Tuesday, January 30, 2007

All The Old Dudes

by Jack Langer - January 29th, 2007 - Human Events Online

"A man could make a fortune selling Geritol to these people."

Capitalist stooge that I am, that was my first reaction upon reaching the Washington Mall last Saturday to observe tens of thousands of demonstrators rally against the war in Iraq.

Expecting a healthy turnout of idealistic youths, I was surprised to find that the crowd was comprised predominantly of middle-aged '60s throwbacks looking to recapture the glory days of the jarring folk music, campus occupations, and general social chaos that accompanied the Vietnam War.

[snip]

Dominated by the '60s generation as it was, it was unsurprising to see a galaxy of signs and booths invoking the sacred cure-all of nearly every 1960s radical -- socialism.


This is what is frightening about the current support for the democrat party here in America. The complete lack of understanding of what is the motivating factor for democrat leadership among many who are voting for democrats causes me great concern. We cannot pretend that socialism is not the motivating factor for the majority of the democrat leadership, even though it is only at rare events like this that the honesty of the true believers really drives the public demonstrations to stop hiding the doublespeak the leaders normally practice.

When I tell people here in the Inner Banks that socialism is the controlling factor for their leadership's opposition to the war, it is rejected. I don't get any argument. They simply don't believe this can be true. Articles like this one are important because we have to get more public acceptance of what is actually happening if we are going to have a realistic and honest debate. The battle for support in the war against Islamofascism is becoming a proxy battle for and against free enterprise. The socialists believe America must lose this war in order for the left to win the battle against free enterprise. Unfortunately, the American people have not caught on to the motivation of the socialists yet.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

The Truth About Clarence Thomas

by Jan Crawford Greenburg - January 28th, 2007 - The Wall Street Journal (opinionjournal.com)

Clarence Thomas has borne some of the most vitriolic personal attacks in Supreme Court history. But the persistent stereotypes about his views on the law and subordinate role on the court are equally offensive--and demonstrably false. An extensive documentary record shows that Justice Thomas has been a significant force in shaping the direction and decisions of the court for the past 15 years.

That's not the standard storyline. Immediately upon his arrival at the court, Justice Thomas was savaged by court-watchers as Antonin Scalia's dutiful apprentice, blindly following his mentor's lead. It's a grossly inaccurate portrayal, imbued with politically incorrect innuendo, as documents and notes from Justice Thomas's very first days on the court conclusively show. Far from being a Scalia lackey, the rookie jurist made clear to the other justices that he was willing to be the solo dissenter, sending a strong signal that he would not moderate his opinions for the sake of comity. By his second week on the bench, he was staking out bold positions in the private conferences where justices vote on cases. If either justice changed his mind to side with the other that year, it was Justice Scalia joining Justice Thomas, not the other way around.


Jan Greenburg has written a great article honoring a great man.

This weekend seems to be a weekend where men, real men, are being honored. Below is my posting on the three courageous pioneers who gave their lives in Apollo One. As impressive as they are, I am reminded that intellectual courage is sometimes harder to maintain. It is certainly equal to physical courage and it is not an attribute that denotes gender. It is that characteristic that denotes our greatest representatives of the human race, male or female. Clarence Thomas has been a model of courage and integrity since he came into public life. His brilliance allowed him to craft subtle strategies on complex issues that found widespread support. He was a star, like Thomas Sowell, not because he was black, but in spite of it. He was justifiably selected for the Supreme Court. He was not politically correct though so he was branded a race traitor. The entire liberal movement tried to destroy him. The rage of his enemies increased because he would not bend.

On the court, his obvious superiority led egocentric jurists like Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter to veer left and try to establish themselves as the "lead centrist". They could not compete with Clarence Thomas and their futile efforts to be important have forever branded them as second rate. In comparison with Thomas' clear and consistent logic, their rulings are inconsistent and incoherent.

My thoughts on Clarence Thomas remind me of the famous poem by Rudyard Kipling.


IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
. . . . . . .


Clarence Thomas has lived this poem. When even his supporters sometimes doubted how good he was, Clarence Thomas simply stood his ground and quietly, with great dignity, behind the scenes, changed the minds of brilliant men and women. His intelligence and character are year by year becoming more and more obvious to even his detractors. What this nation owes him is incalculable.

The powerful ending of this poem reminds us that people with these characteristics are men. Nothing will ever change that fact. The truth about Clarence Thomas is that he is a MAN.



[
If you would like to read Kipings entire poem, click here.]

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Grissom - White - Chaffee
Apollo One

It has been 40 years today and the fire that consumed the lives of these three men still stands as a history lesson of importance, documenting the character and commitment of America's people of that time. Less than 10 years after Sputnik had educated the American people of the consequences of failure to take space seriously, we were well on our way to winning the race to the moon.

In that short decade we had reformed education, tripled the number of scientists we were graduating, built NASA into a pool of engineering and scientific geniuses unrivaled in the history of man . . . and in our rush made some mistakes. I still feel with many others that they were mistakes worth making.

Losing these three patriots was a sad day. However these men did not die in vain. Their deaths proved the statement that has been a truth for all pioneers throughout history. It was one of Gus Grissom's favorite sayings, "We learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes."

That lesson has not been learned by our current generation. We are rapidly becoming a nation that demands no progress be made if it comes at a cost. Gus Grissom would not have liked our current attitude. It assures that progress will be made by others. We must turn this around. Thinking about the history of this day brings us to an important question. Is there any goal today that we care about enough to die for?

There is a famous story about Grissom that I think describes how such men come to be. While testing sidewinder missiles the death of another pilot was blamed on the sidewinder failing and turning around and shooting down the jet that fired it. Pilots were told to bail out and let the missile destroy their plane if the sidewinder turned on them. Grissom thought it through and believed that he could dodge the missile until it ran out of gas. If he was wrong he was dead. However Grissom did exactly what he said would work when a missile turned on him. He played tag until the sidewinder running out of gas proved him right.

Everything in his life tells us that Grissom was an intelligent man who had thought things through and knew what he was doing. I am not surprised that he once said of his Apollo assignment, "If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life."

T
he kind of man who is dedicated to pushing the envelope, smart enough to figure out what others have not figured out, strong enough in his own beliefs to trust his own judgment, steel willed enough to put his beliefs to the test, and does not flinch from the price if he is wrong or even if things happen outside his control . . . that is the kind of man we should admire.

All three of these men were outstanding men, outstanding Americans, outstanding representatives of the human race. They were willing to risk and even lose their lives for goals they found important. I salute them. They are not forgotten.




Mary C. White (no relation to Ed White) has written detailed biographies of the three NASA Apollo One crew members. Click here for her
introduction, Roger Chaffee biography, Gus Grissom biography, Ed White biography, or Epilogue.



Friday, January 26, 2007

Republican Club Meets In Plymouth

The Al-Pam Republican Club will be holding its February first meeting at the Golden Skillet in Plymouth, NC. The Golden Skillet is located on Hwy. 64 E. The meeting will begin at 6:30 PM.

The speaker for the evening will be Mr. Dallas Woodhouse of Raleigh. Mr. Woodhouse is the Director for the Americans for Prosperity of North Carolina. Prior to joining the Americans for Prosperity of North Carolina, Woodhouse spent a decade as a news reporter in Raleigh, including 7 years as a political reporter with the NBC Television Station. Dallas has also worked in Communications and Marketing with both the United States and North Carolina Departments of Agriculture.

For more information on the Al-Pam Republican Club contact President Chris East at (252) 793.9547 or email Chirs at
al-pamrepublicanclub@hotmail.com

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

What They Know
That Isn't So

by Dinesh D'Souza - January 22nd, 2007 - Townhall.com

As I debate the topics covered in my new book The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 I find myself arguing with a whole bunch of people on the left who “know” things that aren’t true. I’m both amused and surprised not only at the ignorance out there, but the confidence with which it is bandied about. “D’Souza, has it occurred to you…?” But actually it hasn’t occurred to me, because what you are saying is false. So here are a few myths that I’d like to correct.

They’re furious at us for stopping democracy in Iran. As the left-wing story goes, Mohammed Mossadegh was the elected prime minister of Iran in the early 1950s. The United States didn’t like the fact that he was anti-imperialist, so the CIA engineered a coup and installed the hated Shah of Iran. The people of Iran have still not forgiven us for this, and it is a continuing source of radical Muslim hatred against us.

Actually, Mossadegh was never elected by the Iranian people. He was appointed by the Majlis, the Iranian parliament, and the Shah of Iran, who was already in power, ratified the choice. Mossadegh soon got into a power struggle with the Shah, sought to overthrow the Shah, dissolved parliament, and suspended civil liberties. At this point the CIA orchestrated a coup that got rid of Mossadegh and kept the Shah in power. The radical Muslims were delighted with Mossadegh’s ouster, because they viewed him for what he was, a secular socialist. The Ayatollah Khomeini preached a sermon thanking Allah that Mossadegh was gone.


This reminds me of the constant litany of arguments from the democrats about what we are doing wrong in our current partisan war. They have a cliche LIE for almost everything that has been done. There is a great email going around that lists all of the good things happening in America, and then asks, when the democrats promise they have a "new direction for America . . . . "

A few examples:

The stock market is at a new all-time high and 401 K's are back.
A new direction from there means, what?

Unemployment is at 25 year lows.
A new direction from there means, what?

Taxes are at 20 year lows.
A new direction from there means, what?

Federal tax revenues are at all-time highs.
A new direction from there means, what?

The Federal deficit is down almost 50%, just as predicted over last year.
A new direction from there means. what?

Home valuations are up 200% over the past 3.5 years.
A new direction from there means, what?

Inflation is in check , hovering at 20 year lows.
A new direction from there means, what?

Not a single terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11/01.
A new direction from there means, what?

You may not have noticed all the good news since the MSM is so intent on removing Republicans from power they never mention any of these good things. All we get from them are the litany of democrat complaints. However there is little doubt the good news will start to change. The scary thing is that since democrats are in charge, none of the bad will be mentioned by the MSM except as complaints against Bush. As regular readers know, I am not a strong Bush supporter. However it sometimes seems we are a real risk of losing democracy over the fact that we no longer have a "free" press. We have a liberal press that touts the liberal party. A large part of our voting public does not seem to care.

If you really want to know more of the truth, read this article by Dinesh D'Souza.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Illegal Alien Sex Fiends

by Andy Selepak - January 22nd, 2007 - Canada Free Press

There are approximately 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States. This staggering statistic, rarely mentioned by the media, was revealed in a study by Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute in Atlanta, Georgia. "It is clear," she says, "that the U.S. public faces a dangerous threat from sex predators who cross the U.S. borders illegally."

[snip]

Since 1999 there have been nearly one million victims of rape, child molestation, sexual homicides, and rape and molestation of handicapped children by illegal immigrants here in the U.S. Remember this fact the next time the media try to tell you about the victims of U.S. immigration policy and border security.

[snip]

But our media go out of their way to insist they are law-abiding and merely "undocumented workers."


If you disagree with the idea that these illegal aliens are law abiding "undocumented workers" it is because you are a radical extremist conservative bigot, according to democrats. That is the reason that this article was printed in Canada. There is little chance any American newpaper or reporter will ever let you know these facts.



Sunday, January 21, 2007

Media Are Gonna Barack Around The Clock

by Mark Steyn - January 21st, 2007 - Chicago Sun-Times


Did you see that poll about Iraq suggesting that . . . What's that? Barack Obama? Oh, sorry. According to the new rules . . . . .

[snip]

That poll about Iraq I mentioned right at the beginning was very interesting. It came out last week and it posed various questions about whether folks thought the "surge" was a good idea or not. Including the following:

"Do you personally want the Iraq plan President Bush announced last week to succeed?"

And here's how the American people answered: 63 percent said yes, 22 percent said no, 15 percent said they didn't know.

Let me see if I understand that. For four years, regardless of this or that position on the merits of the war, almost everybody has claimed to "support our troops.'' Some of us have always thought that "supporting the troops" while not supporting them in their mission is not entirely credible. But here we have 37 percent of the American people actually urging defeat on them. They "support our troops" by wanting them to lose. This isn't a question about whether you think the plan will work, but whether you want it to work. And nearly 40 percent of respondents either don't know or are actively rooting for failure. Which is to say: more dead American troops and more dead Iraqi civilians. Asked whether they want the surge to succeed, 34 percent of Democrats answered "No" . . . . .



Every now and again the articulate and intelligent Mark Steyn gets so subtle that you have to really concentrate to follow his argument. This column takes on two subjects and tries to juxtapose them so they make an argument that is not that easy to make. The point?

Per Steyn, ". . . increasing numbers of the American people reject the post-9/11 paradigm, and there will be a lot of votes for the quiet-life option in 2008."

Steyn argues the Barack Obama phenomenon and the fact that 34 per cent of democrats actually want the surge to fail adds up to a rejection of reality if it presents tough times and tough options. The quiet-life is what many people want. When 34 per cent of democrats want America to lose he may not be far off.


After these poll numbers I want to say to my friends who say calling democrats "appeasers" is unjust, I am actually being kind. "Traitors" would be more accurate.



Thursday, January 18, 2007

Orwell University
Duke Profs' PC Travesty

by John Podhoretz - January 18th, 2007 - New York Post

Right now, a tent city's up at Duke University - the site of the most outrageous case of railroading in recent history. Three Duke lacrosse players were falsely accused of raping a woman and charged unjustly with that and other crimes by a district attorney who suppressed evidence and committed perjury before recusing himself from the case.

This monumental injustice deserves a protest, especially since the trumped-up charges have not yet been dropped (though they soon will be).

But the Duke tent city isn't about that. The hundreds of students who've taken up residence for weeks aren't complaining about anything. They're camping out for tickets to the semi-annual Duke-Carolina basketball game. As senior Jamie Deal says, they're "pretty apathetic" about politics.


Podhoretz is pretty confident that charges against the Duke Three will SOON be dropped. He obviously still suffers from the delusion that our courts are a system of justice. Though the charges are looking more and more likely to ultimately be dropped I would not count on it being soon. It has already been several months too late. Like Scooter Libby, and Maruice Stans as far back as the 1970s, it is pretty apparent that democrat district attorneys think they can charge white males with any poltically correct nonsense they drum up.

This article by Podhoretz is about the abusive hypocrisy of liberals and democrats on college campuses. Our nation is about evenly split between liberals and conservatives. However college professors are over 90% liberals, progressives, socialists, marxists and outright communists, fervent democrats all. 88 of these liberal, progressive, socialist and marxist bigots wrote an article drumming up support to lynch the Duke Three and declare their crimes typical of a white society passsionately committed to perpetuating crimes against blacks. These liberals insist the student body is not apathetic but committed. As the article above notes, there is a lot of evidence it is not committed but apathetic. However, now that it is obvious that the claims about the "Duke Three" made by the "88" are not true, they publish a new article, claiming that all their first article advocated was treating the Duke Three with a presumption of innocence (even though white society is evil). They were simply misunderstood.


Really? [grin]

You know with the comedy that liberals write in our papers on a daily basis, I sometimes wonder how real comedians are able to compete.



Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Does Anyone Here Want To Survive?

by Wesley Pruden - January 16th, 2007 - The Washington Times


The earlier generations [of Western society] were more serious, more grown-up, more willing to look threats of death and doom squarely in the eye. They took Hitler at his word. Churchill's challenge, to resist Nazi evil no matter how dear the price or heavy the burden, was eagerly assumed even though the prime minister had "nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat." When Herr Hitler boasted that he would wring England's neck like a chicken, Churchill mocked him: "Some neck, some chicken." An exchange like that between George W. and Osama bin Laden or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would invite hoots and catcalls from defiant Democrats and fearful Republicans, and probably a derisive skit on "Saturday Night Live." Being a real chicken is less demanding than resisting evil.


Our problem (as identified in this editorial) is that gutless appeasers used to be embarrassed. Today, they know that the MSM will admire their willingness to appease as "reality" and they flaunt their appeasement. For this they are lauded by the MSM as smart. We are told that the enemy aggressors are "reacting" to our excesses and we just need to be "nice".

None of this is actually true or real. The world is still filled with evil, and we are not the evil. Our society is being ruined by the same people who are trying to appease the Islamofascists. Interestingly, most of the patriots in this country are as angry as the Islamofascists at the excessive acceptance of pornogaphy and violence within our culture. It is the liberals who have used the courts to subvert any democratically based fight against pornogaphy and create a criminal justice system that is a revolving door system of lets make a deal justice that turns the most evil free to commit more violence.

These liberals are also the appeasers who want to gut our military and cower here at home, claiming that the Islamofascists will leave us alone if we just come home. That is a delusion. However it may be our enslaved children of one possible future who will understand best how gutless the appeasers really are. We have not lost yet. However we have never fought a war with a larger fifth column than the war we are now in.





Monday, January 15, 2007

Thought for the day

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends, if they're okay, then it's you.

Is Fox Set To
BLOW THE NUKES
On '24'?

Matt Drudge - January 14th, 2007 - The Drudge Report

As Washington continues to raise concerns about terror threats on The Homeland -- a recent CIA report outlined a scenerio of possible "series of explosions using 'low charge' nuclear weapons" -- Hollywood and FOX-TV are set to up the ante with the new season of 24!

Few outside of the 24 set know the exact details of the new season unfolding, but studio sources claim producers are pushing hard to take it radioactive this time -- and keep it there.

"Time to wake the country up!" a top FOX source told the DRUDGE REPORT over the weekend. "I do not think there has ever been TV done like this, the viewer is going to be completely riveted."


There has been a constant and determined willingness on the part of many liberals and democrats to ignore the potential for nuclear bombs being the next step in the Islamofascists desire to rule the world. Nuclear blackmail is coming. Whether we remain free or not is totally up to confronting this reality.

Sounds like Fox is ready to rub that reality into a few faces.



Sunday, January 14, 2007

Shining The Light On Wal-Mart’s
Corporate Social Responsibility Blind Spot

by Tom Borelli - January 13, 2007 - Townhall.com

Facing the wrath of labor unions, a new Democratic Congress, liberal state governors and city counsels, Wal-Mart’s CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. has a plan: sell more florescent light bulbs.


Great line.

The one thing that is causing so much confusion in our political battles is the failure of conservatives to correctly portray the underlying motivation of the majority of our political opponents. Socialism is the heart of the modern democratic party. However many of the people who vote democratic do not understand socialism. Republicans allow our opponents to avoid discussing this key issue. We have allowed the issues to be framed as "affirmative action", "global warming", "universal health care". "abortion choice" and "separation of church and state". The problem is that underneath each of these surface issues is a socialism agenda that is never admitted.

Until we are more effective in making the case that democrats are commiecrats, that they are deviously but intentionally endorsing anything that weakens free enterprise, we will keep losing the communication battle for the hearts and souls of our citizens.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Vile Mush From The Wimp

Editorial - January 13th, 2007 - New York Daily News

Whatever reputation Jimmy Carter once enjoyed as a former President, Nobel laureate and peace broker has spiraled down the toilet since publication of his book "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid."

The book's slanderous title, factual inaccuracies, biased analysis and willingness to excuse terrorism have alienated even Carter's friends, 14 of whom expressed their disgust by quitting the advisory board of the Carter Center in Atlanta.

[snip]

And this drivel sits near the top of the best-seller lists.


Carter, the socialist dictator loving former President, is becoming more open in his support for the global socialist movement. Carter has an active following among those who are passionate about socialism and they are the ones buying his book. Like Carter they are enemies of our nation. His errors match their extremist views. Therefore they do not see his false statements as lies. They are simply a higher truth when viewed through their bias.

More people in America need to stop believing Carter is a "good man" but weak. Actually he played at being a "good man" with his pious statements but he has long been a socialist and an enemy of Amerca. That makes him an enemy of our allies too.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Time For Leadership On
North Carolina Budget

By North Carolina State Senator Fred Smith

During the 2006 election, many candidates for office faced questions from voters about the increasing size of North Carolina state government. Questions about the fiscal responsibility of the Easley Administration and Democratic legislative leaders are timely. The past ten years, General Fund spending has grown 24% faster than combined inflation and population growth – translating into a $1,116 increase in real dollars for a typical North Carolina family.(1)

State government spending continues to be out of control with a projected $500 Million revenue shortfall in 2007. The most recent state budget increased spending 9.7%, on top of an 8% increase last year. The failure of the Democratic legislature and Governor Easley to prioritize and control spending has resulted in millions of dollars of inefficient expenditures – instead of worthwhile investments like educating our children or building and maintaining roads.

Ultimately, this careless, undisciplined spending has also forced North Carolina to impose on its citizens the highest tax burden in the southeast. Meanwhile, the local tax burden is also increasing.(2) Irresponsible year-after-year increases in spending strain family budgets, stifle private sector growth and damage the ability of small businesses and entrepreneurs to create new jobs.

Even Lt. Gov. Perdue, one of the most liberal Democratic officeholders in our state's history, seems to recognize the problem. She recently penned an email to supporters touting her hot new "reform" idea: a permanent state efficiency commission. The commission, she says, would "present a maximum of ten separate governmental efficiency proposals" to "counter the pressures in the system favoring wasteful spending and loopholes."(3)

Taken as a stand-alone plan, her proposal is not a bad idea. However, Perdue's latest press release misses the larger point. The failure to control spending isn't for lack of boards, commissions, or processes – it's for lack of leadership. The governor already has the power to appoint advisors or seek outside counsel on fiscal issues – or any other state problem. The governor has the veto power on the budget. He controls the Office of State Budget and Management. He has the bully pulpit.

On the campaign trail in 2004, Gov. Easley's "solution" to the spending problem was a self-enforced spending cap. During the 2005-2006 General Assembly, Easley promptly broke that pledge by signing two budgets that blew through his own cap. Now, Perdue has the magic bullet: her permanent efficiency commission. She says the group will create the "institutional momentum" needed to fight spending. Why add a new commission to the over four hundred boards and commissions already in existence, rather than just rolling up our sleeves and tackling the spending problem? Real leaders take excuses off the table, use the tools they have and get the job done.

Some skeptics may look at Perdue's record and fear that her efficiency commission proposal is just political lip service. She can prove the skeptics wrong though by signing on to support the constitutional amendment I have introduced to cap state spending growth.

Our rapidly growing, rapidly changing state doesn't have time for bureaucratic piddling with new processes. Instead of tinkering with the system, we must make real change which requires leadership. My Taxpayer Protection Amendment limits government spending growth to inflation and population growth. This legislation would immediately put real limits on government growth, finally forcing the legislature to prioritize spending.

Talking about fiscal restraint, finding government efficiencies, and getting tough on spending is a lot like talking about going on a diet. There are a lot of gimmicks and new fads, but we all know there's only one real solution: discipline. We don't need a new "fad" plan, we just need a leader with the discipline to make sure government eats less and exercises more. A constitutional spending cap would force government to create a strategic plan for growth, prioritizing what we consume and cutting outmoded, irrelevant spending.

We don't need a new blue ribbon commission. We don't need to pass the buck. We need results – and that takes disciplined leaders who will roll up their sleeves and make tough decisions.
At the end of the day, improving government efficiency and reducing unnecessary spending reduces the demand that government places on the private sector, so the private sector can create jobs and economic growth.




(1) "The State Budget." John Locke Foundation: http://www.johnlocke.org/agenda2006/statebudget.html

(2) Lowrey, Michael. "By the Numbers: What Government Costs in North Carolina Cities and Counties." The Center for Local Innovation. http://www.johnlocke.org/acrobat/policyReports/btn2006.pdf

(3) Perdue News Update, December 29, 2006.


Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Democrats Push 'Net Neutrality

by William Triplett - January 9th, 2007 - Variety



WASHINGTON -- Democrats, who all but sank major communications reform legislation in the previous congressional session over the issue of so-called 'Net neutrality, marked the first day of the new Congress by introducing a bill that will mandate 'Net neutrality, which is intended to guarantee the equal accessibility and flow of content over the Internet.


Democrats hate talk radio. They have tried ever since talk radio became dominated by conseravtive voices to re-introduce the concept that the airwaves must guarantee equal portions of conservative commentators and liberal commentators.

There is aboslutely no indication that anyone is biasing the Internet towards one political philosophy or another. However that has not stopped the democrats from seeing it as evil. Democrats hate the Internet as much as they hate talk radio.

Since the newspapers and Public TV are dominated by liberal voices, democrats feel that any medium that is not liberal dominated is simply wrong. The vast majority of blogs are libertarian oriented. Counting those sites and conservative sites, liberal sites are in the minority on the Internet. To democrats this is wrong. They do not accept that the success of libertarian and conservative sites is due to the Internet users preferring these sites. To democrats it is proof of some insidious and evil power at work.

They therefore feel a law is required to allow them to suppress libertarian and conservative sites to assure that politically correct speech has equality as decided by some government bureaucrat. I think we used to call this "1984" and it was something that liberals decried. That was back in the day when being a liberal meant that you were in favor of free speech.

What happened to the democratic party of my youth?





Saturday, January 06, 2007

Cakewalk Crowd Abandons Bush

by Patrick J. Buchanan - January 5th, 2007 - Townhall.com

David Frum, the cashiered White House speechwriter who co-authored the "axis-of-evil" phrase, faults the president. While he provided the words, says Frum, Bush "just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of maybe everything."

Where Frum, four years ago, accused antiwar conservatives of being "unpatriotic" haters of America and President Bush, he is now saying that that same president either lacked the I.Q. to realize what he was saying or lacked a belief and commitment to follow through.

As Rose writes, this is "the most damning assessment of all." Moreover, it is an indictment of Bush's judgment that he could clasp so many such vipers to his bosom.

Rose describes James Woolsey, the ex-CIA director who was ubiquitous on the op-ed pages and national TV making the case for war, as "aghast at what he sees as profound American errors that have ignored the lessons learned so painfully, 40 years ago" in Vietnam.

Conspicuous by its absence from disparagements of the president by these deserters from his camp and cause is any sense that they were themselves wrong.


Buchanan is striking out at those he has always opposed on the Iraq part of the war. He thinks of himself as part of the "realist" school of foreign affairs and only agrees to wars that he sees as in our national interest. The problem is that he still does not see Islamofascism as a serious issue that can hurt us. He still sees the middle east as a source of oil and believes that the current rulers in the countries of the middle east will stay in power. Osama Bin Laden does not think these rulers will stay in power, but Buchanan does.

That is the real issue. Will Islamofascism get control over the middle east oil? Will the Islamofascists continue to dedicate themselves to destroying the west after they come to power? Will Iran launch its nuclear bombs at Tel Aviv and New York? If Iraq was still Baathist would they be a part of that effort? Where you come down on these questions will determine what strategy you think is best.

My concern is that neo-conservatives were right that attacking Iraq was part and parcel of the war against Islamofascism. However we let the war be run by those who wanted to buy "affection" of the Iraqis, our old school state department fronted by Colin Powell. Like Buchanan they are "realists". It should have been pretty obvious that it is impossible to ever buy "affection". People do not feel "affection" for those to whom they have lost. When the "insurgency" started, we needed to be brutal in suppressing it. Since we would not be brutal, some other strategy was called for.

The only two strategies that were discussed; 1. Leaving the brutal Iraq Army intact and letting them deal with the "insurgency", or 2. Having American soldiers take on the "insurgency" while trying to train a new Iraq Army.

There were probably other strategies and, even within these two strategies, tactics that could have been more successful than we have been. The problem with Buchanan is that he opposed the war and criticized Bush. Now when others are joining him in criticism of Bush he condemns them for their original support without ever explaining why the arguments for the war were wrong. This hypocrisy is one reason I never feel comfortable when Buchanan and I agree on anything. I just do not trust him.


Monday, January 01, 2007

The Longest-Running Big Lie

This article is going to be handled a little differently than normal. First I am going to comment, and then there will be an excerpt from the article.

The U.S. State Department has for 33 years collaborated with Islamofascist terrorists to hide the fact that the Palestinian organization Fatah was targeting and killing Americans. An American Ambassador Cleo Noel and an American Charges D'Affaire George Curtis Moore were killed by order of Yasser Arafat, among numerous attacks on our citizens by Arafats' minions.

Our State Department knew he ordered their deaths and yet hid this fact from the American people. They have continued to hide this for 33 years, until last week. Bill Clinton knew this when he made Yasser Arafat a hero and repeatedly brought him to the White House, however he accepted the argument that we had to pretend he was not an enemy in order to force Israel to accept a return of Gaza and the West Bank to Arab (i.e. Islamofascist) control.

With that as background, read this article. It will make any patriot's blood boil.


By Caroline Glick - January 1st, 2007 - The Jerusalem Post

ON MARCH 1, 1973, eight Fatah terrorists, operating under the Black September banner stormed the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan during a farewell party for the US Embassy's Charges d'Affaires George Curtis Moore. The terrorists took Moore, US ambassador Cleo Noel, Belgian Charges d'Affairs Guy Eid and two Arab diplomats hostage. They demanded that the US, Israel, Jordan and Germany release PLO and Baader-Meinhof Gang terrorists, including Robert F. Kennedy's Palestinian assassin Sirhan Sirhan and Black September commander Muhammed Awadh (Abu Daud), from prison in exchange for the hostages' release.

The next evening, the Palestinians brutally murdered Noel, Moore, and Eid. They released their other hostages on March 4.

Arafat denied any involvement in the attack. The US officially accepted his denial. Yet, as he later publicly revealed, James Welsh, who served at the time of the attack as an analyst at the National Security Agency, intercepted a communication from Arafat, then headquartered in Beirut to his terror agents in Khartoum ordering the attack.


There are any number of people who hate our government and claim that it lies to us. I am normally not among them. However this seems to be pretty well proved this time. What should we do about these lies?