Publius' Forum

-By Warner Todd Huston

Why these stories of sex crimes perpetrated by UN officials never seem to get wider release and notice is amazing. The MSM are so vested in the idea that the United Nations is somehow the answer to the world’s troubles that abuses by members of the organization never see the kind of focus that Bush saying a bad word to Tony Blair got, for instance. Look how long it took people to get any news about the Oil for Food scandal … in fact even that story seems oddly hushed still.

The Australian newspaper recently had a short report of more UN sex abuse allegations. UN peacekeepers abandoned babies reveals how “UN peacekeepers have abandoned at least 20 babies fathered with poverty-stricken Timorese women, an investigation has shown.”

The report reports these newest UN “peacekeeper’s” sex crimes.

“The UN investigation has also uncovered a culture of cover-up, in which babies born to peacekeepers and sex crimes committed by its personnel over seven years have been kept secret because of a ‘fear of shame and embarrassment.’"

But this isn’t the only time this has occurred and is, therefore, not at all unusual, unfortunately.

Nearly everywhere the UN sets up shop prostitution, brothels, and forced sexual slavery springs up to “service” the UN peacekeepers and officials. These UN officials appear to use their positions with the UN as an excuse to indulge in illicit sex romps with as many underage women (and boys) as possible.

It has happened most recently in the Congo but has also happened in Kosovo, Thailand, South America and a host of other places about the globe. Crimes like this perpetrated by UN officials are not just isolated incidents and reveal a culture or depredations the world over.

Here are just a few examples:

U.N. Sex Crimes in the Congo

Widespread allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse of Congolese women, boys and girls have been made against U.N. personnel who were sent to help and protect them -- despite a so-called zero tolerance policy touted by the United Nations toward such behavior.

U.N. Official Gets Three Years in Sex Abuse Case

“A court in Kosovo, the Serbian province governed by the United Nations since 1999, sentenced an official of the organization to three years in prison after finding him guilty of sexual abuse of a minor, United Nations officials said Tuesday. Rashidoon Khan of Pakistan, an official of the United...”

Report Finds U.N. Isn't Moving to End Sex Abuse by Peacekeepers

“The United Nations has developed procedures to curb sexual abuse by peacekeepers, but the measures are not being put into force because of a deep-seated culture of tolerating sexual exploitation, an independent review reported Tuesday. ''A 'boys will be boys' attitude in peacekeeping missions breeds tolerance for exploiting and...”

As I said, these are just some of the latest stories. Such stories have been around for decades and decades. Everywhere the UN goes, sexual abuse follows.

This is just one more reason that the corruption and evil of the UN makes it an organization that has proven its ineffectiveness at best and the downright danger it poses to the world at worst.

The UN should be dismantled now, before more young girls end up having their lives ruined through sexual slavery and abuse by the same people that are ostensibly there to “help” them.

- By Nathan Tabor

We live in a schizophrenic society. On one hand, our government, through the supposedly learned men and women of the U.S. Supreme Court, sanctions the killing of innocent children in the name of "choice." On the other hand, state and federal officials often like to act as surrogate nannies, trying to tell parents how they should feed, educate, and raise their children.

This week, Washington is debating whether parents have a right to be involved in their teenage daughters' lives. Now, if that daughter goes out with a gang and wrecks the neighborhood, the parents will be held liable. Yet, we have to debate whether parents should even know if their daughters are hiring abortionists to kill their grandchildren.........................
Click HERE To Read On

- By Michael M. Bates

Mrs. Clinton recently coughed up $3,000 in campaign funds for a hairstylist and a comparable amount for a makeup artist, according to the New York Post. One can only tremble at what the outcome would have been had she spent, say, only $1,000.

Yeah, that’s a cheap shot. And most assuredly an example of the pot – the one I've been lugging around for years – calling the kettle black.

Politicians of all persuasions recognize that image, more than substance, determines their electability. It's been that way for years and the advent of film and television accelerated the trend. ....................................
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-By Warner Todd Huston

The Democratic National Committee Chairman thinks that politics is too mean-spirited today. No, let me clarify, he thinks Republican politics is too mean-spirited today. And he’ll call you any manner of nasty names if you don’t agree.

Childish?

Of course, but it merely reveals his hypocrisy.

Now, usually we Op Ed writers go on and on filling a page with our own words letting one and all know just how much we have to say on an issue. But, for this one time I am going to allow someone else to speak in my Op Ed.

I want Howard Dean to show us how he plans to put an end to “Divisiveness”, and take mean-spiritedness out of politics for us. I am going to show you his new, nicey-nice rhetoric that will lead us all to that nirvana like land of milk and honey.

And I am going to do it with a report of just one of Dean’s public appearances where he recently regaled a group of Florida business leaders in West Palm Beach about his kinder, gentler politics, that politics free of “divisiveness” and meanness. (an AP report from July 23rd)

So, the rest of this Op Ed will be Just a report of Howlin’ Howie’s own, kinder words.

-Dean called President Bush "the most divisive president probably in our history."

-"He's always talking about those people. It's always somebody else's fault. It's the gays' fault. It's the immigrants' fault. It's the liberals' fault. It's the Democrats' fault. It's Hollywood people," Dean said. "Americans are sick of that. Even if you win elections doing that, you drag down our country."


-The Republican agenda "is flag-burning and same-sex marriage and God knows what else."

-Dean also lashed out at President Bush's Iraq policy and at allowing Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to address Congress on Wednesday, calling the foreign leader an "anti-Semite."

-"We don't need to spend 200 and 300 and 500 billion dollars bringing democracy to Iraq to turn it over to people who believe that Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself and who refuse to condemn Hezbollah," he said.

-"He (Bush) is bankrupting the middle-class," Dean said.

Yes, all that from just one appearance.

So, being against same-sex marriage, supporting burning the flag, saying his opponents are destroying the country, calling the Prime Minister of a foreign nation a Jew hater, and attempting to instill fear in the middle-class is a kinder and gentler politics?

Sounds like the same ol’ vitriol to me!

That Howie … such a nice fella.

By Warner Todd Huston

Former CNN and MSNBC political commentator and long time leftist writer, Bill Press, had to admit he was taken in by an old internet hoax today.
Apparently on his Sirius radio show/podcast and internet Blog, Press citied the results of a study by the "Lovenstein Institute" that placed president George W. Bush at the bottom of all the modern presidents in IQ scores. Unfortunately for Mr. Press' commentary, however, there is no such organization as the "Lovenstein Institute". It is an internet hoax as revealed on Snopes.com that lefties so love to cite.
However, Press's apology sure didn't seem like much of an apology. On the "Parting Shot" section of his Blog for his Sirius Radio show, Press, in essence, said he was wrong but is still right about how dumb Bush is.

"This parting shot is dedicated to all those hundreds of people who emailed me about Bush’s IQ.

Okay, I’ll make a deal with you.

I’ll admit I was wrong. I goofed. I cited a study ranking George Bush as having the lowest IQ of any of the last 12 presidents. Bill Clinton, scoring the highest. As I later discovered, that study was bogus. There is no so-called Lovenstein Institute.

Again, I’ll admit I was wrong."

If Mr. Press had left it there, things would have been fine. Unfortunately, he had to turn against civility and decorum to continue into a diatribe that makes one question the sincerity of his "apology".

"But you’ve got to admit: It sure is believable. Does anybody doubt that Bill Clinton’s the smartest - and George Bush is the dumbest? Just look at his record.

Iraq. That dumbbell took us to war to get rid of WMD that didn’t even exist.

The Middle East. He’s so dumb he doesn’t know the first step toward ending a war is for both sides to stop shooting.

Global warming. Miami will be underwater before he realizes there’s a problem.

The budget. He couldn’t balance a budget if his job depended on it. Too bad it doesn’t.

See what I mean? Who needs a study? It’s self-evident.

George Bush is not only the dumbest of all 12 presidents since World War II.

He’ll go down in history - as the dumbest president…ever!"

So, Bill is saying he was wrong but still right after all? Is this the same school of "journalism" that Dan Rather attended with his false-facts-but-true-story defense? Is Bill Press a student of Mary Mapes?
In any case, it is a strange way to apologize for getting his facts wrong. But it is a perfect example of how people on the left often feel compelled to not only disagree with their political opponents, but to assume they are bad, evil, stupid, dangerous people, on top of it.
It reveals the basic incivility of the left ... you know, that civility that name-caller Howard Dean keeps saying he wants to improve!

That’s my parting shot for today.

Indeed it is.

- By Frederick Meekins

As many age and grow saddened that the pleasures of this life diminish and are to soon come to an end, they often cope with this existential crisis by criticizing the young for behaviors they themselves use to participate in and wish for future generations lives of struggle and material deprivation. Normally, such disgruntled reflection provides a kind of psychological outlet through which to vent pent up frustrations and anxieties, however, it can be cause for concern when those making these kinds of complaints implement such ramblings as the foundation of public policy.

According to WorldNetDaily.com, in a commencement address at Long Island University and in a speech before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Hillary Clinton declared to the youth of the nation that "work is not a four letter word" and that the young have a "sense of entitlement" having grown up in a "culture that has a premium on instant gratification".

Isn't a Clinton the last one that should be lecturing us on the perils of instant gratification as the old man pretty much wrote the book on this behavioral pathology throughout the 1990's? However, it must be noted that what the wicked witch of the east is talking about is not so much the wastefulness and licentiousness endemic to the ruling elite but rather codespeak of revolutionary globalists that the American people enjoy too high a standard of living and must have Third World levels of squalor imposed upon them.........................
Click HERE To Read On

-By Warner Todd Huston

According to Major General Lewis MacKenzie, Canadian Army, retired, one of the Canadian soldiers killed by Israeli bombs in Lebanon had written emails home complaining that Hizbullah terrorists were using his UN post as a shield, expecting that Israel wouldn't target them if they were close to the UN post.

IMRA.org has posted the following citation from a broadcast on July 26th on the CBC Radio, Toronto.

Canadian killed from UN force complained his position shielding Hizbullah

Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 26 July 2006

"...the tragic loss of a soldier yesterday who I happen to know and I think probably is from my Regiment. We've received e-mails from him a few days ago and he described the fact that he was taking within - in one case - three meters of his position "for tactical necessity - not being targeted". Now that's veiled speech in the military and what he was telling us was Hizbullah fighters were all over his position and the IDF were targeting them and that's a favorite trick by people who don't have representation in the UN. They use the UN as shields knowing that they can't be punished for it."

Retired Canadian Major General Lewis MacKenzie interviewed on CBC Toronto
radio 26 July 2006
For recording see this REALAUDIO file:
http://cbc.ca/metromorning/media/20060726LMCJUL26.ram

I wonder how many UN supporting MSM outlets will pick this report up?

It would be doubtful if many do as the MSM are all agreed upon the cry of how evil the Jeeeews are for bombing a UN outpost. Of course, this shows how useless the UN outposts are in the first place if they just serve as shields for further terrorists strikes against innocent Israeli citizens.

In another report, new Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is not blaming Israel but wants to know why the heck the post was manned at ALL in the middle of a war zone?

“I certainly doubt that to be the case, given that the government of Israel has been co-operating with us in our evacuation efforts, in our efforts to move Canadian citizens out of Lebanon and also trying to keep our own troops that are on the ground, involved in the evacuation, out of harm’s way,” he said.

“We want to find out why this United Nations post was attacked and also why it remained manned during what is now, more or less, a war during obvious danger to these individuals.”

That is a very good question, Mr. Harper. Mayhaps it's more UN malfeasance?

The UN does no good, and is actually contributing to terrorism in this case at the very least.

- By R.A. Hawkins

For those who look to the Mid-East for some signs of civility or as a minimum a willingness to talk in a straightforward manner, one only has to look at the last elections in Iran. Here we have a guy who has openly stated that his ultimate intent is to burn Israel off of the map. Then we have the nice people in the Palestinian terrortories, occasionally known as territories, who voted in Hamas as their new ruling political party? They have the exact same view as that nice guy over there in Iran.

Iran has now decided to begin threatening the United States. I'm not too surprised at the number of clowns who are emailing me and saying those threats are Israel's fault. I would like to add that there is one and only one who is emailing me with ridiculous comments like that. He reminds me of the media in a way: Somehow one point echoed over and over is supposed to make up for a lack of thought. The media tends to act like that also, and right now they seem to be once again on the side of Hamas and Iran's Hezbollah. Communist News Network is by far the most blatant in their support of the terrorist regimes..................................
Click HERE To Read On

- By Greg Stewart

The following post is response to a commentary to an author, who lacked the courage to keep their comment attached to a previous post. So I am going to repost it. So here it is entirety, say for one, the authors name. Observe...

...Some of the biggest "I am not a racist" persons claim to "be this or that" or "have this or that," but they are, on the average, some of the most judgmental, spiteful, and bitter individuals. They claim that they will be always there for you, or claim that, they love you as a friend or whatever. And, they say that they will always be there for you when you need them. Nonetheless, when the moment of truth comes, they will stand over in judgment of you...................
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-By Warner Todd Huston

In the "A picture is worth one thousand words" department, here is one that fully explains what Islamofascism truly is.


-Credit Time Magazine

Harkening back to the era of Hitler, here is the flower and youth of Hizbullah displaying their fealty to their creed. Looking at this, how can ANYONE sit by and, Chamberlain-like, calmly claim that Islamists are not in the middle of launching WWIII?

Israel is NOT responsible for the destruction of Southern Lebanon. These kids and the adults that is poisoning their minds are. Islam is NOT compatible with modernity and we are fighting a war that must result in the ideology of Islam so devastated that it never again raises its fist to civilization. We must defeat it just like we did Nazism and Japanese Imperialism and Shintoism.

Anyone who thinks "diplomacy" will solve this clash of civilizations is worse than a fool, he is a participant in terrorism.

- Eric Reikowski

IThe lengths to which the modern progressive Left has been willing to go in order to foist its radical agenda on the American people has certainly been well documented. But if any one group underneath liberalism's big tent of oppressed minorities has gained the most ground over the past few decades, surely it is the homosexual lobby.

For years, gay rights activists have cited the right to privacy when arguing their case in the court of law and public opinion. State laws prohibiting homosexual sodomy have long been at the center of the debate. In 1986, in the case of Bowers v. Hardwick, the U.S. Supreme Court could find nothing in the Constitution guaranteeing anyone the fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy. Less than twenty years later, however, such a right was miraculously located.

How did this happen? Justice Antonin Scalia offered the following explanation at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars:...............
Click HERE To Read On

Well, I made a few little changes from this one...



I think mine is better, don't you?

Peace prize winner 'could kill' Bush

NOBEL peace laureate Betty Williams displayed a flash of her feisty Irish spirit yesterday, lashing out at US President George W.Bush during a speech to hundreds of schoolchildren.

Campaigning on the rights of young people at the Earth Dialogues forum, being held in Brisbane, Ms Williams spoke passionately about the deaths of innocent children during wartime, particularly in the Middle East, and lambasted Mr Bush.

"Right now, I would love to kill George Bush." Her young audience at the Brisbane City Hall clapped and cheered.

What a hypocrite.

-By Warner Todd Huston

Now for something to amuse us in this day of upheaval…

Chinese propagandists just cannot help themselves, it seems. Even a report on the discovery of some interesting and rare species of giant salamander is fodder for propagandizing how wonderful China is. They can't just make a scientific announcement, but must editorialize how "precious" their discovery is, how its "favorable ecological environment" is filled with "clear streams and ponds" as well as how "waterfalls, springs, pools and linns form along over 100 streams".

The People's Daily Online is reporting a "'Living fossil' discovered in SW China", and it's a happy 'lil fella, too!

Here is their short report:

Experts recently discovered around 1200 Chinese Hynobiidaes in Guiding county Southwest of China's Guizhou province. These are a type of amphibian species around 300 million years old that once used to live in the dinosaur period. The discovery has offered important reference for the study on animals' evolution and welwitschiopsida's ecological environment.

It is known from the fishery station of Guiding county that this precious species is found in several townships like Yanxia, Duliu. They live happily with Chinese giant salamanders (Andrias davidianus) in clear streams and ponds, appearing with an amazingly large population with more than 1000 found in Yanxia township alone.

The species, named as Chinese Hynobiidae, dubbed as the "living fossil", was first discovered in Yichang, central China's Hubei province. It shares the shape of a giant salamander and has been listed on China's Red List of Endangered Species in1986.

Experts attribute the successful survival of the species to the favorable ecological environment. More than 40 percent of Yanxia township is covered by forest. Hills and ravines are seen here and there; waterfalls, springs, pools and linns form along over 100 streams, all of which has given a natural reserve for the ancient animal.

It just jumps out that apparently the Chinese know that their salamander is happy with its neighbors as "They live happily with Chinese giant salamanders". It must be all those smiling "Chinese Hynobiidaes’s" faces that the Chinese scientists see all about their "favorable ecological environment" that convinces them so.

Nope, they just can't skip a chance to try and make China seem like a paradise on earth. Unfortunately for them, the TRUE ecological mess in China is sad news all over the world.

Check out these China Pollution stories

--A huge cloud of coal pollutants from China is drifting across the globe

--whole villages are being destroyed by unsafe mining

--China creates twice the sulfur dioxide as America does

-- China's pollution is quickly spiraling out of control.

--China's pollution problems cost the country more than $200 billion a year

Or go to this one and read about China's further collapse.

Yep, China is an environmental paradise alright!

Now, back to your serious news…

Does 'Separation of Church and State' Really Exist?
- By Warner Todd Huston

Secularists today have a catch phrase that they use like a club against religion in America. That club is named "The Separation of Church and State".

So many Americans have heard the phrase that they think it is one actually written right into the Constitution of the United States. Those who are more learned on the subject realize it is not. In fact, those who are learned on the subject know that it wasn't mentioned in any law, or even in the halls of Congress, until long after the Constitution was written. In fact, there was not much attention paid to the phrase at all until after Thomas Jefferson, the originator of the phrase, was long dead.

Not even the Supreme Court paid it much attention until the 1940s, so this “wall of separation” issue is not one that hails from the early Republic with the same meaning as it does today. Our Founders had very different ideas about religion and government, ideas that were not nearly as simple as the stark black or white assumptions of the activists of today.

The Danbury Letter

The man who initially wrote the phrase, Thomas Jefferson, wrote it in an 1802 letter to a congregation of Baptist churchmen from Danbury, Connecticut. Only elected president of the United States but two years preciously, (1800 – 1808) Jefferson was responding to a letter sent him by the Danbury church members who were attempting to get his support for their struggle against the state's somewhat oppressive religious requirements for certain rights in that state -- not an unusual practice in the states at that time. While Jefferson's letter only obliquely addressed the Baptist's concerns, more importantly it addressed the Federal position on establishing a national religion because Jefferson’s reply was focused on the Federal issue, not that of the states.
..................
Click HERE To Read On

- By Greg Stewart

Well, after listening to (and participating) overnight talk radio, I am convinced that America is on the brink of destruction. Daytime talk radio has convinced me of this too; I need to turn off the radio.

Oh, it is just a matter of time, of course, when the "rational people" the US Senate, House of Representative, and any Executive Administration will drive the country into the ground--in order to save it.

According to one Rick Barber, an overnight radio personality, for 850 KOA AM, he is wary of those that claim they are doing this (saving the country from some epic darkness) for the "will of god, will of national security, will of the people, and the will of the children."

These spokespeople are willing to call on these "oppressed" minorities to usurp our liberty, but not their own, in terms of it being the "betterment of society," or "betterment of society" they are willing to subvert yours and mines..................
Click HERE To Read On

-by Warner Todd Huston



It is pretty amazing that CBS News can misquote, in headline form, someone they not only personally interviewed, but one that they themselves provided video clips of proving the inaptness of their headline. I guess they imagined that no one would actually take the time to watch the video clip?

But there it was in black and white.

CBS News - "Buckley: Bush Not A True Conservative"

Worse, the part of the video clip where William F. Buckley addresses Bush's status as a conservative isn't until the last two minutes of a 10-minute interview. Could they have assumed that many people would never stay with the interview all the way until the end to find out that the CBS headline is mere hyperbole and that Buckley never really said that Bush wasn't a "true conservative"?

Even the sub headline takes liberties with Buckley's words.

"In Exclusive Interview, Buckley Criticizes President For Interventionist Policies", goes the bolded line under the header. Yet, Buckley really didn't say he is as against intervention in and of itself as this misleading line might make one think. Indeed, he agreed that if Iran had a warhead ready to go a first strike would be unavoidable.

"If we find there is a warhead there that is poised, the range of it is tested, then we have no alternative", Buckley asserted.

Yet, the bolded line under the header would make one imagine that Buckley was against "interventionist policies", when he is merely against some of those policies currently being undertaken, as opposed to all that might be necessary. Buckley's position was far more complex than this simple sub-headline leads one to believe.

But, what did Mr. Buckley say of Bush's conservatism? Well, he didn't say that Bush wasn't a "true conservative", that is for sure. In fact, the words "true conservative" do not once come out of Buckley's mouth.

Buckley did scold both Bush as well as Congress for their backsliding from conservative values and he did state that there seems an "absence of conservative ideology". But he did not make the bold statement foisted upon him by the article's headline. Buckley has, for instance, been quoted in the past saying that "Bush is conservative, but he is not a conservative", revealing Buckley’s more nuanced feeling about Mr. Bush’s ideology.

Again, Buckley's was a serious discussion of the failures of Bush and Congress to uphold conservative ideals in his opinion. But it was no mean, vitriolic claim that Bush is not a Conservative. Buckley was not vulgar enough to doubt president Bush's heart, only his policies.

It should be remembered that no president has met with Buckley's complete approbation on strictly conservative principles. Even Reagan came in for criticism from the dean of Conservatives. It should also be remembered that Buckley has never had to put his conservative principles to the test of real government, as well.

Here is a full transcript of that last few minutes in question of the interview. After reading it, it becomes clear that CBS' screaming headline goes much farther than did Buckley.

"I think Mr. Bush faces a singular problem best defined, I think, as the absence of effective conservative ideology. He's a man who ran as a conservative, was accepted as a conservative alternative. And when he took power he had a Republican congress and a Republican senate and a mostly Republican Supreme Court. But, he then failed to refine conservative purposes with the result that he ended up being very extravagant in domestic spending, extremely tolerant of excesses by Congress, and in respect of foreign policy, incapable of bringing together such forces as apparently were necessary to conclude the Iraq challenge, that simply hasn't happened. As a result of that there is a kind of perplexity about what... what are Conservatives supposed to do when they come to power? Given the fact that they spend and spend and spend and do not consummate a broad, uh wage a trillion dollar war with no conclusion in prospects. So that is extremely humbling and extremely vexing for Mr. Bush."

As always, a complex argument is beyond anyone in the media's ability to follow.

- By Michael M. Bates

Arizonans will have a chance in November to approve a proposal that would award a cool million dollars to one voter, chosen by lottery, after each general election. The idea is to encourage civic participation. The idea is preposterous.

The mainstream media and other professional do-gooders regularly harp on the theme of everyone being better served if only more citizens would exercise the franchise. I think the problem is we already have too many people voting, including individuals who don’t have a clue as to what's going on in this world.

Rather than wailing and gnashing our teeth over low turnout, we should be relieved. A certain percentage of our fellow citizens, not knowing or not caring about public policy matters, have munificently rescued the rest of us from what would have been an ill-informed decision at best. ....................................
Click HERE To Read On

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Telegraph newspaper apparently cannot believe that America is gauche enough to take it upon itself to evaluate its own distribution of military forces in the world. How DARE the USA think that, in this era of unrest in the Mid East and terrorism, it can do what it wants to do with its own military!

In an article by David Rennie titled American pullout leaves Iceland defenceless, America is reported as "tactless" for its need to reevaluate keeping forces in Iceland, forces that were originally posted there for fighting the Cold War.

Apparently many in Iceland, not to mention the offices of the Telegraph, have not caught up to the news that the Cold War is over.

In a classic example of ingratitude for years of free service, Iceland is all aghast over the United States' decision that its armed forces are best stationed in other places in the world than the land of ice.

As a result, according to the Telegraph, the USA is being nasty to the good people of Iceland.

"The United States, which had assured Iceland's defence for decades, stunned the country in March when it announced that it would be closing its bases on the island, withdrawing its F-15 fighters and thousands of servicemen in the space of just six months.

This bombshell was dropped in a single telephone call from an underling at the State Department, followed by a letter from the US ambassador."

How DARE those evil Americans!

Apparently the Telegraph found at least one Icelander that agrees with them that America is just being a big poopyhead. Björn Bjarnason, the minister for justice and ecclesiastical affairs, who oversees the coastguard and police, is not very happy.

"The situation could one day require the 'tactless' Americans to be invited back, Mr Bjarnason thinks."

Well, THAT cinches it. We need to double the U.S. military presence. We don’t want to be thought of as jerks by ol' Björn, do we?

- By Frederick Meekins

From ecology, it has been learned that a complex interplay of factors and forces results in the balance of nature that environmentalists insist can be easily thrown out of whack should any one of these readings stray too far from the optimal norms. As the pinnacle of the food chain, a number of these principles apply to human beings and their societies as well.

For example, one of the strongest human desires is to copulate and produce children. These urges are kept in check by the responsibility of having to provide for and take care of the offspring that could potentially result from the physical intermingling of man and woman preferably in the context of binding matrimony.

As such, most rational people discipline themselves to have no more children than they are capable of taking care of. However, Washington, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams wants to upset the delicate balance by instituting a program where government school students in the city could receive three meals per day at government expense. ........................
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-By Warner Todd Huston

It is a question that makes leftists and Europeans (one in the same, I realize) scratch their heads about these days. They just don't understand why we support Israel. They try to explain it away as "Evangelical zeal to bring the second coming", or mere bloodlust, but they really haven't a clue... not that their general cluelessness is unusual, mind you.

First off, I have to say we don't merely blindly support every move the Israelis make. They were wrong in pulling out of Gaza, wrong to believe the liar Clinton and follow his precepts with the pointless "road to peace" plan, and wrong to imagine that Arafat was an honest dealer. They have also had a few questionable military moves in the past, their spying on the US and the attack on the USS Liberty being just the most egregious examples. With disclaimers in place we move to today...

So, in a very bold and honest assessment of why many Conservatives support Israel, here we go. I should warn that it isn't pretty, it isn't clean, and it isn't a soft approach to the current situation that Conservatives support. It is judgmental, harsh, and unfortunately necessary.

To begin with, it is all a matter of morality to Conservatives. And many Conservatives never get past that basic point to bother considering the more "nuanced" issues, as without a moral basis for consideration, there isn't much reason to continue.

In the balance of being "right" or "wrong" between the two sides, the Muslims are 100% on the side of evil. Israel has made mistakes like every country and government has, but for the most part it has been forthright, patient and in the right. Sadly, since Anwar Sadat was murdered there has not been a single Muslim leader who has even approached being moral on the issue of Israel in any way whatsoever (And look what it got Sadat).

The Muslims actions against Israel are 100% wrong and absolutely without cause or justification. Their basic premise is to KILL EVERY JEW. That is all there is to their "reasons" as this racist hatred forms the very bedrock upon which their actions are built.

Even if you can construe one action or another by Israel to provide enough "reason" for Muslims to be mad at them, the very fact that the Muslims do not want to deal as civilized people with the established and legitimate country of Israel, the very fact that their underlying purpose is to deny the Jew's very human rights, to murder every Jew quite regardless of any "cause" or political situation, these reasons invalidates any concerns that are due the Muslims.

The most telling fact is that many textbooks that children in the Islamic Middle East use in their classrooms do not have Israel on the maps, as if Israel does not “really” -- wink, wink -- exist. Nothing excuses this kind of hatred for a Conservative and it colors everything that Muslims do in the matter as far as Conservatives are concerned.

The left sees a leveling of blame against the Muslims as being morally equivalent with terrorism. However, Conservatives see it as justice. Of course, the reason the sides differ so greatly here is because Conservatives believe in a clear right and wrong side in most of life, not just the Israel question. Leftists merely see all human action as comparable to all other human action, no right, no wrong... only actions justified by each participant's own criteria and all justifiable on that level.

So, when Conservatives see Israel pulverizing Muslims we are supportive because the Muslims deserve their punishment for all their underhanded dealings and perfidy. And we hope that millions of them are killed because, at some point, peace in this situation can only be had by the utter and incontrovertible defeat of Islam.

Just like millions of Germans and Japanese had to die to end their evil, the same must happen to Islam. Millions will regrettably have to die to save the lives of billions in the future. Their ideology has to become so odious, so decimated that it cannot rise again.

Conservatives generally do not believe that Islam can coexist with liberal, modern civilizations. It is anti-modernity at its worst and cannot be fixed. So they feel it will have to be laid waste to bring freedom and liberty to succeeding generations. Islam is an enemy to civilization and it needs to be defeated so badly that it never again raises a fist.

Just like Shintoism.

Just like Nazism.

Frustration comes in the form of the fetid UN trying to pretend that they are creating "peace" by rallying support for the murdering Muslims who return the favor by skulking away under the cover of the International Community’s brokered “peace” to re-fit, re-build, but otherwise NEVER intending to stop their murdering of Jews.

In the mean time, Israel goes back home and takes bombing after bombing, murder of their own after murder of their own, attack after attack all by these "peaceful" Muslims. All the while Israel tries to be a good citizen of the world and continues to try diplomacy to appease the vaunted "World community".

So, we feel the only true solution is that millions of Muslims must be killed and the sooner the better it will be for the whole world. Not because Jews are somehow perfect or that Muslims just plain “need killing”, but because Islam is so patently evil and needs to be defeated!

If some imagine that makes Conservatives "bloodthirsty" or "uncivilized" it is merely their inability to understand reality, morals and the desire for freedom and liberty. As Jefferson said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants".

It isn't pretty. It isn't clean and safe. But it IS reality.

And it is at a point where many feel that only outright victory can succeed. Diplomacy is impotent and a fool's errand.

In the end, it is a war of ideology. Conservatives felt as strongly against Communism as they do the anti-modernist Islam. Both are oppressive, backwards, and dangerous to Democracy and freedom everywhere. Both were evil, wrong ideologies. Both are an enemy that must be laid waste.

It should also be noted there is nothing “racist” about it. Conservatives are not against “Arabs”. They are against oppression. And, being against oppression used to be something the left was against, too. Too bad they aren’t any more.

-By Warner Todd Huston

Now, wait a minute! This isn’t a screed against overweight cops. I am talking about cops that stop you from eating things that’ll make you fat! I envision them looking something like Mary Poppins but wearing jack-boots, guns and wielding a cookbook and a billie-club.

Yes, the Nanny State is gearing up for it’s next foray into cradle to the grave coddling. In Chicago, home of Mayor “King” Daley, dead voters and more crooked politicians than New Orleans, a city alderman wants to ban trans-fatty oils… not that he really knows what they are.

In fact, Chicago is on the road to becoming the city of culinary fascism, apparently. They have already banned smoking in restaurants and banned the dish foie gras from being served, so it isn’t surprising that Alderman Ed Burke is looking to the next victory over food choice and liberty in the Windy City.

According to Fran Spielman of the Chicago Sun-Times, Nanny Burke wants to “start a debate” about health. But, interestingly, he seems to imagine that a “debate” may be started with the iron boot of government stomping down on the necks of the owners of Chicago’s eateries telling them how to prepare their fare.

Burke’s proposal would “…mandate Chicago restaurants to take ‘artificial trans fats’ off their menu of ingredients. If they don't, they would pay through the nose -- with fines ranging from $200 to $1,000 a day.”

That’s a pretty expensive “debate”, there, Nanny Burke!

I am no fan of the Mayor of Chicago, “King” Daley, but at least even he made light of Burke’s bloviating. Daley joked that the city would be forced to a diet of carrots if Burke had his way, but that was gentle ribbing compared to what should be said of this meddling, nut Alderman’s proposal.

Ever eloquent, “King” Daley questioned Burke’s good sense with the trans-fatty oil ban.

“Everybody's conscious of their health. Everybody's conscious of eating and drinking. But how far can the City Council [go]? … Is the City Council going to plan our menus?" Daley said.

“… Let's talk about health. Let's talk about people working out. Let's talk about good eating habits. But not to start outlawing… We have to be very careful when we start telling everybody how to live their lives."

That was the most sense “King” Daley has made in a long time.

Burke wants Chicago to follow in the footsteps of food Nazi’s in cities and states like North Carolina, New York and California by banning trans-fatty oils. Defending his busy-bodying proposal, Burke said that we all “ought to be able to ban unhealthy oils … this is cruelty to human beings. Why not start here to talk about what government can do to keep people more healthy?"

No, Alderman Burke, let’s start talking about how to get government OUT of our lives, not IN them.

Still, if you want to start mandating what we get to eat, I’d like to put in a request. Could you mandate that I get a T-Bone steak, well-done, a nice baked potato with sour cream, butter and chives, a steaming serving of chopped spinach boiled in butter, some brewed iced tea (I think instant tea should be outlawed if you want to outlaw something), and a great slice of Chicago’s Ely’s chocolate chip cheesecake for desert.

Now THAT’S a law!!

- By R.A. Hawkins

It certainly is amusing to listen to Chirac as he tells the rest of the world what they should and shouldn't do. It matters not that we've noticed several times that France provided many of the munitions and weapons systems found in Iraq and I seem to remember a certain collection of mirage jets we found over there. Then there was that little 'Oil for Food' mess they were caught up in, right along with their buddies from Russia. And I don't want to leave out that there were some pretty serious allegations regarding the French briefing Iraq on our battle plans.

That country has only won one war in their history. Well actually there were a few of them but they also lost those wars because they were against themselves. Pretty pathetic and not a country we should be listening to when it comes to matters beyond what is and isn't polite at the dinner table. Wait... I don't think they are even up to that. Personally I think they should simply be ignored, yet here they are lecturing the world and pontificating regarding Israel's retaliation for the kidnappings of their soldiers and the various missile attacks they've endured. France is so good at dealing with things like this they had riots in their own cities that brought them to their knees recently.................................
Click HERE To Read On

-By Warner Todd Huston

In a misleading expose on the various "end times" religious concepts that are increasingly in the news today, the L.A. Times' Louis Sahagun conflates Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's violent 12th Imam ravings with several different Christian and Jewish end times concepts as if the ideas are one and the same when, in reality, they aren't even comparable.

Ignoring clear Biblical claims that no man shall know when the end times are near, (Matthew 24:35-36) Sahagun focuses on the minority of Christian leaders who claim that despite that Biblical injunction it must be near. But if it isn't they want to attempt to bring it about. Sahagun warns us...

"Their end game is to speed the promised arrival of a messiah."

After briefly mentioning Christian, Jewish and Ahmadinejad's concepts, Sahagun attempts to loosely link them all together.

"Linking these efforts is a belief that modern technologies and global communications have made it possible to induce completion of God's plan within this generation."

After this line, though, one would imagine the piece would inform us about all these "modern technologies" and how similarly they are being used to advance the end times, but the piece is oddly re-directed to further highlight the apocalyptic visions of a minority of today's Christianity and the "modern technologies" aspect is dropped for the more sensational.

After going on paragraph after paragraph about these end of times concepts Sahagun's focus on these plans makes it seem as if the entire Christian community is coalesced on creating the conditions for the end times and he fails to highlight the material differences between the various concepts. With the most egregious example, Sahagun fails to delineate the difference between the Christian ideas and that of Ahmadinijad. The 12th Imam theory is one of violence, where all nations will be conquered and forced to convert to Islam, whereas the Christian claim is of merely waiting for prophecy to be fulfilled with Christians but informing the world of what is to come -- no force, no oppression, no violence on their part.

Sahagun also perpetuates the canard that Christians think all Jews must be destroyed, too.

"But when asked to comment on the fate of non-Christians upon the Second Coming of Jesus, he said, 'That's a very embarrassing question. What can I tell you? That's a very terrible Christian idea. What kind of religion is it that expects another religion will be destroyed?'"

Unfortunately for the reader's clarity, Sahagun neglects to mention that no Christian theology claims that it will be Christians doing this destroying, but that it is God's will, not theirs be done. Unlike that of Islam that says the Muslims should take a direct hand in such violence, Christians take a more pacifistic view of preparing for the end times than do Muslims.

Close to the end of the piece, Sahagun does finally hint that not all Christians are as far out as most he describes in his article.

"So, are all of these efforts to hasten the end of the world a bit like, well, playing God? Some Christians, such as Roman Catholics and some Protestant denominations, believe in the Second Coming but don't try to advance it. It's important to be ready for the Second Coming, they say, although its timetable cannot be manipulated."

Unfortunately he uses words like "some" when describing the less driven Christians but eschews such exculpatory language when describing those he obviously feels are nuts in the rest of the piece, causing the reader to imagine those Sahagun thinks are sane are farther and fewer between than the more agitated variety of Christian end times theorist he highlights.

In a final indignity, quoting Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, vice president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership in New York, Sahagun attempts to paint Christians as racists.

"Trouble is, there are many people who want to bring a messiah who looks just like them. For me, that kind of messianism is spiritual narcissism."

Are we to expect that Rabbi Hirschfield imagines his Messiah, the one that Judaism is still expecting to come, might arrive from Harlem, rapping his way to the rebuilt Temple Mount, or perhaps he might be a kindly Buddhist from Japan in a nice orange robe? No, likely the good Rabbi imagines that his expected Messiah will be a Jew, someone who is just like Hirschfield.

All in all this is a barely disguised hit piece on Christianity where Sahagun highlights some wild-eyed, end times theories and leads the reader to imagine that every Christian is a racist, Jew hater that wants to bring about Armageddon.

Funny, though, how Ahmadinejad's Armageddon, the one where the sword of Allah will cleanse the world of non-believers, is only described with no judgmental language attached, whereas Christian's version is called "a very terrible Christian idea".

- Resa LaRu Kirkland

The above statements look like they could have been said in the last 48 hours. They sound exactly like what we've been hearing--and from the same nations--on FOX and CNN. Only problem is they were said back in May, 1967--that's 40 years ago. Immediately after this wretched Islamic posturing, Israel wiped the floor with the "whole Arab nation," pummeling them in only six days and bitch-slapping them back to hell. Right won the day.

What a difference a few decades make; in this case, none whatsoever................
Click HERE To Read On

- By Michael M. Bates

Last month the president of the Philippines visited Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. She gave him a copy of a law she signed recently, one that ends the death penalty in her country. "Well done," His Holiness told her.

I was thinking of that this week as we mark 40 years since Richard Speck's wanton slaughter of eight student nurses. I realize that a blanket opposition to the death penalty is not official Catholic teaching. Indeed, only two years ago as a cardinal the current Pope wrote:

"While the Church exhorts civil authorities... to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible ... to have recourse to capital punishment."

Yet I know Catholics who think their Church requires them to oppose the ultimate sentence. In one recent poll, slightly less than half the Catholics surveyed now support the death penalty....................................
Click HERE To Read On

- By Frederick Meekins

C.S. Lewis is renowned as one of the foremost Christian thinkers of the twentieth century. Despite being an Anglican and exhibiting a number of tendencies making him a bit of an iconoclast among his fellow believers, C.S. Lewis has been fondly embraced by a broad swath of the church in part because of his efforts to promote a version of the Christian faith amicable towards all denominations by appealing to what all of these theological niches have in common, which could be referred to as mere Christianity.

As such, one of Lewis' best known apologetic texts is titled none other than Mere Christianity. Originally presented as a series of broadcast talks, Lewis vetted much of his text past four members of the clergy --- an Anglican, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, and a Roman Catholic --- in order to keep denominational idiosyncrasies to a minimum. Because of such conscientious effort, the Christian finds inMere Christianity a rational defense of the faith of considerable sophistication. ........................
Click HERE To Read On

-By Warner Todd Huston

If it weren't for the utter hatred that people have for Jews, the actions of Syria in this current conflict would seal Syria's fate as a criminal regime. Unfortunately, those standing against Israel aren't interested in facts or justice. They just want to kill Jews.

The IAF has reported repeatedly destroying convoys of Syrian army transports carrying ammunition and rockets to Hizbullah in Lebanon. The rockets belong to the Syrian army and are not the kind found on the open arms market, so there is no doubt that it is Syria's arms being used by Hizbullah in Lebanon.

“These are rockets that belong to the Syrian army. You can’t find them in the Damascus market, and the Syrian government is responsible for this smuggling,” IDF Operations Branch Head Major General Gadi Eisenkot said.

There is just no way that the Syrian army and the Syrian government could be unaware that their supplies are being smuggled to Hizbullah. This means that the Syrians are directly aiding Hizbullah in their goal of killing Israeli civilians despite the fact that Syria has not been targeted in this conflict.

As Eisenkot reminded the media...

“We are not operating against Syria or the Lebanese army.”

And more's the pity. I believe Israel should send a few well placed air assaults right into al Assad's palaces, hopefully killing many of his cabinet members if not the scheming, racist, whelp of a dictator himself.

And here is where the international community fails in their claims of wanting "peace" in the region. Assad is supplying Hizbullah directly. He is involving himself in a conflict that really does not directly affect his people. If the international community truly wanted peace those now standing against Israel would instead be railing against Syria at the top of their lungs.

But what are we getting instead?

Israel should "restrain" herself. A UN "peace keeping" mission should step in and separate the sides... as if we were warning some unruly kids in the back seat of the family sedan on that Summer vacation drive. "Don't make me separate you two kids!", says the exasperated Father.

Only, Syria is not an unruly child. It is a racist, hate-mongering, Muslim country dead set on killing every Jew it can find.

Further, the USA should support and sanction every bomb Israel sends to Syria, Lebanon and Iran.

Israel, my support is yours. Destroy the groups that are murdering your children and have been for decades. May their countries run red with the blood of terrorists and their supporters.

We had a power outage that lasted 19 hours, so we missed updating for most of Tuesday. Our apologies to our readers.

-By Warner Todd Huston

Joe Lieberman is getting the first primary challenge he has had for 18 years in Connecticut's Democratic primary. It is so off putting to the good Senator that he is claiming he will run as a "petitioning Democrat" -- which means as an independent -- if he should lose the primary to challenger, Ned Lamont.

There is only one reason Ned Lamont is mounting this challenge to Joe Lieberman; Lieberman's stand on Iraq.

Lamont is a classic limousine leftist with little by way of new ideas and no real support or organization in the Democratic Party of Connecticut. But he does have the support of lefty bloggers across the country and the Bush haters of the fever swamp.

Oh, the nutroots of the lefty blogosphere have a whole litany of "reasons" that they are opposing Lieberman, but when all is said and done it is Lieberman's perceived support of Bush's Iraq strategy that they are mad at.

For instance, one of the nutroots' claims that Lieberman has failed them was the Senator's stance against Clinton during the Lewinisky scandal. But this is really just a smoke screen, a non-issue. For, despite Lieberman's claimed stance, he still did not vote to convict the disgraced president when his chance came to stand up for his supposed convictions.

There are others, but they are equally of little substance.

So, it all comes back to the war in Iraq. That's it. They are one-issue voters. Not voting for Lamont, but voting against Lieberman and all over that one issue.

Sadly, even though they haven't a vote, Conservative Republicans are also one-issue voters where it concerns Joe Lieberman. They support him merely for his support of Bush's Iraq strategy.

This is a great mistake by Conservatives.

For instance, talk show host, Sean Hannity, has been falling all over Lieberman for well over two years saying how he "admires" him and how he believes Joe is a "great man". It is all based on Joe's support of Bush's Iraq plan. And, I have seen similar blind support of Connecticut's junior senator time and again on the Right leaning blogs, too. Recently I read a line on Michelle Malkin's new blog, Hotair.com, where a commentor said, "We'll give you McCain and you give us Lieberman and all will be well". I have seen other such unthinking adulation many places in the Conservative blogosphere.

All of this gushing is because of Lieberman's support of Bush's Iraq strategy.

It must be. Because it sure isn't because of Lieberman's voting record.

Lieberman has voted either outright against every Republican initiative or, as in the case of Soc. Security reform, has hedged his bet but still on the negative side of the issue. Only with Iraq policies has Lieberman voiced his agreement with Republican ideas.

In measuring Lieberman's record, the American Conservative Union has given him a rating of "0" for calendar year 2004, only an "8" in 2005, and a low "17" for his lifetime in Congress based on his votes in the Senate. (By contrast, much as my Conservative friends may not like him, McCain's ACU rating is 72, 80 and 83 respectively.)

He voted against every Bush tax cut, voted against Justice Alito's Supreme Court appointment, opposes traditional marriage laws, is against drilling for oil in Alaska, is for partial-birth abortion, and supports some of the absurd restrictions as outlined in the Kyoto Protocols. And this is just for starters.

Lieberman is not a "conservative" Democrat. It's just that simple.

So, for conservatives to be won over to his support merely on that same one issue that his detractors are upset over him for is a great mistake for a true conservative to make.

There is no doubt that Lieberman has stood up to the nutroots on this one issue. He has stuck to his guns on his support for Iraq. We can all admire him for that and support his decisions in this instance. Absolutely we can hope he beats this crazy leftist, Lamont, as well. I most certainly am not saying we should pillory him as those on his own side are doing.

But to vocally and forcefully claim him an ally is a step too far. In fact it is many steps too far. Lieberman, save for this one issue, as important as that issue is, is not our friend. He is not our ally and he cannot be looked to when we need crucial support for conservative initiatives and ideals. The man is a classic 1970's liberal.

Admittedly it is fun to see him defying the far left, fever swamp, nutroots. That is for sure. And, I must also admit that I sometimes get that twang to yell, "Go get 'em Joe." But I warn my fellow Conservatives: Don't let your own desires to smack the nutroots around blind you to Lieberman's true positions.

I cringe every time I see a Conservative blog, or radio talker slobber over Lieberman as that support is just another blow to our agenda every time it is voiced. So, the next time you think you want to cheer Joe Lieberman on, remember this Op Ed.

Joe Lieberman is NOT our friend.

- Eric Reikowski

In a landmark case concerning the reach of public education in America, Supreme Court Justice James McReynolds famously declared that "the child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations."

One of the Supreme Court's most important roles in our constitutional system has always been to provide guidance and direction to inferior courts. Moreover, in light of such a clear pronouncement regarding parental rights, it is difficult to imagine how some of our state and circuit courts reach their judgments in this day and age. Anyone who has paid even cursory attention to the goings-on in our court system lately may well be forced to conclude that, contrary to Justice McReynold's sentiment, the child is the mere creature of the State.

About a year and half ago, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that children have an expectation of privacy at home and that parents are not allowed to listen in on their phone conversations. The case involved a 17-year-old who told his 14-year-old girlfriend that he had mugged an old lady on the street and stole her purse. The girl's mother had been listening to the exchange on another phone line and promptly alerted the authorities to the crime................
Click HERE To Read On

- By R.A. Hawkins

Ted Kennedy has always amazed me because of the pretzel logic that he so often utilizes in his problem solving. We’ve heard nothing out of him regarding the war in Iraq that is positive. He has told us we need to get rid of our dependency on mid-eastern oil so we can leave the mid-east. I actually agree with him on that to some extent. Before I get off on the really weird spelling of his name above I want to explain why I don't necessarily agree with him on that point.

One of the reasons we don't want to leave the Mid-East has to do with preventing the expansion of China. They are one of those cultures that will probably never make the grade into our type of society. Living with a boot heel in one's mouth is expected over there. It’s always been that way right down to the color of the tiles on the roof of your house. Blue roofs were for the Imperials and if any dragon adorned any part of your house and it was an Imperial dragon (four claws not three) you now had a whole new set of serious problems to deal with regarding your government.

If we leave the Mid-East and allow China in to fill the power vacuum they will have the oil needed to spread their misery. Personally I think we teeter on the edge of heading that direction all too often no matter what party is in office here. That statement right there will give me a whole new set of emails from the drama queens who think they are suffering from a boot heel in their mouth right now. They will rant and rail against our government about how free we aren't, but they can do so only because here we are still free to say what we want so it's safe to do so. I've noticed that they seem to miss that point all too often................................
Click HERE To Read On

-By Warner Todd Huston

The L.A. Times has gone into despair over a 10 second pause in a recent press conference held by Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, Army chief of staff.

In an article titled "Is U.S. Winning? Army Chief Is at a Loss", by Peter Spiegel, published on July 15th, the L.A. Times moaned that we surely must be losing the war because General Schoomaker paused for "10 seconds" after being asked if we are winning.

It seemed like a routine question, one that military leaders involved in prosecuting the war in Iraq must ask themselves with some regularity: Is the U.S. winning?

But for Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff known for his straight-shooting bluntness, it proved a hard one to answer.

During a Capitol Hill briefing for an audience mostly of congressional aides, Schoomaker paused for more than 10 seconds after he was asked the question -- lips pursed and brow furrowed -- before venturing:

"I think I would answer that by telling you I don't think we're losing."

How many times has the MSM gotten all over Bush and Cheney both for declaring that we are winning, or at the end of this conflict? Remember how they beat Bush up for the "Mission Accomplished" banner? See how they jump all over Bush every time he says we are winning?

Should we expect that General Schoomaker is stupid enough to voluntarily jump into that media attack pit?

Further, shouldn't we expect a General to be thoughtful and consider his words carefully when answering such questions? Shouldn't we be thankful that he pauses and gives great thought to the questions put before him instead of blurting out the first thing that comes into his head?

Seems to me like the good General is being a prudent, thoughtful leader when giving the question its due consideration before answering.

But, not to the L.A. Times. Schoomaker's pause has convinced them that all is lost.

It was a small but telling window into the thinking of the Army's top uniformed officer and one of the military's most important commanders: Despite the progress being made by the new Iraqi government and the continuing improvement of local security forces, the outcome in Iraq, in many ways, is growing more uncertain by the day.

Um, NO, Petey, that is NOT what the general said. In fact, at the end of your own story you finally did report what Schoomaker said...

"I think we are making significant progress; I think the challenges continue to come," he concluded. "I do not believe that we are losing, but where I think we are on the scale of winning is very difficult, and time's going to tell."

That's a far cry from "the outcome in Iraq, in many ways, is growing more uncertain by the day".

But, I guess this does show the MSM's short attention span. 10 seconds was all they could put into the conference before they wandered off to make up out of whole cloth what was actually said!

-By Warner Todd Huston

Just a Reiminder on how successful our economy is...

The Bush economy is a fantastic success. But here are some of the facts because the MSM won't spend much effort to let us know about it:

"According to the Office of Management and Budget's Mid-Session Review, which couldn't be worse news for New Direction Democrats. According to the report, President Bush's goal of halving the deficit by FY2009 is a year ahead of schedule, thanks to increased tax revenues produced by pro-growth policies. This year's deficit has fallen to $296 billion, or 2.3 percent of GDP---30 percent lower than February's forecast, and nearly 50 percent lower than 2004. FY2008's deficit is projected to fall to $188 billion, a more palatable 1.3 percent of GDP.

Read more »

- By Frederick Meekins

In websurfacing David Barton's Wallbuilders website, I clicked on the link for his organization's pastor's briefing.

At this event, Christian ministry leaders (common believers not being good enough apparently) are given a tour of the Capitol building by Barton and Christian members of Congress detailing the religious symbolism throughout the building.

Are regular Christians somehow not pious enough or simply too stupid to hear this information from the Holy Barton himself and must instead receive it second hand from their pastors?

Apart from the hypocrisy that Barton himself would not qualify to go on his own tour since he is technically not a pastor but a historian, Christians should be more concerned about something else on the Wallbuilders site.

On the site's registration page for the tour, apart from asking for name, address, and ministerial affiliation of the applying cleric (no doubt to weed out those in the laity unworthy of an audience with such auspicious elites), one of the blanks the applicant is forced to fill out asks for race. ........................
Click HERE To Read On

-By Warner Todd Huston

Why anyone ever bothers using an AP/Ipsos poll result to "prove" anything is beyond me. It has been well documented by multiple sources that this France based polling company habitually over samples Democrats in their polls and this particular poll is no different.

But, here is the AP wire headline screaming that "Americans want Democrats in Power" in their latest poll.

WASHINGTON - Republicans are in jeopardy of losing their grip on Congress in November. With less than four months to the midterm elections, the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that Americans by an almost 3-to-1 margin hold the GOP-controlled Congress in low regard and profess a desire to see Democrats wrest control after a dozen years of Republican rule.

So, what was the sampling numbers for THIS one?

According to the AP/Ipsos site they over sampled Democrats...again.

Registered Voters polled:
Strongly Republican - 17
Moderately Republican - 25
Definitely independent or neither - 5
Moderately Democrat - 32
Strongly Democrat - 21
_____________
Total Republican - 41
Total Democrat - 53

Looks to me like they gave the Democrats a 12% advantage in the sampling. Yet the actual results resulted in only an 11% higher Democrat reading!

Wouldn't that be a 1% Republican gain? (hat tip sweetness and ligh)

Jut another ho-hum day in the MSM

-By Warner Todd Huston

There was an amusing story going around right after Nixon's re-election in 1972. As the story goes a New York columnist wondered how Nixon got re-elected as that Columnist had never met anyone that voted for him. This is the same sort of hermetically sealed bubble in which writer for Fortune Magazine, Marc Gunther, seems to live. A nether world where everyone he meets is homogeneous, all having the same opinions, influences, and pastimes.

In a recent article titled The extinction of mass culture, Gunther bemoans the loss of what he imagines is a common American culture because of the rise of the Internet, its diversity of sources of information ringing death knell for the MSM.

But here is the bubble in which he lives defined; Gunther imagines the loss of influence experienced by the MSM has made our country "poorer" for that diminished influence! Obviously he feels the time America was controlled by the same opinions from the self-appointed few in the MSM was a better day.

"I think the explosion of choice has left us poorer in at least two arenas. The first is journalism. ... The network evening newscasts, big-city newspapers and the national news magazines once had the money, access, skills, commitment and power to deliver lots of original reporting and put important issues on the national agenda. Today, they are all diminished.

Yes, there is more information available to us than ever, but I don't think we are better informed. Niche media will, inevitably, continue to weaken mass media."

Amazingly, choice is "bad" to Gunther! And, worse still, it is somehow destroying our "culture"... that is, if you define "culture" as that which is controlled by old media outlets like The New York Times, news magazines, and the big three TV networks!

Ridiculously, Gunther's idea of a loss of culture is the fact that one can no longer easily name the biggest TV star or the most recognizable Advertisement slogan.

"TV's biggest stars are Oprah Winfrey and Katie Couric, but they don't appear in prime time and they've been around for years - before the 300-channel universe fragmented audiences and damaged broadcast TV's hit-making machinery.

As for advertising, there are no 21st century equivalents to 'We Try Harder' or 'Where's the Beef?' or 'Just Do It.'"

Somehow, I just can't warm to the idea that a passing of ubiquitous ad-lines like "Where's the Beef" equates to a culture of which we should bemoan the passing! Nor do I think we are somehow "poorer" because there isn't a particular TV star whose name is on the tips of everyone's tounge. But Gunther seems to feel that we are "poorer" for such losses none-the-less.

Sadly Gunther feels that all that America "is" is what happens on TV.

"Mass culture provides intangible benefits, too. Big stars, hit TV shows and even commercials help knit a society together. Think of the feeling that comes a few times a year - the morning after the Super Bowl or the Oscars - when tens of millions of Americans share a common experience."

This statement proves that Gunther is in a bubble of his own making, one of mere personal experience as well as one rooted in only a short amount of historical time. This "mass culture" Gunther seems to think America "is", has only existed for a small portion of our great country's history.

Without question, radio and Hollywood movies brought a sort of mass culture to America but only starting in the 1930s. And it wasn't really until TV became ever present that this commonality of experience that Gunther seems to feel defines America really took off.

Before mass entertainment, we had our history, our struggles, our educational system, our values, our politics and politicians comprising our culture and creating those shared experiences. But we also had our regional differences and local ideas that brought our communities together. Since the inception of mass entertainment venues like radio, movies and TV, our REAL culture has been watered down, even ridiculed and made "poorer" by the ever downwardly spiraling standards of that very entertainment. Recalling Newton Minnow's "vast wasteland" line here seems apropos.

Therefore, the death of the MSM and the rise of Gunther's lamented "choice" should be welcomed, not feared.

Speaking of politics, Gunther was also crying about how that has been affected by the MSM's loss of influence with his "second arena" of worry.

"The second arena where we are worse off is politics. This is related to journalism, as the moderate and responsible (okay, bland) voices of the MSM get drowned out by partisan, opinionated cableheads and bloggers."

Once again, Gunther is blinded by personal experience and a narrow knowledge of this country over too short a period of time. This "bland" world of mere facts and journalism that Gunther imagines existed to so better serve our common culture is a somewhat mythical creature that only existed between the decades nearing the end of WWII and the beginning of the Clinton years.

Gunther imagines that we had a steady, proud and unpartisan "journalism" that is now being drowned out by those evil bloggers. Yet, this is a canard. We have never had an unpartisan media. In those wonderful, halcyon days of perfect journalism that Gunther so warmly recalls, we had a decided lack of diversity of opinion as the main news sources all converged on a single ideology, one just as decidedly anti-government if not outright anti-American.

Gunther is also seemingly unaware of how bitter and partisan the press was during the entire of the 150 years before WWII, before FDR succeeded in co-opting the press to his narrow view, corralling them into lap-dog media status. Further, Gunther seems unaware that, since WWII, the media has viciously attacked anyone who did not toe the same socialist line that FDR set up in the 1940s. Truman, Reagan, Bush and W Bush have all been savaged because they stood for ideas that veered from the leftist line while their opponents rarely got but a cross word.

Gunther also claims that we are more "polarized" now than ever before. This similarly shows he doesn't know much about American history, but is basing all his opinions on his own narrow experience.

"Politics in America has become polarized for many reasons, but a big one is the fact that people can now filter the news and opinion they get to avoid exposure to ideas with which they disagree. Anderson suggests that this could well be a temporary problem, and that if the major parties continue to move to the extremes and the quality of debate continues to deteriorate, the Internet could well enable a new party or parties, to arise."

In this country's history, the press WAS the "filtering out" that the polarized political sides used to screen out unwanted ideas. From the very first days of our Republic newspapers chose a candidate or cause and promoted them. Each town had several newspapers, all of which supported their man or cause. If you supported a side, you read the paper that supported your side. And after WWII when the MSM all coincided on a single point of view, news outlets vehemently and overtly chose a side "filtering out" all opposing views. The only difference between the early days of American journalism and that after WWII is that diversity of opinion was quashed in the later.

Again, Gunther is dreaming of an American tradition of nonpartisan professional journalism, a trade that really has never existed. At least now we can get honest opinion from the new media on the Internet instead of the barely disguised homogenous leftism of the MSM.

Lastly, it is rather amusing to see him carp about the "extremism" of the Political Parties as if this is something new. America's political Parties have often gone "extreme" in the past, usually when they are out of power and trying to regain it or when their extremism is consequently causing them to lose the power they do have. They always figure it out eventually and distance themselves from the extreme and it is then they usually win. But, in many ways, politics is always about extremes, passions, loud talking and bellicose claims no matter who wins.

So, what Gunther laments as passing mostly never existed but in the minds of the snooty, Ivy League grads that run the MSM with their common opinions agreed upon and settled before they write their first "fact". The real world -- you know, the one Gunther has yet to visit? -- never ran that way but for that short, sleepy time of the Media's "Golden" age. This loss of culture that Gunther is so worried about is nothing to cry over, but something to celebrate. We are climbing out from under the oppressive opinions of the media elite and blinking in the sunlight of a world of free expression and forming our own opinions.

... But then, that threatens Gunther's elite position, I guess. So, maybe we can see why he wails so?

Of course, Gunther's "culture" dominated by I Love Lucy, Madison Avenue ad campaigns, ABC News, and The New York Times is a far different and "poorer" culture than that of the struggle for Religious Freedom, the Founding Fathers, the settling of the West, the great wars, and the quest for civil rights that forms our real culture. The culture that Gunther cries over at night is not the real culture of the country and its loss will not harm us a bit.

Gunther may be the king of media, he may know every prosaic entertainment trivia question under the sun, but he don't know jack about history nor what "culture" truly is.

- Resa LaRu Kirkland

"Or else, we will be very, very angry with you, and we will write you a letter telling you how angry we are."--Hans Brix to Kim Jong Il, from the movie TEAM AMERICA WORLD POLICE

It had to be said. You may not like it, it may sound childish, but when dealing with commies, adult rationale doesn't work. Besides...it's always fun to say "I told you so;" even when it's about a commie.

And once again, we are dealing with commies.

North Korea launched, as one reporter put it, "six scuds and one dud." In case you've been in a coma, that's the long and short of the past couple of days. Seven missiles from the land of No Dongs, with 3 or 4 more on deck...............
Click HERE To Read On

-By Warner Todd Huston

Gorbie is wagging his finger at that big, bad U.S.A. and ABC News is helping him do it.

In a piece by Claire Shipman, Mikhail Gorbachev is claiming that we ”Americans Have a Severe Disease” because we see ourselves as “winners”, but that Russia’s attacks on democracy are just “some mistakes” made.

And once again, Ronald Reagan -- the man who REALLY ended the Cold War -- is ignored by a fawning media falling all over itself to genuflect at the feet of failed leader, Mikhail Gorbachev.

The pieces starts with this idiotic paragraph:

“Mikhail Gorbachev is generally regarded as the man who broke down the ‘iron curtain’ that separated the communist world from the West and thawed the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.”

No, Mz. Shipman, only the MSM imagines that Gorbie broke down the Iron Curtin. Anyone with any knowledge of the era knows it was the strength and good sense of Ronald Reagan that ended the Cold War and set the Soviets on the path of their last steps to dissolution.

To be fair, Gorbie did lightly scold Russian president Vladimir Putin … but only lightly.

Gorbachev said of Putin, "Putin has used and he will continue to use authoritarian measures…” But Gorbachev is sure that everything is going fine, just the same. “… but Russia will form a democracy. I know Vladimir Putin. He is a moral person”, Gorbachev concluded.

Yet, this “moral man” has cancelled elections, used his government to forcibly take over private businesses, jailed competitors and shored up a neighboring authoritarian, anti-democratic regime.

And of these many mistakes Gorbachev says “so what?”

"We have made some mistakes," he said, referring to recent attacks on Russia's democracy. "So what? Please don't put even more obstacles in our way. Do you really think you are smarter than we are?"

But for the leaders of the country that has freed a people, helped set up and foster elections, and fought terror all across the world, Gorbachev has nothing but harsh words.

According to Gorbie…

Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney are, "… are just hawks protecting the interests of the military -- shallow people,"

And he “wryly” said of Bush, "He's very determined. You can't say he does not have character."

But he reserves his worst criticism for the entire American people. "Americans have a severe disease -- worse than AIDS. It's called the winner's complex," Gorbie opined.

The Gorbie love ends with his last statement, "I want my grandchildren to live in a democratic country -- in a peaceful world. But it's hard to imagine because there are so many answers we still need to find."

I don’t doubt that it is “hard” for him “to imagine” since he excuses the anti-democratic actions of Putin but thinks the pro-democratic actions of the U.S.A. is a bad thing!

And leave it to the MSM to slavishly listen to this old crank’s nonsense.

- By Justin Darr

If there is one trait that defines Liberalism, it is a hatred for consequences. No matter what the circumstance, Liberals are either trying to ignore, avoid, or blame others for the consequences of their own actions. Normally this would not be a problem, everyone should be free to live as goofy a life as they please, even if it happens to entail stumbling about blindly within a fog of their own self-delusions. However, the problem with Liberals is they cannot just be content with screwing up their own lives; they have to screw up the lives of those around them as well.

If a woman runs around and has unprotected sex, Liberals think the child should be killed because it is unfair to make people live with the consequences of their lack of morality. If someone had a bad childhood and has an unnatural hatred for the cherished beliefs of others, Liberals feel we should ostracize Christianity from society so these misfits do not quite so poignantly feel the sting of missing out on Christmas. Illegal immigrants should be granted citizenship so they do not have to deal with the consequences of ignoring immigration law. Disabled loved ones should be euthanized because selfish family members do not want to deal with their care. And, homosexuals should be allowed to marry because they do not want to acknowledge that two beings of the same sex cannot breed. .....................
Click HERE To Read On

-By Warner Todd Huston

My son went away to Iraq with the Illinois National Guard, last week. I, the proud papa of one of our brave men in uniform, stood in the bleachers at the General Richard L. Jones Armory in downtown Chicago on the morning of July 3rd watching as the boys of the 178th Infantry battalion (MPs) presented themselves to their relatives and Chicago's media for the last time before they leave for duty in Iraq.

Republican candidate for governor, Judy Barr Topinka, was present and stayed for a while shaking hands and wishing the soldiers well. Every single TV news outlet attended to interview the boys for a segment on their nightly newscasts.

And where was Dick "Turban" Durbin when the boys from Chicago were preparing to leave for Iraq?

Talking about bugs.

No, not the NSA, CIA, surveillance kind, I mean real bugs. Dick was touring nearby Kane county, Illinois looking for the emerald ash borer beetle that he is trying to get Federal funds to combat.

Obviously it was more important to be merely one county away looking for insects instead of making an appearance at the ceremony wishing bon voyage to the soldiers of the biggest city in his state.

Yes, apparently the ash borer beetle is more dangerous to America than are terrorists as far as Senator Dick is concerned.

In researching this beetle problem, I can agree that we Illinoisans need to try and stop their advance across the state. But, was it right to be only a few dozen miles from the soldier's farewell ceremony yet to eschew attendance to talk about bugs? No, they aren’t that important.

Worse, the matter isn't even very pressing as to the funding issue, anyway. Durbin has said that the matter of Federal funding won't be settled until the coming September! He certainly had the time to make a token visit to the soldier's ceremony, I'd say.

So, once again, we see that Dick "Turban" Durbin has his priorities clearly on display. The soldiers that he thinks are as bad as the enemy -- OUR soldiers -- are to be ignored as a bug takes first palce in Durbin’s list of priorities.

Spending Federal funds on bugs or supporting our soldiers? The choice is clear for Durbin.

Senator Durbin, meet the beetles … but to heck with Beetle Bailey.