Brandon

Sunday, January 30, 2005

The Miracle of Freedom's Victory

Just a few months ago and the left forgets already.....

Senator Kennedy said in January 2005 "we are losing the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. "Question: Do you see this happy Iraqi kissing Kennedy's picture???

Iraq Vote Victory, Shame for Democrats

In a recent speech, Senator Ted Kennedy reminded Americans that history teaches many lessons for those willing to learn.

Just ruminate on this: Kennedy and Democrat opponents of the war on terror called Afghanistan "a quagmire, another Vietnam" only weeks after we launched operations to oust terrorists from that hijacked country. Two years later, women previously viewed as property on the status of the family goat were among the millions who voted for the mere chance of freedom and a life without terror or tyranny.

Many of these purveyors of doom and gloom have gone silent on Afghanistan, but cut and pasted the same defeatist "quagmire" rhetoric in their bid to undermine U.S. success in Iraq.

Sunday, millions voted for an end to the nightmare which has gripped that country and the region for decades.

Democrats like Senator Kennedy, who claimed in the same speech that we are "losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people" and "the U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution" should be ashamed.

These defeatists would abandon Iraq to a thirty year man-made disaster whose human toll of tragedy, horror and death eclipses that of the Asian Tsunami by a scale of ten fold.

To call our policy in Iraq a "shame and stain on America's good name as a beacon of human rights" as Senator Kennedy did, is repugnant to the honor and sacrifice of those who have given so much to achieve the progress which America and the world witnessed with this election.

The lesson of history is clear. Next time you hear Senator Kennedy and the sky is falling wing of the Democrat Party speak: consider the source. None of the great accomplishments in this nation's history were easy. And few of them would have occurred at all if the mindset demonstrated by these Democrats had prevailed.

Friday, January 28, 2005


Billboard put up outside the Kodak Theater in L.A. just in time for Oscar Night.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Humor: Bill & Hill teach W. and Laura

I don't usually pass along jokes, but this one from Fursey in DC is too good to miss. By the way, Fursey, when are you going to start blogging?

George and Laura Bush and Bill and Hillary Clinton are traveling by train to the Super Bowl. At the station George and Laura each buy a ticket and watch as Bill and Hillary buy just one ticket. "How are the two of you going to travel on only one ticket?" asks George W, astonished at what he is seeing."Watch and learn," answers Hillary. They all board the train. George and Laura take their respective seats but Bill and Hillary cram into a toilet together and close the door. Shortly after the train has departed, the conductor comes around collecting tickets. He knocks on the toilet door and says, "Ticket, please." The door opens just a crack and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on.The Bushes see this happen and agree it was quite a clever idea, so after the game they decide to try a similar plan on the return trip. When they get to the station they see the Clinton's at the window buying a single ticket for the return trip. To their astonishment, the Clinton's see that the Bushes don't buy any ticket at all. "Aren't you taking a terrible chance by traveling without a ticket?" says Hillary. "Live and learn," answers Laura Bush.When they board the train the Bushes cram themselves into a toilet and the Clinton's cram into another toilet just down the way. Shortly after the train leaves the station, George W. leaves their toilet and walks over to the Clinton's toilet, knocks on their door and says, "Ticket, please."And you're still trying to figure out how the Democrats lost that election?

Senate Democrat Staff Protest Inauguration

And you thought those anti-Bush protestors at the Inauguration were just regular citizens outraged by the war in Iraq??? If so, bet you still believe in the Easter Bunny. So much for a spirit of bi-partisanship.

Inaugural run-in for Reid aide: "An aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was arrested on the West Front of the Capitol for disorderly conduct during President Bush's inaugural address last week.

The aide, Nathan Ackerman, is a television producer on the Senate Democratic Communications Committee an organization that was folded into Reid's new communications war room.
About 20 minutes into Bush's speech, Ackerman, 36, and another man held up a sheet that said No War. According to a Capitol Police report, Ackerman and another suspect were blocking the view of the audience and they were engaged in a verbal dispute with members of the audience."

French Propose Global Tax: Target U.S. Pockets

Well now heeeeerrrrreeee'ssss a good idea... A global tax to fight disease and fund social programs. Might sound good, BUT, if you think that funding another U.N. style bureacracy to do good works will actually do much of anything but enrich another generation of Eurocrats, you go ahead and support it. And, as you might imagine, this is just the thin edge of the wedge. Just wait until all those Eurocrats funded by the new International tax get busy with their countless assesments and studies. They'll find a whole new set of problems that can only be addressed by dipping into your pockets once again. SURPRISE!!!

When France starts to pony up anything like the huge amount of U.S. government and private contributions to assist with world problems, then come and talk to me about what more we need to do.

Latest Forex News - FXstreet.com: "French President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday urged world leaders to unite to vanquish the 'silent tsunamis' of famine, disease and violence that plague humanity, calling on them to impose an international tax to pay for the fight and to work together to take the edge off globalization"

Monday, January 24, 2005

Hillary Watch: The Sky is Falling, but She is Hopeful

According to Hillary, we're going to Hell in a handbasket. But look at the next paragraph. I guess if you are writing for the Palm Beach Post you are glad Hillary is "hopeful." Imagine the post attributing such a positive emotion to ANY Republican.
Sen. Clinton decries leadership lacking resolve, inspiration: "WEST PALM BEACH America's leaders don't have a vision, and the economy may be on the brink of collapse, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday.
The chance to invest in a national energy policy may be lost because President Bush is looking the other way, and flaws in the American health-care system are going unaddressed, Clinton said.

But somehow, she manages to be hopeful."

She's hopeful we'll overlook the obvious Socialist agenda she is trying to cloak with her "charm" and elect her President. Stock up now on crosses, silver bullets, holy water and garlic!

Sunday, January 23, 2005

Hillary Watch: She's Found Religion

Not that I question anyone's approach to issues of faith. But I do wonder whether the leopard is trying to change her spots. Just remember, it's not what you say, but what you do that counts.

Boston.com / News / Local / Mass. / Sen. Clinton urges use of faith-based initiatives: "In a speech at a fund-raising dinner for a Boston-based organization that promotes faith-based solutions to social problems, Clinton said there has been a 'false division' between faith-based approaches to social problems and respect for the separation of church of state. 'There is no contradiction between support for faith-based initiatives and upholding our constitutional principles,' said Clinton, a New York Democrat who often is mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2008. Addressing a crowd of more than 500, including many religious leaders, at Boston's Fairmont Copley Plaza, Clinton invoked God more than half a dozen times, at one point declaring, 'I've always been a praying person.' She said there must be room for religious people to 'live out their faith in the public square.'"

Bush Policy to End Tyranny a HIT in Ukraine

Sounds like Bush's policy of spreading freedom has some admirers in Europe.... Oh sorry, I meant NEW Europe, not the old French one.

ABC News: Yushchenko Sworn in As Ukraine President: "

Viktor Yushchenko was sworn in as president of Ukraine on Sunday, calling his inauguration "a victory of freedom over tyranny," two months after massive protests over his loss in a fraud-plagued election plunged the ex-Soviet republic into political crisis.

"None of that would have been possible without our partners who share the same democratic values as we do, in which I include President Bush and you" Yushenko told visiting Secretary of State Colin Powell (Dr. Rice's nomination is still being held up by obstructionist Democrats in the Senate.)

Bush called Yushchenko on Saturday to congratulate him on his election and on 'democracy's victory' in Ukraine, White House spokesman Brian Besanceney said in Washington.
'The two leaders also discussed their support for the people of Iraq and for democracy in that country,' Besanceney said.
Ukraine has 1,650 troops in Iraq, the fourth-largest contingent in the U.S.-led military operation. "

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Let Freedom Ring


Anyone who has ever been to a Presidential Inauguration knows the impressive grandeur of the moment firsthand. It's a a quadrennial celebration of American Democracy with even more meaning in tone and symbolism following the September 11th attacks and subsequent war on terror.
God Bless the United States and our President, George W. Bush...
FOUR MORE YEARS!

Dems Bad Grace

It's nearly cliche to suggest that Democrats are sore losers. But the game Senate Democrats are playing in attempting to put off votes for Secretary of State designate, Condoleezza Rice and Attorney General designee, Alberto Gonzales is in such bad grace they should be ashamed!

Senate blowhard John Kerry, had not even shown up for a hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee for the past sixteen months but did so just in time to tell Dr. Rice how much better off we would all be if he were President.

And it goes without saying that Senator Barbara Boxer is an embarrassment to the state of California. Contrast that Harpy with the dignity of Senator Dianne Feinstein, who after introducing Dr. Rice sat next to her while the junior California Senator basically called Dr. Rice a liar.

Delaying the vote, the outcome of which is not even a question, would demonstrate once again why Democrats are unfit to control government. Just a reminder to any in that party who feel such tactics are smart: remember who's no longer sitting next to you this year... TOM DASCHLE!

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Preparing for Dissident Internment Camps

I tried really hard, honestly I did, to be magnanimous in the victory and re-election of President George W. Bush. If you read many of the posts here, I adroitly avoided the temptation, for the most part, to tar these lefties with the sore loser label they deserve.

On the eve of the inauguration, ushering in another four more years for Bush I can no longer remain silent. Maybe it was all those comments about those who voted for Bush being "stupid" or the red states as "Jesusland." But the recent spate of comments that Bush's re-election is the "end of democracy in America" really pushes my button.

During the campaign, socialists and whacko lefties warned that another four more years meant the collapse of civil rights and freedoms and Americans who dared object to the growing dictatorship of the right would soon wind up in internment camps.

Of course that is the biggest pile of hooey I have ever heard and it diminishes the threat of real evil that we face in the world today. However, just to be on the safe side, I thought I would make the following suggestions:

We amend the Patriot Act and Hate Crimes legislation to make punishable any offensive or derisive statements directed at Christians, conservatives and Republicans. First offenders will be given a warning and their cell phone and Starbucks privileges will be revoked. Meanwhile we have Halliburton begin building internment camps.

Second offenders will either be sent to the internment camps for re-education or be deported. The re-education will be conducted by former prison guards from Abu Ghraib prison.

Deportees will be sent to either France or North Korea. Canada is not suitable for deportation since the punishment of spending half one's life waiting in line to receive the benefits of "cradle to grave" socialism is not deemed sufficient punishment.

The most heinous group of pompous prevaricating pontificatiors, the Hollywood hate-America, but love the money crowd will be sent to France. While some might not view that as punishment, just think how batty it will drive the French. Imagine prima donna Barbara Streisand and Michael Moore telling French President Jacques Chirac what to do and making movies in ENGLISH! Oh Mon Dieu!

As for the rat-haired garden variety malcontents that seem to infest every public gathering of decent Americans with their sophomoric tripe, there can be only one solution. Pack them off to the worker's paradise of North Korea. There, they can learn to make bricks without straw with no prospect of Charlton Heston as Moses coming to rescue them.

I invite readers of this blog to submit names and suggested punishments for their own list of dissidents by commenting below. A warning to any looney lefty that may wish to contribute some putrid postulation: We are taking names and traceable internet information, which at the appropriate time will be submitted to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales along with the all the rest.

Europeans Blackmail Thailand with Sanctions

Recall when Norwegian Jan Egeland, U.N. High Muckety-Muck called U.S. aide to Tsunami victims "stingy?" Now, we learn that the European Union, in an effort to protect NORWAY's shrimp industry is threatening Tsunami ravaged Thailand with trade sanctions unless they buy Airbus Industries new jumbo jet... Well, well, well.
TSUNAMI-struck Thailand has been told by the European Commission that it must buy six A380 Airbus aircraft if it wants to escape the tariffs against its fishing industry.
While millions of Europeans are sending aid to Thailand to help its recovery, trade authorities in Brussels are demanding that Thai Airlines, its national carrier, pays £1.3 billion to buy its double-decker aircraft.
The demand will come as a deep embarrassment to Peter Mandelson, the trade commissioner, whose officials started the negotiation before the disaster struck Thailand - killing tens of thousands of people and damaging its economy.
While aid workers from across Europe are helping to rebuild Thai livelihoods, trade officials in Brussels are concluding a jets-for-prawns deal, which they had hoped to announce next month.
As the worldÂ’s largest producer of prawns, Thailand has become so efficient that its wares are half the price of those caught by Norway, the main producer of prawns for the EU.

History Repeats Itself


Cover of Life Magazine, January 7,1945. If we listened to the news media, we likely never would have won World War II. The Berlin Wall or worse would still scare the landscape of Germany. The Soviet Union would still be pointing thousands of nuclear weapons at us. And of course, if we listen to the media today, we will lose the Iraq war, we will coddle terrorists, Americans will die.

That's Prime Minister Winston Churchill painting while Europe burns. Who says media bias is a new phenomenon?

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Iraq Deaths: Tragedy Tinged with Hope

Continuing deaths of both U.S. troops and Iraqi citizens at the hands of terrorists and former Hussein holdouts is a very, very sad story.

By now, reader's eyes may glaze over when commentators mention how much good news in Iraq is being ignored. You have also likely heard the comparison of daily terror deaths with the carnage on America's highways. Yet, liberals would rightly insist that highway deaths are unintended and there is no doubt that the current tragedy unfolding in Iraq would not be taking place had we not invaded.

This may shock some, but I agree with that sentiment. Do a Google news search on Iraq and you are likely to see story after story of tragedy that in a better world would not happen.

Liberals are correct (they can't be right) that had we not invaded, the almost daily count of five deaths here, ten deaths there from terror attacks would not be taking place.

The Saddamites who are committing this carnage would be doing much better. Hussein was in power for twenty four years. Even by the most conservative estimate CNN (not known for it's participation in the vast right wing conspiracy) lowballs the number of deaths under Hussein at 300,000. That averages to 34 tragic deaths every single day for twenty four years! And it doesn't take into account the men, women and children whose lifes were horribly snuffed out in chemical weapons attacks on Halabja and the tens of thousands of Iranians, not to mention Iraqis killed in the Iran Iraq war.

And yet, our leftist/socialist pals would scream about the "human rights" of these butchers and how awful it is that the United States interrogates and imprisons them. Meanwhile, up to 100,000 Africans die in Darfur.

Forgive my incredulity, but how can you oppose the actions of the United States and our allies to bring an end to such evil? I realize there are still people who would deny that the holocaust occurred under Nazi Germany. But I've been to Dachau, the first concentration camp, and they weren't baking bread in this oven which I photographed in 1984.

Even Democrats concede that failure is not an option in Iraq. The opportunity to bring a fresh age of hope to those who suffered at the hands of evil for so long is not a path that will be easy or quick. However, the alternative future is a dark cloud that can only grow ever larger.

My advice to President Bush on the eve of his second inauguration: Stay the course!

Monday, January 17, 2005

Professor Flunks Kuwaiti's Pro-U.S. Essay

Well you had to know that phrases like "academic freedom," "free expression," "diversity," "tolerance" and the rest of that clap trap only applies if you are expressing the correct views. Here's more proof:
California professor flunks Kuwaiti's pro-U.S. essay - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - January 16, 2005: "A 17-year-old Kuwaiti student whose uncles were kidnapped and tortured by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's invaders more than a decade ago said his California college political science professor failed him for praising the United States in a final-exam essay last month.
Ahmad Al-Qloushi, a foreign student at Foothill College near San Jose, Calif., said he was told by professor Joseph A. Woolcock to get psychological treatment because of the pro-American views expressed in his essay.

"Apparently, if you are an Arab Muslim who loves America, you must be deranged," said Mr. Al-Qloushi, who feared the failing grade could cost him his student visa.

For their final exam, Mr. Woolcock had students write an essay on one of several topics that he circulated.
The topic chosen by Mr. Al-Qloushi stated that some scholars "contend that the Constitution of the United States was not 'ordained and established' by 'the people' as we have often been led to believe. They contend instead that it was written by a small educated and wealthy elite in America who were representative of powerful economic and political interests. Analyze the U.S. Constitution (original document), and show how its formulation excluded the majority of people living in America at that time, and how it was dominated by America's elite interests."
In his essay, Mr. Al-Qloushi said, "I completely disagree. ... The American Constitution worried monarchs in Europe. The right for men to choose their own representatives was unheard-of in the rest of the world. ... The United States Constitution might have excluded the majority of people at the time. But it progressed, and America, like every nation in the world, progressed ...
"Because of America, the world is free. ... America freed Kuwait and is now currently in a fight to free Iraq and its 25 million residents and vanquish the tyranny and monstrosity of Saddam Hussein."
Mr. Al-Qloushi said Mr. Woolcock "told me to come to his office the next morning." In the meeting, "he verbally attacked me and my essay."
"He told me, 'Your views are irrational. He called me naive for believing in the greatness of this country and told me, 'America is not God's gift to the world. ... You need regular psychotherapy.'
Offensive misconduct by professors like this has gone on far too long. It's about time that conservatives demand the same standards of accountability that lefties would apply to the rest of us. Write Foothill President Bernadine Chuck Fong and express your opinion: fongbernadine@foothill.edu

Bush another FDR or Reagan?

Recently, a number of comparisons between President Bush and predecessors Reagan and Roosevelt (FDR) have been popping up. Not so much from sympathetic Republican sources but more mainstream reporters. The last paragraph in the story from the London Times sums it up well.

Times Online - Comment: "Mr Bush's personal authority, at least until 2007, may be really exceptional. Only Franklin D. Roosevelt has been equivalently placed in the past 100 years. This might oblige his many vocal critics, who have habitually mocked him, to deliver their own five-word speech this Thursday. It should read: He is not an idiot."

Getting Serious About Syria III

Today in Investor's Business Daily stock analysis and business news: "Recent reports indicate that hard-liners in the White House have been considering taking out insurgent training camps in Syria. In the words of Neil Young: 'Should have been done long ago.'

How many lives American and Iraqi would have been saved if we'd been striking insurgents wherever we found them? How many Americans and Iraqis would still be alive if the Pentagon had sealed the Syria-Iraq border a year ago with a hail of fire so intense that it removed the incentive for anyone, save the suicidal, to cross it illegally?

A move against Syria would no doubt have given critics even more reason to make the Vietnam comparison: Syria would be to Iraq what Laos and Cambodia were to Vietnam.

But so what? Critics do little other than criticize. And in this case, they'd do nothing to make our troops safer in Iraq except bring them home, which would only make the world less safe for others.

Hard facts bring hard choices. The fact is, Syria is harboring terrorists who are training insurgents to kill innocents in a country where we are trying to set up a model democracy. It is also an entry and exit point for insurgents, terrorists, weapons and money into and out of Iraq and beyond.

As a former senior U.S. intelligence official put it in a UPI report, 'Syria is complicit in the insurgency up to its eyeballs.'"

Sunday, January 16, 2005

Thank God for Vice President Cheney

With lefties squawking "Halliburton, Halliburton" like a gaggle of demented parrots, Vice President Dick Cheney has routinely been the focus of scorn and derision from those who offer nothing but vitriol to the political process.

With the second inauguration of President Bush and Vice President Cheney in a few days it is time to reflect and indeed give thanks that Mr. Cheney was selected to serve with Mr. Bush. Here's an excerpt of an excellent analysis:

My Point: David M. Shribman / The Cheney effect: "The tension between a vice presidential office and the Oval Office is no 'West Wing'' fiction; it's inherent in the relationship of a politician who is a president and another who is vice president merely because he thinks it might be a good way to become president someday.

Bush's relationship to Cheney is completely different, which is one of the reasons that Democrats find the vice president so provocative and their inability to reach him politically so frustrating. Unlike his predecessors, Cheney is virtually immune to political punishment. He won't have to answer for his views, decisions or maneuvers at a town meeting in Iowa or at a candidates' forum in New Hampshire. He can't be made uncomfortable in public or repudiated at the polls.

Cheney is, in effect, politically invulnerable.
...
In the meantime, Cheney's reluctance to run for president himself means that the nominations of both parties are completely open. There is no heir presumptive, no front-runner. It is an unusual situation -- and unusually refreshing.

That means both the Republicans and Democrats will be able to consider their candidates in a far different context than they are accustomed. No Air Force II swooping into Cedar Rapids, no immense security details fanning out into small towns in New Hampshire's north country.

It makes for a campaign that may be determined less by the size of a candidate's entourage and more by the size of a candidate's ideas. It makes for a campaign where, in the president's party, there is more openness to start anew and where, in the opposition's party, there is less incentive to refight battles that might be best left in the past.

It may mean, too, that the vice presidency has reached a new maturity. It could finally be a job to be done, not a steppingstone to another one. The legacy from this administration could well come from both halves of the ticket.

Democrats Coddle Criminals and Terrorists Handcuff US Troops

I'm so sick of the boo-hooing over the frat party some of our troops held at the Abu Ghraib prison. But it gets worse. Democrats, in their zeal to do anything to weaken President Bush in a time of war would handcuff our troops, not the terrorists. SHAME!

Conventions wisdom is useless vs. jihadists: "A third of a decade after 9/11, it's hard trying to maintain a war footing against a nebulous enemy. At the Senate confirmation hearings for the new attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, Democrats seem to have decided that the very concept of an 'enemy' is dubious, cheerfully cranking up their sanctimonious preening for CNN and berating Judge Gonzales for declining to extend the Geneva Conventions to captured terrorists.
To be covered by Geneva, a combatant has to have (a) a commander who is responsible for his subordinates; (b) formal recognizable military insignia; (c) weapons that are carried openly, and (d) an adherence to the laws and customs of warfare.
Islamist terrorists meet none of these conditions, and extending the protection of the conventions to them would simply announce to the world that, from a legal point of view, there's no downside to embracing terror. Blow up a nightclub or a schoolhouse or a pizza parlor and you'll still get full POW status.
Ah-ha, say the Dems. But, if we don't treat our prisoners with respect, America's brave men and women in uniform will pay the price when they fall into enemy hands.
Hello? Does anyone in the Democratic Party still read the newspapers, other than the fawning editorials of the New York Times?
If an American falls into the hands of the enemy, he's going to be all over the Internet having his head hacked off for a recruitment video or dragged through the streets and strung up on a bridge in Fallujah."

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Radical Environmentalist Agenda Speeds Global Warming

Well seems the bubblegum political junk science that animates the environmental- religion movement is about to be turned on its' head... About time!
Reuters AlertNet - Fossil fuel curbs may speed global warming-scientists: "LONDON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Cutting down on fossil fuel pollution could accelerate global warming and help turn parts of Europe into desert by 2100, according to research to be aired on British television on Thursday. 'Global Dimming', a BBC Horizon documentary, will describe research suggesting fossil fuel by-products like sulphur dioxide particles reflect the sun's rays, 'dimming' temperatures and almost cancelling out the greenhouse effect.
The researchers say cutting down on the burning of coal and oil, one of the main goals of international environmental agreements, will drastically heat rather than cool climate."

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Dems Don't Believe in Attack Politics?

USATODAY.com: "Imagine a Democratic presidential candidate and his allies assailing the character of the Republican nominee in ads and speeches every day for eight months.
Having trouble? That's because Democrats generally don't have the stomach or the discipline to do it. Often they don't even effectively fight back when under attack themselves"

Earth to USA Today.... What planet is this writer on? Dems called Bush every name in the book and invented a few new ones. They used forged documents, fake documentaries and every tool of propaganda to smear the man in every way imaginable. And it went on for FOUR YEARS!

Thanks toJames Taranto at Opinion Journal for pointing this one out.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Another Hillary Scandal

Here we go again.... another Clinton scandal. And as longtime Clinton political guru Dick Morris points out, this one, like so many in the past are correctly attributed as Hillary scandals. It's amazing that this woman has fooled so many people, so often and every time seems to come up smelling like a rose. This time will she come up smelling like a Rosen?

For anyone in need of a primer on the ethical and political development of Ms. Clinton, there are books aplenty on the subject, but this shorter read from
Insight Magazine chronicles her activity on the House Judiciary Committee as a young staffer where she studied presidential ethics and helped formulate rules of behavior that she has been shown to routinely flout herself. Another excellent example of a liberal who would apply strictures to the rest of society, while exempting their own privileged class.

New York Post Online Edition: postopinion: "THE indictment of Hillary Clinton's 2000 campaign-finance director, David Rosen, may pose a threat to the senator's presidential bid. For now, the federal indictment is focused only on Rosen, but it is not hard to see the process creeping up the campaign food chain to the senator herself.

At issue are the expenses the campaign incurred in an August 2000 fund-raiser for Hollywood glitterati. Rosen was indicted for claiming that the event cost $400,000 when, federal prosecutors allege, he knew the actual cost to be $1.1 million. Under federal campaign-finance rules, the Clinton campaign was obliged to pay for 40 percent of the cost of the fund-raiser. So, if the gala cost $400,000, the campaign had to pay only $160,000, but if the price tag was actually $1.1 million, the campaign would have been on the hook for $440,000.

By understating the cost of the party, Rosen was, in effect, giving Hillary's campaign an extra $280,000.
While there is no indication that the Senate candidate knew of the understating of the cost of the event, is it credible that she would not be aware of a decision that gave her campaign more than a quarter of a million dollars as it entered the final three months before the election?
...
Hillary has always been a detail person who kept a hawk-like focus on the cost of even her husband's campaigns. How much more involved and fixated she must have been on a major financial decision that affected her own election effort.
...
The question of who understated the cost of the Hollywood event now joins the pantheon of questions that have haunted the senator's past — Who hid the billing records? Who ordered the travel office firings? Who helped Hillary to make a killing in the commodities market? Did the first lady know her brother was paid to secure a pardon for a major drug trafficker? Did Hillary represent the Madison Bank in a fraudulent real-estate deal? Who ordered the removal of the FBI files?

Hillary's ethical obtuseness is truly Nixonian. Usually campaign-finance filing errors are so mundane that they draw light fines from the Federal Elections Commission. That her campaign committed so important a breach of the finance laws that govern elections that her finance chairman is under a federal indictment is truly extraordinary.

If young David Rosen wants to take the fall for Hillary and join the likes of Web Hubbell and Susan McDougal, who chose to languish in prison rather than tell the truth, that is his decision. But don't ask us to believe something the average 8-year-old knows can't be true — that a gain to the campaign of $280,000 was beneath Hillary's notice.

Monday, January 10, 2005

Freedom of Expression for ALL on College Campuses

NewsMax.com: America's News Page: "Goodman writes: "While many of us assume that the right is busily targeting the highest court as their last unoccupied power base, a whole subset of conservatives is after higher education."
Then Goodman names names:
"One group led by David Horowitz has been pushing an academic bill of rights aimed at what is called liberal bias." Actually my bill of rights is viewpoint neutral. It will protect leftwing students from harassment by conservative professors and conservative students from harassment by liberal professors. The fact is, however, that thanks to a 30-year blacklist imposed by the left, 90% of college professors are political leftists, and in the coming years this imbalance is going to get even worse.
Goodman explains why I am so dangerous: Conservatives have long regarded universities as the last spider holes of liberalism. They regard professors as lefty holdouts who spend their days indoctrinating the younger generation on the virtues of Che Guevara.
On this point Goodman is 100 percent accurate!
In her own article attacking me, she admits that the left wing continues to have a stranglehold on American college campuses as she writes:
"Two new studies point to campuses as oases of blue [state, liberal thinking]. The first, a survey of 1,000 academics, shows that there are seven Democrats for every Republican in the humanities and social sciences. The Democrat-Republican odds are 30 to 1 in anthropology and even 3 to 1 in economics.
A second study of voter registration records shows that Democrats outnumber Republicans 9 to 1 on the faculties of` Berkeley and Stanford.
And as a side dish, the Center for Responsive Politics reports that the biggest donors to John Kerry's campaign were employees from the University of California and from Harvard."

Goodman can’t refute what we know to be true: College campuses have become a one-party state where leftists rule.

Introduce intellectual diversity and a competition of ideas on college campuses and the political left will have to come up with a whole new set of arguments or wither on the vine.

Billions for Hate, A Pittance for Help

New York Post Online Edition: postopinion: "THE Saudi Arabian government and individual Saudis have spent billions of dollars spreading Wahhabi extremism and fostering hatred. No expense is spared to vilify Israel or the West. But when it comes to easing the misery of their fellow Muslims, the world-champ hypocrites in Riyadh just ain't interested.

As of last week, the Saudis had pledged a pitiful $20 million to the tsunami-relief effort. That's a Saudi prince's bar-and-bordello budget for a weekend in Paris. Even the devout Muslims of Indonesia's devastated Aceh province don't qualify for Saudi charity. The images of peerless suffering aren't enough to open any Arab wallets, for that matter.

It takes hatred to do that.

American government aid, private donations and military operating costs will approach a billion dollars before we're finished. The Aussies, the Japanese and even the Germans have pledged at least 500 million bucks each. But the policy of the Saudis and their oil-rich neighbors can be summed up in eight words: Big bucks for bigotry, peanuts for human suffering.

It isn't supposed to be that way. The Koran demands generous giving to needy Muslims as one of the faith's central pillars. Doesn't matter a bit to those holier-than-thou Saudis. They set themselves up as the arbiters of Islamic purity and perfection, but they demonstrate less moral integrity than prostitutes and thieves.

Outside of the Middle East, no population has been as eager to follow the Arab lead on Islamic practices as the Muslims of Aceh. They already had a thriving Koranic school in Mecca in the 15th century, where Acehnese mullahs making the Haj could study Islam's subtleties at the source. The Acehnese still turn to Meccan madrassas today, in preference to Indonesian traditions.

So much for Saudi Arabia's sense of Islamic brotherhood

....How the Saudis, with all of their self-righteousness and preaching about Islamic duties, can neglect the basic obligation of charity demanded by the Koran is so far beyond any recognizable sense of morality that words can't capture the shabbiness

....Meanwhile, U.S. Navy and Marine helicopters work around the clock to feed the starving — without asking for anybody's religious credentials. As predicted by The Post, Aceh's fundamentalist mullahs are already preaching that Allah punished the people for being insufficiently rigorous in their behavior, for being too tolerant.

The same mullahs explain away Western aid as a plot.But the people will know who helped them and who did not.

Friday, January 07, 2005

Democrats Stir Racial Tensions by Contesting Ohio Presidential Vote Count

It's nice to know that Democrats are so concerned with protecting people's right to vote that they would mount this ridiculous challenge to the results of the presidential election in Ohio. Though you hardly need to point out the number of states where the margin of victory for one candidate or the other was closer than the final Ohio result with Bush beating Kerry by over 118,000 votes.

You might wonder if their concern for the electoral process might also extend to Washington state where the Democrat candidate for governor has now been declared the winner after unverified provisional ballots were erroneously (oh sure) included in the tally (see below for other examples of Wash. State vote fraud).

With all the truly important life and death issues this nation faces you would think Democrats would have something better to do with their time. Apparently not! After all, spreading mis-information, resentments and increasing racial tensions seems to be what so many of them do best.


Democrats contest Ohio's votes - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - January 07, 2005: "Congress counted the votes in the Electoral College yesterday and certified President Bush as the winner, but only after a bitter Democratic attempt to challenge Ohio's 20 votes.
Republicans ridiculed the attempt, which Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, did not join. He was traveling in Iraq.
The Senate rejected the challenge by a vote of 74-1, and the House rejected it 267-31. All 31 members who voted for the challenge in the House were Democrats. A substantial number were members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Barbara Boxer of California, a Democrat, was the only senator who voted for the challenge, which she had sponsored. At least one senator was required to sponsor the measure to enable debate on the House challenge and to require a vote. "

Winning Hearts and Minds with Disaster Relief

The site of American helicopters and Marines is an image of fear in many backward Islamic areas of the world. Moslem's who preach hate for the United States and the West are only too willing to pray on the ignorance of their followers through the use of such images. Well now, tsunami victims in some of the most backward and radical areas of the Moslem world are seeing things differently. Helicopters and U.S. troops delivering food and medical aide with U.S. warships standing offshore to supply the needs of victims.

We're doing the right thing, offering help to those who need it. Help to those whose ignorance of our true intentions may be lessened or wiped away as quickly as the wave which devasted their lives.


CNN.com - Experts: Tsunami disaster might ease terrorism - Jan 4, 2005: "Terrorism has been no stranger to the region. Gunaratna became an expert on suicide bombings many years ago because the Tamil Tigers in his homeland began using such attacks as early as 1987.
Several hundred people were killed this past year in southern Thailand in the festering insurgency between Islamic separatists and the Thai military. And Aceh, the hardest hit area in Indonesia, is the home of GAM, a separatist group that has been waging a sporadic conflict with the Jakarta government.
It was precisely in these areas that the devastation was worst. Some of it, says Gunaratna, took a toll on the terrorist and insurgent movements, who lost both fighters and infrastructure when the waves crashed on shore.
'This is a golden opportunity for the United States,' says Gunaratna. The refrain that the United States and the West are losing the war of ideas, especially in the Muslim world, was the main topic at a recent conference about al Qaeda
But counter that with images of U.S. helicopters bringing aid to places like Aceh, delivering something that insurgents can't, and Gunaratna thinks that devastation can unwittingly bring some good. That it might overwhelm the message from bin Laden, at least in Indonesia, which is after all the most populous Islamic country in the world."

Thursday, January 06, 2005

How to Steal an Election: The Washington State Governors' Race

Basically, King County (Seattle) the biggest Democratic county in Washington state waited until all the other counties had reported their THIRD vote tally before dumping unverified provisional ballots into their count and swaying the result in favor of the Democrat in the governor's race. Anyone who requests a provisional ballot can cast it. But it is the responsibility of the local election authorities to check to see that the individual doing so is legally entitled to vote. If there is a revote, let's charter buses to Seattle and cast our own provisional ballots.

Inside Politics - The Washington Times: Inside Politics - January 06, 2005: "Republicans in Washington state yesterday said that hundreds of provisional ballots in the state's ultra-close governor's race may have been counted on Election Day without being verified.
Republicans are finding flaws in the governor's balloting and demanding a new election. After losing the first two counts, Democrat Christine Gregoire bested Republican Dino Rossi in the third count by 129 votes out of 2.9 million ballots cast.
State Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance said an admission by election workers in King County that provisional ballots had been counted without verification is 'absolute proof' of the need for a new election, the Associated Press reports.
The heavily Democratic county, which includes Seattle, was the last to turn in the figures of its hand count, after media reports had kept running tallies of the race as the other counties' recounts poured in.
'It's enough right there to invalidate the election,' Mr. Vance said. 'This is a bombshell.' "

The Diplomad: More UNreality . . . But the Dutch Get It

Sooooo..... Remember that earlier comment by that U.N. potentate suggesting the U.S. should raise taxes to give more money to the U.N. so they can help people? Here's a commentary from a career Foreign Service Office in the U.S. Department of State:

The Diplomad: More UNreality . . . But the Dutch Get It: "Well, dear friends, we're now into the tenth day of the tsunami crisis and in this battered corner of Asia, the UN is nowhere to be seen -- unless you count at meetings, in five-star hotels, and holding press conferences.

Aussies and Yanks continue to carry the overwhelming bulk of the burden, but some other fine folks also have jumped in: e.g., the New Zealanders have provided C-130 lift and an excellent and much-needed potable water distribution system; the Singaporeans have provided great helo support; the Indians have a hospital ship taking position off Sumatra. Spain and Netherlands have sent aircraft with supplies.

The UN continues to send its best product, bureaucrats. Just today the city's Embassies got a letter from the local UN representative requesting a meeting for 'Ms. Margareeta Wahlstrom, United Nations Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator and the Secretary-General's Special Coordinator for Humanitarian Assistance in Tsunami-afected countries.' Wow! Put that on a business card! And she must be really, really special because she has the word 'coordinator' twice in her title!

The letter, in typically modest UN style, goes on to explain that 'Ms. Wahlstrom's main task will be to provide leadership and support to the international relief effort. She will undertake high-level consultations with the concerned governments in order to facilitate the delivery of international assistance.' Oh, and she'll be visiting from January 4-5.

Once, again, a hearty Diplomadic 'WOW!' She's going to do all that in two days! The Australians and we have been feeding and otherwise helping tens-of-thousands of people stay alive for the past ten days, and still have a long, long way to go, but she's going to wrap the whole thing up in a couple of days of meetings. Thank goodness she's here to provide the poor lost Aussies and Yanks with leadership. The Diplomad bows in awe to such power and wisdom. The letter is signed, by the way, by the same UN official who suggested a couple of days back that the Australian and US air traffic controllers in Aceh should don UN blue (see our post of January 2.)

Ok, enough with the UN; you get the picture. Now to the EU. The EU could copy the Australian-American model of acting quickly and effectively to save lives, or they could copy the UN model of meeting at a leisurely pace to plan for the possibility of setting up a coordination center that will consider making a plan for the possibility of an operations center to consider beginning to request support for the tsunami's victims. Ah, my wise friends, guess which model of "action" the EU chose? No need to emulate those "cowboys" from Australia and the USA with their airplanes and loading crews working round-the-clock; oh, no, much too tacky, sweaty and dirty. No need to feed into the system those goofy Aussiyankeebushowardian New World Anglo-Saxons already have created. No, they'll follow the much more elegant Kofi Annan model. A couple of EU planners have shown up to begin making arrangements for an assessment team to arrive, etc., etc., you know the rest. Meanwhile, people die.
"

Saturday, January 01, 2005

Tsunami must be fault of the US

Don't you wish the conspiracy theorists and America haters would make a New Year's resolution to get some therapy? Meanwhile, in the midst of all this nonsense, the American people are pouring out more money from their own pockets to help the suffering than they did after September 11. It's way past time for the America haters to shut up and do something unusal for them: give money to help instead of gripe!

The Australian: Gerard Baker: Tsunami must be fault of the US [December 31, 2004]: "In the past three days I have been impressed by the originality of the latest critiques of the evil Americans. The earthquake and tsunami apparently had something to do with global warming, environmentalists say, caused of course by greedy American motorists. Then there was the rumour that the US military base at Diego Garcia was forewarned of the impending disaster and presumably because of some CIA-approved plot to undermine Islamic movements in Indonesia and Thailand did nothing about it.

To be fair, even the most animated America-hater, though, baulks at the idea of blaming George W. Bush for the destruction and death in southern Asia. But the US is blamed for not responding generously enough to help the victims of the catastrophe. A UN official this week derided Washington's contribution as stingy.

It is a label that fits the general image abroad of greedy, self-absorbed Americans. They neither know nor care much about the woes of the rest of the world, do they? Did the tsunami even get a look-in on US TV news between the holiday schmalz and the football games, I have been sneeringly asked once or twice this week by contemptuous British friends. "
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