Ike and win or support Taft and Conservative principles. After holding their nose before jumping in with Nixon and getting burned in the sixties, Conservaitves found their man in Ronald Reagan, but they had to do battle twice against the Republican establishment, once in '76 and then again in '80 when finally Conservatives got some one who championed their philosophy in office. After that, we thought that the debate of who ran the Republican Party was over. Well, here we are in the 2008 Presidential Race and we are having the same debate yet again.

Though the debate is much the same as it was in decades past, the reasons are completely in the now. The Republicans are moving in such a manner as to exclaim to the entire voting populous that we would rather beat Hillary Clinton than run on our principles. As we speak, the frontrunner in all the polls show that Rudy Guiliani is going to be our choice to face off against Hillary. However, on almost all of the domestic issues Rudy is a carbon copy of Hillary. Is it really important to win if all that happens is a little less Liberalism than would otherwise happen? We tried that with the current administration and it has put us in the situtation that we are in right now. (I will expand on that argument shortly.) Conservatives must buy into the movement if they are ever going to have the American people buy into it themselves. By choosing Rudy because he polls well against Hillary what we are really telling the American voter is that we care more about winning, and that is not a good, winning strategy.

I have heard it said and read in many places that Conservatives should not redefine Conservatism to fit any one particular candidate in the Republican field. The top tier of the candidates has its share of good ideas but no one could say that any one of them is a movement Conservative, and that is important. Rudy may be friendly to Conservatives in the case of the economy, but his social attitudes are counter that of the movement's social attitude. Romney is too much the packaged guy and can't really be trusted to lead the movement. McCain has been looked at numerous times on this space and no one can make a legitimate case that he is ready to lead the movement after his actions in the past seven years. McCain disdains the Conservative movement and would lead us to our doom. Thompson would be a good fit on almost all issues, but can you say that he is a leader. Does he want to be the leader?

We find ourselves in this situation because we did not elect a movement Conservative in 2000. Sure, Bush is more Conservative on issues than not, but he is not a movement guy. If there is any similarity between him and his father, it is that. Bush has given us tax cuts and a two good Supreme Court jurists, but he has not done much else that would classify him as a Conservative. His domestic spending led to the defeat of Republicans in 2006. He created a new entitlement within Medicare and a new Department in the Federal government that many say didn't need to be created. Spending for nondefense items under President Bush from 2001-2006 increased by 27.9 percent. Of course, Congress really didnt' do anything to stop this, but how do you tell your President in your Party that you are not going to give him pretty much what he wants? That mentality led to an increase in earmarks and hubris among the House and Senate leaders and created an atmosphere fertile for corruption. By November of 2006, Conservatives decided it was time to stay home and punish the Party for their abandonment of their principles.

Now, we are faced with a Presidential race where we can claim no real candidate that seems ready to take up our cause. Conservatives are going to have to make a choice between winning or principles. Personally, I think our principles will win so I don't understand why there has to be this choice. The country is not ready to turn itself into France or Canada, so all Republicans need to do is find some one who can articulate their message with honesty and sencerity and the American Voter will choose that person. Fred Thompson is articulate, and right now, he seems to be the best fit for our movement. Unless some one else comes along, he may be our best choice.

Talk Radio and Phony Soldiers

2007-09-30T14:14:00.000-05:00

The American Left is at it again. This time they are using a "phony" controversy to attack talk radio generally and Rush Limbaugh specifically. It used to be comical to see the Left try everything short of murder to beat talk radio, but now it is infuriating. It's infuriating because, unlike before, the Left has the political power now to act on some of their threats, like shutting down talk radio. You see, they cannot compete within the sphere of talk radio, so they have to find all sorts of things to convince the American People that it needs to be shut down, even if some of those things are false accusations against people like Limbaugh. The most recent dust up is over the use of the term "phony soldiers" by Limbaugh in regards to a person who, after 44 days of bootcamp, washed out of the Army and then claimed to be a member of the Army Rangers sent to Iraq and Afghanistan where he committed and wittnessed brutal treatment of the people there. The Left and their willing microphones in the news media are claiming that Rush is calling soldiers who are against the war in Iraq "phony soldiers." Here is the actual event that caused the ruckus.

So, here you have the origin of this "phony" story fanned by the Left. Limbaugh was talking about a gentleman named Jesse McBeth and not about soldiers who are against the war in Iraq. Furthermore, it should be noted that there are hundreds of "Jesses" out there in the "phony military," anti-war movement. http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/09/marine_vafakers_070924/

The real story is not the use of the term "phony soldiers" by Limbaugh, but the blatent attack on free speech by the American Left. For a group of people who are very quick to claim that President Bush has destroyed the First Amendment, they sure are quick to turn a blind eye to Democrats in Congress that want to pass real legislation that does exactly that. First it was the Fairness Doctrine and the claim that there just is not enough "diversity" on the radio airwaves. Now it's the ceasation of "hate" speech as demonstrated by Rush Limbaugh and his "phony soldiers" comment.

First of all, why don't all you Leftists out there who hate Limbaugh and talk radio in general try listening to his show before you make stupid accusations that can be easily refuted. Second of all, knowing that you are not going to listen to his show, why don't you just ignore it. I mean how many people on the Right are looking to shut down the Daily Kos because of the vitriol that is spewed by that bunch, and Bill O'Reiley is not enough for me because he is not in a political office? No, I want a name of a person in office seeking to actually go out and shut down some one on the Left. Wait a minute, you can't because there isn't.

Hillary's Contorting Positions on Iraq

2007-09-26T09:10:00.000-05:00

On Sunday September 23, Democrat Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton visited with ABC's This Week w/George Stephanopoulos where she was asked a multitude of questions about the current campaign to win the White House in 08. George opened the questions with Iraq and Clinton's answers were all at once about getting out of Iraq completely and having to wait and see before anything is done about troop levels. Here's the video from youtube.

George asks her flat out if she will remove all US troops from Iraq within her first term and her answer is that she is not going to answer that right now because she does not know what she is going to find when/if she wins the presidency. I suspect that she is saying this because she does actually have a brain and knows that an all out withdrawl would be desasterous. But what strikes me is that in the middle of a primary race in the Party that is dedicated to getting out of Iraq yesterday, is not so quick to claim that she will pull out on the first day. John Edwards has made such claims, as has Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut. Obama is her closest competitor and he is not shying away from the notion that there needs to be a withdrawl from Iraq.

From this situation, we can gleen two things: 1) the Clintons are in complete control of the Party despite how powerful the netroots think they are and 2) Democrats are not as interested in getting out of Iraq as they are in beating Republicans. Let's take these two ideas in reverse. If you think that the Democrats do not want to get out of Iraq, then you haven't been paying attention or you just arrived here from a far away galaxy. There is not question that the Democrats want out of Iraq. They do not look at Iraq as central to the War on Terror and some of them don't even think that there is a War on Terror. So this leaves us with the first assertion which is probably more true than any other theory.

The netroots, led by the Daily Kos, is not as powerful as they think they are within the Party or within the country. Clinton's answer to Stephy on Sunday is a clue to this conclusion. There are others including the fact that we are still in Iraq and there is still a Senator from Connecticut named Joe Lieberman. The netroots and Kos went all out to get rid of Sen. Lieberman and they failed big time in a state that is not the bastion of Conservatism that some may believe. Connecticut is a very Liberal state surrounded by a very Liberal region. Joe Lieberman is not the ragin right-winger that Kos makes him out to be, he simply thinks that the mission in Iraq is worthy and winnable. The netroots failed to oust Lieberman during an election that many believe was won by Democrats because of opposition to the war. Clinton's words on Sunday just amplify the notion that the netroots are not in control of the Party.

Other theories include the notion that the Democrats do not want to be perceived as the one's who lost this war. Their plan is to get Bush to concede defeat before the November 08 elections and pin the loss on him and Republicans. I don't doubt that there is some of that there but the rank in file Democrats have to be considered in the know on this. I don't think that is the case. Listen to C-SPAN's Washington Journal and listen to some of the callers on the Democrat side and you will come away with this conclusion. Another theory is that the American people are not totally on board with getting out of Iraq and Clinton knows this. She is playing to the sentiments that she is now a centrist instead of a devout socialist--which she still is. That theory holds more water than the former, but it also solidifies the theory that the netroots are not the all powerful group of radicals that they claim they are.

Clinton's performance on Sunday was very eye opening. On the one hand she expressed a desire to get out of Iraq and at the same time she said that we need to wait until she gets into the Oval Office to see what they are dealing with. From this, we can see a possibility of two things. One of these possibilities is the correct one. Either the Democrats really do not want to get out of Iraq and Hillary knows this and that's why she is leading in the polls. Or the radicals on the far Left of the Party are not as powerful as they think. Given the current state of mind of the rank and file Democrats out there, only one of these statments makes any sense.

Left vs. Right, State vs. Liberty

2007-09-19T07:27:00.000-05:00

The United States is poised to elect into power a group of people determined to maximize the Power of the State over the Liberty of the People. The Legislature, run by Democrats, is hungry for a Democrat President to sign their bills that would further the government encroachment into the private sector. The Democrats running for the presidency are more than willing to announce that, if elected, they will do all they can to encroach on the private sector. Republicans at this time seem powerless to stop them because our top teir candidates are not rejecting the premise of the Democrats' arguements on issues such as healthcare, economics or the environment. In short, the Republicans, or at least this current crop of Republicans, are not fighting for Liberty. They are acquiescing to the demands of the Democrats that government be given more authority over the transactions that happen in the private sector. But Republicans need not do this for Liberty, when championed in an articulate manner, will always sway the American People.

Healthcare

Other than the issue in Iraq, no other issue seems to dominate the political world today like healthcare. All of the top tier Democrats hoping to win their Party's presidential nomination have unvailed a plan that would provide healthcare for every American. The premise behind this push for a "single-payer" system is that there are some 47 million people in the United States who do not have health insurance. At first glance, the number "47 million" is rather daunting and demands attention to be sure, but no one ever parses the number to see why these people are uninsured or who they are. Democrats use the number to hit on the emotional nerve of the voter and Republicans are quick to shy away from the debate for fear of being called heartless. But these questions need to be asked and debated if the voter is going to make a real, intelligent decision about healthcare.

Steffie Woolhandler and David U. Himmelstein, writing in The Boston Globe, have found that the latest numbers provided by the Census Bureau show that the majority of uninsured are "neither poor nor elderly." The Census Bureau's numbers show that "[v]irtually all of this year's increase was among families with incomes above $50,000; in fact, two-thirds of the newly uncovered were in the above-$75,000 group." Woolhandler and Himmelstein's arguement is that the middle class is being priced out of healthcare and the Census Bureau's numbers seem to back this up. (I say "seem to" because the length of time these people go without insurance is, statistically, rather short as we will see.) Is it rational to say that we need to socialize one-seventh of the economy for people who make over $50,000 a year? I will not argue that the price for healthcare needs to be delt with so as to no price the middle class out, but this is not a reason to implement a Canada-style healthcare system. Furthermore, the Democrats have painted a picture of despare among the poor and elderly in regards to healthcare in an effort to push their agenda to socialize medicine. In response, the Republicans have offered to only slightly socialize medicine, in essence giving up on the debate.

So, if the United States is going to socialize medicine for the middle class, it is important to ask how long does the middle class go without health insurance. In August 2004 Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D., examined Census Bureau statistics dealing with the same subject as Woolhandler and Himmelstein did this year and he found that, on average, people do not go long without insurance. Dr. Johnson's first arguement is that the Census Bureau's year-to-year statistics, called the Current Population Survey (CPS), do not measure the numbers of uninsured accurately. He suggests that looking at the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) is a better when it comes to getting the full picture of uninsured Americans. When looking at SIPP you can see that the length of time families/individuals go without insurance is about 5.6 months on average and "[o]nly 3.3 percent of all Americans [go] without some kind of health insurance for four or more years."

Socialized Medicine--or "single-payer" healthcare--is not going to improve the healthcare in the United States. All it will do is increase the amount of authority that the State can weild over the individual. The State will determine who your provider is, how often you should go to the doctor and what kind treatment you can receive. Moreover, it will have a detrimental effect on the provider side of the issue with more regulations on doctors than exist now. Repubicans would be better served by arguing for less State intervention.

The Economy

The economic system of the United States has produced the wealthiest nation in the history of Man. Even our poor live high on the hog when compared to the poor of the rest of the world. Our GDP is roughly $13.2 trillion and makes up about 20 percent of the world economy. The current unemployment rate in the US is just under five percent, and it hasn't reached double digits in thirty years. And despite these numbers and the importance our economic wellbeing plays on the global stage, the Democrats are deadset against the free-market philosophy of our system. Former Clinton administration Labour Secretary Robert Reich has claimed that "supercapitalism" is bad for democracy. Senator Obama wants to raise the taxes on capital gains which will discourage investment. The Democrats in Congress want to punish mortgage lenders because the borrower can't make the payments. All of these statements is an announced desire for socialism. It's not enough that Democrats want to control the healthcare sector of the economy, but they want to control the entire economy.

Republicans have a better footing in this arguement than they do in the healthcare issue because the American People are not ready to turn the US into France. But the candidates running for the GOP's nomination are not hitting this issue hard enough. All they have to do is hold up the words of the Democrats and ask the voters if this is what they want. Voters will not choose socialism. The Democrats are using half-truths to stir up negative emotions about the economy within the voting population. For instance, the sub-prime mortgage issue has become a huge talking point for the Left. The mantra is that everyone with a mortgage on their home is having the lenders foreclose on them. This is simply not the case. Only five percent of the mortgages have resulted in foreclosure. The biggest arguement that the Left has and uses effectively is that the Bush tax cuts have only benefitted the wealthiest of Americans. But if you look at the numbers not only is the use of the term "wealthiest" wrong, but the tax cuts have benefitted all Americans.

First off, to say that a cut in income taxes helps the wealthiest of Americans is incorrect. The US does not have a wealth tax, so therefore, you cannot pay taxes on wealth, meaning money that is not earned. Second, the highest income earners in the United States are the ones who pay most of the federal income taxes. Both the IRS and the Congressional Budget Office support this claim. The IRS shows that the percentage of income taxes collected from the bottom 50 percent of income earners in 2004 was 3.3 percent. In 1994--the first year of Clinton's tax increase--the percentage for the same group was 4.77 percent. When you go from the 50 percentile to the 75 percentile the percentage in 2004 increases by 11.84 percent. The CBO shows that in 2006 the top ten percent of income earners in the United States paid 48.7 percent of the total tax share. When you look at these numbers, the conclusion that you have to come away with is that the top income earners are the ones paying the income taxes so naturally they would be the ones benefitting from an income tax cut.

Democrats use tax policy to control the lives of the People. Where there are increases, rest assured that there will not be much interaction; likewise where there are tax incentives you can be sure that there will be a rush to be a part of that. There are a few exceptions--like gas or to some extent cigarettes--to this rule, but when taxes are raised on certain actions, those actions will decrease. When an incentive is given there will be an increase in that activity. So you see, the actions of the individual are dictated by tax policy. The best arguement that the Republicans have in this debate is also the best safeguard for Liberty: the Flat Tax. One rate for all income earners with no incentives and no targetted taxes will not only foster a large economic boom, but will ensure that the federal government becomes more frugal with the money that it spends. Afterall, if Russia can implement a flat tax, why can't the United States?

The Environment

The environment has become a huge disguise for the Left's socialist agenda. They argue that in order to save the planet we must regulate industry to the point of extinction. The desire is to control how companies operate and not to save the planet. In this arguement the Republicans have completely surrenderd. The arguement should not be focused on whether or not there is global warming, but whether or not man is the sole reason for it. The Democrats and the Left are staunchly arguing that man is the culprit and because of this industry needs to be controlled. They argue that there needs to be higher CAFE standards on automobiles, even though the efficiency and cleanliness of automobiles today out perform cars produced just twenty years ago. The Left says that the US should be put under the restrictions of the Kyoto Treaty, even though that same treaty exempts China from the same restrictions. The Left also keeps us dependent on foriegn oil because they will not allow the US to drill for oil within our own territory. The response of the GOP is so silent that it is deafening.

In regards to the automobile industry, the answer should be focused on the current efficiency and cleanliness without the increase in CAFE standards. The US automobile industry is already hurting economically and having to retool their manufacturing process will only further hamper their viability. Kyoto should be refused outright because the United States should not be subject to regulation by a foriegn/global governing body, especially when the world's biggest polluter is exempt. Kyoto hits on a soveriengty issue that is a winning issue for the GOP. And the oil issue should be argued from a twofold approach: drill for oil while at the same time the energy companies come up with real, viable means of alternative fuel. The switch from oil to alternative is not going to happen over night and it will be more efficient to allow the private sector to handle the issue without government involvement. The estimated amount of oil in ANWR is said to be enough to last approximately twenty years. Well, certainly within twenty years there can be some sort of development on alternative fuels. One thing is certain, whether we get the oil from within our own borders or from the Middle East, we are still going to need oil.

The presidential election cycle of 2008 is going to be packaged as staying in Iraq or leaving Iraq. But underneath this packaging is going to be a huge debate over Statism or Liberty. As things sit right now, the Democrats are poised to win the presidency and keep control of the Legislature, leaving them with plenty of room to usher in a Statist agenda. If the GOP does not come out wholeheartedly for Liberty, not only will they loose big, but the American People will be one step closer to serfdom.

Sources:

1) Healthcare:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/09/17/health_reform_failure/

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/wm556.cfm

2) Taxes:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/57xx/doc5746/08-13-EffectiveFedTaxRates.pdf

(The IRS information was an Excel file and did not have a URL to paste. It can be quickly found by searching the keywords "IRS, tax returns". Sorry for the inconvienence.)

3) Robert Reich:

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/09/18/18448185.php

There is a good video on this page. Highly recomended that you watch it to get the full story about "supercapitalism."

Eat the Rich

2007-07-21T13:12:00.000-05:00

It has become common in Western Civilization's culture to mistrust, badmouth and loath the wealthy. There are always cries of them not paying their "fair share" when it comes to taxes, or even the all too common refrain that they use their wealth to buy influence with power brokers, thereby protecting their estates from the clutches of government. However, it is important to note that this line of thinking is dangerous to the future prosperity of Western Civilization. "Why," you ask? Simply put, everyone of us wishes to be rich. Each and everyone of us strive to become financially and economically free. So, if the majority of the middle class continues to bemoan the rich, it will only become a matter of time before any opportunity for the middle class to become rich disappears.

For starters, when the rich offer monetary support to the campaigns of politicians, the middle class on both ends of the political spectrum benefit. When rich conservatives give to political conservatives, would it not stand to reason that all conservatives benefit regardless of income or wealth? And visa versa with the left. Stephen Pollard, writing for The Sunday Times(U.K.), has a piece titled "Our mistrust of the rich is absurd" and in it he makes the case that in the U.K. there is a subtle push to make it illegal for the rich to donate, consort or otherwise be aquaintences with politicians. He begins his piece with this, "I have no idea what happened when Lord Levy raised funds for the Labour Party. I don’t know what he said to would-be donors. I don’t know what, if anything, he offered them. I don’t know what, if anything, they demanded in return. Nor do you. Nor do the police. Nor does anyone, except Lord Levy and the people to whom he spoke. But that hasn’t stopped almost everyone from assuming that something fishy has been going on." The two key points to his opening is that the police investigated Levy's political campaign contributions and that "almost everyone" believes that this means something untoward was done or has been done. First, as a result of the police investigation, and subsequently the release of the report to the Crown Prosecution Service, no legal action has been made against Lord Levy. Second, the gears of the justice system in this case seem to be turning, not at the behest of the law, but at the command of public opinion brought forth by a festering distain for the wealthy.

Here in the United States, we have our own problems with the rich--well, I don't, but the "people" appear to. We have laws designed to quash any attempt to "influence" politicians with large sums of money--yet the money seems to continue to flow and at greater rates than before. We even have a major political party dedicated to the quest of ending the persuit of wealth. Of course the rhetoric is disguised as helping the poor, or reversing the concentration of wealth or even, as Democrat Presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton likes to put it, "shared prosperity." But make no mistake, there is no attempt here to do any of the things supposedly desired. You see the politicians making these arguments are already pretty well-to-do and don't really need to have an income. Let's take a look at some of the biggest Democrat backers and what they think about income taxes.

1) Warren Buffet: According to Wikipedia, Mr. Buffet has an income of roughly $100,000 yet his net worth is $52 billion(US). Mr. Buffet is a big proponent of raising the income tax rates from where they are today. He even claims that his secretary is paying more in income taxes than he is. (For what it's worht, I believe his secretary works and resides in New York city, so he may also be calculating her state income taxes as well.) Here's the nut of the story though, Mr. Buffet can reasonably afford to pay the higher tax rates because he already has accrued $52 billion in wealth. As long as there is no tax on wealth, Mr. Buffet will be a huge fan of the income tax.

2) Bill and Hillary Clinton: According to The New York Times they are both worth between $10 and $50 million. Like Mr. Buffet, both are bigger fans of the income tax than Hillary is a fan for the Yankees. Former President Clinton implemented one of the highest tax increases in the nation's history, while possible President Clinton has promised to allow the tax cuts of President Bush to expire, as they are sunsetted and will go back to her husband's rates in 2010. She laments that today we have a government "of the few" and suggests that we begin to "replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity." She also prefers a "we're in it together" society, meaning she is all for socialism, more so than ever now that she has emassed her own wealth.

3) John "The Breck Girl" Edwards: We have all heard of his $400 haircuts and his large mansion in North Carolina, but what is John Edwards's net worth? Well, USAToday has it at somewhere between $12.8 to $60 million. What is Edwards's message on the Presidential campaign trail? Basically, President Bush gave a big break to his rich friends in the form of tax cuts. Typical Democrat drivel when it comes to tax policy. Mr. Edwards has opened up a poverty research facility at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He has recently kicked off a tour of the country to personally get to know those who have been struck by poverty. All the while,his policies will do nothing to alleviate the plight of the poor and he gets $400 haircuts. Edwards, like all the rest of the Left, has wealth and therefore his income is not that important to him. This makes him a huge fan of the income tax.

So, how do politicians with large sums of wealth of their own get away with badmouthing the rich? Well, to put it quite simply, the "people." That's right, Democrats, socialists and border line Marxists would not have a leg to stand on in this country if the "people" were not so quick to hold a low opinion of the wealthy. It boils down to class envy. The rich are hated, not because they stole what they have--the common sentiment felt by most of the middle class--but because the "people" don't have what they have. You don't believe me? You think the "people" are happy in their financial state? Then tell me why lotteries across the country are so popular? How is Los Vegas still thriving? Why do you get up and go to college and then to work? Because we all want to be rich, and while we persue that goal we will do whatever we can to tear down those who have beaten us to the punch. Class envy works for politicians because the "people" are, quite frankly, economically stupid. The only people that class envy, and the politicians that rise to power because of it, hurts are the ones who are envious.

Sources: If you haven't read any of these, I strongly recommend that you do so.
1) The Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2112747.ece

2) The New York Sun and Hillary: http://www.nysun.com/article/55425

3) Warren Buffet's wealth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett

4) The New York Times and the Clintons: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/us/politics/15clintons.html?ex=1185163200&en=17f99ab0213a91f5&ei=5070

5) John "The Breck Girl" Edwards: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070314/1a_cover14.art.htm

FDR's True Legacy

2007-06-25T19:27:00.000-05:00

There is a new book hitting the shelves about FDR and the thirties by a former Wall Street Journal editorialist by the name of Amity Shlaes titled The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. Mr. John Updike takes up the task of reviewing the book for the liberal New Yorker and he makes no bones about what he thinks of this book.

He begins by poking fun at Ms. Shlaes by saying that, "Where the words 'new history' appear, revisionism will follow." By this he means to say that any one taking a look at the history of the New Deal better mention how great it and its founder were or else it will be rediculed as hack revisionism. What Shlaes does however is not revisionism, it is rather a rebuke of the New Deal using the basic tenets of economics. Shlaes writes that deflation was the real culprit in the Depression not the stock market crash of 1929, as well as the Smoot-Hawley tariff. She also states that extraordinarily high taxes strangled any attempt by the private sector to recover. These ideas are not the rantings of a mad capitalist, but an assessment of an honest economist who's views are supported by another book dealing with the same subject by Jim Powell titled FDR's Folly. Updike's only rebuke to this is the mocking suggestion that "[b]usiness knows best."

Updike wraps up his little diatribe by explaining that Shlaes would have been better served if it included some "real" life stories from people who suffered through the Depression. He notes a story related in an earlier book from the 70's about a young girl standing in a soupline hoping to get her bucket dunked far enough into a vat of soup so as to get some meat and patatos just to be denied. And then he argues the real reason why FDR should be held up as the second coming: "Roosevelt made such people feel less alone. The impression of recovery—the impression that a President was bending the old rules and, drawing upon his own courage and flamboyance in adversity and illness, stirring things up on behalf of the down-and-out—mattered more than any miscalculations in the moot mathematics of economics." So you see, the "down-and-out" weren't looking for economic recovery, no, they were looking for symbolism and a feeling that some one in Washington cared. One thing is certain, had I been living through the Depression and all I was given was symbolism rather than the means to provide for my family, I would have died on the White House lawn from starvation while trying to find the SOB that was the symbol.

FDR definitely has my respect in that he fought and won World War II, but his domestic legacy is a sham built upon quicksand. Rather than solving the problem wrought by the Depression, FDR simply prolonged the problem and thus created the sentiment that we are still dealing with today. FDR created within the American culture a sense that Washington has to show "caring" for the people's concerns in order to get any credit for accomplishments. This is why, in the 2000 Presidential campaign, then-Governor George W. Bush coined the phrase "Compassionate Conservatism" thus sounding the end to the Reagan Revolution.

If you wish to read Updike's piece go here:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/07/02/070702crbo_books_updike?currentPage=1

For a piece by Ms. Shlaes go here:
http://aei.org/publications/pubID.26390,filter.all/pub_detail.asp

Stalinism Revised

2007-06-25T10:24:00.000-05:00

The US Left are currently working on a plan to destroy talk radio because of its perceived imbalance towards Conservatism. The plan is to revise a little known regulation that is known as The Fairness Doctrine which basically tells radio stations that if they are going to air "controversial" material, they have to provide both sides of the issue equal time. This seems innocent and, well, reasonable right? The problem that it poses is that program directors at radio stations will simply stop airing "controversial" issues. Long story short, instead of programming that has garnered enormous ratings and raked in tremendous revenue for radio stations on the AM side of the dial, the listeners will get the best recipe for patato salad.

Now, why should this shock those of you out there who do not listen to, let alone care about, AM talk radio? The answer is quite simple, if not a little to simple to believe. Your politcal voice will be threatened. Now I am not saying that all of you reading this are Conservatives who listen to talk radio. What I am saying is that if a political party sees fit to attack one forum because of criticism, what is going to stop it from attacking all forums that level criticism? The Left in this country want power, and they won it in 2006 and they stand poised to win even more in 2008. After being out of power in Congress for twelve years and the White House for eight, there is no naivety about them playing by the rules when it comes to opposition. They are not going to let go of this newly found power willingly. They celebrate the silencing of the opposition's views.

When Venezuela's dictator Hugo Chavez closed down an opposition TV station, many Leftists here in the US silently cheered. In fact LA Times columnist Bart Jones explained the tyranical actions of Chavez as being a reaction to the station's support of the 2002 attempt to oust him out of power. (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-jones30may30,0,1061242.story?coll=la-opinion-center) Mr. Jones's account of the closing of the station is replete with reasons why this station had to go, chief among them being a privately owned station that made it its goal to oust a "democratically" elected president. But take a look around the landscape inwhich Liberals find their heros: The Soviet Union, Cuba, to some extent Iran, and now, Venezuela. All of these governments either did (in the case of the USSR) or do oppress their sources of journalism. Any outburst against the regime will lead to the outlet being shut down and possibly worse for the individual journalist.

Nowadays, a Liberal front group posing as non-partisan, The Center for American Progess, which is ran by Mr. John Podesta, President Clinton's former chief of staff, is putting forth "research" detailing the bias of talk radio and how to deal with it. There are numerous flaws in this study however, beginning with the opening paragraph of their summary. They begin by stating that radio is the number one forum for entertainment for people ages 12 and older. This may well be true, but they can't seriously be listening to talk radio. The number one talk radio host, Rush Limbaugh, gets a weekly total of 20 million people and the number two host, Sean Hannity, gets most of his audience from Limbaugh. The total of the 12 and older crowd listening to radio are not listening to talk radio. They are listening to FM radio which plays music and by the way airs many Leftist views. There is a reason why Limbaugh jokingly calls Liberals "dope smoking, maggot infested, FM types." Next up they mention that talk radio reaches 50 million people through the course of a week. Well, we know that 20 million of those are more than likely listening to Rush Limbaugh. The other 30 million people could be listening to any other host on the air. NPR gets a little bit of that 30 million, sports radio gets some and hispanic talk radio, I'm sure, rounds out the rest of the crowd. (http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/06/talk_radio.html)

The reason for the efforts by Liberals to silence talk radio can be summed up in two words: Rush Limbaugh. He has been the thorn in the side of Liberals since he came on the air in 1988-89. At first, he was looked at as a novelty, something that will eventually go away. But he didn't. Then the Left decided to compete with Jim Hightower, Mario Cuomo and Air America. All of these competitors were retired to the ash heap of history. The only sure fire way the Left has in beating Limbaugh is through government and using laws and regulations to shut him down. Conservatives have to ask themselves if they are going sit idly by and let this happen. Liberals, who would actually cheer the demise of Rush Limbaugh, have to ask themselves when will it be their turn. True, the Democrat Party is the house of Liberalism, but stepping out of line within that house can get you thrown out. If you think that your Liberalism will save you from the wrath of the Democrat Party, go ask Ralph Nader how he is treated in the cocktail-party circuit. Since 2000, his daring attempt to be president and as such the demise of Al Gore, he hasn't been looked at in a glowing light by the Democrat Pary apparatus. By the way, if you are wondering how Rush got on the air, think about this: The Fairness Doctrin was repealed by President Reagan in 1987. If you don't like Conservative talk radio, then turn the dial. It's just that simple.

McCain vs. Rudy: Who Helps the GOP?

2007-05-16T12:25:00.000-05:00

During the political life of Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton exclaimed that Burr was "a man of irregular and unsatiable ambition … who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government." The strife between these two men allowed for the election of another one of Hamilton's political rivals Thomas Jefferson and, at the same time, fractured the Federalist Party beyond repair. So why did Hamilton side with Jefferson, whom he viewed as dangerous to the Republic, and not Burr, whom he viewed in the same light regardless of Party affiliation? Simply put, Hamilton viewed the presidency of Jefferson as a bad thing for the country, but he viewed Burr as a dictator who would destroy the country. And two hundred years later a similar decission will have to made within the Republican Party about John McCain and Rudy Guiliani.

Which of these two are going to be better for the country and the GOP? McCain seems to be the sure bet over Rudy because of his longer history within the Party. Rudy's record includes a stint as the mayor of one of the most Liberal cities in the United States. Rudy is pro-abortion, pro-gun control and susceptible to being for gay marriage, so why is it that he seems to be better for the GOP than McCain? I think Rudy is genuine; he is not ambitious to the point of changing his beliefs for the purpose of securing the Republican nomination. McCain on the other hand is attempting to be all things to all people except Conservatives.

McCain and Conservatism

The conventional wisdom says that McCain is pro-life but he voted 33 percent of the time in favor of legislation friendly to the National Right to Life Committee during the 2001-2002 term and 66 percent of the time in the 1999-2000 term. He looks pretty consistent when voting for legislation supported by Americans for Tax Reform during the Congressional session covering 2003-2005, but prior to that McCain averages 60 percent in 2002, 55 percent in 2001 and 65 percent in 2000. He, along with Senator Joseph Leiberman, is a champion of environmentalism and putting more restrictions on the economy in the name of saving the planet. In 2004 the NRA gave McCain a C+ lifetime average when it comes to supporting legislation that the NRA wanted passed. So why is McCain the assumed Conservative among the top tier of Republican candidates? The main answer to this is that McCain has done a great job in camouflaging his record and his supporters are very quick to point to the aspects of his record that are unwaveringly Conservative in nature.

But his record must be examined to understand why he is not only a danger to the GOP but to the country. The best place to get a firm grip on the kind of president John McCain would be is the piece in Vanity Fair published this past February. The opening paragraph begins to open the door on John McCain's mind when author Todd Purdum writes "one minute he's toeing the conservative line (on gay marriage, say, or immigration) and the next he's telling someone what he really thinks." Mr. Purdum explains the many contortional positions McCain has to put himself in when talking about immigration and then McCain is quoted saying "I think the fence is least effective. But I'll build the goddamned fence if they want it." The "they" he is talking about is the Conservative base who want a secure-the-border-first approach to immigration reform. Perhaps the most damning quote form the Purdum piece is this: "'Yes, he's a social conservative, but his heart isn't in this stuff,' one former aide told me, referring to McCain's instinctual unwillingness to impose on others his personal views about issues such as religion, sexuality, and abortion. 'But he has to pretend [that it is], and he's not a good enough actor to pull it off. He just can't fake it well enough.'"

McCain is faking it because he is ambitious for power. This ambition has prompted him to be all things to all people depending on the audience. If he is speaking to the NRA, he is pro-gun no questions asked. If he is speaking to Chris Matthews on Hardball, he is as moderate as they come. So what could we expect from a McCain presidency? We don't know, but we do have an idea. For an inkling into his presidency, look no further than his pet project Campaign Finance Reform. McCain would rather the American people keep their mouths shut than have to put up with criticism. "I know that money corrupts . . . I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I'd rather have the clean government." He also said this about political ads to the Supreme Court, "These ads are direct, blatant attacks on the candidates. We don't think that's right." The man is a tyrant that can only be more dictatorial with more power and all of this will be swept under the rug by the mainstream media outlets who like his maverick mentality in opposing his Party.

Rudy is Good For the GOP

Rudy Giuliani is no social Conservative and he doesn't try to be. There is no faking it with him. As such, this should demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is not as ambitious for power as McCain. He has layed his beliefs out on the table and not ran away from them in the face of Conservatives' criticism. This is his candid stance when it comes to abortion, "I believe abortion is wrong. I think it is morally wrong. And if I were asked my advice by someone who was considering an abortion, I would tell them not to have the abortion, to have the child, and if nothing else, the adoption option exists, [however;] in a country like ours, where people of good faith, people who are equally decent, equally moral, and equally religious, where they come to different conclusions about this, ... I believe you have to respect their viewpoint. ... I would grant women the right to make that choice." There is no equivocating there. He is not telling people what they want to hear. And this makes him head and shoulders above John McCain.

Rudy is a War on Terrorism candidate. His number one strength is national security, and the GOP would be wise to realize that the number one issue the American voter wants solved is the War on Terror. All of the domestic issues will not matter if we allow our nation to be brought back to a September 10th mentality. Democrats would do just that. They don't look at the War on Terror as a war; they view it as a criminal matter. Rudy is not that kind of thinker. He saw first hand what happens when you fight Osama bin Laden with subpoenas. Rudy is prepared to continue in taking the fight to the terrorists where ever they are hiding. McCain has said that he would chase bin Laden "to the gates of hell." He has also said that water-boarding is torture. How can he be expected to follow anyone "to the gates of hell" when he is reluctant to get information out of them using physical coersion? I trust Rudy to fight terrorism and leave the liberties of the American people alone. I trust that Rudy will not seek to become emperor of the United States.

Republican Debate: Part II

2007-05-15T22:09:00.000-05:00

After watching tonight's Republican debate, I came away with two conclusions: 1) Rudy Guiliani was terrific in this debate and 2) the field should be drastically reduced.

Rudy knocked the ball out of the park with his answers on abortion and national security. He is not going to waver from his pro-choice stance and that shows real backbone considering that he is running for the presidential nomination of a Party who is stauchly pro-life. He also showed--much to the demise of Ron Paul--that he does not buy the notion that the US is to blame for the insanity of the Islamic terrorists, putting him in stark contrast to the Democrat Party. His flaws, as most of the candidates on that panel tonight, reside in the immigration issue. He wants to put a tracking device into an ID card and have the holders of said card databased. Something about that makes me a little apprehensive about the future of all Americans. But, overall, a very good job tonight for "America's Mayor."

Second, Ron Paul needs to go away. Not that I don't like the philosophy behind what he is advocating, rather it is his style in advocating it. He comes across as a kook, and if it's one thing that the Republican Party, and Conservatives specifically, doesn't need, it is the apperance of insanity. Another player on the stage who needs to go away is Senator Sam Brownback. I have nothing against the Senator; I actually like him. However, he is a better asset in the Senate and not cluttering up the debates by adding another body to throw questions at. It seems to me that it will not matter how well he runs, he is not going to win the nomination much less the general election. Next up is Tom Tancredo. Another great soldier in Congress and that is where he should stay. He does not look comfortable on the stage and he is a one trick pony and that trick is immigration. I am sure he could do more to push his one issue as a majority member in the House than he could by taking up space in the Republican Presidential nomination process. A couple others that need to have a good showing in the next debate or get on with their lives are governors Jim Gilmore and Tommy Thompson. Neither had a break out evening just as did not have a break out evening during the first debate.

Overall, the field of candidates looks good, except for John McCain. Republicans need to take a hard look at those candidates who have a shot and understand that right now the number one issue is not abortion or gay marriage. The number one issue is Iraq with immigration as a distant second. As I see it, there is only a couple of candidates that can seriously take on those issues.

What's Going on in Washington DC

2007-05-07T21:46:00.000-05:00

There have been some interesting events in Washington the past couple of weeks.......

First we will start with President Bush vetoing the Democrats Iraq funding bill which includes benchmarks and a timeline for withdrawing US troops. Of course the Democrats could not override the veto and now we are back to square one in regards to having to fund the operations in Iraq. The Democrats claim that they are doing the will of the people in trying to force the President's hand toward withdrawl, but if that was the ultimate goal, why don't they just defund the entire operation? Could there be a bit more patience left in the American people?

While the showdown over Iraq was taking place, the social circuit of DC was on pins and needles about this "DC Madam" situation. So far, there has been one name out of thousands released to the public as having patronised the escort service run by the "Madam." The name is that of Randy Tobias who worked for the Bush administration's State Department. He was the head of USAID and in charge of the President's AIDS relief program. Now the "Madam" was on ABC on Friday, May 4 and it was speculated that she was going to drop the hammer and rattle of a whole list of names that was going to bring DC to its knees. Well, nothing like that happened. In fact, no other name has been released, with the exception of a Naval Officer who declined to "dignify" the accusation with a comment. The "Madam" has claimed that there are numerous names of high position people that have not been released, among the positions are NASA, the World Bank, the IMF, some Naval Officers and a "career Justice Department prosecutor." ABCNews is in charge of the names now and they are not releasing any of the names claiming that they are just small fry, not big enough fish. Not big enough fish? How many of us knew who the hell Tobias was before a couple of weeks ago?

On May 3, a few Conservatives held a little academic debate about the evolution at the American Enterprise Institute. I didn't attend, I had to work, but from what I hear it was very lively. One of my favorite writers at National Review, John Derbyshire, was one of the panelists. Though not having seen the debate, I do want to say something about this. Evolution can exist within the Conservative movement. I don't think our movement is a religious movement and therefore we need not exclude ideas that are founded on Earthly sentiments. But, I likewise do not think that we as a movement need to exclude those ideas that are of a Devine sentiment.

The Queen of England is visiting us here in the States. She is here to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown and the beginning of the American experience. I think it is fitting that the Queen, so propper and elloquent, is visiting with us at a time when we have a President perceived to be a country bumpkin. Those with this perception have a grand desire for the US to emulate the Europeans, particularly the British. I find it fitting that in the US a country bumpkin can host a dinner with the Queen of England as guest. God bless the United States, God bless us indeed.

What if Harry Reid is Correct?

2007-04-20T16:11:00.000-05:00

Nevada Senator Harry Reid, the Democrat majority leader, stated this week that the war in Iraq is lost and that these sentiments are shared by the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense. Everyone on the Conservative side of the aisle immediately went after him for being a defeatist, wanting to surrender to the enemy and giving useful propoganda to the likes of al Qaeda. But what if Senator Reid has a slight point? What if, for whatever reason, the operation in Iraq is not winnable?

I am not a fan of the Democrat Party, nor their particular brand of liberalism. Frankly, I view these people as detrimental to the United States of America. But every now and then they say things that can have a serious point, though not necessarily the point they would like to make. Senator Reid is correct in that the Iraq situation needs to be completely reexamined and the troops there need to be redeployed. But we need not abandon the country all together. What the US needs to be doing is fighting this from a clandestine stance. We need to hone our skills in penetrating terrorist cells and organizations, and what better place to do so then in Iraq? It has been said numerous times that Iraq is the new live-fire-training ground for jihadists. Well, we need not sit on the sidelines while they get to hone their skills. We could also take this opportunity to learn how to defeat them and exploit their weaknesses.

Pulling out now and leaving the scene would not be a total wash in the overall War on Terror. The jihadists would not be able to plan, fund and launch attacks against the mainland US tomorrow or even by the end of Spring. Attacks on the scale of 9/11 take time to empliment. Our air power could still be a force in Iraq on the chance that the terrorists begin to build new training camps like the ones they had in Afghanistan. Within Iraq, there is no real safe place to do this. Once we get word that they are building a camp, we could immediately bomb that facility to oblivion.

Pulling the overwhelming American presence out of Baghdad would possibly give us an actual advantage in recruiting people for penetration operations of cells within Iraq. Take al Qaeda for instance, a Sunni organization, as a great example of a ripe target. The Sunni population in Baghdad is not all rotten to core and, as such, we could begin locating and grooming individuals for service in the War on Terror. The same goes for the Shia community, but with greater expectations. With Iraqi Shias, the US could attempt to penetrate Iran and cause them great discomfort in that region.

The bottom line is, using solely military forces in Iraq is causing more strife for the US in the Middle East than anything prior to 9/11. Our attempts to create change in that region via the military has been lost due to lost momentum. We went into Iraq with the hopes of sending ripples of democracy throughout the Middle East and, when that did not materialize, instead of continuing to march to other possible targest--i.e. Syria or Iran--we sat in the sands of Iraq and became a huge, stationary target for the jihadists. So in this sense, Sen. Reid is correct, but what he thinks is a lost "war" is really a great opportunity for the US to show the enemy a new form of combat.

Congress: Same Operation, Different Management

2007-03-21T08:57:00.000-05:00

Shortly after the pictures from Abu Ghraib hit the scene here in the United States, Senator Ted Kennedy took to the Senate floor to blast it as no different then when Saddam Hussein was running the place. I believe his exact words were some thing like "Abu Ghraib is still the place to torture Iraqis, it's just under different management." Kennedy's remarks might have been better served for his Democrat Party brethren in the House of Representatives.

One of the biggest complaints about the Republicans when they controlled Congress was their arm-twisting-tactics in getting members of their caucus to vote on measures. During the 2002 debate and vote on the Medicare prescription drug benefit, some Republicans complained that they would not have voted for this entitlement had it not been for the manner in which they were treated by the House Republican leadership, particularly Tom Delay. One such instance of arm twisting came when Delay promised one lawmaker that he would support his son in the mid-terms of 2002 if the lawmaker voted for the Medicare bill. The lawmaker said no and his son went down in defeat. And, of course, it was said that this was rampant in the Republican controlled Congress, which was turned into Republican "corruption," which in turn led to a Democrat victory in 2006.

The Democrats came to power in January of 2007 with the promise to the American voter to "clean up the corruption" left behind in the wake of Republican controll. But now, barely three months into their reign over the House, the Democrats have abandoned all efforts to govern the way they promised and adopted the same strategy of the Republicans.

The arm twisting is over the vote for the Iraq Supplemental which is going to cost $124 billion dollars. The President has asked for just $100 billion meaning that there is $24 billion of pork--something that was going to be elliminated under the Democrats. Speaker Pelosi is having a rough go at getting 218 votes for this measure and as such she is turning to some rather harsh tactics. According to The Hill she is threatening to remove members of the Democrat caucus from their committee chairmenships unless they for this measure. "[Pelosi] has been hardest on members of the Appropriations Committee and her fellow Californians who oppose the measure. The Speaker pointedly reminded Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), a leading opponent of the bill, that she had appointed her to the Appropriations Committee, three Democratic lawmakers said. The message was simple, the lawmakers said: Pelosi could also remove Lee from the panel." New management indeed.

Now, does this mean that the Democrats are in the wrong for doing this? No, it does not, just as it did not mean that the Republicans were wrong for doing this. But what it does mean is that the Democrats are two-faced when they were harping on the Republicans for doing much of the same. Applying pressure to the members of your caucus is a means to get them to vote for or against a bill. This is nothing new and it is not unethical; it's just business. The individual feeling the pressure has every right in the world to vote how he/she thinks is necessary, but the leadership has the right to apply pressure to the lawmaker. What is underhanded is calling one Party corrupt when doing business this way and then doing the same thing when the other Party is in power. Worse yet, is the gullibility of the American voter when it comes down to the demonization of this method of law making. It seems that every two years American voter is bombarded with cries of corruption, and it seems to never fail to get them worked up.

Source:
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/its-tough-to-get-218-votes-so-speaker-gets-tough-too-2007-03-20.html

Scooter Libby is Guilty, and So Too is The Prosecutor

2007-03-07T21:34:00.000-06:00

With the conviction on four felony charges of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the American people have been given a glimpse of Washington justice. We have all witnessed the degradation of the criminal justice system to the likes of a political tool to be used to punish those with differing views. In Washington, this means that if you are a Conservative, you better be able to walk on water or else you will be saddled with defending yourself in court to the point of bankruptcy.

Scooter Libby was convicted for basically supplying a Grand Jury with false testimony, which is a felony to be sure, however; he was not providing false testimony in the hopes of covering up a larger crime. The crime that spawned the investigation was never solved by the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald. Let us travel back in time to set the table.

In July of 2003, columnist and Conservative pundit Robert Novak wrote a piece that was a type of response to a column written earlier in the month in The New York Times by Joseph Wilson. The piece by Mr. Wilson was a critical piece against the plans to go to war with Iraq by the Bush Administration; it was also a refutation of a line in the 2003 State of the Union address where President Bush made mention of Saddam Hussien's attempts to purchase uranium from Niger. The Iraq-Niger claim was based on intelligence received from Britain, which caused the US intelligence community to seek to corroborate this information. Enter Joseph Wilson.

In the attempt to solidify this jewel of information provided by the British Intelligence, the CIA, along with other components of the US intelligence community, devised a plan to send an envoy to Niger to glean more details about this tip. The trip was made, the information was gathered and the envoy returned and gave a report to both the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee. The envoy was Joseph Wilson and his being appointed as the envoy to Niger was of great interest to the Bush Administration once his New York Times column came out. The basis of Wilson's column, What I Didn't Find in Africa, was that the Bush Administration "exaggerate[d] the Iraqi threat." Spurred by President Bush's use of a British "white paper" explaining the Iraq-Niger incident in the State of the Union address of 2003, Wilson went to every news outlet he could get on to explain that the President was not being forthcoming with the American people about Iraq, particularly the attempted purchase of uranium from Niger. Somewhere during this media blitz, it was uttered that Wilson was sent by or at the behest of the Vice President's office. Once this assertion was made, Robert Novak disclosed that it was, in fact, Wilson's wife, an employee of the CIA, who recommended that he be chosen as the fact-finding-envoy. In the process, Novak also disclosed his wife's name: Valerie Plame. The disclosure of her name sent a firestorm through the corridores of Washington wanting to know who leaked her name to Novak and why because it was claimed that "Valerie Plame" was a cover name given to her by the CIA, meaning that it is classified information whose disclosure is a crime. The immediate assumption glommed on by the news media--and fed by Wilson--was that the Bush Administration had outed her to get back at Wilson for coming out against the Iraq war. This caused the Justice Department to appoint an Independent Counsel--Patrick Fitzgerald--and begin an investigation into the leaking of Plame's name that lasted two years before there was an indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. The indictment, though, was not for leaking Plame's name to Novak, but for giving false statements before a Grand Jury. And now, Libby must fight a conviction via the appeals process.

Pretty open and shut case, except for one problem: the investigation never indicted anyone for the leaking of Valerie Plame's name to Robert Novak. But if you listen to the news media inside Washington, not only was Libby convicted for the leak, but he is also the "tip of the iceburg" into a more sinister plot by the Administration to manipulate the Iraq intelligence and destroy any detractors. The only problem with this is that none of it is true. Libby, nor anyone close to Vice President Cheney or President Bush, i.e. Karl Rove, leaked Plame's name, nor did anyone manipulate the intelligence that led the United States into Iraq.

To prove this, it is important to look at the motive for leaking Plame's name as explained by Wilson. Wilson claims that his wife's name was leaked as retribution for his New York Times column voicing opposition to going to war with Iraq and concern for manipulating intelligence to garner support for the war, in particular that Iraq-Niger uranium purchase. Wilson, in his column, says that upon entering Niger to investigate "I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place." This was also the sentiment of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) before Wilson left for Niger. But Wilson's statement in his column and the essence of the trip do not match. The trip was to find out if Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger, the assertion of the British Intelligence report that started all of this. Wilson found that no purchase took place according to his column, but his statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee told a different story. The Senate Intelligence Committee found that Wilson did discover that the Nigerian Prime Minister met with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations," though whether or not this meant selling uranium to Iraq was not confirmed. The Senate Intell Committee also found that the INR and the CIA did not find anything new in Wilson's report that he submitted upon returning from Niger. INR determined that Wilson had found what their analysts had surmised before the trip. The CIA found it interesting that his report mentioned the Nigerian Prime Minister's meeting with an Iraqi delegation. One more piece of the puzzle is that British Intelligence, to this day, stands by their assertions that Iraq sought to purchase uranium from Niger.

With the motive to punish Wilson having been debunked by his own testimony to the Senate Intell Committee, the next question is was there a crime? Was it a crime to disclose the name "Valerie Plame"? Almost two years after the Novak column that started this whole drama, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy wrote a column for National Review Online explaining that Valerie Plame had been outed prior to July of 2003 and the source of the outing was the CIA itself. In this column, Mr. McCarthy explains that during the course of the special prosecutor's investigation members of the press filed a friend-of-the-court brief in response to two journalists being brought before the Grand Jury to testify about who their anonymous sources were. McCarthy wrote, "The thrust of the brief was that reporters should not be held in contempt or forced to reveal their sources in the Plame investigation. Why? Because, the media organizations confidently asserted, no crime had been committed." He also mentions that the brief explained that Plame's identity had been disclosed in the mid-1990s when an undercover CIA agent was forced to tell the Russians. "Thus, the media's purpose in highlighting this incident is blatant: If Plame was outed to the former Soviet Union a decade ago, there can have been little, if anything, left of actual intelligence value in her 'every operation, every relationship, every network' by the time anyone spoke with Novak."

Another source of interest dispelling Plame's covert status is herself. In 1999 Plame donated $1000 to Al Gore's presidential primary campaign. In doing so she disclosed a CIA front company and that she was working as an "analyst" for this company on an FEC document that everyone must fill out when donating to a political campaign. The Washington Post covered this in October of 2003, just three months after the Novak column. "FEC rules require donors to list their employment. Plame used her married name, Valerie E. Wilson, and listed her employment as an "analyst" with Brewster-Jennings & Associates. The document establishes that Plame has worked undercover within the past five years. The time frame is one of the standards used in making determinations about whether a disclosure is a criminal violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act." Now it is said that she used her married name, Wilson, but it is also noted that she said she had worked in an undercover status within the last five years prior to 1999 when the donation to Gore was made. This time frame would be 1994-1999, the same time frame that Mr. McCarthy says, in his column, that her cover name was disclosed to the Russians. This means that by the time Novak would have heard her cover name, she would not have been under a covert status, meaning there was no disclosure of classified material.

Despite there being no motive to leak Valerie Plame's name to Novak and the question of whether doing so was illegal, there still remains the question of who told Novak? Let's take at face value that leaking her name was illegal, the specail prosecutor has not found out who the perpetrator was, or has he? During the course of Patrick Fitzgerald's inverstigation, he questioned administration officials who were close to the White House. He questioned Karl Rove, President Bush's top political advisor. He, of course, questioned Scooter Libby, the Vice President's chief of staff. Over the course of the investigation, it became clear that Rove was a prized catch with the hopes that Libby would possibly give up Vice President Cheney. As it turned out, all Fitzgerald could get is Libby, but not for leaking Plame's name, rather, for obstructing justice and providing false statements to the Grand Jury. Fitzgerald came away from two years of investigating empty handed when it came to indicting some one for leaking covert material. The only problem with this is that Fitzgerald did know who leaked Plame's name and he knew early in the investigation.

Newsweek magazine investigative journalist Michael Isikoff uncovered who the leaker was in September of 2006, about six months before Libby's court case was to begin. In his disclosure of the leaker, he discribed the person as "not a partisan gunslinger" and "a well-known gossip." The leaker was Richard Armitage, deputy Secretary of State under Colin Powell and a well known Iraq war critic within the Bush Administration. The story goes something like this: After the July column of Robert Novak, he had been refusing to name his source although he was giving hints as to who it was. (The not-a-partisan-gunslinger comment is actuall Novak's discription.) During Novak's dropping of these little hints, Armitgae finally had an epiphany that the source for Novak was himself. He contacted Powell and explained his concern and the two then contacted State Department legal adviser William Howard Taft IV. Taft then contacted the Justice Department and explained "that Armitage had information relevant to the [Plame]case." Investigators made arrangements to interview Armitage and he told them that he had passed the name on to Novak. Novak had met with Armitage on July 8, 2003 which was six days before his infamous column. The ominous aspect of the Armitage portion of this is that Fitzgerald investigated him and knew that he had disclosed Plame's name to Novak and Bob Woodward before him. The reason why nothing was brought up against Armitage is because Fitzgerald "found no evidence that Armitage knew of Plame's covert CIA status." At this point the case should have been dropped because the purpose of the special prosecutor was to find out who told Novak Plame's name. Armitage was person, but he could not be indicted, according to Fitzgerald, because he did not know about Plame's covert status. Instead he continued to drag out the case and harrass Rove and Libby all the while knowing that they were not the perpetrators. Eventually the investigation ended with an indictment of Libby and his conviction before a court jury.

This is a great example of prosecutor maleficence. Fitzgerald, having been given a media surrounded case, got caught up in the spotlight and wanted to deliver as a primary character in a tragic play. President Bush should pardon Libby, immediately, and Fitzgerald should have his law licence revoked as he clearly has no respect for the very trade he practices.

Sources:
1) Wilson's column: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5007&amp;en=6c6aeb1ce960dec0&ex=1372824000&partner=USERLAND

2) Wilson is a liar editoral: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/print/editorialpages/index.html

3) Senate Intell Committee report explaining Wilson's trip to Niger: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/senateiraqreport.pdf
(Pertinent information is on pages 36-47)

4) Isikoff identifies Armitage as leaker: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14533384/site/newsweek/

5) Christopher Hitchens explains Senate Inell Committee's report: http://www.slate.com/id/2103795/

6) Andrew McCarthy says there was no crime: http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200507180801.asp

7) Valeria Plame identifies herself after political donation: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40012-2003Oct3?language=printer

Iraq has its Problems but the Answers are Not going to Solve Them

2007-01-30T13:09:00.000-06:00

The situation in Iraq has brought forth a multitude of strategies and ideas from people all over the ideological spectrum. The Left, of course, wants us out of Iraq regardless of the consequences. The Right wants us to win, but there does not seem to be a cogent plan to get behind that would accomplish this. Sure, there is the "surge" as well as going after Iran in some form or fashion, but nothing real convincing when it comes to coaxing the American People to get behind this thing again. But throughout all of the strategic ideas, there has been no mention of the one plan that needs to be implemented. This current battle, and GWOT in general, is a clandestine war much in the same way that the Cold War was. Iraq is just a microcosm of what I am talking about and no amount of military adjustment is going to solve the greater problem of intelligence.

First, let us look at our overall intelligence apparatus dealing with the Middle East before 9/11. In October 2004, NBC reporter Jill Wagner wrote that the number of Arabic linguists at the FBI prior to 9/11 was 883. After the terrorist attacks, the number went up to just over 1200 in 2004. Over the course of three years the FBI employed roughly 400 more Arabic linguists while being tasked to deal with tens of thousands of intercepted communications. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6275410/) Obviously, part of the problem is people applying for the positions, but could there be more assertive recruiting? It gets even worse for the FBI. In November of 2006, just three short months ago, the Washington Post reported that just one percent of agents at the FBI were very proficient in the Arabic language. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR200610...) "Counting agents who know only a handful of Arabic words -- including those who scored zero on a standard proficiency test -- just 1 percent of the FBI's 12,000 agents have any familiarity with the language, the statistics show." You cannot fight an enemy in this day and age if you cannot read their communications.

But the FBI is not the only culprit in the intelligence failures. The CIA--likely the best means of discovering terrorist cells/attacks before they even get to the US--is also lacking in the linguist department. Take this passage from Professor Michael Ledeen's book The War Against the Terror Masters: "Prior to our contacts with Iran in 1985, the intelligence community had only a very limited understanding of the extent to which Tehran was the driving force behind the murderous activities of Hizbollah. (For that matter, the CIA was shockingly ignorant about Iran in general. The 'Iran desk officer' in the Operations Directorate--who spoke not a word of Farsi but nonetheless went on to great rewards culminating in London, the choicest CIA station in the world--had spent the bulk of his career in Latin America, and did not even know the names of the top government officials in Tehran.)" This was in '85, but it hasn't improved over the past 22 years. USAToday has writen that the intelligence community is turning to technology instead of human linguists because of recruitment shortfalls. This is a good idea, but technology cannot give us the cultural understanding that is needed to make policy decissions. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-12-19-translators_x.htm)

Shortly after our push into Iraq in 2003, the World Tribune noted that we are shifting linguist resources from other portions of the intelligence/diplomatic community to focus solely on Iraq. (http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2003/ss_mideast_07_22.htm...) So while we have a great grasp of what is going on in Iraq, we have little or no understanding of what is going on in Afghanistan, Indonesia, Europe or North Africa all because our intell community has not met its recruiting goals for Farsi/Arabic linguists.
The other part of our failures involves our ability to recruit individuals of a questionable background. Two executive orders--one dealing with assassinations and the other specifically prohibitting our involvement with criminals--have done major damage to our intelligence gathering abilities. How are we to penetrate terrorist cells/organizations if we cannot even approach people of questionable background?

We can send as many soldiers/Marines as we have to Iraq and it will not do anything to quell the overall terrorist operations. Sure, we will secure Iraq and deliver a huge blow to the terrorists in this particular battle, but will we know what is going to become of those terrorists that got out of Iraq? Where will they go? What will they plan? There is a great chance of the "insurgents" in Iraq going underground in Europe in the hopes of recruitment and planning. Are we going to send the military into Europe to clean up the terrorist cells?
These are the problems that the Left and the Right have not addressed. The Left doesn't trust the intell community, so there is no real interest in rebuilding it so as to fight terror. The Right seems to be reacting to the attacks from the Left against the military, therefore diverting their attention from the ailments of the intell community. Here is an example of what I am talking about. In the lead up to Iraq, fall of 2002 through late winter of 2003, we depended on the intelligence of foriegn sources to help build the case for toppling Saddam. Now, in 2007, the Left is able to say that they were misled into Iraq due to corruption of the intell by Bush. We know this to not be true due to the impossibility of being able to get the French intelligence, Russian intelligence and German intelligence communities to go along with it. But the Right is leaving out the fact that we had not one human source inside Baghdad during the ten years between the first and second Iraq Wars. I am not against collaboration with foriegn inelligence, but I am against using foriegn intelligence as our only means of HUMINT.

Iraq has had its many problems, but so far the only solutions have been rooted in a military sense. This could lead us down a perilous path when dealing with the overall GWOT. Yes, there are points in time when we will have to use the military in fighting this war, just as there are points when we will have to use law enforcment. But in the grand scheme of things, this is an intelligence war, a clandestine war, one where we are going to have to use some dirty tactics to win. We are going to have to employ people who have questionable backgrounds. We are going to have to be able to listen AND read/understand the communications of the enemy. And we are gong to have to get more human intelligence involved if we hope to win this battle. During the Cold War, the Soviets ate our lunch when it came to intelligence, mainly HUMINT. We cannot afford to allow that to happen with this enemy. We failed to beat the Soviets but the USSR does not exist. If we fail to beat this enemy, it may be the US that does not exist.

The Many Misconceptions of a Generation

2006-12-29T14:07:00.000-06:00

Of all the misguided assumptions made by young Americans, none are more prevalent than the claim that Generation-X will not do as well as their parents and grandparents. There seems to be a very misguided pessimism radiating from people within the age group of 25-35 years old. But the numbers and the largely visible societial evidence does not bear the claims out. With all of the robust economic advancements made from the time the Gen-X'ers were born to now, how is it that they think that they will be worse off than their parents or their grandparents, whose formidable years were during the Great Depression and World War II?

First, let us begin with the facts about the Gen-X'ers. Tom Van Riper, writing for Forbes magazine, has given us a great piece dealing with this very same topic. (The link is here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15305043/) He was prompted by the recent move by the American population over 300 million and decided to take a look at the economic wealth when the nation's population breached 200 million. He begins by saying that the median income for Americans today is $46,326, well above what it was back in the mid-60's. But it is the numbers detailing the net worth of families today as compared to yesterday that is most striking. "The typical American household has a net worth of $465,970, up 83 percent from 1965, 60 percent from 1985 and 35 percent from 1995." So you see, just in a decade the "average" American is better off today.

With all of this prosperity, how is it that the young adults in the corporate world do not feel that they are better off. In this day and age, there are technological advancements that were far from the imagination of the "Greatest Generation". There is no global economic upheaval creating massive unemployment. There is no shortage of food--in fact, the big scourge of the day is obesity. There is no threat from Soviet Communism. The lack of hardship for Generation-X has prompted a massive search for hardship giving birth to things like ADD, ADHD and a whole host of other conditions that have been used as an excuse for shortcomings. And it is this that gives rise to the thought that the current crop of young Americans are worse off than their forebearers. There is a search for something extraordinary for this generation to overcome, yet there is no extraordinary event needing to be vanquished.

There is the War of Terror, but this war is reminiscent of the Cold War and not World War II. The current conflict is a clandestine one which only reaches to maybe ten percent of the entire population. There is no need for a massive buildup or rationing of resources because the generations before now have made it so that there is no real need to. The other factor--touched on by Van Riper--is the need to measure each other based on material possessions. The thought that you are not where you thought you would be five years ago and at the same time the assumption that your peers are vastly ahead of you in terms of success. These are great portions of human nature, but they are also pernicious when not kept in check by humility.

Generation-X is the richest, healthiest and most technologically advanced gerneration ever in the history of man, yet they look at themselves as barbarians with very little hope to do great things. It is not that they are not better off than their parents or grandparents, rather; it is that they were so well set up by their parents and grandparents that they did not really have anything left to do other than to turn inward and look for ways to self destruct so as to rebuild themselves and say, "Look at what great thing I have accomplished."

It is NOT a Bad Thing to be Called a Conservative

2006-12-13T18:38:00.000-06:00

Since the defeat of Republicans in the November 7th Mid-term elections, there seems to be a noticable trend among some to shy away from being called a Conservative. Let it be said here that this is bad; being called a Conservative should be taken as a compliment. There is no reason to think that being called such is bad because we offer ideas based in Liberty where the other side offers ideas based in fear and ultimately collectivism. We must remind the People that they are instinctively Conservative when it comes to their hopes and dreams. They all hope for a prosperous, safe and better future for their children, and it is up to those of us who call themselves Conservative to educate the People on why Conservativism is the better ideology for creating the conditions necessary for those things that are hoped for. But in order to do this we must define Conservativism and we must define the opposition, Liberalism.

Some fifty to sixty years ago, Russell Kirk, in his briliant and thoroughly reasearched book The Conservative Mind, went through the process of defining the intellectual basis for Conservatism. He gave the ideology an intillectual face and made it rational to claim to be a Conservative in public. He, along with William F. Buckley Jr., did more than any other intillectual in the 20th Century to bring Conservatism from the shadows of social thought to the forefront of global affairs. These two men were the intillectual catalyst for Ronald Reagan and later Newt Gingrinch. Though it is impossible to say that Conservatism has been relegated to the back of the bus after November, it is not too much of a stretch to say that the political party that provides the vessel in which Conservatism travels has either lost or forgotten what it is that makes us Conservative. Conservatism has a distinc characteristic which seperates it from Liberalism, and that is the belief in American Exceptionalism. When you look at the three major items that form the battleground in the United States, you will see that American Exceptionalism is where the two ideologies differ. In social resposibility, the role of government and foriegn policy, the difference between the two is based on why the United States is sitting atop the rest of the world players.

Social responsibility involves numerous facets, but above all there are three major aspects that we will look at here: 1) education, 2) charity and 3) religion. Conservatives look at social responsibility and ask one simple question, "What can the individual do to make society better?" Conservatives say so long as education does it's job, and those who can provide charity for those who are less fortunate, then much of what makes up the social problems of the Country will be much less than they are. Conservatives also believe that the only way to achieve the first two is to have a general public whose morals are rooted to Christianity.

Education is looked at as a means to avoid destitution in society. People who are well educated are less likely to be people who cannot provide for themselves and their family. Conservatives look at education in this manner, and thus we view it as an instrument of personal improvement. Education's sole purpose to provide people with the mental foundation to achieve the type of profession that will provide for the individual's needs. But we also look at this as something that is a personal responsibility. If some one goes through their early adulthood with the lone ambition of having a good night life and they don't take seriously the opportunities that a good education provides, then they are destined for what economic level that entails. There can be no simpathy for any one who has the capability to succeed and does not. If the lower middle class is all that this can garner then it is no one's fault but the individual who did not take full advantage of his earlier years. This is the Conservative view of education, a responsibility and not a right.

Liberals on the otherhand look at it as though it is a right bestowed by God--or whatever because Liberals don't believe in God--to the individual. However, if one does not achieve the highest level of education it must be the force of some invisible boogey man. To the Liberal, if an individual has been relegated to the lower middle class or worse and has not gained college education, then it must be the fault of some outside phenomenon that kept that person form entering college. There is no responsibility placed on the individual to make the right decisions in early adulthood.

When it comes to charity, the Conservative says that the individuals who can should give to groups and organizations that provide for the misfortunate. Conservatives believe that the American People are a generous people and will do whatever they can to help their fellow countrymen. However, we draw the line at government forced charity. We do not believe that it is the government's job to take from one individual and give it to another. Charity is viewed as a means to keep class strife to a minimum, and therefore, a respect nurtured throughout all classes will serve to make a better society. Liberals think that government is the best charity organization and should therefore be empowered to redistribute wealth via tax policy. In doing so, they create antagonism between the classes because the provider of the charity is a large, faceless government and not another person who can empathize with the recipient. Liberals also foster class antagonism due to the ever widening qualifications for becoming a recipient of the government programs, thus you have one portion of society feeding off of the other and never taking in to account the other side and visa versa.

Conserviatives think that the best means to generate charitable donations to have a populous that is religious and has a genuine interest in caring for their fellow man. Charity is best collected from people who believe they are morally obligated to help. In the United States, charity is most often than not collected from a wide portion of the church going public. Those who have a moral sense to help are more likely to give, and those organiztions who collect are more likely to channel those resources to those who truly need it. Liberals have a natural distrust for religion because they view religion, and the charity that religion fosters, as a form of competition for government, which they view as the best means to help society. Liberals' views on religion are rooted in a sense that it is a superstitious institution from the past which no longer has any merit in the current day or in the future. Their believe in the perfectibility of man gives them a sense that man no longer needs to depend on faith in what they consider to be hocus-pocus. But this causes all kinds of problems for society, primarily the worship of the state and all things worldly as opposed to the worship of God and a sense of spirituality. This in turn fuels a hyper-materialism which can only lead to a self-centered society which cares for no other part of soceiy except that which directly effects their portion and their lives.

With the differences of opinion in education, charity and religion, Conservatism and Liberalism contrast drastically when it comes to the role of government. Because of their differnces with the three major facets of social responsibility, Conservatives view the government's role as a non-participating judge. Basically, the government's job is to set up rules for society to function and then get out of the way. These rules also apply to government and what they can and cannot regulate. They believe that government has a specific process to make these rules as well, and any attempt to go beyond these restrictions nullifies whatever regulations are placed on society.

Liberals, conversely, look at the role of government as a replacement for the three facets of social responsibility. Let us look in reverse. The Left has no belief in a supernatural God, as such, they must replace the role that God plays in society with something, so they turn to government. Where Conservatives view God as the granter of individual rights, the Left looks at government as the arbiter of what rights exist and which ones do not. In this line of thinking, if there is no higher Being acting as the moral compass, there is no desire to act in a charitible fashion towards those in need. The government is the charity and the donations are confiscated against the will of the People. Government is also the sole controller of education, which means the items taught are done so in a manner that engrandizes government. Why should government teach ideas that are rooted in Liberty and individualism when it depends on equalitarianism and collectivism to strengthen it? There is no incentive for government's role in education to be anything other than to serve its own needs and desires in regards to shaping society towards surrendering all responsibility to government. This is the Liberal view of government's role in society.

Foriegn policy is a different issue all together. In a picture perfect world there would be no difference between Conservatives and Liberals in dealing with foriegn affairs. However, this is not a picture perfect world and there are drastic differences betweent the two. Conservatism has gone from being seen as isolationist in the early part of the 20th century to being crusaders in the early part of the 21st century. It was Conservatism that wanted to stay out of the Second World War until the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor. But, that seems to be the last of the isolationist Right. Conservatism's 20th century piller of existance was based in anti-communism, as such, the Right advocated stopping the Soviet Union in China, Korea and later Vietnam. The Left was abetting in letting China go communist, didn't have the stomach to finish Korea and never wanted anything to do with Vietnam. (Any disputes on this will have to be answered in at another time.) This scenario shows that Conservatism is interested in providing freedom to people while at the same time going into foriegn adventures that have a direct interest to the United States and national security. The thought of being surrounded by Communist nations during the Cold War was the catalyst for going into small countries with seemingly no interest to the United States. The further Communism spread around the world, the closer the Soviet Union could place nuclear missiles in the hopes to either black-mail the US or do a first strike. Currently, in the War on Terror, we have the same situation. Conservatism seeks to liberate a region of the world that also harbours numerous people that wish us harm. The Left, on the otherhand, advocates that we go into Darfur or help with sunami victims or come home to help New Orleans get through a hurricane. There is no attempt to affect national security or advance national interests. The Left's sole purpose in the realm of foriegn policy is to make sure that the Western European Socialist elite likes us.

These are the things that seperate Conservatism from Liberalism. Granted the things touched on here could be expanded into a book, but in the brief explanation the message is clear. It is still good to be called a Conservative. There is no need to be shameful or bashfull in carrying the mantle of Conservatism. The ideology has done great work in the past, and so long as it is not abandoned, it will do great work in the future.

The Aftermath of November 7th

2006-11-11T11:53:00.000-06:00

Election day was not a good day if you are a Republican. It really wasn't a good day if you are a person who believes that we must defeat the terrorists. Tuesday was a setback for both groups of thinkers. For Republicans, it is an obvious letdown: no more majority, the Left gets to gloat and hard work to get back into the majority. For the latter group, the one worry we have now is when will terrorists hit us over here again.

The first thing that must happen in order to reclaim the majority is for Republicans in the House to vote in a leadership that is new and fresh starting with electing Mike Pence as the Minority Leader. Mr. Pence is not just young and fresh, but he is a genuine Conservative. He was one of only a few House Republicans that voted for a 2006 version of the 1995 budget earlier this spring. He is the leader of the Republican Study Committee and has been warning of the abandonment of Conservative principles for a good while. His two closest allies are Jeb Hensarling of Texas and John Shadegg of Arizona. Placing these three gentlemen in the leadership positions of the Republican Minority would be a good step toward reclaiming the House in the next two cycles. The bottom line is that Republicans must clean their caucus and let it be known that Conservatism is best carried forward by the Republican Party, and if the North Eastern "moderates" don't like that, then they can find party affiliation elsewhere. Mainly, it is important that the Republican Party does not fall into the trap of thinking that Liberalism won on Tuesday, and therefore, swing more to the Left than they already have. Their flirting with Leftist policies all for the purpose of keeping their majority is why we got demolished on Tuesday.

Now, if you are fearful of the prospect that the Democrats will not fight the War on Terror, then you you have a valid fear. Democrats have not shown any reason to believe that they will fight this enemy where ever they exist. The mantra is get out of Iraq and focus on Afghanistan. They want to talk to North Korea and Iran and allienate Saudi Arabia, whose government has made steps in the right direction since Iraq. They wish for Isreal to negotiate its way into destruction and not defend itself. This is their idea for fighting the War on Terror. The second phase of fighting the War on Terror for the Democrats will take a domestic step, and by this I mean combatting the Bush Administration every step of the way. "Oversite" will be the newspeak for investigation/supoena. The Democrats will waste no time in going after recently departed Donald Rumsfeld and then maybe moving on to Condi Rice, Dick Cheney and then the main target, President Bush. Our ability to conduct the War on Terror will be drastically undermined, and to top all of this off, the ability for any future President to defend the United States will be severely hampered.

Our only hope to stop this is to win in 08 and win big. We must be able to bank on the Democrats not being able to end the War on Terror in two years, especially with a Republican in office. And then we must bank on the Congressional Republicans figuring out their own problems and correcting them by then. Make no mistake, this will not be an easy task. Democrats are bound and determined to not allow another 1994. We must hope for a victory in 08 or we could be faced with a Liberal Congress and a Clinton Whitehouse.

Barak Obama: The Democrats' Great Moderate Hope

2006-10-23T13:08:00.000-05:00

A couple of years ago my wife and I were having dinner with some friends and one of our friends began raving about how smart she thinks Illinios Senator Barak Obama is. She commented on how he is not like other Democrats, he was a "moderate." To this I replied she needs to get away from getting her news only from NPR and inform herself of his true nature. Sen. Obama has been labeled the anti-Hilliary, a centrist and, most importantly, very intelligent. To the last description, I cannot say. After all, it does take some brains to win a Senate election--even if you are running in a state known to be heavily Democrat against an opponent who is considerably weaker. But "anti-Hilliary" and "centrist" are not two adjectives that I would attach to the junior Senator from Illinios. Barak Obama is a soft spoken, well packaged Liberal who may not sound like some one who blogs over at the Daily Kos, but he deffinitely votes that way.

Yesterday on NBC's Meet the Press, Obama fielded several questions from host Tim Russert in which his answers were very well stated. He was asked about his vote against confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts to which he said that he was not in favor of a fillibuster. He was asked about his views on Iraq where a year before he was pretty much in line with the President and now he is ready to get out. One of Russert's questions prompted Obama to say that people are no longer fighting the big-government/smaller-government debate. The people want "smarter government." I am hard pressed to ask Obama, when it comes down to it, when does big-government loose out to "smarter government?" Obama is a media created political star who is no different than the other Liberals in the Senate.

Let's first take a look at a New York Sun article from today, shall we? Reporting on Sen. Obama's attempted campaign visit to Massachussettes Seth Gitell writes, "If it wasn't a presidential campaign in anticipation of the 2008 contest in name, Mr. Obama did almost everything that he needed to prepare for one." Obama was creating Presidential buz at a gubenatorial campaign rally. Many of the supporters at this campaign rally were ecstatic to get a chance to be upclose and personal with Obama. One of them commented this way, "'I am not a Hillary supporter,' Marty Ray said, adding that he would consider volunteering for Mr. Obama in 2008. 'We need someone with a bigger vision, a vision for the future with new ideas.'" And the Massachussettes Democrat Party Chairman said that Obama represents something young and fresh where a Clinton or Kerry are more of the old-guard. Obama, the new new Democrat (and that was not a typo).
http://www.nysun.com/article/42043?page_no=2

Obama represents a means to get votes from Evangelical Christians, a traditionally solid Republican voting block. But Obama's voting record should serve to disenchant the Evangelicals away from him. In March of 2005 Obama voted in the affirmative for an amendment brought forth by Hilliary Clinton that funded prevention for unintended pregnancy. The description of this amendment noted that one of the goals was to reduce the number of aboritons, however; it increased funding for family planning centers. Now, when you read "family planning center" think Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is not interested in reducing the number of aboritions. Obama voted no on the flag protection amendment, an amendment aimed at preventing flag burning. Obama is in favor of pay-as-you-go spending in Washington, which means that the Federal Government cannot spend on anything unless the revenue is there helping to curb deficit spending. This sounds good right? Well, it means that there will never be taxcuts so long as this is in effect in Washington. Legislators do not need a pay-go bill to prevent them from deficit spending; they need discipline and discretion when it comes to what they spend money on. Obama voted no on allowing oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, which would serve to make us more independent when it comes to our energy. Go here to get all of his voting record: http://www.vote-smart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=BS030017

Looking through his voting record as a whole, and it is hard to come to any other conclusion about Obama being a "centrist." Obama is not; he is a full-fledged Liberal. He is no different than Clinton, Kerry or Harry Reid. He is just nicely packaged with a big bow tied around his head.

The Economy Is Booming, But Don't Tell Washington

2006-10-03T10:21:00.001-05:00

The economy of the United States is humming along with great strength. Looking at GDP and wages show a private sector that is vibrant and growing. With this being an election year you would think that at least one of the two major Parties would be trumpeting this, but there is not a sound of excitement. Republicans should be the ones out front with this, but with the debate focusing on the War on Terror, their eyes are squarely placed on foriegn policy. The Democrats would be in a great position to fill the void of the Republican silence, but they have stood in the way of all the initiatives that have served to help the economy.

The Heritage Foundation has a great piece detailing the strenghts of the economy, as well as the problems that it faces. The piece is by Daniel J. Mitchell, Ph.D., and Michelle L. Muccio and it can be found here: http://www.heritage.org/research/economy/bg1975.cfm. In their study, they site the GDP, disposable income, employment and investment, among a couple of other indicators. With GDP they note that, after the stock market bubble burst and the attacks of 9/11, there was very little growth. But since the tax cuts of 2003, there have been great gains made in GDP continuing through to this day. Disposable income, contrary to recent media reports, has increased as well. From 2001 to 2006, disposable income has increased from $25,697 to $27,766. Unemployment is virtually non-existant at 4.7%, and in fact, is so low that many in Congress have taken to the idea that illegal immigrants are needed to fill jobs that employers cannot fill with citizens. Investment, according to the Heritage study, is said to be an indicator as to the future of the economy. According to this study investment has increased by 17 percent for gross investment and 13 percent for net investment. The cut in the capital gains tax is the number one reason for this.

So why no mention of the economy in this year's election? Well, I am sure that in their districts Congressmen are touting the economy, especially Republican Congressmen. And Democrats seem to have one thing to say about the economy: the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Well this attitude may not be the case, especially if you mean there to be a racial divide between rich and poor. Try this from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/nyregion/01census.html?_r=1&hp&amp;ex=1159675200&en=208fe08f089a7fdb&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin

"In Queens, the median income among black households, nearing $52,000 a year, has surpassed that of whites in 2005, an analysis of new census data shows. No other county in the country with a population over 65,000 can make that claim. " That's right, blacks in Queens are earning more than whites and take a look at what they are earning. But listen to what the Democrat Representative from Queens says about the economy. " In a Bloomberg news interview, Rangel said he 'cannot think of one' of Bush’s tax cuts that merit renewal." (http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/15624400.htm) And there is also this: "Rangel, in an interview Wednesday with Dow Jones Newswires, said he would prefer to bring greater fairness to the tax code instead of providing tax breaks for the wealthy. " (http://www.easybourse.com/Website/dynamic/News.php?NewsID=61176&lang=fra&NewsRubrique=2) Rangel basically says that the tax cuts passed in 2003 have only served to benefit the rich in America while doing nothing to help the middle class. Rangel may be blinded by partisan sentiments, but he should give a good, hard look at the facts of the economy.

So why no mention of the economy? The answer to this question lies in how well the economy is doing. If you are expecting Democrats to be out in front bashing the economy, then you may end up waiting a long while. How can they say that the economy is bad, particularly when gas prices have started to make a dramatic downturn? The media, being a propaganda arm for the Democrats, are now relegated to saying nothing about the economy because of how well it is doing, and when they do report on the economy, they always put some sort of bad spin to it. The puzzling aspect to the great story that is the economy is the Republican silence. President Bush has made some mention of it in late summer, but with things turning to the War on Terror, there has been not one statement about it since August. Understandably, given that national security is the number one issue of the day, but let's see some diversity on the issues. Tout all of the things that have gone right for Republicans and do it often. Had this been done earlier in the year, the mid-terms may not look so bleak.

The New Left's Economic Hypocrisy

2006-09-29T11:43:00.000-05:00

Recently, I traveled down to Chapel Hill, North Carolina and got a pretty good tour of the college town. It is, like most other college towns that I have visited, made up of one street where everything is located. Shops that provide people the opportunity to purchase memorabila with the school's logo all over it, places to stop to get a bite to eat and, yes, the occasional pub to step in and have a pint all make up the strip that can be found on Franklin St., just a couple blocks from the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. The neighborhoods surrounding the area of the campus are just beautiful, with many of the houses for fraternities and sororities. But this college town has something that I have only seen in Austin: a large hippy community.

Now, hippies are supposed to be the ones among us who have no need for riches or material things because they are completely in touch with their spiritual side and therefore have transcended all earthly wants. Yet, in this town of Chapel Hill there are three organic grocery stores, and if you have never shopped at an organic grocery store, let me tell you that it is highly expensive when compared to your average grocery store. Don't get me wrong, organic groceries taste wonderful and do provide more nutrients than many of the foods that one can get at a regular grocery store, however; this good taste and clean living comes at a price, a high price. And beyond feeding your family, try buying a home to house them. The housing prices in Chapel Hill are comparable to the prices in Washington DC, except in Washington you get a much better pool of jobs and the nightlife is leaps and bounds better. Just take a look at this website and tell me if you think it is cost effective to live in Chapel Hill. http://www.newhomesource.com/search/home_results.aspx?refer=DMD181&fp=hr&pgn=3&seed=60&reqcnt=47&st=NC&mid=181&cty=Chapel+Hill&srchtype=qs

On this website, I did a search for homes that were priced between $150,000 and $300,000 with no results. Don't get me wrong, I am sure that there are some homes within this price range there, but they would hardly be considered large enough for a family, even a family with one child.

So what is the point I am trying to make with this? The point is this, much like in California, the hippies in Chapel Hill live a much different lifestyle than they wish to advertise with their unkempt hair and tattered, mis-matched clothing. They walk around in their hemp sandles and their tribal looking clothes as though they just stepped out of a Charleton Heston movie preaching how they are morally superior because they have, as I say, transcended all earthly wants, yet they live in one of the most expensive places to live in the country. How is it that a group of people who claim to have no love for Capitalism and money can afford the area in which they live? Simple: They have gone out and made their wealth. Not that I am against making wealth, quite the contrary. But I do find it rather hypocritcal to say that Capitalism is the root to the world's problems when you live in a home that averages no less than $300,000. Wouldn't you be more comfortabel--or at least more intellectually honest--to live in a commune or share a home with multiple like-minded families? No, you like your nice homes and fancy foods and privacy.

And, just to wrap this up. I went to a festival of sorts in a town that is practically inside Chapel Hill--this is where I saw the hippy-hypocrisy on display. And the place where I and my companion on this little trip parked was full of cars with "Kerry/Edwards '08" bumperstickers and other anti-Bush advertisements. Well, you know the average price for the cars that were in this parking lot? Let me just say, I saw Saabs, BMW's, and yes, some SUV's.

The Dems Say 'Bring 'Em On'

2006-09-06T20:36:00.000-05:00

So I was over at The Hill newspaper and I saw this: http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/090606/security.html

Apparently the Democrats want to have the debate over national security, and, furthermore, they believe they can win it. In this piece on The Hill, the Dems go through all of thier usual complaints against the Bush Administration and the prosecution of the War on Terror, such as, invading Iraq. But as you read through this entire piece, you will notice that there is not one mention of what they would do. There is no "Iraq was a mistake, and this is how we would go about fighting terror," or "Though we think Iraq was a blunder, we are there and here is how to fix it." No, none of that; just a bunch of "Republicans suck!" So what is it that the Democrats would do? They may not come right out and unfold a plan that is cogent, but they have been telling us what they would do.

Let us start with Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del). Today FoxNews.com had a little retort to what President Bush has been saying for the past couple of weeks. In this retort, Biden says "The administration's most profound strategic mistake was not finishing the job in Afghanistan — which everyone agreed was the central front in the War on Terror — and rushing to war in Iraq, which was not." Okay, fair enough, but what was the Administration's list of things that could get a country in trouble with us? Was it not funding and supporting terror and terrorist organizations? Did Saddam Husseing not do this when he sent money to families of suicide bombers who killed hundreds of Israelis? Were there not Iraqi intelligence agents in Sudan during the time that Osama bin Laden was taking refuge there? Our intelligence community has done great work in re-evaluating the intelligence of the 90's which details the growth of al Qaeda as an international force. They have also gone through and determined that there was in fact a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

Next on our list is Howard Dean. Today on Rush's show, a sound bite of Dean was played which details exactly how the Democrats would handle Iraq. "The Bush line is we can't leave Iraq because it will make us look weak. So essentially the president is proposing that we stay forever. Well, that is -- I hate to say, but that's just patently ridiculous. But I'm with George Aiken, the wonderful Vermont senator who once said about Vietnam, declare victory and get out." This was muttered on MSNBC after David Gregory asked what the Dems would do. Dean, in this statement, demonstrated that the Dems do not want to finish the job in Iraq. In effect, the Dems want to replay the desaster in Somolia. Of course, what they don't realize is that al Qaeda viewed Somolia as a huge victory and used that to set the tone for more devestating terror attacks, as they viewed the US as weak and not willing to face adversity. What would be their reaction to us leaving Iraq? And when did Bush or anyone in his Administration say that we would be in Iraq forever?

When you boil it all down, the Democrats' plan for fighting the War on Terror is to leave Iraq, concentrate purely on Afghanistan and go back to fighting al Qaeda in the US Justice system. Well, Iraq is essential to the War on Terror, if only for the purpose of keeping the terrorists in that region and not being able to fly under the radar to rebuild and come at us here in the future. Afghanistan is not the only place where al Qaeda operated and it won't stop them from future operations by focusing solely on that country. And the 90's proved that the legal system is not the place to fight terror. What good are indictments if the defendant is in another country that is not willing to apprehend the suspect, let alone extridite him?

We need to keep the pressure on in the Middle East. Now is not the time to let up and come home, or half-heartedly fight them in Afghanistan. As I have stated numerous times on this website, we need to press forward and begin preparations to hit the next target: Iran.

The United Nations and Intelligence

2006-08-26T21:57:00.000-05:00

Two stories have surfaced that raise big questions for the United States. The first deals with the UN publishing the movements of the Isreali Defense Forces during their dealings with Hezbollah. The second story raises doubts about our intelligence on Iran's nuclear ambitions. Now, what do these two stories have to do with one another? They speak to the quality of intelligence gathering in the post-Cold War era. If you are a terrorist in Lebanon wanting information about IDF movements, all you would need to do is log on to the UNIFIL website and read. But if you are a policy maker in Washington or a member of the National Security apparatus in the Bush Administration and you want to know when and if Iran could develop nuclear weapons, you are out of luck.

The Weekly Standard has recently published a piece detailing how UNIFIL went out of their way to announce specifics about IDF troop movements, types of weapons and where their supply lines were. Here's a little bit of what I am talking about: "UNIFIL posted not a single item of specific intelligence regarding Hezbollah forces. Statements on the order of Hezbollah "fired rockets in large numbers from various locations" and Hezbollah's rockets "were fired in significantly larger numbers from various locations" are as precise as its coverage of the other side ever got."

Now here is how they reported on the IDF movements: "Yesterday and during last night, the IDF moved significant reinforcements, including a number of tanks, armored personnel carriers, bulldozers and infantry, to the area of Marun Al Ras inside Lebanese territory. The IDF advanced from that area north toward Bint Jubayl, and south towards Yarun." This raises a couple of questions: 1) why do we still do business with the UN? and 2) why have we not expelled them from the United States? Here we have a blatent exposure of an ally's war movements and yet the Administration has yet to publicly rebuke the United Nations for this. This is also a display of the UN taking sides in the War on Terror.

The other story is from numerous sources, but this particular one is from the Washington Post. On August 24, 2006 there was a House Intelligence Committee report released saying that the US has not done a sufficient job of gathering evidence about Iran's biological, chemical and nuclear capability. Though many people in Washington have little doubt that Iran is seeking to aquire nuclear weapons, it cannot be concretely substantiated for the case of a similar operation that took place in Iraq. Furthermore, the report also raises doubts of Iran's dealings with al Qaeda. Iran is the number one state sponsor of terrorist organizations and open source information says that they are doing everything in their power to develop nuclear weapons, but without hard intelligence the policy makers of Washington are paralized in dealing with Iran.

The reason for bringing up these supposedly non-related stories is to demonstrate the difference in our ability to gain information about the enemy versus their ability to get information about us and our allies. Thanks to ideological splits in the Western world and the desire for the Left in this country to regain power, the terrorists just need to wait for information that they need to be leaked to a newspaper or wait for a liberal European working in the UN to publish it on a website. Our intelligence community is still being hampered by policies put in place during the 90's. There is also a cabal of Clinton appointees in high positions of power within the intelligence community that are seeking to harm the Bush Administration and President Bush for partisan gain. If we are to win this War on Terror, President Bush needs to find who these people are and fire them with people who can put their partisan feelings aside and recruit people who are dedicated to securing the United States from future terrorist attacks that will be on a greater scale than 9/11.

Why Does the Left Hate America?

2006-07-05T19:29:00.000-05:00

Now that celebrating the birth of our great Nation has climaxed, we can get back to work as a country. The earners go back to work, the stock traders go back to trading and the Left goes back to hating America. The days preceding and following the celebration of our Independence have to be the hardest time to be a Liberal because the greatness that is our Founding era is right there for everyone to see. The principles that guided the men that gave us what we all cherish are on display for the world to see. So why, then, do I claim that the Left hates this time of year and the Country as a whole? Put quite simply, it is because the principles of this Country are anathema to what they believe. They are statists who wish for a centralized, controlled society/economy. They are socialists, and some are even border line communists.

It was noticed in 1967 when William F. Buckley Jr., from his book The Jeweler's Eye, wrote that Susan Sontag claimed that "American life is an insult to the possibilities of human growth." Alas for poor Miss Sontag; we have only done more to advance the possibilities of human growth since she uttered these words nearly four decades ago. Today we have similar words mouthed by a new generation of American Haters, only that today's generation--if it can be at all possible--are more vitriolic in voicing their hatred. Today we have the likes of Cindy Sheehan claiming that she would rather live in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela than live in America under President Bush. After the 2004 election we had Hollywood celebrities claiming that they were going to flock to France--some did--and we even had a serious discussion, at least for a couple of days, of the Liberal states in the Union secceeding and joining Canada. (Lucky for the Left, they had second thoughts because Canada's executive is now a Bush supporting Conservative.) Over at the Daily Kos, you have declarations of hate decorated with expletive after expletive.

So, why do they hate us? What is it that has changed over the past fourty years that has made them more hateful? In '67 when Miss Sontag spoke these words, the Democrats were in the White House and had a grand majority in the Congress, so what prompted her to state what she did? The answer there lies in the rice patties of Vietnam and the disgust of having a Texan in the Oval Office. Dispite having implemented the Great Society, LBJ was no Northeastern Ivy Leaguer and he spoke like one to boot. Today, the Left has absolutely no power in Washington. They have neither the executive nor the legislative branches of government and there does not appear to be any hope in them getting the legislative this time around despite what they may say or what you may read elsewhere. Oh, sure they may get a gain or two, but the gavel of the Speaker is still going to be in the hands of a Republican.

It is because they are held from power that they are voicing their hatred louder than ever before. Because the American People will not vote them back into the majority, they look at us as though we are mere rubes and cavemen not being able to tie our shoes without first drooling all over our chins. And they find ways to verify this notion. One of the most used forms of verification is our love affair with our Flag, especially on the Fourth of July.

For instance? For instance, if you look at a piece from the French News Agency ( http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/07/05/060705084305.bkdchfzv.html) you find that there is an epidemic in the Country. You will find a French author saying, "It's a little strange, this obsession of the flag." And you will also find the all so common complaint that the Flag is used in advertisements. It makes one wonder, if these people who are bent out of shape over seeing the Flag used in commercials, also supported the recent attempt to protect the Flag from burning via Constitutional Amendment?

So, make no mistake, the Left hates the United States. Oh, they will shout from the mountain tops that I am accusing them without sufficient evidence or that they have served in the military or you-fill-in-the-blank. But no matter how hard they try to refute this or how loud they cry foul, their track record is always going to speak for itself.

The Fourth of July

2006-07-04T15:48:00.000-05:00

Today is the 230th birthday of our Republic and thank God! The gift that is this country is by far the greatest since the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Let us never forget the fifty-six men who put their names to a piece of parchment that guaranteed their death if their endeavor failed.

Abortion and its Problems...

2006-06-14T15:40:00.000-05:00

In a previous piece that I posted here, I discussed abortion as a means to get the perfect baby and also as a means to preserve the social life that will no doubt be taken away by carrying the child to term. For this, I have been hit with disagreement, though I will not name names. But within this disagreement, there is another reason for abortion: economics. Some just don't want to have to face the economic hardship of having a child.

I know that it is a hard decission to make, the termination of a human life, but why is it such an easy conclusion to come to? I mean, if it is as hard a decission to make, then why is it always the first reaction from those who are taken by surprise when pregnancy happens? Are we, as a species, that afraid of the unknown that we will be so quick to extinguish innocent life in a continuation of our own personal goals and wants? I cannot say that what some one does in this regard is wrong, but I cannot bring myself to say that it is the right thing to do either.

Having a child is tough both emotionally and economically, there can be no doubt behind this. But who is to say that having the child relegates the parents to a life of poverty and welfare? And why is such a serious decission given away to economics when other choices and actions that we take also have their economic effects? We seem to have a harder time supporting the downsizing of the Federal Government via lower taxes and less regulations than we do deciding to kill another human in the form of abortion. How is it that a politician who supports the elimination of the Death Tax--taxing of inheritance--is looked at with scorn yet some one who would decide to abort a child because of economic reasons is looked at with sympathy? It would seem to me that the one advocating the repeal of the tax would be on better standing than the person who cannot risk the economic effects of having a child.

Here's Where the Republicans Lost

2006-05-31T09:03:00.000-05:00

Followers of the Republican Party will tell you that the base is not happy with the situation in Washington these days. While many on the Left will tell you that it's because of the operation in Iraq, the stories just don't show that to be the case. What many in the base see as a problem is the Party's lack of leadership in any elected office in Washington and, subsequently, an abandonment of the principles that put them there in 1994.

Who can we look to for major Conservative leadership in Washington since the departure of Tom Delay? Is it John McCain? Is is Dennis Hastert? What about the President? Some may want to look towards the Vice President, but he is only capable of breaking a tie in the Senate and he can't stray to far from the President's policy--unless he wanted to pull a Jefferson. Out of the possibilities that I have listed here, no one makes for a good candidate in my point of view. McCain is out to lead McCain, so there is no hope of him ever leading the Conservative movement in Washington. Hastert's recent outbursts about warranted FBI searches against Congressmen leaves little doubt that he cannot lead in serious matters, though I will give him some credit for his stance on the illegal immigration battle looming over the horizon. The President has some Conservative victories--tax cuts, free trade even his foriegn policy--but these can be negated by his support of No Child Left Behind and McCain/Feingold, among others. So where do we look? The few members of Congress that would make great leaders and great Conservative minds--Mitch McConnell, Rick Santorum and Jeff Sessions--haven't or won't take the wheel. In the House of Representatives we have some promising candidates, but they are too young so to speak. In this regard I am speaking of Jeb Hensarling.

Jeb Hensarling recently led an effort to bring about some spending controll in the House by introducing a budget resolution that was identical to the one proposed in 1995. Then only one Republican voted against the resolution, now the "no" vote was 134. The Hill has this story ( http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/053106/contract.html).

“We built it using the same basic parameters,” said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), chairman of the conservative caucus, referring to his group’s budget. “It was designed to be same as the Contract With America. It was absolutely our intention to call the roll on the spirit of ’94,” he said, “We wanted to see who was willing to take the same tough stand the Republican majority had taken when the Republican Congress was newly minted. It does suggest that we’ve lost some of our revolutionary fervor.”

This bit from Rep. Pence is what I am alluding to in that the Party in Washington has lost its resolve to do what Conservatives elected them to do: limit the size and scope of the Federal Government. And the base sees this. The more that the base is ignored in Washington, and the closer the Party gets to nominating some one like McCain in '08, the more the base will be willing to leave the Party this election cycle. There are going to be some heated battles for the heart and soul of the Republican Pary this year and in the near future. With this refutation of the "spirit of '94," as Rep. Pence calls it, there could be a refutation of Republican control of Congress this November.

The Economy and Understanding It

2006-05-31T07:34:00.000-05:00

I have been looking around at a couple of my favorite sites today and I have come across two items that perked my interest. The first item was a post at one of National Review's blogs called "Sixers," a look at the upcoming mid-terms. The other was a piece on Townhall.com by the one and only Professor Walter E. Williams. Both items point out the utter lack of understanding that people have in terms of economics.

Over at NR, Mr. Greg Pollowitz explains that Karl Rove has announced his strategy for this year's elections. You see in '02 it was national defense, in '04 it was pretty much the same but in '06 Rove's strategy is going to focus on the economy. Here's what I don't understand: With unemployment under 5 percent and the GDP gaining 5 percent in the first quarter alone, how is it that the American People need to be told that the economy is good? Well, of course, I know the answer to that. The mainstream press has done its job of telling you that the economy is terrible. "Yeah, jobs are being created, but these jobs are burger flipping jobs that pay minimum wage." This is not true and I will get to that in a minute. It's hard to believe that people cannot see that the economy in this Country is booming when they go to the grocery store or to the mall. You would think that this strategy of Rove's would be a piece of cake.

The second piece that has me just as confused--yet given the topic I understand my confussion--is Prof. Williams and his explaination of gas prices. He explains that "price gouging" is a figment of people's imagination and that the price at the pump is where it should be based on market determinations. I know, I hate paying for $3 dollar-a-gallon gasoline, but we are paying that because of the market, not because of fat-cat Oil Execs sitting in some Mohogany clad club sipping brandy and smoking cigars.

These two pieces would not have been necessary if the American People had any understanding of economics. For this, I blame two things: emotions and the lack of a simplified language when it comes to economics. When people are told that the "rich" received a tax cut, those who look at themselves as "working" class feel left out. This group of people, who probably make around $75,000 as a household if not more, do not look at themselves as "rich." So when a Liberal Senator or Representative goes before the TV cameras and says "tax cuts for the rich," the vast majority of the population who do not consider themselves rich are offended. Due to this emotional reaction, there is no thought about how much taxes the "average" American pays in taxes. (Right here I want to stress that I am talking in terms of Income Taxes.) Go to the IRS website and find out how much you actually pay in income taxes, and then compare that to the "rich." http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/03in05tr.xls I bring this up because tax cuts help the economy. The "rich" also help the economy.

This gets us to the language of economics. Now, I am not Prof. Williams, that is, I don't have a Ph.D. in economics, but I can grasp the language for the most part. I know that when an outside force puts added cost to a business that business is either going to pass that cost to the consumer, or it will stop doing whatever is prompting the added cost. For instance--and we have all heard George Will use this--when some one proposes that we put in place a luxury tax to "make the rich pay their fair share," what do you think the "rich" are going to do? They are going to not buy luxuries. And when they stop buying luxuries, the people manufacturing those items are hurt. Same with a business, if government comes in and tells a business that they have to do something that they weren't doing before and it adds a cost to the business, that entity is going to pass the price of complying with that regulation off to the consumer. If I am an owner of a widget manufacturing plant, and before it cost me 5 dollars to make a widget, receive a profit and comply with government regulations, and then the government comes in and adds a new regulation to my business, what do think I am going to do to offset the cost of compliance? That's right, I am going to charge more for my widget, so that before it cost you 7 dollars to buy my widget, it will now cost you 9 dollars to buy one.

What I am getting at folks is economics in this country is really easy to understand even if you have no idea what Alen Greenspan said when he was Fed Chairman. The main thing that you have to worry about is your emotions. Getting back to my widget example, when I start charging you 9 dollars for what used to cost you 7 dollars, you will get mad at me, the businessman, without even taking into consideration why I am charging that price. If I was charging that price just to "gouge" you, then surely there is another widget manufacturer that is not charging 9 dollars. But think about this, if I am charging that price because I have to make up for the cost of a new government regulation, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that the other widget producers are having to comply with the same regulation?

Now, getting back to the job creation that has taken place in this Country since President Bush enacted his tax cuts. If you go to the Heritage Foundation's website and do a little searching, you will get some great work on this topic. I am going to link this particular study from 2004 about the quality of jobs created since Bush took office. You will see that these jobs are not "burger flippers." http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/bg1773.cfm#pgfId-1126956

Madame Speaker.......

2006-05-30T08:57:00.000-05:00

The New York Times has a piece telling us that both Parties are excited about the prospect of there being a Madame Speaker to lead the next Congress. Obviously, for Democrats it means that Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker, making them the majority, but the Republicans are looking at it as a means of showing the American People that having her and her Party in charge is not the direction that the Country should be going. My take on it is this: The Republicans need to come up with more besides the Democrats being Liberals. They need Conservatism and fast.

But as far as having Ms. Pelosi as Speaker, all I can say is "Wow!!" I have heard this woman speak both on TV and in person in Washington and she is not the most articulate person on the block. I think particularly because--and I am just going to be candid here--she is not that bright. Well here, let me give this from the Times: "I am an Italian-American Catholic grandmother," she said, "very traditional in terms of values." Okay, you're a grandmother and an Italian-Catholic, so? When the American People look at politicians in terms of "values" they are not looking for concrete things, you know, things that can part of filling out an application. Hell, Benedict Arnold was a member of the Continental Army, victor of the battles of Saratoga and Ticondaroga. Just being apart of something does not mean that you are beholden to "traditional values." Part of a values system is based on what you do! And Ms. Pelosi, your actions as a Representative could hardly be considered American values. Your actions are San Francisco values.

The Times piece: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/washington/30pelosi.html?ei=5065&en=bb44dc6089c5b70f&ex=1149566400&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

The Sanctity of Life in Great Britain

2006-05-29T11:09:00.000-05:00

Two very heart wrentching stories have shown up in Britain dealing with abortion. One deals with the ease in which one can go about getting an abortion these days while the other discusses parents having abortions due to defects in the child. My first take on this is, "When will this come to our shores? Or has it already?" But then the deeper question arises--What about the respect and care of the unborn? Has England lost its conscience?

Well here are the stories.
Make 'em perfect: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=388114&in_page_id=1770&ico=Homepage&icl=TabModule&icc=NEWS&ct=5

And sex as recreation: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2201486,00.html

This first story just begins with saddness. "The ethical storm over abortions has been renewed as it emerged that terminations are being carried out for minor, treatable birth defects." The piece chalks it up to people wanting to have the "perfect" baby. Well, are we to judge perfection based on physical characteristics when it comes to our fellow man, or are we to only look at the body? Given the day's culture and what we see on TV and magazines, the body is all there is. (Plus, when hear some of these Hollywood types speak, it seems that the body is all they have so it better be perfect.) But I for one am not ready to throw away life because it looks different. Are we to get rid of Stephen Hawking?

The second story points to exactly what abortion is: a means to have sex without having to suffer the consequences. We have gone from abortion being necessary for the mother's health to aboriton being necessary for the salvation of the mother's social life. Here are the numbers of women getting this "treatment" in Britain.

The number of abortions bpas provided to women in the first nine weeks of gestation rose from 27,000 to 32,000 between 2004 and 2005. Early abortions now account for 65 per cent of the organisation’s 49,000 case load, up from 56 per cent a year earlier. This increase is part of an overall trend. In 2004, the latest year for which government figures are available, there were 185,400 abortions in England and Wales, compared with 181,600 in 2003, a rise of 2.1 per cent.

Foriegn Affairs in the Middle East

2006-05-28T23:03:00.000-05:00

Afghan President Hamid Karzia visited Iran over the weekend attempting to bolster economic ties and the relationship between the two countries in general. We can only hope that among the discussion between Karzia and Iranian President Ahmadinejad was the subject of Iran's nuclear ambitions.
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-17/0605285601191312.htm

Or Perhaps Hillary is still in the Game...............

2006-05-28T14:17:00.000-05:00

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1198863,00.html

More Bad News for Hillary

2006-05-28T13:49:00.000-05:00

Hillary Clinton may be in for a disappointing two years as her hopes of becoming the first female President slip away. Who is it that is going to keep her from her ultimate goal? Republicans? Evil conservatives bent on convincing the American People that she is Satan? No! The ones that are standing in her way, as of this moment, are her own "constituents." The Left, of which she is definitely a part of, is having doubts about her. And the stories that have emerged in the past few days have pointed to this.

First, there was the New York Times piece talking about the status of her marriage to Bill. Then, with the release of his movie, Al Gore began getting great press and talked about as her major opponent in 2008. (We commented on one of these stories by Andrew Sullivan.) Now, we have yet another installment on the problems she has with Bill, this time involving the guest list for his birthday party later this summer in New York. The Sunday Times (UK) is stating that everyone with a vested interest with Hillary's '08 run is keeping an eye on who is--or isn't--on the guest list. Everyone is looking out for a Canadian MP and heiress, Belinda Stronach, to see if she will be at Bill's bash. Who is this young woman you ask? She has been the subject of tabloid speculation about another Bill romp with other than public intentions. There has been considerable refutation of this by Bill and Ms. Stronach, but the simple fact that Democrat Pols in Washington are hoping that she is not at Bill's party tells us that there maybe more there than just the avoidance of tabloid headlines. In fact The Times piece ends thus, "If history repeats itself and another glamorous blonde sings 'Happy birthday, Mr President' from the stage of Madison Square Garden, Democrats will be praying she is Hillary."

Democrats are already, about a year and a half out, giving reasons for why they will not nominate Mrs. Clinton to be on the top of the ticket for their Party. I am not saying that the Republicans should sleep on her, but there is reason to believe that she is not as invincible as she appeared when she won the Senate seat that she now occupies.

Oh, yeah, here's that Times piece: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2200169,00.html

Editor's Update: May 30, 2006

I found this through www.instapundit.com and thought that I would pass this along.
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/v-echo/story/422082p-356248c.html

Andew Sullivan's bad Gore joke

2006-05-27T23:25:00.000-05:00

In the latest edition of the Times London (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2199893,00.html), Andrew Sullivan has a piece explaining why 2008 may be the year of Gore. He gives us the all too familiar parallel between Gore and Richard Nixon, how they both lost close elections after being Vice President for administrations that served during robust periods in American histroy. And then he goes on to explain some of the other things that Gore has going for him: a Vietnam-esque war, the seemingly validity to man-made global warming and the belief that the American People are looking for a more "compitent" leader in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. But towards the end of the piece he gives this reason: "Then there’s the issue of karma. Gore won the popular vote in 2000. If a few old Jewish ladies in Palm Beach had not been confused by their ballots and voted for Patrick Buchanan, Gore would have won Florida as well — and the presidency. Everyone knows this — and that election still wounds America in ways that a Gore candidacy might assuage." After all of the reasons that Mr. Sullivan pointed to as to why Al Gore could become the next President of the United States, his ending note that he is due it via karma. Well how is this any different than Hillary Clinton being deserving of the Presidency because she had to put up with the sexcapades of Bill? Certainly there are other reasons why Gore should/could be President, and Mr. Sullivan gives them.

Mr. Sullivan explains that Gore has displayed a good deal of timing in releasing his new movie An Inconvenient Truth where man is blamed for the destruction of our beloved planet. Mr. Sullivan explains that "new data [has] persuaded even sceptics like me that global warming is real, man-made and potentially hazardous." And Gore has done a great human service to bring this to the world's attention. The only problem is the latest data does not prove that man is the main culprit nor does it prove that there is a potential hazard. In fact, one of the biggest points of "proof" that Gore looks to in his movie is the melting of the polar ice caps. However, in 2002 polar climate specialist at the University of Illinois in Chicago John Walsh said, "In Antarctica, there is not a strong heating or cooling trend either way." Walsh went on to say in a National Geographic piece from 2002 that about 60 to 70 percent of Antarctica is experiencing a cooling trend. This along with numerous other studies from the past few years--and when I say few I mean two to four years--has shown that the case of man-made global warming is not yet closed.

The second main reason Mr. Sullivan gives as to why Gore should/could be the next President is his "long track record of hawkishness, especially with respect to the Middle East." Well, first of all the last time that the United States embarked on a major military action, i.e. the use of ground troops, was in the First Gulf War when Al Gore was a Senator. This action during Bush 41 was even done under the banner of the United Nations, and yet, Al Gore, as a Senator, voted against using force against Saddam Hussein and exspelling his forces from Kuwait. Recently Gore was in Saudi Arabia where he commenced to explain how the United States has treated Islamofacists held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as less than human. (http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/02/12/D8FNUKEO0.html)
Even though Gore made the best effort to explain to the members of the Jeddah Economic Forum that the majority of American People wish Muslims no harm, he gave no specifics to what he meant when he said, "Arabs had been 'indiscriminately rounded up' and held in 'unforgivable' conditions." Oh, and Gore said nothing of the way Americans have been treated at the hands of the terrorists. Does anyone remember the name Nick Berg?

Mr. Sullivan is wrong about Al Gore. Gore would not asuage centrists on the War on Terror and his policy solutions in regards to global warming would only serve to hurt the United States and do next to nothing to reverse the trends of global warming. His "hawkishness" on terrorism is not what I would call soothing. More than likely, Gore would revert back to the pre-9/11 methods for fighting the War on Terror; he would treat as a criminal matter, something that former US Attorney and National Review contributor Andy McCarthy has been railing against since the terror attacks from that beautiful September morning.

The Legislative versus the Executive

2006-05-27T20:24:00.000-05:00

This past week we saw an extraordinary event happen, so extraordinary, in fact, that it has never been done before in the history of the Republic. The Justice Department, acting through the law enforcement arm of the FBI, went into and searched an office of a US Representative, William Jefferson (D-La). Although, despite the fact that the FBI acted with the authority of a warrant, there has been an outcry from the Legislative branch. Many in the punditry have even criticized the actions taken by the Justice Department as far as the manner in which they developed. My only take on all of this is confussion. First of all, this was an event that transpired over the course of eight months. Second, the FBI had issued a subpoena last fall which leads me to believe that this was something that the DoJ did not do at a whim. They did not wake up on a Saturday thinking, "Ya' know, I think we should raid the office of a Representative." Finally, why the indignation on the part of the other Representatives? The fact that they are mad at the DoJ and not with the results and findings within the office of one of their colleagues is telling. No one can deny that Mr. Jefferson has skeletons in his closet given the actions taken by the House Ethics Committee and those of the Democrat Leader, Ms. Pelosi. Furthermore, the FBI executed a targetted search; they did not ransack Mr. Jefferson's office nor did they inadvertantly grab documents not related to the case at hand. Yet, we have a quote, unquote Constitutional crisis? I am not buying it and neither should the American People.

For more on this consult: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/05/24/D8HQ79QG2.html

The Mission Statement

2006-05-27T20:17:00.000-05:00

The purpose that I wish to serve here is the defense of the traditions that have made this Republic great. The defense of the Nation is a defense of the ideals of the Founders, mainly that Liberty can only be sustained with a limited government. Along with the defense of this idea, is the defense of social responsibility and all that it encompasses, for if we are to maintain a non-intrusive system of Government, then we must be able to act within society with a set of morals compatible with all other citizens of the United States; conversely, those citizens who violate this code of ethics, should not be offended when they are criticized.