Pimp Princess Congresswoman McKinney: "A victim of being in Congress while black"

When you think you've heard every excuse for criminal behavior, along comes another victimologist with a new one.

BREITBART.COM - Lawyer Says McKinney a Victim in Scuffle: A lawyer for Rep. Cynthia McKinney, the Georgia congresswoman who had an altercation with a Capitol Police officer, says she was 'just a victim of being in Congress while black.'
McKinney awaited word Friday on whether she would be charged for apparently striking the officer after she entered a House office building this week unrecognized and did not stop when asked.

Her lawyer, James W. Myart Jr., said, "Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, like thousands of average Americans across this country, is, too, a victim of the excessive use of force by law enforcement officials because of how she looks and the color of her skin."

"Ms. McKinney is just a victim of being in Congress while black," Myart said. "Congresswoman McKinney will be exonerated."

Now, you just wait until some white boy trys to pull that one off and see what happens.

And if you needed more proof of the "culture of corruption" which pervades the Democratic Party, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday labeled it "a mistake, an unfortunate lack of recognition of a member of Congress." She added that the police officer was not at fault. "I would not make a big deal of this," said Pelosi, D-Calif.

Oh, NO! Of course it's no big deal! You people are PERFECT!



Pimp Princess, Cyntia McKinney (center) shows that she also was having a bad hair day.

Flopping Aces has more gems like the racecard above as well as the story that Pimp Princess has had five run ins with Capitol Police. And apparently our Pimp Princess has a record of physically assaulting white people who dare to get in her way.

How to Explain the Iraq War to Children

Many Thanks to Mrs. R. in Hot Springs for passing this along:

The other day, my nine year old son wanted to know why we were at war ..My husband looked at our son and then looked at me. My husband and I were in the Army during the Gulf War and we would be honored to serve and defend our Country again today. I knew that my husband would give him a good explanation. My husband thought for a few minutes and then told my son to go stand in our front living room window.

He said "Son, stand there and tell me what you see?"

"I see trees and cars and our neighbor's houses." he replied.

"OK, now I want you to pretend that our house and our yard is the United States of America and you are President Bush."

Our son giggled and said "OK."

"Now son, I want you to look out the window and pretend that every house and yard on this block is a different country" my husband said.

"OK Dad, I'm pretending."

"Now I want you to stand there and look out the window and pretend you see Saddam come out of his house with his wife, he has her by the hair and is hitting her. You see her bleeding and crying. He hits her in the face, he throws her on the ground, then he starts to kick her to death . Their children run out and are afraid to stop him, they are screaming and crying, they are watching this but do nothing because they are kids and they are afraid of their father. You see all of this, son....what do you do?"

"Dad?"

" What do you do son?"

"I'd call the police, Dad."

"OK. Pretend that the police are the United Nations. They take your call. They listen to what you know and saw but they refuse to help. What do you do then son?"

"Dad.......... but the police are supposed to help!" My son starts to whine.

"They don't want to son, because they say that it is not their place or your place to get involved and that you should stay out of it," my husband says.

"But Dad...he killed her!!" my son exclaims.

"I know he did...but the police tell you to stay out of it. Now I want you to look out that window and pretend you see our neighbor who you're pretending is Saddam turn around and do the same thing to his children."

"Daddy...he kills them?"

"Yes son, he does. What do you do?"

"Well, if the police don't want to help, I will go and ask my next door neighbor to help me stop him." our son says.

"Son, our next door neighbor sees what is happening and refuses to get involved as well. He refuses to open the door and help you stop him," my husband says.

"But Dad, I NEED help!!! I can't stop him by myself!!"

"WHAT DO YOU DO SON?" Our son starts to cry.

"OK, no one wants to help you, the man across the street saw you ask for help and saw that no one would help you stop him. He stands taller and puffs out his chest. Guess what he does next son?"

"What Daddy?"

"He walks across the street to the old ladies house and breaks down her door and drags her out, steals all her stuff and sets her house on fire and then...he kills her. He turns around and sees you standing in the window and laughs at you. WHAT DO YOU DO?"

"Daddy..."

"WHAT DO YOU DO?" Our son is crying and he looks down and he whispers, "I'd close the blinds, Daddy."

My husband looks at our son with tears in his eyes and asks him. "Why?"

"Because Daddy.....the police are supposed to help people who needs them...and they won't help.... You always say that neighbors are supposed to HELP neighbors, but they won't help either...they won't help me stop him...I'm afraid....I can't do it by myself Daddy.....I can't look out my window and just watch him do all these terrible things and...and.....do nothing...so....I'm just going to close the blinds.... so

I can't see what he's doing........and I'm going to pretend that it is not happening."

I start to cry. My husband looks at our nine year old son standing in the window, looking pitiful and ashamed at his answers to my husband's questions and he says...

"Son"

"Yes, Daddy."

"Open the blinds because that man.... he's at your front door... "WHAT DO YOU DO?"

My son looks at his father, anger and defiance in his eyes. He balls up his tiny fists and looks his father square in the eyes, without hesitation he says: " I DEFEND MY FAMILY DAD!! I'M NOT GONNA LET HIM HURT MOMMY OR MY SISTER, DAD!!! I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM, DAD, I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM!!!!!"

I see a tear roll down my husband's cheek and he grabs our son to his chest and hugs him tight, and says... " It's too late to fight him, he's too strong and he's already at YOUR front door son.....you should have stopped him BEFORE he killed his wife, and his children and the old lady across the way. You have to do what's right, even if you have to do it alone, before its too late." my husband whispers. THAT scenario I just gave you is WHY we are at war with Iraq. When good men stand by and let evil happen son, THAT is the greatest atrocity in the world. "YOU MUST NEVER BE AFRAID TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO DO IT ALONE!" BE PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN! BE PROUD OF OUR TROOPS!! SUPPORT THEM!!! SUPPORT AMERICA SO THAT IN THE FUTURE OUR CHILDREN WILL NEVER HAVE TO CLOSE THEIR BLINDS..."

Anybody Got a Match? More Mexican Flags Flying Over U.S.

Got a match?

• The U.S. flag at a neighborhood complex in Jupiter, Florida was stolen and the Mexican flag raised in it's place.
• Reagan High School (Houston) Principal Robert Pambello was ordered to remove a Mexican flag Wednesday morning that he had hoisted below the U.S. and Texas flags that typically fly in front of his school — a symbol he agreed to fly to show support for his predominantly Hispanic student body. Good ole Principal Bob's email address is here in case you want to let him know what you think.

More from Houston:

The whole thing just makes my blood boil," said Bruce R. Wing, a 52-year-old Missouri City resident. "I want them all out of here."

Wing said the Houston Independent School District should fire Pambello.

HISD leaders said no decision has been made about possible discipline against the principal, who declined interview requests Wednesday.

"It is appropriate to fly the flags of the United States and Texas over schools in the Houston Independent School District, since we are a public entity of the state," HISD spokesman Terry Abbott said. "It would not be appropriate for the school district to advocate allegiance to a country other than the United States. Therefore, it is not appropriate to permit use of school district flagpoles for the purpose of flying flags representing other countries."

Raul Ramos, a professor of Texas history at the University of Houston, said most Mexican-Americans see no contradiction in flying the Mexican flag alongside those of Texas and the United States.

"Most students at Reagan High School have relatives or ancestors from Mexico," said Ramos. "The flag represents Mexican heritage as much if not more than citizenship." ...

Calling HISD's decision a reaction to cultural anxiety, he said, "it's important for the school to make efforts to identify with the student body," not vice versa. "The school, after all, reflects the ethnic identity of the students sitting in its classrooms."

Nearly 60 percent of HISD's 200,000-plus students are Hispanic.

Some Reagan students said they will try to raise a Mexican flag again today. They said they want it to fly at least above the Texas flag on the pole.

"Just because you're in the country doesn't mean you can't show your culture," said Lewis Ramirez, 16, a sophomore at Reagan High.

So apparently schools should no longer teach civics or American government. They need to "identify" with the students, not the U.S. citizen taxpayers footing the bill for this freebie? Hey! Here's a thought, Hire that socialist nut Bennish from Colorado to teach American history.

Skye gave me this idea: If identifying with your students is the norm, then what about flying the Confederate flag on schools in the South as a symbol of our heritage? Ooopsss!!! Forgot, celebrating heritage is strictly verboten if you are a white Christian.

What's next? Abolish July 4th as Independence Day so as not to "offend" these illegals? Maybe we need to just do the right thing and make Cinco de Mayo our national day. Heck, let's get rid of Christmas and Easter while we are at it and make Ramadan a holiday. Don't want to "offend" anyone do we? They might get mad.

History Channel: Saddam and Hitler

Tune In:
Friday, March 31 @ 8pm ET/PT

Few people realize that the Baath party was actually formed upon the principles and organizational structure of the Nazi party. Iraq, because of its oil and hatred of Jews, was an important battleground between the Axis and Allied powers in World War II. Nazi propaganda was broadcast throughout Baghdad, and Iraqis often went on rampages against Jews throughout the war. One of the most ardent Nazi supporters during WWII was named Khairallah Talfah. Talfah was Saddam's uncle. After the war, many of the key Iraqi Nazi supporters, all of whom evaded prosecution, wound up involved in Saddam's rise to power. This special examines the key individuals of the Iraqi-Nazi connection, the little-known battle for Iraq in WWII, and the strange link to Saddam Hussein.

Not that I expect this historical comparison to make the slightest difference to the moonbat crowd. After all, Hitler never attacked the U.S. either and half of the moonbats are still in denial about the truth of the Holocaust.

Is THIS Unpatriotic Enough For You?

If you didn't find the site of so many illegal aliens demanding rights while waving the American flag during their protests this past week, try this one on for size.

Students from area California high schools took down the American flag flying at Montebello High School in Montebello, California, and put it back upside down with the Mexican flag flying above it.

As anyone who has ever really had an education in civics can tell you the American flag is NEVER to be flown beneath another flag and ONLY flown upside down to signal an extreme emergency.

Well I guess this is an emergency!

The Montebello school district denies that any of their students took part, yet you can clearly see in the additional photographs and information that Michelle Malkin presents where students from this school were leaving the grounds and participating in the walk out.

Regardless, WHERE were the school officials when this moment of sacrilege was being committed? Another teacher's union meeting to demand more pay? School district contact information is on their web site, I encourage you to ask. Montebello High School also has a contact form on it's web site.

And right on schedule the liberal apologists were on hand to deny that this, and the host of similar events which Michelle Malkin chronicles are anything more than "stupid kids that don't know what they are doing" to paraphrase Juan Williams on Fox News Special Report Wednesday evening.

Yet the symbolism of these outrages are hard to ignore. Apparently you cannot teach an American student the history of their own country, yet these illegal aliens seem to have perfect recollection of the injustices they claim were meted out to them in the Mexican War of 1846, WHICH THEY STARTED!

As Michelle Malkin points out here and also Captain Ed the current protests are nothing more than a political movement for "Reconquista" or Aztlan a radical separatist, boldly and openly anti-American effort to retake the southern lands lost by Mexico in 1846.

It's foolish to think that any legislation coming out of Washington that legalizes the status of these aliens is going to solve the problem. Unless these illegals learn English, and also swear allegiance to the flag and to the United States, I would insist they be put on the bus back to Guadalajara tomorrow.

Convincing Americans That Iraq is Lost. How the Lamestream Media Does It.

You want to know why the lamestream media can't find any good news to report about Iraq? It's because they are too busy reporting on phony polls to convince the American people that Iraq was a mistake and Bush is a criminal.

Most people don't really want to bother thinking for themselves (present company mostly excluded) so they find it easier to pick up a paper and read a poll that tells them what the popular view to have is.

Ann Coulter did her homework for this study in media manipulation:

Bush has lost his momentum, Americans' support for the Iraq war is dwindling, and opposition to Bush policies is hardening. That's according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll being covered as if it were a real news story.

Like callers to talk radio claiming to be Republicans angry with Republicans, liberals love to pretend public opinion is always in the process of shifting in their direction. They can't win elections — Democrats have gotten a majority vote in a national election only two times since FDR was president (Lyndon Johnson in '64 and Jimmy Carter in '76). But they're always experiencing an upswing in the polls.

Clinton could never get a majority of Americans to vote for him but, according to the polls, as soon as the public found out about his sex romps with Monica, his support shot up to above 80 percent. Bush did get a majority of the country to vote for him less than two years ago. Now we're told 70 percent of Americans hate the man.

Indeed, according to the polls, the public's feeling about the war in Iraq began three years ago with fear, skepticism and dread — and steadily went downhill.

If these poll results were accurate, support for the war should be about negative 3,000 percent by now. The public would have stormed the White House, seized the president and flogged him to death.

Here's a sample of New York Times headlines on stories discussing poll numbers since before the Iraq war began in March 2003:

— Poll Finds Most in U.S. Support Delaying a War (2/14/03)

— Opinions Begin to Shift as Public Weighs Costs of War (3/26/03)

— World's View of U.S. Sours After Iraq War, Poll Finds (6/4/03)

— Study Finds Europeans Distrustful of U.S. Global Leadership (9/4/03)

— Despite Polls, Pataki Backs Bush on Iraq All the Way (10/3/03)

— Poll Finds Hostility Hardening Toward U.S. Policies (3/17/04)

— Support for War Is Down Sharply, Poll Concludes (4/29/04)

— Rising Casualties, One Falling Poll (5/2/04)

— Polls Show Bush's Job-Approval Ratings Sinking (5/14/04)

— Bush's Rating Falls to Its Lowest Point, New Survey Finds (6/29/04)

And then — despite the fact that every single man, woman and child in America opposed the war in Iraq and despised George Bush — a few months later, Bush won re-election against well-respected war hero John Kerry.

Immediately after the election, public opinion polls showed Americans turning once again against the war and against George Bush, according to the Times:

— Americans Show Clear Concerns on Bush Agenda (11/23/04)

— Public Voicing Doubts on Iraq and the Economy, Poll Finds (1/20/05)

— Bad Iraq War News Worries Some in GOP on '06 Vote (8/18/05)

— Support for Bush Continues to Drop as More Question His Leadership Skills, Poll Shows (9/15/05)

— Iraq's Costs Worry Americans, Poll Indicates (9/17/05)

— Most Americans Find Cindy Sheehan Attractive, Interesting (2/8/06). OK, I made that one up. The rest were made up by the Times.

The media are constantly telling Americans what they believe: You are dissatisfied ... You are getting more dissatisfied ... You are slowly becoming utterly dissatisfied ... Your dissatisfaction is now reaching a fever pitch!

News coverage of public opinion polls is barely justifiable in an election year. When there's no horse race, these cooked-up polls are nothing more than the mainstream media's long, monotonous brainwashing of the public.

At least the old subliminal ads for popcorn in movie theaters operated by stealth. Today's mainstream media engage in open conditioning of the public in a fantastical scheme to shift public opinion.

Noticeably, there's always an odd disconnect between what the polls say and what people actually do.

Despite the fact that — according to the polls — the "American people" are fed up with the war Iraq, only a few hundred anti-war protesters showed up in New York City last weekend. The naked cowboy in Times Square gets a bigger crowd than that.

Despite the fact that polls show the public is ready to throw in the towel on Iraq, members of the House of Representatives, or "the people's house," recently voted 403-3 against withdrawing the troops.

Despite the fact that 70 percent of the public thinks Bush is doing a lousy job, when they had a chance to put someone else in the White House a mere 15 months ago, they decided to keep him.

There is, however, one poll taken by millions of Americans every day, year in, year out. Based on plummeting viewers, circulation numbers and ad rates, we can say with some certainty, the American people are beginning to loathe the liberal media.

You ever notice how liberals are always demanding that the country be governed on the basis of their phony polls and completely disregard the outcomes of the only poll that matters (the one we take in November)?

Mexico Demanding Say in US Immigration Policy?

Blue Crab Boulevard found these nuggets at Gateway Pundit

Gateway Pundit (Damn that guy works hard) has two absolutely blistering posts up on the illegal immigration issue. One exposes the background of one of the organizers of the protests, the other calls attention to ads the Mexican Government has taken out in major newspapers demanding a say in American immigration policy.

I visited Gateway Pundit and found this excerpted from an advertisement by the Mexican Embassy in the United States.

*Mexico’s migration policy acknowledges that as long as a large number of Mexicans do not find in their own country an economic and social environment that facilitates their full development and well being, and that encourages people to stay in the country, conditions for emigrating abroad will exist.

And somehow, bad economic conditions in Mexico, due to massive corruption and complete mismanagment of the nation's very large oil wealth is the fault of the United States?

Then this:

* If a guest country (that would be the US) offers a sufficient number of appropriate visas to cover the largest possible number of workers and their families, who currently cross the border without documents because of the impossibility of obtaining them, Mexico should be responsible for guaranteeing that each person who decides to leave does so following legal channels.

Basically, unless you let in every poor unskilled person who can't feed their family in the corrupt socialist utopia of Mexico, then they refuse to take any responsibility for helping stem the tide of the illegals.

it is important to find a solution for the undocumented population that lives in the United States and contributes to the development of the country, so that people are fully incorporated into their actual communities, with the same rights and duties.

That's right... just let in every illiterate, unskilled person who wants to come and instantly grant them full "rights" (they mention duties, but somehow, those always seem to be an afterthought).

Hey Mexico! Here's an idea... Let us come down there and take over your legal system and the management of your economy. We'll clean up the corruption and put those billions of oil dollars to work helping these poor schmucks who currently have no better option than to sneak into the United States.

Mexico: You should be ASHAMED that you are unable, or unwilling to do more to help your own people, the poorest of the poor, while you continue to rape the oil wealth of your nation to enrich your already super rich citizens.

The protests in American cities SHOULD BE TAKING PLACE IN MEXICO! Does anyone else find it strange that Mexican's come here illegally to demand "rights" and justice?

I could go ON AND ON... See the Gateway Pundit or Blue Crab Boulevard for more.

While you are visiting Gateway Pundit, you will want to see this post on the whackos behind some of the illegals protest.

Trends in Math Education

Thanks to Fursey, in Washington, D.C. for tossing this over the wall:

Math 1950-2005

Last week I purchased a burger at Burger King for $1.58. The counter girl took my $2 and I was digging for my change when I pulled 8 cents from my pocket and gave it to her. She stood there, holding the nickel and 3 pennies, while looking at the screen on her register. I sensed her discomfort and tried to tell her to just give me two quarters, but she hailed the manager for help. While he tried to explain the transaction to her, she stood there and cried. Why do I tell you this?

Because of the evolution in teaching math since the 1950s:

1. Teaching Math In 1950

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

2. Teaching Math In 1960

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

3. Teaching Math In 1970

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?

4. Teaching Math In 1980

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

5. Teaching Math In 1990

A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers.)

6. Teaching Math In 2005

Un hachero vende una carretada de maderapara $100. El costo de la producciones es $80.

President Unveils Immigration Security Strategy

Just like the rest of President Bush's agenda, distortions of his immigration security and reform programs, wrought by selected media soundbites have caused concern in the conservative base, which places high value on immigration security and reform.

Today, President Bush attended a naturalization ceremony for new U.S. citizens at the Daughters of the American Revolution headquarters in Washington, D.C.

And since it is clear that many of those concerned about this issue will not get more information than one of those tiny soundbites on the evening news, followed by several minutes of" why it won't work" commentary, I'm going to provide an extensive excerpt.

From a White House Transcript:

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Thank you very much. It's good to be with you. I am grateful for the chance to witness this joyous and uplifting ceremony. It is inspiring to see people of many different ages, many different countries raise their hands and swear an oath to become citizens of the United States of America.

For some of you, this day comes after a long and difficult journey. For all of you, this is a defining moment in your lives. America is now more than your home; America is your country. I welcome you to this free nation. I congratulate you and your families, and it's an honor to call you fellow Americans.
...
Our immigrant heritage has enriched America's history. It continues to shape our society. Each generation of immigrants brings a renewal to our national character and adds vitality to our culture. Newcomers have a special way of appreciating the opportunities of America, and when they seize those opportunities, our whole nation benefits.
...
America's welcoming society is more than a cultural tradition, it is a fundamental promise of our democracy. Our Constitution does not limit citizenship by background or birth. Instead, our nation is bound together by a shared love of liberty and a conviction that all people are created with dignity and value. Through the generations, Americans have upheld that vision by welcoming new citizens from across the globe -- and that has made us stand apart.

One of my predecessors, President Ronald Reagan, used to say this, "You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Japan, but you cannot become Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the world, can come to live in America and be an American."

The new Americans we welcome today include men and women from 20 countries on five continents. Their ages range from 18 to 59, and they work as teachers and small business managers, and nurses, and software engineers and other professions.

One new citizen is Veronica Pacheco. Veronica first came to the United States from Bolivia 15 years ago. In 2000, she moved here permanently and found a job at a catering company in Virginia. Every Friday and Saturday, she spent five hours studying English at the local community college. Over the years she saved enough money to buy her own townhouse. Here's what Veronica says about America: "This is a country of opportunity. If you want to be successful, you can do it. You can have your dreams come true here."

Another new citizen is Masoon Shaheen. Masoon grew up in Kuwait, and moved to the United States with her husband seven years ago. She enrolled in the community college to improve her English, took a job teaching Marines to speak Arabic. Here's what Masoon said: "The United States is a symbol of justice, freedom and liberty. I love that. Here they respect people because they are people. I feel I am honored, and I feel that I'm loved."
...
All who swear the oath of citizenship are doing more than completing a legal process. They're making a lifelong pledge to support the values and the laws of America. The pledge comes with great privileges, and it also comes with great responsibilities. I believe every new citizen has an obligation to learn the customs and values that define our nation, including liberty and civic responsibility, equality under God, tolerance for others, and the English language.
...
America is a nation of immigrants, and we're also a nation of laws. All of you are here because you followed the rules and you waited your turn in the citizenship line. Yet some violate our immigration laws and enter our country illegally, and that undermines the system for all of us. America should not have to choose between being a welcoming society and being a lawful society. We can be both at the same time. And so, to keep the promise of America, we must enforce the laws of America.

We must also reform those laws. No one is served by an immigration system that allows large numbers of people to sneak across the border illegally. Nobody benefits when illegal immigrants live in the shadows of society. Everyone suffers when people seeking to provide for their families are left at the mercy of criminals, or stuffed in the back of 18-wheelers, or abandoned in the desert to die. America needs comprehensive immigration reform.

I've laid out a proposal for comprehensive immigration reform that includes three critical elements: securing the border, strengthening the immigration enforcement inside our country, and creating a temporary worker program. These elements depend on and reinforce one another, and together they will give America an immigration system that meets the needs of the 21st century.

The first element is securing our border. Our immigration system cannot function if we cannot control the border. Illegal immigration puts a strain on law enforcement and public resources, especially in our border communities. Our nation is also fighting a war on terror, and terrorists crossing the border could create destruction on a massive scale. The responsibility of government is clear: We must enforce the border.

Since I took office, we've increased funding for border security by 66 percent. We've expanded the Border Patrol to more than 12,000 agents, an increase of more than 2,700 agents. And the budget next year funds another 1,500 new agents. We're helping these dedicated men and women do their jobs by providing them with cutting-edge technology, like infrared cameras, advanced motion sensors, and unmanned aerial vehicles. We're installing protective infrastructure, such as vehicle barriers and fencing in urban areas, to prevent people from crossing the border illegally. And we're integrating manpower and technology and infrastructure in more unified ways than ever. Our objective is to keep the border open to trade and tourism, and closed to criminals and drug dealers and terrorists.

Our strategy to secure the border is getting results. Since I took office, our agents have apprehended and sent home more than 6 million people entering this country illegally, including more than 400,000 with criminal records. Federal, state and local and travel enforcement officials are working side-by-side. Through the Arizona Border Control Initiative we apprehended more than 600,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona last year. The men and women of our Border Patrol have made good progress, but we have much more work ahead and we cannot be satisfied until we're in full control of the border.

We're also changing the way we process those we catch crossing the border illegally. More than 85 percent of the illegal immigrants we apprehend are from Mexico, and most are sent back home within 24 hours. We face a different challenge with non-Mexicans. For decades, government detention facilities did not have enough beds for the non-Mexican illegal immigrants caught at the border and so most were released back into society. They were each assigned a court date, but virtually nobody showed up. This practice, catch-and-release, is unwise, and my administration is going to end it.

To end catch-and-release, we're increasing the number of beds and detention facilities by 12 percent this year, and by another 32 percent next year. We're also expanding our use of a process called expedited removal, which allows us to send non-Mexican illegal immigrants home more quickly.

Last year, it took an average of 66 days to process one of these illegal immigrants. Now, we're doing it in 21 days. The goal is to increase the process faster. It's helped us end the catch-and-release for illegal immigrants from Brazil and Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua caught crossing our Southwest border. And since last summer, we've cut the number of non-Mexican illegal immigrants released in society by more than a third. We've set a goal to end catch-and-release over the next year. I look forward to working with Congress to close loop holes that makes it difficult for us to process illegal immigrants from certain countries. And we will continue to press foreign governments, like China, to take back their citizens who have entered our country illegally.

When illegal immigrants know they're going to be caught and sent home, they will be less likely to break the rules in the first place. And the system will be more orderly and secure for those who follow the law.

The second part of a comprehensive immigration reform is strengthening enforcement of our laws in the interior of our country. Since I took office, we've increased funding for immigration enforcement by 42 percent, and these resources have helped our agents bring to justice some very dangerous people: smugglers, terrorists, gang members, and human traffickers. For example, through Operation Community Shield, federal agents have arrested nearly 2,300 gang members who were here illegally, including violent criminals like the members of MS-13.

Better interior enforcement also requires better work site enforcement. Businesses have an obligation to abide by the law. The government has the responsibility to help them do so. Last year, I signed legislation to more than double the resources dedicated to work site enforcement. We'll continue to confront the problem of document fraud, because hard-working business owners should not have to act as detectives to verify the status of their workers.

Next month, we're going to launch law enforcement task forces in 11 major cities to dismantle document fraud rings. We're working to shut down the forgers who create the phony documents to stop the smugglers who traffic in human beings, and to ensure that American businesses are compliant with American law.

The third part of comprehensive immigration reform is to make the system more rational, orderly, and secure by creating a new temporary worker program. This program would provide a legal way to match willing foreign workers with willing American employers to fill the jobs that Americans are unwilling to do. Workers should be able to register for legal status on a temporary basis. If they decide to apply for citizenship, they would have to get in line. This program would help meet the demands of a growing economy and would allow honest workers to provide for their families while respecting the law.

A temporary worker program is vital to securing our border. By creating a separate legal channel for those entering America to do an honest day's labor, we would dramatically reduce the number of people trying to sneak back and forth across the border. That would help take the pressure off the border and free up law enforcement to focus on the greatest threats to our security, which are criminals and drug dealers and terrorists.
...
One thing the temporary worker program should not do is provide amnesty for people who are in our country illegally. I believe granting amnesty would be unfair, because it would allow those who break the law to jump ahead of people like you all, people who play by the rules and have waited in the line for citizenship.

Amnesty would also be unwise, because it would encourage future waves of illegal immigration, it would increase pressure on the border and make it difficult for law enforcement to focus on those who mean us harm. For the sake of justice and border security, I firmly oppose amnesty.

P.S. If I see one more illegal alien carrying a Mexican flag and demanding full access to the American dream, I am going to scream.

Day of Reckoning Soon to Arrive for Liberals in Denial?

During a recent interview I was asked to define the term "moonbat." I was surprised that the reporter had not heard the term before, but heck, blogs are new media and sometimes the old tree-chopper newspapers are still a tad behind the times.

Allow me to define "moonbat" in very simple terms. A moonbat is a liberal or socialist who either:

• Continues to deny the plain truth when it is readily apparent, or
• One who willfully remains ignorant of information which contradicts his or her ideological viewpoint, or
• One who engages in Orwellian delusions, often confusing, if not reversing , the meanings of good and evil.

The worst form of this condition is a moonbat who suffers from all three symptoms simultaneously.

And at some point, history or reality gets in the way. This was in clear evidence with the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union. An event that took place due to the vision and persistence of leaders like President Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul the Great.

President Reagan set the stage for our victory in the Cold War with a direct challenge to the moonbats of the day. In this speech to the British Parliament in 1982 (remembered here during our Reagan Anniversary celebration) he said:

If history teaches anything it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly. ...[W]e see totalitarian forces in the world who seek subversion and conflict around the globe to further their barbarous assault on the human spirit. What, then, is our course? Must civilization perish in a hail of fiery atoms? Must freedom wither in a quiet, deadening accommodation with totalitarian evil?

And yet in snarky dens of delusional socialist moonbats you will still find some who deny the honest truth of those words vindicated by history.

Moonbat Day of Reckoning on the Horizon?

Recent disclosures from the treasure trove of Saddam era intelligence documents make me wonder if we might soon see a day when moonbats in denial may just call in sick and stay in bed rather than face what President Reagan called "unpleasant facts."

In what is just the tip of the iceberg from this mountain of information which is being released we learn that the relationship between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden was much closer than the one previously described in either the 9/11 Commission Report or the Senate Intelligence Committee report on pre-war intelligence.

The New York Sun offers an assessment of the relevance of this new material. The comments from 9/11 Commission member, former Senator Bob Kerry are bound to give moonbats heartburn:

The new documents suggest that the 9/11 commission's final conclusion in 2004, that there were no "operational" ties between Iraq and Al Queda, may need to be reexamined in light of the recently captured documents.

While the commission detailed some contacts between Iraq and Al Queda in the 1990s, in Sudan and Afghanistan, the newly declassified Iraqi documents provide more detail than the commission disclosed in its final conclusions. For example, the fact that Saddam broadcast the sermons of Al Queda at bin Laden's request was previously unknown, as was a conversation about possible collaboration on attacks against Saudi Arabia.

"This is a very significant set of facts," former 9/11 commissioner, Mr. Kerry said yesterday. "I personally and strongly believe you don't have to prove that Iraq was collaborating against Osama bin Laden on the September 11 attacks to prove he was an enemy and that he would collaborate with people who would do our country harm. This presents facts should not be used to tie Saddam to attacks on September 11. It does tie him into a circle that meant to damage the United States."

Meanwhile, our moonbat "friends" have moved from an absolute denial of a link between Saddam and bin Laden, encouraged as they were by headlines in the lamestream media to a denial of an "operational" link based on the 9/11 and Senate Intell Reports. This new information demonstrates that an operational link did exist. Saddam did authorize propaganda broadcasts by an Islamic Cleric designed to undermine the Saudi monarchy.

Is there more? We shall see.

This mural captured by American forces in Iraq depicting Saddam's pleasure at the September 11th atrocities makes one wonder if there might be more to come regarding Saddam's role in 9/11 contained in the recently disclosed files.

Will this new information make the slightest dent in the wall of willful ignorance and delusion that surrounds moonbats? I have often said we could show Saddam Hussein on an airport security videotape, dropping off the 9/11 hijackers, his fingerprints on the steering wheel, DNA on the cigar butt in the ashtray a direct match to him and some of these folks would still say that 9/11 was George Bush's fault for supporting Israel, or that George Bush ordered the attack.

They are a pretty crafty bunch these delusionists. When reality boxes them into a corner they shift the goal posts and change the subject.

You can't blame them really. They learned at the hands of their master, Bill Clinton. When giving testimony in the Paula Jones sexual harassment trial he was confronted with his lies regarding Monica Lewinsky. Who can forget that videotape of him angry and redfaced with his answer "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

All the garbage the moonbats spewed about Iraq not being part of the war on terror, all about oil, and so on is starting to crumble. Their one hope is that Hillary wins the presidency in 2008 and refuses to hold Syria accountable for hiding the elusive weapons of mass destruction which we know from the Duelfer Report existed even if we didn't quite believe Bill Clinton and nearly every Democrat leader who echoed similar sentiments in the late 1990's.

And as a reminder for those who might prefer to forget, let's do our part to save the environment from the pollution of moonbat ignorance and recycle this golden oldie:

Commentary provided by "The War Room with Quinn and Rose." Thanks to Cao's Blog for pointing me to the source.

If you prefer the video news report without commentary, it is here by way of Media Research.

More on this topic from a post last November: "No hype needed: Saddam al-Qaida Linked."
And the thoroughly researched "Who is Ramzi Yousef and Why You Should Care."

A special audio treat: Turn up the sound and wait for the download "Bush Was Right" by that intrepid group The Right Brothers. I've been saving this one for a while and thanks to Trucker Philosophy for finding it. I've added the download link to the sidebar along with the ever popular look into Ramzi Yousef. Visit Right Brothers for more great audio.

Immigrant Protests: American Dream or Mexican Welfare?

What a touchy issue immigration is!

I don't know who we would find to mow the lawns and run the leaf blowers if we packed all the illegal aliens back to Mexico.

But the fact is that many of them are here ILLEGALLY. And that makes them criminals and that criminal practice exposes this nation to more risk than an Arab company with American executives taking over the leases of a handful of terminals at fewer ports.

The protests this weekend by Hispanic immigrants illustrates what a problem this is. Many of them do work hard, and God bless them for doing so. And we cannot ignore, nor will we, the contributions they make to our economy.

But is it too much to ask that they participate in our economy and our society LEGALLY?

One of the news channels interviewed a participant in the protests: "We are being treated like criminals!" You mean like people who BREAK LAWS to get into this country? Big surprise.



From an AP report of the protests in Phoenix, this quote: "They're here for the American Dream," said Malissa Greer, 29, who joined a crowd estimated by police to be at least 10,000 strong. "God created all of us. He's not a God of the United States, he's a God of the world."

OK... Fine... God is not the God of the United States. We've seen similar renditions of that "we should all have a say in the U.S." kind of crap from Europeans and the U.N. You are free to go back to Mexico or wherever, and worship God however you choose. Note: you might want to skip the Muslim countries if you are a Christian. I notice breaking into Islamic states isn't real high on your list. Doesn't seem like you want to try your luck in Venezuela or Cuba either.

And from the L.A. Times report:

"500 Huntington Park High School students waved Mexican flags, held balloons colored green, white and red, and periodically broke into cheers of "Mexico! Mexico!"

Perhaps those student at Hungtington Park High had a geography teacher in the mold of Colorado's Bennish. But I am sorry to inform them that this is the United States of America, not the United States of Mexico. And if you want to walk around protesting against this country, it undermines your cause to do so carrying so many Mexican flags. Try chanting "USA, USA" and wave the Star Spangled banner... Otherwise, get on the bus and go BACK TO MEXICO!


It's clear that a number of immigrants view this nation as a cash cow Western hemisphere welfare system. Some might prefer that portions of our country return to Mexican control altogether (see post regarding Los Angeles sign pictured right).

Sorry to disappoint you. That's not going to happen. And if you want to "live the American dream" then do what every other immigrant group that has realized that dream has done and ASSIMILATE LEGALLY!

No more Mr. Nice Guy here at Mike's America. If you, or Muslims or any other group that decides to live here cannot have the good sense to:

A. Immigrate here legally
B. Learn the language

And it would help if we added:

C. Vote Republican to find a future without the shackles of the corrupt, failed socialist/statist policies that so crippled the nations who motivate you to move here.

Then perhaps you ought to cash in that last check from the lawn service company and buy a one way ticket BACK to Mexico.

It's PAST time we sealed both our borders and enforced our laws. Republicans should stand up on this issue, and enforce our laws as President Bush suggested in his weekly radio address. Here's his address in Spanish in case you are overly challenged by English. As the political debate over immigration proceeds this week in Congress, let Democrats defend law breaking, they're experts at it.

Dem Dirty Trickster Working for Senator Schumer Pleads Guilty

Interesting....

Democrat Pleads Guilty in Steele Case: A Democratic researcher pleaded guilty yesterday to misrepresenting herself on a Web site as Michael S. Steele, Maryland's lieutenant governor and a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, and fraudulently obtaining his credit report last summer.
...
E. Mark Braden, who attended the hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington, said a "statement of the offense" released yesterday contains several troubling details about the episode, including Weiner's use of a committee credit card to access Steele's report over the Internet.

The discovery process of a civil suit would allow Steele to learn more about what happened, Braden said. "I don't think the story is necessarily over," he said. "This answers some questions but not all questions. We'll have to see where we go from here. . . . This was a carefully calculated plan to steal private information."

The episode took place in July as both parties started investigating the backgrounds of candidates in Maryland's marquee races this year.
...
According to the statement, Weiner's superiors were notified within hours of the episode, and the report was destroyed the next morning before it could be disseminated. Weiner and her boss, the committee's director of research, later resigned.

I hope Steele goes ahead with the civil suit so we can get to the bottom of what was going on at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, headed by Senator Chuck Schumer (Defeaticrat-NY).

In a post on Senator Schumer's ties to a company behind the Dubai ports scandal, A defender of the culture of corruption surrounding Senator Schumer insisted that the Democrats fired this woman "immediately" for her action.

The facts, as I pointed out on that comment thread are that Weiner resigned in SEPTEMBER, even though the illegal act was immediately known to her superiors.

Just another example, in case any were needed, that Dems will dispense falsehoods in an effort to obuscate the culture of corruption that is so clearly evident in their own party.

I wonder if the commenter will now issue a correction or does he or she work for CBS News and feel that "fake but accurate" is the way to go?

My Encounter with Bill & Hillary Clinton

My recent post "Who Wears the Pants in the Clinton Family" reminded me that I had not told the story of my own personal encounter of the famous couple in a while.

Any of us who pay keen attention to politics and the Clintons realized the power that the former First Lady holds over her wayward husband. We didn't need to be reminded by former Press Secretary Dee Dee Meyers of how Mrs. Clinton saved Bill's fledgling campaign in New Hampshire in 1992 by appearing with him on 60 Minutes to deflect the Genifer Flowers scandal (which should have let us all know what we were in for).

And it was certainly confirmation of the role Mrs. Clinton played in his campaigns and Administration to read tell-all accounts such as "Unlimited Access" by Gary Aldrich or "Rewriting History" by Dick Morris (chapter excerpt here).

But there really is nothing like a little one on one, a close and relatively private experience of the first couple, to provide that spark of illumination which confirms what we've read and heard for so many years.

So here goes...

It was lunchtime on a fine day in late spring when I left my office at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at the Fairchild Building on South Capitol Street in Washington, D.C. I walked up Ivy Street past the Headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. I noticed a limo in the street in front of the headquarters and instantly recognized Bill Clinton, then Governor of Arkansas, standing in the street. This was a few weeks after he had sewn up his parties nomination for President and it was several weeks before the nominating convention. He did not have Secret Service protection at the time.

I thought it odd that here he was standing in this quiet side street in front of the party headquarters and there were no well-wishers or job seekers surrounding him, even though everyone in the building, looking out the rather large windows could see that he was about to leave.

There was only one individual with him, and her back was to me. All I could see was blond hair and she appeared to be giving him the business with her finger pointing him in the face as he just stood there. From the rear she looked like the typical Capitol Hill staff clone.

My first thought was "who is this campaign worker that would dare to read the boss the riot act in front of their party headquarters?"

I cannot imagine in any of the campaigns that I worked on, any staffer dare to behave in such a fashion towards the boss.

It wasn't until I walked directly past them on the sidewalk just feet away that I realized who she was: Madame Dufarge herself, Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Of course you know I had the good manners to keep on moving, and not just stop and stare at the spectacle which was visible to everyone in the office building behind the three of us. I realize that will be hard for screeching socialists to accept, since if they were in a similar encounter with one of the Bush's they might have begun protesting, or throwing pies.

Could it be that during their time inside the headquarters Bill was getting chatty with the receptionists? I can't answer for that. I can only relate what I know to be a fact.

I was too embarrassed to do much but avert my eyes and keep on walking. And no doubt, the not so subtle message I witnessed was being telegraphed to those watching inside the building: "I saved this campaign, and you owe me. You better wise up. Cross me and you are toast!"

Every eyewitness account I've heard or read since regarding the nature of Mrs. Clinton's personality has only confirmed what I saw that day when the three of us shared a moment on Ivy Street, one fine spring day.

I realize that many of our Democrat "friends" choose to be ignorant about the real nature of this woman, just as many seem to have forgotten the Clinton era concern expressed by every senior member of their party on the dangers of Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

But recall the words of Lincoln:

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
Abraham Lincoln, (attributed)

16th president of US (1809 - 1865)

Also posted at the Wide Awakes

Anti-War Peacenik Hostages in Iraq Rescused by Military, Home Group Denounces Military

Well here's good news. Three members of the Christian Peacemaker Team who were held hostage in Iraq the past four months were rescued by a joint American and British military operation. This is the same military that the CPT described as occupiers who illegally detained Iraqis suspected of terrorism and war crimes.

The fourth hostage, Tom Fox, who was apparently murdered by his captors had left instructions, that he not be rescued. His daughter, in a December interview on Nightline said the following:

KATHERINE FOX: In that he, before he left, he wrote a very concise, precise statement of conscience and conviction, that if he were to ever be taken hostage that he does not support violent means to come in and to potentially release him, to rescue him. That he doesn't support that way of dealing with the problem. That there needs to be talks. That we need to keep seeing these people as human beings.

He got his wish.

After Today's hostage rescue, the Christian Peaceniks released the following statement (CPT web site):

Our hearts are filled with joy today as we heard that Harmeet Singh Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember have been safely released in Baghdad. ...

We give thanks for the compassionate God who granted our friends courage and who sustained their spirits over the past months.
...
We pray that Christians throughout the world will, in the same spirit, call for justice and for respect for the human rights of the thousands of Iraqis who are being detained illegally by the U.S. and British forces occupying Iraq.

During these past months, we have tasted of the pain that has been the daily bread of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Why have our loved ones been taken? Where are they being held? Under what conditions? How are they? Will they be released? When?

"Released?" Really? Not a single word of thanks for the efforts of the brave troops that saved these fools lives!

And they continue to defend their captors and not a single word for the children murdered by the car bombs and IEDs that those "illegally" detained were using to kill and spread terror in Iraq.

Not a single prayer or word of mention for the MILLIONS of Iraqis whose family members will NEVER return from the mass graves, prisons and torture chambers that Saddam filled for over a quarter century.

Perhaps one day these appeasers of genocidal butchers can explain what justice there is for Hekeema Nagiy (photo right) who cries as she searches for the bodies of her two missing sons at the mass graves in Hilla, Iraq. The leftwing Guardian newspaper from the U.K. has a photographic record of this crime here.

These Christian Peacemaker Teams are a sad bunch indeed! What Christian doesn't want to end violence, bring peace and restore Justice? Espcially to areas of the world scarred so long by evil?
Yet the CPT sends fools to Iraq to protest the actions of the only force for good in that troubled land: our coalition military forces.

The "peace at any price" crowd that these people represent show us the way to salvation: It is the peace of the grave at the hands of evil men.

Sorry, but if we ask "what would Jesus do?" I don't imagine his answer would be to submit to horrific torture and death at the hands of lunatics. He died for our sins so that we could live, not die.

When the Sh#t Hits, Government Puts Up Warning Signs

WKMG TV:Bird Droppings Prompt Orlando Warning Signs:

Signs warning of bird droppings were posted along a stretch in downtown Orlando this week after cars, benches, sidewalks, plants and even people are hit and covered by the white bird waste, according to a Local 6 News report.

The problem began when city workers removed cypress trees on "bird island" at Lake Eola in Orlando.

The trees had to be removed because the bird droppings were polluting the water, according to the report.



Now, the birds have moved into the city and are covering anything and anyone between Lake Eola and Central Avenue with droppings.

"You have to brace yourself for the smell," downtown resident James Taylor said. "It is a really bad stench. It is disgusting, absolutely disgusting."

"I was walking the other day and got pooed on walking under these trees," Orlando resident Lisa Valentine said. "Somebody told me it was good luck."

"The white film cakes the light posts along Lake Eloa," Local 6 reporter Todd Jurkowski said. "It is on the sidewalks and on the plants."

Officials said Orlando city workers pressure wash a stretch of the sidewalk at least twice a week.

Signs with the warning, "Caution -- Entering Bird Dropping Area" were posted Tuesday.

"Don't sit on the benches, unless you are very brave," resident Jeff Miller said.

Some people don't let the bird droppings bother them and continue to eat lunch around the droppings.

"Based on what I saw on that car, I got to believe there is no (expletive) left in them," resident Alex Hartley said.

Federal law prohibits the bird nests in Orlando from being disturbed.

What do you bet they will institute a droppings warning system. The threat today is REALLY poopy!

Who Wears the Pants in Clinton Family?

With all the heavy issues we've discussed lately I thought it was time for some levity. Here's an interesting strory from the New York Daily News:

I'm boss, Hil tells Bill

Senator's word is now 'final,' says the ex-Prez

BY KENNETH R. BAZINET
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

After being surprised by her husband's role in the Dubai ports deal, Sen. Hillary Clinton has insisted that Bill Clinton give her "final say" over what he says and does, well-placed sources said.

The former President agreed to give his wife a veto to avoid his habit of making controversial headlines that could hurt her chances of returning to the White House, multiple sources told the Daily News.

"He knows it's Hillary's time now," said an adviser close to both Clintons who expects to play a key role in her likely 2008 presidential campaign.

Hillary Clinton's handlers are keeping a close rein on the former President's schedule to try to prevent another embarrassing screwup like their competing roles in the Dubai ports deal.

While she was blasting the Bush administration for allowing Dubai to run six of the country's ports, he was advising Dubai on how to sell the deal.

"Hillary has final say," said the adviser, and the ex-President's staff has been warned not to do or say anything without running it by the senator's handlers.

"That was true in the White House during the [2000] Senate campaign," recalled another longtime aide who stayed close to the ex-President after he left office. "If he said the sky was blue and she said the sky was purple, then the sky was purple."

Hillary Clinton's aides denied that her husband's comments have been a liability but concede she is calling the shots.

"Since she got elected five years ago and given their hectic schedules, it is more interesting how little there has been of this," said the senator's campaign spokeswoman Ann Lewis, referring to their contradictory statements.

"She is the elected official. She makes the ultimate decisions," Lewis said.

Bill Clinton's spokesman Jay Carson added, "Anyone who says he is doing everything he can to help her get reelected is absolutely right."

The Hillary camp recognizes the 42nd President's enormous political value to her race for the White House.

To boost his spouse's Oval Office bid, the former President is hosting several get-togethers around the country with ex-staffers and is planning some regional town hall meeting and panel discussions to talk about success stories from what Hillary Clinton likes to call "our administration."

Bill Clinton will cite expanding the earned income tax credit and balancing the federal budget, Clinton insiders say. He's also a star attraction at fund-raisers for his wife.

Still, the senator's advisers are trying to put a muzzle on her husband's more controversial comments and actions that have hindered her effort to paint herself as a national security hawk - a crucial part of her political makeover.

The Dubai port controversy was the latest episode that allowed her critics to charge she was being politically duplicitous. Because of their contrasting actions, the Clintons were lampooned by conservatives, and Hillary Clinton faded away as a leading voice of criticism for the ports deal.

The ex-President also sent his spokesman as well as his wife's handlers scrambling when he lashed out at President Bush during a speech in Dubai last November, saying the Iraq war was "a big mistake." Hillary Clinton has supported the war.

Bill Clinton jokingly admits he's a liability. "It's fun to be able to say what you want, and I do that, but I do try to avoid doing anything that complicates Hillary's life," he says in a now-routine line in his public remarks.

The senator's camp knows, however, when it's politically prudent to put her near her husband, like when they visited victims of Hurricane Katrina, the funeral for Coretta Scott King and in Israel at the anniversary of the assassination of Mideast peacemaker Yitzhak Rabin.

It's really nothing new though is it? After all, anyone who knows the first thing about the former first couple knows she's been calling the shots (an unfortunate term after Dick Cheney's recent experience) for years.

The Failure of Socialism: The French Example

Thanks to reader "Expat" for a reminder on the importance of what is happening today in France. Believe it or not, but the French really do have lessons they can teach Americans. Lessons like the failure of socialism and how to avoid societal collapse:

Socialism Makes People WorseBy Dennis Prager

Throughout much of last week, hundreds of thousands of students in France were angrily protesting.

They have been joined by the major French labor unions, which are threatening a general strike.

And what is this all about?

It is all about a new law in France that allows a company to fire a person under the age of 26, without cause, within two years of being hired.

Wow. Imagine that. You might get fired from your first job.

As it happens, the whole point of the law was to encourage companies to hire young people.

The unemployment rate among young people in France is 23 percent. And in many suburbs, it is double that. Meanwhile, French companies are understandably loath to hire 22-year-olds when they cannot fire them except "for cause," which under union rules means something like committing mass murder in the workplace.
What these massive demonstrations reveal is the narcissism, laziness and irresponsibility inculcated by socialist societies.

Enough generations of socialist policies have now passed for us to judge their effects. They are bleak. Socialism undermines the character of a nation and of its citizens. In simpler words, socialism makes people worse.

These young people in France really believe that they should be able to be hired at their tender ages and that a company must not be allowed to fire them from their first day at work (except "for cause," which, as we are learning in America, is increasingly difficult to establish). In America, most of us would call the French young people's attitudes "spoiled."

Socialism teaches its citizens to expect everything, even if they contribute nothing.
Socialism teaches its citizens that they have a plethora of rights and few corresponding obligations -- except to be taxed.

And that is why the citizens of less socialist -- and more religious -- America give more charity per capita and per income than do citizens of socialist countries. That is why Americans volunteer time for the needy so much more than citizens of socialist countries do. That is why citizens of conservative states in America give more charity than citizens of liberal states do. The more Left one identifies oneself on the political spectrum, the more that person is likely to believe that the state, not fellow citizens, should take care of the poor and the needy.

Under socialism, one is not only liberated from having to take care of oneself; one is also liberated from having to take care of others. The state will take care of me and of everybody else.

The same holds true for foreign affairs. Why did the conservative government of Spain support the American war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq and send troops there, while the Spanish socialists withdrew Spanish troops as soon as they were voted into office? Because the idea of risking one's life to bring freedom to others -- or to risk one's life for another nation for just about any reason -- is alien to the socialist mindset.

Similarly, in the great litmus test of moral acuity -- the Middle East -- socialist countries and parties virtually all line up behind the Palestinians. They do so either out of moral confusion or out of cowardice -- it takes a lot more courage to support Israel than to support the Palestinians and the whole Muslim world.

The socialist idea sounded altruistic to those who began it, and it sounds altruistic to the naive who believe in it today. In practice, however, it creates self-centered individuals and a narcissistic society. So while it may have begun as a way to help others, it has come to mean a way of evading responsibility for oneself and for others.

That is why France is so frightened of the utterly rational idea that a young person should have a two-year trial period at work before being granted a lifetime job. Such an innovation in France would mean that young people would have to work hard and earn the right to lifetime employment. But if socialism means anything, it means that one shouldn't have to earn anything. One merely has to breathe.

As much as America has been adversely affected by socialist thought, it is still inconceivable that in America hundreds of thousands of students would shut down their schools in order to gain the right not to be fired by the first company that hires them. But every time America's socialists, the Democrats, prevail in an election, we move in that direction. No matter how pure their motives, the Left makes America and its citizens less noble people, just like the spoiled French students.

Socialim: It's failed every time it's been tried. So why do socialists just keep trying?

Talk about being stuck on stupid!

If Bush is Hitler, What is Venezuela's Hugo Chavez?

What would Cindy Sheehan, Jesse Jackson and the Hollywood left do if President Bush changed the constitution to allow him to stay in office for an indefinite term without facing re-election?

What would they say if he passed a law that made it a crime to insult him?

How would they react if he summarily fired workers who opposed his policies, wiretapped, then broadcast their phone calls on television, ordered troops to shoot protestors, closed down radio and television stations?

What would their reaction be if President Bush refused to provide funds to state governments controlled by Democrats?

They would go absolutely bonking crazier than they are already! Yet, these same lovers of freedom embrace Hugo Chavez, the dictator of Venezuela, who has done all that and more:
RealClearPolitics The Man Who Controls Venezuela By Peter Mork

Jesse, Cindy, Ed Asner and the rest of the hate America left have all made pilgrimages to Venezuela to heap praise on Chavez for all he is doing for (or TO) the Venezuelan people.

It's called democracy leftist style. Change election laws to create a one party Marxist state and jail, torture (the real kind, not Guantanamo) and kill anyone who dares to object.

Do that and the America hating left will shower you with praise.

For Socialist Brain Washer Bennish: Not Even A Slap On the Wrist!

An excellent wrap-up of the Colorado School Teacher controversy by the man who first brought it to national media attention. From the Rocky Mountain News, "Not Even a Slap on the Wrist" by Mike Rosen:

There were no surprises in the resolution of the Bennish affair. He kept his job and Cherry Creek Schools paid lip service to the virtues of balance and fairness in a platitudinous official statement issued last Friday by Superintendent Monte Moses.

In fact, I offered my radio listeners a near-verbatim prediction of it several days earlier. I was wrong in one element. I thought Bennish would at least get a slap on the wrist. If he did, Moses refused to disclose that when asked during his news conference. He finessed the issue with this bit of fancy footwork: "Some think Mr. Bennish should be fired. Others think he should be praised. In my judgment, the answer is neither." This is known as a false dilemma: firing or praise. There was another alternative: He gets to keep his job, on probation, with a formal letter of reprimand placed in his file for violating the district policy requiring a balanced presentation to students. Furthermore, his classroom behavior is to be closely monitored in the future.

If anything like that happened, Moses refused to divulge it, citing the district's "personnel policy." Why such a policy should be allowed to defy the public's right to know wasn't addressed. What can you expect? Public education is a government monopoly far more responsive to the teacher unions than to parents, students or taxpayers. The outcome was both unsatisfying and inevitable.

Bennish, himself, was smugly remorseless, refusing to acknowledge any wrongdoing on his part. When asked if he regretted comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler, he smiled and arrogantly replied, "I think next time I would've said Mussolini." Ironically, if Bennish truly lived in a country run by a dictator, he'd be at risk of losing much more than his job. Nevertheless, we owe Jay Bennish a debt of gratitude. His classroom diatribe, recorded for posterity by Sean Allen, brought this issue to the attention of many in the public who were unaware of the nature and scope of this problem.

Bennish is a political activist. He proudly admits that his mission as a teacher is to "promote social justice." When leftists speak of social justice, it's a buzz word for socialism, connoting forced income redistribution, excessive regulation of business, price controls, racial and gender quotas and preferences, nannyism, politically correct censorship, subordination of U.S. security and sovereignty to international organizations, etc. The whole leftist agenda.

Peggy Raines, a Bennish mentor at Northern Arizona University's College of Education, where he got his degree, took pride in saying that, "he may have got some of that left-wing orientation from me." Boasting about many of her former students, Raines said, they were taught to be "change agents." "They care about social justice issues. They care about making the world a better place." Well, so do I and other conservatives. We just have a different belief as to how to do that. Bennish and Raines want to remake the world to fit their utopian socialist vision. We heard Bennish's contempt for capitalism. He declares it to be at odds with human rights. I think it's the economic dimension of liberty, and I think socialism is forever doomed to failure because it's at odds with human nature.

This conflict of visions, as Thomas Sowell describes it, is at the heart of the war of ideas. The Bennish affair is about the battle to influence impressionable young minds. Liberals now control that turf in K-12 public schools and colleges. They don't want to yield it to conservatives. Bennish justifies his classroom political proselytizing under the pretense of developing "critical thinking" skills. Baloney. A critic can be one who makes judgments based on reasoned evaluations of facts. But Bennish is a hostile critic, one who finds fault, a severe judge. He confuses critical analysis with ideological criticism, subjecting his captive student audience to simplistic, doctrinaire left-wing rants.

Bennish is a disciple of leftist activists like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, committed socialists who share his disdain for capitalism and his jaundiced view of American history, obsessing on our faults and minimizing our virtues. This is the direction increasingly taken in our public schools, with many teaching from Zinn's "textbook," a leftist screed titled, A People's History of the United States. My preference is to celebrate our history, on balance. Yes, expose students to our historical shortcomings and injustices, but emphasize our overwhelming virtues. As Jeanne Kirkpatrick puts it, "We have to admit the truth about ourselves, no matter how good it is." And our public schools should be instrumental in teaching our kids why America is worth fighting for.

I'll apply my critical thinking skills and offer a remedy for this conflict next Friday.

"When leftists speak of social justice, it's a buzz word for socialism, connoting forced income redistribution, excessive regulation of business, price controls, racial and gender quotas and preferences, nannyism, politically correct censorship, subordination of U.S. security and sovereignty to international organizations, etc. The whole leftist agenda."

That sums up most of what drives leftist moonbat Bush haters. Anyone want to vote for that agenda? So why do we continue to let loons like Bennish use taxpayer dollars to promote that religion of leftist lunacy in our public schools?

Left Media Denies Reality of Muslim Violence in North Carolina

Here's an exerpt from the PDF of the handwritten letter that Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, the accused attacker of students at the University of North Carolina sent to WDTV-11 in Raliegh Durham:

I live with the holy Koran as my constitution for right and wrong and definition of justice. The Koran, also spelled, Quron, is a scientific and mathematic miracle so there can be no doubt that it is from a supernatural source, i.e. Allah, the creator and controller of all things.
...
Allah gives permission in the Koran for the followers of Allah to attack those who have raged war against them, with the expectation of eternal paradise in case of martyrdom and/or living one's life in obedience of all of Allah's commandments found throughout the Koran's 114 chapters.

I've read all 114 chapters approximately 15 times since June of 2003 when I started reading the Koran.

The U.S. government is responsible for the deaths of and the torture of countless followers of Allah, my brothers and sisters. My attack on Americans at UNC-CH on March 3rd was in retaliation for similar attacks orchestrated by the U.S. government on my fellow followers of Allah in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and other Islamic territories. I did not act out of hatred for Americans, but out of love for Allah instead. I live only to serve Allah, by obeying all of Allah's commandments of which I am aware by reading and learning the contents of the Koran.

I would be glad to have an on-camera interview.

Sincerly yours,
Mohammed Taheri-azar

So, the holy Koran is Mo's constitution for right and wrong and definition of justice? And that motivated him to rent the largest SUV he could and plow into a crowd of students in obedience of Allah's commandments.

Isn't Islam wonderful?

Lamestream Media Refuses to Call This a Terrorist Attack, or Mo a Muslim

Mark Steyn, in yet another brilliant column describes how the New York Al Queda Times in it's report on the story never mentioned the fact that Mo was a Muslim. The entire motivation for Mo's attack was based on his religion and the NY Al Queda Times didn't consider that "All the news that's fit to print."

More from Steyn:

And yet the M-word appears nowhere in the Times report. Whether intentionally or not, they seem to be channeling the great Sufi theologian and jurist al-Ghazali, who died a millennium ago but whose first rule on the conduct of dhimmis -- non-Muslims in Muslim society -- seem to have been taken on board by the Western media:

The dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or His Apostle. . . .
Are they teaching that at Columbia Journalism School yet?

A fellow called Mohammed mows down a bunch of students? Just one of those things -- like a gran'ma in my neck of the woods a couple of years back who hit the wrong pedal in the parking lot and ploughed through a McDonald's, leaving the place a hideous tangle of crumbled drywall, splattered patties and incendiary hot apple-pie filling. Yet, according to his own statements, Taheri-azar committed an act of ideological domestic terrorism, which he'd planned for two months. He told police he was more disappointed more students in his path weren't struck and that he'd rented the biggest vehicle the agency had in order to do as much damage to as many people as possible. The Persian car pet may have been flooring it, but the media are idling in neutral, if not actively reversing away from the story as fast as they can.

Taheri-azar informed the judge he was "thankful for the opportunity to spread the will of Allah," and it was apparently the will of Allah that he get behind the wheel of Allah.

Meanwhile, a new Washington Post/ABC poll finds that, in the words of the Post, "nearly half of Americans -- 46 percent -- have a negative view of Islam, seven percentage points higher than in the tense months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when Muslims were often targeted for violence."

"Often" targeted? Want to put some hard numbers on that? Like to compare the "violence" Americans perpetrated on Muslims after the slaughter of thousands of their fellow citizens in the name of Allah with, say, the death toll perpetrated by Muslims annoyed over some itsy-bitsy cartoons in an obscure Danish newspaper? In September 2001, 99.99999 percent of Americans behaved with remarkable forbearance. If they're less inclined to give the benefit of the doubt these days, perhaps it's because of casual slurs like the Post's or the no-jihad-to-see-here-folks tone of the Times.

Fresh Questions on Dubai Ports Hysteria

I realize most readers have likely had their fill of the Dubai ports story. But as the damage to President Bush's leadership and conservative chances in the critical 2006 elections becomes apparent, it's worth taking a second look.

It's becoming clear that the entire episode was orchestrated by Democrats to weaken the President and the GOP. But there is more to it than that.

Schumer's Ties to Rival Ports Firm?

Chicken Hawk Express has dug deep and learned that a rival firm, Eller & Co. with competing facilities in Miami was instrumental in creating the furor with the help of Senator Chuck Schumer (Defeaticrat-NY). In posts here and here Chicken Hawk Express describes the tactics that Eller and Co. used to gain leverage over Dubai Ports World.

There have even been reports that Eller was hoping to buy DP World's stake in American Ports at firesale prices.

So our Republican friends fell right into the lap of Senator Schumer and his big money friends at Eller & Co. Will the next campaign finance report reveal contributions to Schumer from Eller executives?

As Flopping Aces suggested on February 23, something really "smells" here.

Bacon Bits Chastises GOP

It's clear that Republican squeamishness over the Dubai ports deal has damaged our chances in the all important battle for Congress in 2006. Bacon Bits touches on that subject today citing the concerns of Jack Kemp and another opinion leader that readers may find familiar:

Conservatives should be proactive, rather than reactive. We've got the brains and presumably that means conservative politicians do too, even in an election year. If their GOP constituents were flying off the handle irrationally about DP World in reaction to the liberal hype, said politicians should have worked to educate the body politic and in so doing, expose Democrat demagoguery with simple facts (as one always can), rather than fall prey to the pathetic one-upmanship game. No one wins with that kind of stupid politics as was on display a few weeks ago.

The Bush Administration is guilty as well, for not getting in front of this issue long ago when they had the chance. Just.Dumb.Politics. With potential serious repercussions, as we might find it harder than ever to cultivate, let alone keep, essential Arab alliances in the Middle East against the forces of Islamofascist jihad.

Kemp's column reminds me once again of one of the most important conservative political posts I've read recently. Mike at Mike's America is one of the lone voices in the wilderness, shouting out that we should not foresake the forest for the trees, especially now. Mike covers some valuable history as relates to pre-WW II and segues into the present day in expert fashion. (He's a political operative, after all, and has exceptional vision on these things.)

Aw shucks! It's one thing to have "vision" and quite another to convince others how "exceptional" it is.

Why Feingold's Censure Agenda Scares Democrats

Here at Mike's America it's no secret that Democrats have offered nothing but unrelenting Bush hate during a time when our nation is at war. Truly life and death issues face Americans every day and all we get from the opposition party is Bush hate.

But it seems there are a few folks out there who haven't heard, so we are thankful for Senator Feingold's (Defeaticrat-WI) recent move to censure President Bush for keeping America safe.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The Impeachment Agenda

Russ Feingold reveals what many Democrats really want.

Republicans are denouncing Senator Russ Feingold's proposal to "censure" President Bush for his warrantless wiretaps on al Qaeda, but we'd like to congratulate the Wisconsin Democrat on his candor. He's had the courage to put on the table what Democrats are all but certain to do if they win either the House or Senate in November.

In fact, our guess is that censure would be the least of it. The real debate in Democratic circles would be whether to pass articles of impeachment. Whether such an inevitable attempt succeeds would depend on Mr. Bush's approval rating, and especially on whether Democrats could use their subpoena power as committee chairs to conjure up something they could flog to a receptive media as an "impeachable" offense. But everyone should understand that censure and impeachment are important--and so far the only--parts of the left's agenda for the next Congress.

And not just the loony left either, though it's getting harder to distinguish them from the mainstream variety. Mr. Feingold is hardly some Internet crank. He's a third-term Senator from a swing state who has all but announced his intention to run for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008. He was the first major Democrat to call for the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq, and half his party was soon demanding the same.

As a legal matter, Mr. Feingold's censure proposal is preposterous. The National Security Agency wiretaps were disclosed to Congressional leaders, including Democrats, from the start. The lead FISA court judges were also informed, and the Attorney General and Justice lawyers have monitored the wiretaps all along. Despite a media drumbeat about "illegal domestic eavesdropping," Mr. Bush's spirited defense of the program since news of it leaked has swung public opinion in support.

But as a political matter, the Wisconsin Senator knows exactly what he's doing. He knows that anti-Bush pathology runs so deep among many Democrats that they really do think they're living in some new dictatorship. Liberal journals solemnly debate impeachment, and political-action groups have formed to promote it. One of our leading left-wing newspapers recently compared Mr. Bush to J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon, as if there were even a speck of evidence that this White House is wiretapping its political enemies.

When the fever gets this hot in supposedly mainstream forums, Mr. Feingold is right to conclude that the facts behind any censure or impeachment motion won't really matter. All that will count is the politics, which means it will come down to a question of votes in Congress. And several leading Democrats have already raised the "impeachment" card.

California Senator Barbara Boxer loudly wrote four legal scholars late last year asking if the NSA wiretaps were impeachable. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has introduced a resolution calling for the creation of a "select committee to investigate the administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment."

In other words, everything that Mr. Bush has been accused of during the last five years, no matter how Orwellian or thoroughly refuted, will be trotted out again and used as impeachment fodder. And lest you think this could never happen, Judiciary is the House committee through which any formal impeachment resolution would be introduced and proceed. As the country heads toward 2008 and a Democratic nomination fight, John Kerry and Hillary Rodham Clinton would be hard-pressed to avoid going along with Mr. Feingold, Al Gore, and others feeding the bile of the censure/impeach brigades.

Which brings us back to Mr. Feingold's public service in floating his "censure" gambit now. He's doing voters a favor by telling them before November's election just how Democrats intend to treat a wartime President if they take power.

Not only do they want to block his policies, they also plan to rebuke and embarrass him in front of the world and America's enemies. And they want to do so not because there is a smidgen of evidence that he's abused his office or lied under oath, but because they think he's been too energetic in using his powers to defend America. By all means, let's have this impeachment debate before the election, so voters can know what's really at stake.

And the minute Democrat-Defeaticrats take control of either body, you can bet that right after impeaching President Bush, they will handcuff the folks who have worked so hard to keep us safe the last five years and wave the white flag of surrender and dhimmitude faster than you can say "Patriot Act."