Publius' Forum

-By Warner Todd Huston

Anyone paying even scant attention to the debates about border fences or security walls has seen the constant nay saying of their efficacy by opponents. It seems that most in the media maintain that border fences or walls do not work. It is also a favorite rallying cry from the anti-security and pro-illegal alien forces on the American left not to mention those who have a penchant for attacking anything the Israelis do.

Fences don't work. We hear it with just about every story.

A few weeks ago the San Francisco Chronicle went so far as to say that the current border fence in California has increased illegal immigrants there. "Even more unexpectedly, the border fence increased the numbers of illegal immigrants in the United States. That's because in the past immigrants from Mexico and Central America could easily return to their home countries, either permanently or to visit family members. The new barriers on the border meant that once they arrived in the United States they were more likely to stay here permanently -- and bring their family members to live with them."

The Arizona Daily Star claims that a wall won't work to keep illegal Mexicans out, saying that "As long as jobs here are plentiful and lucrative, even a solid wall won't keep illegal entrants from crossing over."

Doug MacEachern of the Arizona Republic is sure a wall on the US/Mexico border hurts us worse than it hurts them.

"But the essential question isn't its impact on potential illegal immigrants, inconsequential as I suspect that impact would be. It's about the effect of a wall on those of us already here. And I cannot imagine that effect as anything other than crushing. It will become The Symbol of every foolish isolationist's dream. There will be no more discussion about the value of legal immigration or the importance of doing the truly hard work of securing the border. It will be all about the Wall, whether it serves its intended purpose or not."

Similarly, in Israel The Council On Foreign Relations is sure the wall between Israel and the Palestinian areas won't work because, "...fences are better at stopping trade than terror."

Ariel Natan Pasko, a writer for several websites on matter Jewish is also sure that the wall won't work in Israel. "Disengagement is a suicide plan", he said a few years ago. "Sharon should have learned from the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the debacle called the 'Bar-Lev Line,' that passive defense with walls, fences, sensors, lasers, won't work."

Even former Secretary of State Colin Powell got into the act claiming that the wall in Israel won't work. Powell said, "The Berlin Wall did not work perfectly and the wall that the Israelis are putting up is not going to work perfectly. So, a wall alone is not the answer."

Naturally, I could give thousands of examples of this assumption that fences don't work. And, ridiculously enough and using Powell as an example, every argument against a fence is posited as if those for the fence were claiming that a fence will be 100% foolproof and will "work perfectly" -- a claim I have never once seen a pro-fence advocate make.

But, it is interesting where we see the anti-fence argument being made and from whom. Anti-Jewish or anti-Republican attackers seem to be the only ones who claim fences don't work. It seems that the anti-fence argument is used solely as a weapon against the Israelis and the Republicans.

The AP recently had an interesting little story about the fence Saudi Arabia is going to build on their border with Iraq. And this fence seems the perfect mirror of what Congressional Republicans are proposing for our own, southern border.

The Middle East Economic Digest, a regional news magazine, reported this month that it would contain a double-lined fence with 135 electronically controlled gates, fence-mounted ultraviolet intruder detection sensors, buried radio detection sensors and concertina razor wire along the entire, mostly desert frontier.

The story I linked is from a CNN website and it contains not a word from any anti-fence complainers. Not a discussion from any Arab dissenters on how such a fence "won't work", not a peep from American leftists or "human rights" groups protesting its planning.

In fact, the only link on the CNN website away from this story to another story that might be connected somehow to it isn't a story that discusses the Saudi intentions at all but a video link to one about the supposed "failures" of the American efforts in Iraq.

Not only does this story discuss the Saudis thoughts on how a fence will help keep out Iraqi dissidents and terrorists, but this gem is also snugly inserted into the story:

The United Arab Emirates is building a similar wall along its border with Oman -- mainly to keep out illegal migrants.

So, both the Saudis and the UAE have or are building fences for their security, both for safety and to keep out illegals!

And not a word from the anti-fence crowd crowing about how a fence "won't work".

Interesting is it not? Interesting in that it might appear that the anti-fence crowd really is not against a fence per se, but merely against anything their opponents propose. And simply being "against" is not sufficient enough reason to oppose a fence, is it?

Who says the BBC even tries anymore to be a straight news source that has not taken a side in the ideological debate?

Here is how their latest article on Pakistani President Musharraf starts:

West 'will fail' without Pakistan

'We helped the West' Pakistan's president has warned the West would be "brought to its knees" without his country's co-operation in the so-called war on terror.

That was pretty smooth, BBC! One might almost imagine that it was Musharraf that said the "so-called war on terror".

But, look closer. No quote marks around those words. That means it is the BBC, not Musharraf, that is calling the Global War on Terror a so-called war!

Obviously the BBC is conveying that this war is a sham, or a fake war and using president Musharraf's comments as cover to get that message across.

Can anyone fail to realize, at this point, that the Beeb operates under a solidly anti-war ideology and will take any opportunity to press their point?

So much for th Beeb's so-called "journalism", eh Gouvnah?

The ACLU's Christian view of war

by Robert E. Meyer

In the Monday, September 18th addition of the USA today, a Tennessee minister named Oliver Thomas wrote an op-ed column entitled "A Christian view of war." While Thomas expressed many sentiments worthy of consideration, he made a fundamental theological error in his analysis, which tends to be one of the integral components in delineating the ideology of the religious left from the religious right.

Thomas chided Christians in America for forgetting Jesus' teachings from the Sermon on the Mount. Chief among them are "Blessed are the peacemakers," "Turn the other cheek," and "Pray for your enemies." Now, I don't fault Thomas for reminding individual Christians of their spiritual duties at a time when it's easy to get "whipped up" in the spirit of vengeance, but he proceeds to apply the aforementioned Beatitudes to the conduct of state. This is a misapplication you will find in nearly every liberal (though Thomas never claims to be a liberal) criticism of George W. Bush.

In the internet forum commentary beneath the article, a respondent identified as Jim D., caught this error and articulated a rebuttal at least as well as I could have...

"...I have to disagree with his application of the Sermon on the Mount. This is how individuals are to behave, not nations, or leaders of nations. One of the primary purposes of government is to protect its citizens. If the government "turned the other cheek" when it was attacked, it would be abdicating its responsibility. When you are in leadership, the higher moral imperative is to protect, not submit. It would be akin to a police officer not arresting a rapist because the police office was personally a Christian. His civic duty trumps his personal duty..."

I have discussed this principle many times, most notably in a piece entitled "Beware of secularists quoting scripture." I stated in the piece that Bush is condemned as a theocrat for injecting his personal faith into the cultural milieu, but then chastised for not being like Mahatma Ghandi in conducting the war on terrorism.

Whenever I come across this sort of thinking, I have to wonder how these folks exegetically contend with Romans Chapter 13. The beginning of the chapter discusses the role of the state in a just society, and proscribes that the state wields the sword of wrath against the evil doer. The representative of the state acts as the derivative avenger of justice in the present, while the ultimate day of reckoning by God is held in abeyance.

Liberals frequently bring up the issue of "church and state separation," that is, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's," but have no clue when it comes to applying this concept. I recall a taped debate at Wheaton College a few years back, between Dr. Tony Campolo and Gary Bauer. Campolo basically said that there was no real distinction in the Christian responsibilities of the church and of the state. He was scripturally mistaken.

Hopefully I have distilled the concept they espouse correctly. It seems to me that liberal Christians believe that the state has the same duty to provide compassion and charity as the church, but when it comes to cultural morality and law, the church should have no input or influence in shaping the culture. This is a schizophrenic dichotomy if I ever heard one. Liberals opt for an ideological separation of church and state, whereas conservatives cleave to the historically normative functional and jurisdictional understanding of such separation.

Thomas follows this liberal template in his piece also. At one point he tells us that the Constitution never mentions God, thus it is a secular document, and, therefore, America is a secular nation (though if not mentioning a word is the criteria, we must note that the word "secular" never appears in the Constitution either). Such logic is easily refuted, but I won't run down that rabbit trail in this piece. At another point he relates with distain that "slapping up copies of the Ten Commandments on government buildings threaten to turn us into the very sort of society we are fighting against in this new war." Just how would that happen, I wonder — shades of Rosie O'Donnel it seems? Interestingly enough, I thought the issue with the Ten Commandments was that secularists were trying to take them off of government property, not that Christians were putting new copies up.

Intertwined within that admonition, Thomas turns around and reminds us that we must encourage our government to observe Christian ideals, which more than anything else, sound like a litany of innuendo. For example, he says we should repudiate any leader who says we have a special claim to God's blessing and purpose (God is on our side). Isn't this rather preemptive? What American leader has ever said these things? Bush has been accused of this, and so was Ronald Reagan, but when you read their quotes, you discover their detractors read with mischief in between the lines.

Thomas also says that we ought to address the root of terrorism; poverty and hopeless conditions, particularly of displaced Palestinians. Never mind that their leaders have bilked the people out of money appropriated for them, and that the U.N. has done little to serve the purpose for which it was founded. I also think the Islamic schools play formidable role in promoting a terrorist culture by indoctrination of Islamic youths. One can only wonder why wealthy Arabs can sympathize with the Palestinians by organizing terrorist attacks, but can't offer them any charitable sustenance from their vast riches.

I believe people would be happy to give sacrificially if they didn't find out later that their gifts enriched dictators, terrorists or war lords. We also must exercise stewardship over our charity, rather than just throw "pearls before swine" (a biblical principle also).

Thomas has good intentions; I'm sure, but at times struggles not to retreat into a "blame America" diatribe. He must remember, as Jim D. stated above, the primary purpose of government is the defense of the people under its sovereignty, not unconditional capitulation.

As I conclude this column, there is one more thing you should know that I have just discovered. Thomas co-authored a book with the "Rev." Barry Lynn. Thomas was allegedly quoted as saying "The American Civil Liberties Union has done more for religious liberty than many denominations." Maybe that tells us everything.

WHEN BLINDNESS GOES BEYOND SIGHT
- Resa LaRu Kirkland

The above poem is actually an old hymn. I memorized it when I was 15, because my dad had memorized it too. I had asked him why we couldn't just force people to do the right thing, and he reminded me that such had been Lucifer's plan in Heaven, and that everyone who now exists on earth had voted against it and chose Christ's plan of saving by choice, not force. Then, to get his point across, he recited the above poem to me. It so impacted me with its clarity and wisdom that I immediately got out our old hymnal and memorized it too.

I've never forgotten that. It was a defining moment in my understanding of right and wrong, freedom and slavery, God and Satan. God wants us to return to Him by choice; Satan, on the other hand, is perfectly content to take us by force.

Interesting, isn't it, that the one thing God won't do is the only thing Islam will do?................
Click HERE To Read On

-By Warner Todd Huston

There was a day in American culture when Mom was considered a saint, when a harsh word about her was considered fighting words, when she was placed on a pedestal and revered. There was a time when TV portrayed her as wise, loving, and concerned. That is no more.

Now she is apparently supposed to be "hot".

There were venues when a mom might be considered a sex object in our past, to be sure. Such a status was sometimes conferred on "moms" who appeared in seedy pornography magazines, or on grainy 8MM films that were passed from one set of hands to another -- materials of which one never knew the origins but someone just happened to "have" to show you behind the garage. It was all underground discretely kept under wraps with all the other illicit and immoral materials that sat in the back of young men's sock drawers or in the backs of dirty storefronts in a dilapidated downtown area of a major city. The concept of a sexy mom was certainly not one that was celebrated in the greater culture.

We seem to have reversed the sentiment of shame one felt about such pornography and juxtaposed that with reverence for our American mothers. Where once porn was hidden and covert, now respecting mom seems to have gone underground.

Enter an upcoming reality/game TV show called The Hottest Mom In America™, for which auditions are now being held.

The website blares that "Motherhood Is Redefined - The search for women who define modern day motherhood; they are beautiful, smart, talented moms who also happen to be HOT!"

When I was a child, should someone have said my mom was hot, I'd have clocked them.

So there we have it; moms are not to be celebrated for their devotion to family, or their success at raising healthy, well-adjusted children. Now they have to be "hot". The website also says that these "hot" moms must have "...style, confidence, and sexuality beyond the carpool!"

Sexuality? Certainly our country's fathers love their wives' sexuality, but is that sexuality now fodder for everyone else's titillation? According to this new TV show it is. With this show, we have taken another bite out of a respect for the nuclear family by sexualizing our mothers.

There is one very telling thing on this site, too. Telling in that it proves how they feel about the whole reason why these women they are looking for are called "mothers" in the first place.

Please note that the audition process can take several hours and children under the age of 12 are best kept at home or with friends.

There you have it, girls. Leave those rug rats at home. They are so annoying, insistent, selfish, and loud, ya know? Just get rid of those things if you want to be a part of OUR TV show!

So, now the destruction of the family seems complete. We have sexualized our children and distanced them from parental control. We have excused the permanent adolescence of our males to the point where they are unfit for fatherhood. We have urged mothers not to have kids or, once they are born, to shove them into the hands of waiting babysitters so that mom can run off to an ostensibly more fulfilling career life. And now we are to jettison the respect of a mother's sexuality and are being urged to make her the center of a pornographic styled exploitation on national TV for all to participate in.

A blogger friend of mine, alerted me to this newest outrage and she was none too happy with this sexualization of moms, herself.

Pam, said, "Disgusting…I'm shaking my head and wondering what drove the programming. Was it men? Was it ratings? I really don't care what it was. I, myself, am insulted as a mother. No, I'm no frump. Yeah, I dress sexy why it is appropriate. However, I don't believe any Mom with any sense of self, concern for her children, would embark on this."

That is from a great American mom. And I echo her disgust.

Let us hope this TV show fails, but I am not optimistic.

- By Michael M. Bates

The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) gets over $300 million a year from you and me, purportedly to provide legal assistance to the poor. This is done through grants given to about 140 local programs throughout the country.

The Associated Press reported last month on "the luxuries that executives of the Legal Services Corp. have given themselves with federal money - from $14 'Death by Chocolate' desserts to $400 chauffeured rides to locations within taxi distance of their offices."

The story also noted that the corporation's own inspector general questioned whether the agency's headquarters is too large and if too much is paid in rent. Then there was that $220 taxi ride taken in Ireland by LSC's president who was there for a conference.........................................
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-By Warner Todd Huston

On the 25th, The AP reported that a Muslim "scholar" was denied a temporary business and tourism visa by the State Department for one Tariq Ramadan, resident of Switzerland.

The story, however, makes the State Department's actions seem petty and uninformed. It makes the denial of the visa seem more a result of "racism" than one based on substance. In fact, the reasons that this "scholar" was denied a visa were given short shrift whereas a defense of Ramadan was given full throat.

All Ramadan's "reasons" that he and his attorneys ascribe to the supposedly illegitimate government action are included in the article, but only one small paragraph explores the State Department's reasons for denying the visa... and that in the words of the ACLU!

The American Civil Liberties Union said the U.S. government notified Ramadan he was being excluded because he donated $765 to French and Swiss organizations that provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

That was it. No further delving into the possible reasons why Ramadan might be an undesirable element and shouldn't be allowed into the US, even for a visit.

Yet, the story bristles with multiple defenses of Ramadan from lawyers, to the ACLU, to his own protestations of innocence.

All in all, the story, since it wastes no time giving the reasons that Ramadan should be denied entry to this country in this time of radical Islamism being utilized to attack the USA, gives Ramadan all the benefit of the doubt as well as the platform to spread his assessment of the evils of the US State Department.

"I think it's clear from the history of this case that the U.S. government's real fear is of my ideas," he said. "I am excluded not because the government truly believes me to be a national security threat, but because of my criticisms of American foreign policies in the Middle East; because of my opposition to the invasion of Iraq; and because of my criticism of some of the Bush administration's policies with respect to civil liberties."

But, there MUST be more reasons that the government wants to keep Ramadan out than a mere $765 donated to a shady Muslim "charity"?

Well, let's review some of Ramadan's REAL past history as revealed by a New York Sun article by Daniel Pipes.

-He has praised the brutal Islamist policies of the Sudanese politician Hassan Al-Turabi. Mr. Turabi in turn called Mr. Ramadan the "future of Islam."
- Mr. Ramadan was banned from entering France in 1996 on suspicion of having links with an Algerian Islamist who had recently initiated a terrorist campaign in Paris.
- Ahmed Brahim, an Algerian indicted for Al-Qaeda activities, had "routine contacts" with Mr. Ramadan, according to a Spanish judge (Baltasar Garzón) in 1999.
- Djamel Beghal, leader of a group accused of planning to attack the American embassy in Paris, stated in his 2001 trial that he had studied with Mr. Ramadan.
-Along with nearly all Islamists, Mr. Ramadan has denied that there is "any certain proof" that Bin Laden was behind 9/11.
-He publicly refers to the Islamist atrocities of 9/11, Bali, and Madrid as "interventions," minimizing them to the point of near-endorsement.

And here are other reasons, dug up by Jean-Charles Brisard, a former French intelligence officer doing work for some of the 9/11 families, as reported in Le Parisien:

-Intelligence agencies suspect that Mr. Ramadan (along with his brother Hani) coordinated a meeting at the Hôtel Penta in Geneva for Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy head of Al-Qaeda, and Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheikh, now in a Minnesota prison.
-Mr. Ramadan's address appears in a register of Al Taqwa Bank, an organization the State Department accuses of supporting Islamist terrorism.

Well, that is a whole different kettle of falaffal!

Ramadan is not as innocent and oppressed as the AP wishes him to appear!

by Thomas E. Brewton

Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo was a quintessential judicial activist, basing his jurisprudential philosophy on sociology, rather than statute law or legal precedent. From that jurisprudence came the social disintegration of American society in the late 20th century.

In 1932 President Herbert Hoover nominated Benjamin Cardozo to succeed the retiring Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Judge Cardozo was an appropriate choice.

Both he and Justice Holmes, along with Justice Louis Brandeis, were advocates of the new jurisprudential theory that, whenever possible, legal cases should be decided on the basis of what the social-justice principles of socialism envisioned as the appropriate outcome. What the law or legal precedent directed was less important than using the judicial power to reshape society. This necessarily implied antagonism towards both Judeo-Christian principles and English constitutionalism upon which the United States was founded.

These three Justices established the precedents for the 1950s and 1960s Warren Court that ran amok, overturning thousands of years of legal principle and restructuring the legal framework to facilitate the crime wave and moral degradation in the era of the Great Society and student anarchism. Today's legalization of same-sex marriage and aggressive removal of God from public life are just the latest results set in motion by Holmes, Brandeis, and Cardozo.

Justice Cardozo's views closely paralleled those of Justice Holmes, as discussed in "Justice Holmes and Legal Realism:"

-- there is no higher law or natural law, even though natural law was the basis of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution;

-- Christian morality should be divorced from the law;

-- social order is created in the mind of Self-Sufficient Man via the social sciences;

-- there is no such thing as moral truth; truth is merely the dominant public opinion of the moment; Holmes had no objection if the public were to decide to ditch the Constitution and adopt Soviet communism.

This is, in short, a prescription for totalitarian tyranny. Rulers, and judges, unrestrained by a higher, Divine authority, are free to exercise whatever degree of oppressive power they can get away with, via manipulating public opinion to send mobs into the streets to demand seizure of someone else's property.

The Bill of Rights was intended to protect the rights of individuals against the tyranny of the majority, reflecting Jefferson's words in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights..."

Justice Cardozo's view, set forth in his 1924 "The Growth of the Law," was: "We need have no fear in thus subordinating the individual to the community that great minds and great souls will be without an opportunity to reveal themselves." (page 95)

In that study he makes continual reference to works he regards as definitive in the process of reaching judicial decisions. Dominating his list of authorities are prominent advocates of socialism or pragmatist philosophy: John Dewey, Graham Wallas, Justice Holmes, John Maynard Keynes, William James, Charles Sanders Pierce, Justice Louis Brandeis, and Roscoe Pound.

Cardozo's underlying principle is that sociology is the proper guide to determining the correct aims of political society, and a judge should interpret the law to implement those aims. Sociology was the social science conceptualized by atheistic, materialistic philosopher Auguste Comte as the highest of all the sciences, and the foundation of his Religion of Humanity.

Cardozo writes, "Not logic alone, but logic supplemented by the social sciences becomes the instrument of advance." (page 73) "The apportionment of the relative value of certainty on the one side and justice on the other, of adherence to logic and the advancement of utility, involves an appraisal of the social interest which each is capable of promoting." (page 83) "In the choice of the particular device determining the result – social utility – the mores of the times, objectively determined, may properly turn the scale in favor of one against the other." (page 84) " 'The problem,' in the words of [John] Dewey, 'is one of continuous, vital readaptation.' " (page 85)

In other words, if later Justices believe, for example, that abortion is a social end furthering social justice, they are free to "discover" some sociological principle within the penumbras of the shadows of the Bill of Rights to rationalize it. As in the philosophy of pragmatism, the guiding principle is whatever works to further the ends desired by the practitioner.

"... the estimate of the comparative value of one social interest and another, when they come, two or more of them, into collision, will be shaped for the judge ....... by his experience of life; his understanding of the prevailing canons of justice and morality; his study of the social sciences; .... " (pages 85 - 86)

"What we are seeking is not merely the justice that one receives when his rights and duties are determined by the law as it is; what we are seeking is the justice to which law in its making should conform." (page 87) "The analysis of social interests and their relative importance is one of the clews, then, that the lawyer and the judge must utilize in the solution of their problems." (pages 93 - 94)

"The judge interprets the social conscience, and gives effect to it in the law." (pages 96 - 97) What about the legislative branch? Isn't it uniquely structured to reflect public opinion? Legislators must stand for re-election. Supreme Court Justices are appointed, in effect, for life.

The fundamental flaw in basing legal interpretation upon the atheistic materialism of sociology is that so-called social scientists are defining social aims within a theoretical framework. Since Cardozo's day in the 1920s and 1930s, the result of sociological theory as the guiding light for political decision has been disaster, just as it was in France after the socialist revolution of 1789.

In contrast, the respect for Judeo-Christian principles and long-established tradition that characterized English and early American history produced the greatest degree of political liberty and the highest living standards in world history.

-By Warner Todd Huston

On the Ludwig Von Mises Institute website, there is an interesting analysis on the post Katrina failings of socialism employed by the US government to meet with the aftermath of the storms.

Here are the first few paragraphs...

Socialist Man in the Big Easy
By Vedran Vuk

Marxists long theorized that communism would bring about the new socialist man. Through communist programs, man would turn his sole purpose to laboring and struggling for the greater good of the collective.

Through socialist policies and redistribution, New Orleans has raised from its ruin a new socialist man. However, instead of working for the collective, this risen New Orleans man does not work at all. He does not live for the collective but lives at the expense of the collective. This reality is drastically different from what Marxists had in mind when referring to the man created from socialism.

To a person with common sense, this seems like an obvious outcome. If you give money to those who stay unemployed, you are not teaching them to work. Rather, you are teaching them how to survive without working.
_______

Now THAT is a stark realization of the selfishness of man. A selfishness that is best served by capitalism and worst served by socialism.

-By Warner Todd Huston

Looks like there are some lights finally turing on in the mostly empty belfries in the heads of Europe's intelligentsia!

As the announcements of the arrests of 8 terrorists occurred in Denmark earlier this month, a small book of warning was stocked on the bookshelves of Denmark's bookstores.

Apparently, this little tome has made quite a stir in Denmark. The International Herald Tribune recently reported that this isn't a book written by fringe individuals in Denmark, either.

"Islamists and Naivists," by Karen Jespersen and Ralf Pittelkow, has since risen to the top of the best-seller list and is causing a sensation in Denmark - in part because the authors are establishment figures previously known for their progressive attitudes toward Islam and integration.

The authors are warning Europe that they are not just letting the wolf guard the hen house, but are leading the wolf right into the hen house.

The book's main argument is that Europeans who ignore the threat posed by Islamists belong to a new and dangerous tribe of "naivists," a term coined by the authors. This may not sound so radical at a time when the pope has upset the Islamic world by quoting a medieval passage calling Islam "evil and inhuman" and when Islamic terrorist plots have put Europe on edge.

But the book also equates Islamic fundamentalists with Nazis and Communists - a provocative stand on the heels of the cartoon crisis, which strengthened a backlash against immigrants that was already brewing here.

Naturally, instead of indulging in some introspection, Muslim "leaders" are wailing and gnashing their teeth over this book's appearance.

It's about time that some intellectuals in Europe start to stand against Islamist oppression, instead of cowering before it.

"The mixture of political correctness and fear all too often leads to compliance with Islamism," Pittelkow writes in the book. "The fatal mistake of the naivists was to cave into demands for Islamic-style censorship."

Good job Mr. Pittelkow. May your colleagues see the same light you have seen.

Let's hope they do so before it is too late to stop the Islamist threat!

- By Michael M. Bates

The word of the month is squander. As in, we have squandered all the good will the United States enjoyed after the 9/11 attacks.

The Associated Press picked up on the theme. Its 9/11 coverage included the observation, "Critics say Americans have squandered the goodwill that prompted France's Le Monde newspaper to proclaim 'We are all Americans' that somber day after the attacks..."

Going unmentioned was a question later posed in that editorial: "Might it not then have been America itself that created this demon?"

Also on the squander case is the formidable intellectual Ms. Rosie O'Donnell. On "The View" the conversation turned to the purported world support for the U.S. after 9/11. Rosie opined, "And it's hard to believe that in the five years since, that's all gone away. And we have sort of squandered, the, you know, the world's..." She was interrupted by another cohost, who assured her the matter would be discussed another day. No doubt it will be........................................
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In the News

Well, here was another good sign that not ALL Federal judges are leftist, activists. In a recent decision Judge Ronald Guzman of the U.S. District Court in Chicago held that it is not unreasonable that applicants for Medicaid supply proof of US citizenship before being eligible for that aid.

Several groups got together to file against the Dept. of Health and Human Services regulation earlier this year claiming that the rule would prevent old people, the homeless and the disabled from being able to get medical treatment. But, read this all as a code words to say that it would prevent illegal aliens from receiving benefits that are not due them if they have to prove citizenship.

The judge did say that the proof of citizenship requirements may be dropped when Medicaid is applied for in the name of foster children or other wards of the state, however. I have to say, that sounds reasonable.

You can read more at :Judge defers citizenship-Medicaid law challenge

- By Frederick Meekins

For over a century, the Statue of Liberty stood in New York Harbor proudly extolling American values to the world, even doing so defiantly in the face of those finding this country an affront to their despotic aspirations and morays. However, as factions within the government conspire to use the war on terror as a smokescreen behind which to continue the transformation of the American people into docile minions of conformity, it seems Lady Liberty no longer stands quite so bravely because her caretakers compel her to cower before the forces of evil from both within and without this great nation.

Since the 9/11 attacks in 2001, access to the statue has been curtailed and severely limited. The interior of the landmark was closed for nearly three years following the terrorist incident. And as with other aspects of American life, from that day forward the tragedy was invoked as an excuse one could not question without having one's patriotism assailed to keep the upper reaches of the statue off limits in perpetuity...............................
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Photo Caption:
Leader of the Christian Lebanese Forces militia Samir Geagea talks an annual mass to commemorate Christian militiamen killed during the bloody sectarian conflict at the shrine of the Virgin Mary in the town of Harissa, 27 kilometers (17 miles) north of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2006. Tens of thousands of right-wing Christians turned out at a tumultuous rally north of Beirut Sunday led by a notorious anti-Syrian former warlord, in a show of strength two days after a massive gathering by the rival Muslim Shiite Hezbollah. Geagea, who was released from prison last year after serving more than a decade on multiple counts of murder dating to the war, backs the Western-leaning government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Let us hope that the Christian sections of Lebanon can gain the upper had against these Islamic murderers...
__________
In Beirut, large rally against Hezbollah

By HUSSEIN DAKROUB, AP writer

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- An anti-Syrian Christian leader dismissed Hezbollah's claims of victory in its war with Israel as tens of thousands of his supporters rallied Sunday in a show of strength that highlighted Lebanon's sharp divisions.

The rally north of Beirut came just two days after a massive gathering by the rival Shiite Muslim Hezbollah that attracted hundreds of thousands. The two sides have been at sharp odds over the future of the Lebanese government since this summer's Israeli-Hezbollah war.

Samir Geagea, a notorious former leader of a Christian militia, scoffed at Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah's declaration that his guerrillas achieved "a victory" against Israel.

"I don't feel victory because the majority of the Lebanese people do not feel victory. Rather, they feel that a major catastrophe had befallen them and made their present and future uncertain," he said.

By Warner Todd Huston

On September 11th, 2001, Islamofascist murderers killed nearly 3,000 Americans in attacks on non-military targets. Common, every-man citizens on their way to work, or perhaps headed for a vacation or a visit with family, were killed by these murderers. This we all know.

But, in Phoenix, a memorial to those average Americans killed by Islamic murderers seems to have become a platform to subtly blame America for its fate.

Thanks to blogger, Greg Patterson of EspressoPundit blog, we have been made aware of this outrageous politicizing of a memorial in John McCain's home state of Arizona.

The monument was unveiled in Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza near Arizona's state capital on the fifth anniversary of the attacks earlier this month. The prosaically designed, post-modern styled memorial features a time-line record of the supposed key events leading up to the outrage perpetrated against us in 2001.

But, it isn't just a series of dates recognizing terrorist attacks. No, some of these dates and inscriptions seem to infer that we got what we deserved with the attacks against us that horrible day.

As Arizona's East Valley Tribune reports...

One inscription states, "You don't win battles of terrorism with more battles." Another: "Congress questions why CIA and FBI didn't prevent attacks." And another reads, "Erroneous US air strike kills 46 Uruzgan civilians," referring to a wedding reportedly hit by mistake in Afghanistan.

The story also quotes representative Russell Pearce (R-Mesa) as being stunned by the news of this memorial and it's message. "To politicize it to me is absolutely outrageous, instead of a memorial to remember those who have sacrificed their lives," he said.

Patterson of EspressoPundit blog reveals the worst of it when he notes that other attacks on the US are included on this "memorial". Dates such as The sinking of the Lusitania, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and, incongruously, the date of the "attack" at the Gulf of Tonkin, the event used by president Lyndon B. Johnson for justifying his sending us into Vietnam, are included on the Phoenix contraption.

Rightfully, Patterson notices that this was a cynical attempt to link Vietnam with the current Global War on Terror in which we are involved. But, truthfully, what relevance does the sinking of the Lusitania or the attack on Pearl Harbor have to do with 9/11? What did the Japanese or the Germans have to do with Islamists who crashed multiple planes into US skyscrapers?

The Memorial wasn't complete without pointing out that after the attacks on 9/11 the US Air Force was responsible for "Erroneous US air strikes" that killed "46 Uruzgan civilians." Again, what does this accidental killing have to do with the purposeful outrage committed on 9/11?Is it a mitigating circumstance to lessen the guilt of the terrorists? Are we to view our accidental air strike a year after 9/11 as an excuse for the terrorists actions?

Additionally, why did this "memorial" take up things that happened AFTER the attacks the memorial is there to memorialize, anyway? How many memorials do you know that continues to offer comment on post event history -- unless it happens to be history of those affected by the actual attack itself? Aren't memorials supposed to focus on the actual event instead of going off on some long, drawn out history lesson of the entire era in which the event took place?

Does the Memorial for Pearl Harbor go on to tell us how Japan became a world commercial success after its attack at Pearl, for instance? Is there a Lusitania memorial somewhere that goes on to tell us all about the rise of Hitler?

Then there is this inscription:

06 03 02 Congress questions why CIA and FBI didn't prevent attacks

Excuse me? Are we supposed to understand that this "memorial" is trying to get us angry at our own government over a lack of foresight and the intelligence failures that led up to the attacks? As Patterson notes, when he saw the Pearl Harbor memorial he "... didn't see any reference to Roosevelt getting advance notice of the bombing."

Why not? Some say Roosevelt did have such advanced notice and eagerly awaited the attacks at Pearl to push his fellow Americans into allowing him to get into WWII. But, would such an allusion to an FDR conspiracy theory be a fitting addition to a memorial?

I'd say no. How about you?

This "memorial" is an outrage and the fact that public money went for this political attack on our own government is a out right crime.

One wonders if John McCain will denounce this obscene attempt at blaming America for what befell it that has been foisted upon the people of his own state?

- By Vince Johnson

Before we went to the first grade, most of us knew all the colors in the rainbow. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Violet. We had crayons and we colored the sky blue, oranges were orange and apples were the same color as little red wagons loaded with green watermelons. You couldn't color the snowman because it was already white, but you could make a carrot colored nose, do little black dots for his eyes and a scarf in red, green or blue.

The first crayons were made by Crayola in 1902. They sold for a nickel a box having 8 colors which were black, brown, blue, red, purple, orange, yellow, and green. Life was simple. Fire engines and cabooses were red. Steam engines were black. Cars were black, blue or tan. Log cabins were brown. With a choice of 8 colors, no time was wasted on pick’n and choose'n. You grabbed a crayon and started coloring.
.................
Click HERE To Read On

-By Warner Todd Huston

The San Francisco Chronicle has finally found a "hate crime" it can write about.

No, it isn't the hate crime of self-proclaimed terrorist, Omeed Aziz Popal, who drove his SUV into pedestrians throughout San Francisco, killing one, paralyzing another, and injuring many... no not that story. Why Omeed was just a poor, sick-in-the-head fellow, not an Islamist terrorist despite that he claimed to be to all who would listen to him.

I have looked at quite a few San Francisco Chronicle articles, and none of them have used the words "hate crime" in connection with the Aziz Popal story. (Here is a typical oneFamily cites history of mental problems, where the Chronicle never seems to get around to accusing hate crimes, but does feel sorry for the perpetrator)

Yes, the Chronicle must now be happy that it has found a "hate crime" it can sink its fangs into.

Jill Tucker, a Chronicle Staff Writer, has given us Vandalism at Lowell possibly a hate crime, where someone spray painted a Teacher's computer with pink spray paint!

The horrors...

An act of vandalism involving pink paint and an inflammatory note found at Lowell High School early Thursday morning is under investigation as a possible hate crime, San Francisco school officials said.

Yes, a little paint and an "inflammatory note" causes the Chronicle to breathlessly report an outbreak of "hate crimes", but a guy running people down with a car and killing them... well, let's not say "hate" exactly!

Well, the good news is that the school's Principal has made a stand...

After the incident, Interim Principal Amy Hansen met with Lowell's faculty members and told them that the incident was not just an attack on one of the teachers, but on them all, Blythe said.

I feel better already

I wonder if Aziz Popel's 18 or so victims and their families feel better?

by Christopher Adamo

Pick your issue, from the environment to “sexual harassment,” to the treatment of captured terrorists, and the liberal take on it is guaranteed to be wrong on every front. First, the concerns expressed by the left are invariably only a facade, intended to exploit the situation in an effort to advance the cause of liberalism. Secondly, and more significantly, liberal involvement will almost exclusively worsen the problem about which the left claims to be concerned.

On the topic of “sexual harassment,” the left incessantly lauded itself as a champion of the plight of women at the hands of brutish men, until the brutish “man” in question was the sniveling philandering Democrat President whom they believed to be their secular messiah.

Suddenly, “sex” was no longer sex, and “harassment,” even to the point of criminal assault and intimidation, was no longer any indictment of the perpetrator. In essence, liberals were proving that these issues were of concern to them only insofar as they could be used to bludgeon their political opposition into compliance and retreat.

Otherwise, whether the issue is that of an innocent receptionist who is affronted by the then governor of Arkansas exposing himself to her and thereafter seeking to bully her into silence, or the genocide of hundreds of thousands of helpless refugees in sub-Saharan Africa, liberals are absolutely indifferent to it. Yet such indifference may be the far lesser of two evils.

Consider all of their recent caterwauling over the “plight” of the Islamist monsters being detained at Guantanamo, and how liberal Democrats from both parties contend that the present controversy might ostensibly yield an adverse effect on the Geneva Convention.

Just as with every other issue they embrace, the actual result promises to be incalculable damage to the significance of that treaty. Yet in truth the left is no more concerned with the fate of the terrorists or the treaty than it is with the entirely predictable fallout that will negatively impact American servicemen in present and future conflicts.

What must first be understood is the manner in which the Geneva Convention was constructed and ratified, and what mechanisms must be in place in order for it to be upheld. In the wake of atrocities against military prisoners taken captive during the First World War, nations that held a concern for their own soldiers, when captured, agreed to set standards of reasonable treatment.

Yet despite the juvenile beliefs of liberal utopians, no beneficent and all-powerful authority exists that could enforce such provisions. Neither The Hague nor the United Nations qualifies. Experience has shown them to be little more than miserable and pathetic caricatures of such.

Ultimately, the participating nations recognized that the only manner in which the Convention could be upheld was to diligently grant such protections to the prisoners from those nations who were themselves signatories and therefore in agreement with the provisions of the convention. It is this promise of reciprocity, both positive and negative, that undergirds the Convention.

During World War II, an American captive could expect superior treatment in a German prisoner of war camp to that received by a Russian, owing in part to the fact that although both America and Germany signed the treaty, the Soviet Union had not. Thus, in the wake of the war, the Soviets became official signatories to the pact.

Recently, the United States Supreme Court bestowed upon al Qaeda terrorists (Hardly an organized or accountable military entity) the “rights” of prisoners under the Geneva Convention. In doing so, the Court committed an act of blatant and unconstitutional activism that makes a mockery of the Convention, and in a former era would have resulted in their impeachment and removal from the bench.

Despite the fact that the terrorist-prisoners were already being treated with a level of civility vastly exceeding anything Americans might ever expect at their hands, the Court essentially codified their status as legitimate members of a foreign “army” that at some future date could conceivably enter into a treaty with the United States Government.

To justify this outrage, the court invoked a phony premise that it was somehow ensuring that Americans, captured by al Qaeda members or their allies, would receive reciprocal consideration. Yet it is beyond absurd to expect that people who clearly intend to wage and win their wars through wanton brutality and cruelty would ever defer to such behavior.

Worse yet, those countries that might be wavering in their commitment to participation within the rules of the Convention suddenly have no incentive to abide by any provision of it. If their own military members are now guaranteed, by order of the United States Supreme Court, to be treated with utmost consideration, regardless of their own actions towards Americans, why should they then be willing to accept the constraints of the treaty if so doing accrues no further benefit to them?

In short, the ability of the American government to protect the interests of its own citizenry and military personnel is directly tied to its willingness to use its power as leverage against those nations who seek to do harm to it.

With every effort to restrict and undermine that ability, the American left (A cabal that now undeniably includes the likes of Arizona Senator John McCain) increases the likelihood that America’s enemies will abuse and kill captured American servicemen and women with impunity.

McCain and his cohorts certainly know this. Thus they cannot be excused, on the basis of ignorance, from such seditious collaboration with the enemies of America.

A Farewell to Armitage

WaPo’s high-attitude Plame-out


by Thomas Lindaman

After three years of accusations, media appearances, and heated exchanges, the Valerie Plame situation has gone from a bang to a fizzle. (Or as Snoop would say, a fizzle my nizzle for shizzle.) The media played a huge role in bringing us the details of Plamegate, as well as appearances by her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson IV. And after three years, we finally have the truth that it was former deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage who knowingly or unknowingly leaked Plame’s name to Robert Novak.

And what did the media do? Well, we have to remember they’re responsible, serious-minded people who want to provide us with the most accurate information they have available so that we can be informed. So, they did what any serious-minded person would do.

They’ve started to pretend like the story wasn’t that important after all.

Leading the pack in the “What, We Worry About Shoddy Reporting?” sweepstakes is the Washington Post. In a column titled “End of an Affair” dated September 1, 2006, the Post offers an almost-mea culpa.

We’re reluctant to return to the subject of former CIA employee Valerie Plame because of our oft-stated belief that far too much attention and debate in Washington has been devoted to her story and that of her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, over the past three years.

Of course, this begs the question of how much attention the Post paid to the Plame story. Judging from the number of hits I got putting Plame’s name into their site’s search engine, quite a bit. From September 2003 to September 2006, a little over 3 years, the Post ran a total of 554 stories that referenced Valerie Plame. Break that down a bit further, it comes out to be a shade under 15 stories a month, or approximately a story every two days.

Whoa. If this is how the Washington Post shows restraint, I’d hate to see when they’re obsessing over a story.

Perhaps the most puzzling element of the Post’s column is how they try to keep the Bush Administration on the hook while at the same time acknowledge the people they’ve been hawking as the probable leakers are not guilty. Take this excerpt from the column:

That’s not to say Mr. Libby and other White House officials are blameless. As prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has reported, when Mr. Wilson charged that intelligence about Iraq had been twisted to make a case for war, Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney reacted by inquiring about Ms. Plame’s role in recommending Mr. Wilson for a CIA-sponsored trip to Niger…Mr. Libby then allegedly disclosed Ms. Plame’s identity to journalists and lied to a grand jury when he said he had learned of her identity from one of those reporters. Mr. Libby and his boss, Mr. Cheney, were trying to discredit Mr. Wilson; if Mr. Fitzgerald’s account is correct, they were careless about handling information that was classified.

Maybe if Cheney and Libby had stuffed their pants with sensitive documents like Sandy Burger did, the Post wouldn’t be calling them “careless.”

Ah, but then the Post does a complete 180:

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame’s CIA career is Mr. Wilson.

Wait a sec. If Wilson is responsible for Plame’s name being made public, how can Cheney and Libby still be held responsible? A little more research on the Post’s part would have revealed that Plame was not an agent in the field at the time of her outing, and she hadn’t been for over five years, the minimum requirement by law under which someone exposing a CIA agent would be in violation of said law.

Research, by the way, that had been done by conservative bloggers for years now. And when people in pajamas scoop the big boys in the mainstream press, the media don’t have egg on their faces; they have an entire Grand Slam Breakfast.

At the heart of the media coverage of the now-discredited Valerie Plame issue is more half-cocked reporting. (Insert Bill Clinton joke here.) Now that the media have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, they’re now looking to pretend like there was no hand, no cookies, and no cookie jar. Then again, whenever you’re in the same party as Michael Moore, there’s a likely chance he’s eaten at least two out of the three.

Sorry, kids, but you don’t get off that easily. You owe it to your readers and to your fellow reporters to put as much heat on Richard Armitage and Joseph Wilson as you put on Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. They’ve enjoyed the fruits of your labor (or lack thereof) for too long. If you want justice for Valerie Plame, then go after those truly responsible for it. If you want to continue to blame the Bush Administration for actions they didn’t take…wait, isn’t that what you’re already doing?

I don't often point you to Op Eds written by those other than our contributors, but here is an important Op Ed that you all must read. It is a careful delineation of just why we are failing in our efforts to confront this Islamofascist evil that is threatening the civilized world.

We ARE losing this war thus far. We are sitting in the same spot as the free west was in the late 1930s as Hitler and the Japanese were rampaging throught their spheres subjugating people and murdering them. We are fiddling as Rome burns, just like Chamberlain did.

Here is a link and the first of Selbourne's reasons. PLEASE hit the link and go read the full piece...

Can the West defeat the Islamist threat? Here are ten reasons why not
By David Selbourne

LET US SUPPOSE, for the sake of argument, that the war declared by al-Qaeda and other Islamists is under way. Let us further suppose that thousands of "terrorist" attacks carried out in Islam's name during the past decades form part of this war; and that conflicts that have spread to 50 countries and more, taking the lives of millions ... including in inter-Muslim blood-shedding ... are the outcome of what Osama bin Laden has called "conducting jihad for the sake of Allah".

If such war is under way, there are ten good reasons why, as things stand, Islam will not be defeated in it.

1) The first is the extent of political division in the non-Muslim world about what is afoot. Some reject outright that there is a war at all; others agree with the assertion by the US President that "the war we fight is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century". Divided counsels have also dictated everything from "dialogue" to the use of nuclear weapons, and from reliance on "public diplomacy" to "taking out Islamic sites", Mecca included. Adding to this incoherence has been the gulf between those bristling to take the fight to the "terrorist" and those who would impede such a fight, whether from domestic civil libertarian concerns or from rivalrous geopolitical calculation.

-By Warner Todd Huston

As Muslims rage across the globe killing people for publishing cartoons and threatening religious leaders for reading the words of an historical figure, some people paradoxically seem to imagine a greater threat looms over the world.

Rabbi James Rudin is one of those people. He has even invented a word to describe them: "Christocrats".

Like so many who have made a living raising strawmen to knock down, Rudin cannot see the world in which we live, but the one he wants to exist ... the one that might more easily keep him flush.

Like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, men who still imagine we live in the era of Jim Crow, Rabbi Rudin, Director of the Interreligious Affairs Department of the ACJ (American Jewish Committee), imagines that we still live in an era of the Inquisition and that we are about to be overtaken by these "Christocrats".

Sounds ominous. But, most stawmen do, don't they?

The last time Rabbi Rudin was making the rounds he was denouncing the Movie "Passion of the Christ" as a one made solely to disparage Jews. On CNN, Rudin denounced the movie saying, "I saw the film twice. I'm very disappointed. I'm very angry. I'm disappointed because Mel Gibson could have made a thoroughly Christian 'Passion' play without beating up on Jews, vilifying my religion, my people, as he's done."

Now he is out hawking a book he entitled, "The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right's Plans for the Rest of Us". This screed is a rather insidious attempt to inflame Jews and secularists against Christians exactly in an era where we all face Islamofascism, the biggest threat to civilization since WWII, and in an era where we should be coming together to face this threat.

Yet, even as one reads Rabbi Rudin's book one finds little by way of substance and almost no real solutions other than to tell Christians to just shut up. Additionally, one cannot help but get the feeling that the good Rabbi is revealing his own hatreds for everything Christian. The whole tome feels like some personal vendetta.

In a recent interview, Rudin went out of his way to preface his words with the disclaimer that he didn't mean "all Evangelicals". On Buzzflash.com, Rudin said of the average Evangelical, "I’ve found that the overwhelming majority of Evangelical Christians are not committed to changing the basic relationship between church and state, and between government and religion."

He also warned that his boogymen were not very numerous, but were merely "a small, but very potent group, who are driven to say it’s not just Christianity, but their form of Christianity that must be the legal, mandated, dominant form." Rudin even claims that the men he fears the most, Francis A. Schaeffer, and John Rushdoony (the Rushdoony who died in 2001), are "men who are pretty much unknown to the general American public".

This book, however, makes the fib to these disclaimers of a small, unnoticed cabal of Christian toughs because he ascribes all manner of outsized actions and successes to this "small, but very potent group" and inflates their power unduly. He sees Christian boogymen under his bed, in his closet, in his Courts and in Congress all controlled by people who most Americans have never heard of.

Rudin imagines that these "Christocrats" want to change the Constitution to "define exactly the kind of Christianity that is legally the mandated version" and worries that "even other Christians would become second class" citizens as a result.

Worse, Rudin feels that these "Christocrats" are just as vicious as any extremist Islamist might be.

Sadly, it seems Rudin views his enemy from afar and must not know very many of them. It would be interesting, for instance, to see Rudin address the fact that a great majority of his hated Evangelicals support Israel. But it is presumed he would explain that support away as a product of the "End Times" thinking that many anti-Christians so fear. In this theory, Christians only support Israel because a strong Israel will bring about the end of the world, a silly and ridiculous claim.

Rudin's rant against Christians seems rather reminiscent of the wacko conspiracies that too many deluded people blame on Jews, doesn't it? Can you say "Elders of Zion"? Apparently, Rudin does not see the irony in his own actions.

What Rudin rails against the most is the efforts by Christians to get politically involved -- a trend that started in the late 70's and early 80's. Here Jerry Falwell's "Moral Majority" comes in for special conspiracy theorizing. Rudin bemoans the lost days when Christians just shut up and voted without worrying about what really went on in Washington.

"Christian conservatives' concern always was, get right with Jesus, get right with Christ, get right with God on a personal level. Yes, they voted. And they participated in elections. But they did not see political parties or political movements as a means of carrying out God’s will. God alone would determine that, and voting was a citizen’s duty. But the Christian conservatives didn’t look to the Democratic or Republican Party to deliver theological gifts or theological concerns or provide theological answers."

So, now we see Rudin's real problem. Christians are fine if they stay uninvolved in politics. He feels they should forget about that stuff and leave it to smarter men like himself, presumably. He cries foul at the "parallel media system of television, radio, magazines, newspapers, which reflect their point of view" that Christians have created, warns against the political action groups Christians have orgaized, moans about the money raised and gesticulates madly over the influence that this terrible religion has over Washington. Curiously, he doesn't see any parallel with the many Jewish groups that do the very same things for his own religion, some of which he works for.

And one wonders why Rabbi Rudin thinks it is that Christians were called to a greater involvement in politics in the 1980's, in the first place? It wasn't a sudden movement lead by crazed but charismatic leaders who simply misled the public into invlvement, but a response to decades of an American political scene that had drifted further and further from the conservative and religious precepts that had been the mainstay of American political discourse for nearly two hundred years. It was a result of a large group of regular Americans that had had enough of the warping and tearing down of traditional Americanism. If this disgust with the extreme left in America had not existed no Jerry Falwell could have become the powerhouse he became for a short time. Falwell or no, American Christians have every right to try and stop the march to leftism that was invading their schools and their politics.

Amazingly, Rudin claims that Christians are un-American just as they became involved in the most American endeavor; political activity. He doesn't accept that Christians have the very same right to advocate for their ideas and political needs as any other group and are not doing anything differently than the very organizations that Rudin works for.

All in all, it seems more like Rudin is engaging in wishful thinking and propagating the kind of anti-Christian rhetoric he has become famous for and not truthfully reading America's Christian community. His book is a mere screed against Christians masquerading as cogent cultural and political analysis.

Rudin's message is that he just wants Christians to shut up and go away and wants them to know that he feels they are not real Americans.

by Randall H. Nunn

Like many conservatives, there are a number of reasons why I am disappointed with the Bush administration and unhappy with the Republican-controlled Congress. With control of the White House and both houses of Congress, so much was possible and yet little has been accomplished. Social security reform has fizzled as has meaningful tax reform. Were it not for conservative opposition, the U.S. Supreme Court would have been weakened with the appointment of a nominee who lacked the qualifications and conservative principles required for such a post at this time in our history. The administration has been ineffectual on immigration, drilling in ANWR, spending restraint and a number of other issues important to the country and it seems unable to articulately and coherently state its positions on these issues. Yet, despite the bumbling and seeming lack of conviction, Republicans must remain in control of Congress this November.

If the Republicans lose either house of Congress, the damage that would be inflicted upon the country by the leftist Democrats who would accede to the committee chairmanships and positions of power would be almost unimaginable. These leftists would not only attempt to undo every conservative initiative in the domestic policy arena but would seek to withdraw support to those who are presently assisting this country in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the war against terrorism. Many of those presently assisting us are already nervous about our will as a country to see this through to a successful conclusion, both based on past history and present statements in our mainstream media. If the United States backs away from the battle against the Islamic fascists, it will be many years before others will trust our national will enough to ally with us. There can be no doubt where a Democratic-controlled Congress will try to take us, knowing the present Democratic leadership. Those conservatives who find it difficult to vote for some Republicans need to view the upcoming elections as an opportunity to vote against the likes of Pelosi, Murtha, Kennedy and Schumer. 2006 is a time to celebrate the fine old American tradition of voting against, rather than for.

Now I know it is not considered chic to be negative and that it is considered far more commendable to be positive, upbeat and proactive. But isn’t it much more exciting to vote against a radical leftist and see them go down in flames than to vote for an opponent for whom you can only muster lukewarm support? After all, any one of a thousand people, no matter whether they are somewhat lacking in conviction on this issue or that, or even if downright mediocre, is better than a Murtha or Pelosi. Let’s send a message to the mainstream media, Hollywood, the academic world and the big-money backers of the left by voting against these people. This is one election in which it should be infinitely easier to vote against than it is to vote for. Honor your country and your principles by voting against a jerk. Who you are voting for is not, at this juncture, as important as who you are voting against. A rising tide of negativity will sweep all before it if we just let our indignation, anger and exasperation do their job in the voting booths across this country this November.

-by Warner Todd Huston

According to The Hill newspaper, a new website almost shut down Congress
earlier a few days ago.

Legistorm.com, came on line and
promptly sent every staff worker in Washington, D.C. to their computers to
see if they were in the database, and secondly what all their comrades on
the Hill are being paid.

Once on Legistorm's site, they say that they are "The Web's only source for
congressional staff salaries..." They feature a search engine where you can
find single staffers or their Congressional employer. And a wealth of info
is at your fingerprints.

According to the creators, they spent the many hundreds of man hours to take
the Senate and House's printed salary reports, reports that are usually
hidden from public view in the Congressional records archives, enter them
into a data base and make them ready for your perusal.

We should thank Legistorm for all their hard work as they prove the best
usage of the Web. No2, for the first time, it is easy for the general public
to find out how much money is being wasted on buddies and pals of our
Congressional representatives. Finally some sunlight is being shinned on one
aspect of government waste.

Here is the main page explanation of the site:

At long last, US congressional staff salaries are available for free on the
web - and only here at LegiStorm.

Who is employed by Congress, and how much
they are paid, is often a source of fascination for the politically aware.
Prior to this site's creation, members of the public needed to visit the
document rooms of the House and the Senate in Washington, DC to discover who
was being paid what. Now, all this information is available on the web - for
residents of Alaska or Zanzibar - at the click of a mouse.

We exist to
provide a valuable resource for users. If you have any suggestions for
improvement, we would love to know.

Over the coming months we anticipate
adding other useful resources. Please stay tuned. And be sure to Register
for Updates so you can be informed by email when we upload new data to the
site or introduce new features.

Democracy and accountability lives at Legistorm!!

- By R.A. Hawkins

Last week I mentioned Tokyo Rose while referring to the new mouthpiece of al-Qaeda. I received a rather interesting email from a nice lady in California who is part of a conservative group that supports our troops from all wars. She sent me a few articles and a link to a very interesting webpage, www.dyarstraights.com. I read for quite a while and then while I was at work I asked a few people who they thought Tokyo Rose was. I found the same misperception to be just about everywhere. Nobody had the straight story. So here is another, more honest, story of who she really is and was.

In an article from the Washington Times, James C. Roberts blew the lies out of the water with some nicely placed salvos of facts. Born in Southern California as Iva Toguri into a Japanese-American family determined to assimilate she grew up and went to school like any one of us. She graduated from UCLA with plans to become a doctor. Her aunt was ill and needing help asked Iva's mother to come to Japan. Iva's mother was also in very poor health, so Iva went instead. She thought she was going to be in Japan for six months, but December 7 1941 changed everything. During her time in Japan Iva took a job at the Domei News Agency as a typist. In 1943 she responded to an add from Radio Tokyo asking for English speaking typists and quickly found herself intertwined in a situation that forever changed her life and shadows her to this day.......................................
Click HERE To Read On

-By Warner Todd Huston

The law was passed by the Illinois legislature all the way back in 1995, allowing Illinois to join all the surrounding states in ruling that a minor girl who is trying to get an abortion cannot do so until her parents are notified of her desire for the invasive medical procedure.

But, a past Supreme Court refused to allow the law to go into effect because they would not issue rules on how any minor could seek a waiver from the law in case of abuse, or the like.

This refusal had the unintended consequence of making Illinois and abortion dumping ground as young girls from all the surrounding states, where their parents would have to be notified, came to Illinois for an abortion free of notification.

Court Finally to issue Rules

Currently there is only one member left from the 1995 State Supreme Court membership, so this new Court decided to take up the issue of the needed rules for exemption, after which the law may go into effect.

"I'm just delighted to hear it," said DuPage County State's Atty. and candidate for Lt. Governor Joseph Birkett, who wrote a letter to the justices in June urging them to take up the issue. "An abortion is an invasive medical procedure. Usually, it's better to have an adult family member involved."

Of course we will still have to go through the blocking efforts of the ACLU (All Criminal Lawyer Union) who will undoubtedly fight to keep Illinois an indiscriminate abortion mill, but at least this is a first step in the right direction after a 10 year hiatus.

Of course, I'd rather it be outlawed entirely, but we take every little victory that we can.

-By Warner Todd Huston

The American left has been quickly losing their collective mind with an ever-escalating indulgence in wild conspiracy theories that began in earnest during Bush's first election in 2000. Granted, the left has been prone to wild-eyed conspiracy theories for decades, at least since the McCarthy era and definitely since McGoven ran for the White House in 1972. But the level of the touted secret cabals running the world behind the scenes seem to have grown exponentially in the minds of Democrats since 2000.

From Bush's AWOL status being successfully quashed and all paperwork being secreted away somewhere -- well, all the paperwork that Dan Rather didn't fabricate, anyway -- to the claims that Democrats in a Democrat controlled Florida county were prevented from voting, to a claimed GOP puppeteering of the Supreme Court, to the claims of "Big Oil" controlling everything, to an international conspiracy controlled by Haliburton, the Democrats have been spinning one theory right after another with dizzying rapidity. It never stops, Bush is killing blacks in New Orleans, Bush is controlling gas prices, he is even accused by Dailykos nutters of being the mastermind behind the recent E Coli outbreak in fresh, bagged spinach, of all things!

... yet paradoxically, Democrats also contend that Bush is the stupidest, biggest dummie president we've ever had!

Yes, they have gone over the edge with their fantasy excuses for their own failures. But, the Democrats pale in comparison to the utterly psychotic conspiracies that infest the Muslim world and naturally the Jews and America, the Great Satan, are at the root of them all.

The latest conspiracy theory proposed by the Saudis is that we Americans have launched a plan to falsely accuse, arrest and imprison Saudi students who come to the USA merely to attend University.

These innocent, Saudi students only want to better themselves and this claim of a Saudi student imprisoning his maid and forcing her into sexual slavery in Colorado is just another Satanic poly to abuse Saudi Arabian citizens, just another example of American racism against Muslims.

Of course, it is because of our great American racist desire to attack Islam, you see. Why, we evil Americans have no reason to be suspicious of any male Muslim "student" ... do we?

Heck, this guy couldn't be guilty even though the poor woman that was sexually abused and forced to manual labor for no pay came forward and identified Homaidan Al-Turki as her tormentor. No, not according to the Arabnews.com!

No it HAS to be a great conspiracy of American racism.

"Al-Turki’s sentence was unjust and unfair. Pleas to the US president were useless because the jury had made its decision. We grew up knowing that the accused is innocent until proven guilty. The Western rules nowadays assume that every Muslim is guilty and a terrorist until proven otherwise."

So, there it is, that evil US racism revealed.

So goes the faux Saudi outrage. But what are the real details of the case?

"Prosecutors said Al-Turki brought the victim, who is now 24, from Saudi Arabia in 2000 to work as his family's nanny and housekeeper in their Aurora home. Al-Turki is married and has five children.

The victim testified in court that she worked seven days a week and was paid $150 a month. She said Al-Turki and his wife kept most of that money. Al-Turki also allegedly took the woman's passport and sexually abused her.

"This is a clear-cut example of human trafficking," Decker said. "It's important he is put in prison.""

And what was Al-Turki's explanation about why he mistreated his "maid" so badly?

Al-Turki sad that he treated the woman the same way any observant Muslim family would treat a daughter. Then he railed at the court, saying that "the state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors. Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors was the focal point of the prosecution."

So, we see that this young student was just claiming to be a good Muslim treating his charge as he would a daughter. Of course, a "good" Muslim Father often feels no compunction to cut off a daughter's nose, rape her, allow others to rape her, or merely just kill her if that Father imagines that his daughter has somehow violated religious tenets, or caused him "dishonor" and few places in the Muslim world would make any effort to stop such a "loving" Father from showing his "love" so effectively.

That kind of "good" Muslim we do not need.

Still, I heartily endorse the main point about this case that the Arabnews.com advocated.

"I wish we could stop sending our students abroad and instead develop and support our public and private colleges in the Kingdom. Achieving international educational standards in our colleges and universities would serve our students better than sending them to a country where the administration clearly has a system that is unfair."

I can very much agree. I wish they would stop sending their "students" here, as well.

However, it is doubtful that the Saudis will stop sending their students here as their Universities do not teach a well-rounded course load, but focus instead almost exclusively on Koranic studies. So any Saudi that wishes to be trained for a useful profession must leave his home and travel to a western University to find that education.

Would that the Saudis could enter the modern world as the Arabnews.com seemed to wish. Perhaps we might see some of the world's current troubles subside?

But one thing is for sure. Muslims will not be able to address their own, internal problems until they stop blaming everyone else for their troubles. Sometimes a “student” really is guilty of a crime when accused.

- By Hans Zeiger

"The war against this enemy is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century, and the calling of our generation." These are the words of President Bush on September 11, five years after the attacks. If Baby Boomers doubt that this present war is the calling of their generation, the children of the Boomers--at least the rising leaders among them--have little doubt that it is theirs.

On the eve of September 11, 2006, nearly 150 Hillsdale College students gathered for a candlelight vigil on the campus quad in front of Central Hall. I expected perhaps a few dozen students to take time out of an already busy evening on campus for the occasion. But they kept coming, picking up candles, forming into the solemn huddle. .................
Click HERE To Read On

- By Frederick Meekins

Though one does not want to unduly interfere with the affairs of an autonomous church and though I am ambivalent about lady preachers, I can't help but feel that a 81 year old Sunday school teacher dismissed in large part because she is a woman has somehow gotten a raw deal.

What makes this case most vexing is not so much that the church in question forbade women from the get-go from ascending to positions of dogmatic instruction but that this lady was relieved of her duties after fifty years of service.

So why was it OK for her to be teaching all this time then all of a sudden her classroom ministrations transfigured into an ecclesiastical outrage that could no longer be countenanced?..............................
Click HERE To Read On

-By Warner Todd Huston


The Chronicle today has published a piece titled "Border fences -- and fantasies", that claims that illegal immigration has increased because of the California border fence project (Called operation Vanguard) and calls the larger border fence approved by Congress recently "tomfoolery".

The piece, though, is contradictory and filled with absurd reasoning in its desire to torpedo a larger border fence idea. On one hand the Chronicle claims that the current fence has not stopped immigration and is useless, yet on the other has caused immigrant's to bring their entire families because the fence keeps them inside.

How a fence can fail to keep anyone out, but is successful at keeping them IN makes no logical sense, Chronicle.

"Beginning in the early 1990s, the federal government began building a 14-mile fence on the California-Mexico border as part of what was called "Operation Vanguard." The fence did reduce crossings into California significantly -- but simply pushed would-be migrants eastward."

So the policy failed to keep them out. But, then the Chronicle goes on to say...

"Even more unexpectedly, the border fence increased the numbers of illegal immigrants in the United States. That's because in the past immigrants from Mexico and Central America could easily return to their home countries, either permanently or to visit family members. The new barriers on the border meant that once they arrived in the United States they were more likely to stay here permanently -- and bring their family members to live with them."

Huh? So immigrants know that the fence doesn't stop them from getting in, yet are afraid to leave BECAUSE of that same fence once here? Couldn't the real problem, Chronicle, be that our immigration laws go unenforced and that is why illegal immigrants stay and bring their whole families? They have a lack of fear that they will be caught and deported?

Additionally, in it's effort to castigate the Republicans, the Chronicle tries to cast the argument as if the GOP has NO other plan but to build a fence, imagining that the fence will solve all problems. But, in truth, the fence is but the beginning of the efforts to solve illegal immigration, a mere starting point.

The Chronicle also throws the canard about the Canadian border into the mix as if not building two fences is a failed effort to curb illegal immigration.

"It also doesn't confront the fact that the southern border is 2,100 miles long, which means that even if their fence proposal was fully implemented, two-thirds of the southern border would still be "unprotected," along with most of the 7,000 miles of the U.S.-Canadian border."

Um, Chronicle? We don't HAVE 12 million illegal Canadians crossing the border! Perhaps the Chronicle is unaware of that, though?

Another "point" the Chronicle attempts to score is that of what happens during the building of the fence?

"Fence proponents are also silent on what will happen during the years that it will take to build. The prospect of additional barriers is likely to encourage people thinking of migrating to do so before construction is complete, and could trigger a new surge of border crossings."

So, we should just do nothing at all because for a while we might see some immigrants pass through before the fence is finished? Won't they continue to come regardless of whether the fence is being built or not? Does the Chronicle think that if we announce we won't build the fence, immigrants will suddenly stay home?

What facile nonsense.

So, the Chronicle's points are as follows
-The fence keeps no one out
-The fence keeps too many in
-Once built, the southern fence won't stop all those illegal Canadians that are swamping us
-The GOP thinks the fence will solve every problem -- despite the talk of guest workers and other ideas
-The Fence will increase illegal immigration
-While the fence is being built we will get immigrants

Talk about ridiculous!