Nick Lampson is at the top of the GOP hit-list here in CD22 without any urging from Karl Rove. After all, this is a GOP district and the only way he got in was a betrayal by Delay and a court case to keep him from having a opponent on the ballot.

The political slide shows that landed President Bush's adviser Karl Rove in the middle of an investigation named the congressman who replaced former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay as the White House's No. 1 target.

Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Texas, tops the list of the "2008 House Targets: Top 20", part of a presentation made to executive branch employees, possibly illegally.

Critics have alleged the presentation was political and violated laws restricting executive branch employees from using their jobs for political activity.

The White House has defended the presentations as informational briefings for appointees and acknowledged last week there have been briefings at several agencies.

Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-Texas, also was on the list at No. 12.

Now if Rove screwed up and engaged in illegal political activity, lock him up -- I could care less. But that does nothing to minimize the misrepresentation of CD22 by the Neo-Copperhead carpetbagger from Beaumont -- or the need to rid ourselves of the candidate of MoveOn.org.

Here we have a student denied a degree in her field of studies and her teaching credentials because of a photo on MySpace.

Take a look at the photo.

Seems pretty tame to me – especially given that the young woman in question was at least 25 at the time, and the mother of two.

Let’s look at the story.

A 27-year-old Millersville University graduate filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the college for denying her an education degree and teaching certificate after a controversial Internet photograph surfaced last year shortly before graduation.

The picture shows Stacy Snyder of Strasburg wearing a pirate hat while drinking from a plastic "Mr. Goodbar" cup. The photograph taken during a 2005 Halloween party was posted on Snyder's MySpace Web page with the caption "Drunken Pirate."

"The day before graduation, the college confronted me about the picture," Snyder said Thursday. "I was told I wouldn't be receiving my education degree or teaching certificate because the photo was 'unprofessional.' "

Snyder said she apologized for the photograph, but Jane S. Bray, dean of the School of Education, and Provost Vilas A. Prabhu refused to issue the bachelor of science degree in education and teaching certificate Snyder earned.

Instead, the college issued Snyder a bachelor of arts degree in English.

Snyder is asking for the modest sum of $75,000 and the awarding of her proper degree and teaching credentials. That seems pretty reasonable to me – I mean there are some serious freedom of speech issues here that apply, since Millersville University is a public entity and they are punishing her for engaging in legal and, one could argue, constitutionally protected activities.

And I’ll say it flat out – if Stacy Snyder is held to have engaged in unprofessional conduct that merits her being barred from the classroom, I’m not sure that any teacher who blogs – or drinks – can stand up to scrutiny. And given that I have already beaten off one attempt to suppress my First Amendment rights and interfere with my employment by a gang of illiberal Democrat thugs who don’t like my politics, I find this case to be particularly troubling.

H/T FIRE’s Torch

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Mark My Words, The Random Yak, DragonLady's World, Shadowscope, The Pet Haven Blog, Leaning Straight Up, The Bullwinkle Blog, Conservative Cat, Conservative Thoughts, Pursuing Holiness, Pet's Garden Blog, third world county, Allie Is Wired, Faultline USA, stikNstein... has no mercy, The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Wake Up America, Dumb Ox Daily News, High Desert Wanderer, Gone Hollywood, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

How are we supposed to deal with the toxic waste that these bulbs will become – especially as we see jurisdictions trying to outlaw incandescent bulbs.

How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent light bulb? About US$4.28 for the bulb and labour -- unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about US$2,004.28, which doesn't include the costs of frayed nerves and risks to health.

Sound crazy? Perhaps no more than the stampede to ban the incandescent light bulb in favour of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).

The problem with these bulbs? They contain mercury, which is a highly toxic substance. Are we exchanging an inefficient light source for a potentially much more serious problem?

And we won’t get into the question of domestic tranquility.

And these are CNN reporters, not FoxNews correspondents.

On Thursday, two CNN correspondents just back from Iraq -- Kyra Phillips and Michael Ware -- were asked if it would help the situation in Iraq to withdraw U.S. troops.

Phillips responded: "There is no way U.S. troops could pull out. It would be a disaster."

Ware answered, "If you just want to look at it in terms of purely American national interest, if U.S. troops leave now, you're giving Iraq to Iran, a member of President Bush's axis of evil, and al-Qaida. That's who will own it. And so, coming back now, I'm struck by the nature of the debate on Capitol Hill, (by) how delusional it is. Whether you are for this war or against it, whether you've supported the way it's been executed or not, it does not matter. You broke it -- you've got to fix it now. You can't leave, or it's going to come and blow back on America."

And remember – Ware is the guy who took on John McCain not long ago over his comments about the safety of Baghdad – so he certainly is no GOP shill.

Somehow, though, these comments by liberal journalists who have been in Iraq will be ignored by the war opponents. Their agenda is cutting losses and surrendering to the enemy., and these observations just don’t fit.

Here in Houston and in San Francisco.

It must suck to be a Truther, and to have publicly claimed that such a thing couldn't have happened on 9/11.

H/t Malkin, America's North Shore Journal, Daily Pundit, Hot Air.

I'll be the first to concede that the raw numbers are troubling. That minorities are more likely than whites to be arrested if pulled over by the police appears problematic.

But I wonder how many folks will consider the disclaimer in the report.

Like the 2002 report, this one contained a warning that the racial disparities uncovered "do not constitute proof that police treat people differently along demographic lines" because the differences could be explained by circumstances not analyzed by the survey. The 2002 report said such circumstances might include driver conduct or whether drugs were in plain view.

And that is precisely the problem with the report -- until we look at the circumstances that led to the arrests, we cannot know for sure what the reason for the disparity is. As I see at school, there is a cultural difference in how different ethnic groups respond to being confronted by authority figures. That could go a long way towards explaining the differences. So could questions of immigration status or, heaven forbid, obvious actual evidence of criminal behavior. For that matter, so could the socio-economic status of the drivers or the neighborhoods where they were pulled over. And until we manage to quantify and control for such things, does the data really tell us anything useful at all?

When they were just verbal assaults on female conservatives like Michelle Malkin and Debbie Schlussel the MSM didn't want to consider the issue of sexually-based attacks on female bloggers. Now that it has hit more bloggers outside of the political Right -- and outside of political blogging as a whole -- it is being treated as a crisis.

A female freelance writer who blogged about the pornography industry was threatened with rape. A single mother who blogged about "the daily ins and outs of being a mom" was threatened by a cyber-stalker who claimed that she beat her son and that he had her under surveillance. Kathy Sierra, who won a large following by blogging about designing software that makes people happy, became a target of anonymous online attacks that included photos of her with a noose around her neck and a muzzle over her mouth.

As women gain visibility in the blogosphere, they are targets of sexual harassment and threats. Men are harassed too, and lack of civility is an abiding problem on the Web. But women, who make up about half the online community, are singled out in more starkly sexually threatening terms -- a trend that was first evident in chat rooms in the early 1990s and is now moving to the blogosphere, experts and bloggers said.

I agree with Michelle Malkin -- where have you all been?

More name-calling open-borders nonsense in the Washington Post. And it is too bad, because without the playground-style name-calling, Sebastian Mallaby might just have contributed something of value to the debate on immigration legislation.

Border security does not come cheap: We could save money on unmanned aerial drones and use it to help high-school dropouts with a more generous earned-income tax credit. And although the concern for high-school dropouts is welcome, it must be weighed against the aspirations of migrants. Is it right to push native workers' pay up by 2 percent if that means depriving poor Mexicans of a chance to triple their incomes?

Of course it isn't, and given that the total economic effect of immigration on U.S. households is a wash, the big ramp-up in enforcement spending beloved by immigration hawks is an egregious waste of money. But no politician is going to say that. Candidates with a good record on immigration -- Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, John McCain -- are trying to avoid the issue. And the demagogues and nativists are allowed to spout unchallenged nonsense.

Because, of course, opponents of liberal policy preferences aren't just wrong -- they must be declared to be EVIL!

More salvos in the never-ending question of whether or not humans and Neanderthals interbred 40,000 years ago.

Researchers have long debated what happened when the indigenous Neanderthals of Europe met "modern humans" arriving from Africa starting some 40,000 years ago. The end result was the disappearance of the Neanderthals, but what happened during the roughly 10,000 years that the two human species shared a land?

A new review of the fossil record from that period has come up with a provocative conclusion: The two groups saw each other as kindred spirits and, when conditions were right, they mated.

How often this happened will never be known, but paleoanthropologist Erik Trinkaus says it probably occurred more often than is generally imagined.

In his latest work, published last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Trinkaus, of Washington University in St. Louis, analyzed prehistoric fossil remains from various parts of Europe. He concluded that a significant number have attributes associated with both Neanderthals and the modern humans who replaced them.

"Given the data we now have, it would be highly improbable to argue there is no Neanderthal contribution to the early European population that came out of Africa," Trinkaus said. "I believe there was continuous breeding between the two for some period of time.

"Both groups would seem to us dirty and smelly but, cleaned up, we would understand both to be human. There's good reason to think that they did as well."

The conclusion, one of the strongest to date in this debate, remains controversial, and it has potentially broad implications. It suggests, for instance, that humans today should still have some Neanderthal genes. It also means that the unanswered question of why the Neanderthals died out is even more puzzling -- because under this scenario they were quite capable of living successfully alongside the more modern newcomers.

Don't like this conclusion? Don't worry -- in the next few years there will be a new study claiming exactly the opposite, as has been the case for decades whenever a groundbreaking study of this question is published.

I have to ask -- would the press ever respond to such bigotry with respectful, dispassionate discussion if it were directed at Jews or African Americans?

Is it significant that the five Supreme Court justices who voted to uphold the federal ban on a controversial abortion procedure also happen to be the court's Roman Catholics?

It is to Tony Auth, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He drew Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. wearing bishop's miters, and labeled his cartoon "Church and State."

Rosie O'Donnell and Barbara Walters hashed out the issue on "The View," with O'Donnell noting that a majority of the court is Catholic and wondering about "separation of church and state." Walters counseled that "we cannot assume that they did it because they're Catholic."

And the chatter continues, on talk radio and in the blogosphere. In the latter category, no one has stirred it up quite like Geoffrey R. Stone, former dean and now provost of the University of Chicago's law school.

Once again we see, anti-Catholicism, long described as the anti-Semitism of the intellectual (or rather, I would suggest, the pseudo-intellectual) remains the most persistent prejudice in the American psyche.

The winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are Earth Day by Done With Mirrors, and The Big White Lie by City Journal.  Here is a link to both winning entries and to the full results of the vote.

Here are the full tallies of all votes cast:

It will be so nice to have a little sunshine poured forth on the Hildebeast by one of the Left's most beloved journalistic icons -- Carl Bernstein. I may have to shell out for that particular book.

Drawing on a trove of private papers from Hillary Clinton’s best friend, the legendary Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein is to publish a hard-hitting and intimate portrait of the 2008 presidential candidate, which will reveal a number of “discrepancies” in her official story.

Bernstein, who was played by Dustin Hoffman in the film All the President’s Men, has spent eight years researching the unauthorised 640-page biography, A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Bernstein reaches conclusions that stand in opposition to what Senator Clinton has said in the past and has written in the past,” said Paul Bogaards, a spokesman for Knopf, which publishes the book on June 19.

With the thoroughness for which he is famous, Bernstein spoke to more than 200 of Clinton’s friends, colleagues and adversaries. He stops short of accusing the New York senator of blatantly lying about her past, but has unearthed examples of where she has played fast and loose with the facts about her “personal and political life”, according to Knopf.

The book could revive the explosive charge, made earlier this year by David Geffen, a former Clinton donor and Hollywood mogul, that “the Clintons lie with such ease, it’s troubling”.

I can't wait to see if Bernstein's reputation is impugned by the Clinton spin machine -- or if he ends up having an "unfortunate accident". If I were you, Carl, I'd stay away from Fort Marcy Park.

This just chaps my behind -- immigration authorities making it easier for kids who don't live in the United States to cross the border to steal a free public education from American taxpayers.

For the past two years, Rachel Ortiz's commute to her El Paso school has begun each morning in Mexico.

As the sun rises over that side of the Rio Grande, the first-grader follows her father from their cinder-block home through the streets of Ciudad Juarez.

Aaron Ortiz holds his 6-year-old's pink backpack and later her hand. At the border they funnel onto the pedestrian bridge alongside dozens of other children with backpacks holding parents' hands. Then they are on the other side, saying goodbye at the gates of Vilas Elementary, where breakfast is served free and special classes are offered for English-language learners.

At that school, Rachel has made friends with American students. She writes reports on butterflies and decides she wants to be a doctor — for dogs — when she grows up. And when the school bell rings at the end of the day, her father is waiting outside, ready to walk her back home to Mexico.

No wonder there are 12-20 million illegal aliens in this country, along with millions of anchor babies. Our own government aids and abets them -- and expects us to pay for it.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, Pet's Garden Blog, Stageleft, stikNstein... has no mercy, Maggie's Notebook, Big Dog's Weblog, basil's blog, Walls of the City, The World According to Carl, The Pet Haven Blog, The Pink Flamingo, Cao's Blog, Dumb Ox Daily News, CORSARI D'ITALIA, and OTB Sports, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Indeed, this is nothing short of a call for a coup if the President does not capitulate to Congress.

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) said Sunday that Democrats in Congress could consider impeachment as a way to pressure President Bush on his handling of the war in Iraq.

“What I’m saying, there’s four ways to influence a president. And one of them’s impeachment,” Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Excuse me, but "Jihad Jack" Murtha seems to be ignoring a minor detail -- impeachment in our system is reserved for removing an individual from office for "high crimes and misdemeanors". Exercise of the powers delegated to the President by Article II of the Constitution -- such as use of the veto power and the power as Commander in Chief -- is not grounds for impeachment. Indeed, the possibility of such a flagrant abuse of power by the legislative branch is why Article I so sharply circumscribes the power of that branch in this regard.

But then again, since when does a corrupt old fart like Murtha give a damn about the Constitution?

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, Pet's Garden Blog, Stageleft, stikNstein... has no mercy, Maggie's Notebook, Big Dog's Weblog, basil's blog, Walls of the City, The World According to Carl, The Pet Haven Blog, The Pink Flamingo, Cao's Blog, Dumb Ox Daily News, CORSARI D'ITALIA, and OTB Sports, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

And in the mean time, good news from Iraq in the effort to clean up Anbar Province.

Many Sunni tribal leaders, once openly hostile to the American presence, have formed a united front with American and Iraqi government forces against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. With the tribal leaders’ encouragement, thousands of local residents have joined the police force. About 10,000 police officers are now in Anbar, up from several thousand a year ago. During the same period, the police force here in Ramadi, the provincial capital, has grown from fewer than 200 to about 4,500, American military officials say.

At the same time, American and Iraqi forces have been conducting sweeps of insurgent strongholds, particularly in and around Ramadi, leaving behind a network of police stations and military garrisons, a strategy that is also being used in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, as part of its new security plan.

You know, the US and the Iraqi people might come out of this thing as winners -- if the President holds firm against al-Qaeda, al-Sadr, and the Democrats.

It's good to know that the Democrats have the terrorists on their side in their efforts to undercut our troops.

"Here are the Democrats calling you to withdraw or even set a timetable and you are not responding," al-Sadr's statement said. "It is not only them who are calling for this but also Republicans, to whom you belong."

"If you are ignoring your friends and partners, then it is no wonder that you ignore the international and Iraqi points of view. You will not benefit from this stubbornness," he added.

And Muqtada al-Sadr would certainly know what is best -- for the terrorists and Iranians.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, Pet's Garden Blog, Stageleft, stikNstein... has no mercy, Maggie's Notebook, Big Dog's Weblog, basil's blog, Walls of the City, The World According to Carl, The Pet Haven Blog, The Pink Flamingo, Cao's Blog, Dumb Ox Daily News, CORSARI D'ITALIA, and OTB Sports, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

School administrators have a problem when it comes to criminal conduct by students. They can be by-the-book and support the most severe possible charges against a kid who has broken the law. Or they can call it a school disciplinary matter and never call the cops. Or, as a middle ground, they can arrange with the cops for many offenses to be treated in a less serious manner that results in a ticket rather than an arrest.

Kenneth Trump, a national authority on school safety who testified before Congress on Monday, says the underreporting of disciplinary incidents in area schools is part of "a historical culture of downplay, deny, deflect and defend when it comes to publicly acknowledging and reporting school crimes." It's driven, experts say, by an overarching concern among school principals to protect their image and that of their school.

"If you're the administrator and you report what happened, you may get blamed," said Jean O'Neil, director of research and evaluation at the National Crime Prevention Council in Washington. "If you're the administrator and you don't report what happened, you may get blamed."

And more to the point, that blame does not just come from the general public. A lot of disciplinary decisions get questioned by vocal parents, whose first phone call is to the Superintendent. When it involves an arrest, you can bet that call is going to be made. Assuming, of course, that the parent doesn't call the press and start to cry racism. It is often easier to give the kids a break on lesser offenses and treat them as mere disciplinary matters -- which will have the double impact of keeping the crime statistics down

I'm glad to see this happen -- Kevin Kolb is a fine young man and a fine quarterback. I envy you folks in Philly, because he is going to be fun to watch as he develops behind McNabb.

Early in the second round of the NFL draft Saturday, Kevin Kolb decided it would be best to avoid the television and spend some time outside on his family's farm.

Minutes later, it wasn't the cows that came calling.

It was the Eagles.

Kolb, the record-setting quarterback from the University of Houston, was taken with the No. 36 overall pick and will begin his career learning behind Pro Bowler Donovan McNabb.

"I wasn't outside two minutes when my wife (Whitney) came out with the phone and said, 'I don't know who it is! I don't know who it is!' " said Kolb, the highest UH player selected since Antowain Smith was taken by Buffalo in the first round in 1997.

Tell me -- how many other potential first-day picks did anything other than camp out by the phone and television until their name was called or Round 3 ended? For that matter, Kolb was one of the few to have a team trade up for them on the first day of the NFL draft -- a day on which he became the thrid quarterback picked overall.

And for you Eagles fans who booed this choice, i want you to consider these stats.

A four-year starter, Kolb finished his career as one of the most prolific passers in NCAA history with 12,964 passing yards, 13,715 yards total offense and 106 TDs. As a senior, Kolb led the Cougars to a 10-win season and their first Conference USA title since 1996.

This young man has quite an arm on him -- and as I've said, is a strong leader and quality human being. That is what I hear from several former students (and a teaching colleague) who played with him at UH, so I'm not just believing his press releases. These are the things that come out of the mouths of his teammates in day-to-day conversation.

Good luck, Kevin -- I'm just sorry you didn't somehow end up in Houston.

With Brady Quinn still on the board, I expected the Texans to take him or trade the pick. They didn't. Nor did they try to shore up the weak offensive line that was largely responsible for the destruction of David Carr as a useful quarterback.

Instead, for the fourth straight year, they went with a defensive player in the first round. Frankly, I was stunned -- but the more I have researched the player selected, the better I feel about it.

Who did they pick?

Amobi Okoye -- Defensive tackle out of Louisville.

Height: 6'2"

Weight: 302

In four years at Louisville, Okoye started 24 games. He finished with 121 tackles, 10.5 sacks for minus-42 yards and 23 stops for losses totaling 81 yards. He caused four fumbles and recovered three others.

But that isn't the only thing I love about this kid. His story is amazing. Born in Nigeria, he started high school at age 12, played football for the first time at 13, and made his first college sack at age 15. Now 19, he earned a degree in psychology in 3 1/2 years.

One of the biggest challenges was in 1999 when Okoye moved to Huntsville, Ala., from Nigeria. Because he had started school in Nigeria at 2 1/2 , he was in the ninth grade at 12. The principal in Huntsville was skeptical.

"The principal wanted to send me back to eighth grade," Okoye said at the NFL scouting combine. "I disagreed and felt like I was getting pushed back. We came to an agreement. She decided 'I'll keep you here for two weeks and depending on how you perform determines if you stay or not.'

"After the first week, she put me in some classes I had already taken. The reports got back, and the teacher told her I had to be moved to upper classes. After that, I stayed in high school."

Soon thereafter, a substitute teacher saw Okoye's size and encouraged him to try out for football. Okoye played soccer in Nigeria and knew nothing about football.

At 13, he started his first game on varsity and a year later, he was starting on both sides of the ball. By 15, he signed with Louisville and became the youngest player in college football when he enrolled in 2003 at 16.

He played in 13 games as a true freshman, despite then-Louisville coach Bobby Petrino saying Okoye couldn't step on the field until he needed to shave.

"I knew he was serious, but deep inside he wanted to play me," Okoye said. "I went out there and proved myself, and he went and got me a razor."

By his junior season, Okoye was a starter. As a senior, he was the defensive leader and recorded a career-high 58 tackles with eight sacks and 15 stops for losses. He also caused three fumbles.

And at age 20, he will start his first NFL game.

Damn! I may just need to get myself a new Texan's jersey. And I certainly have a role model for my students.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Stop the ACLU, Outside the Beltway, A Blog For All, 123beta, Maggie's Notebook, basil's blog, The Pet Haven Blog, Shadowscope, The Amboy Times, Conservative Cat, Pursuing Holiness, Rightlinx, stikNstein... has no mercy, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, , The World According to Carl, The Right Nation, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, and Dumb Ox Daily News, Church and State, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

When boys are more desirable than girls, guess which gets aborted -- and what the long-term demographic consequences are.

It seems like an ordinary village school, deep in the farm hills of Hainan Island in southern China.

A red Chinese flag flutters in front of the white-tiled building on the village's main street. Outside are rice paddies, water buffaloes, banana trees and grass-roofed houses.

But look more closely at the school's Grade 6 class: row upon row upon row of boys. There are 34 of them in this classroom, and only 20 girls. The same is true across the entire school, where 180 boys vastly outnumber 105 girls.

“It's always a headache to keep order in this school,” said Xing Zhen, the principal of Sanbai Primary School. “The boys are always misbehaving. They run all over the place, climbing the trees and the walls.”

What he really fears is the restless intensity of boys who grow up to become unmarried men. There are already hundreds of single men in nearby villages, an army of unhappy bachelors. “They can't find wives, and it affects the social stability,” Mr. Xing says.

All across China, the dangerous combination of modern technology and traditional beliefs is creating a huge army of single men. By 2020, more than 30 million men of marriageable age will be unable to find wives. Ultrasound machines and selective abortions, combined with China's restrictive one-child policy, are helping parents to skew the gender ratio, with potentially disastrous consequences.

Well, this could go a long way towards reducing the Chinese population -- or make them more warlike, with "excess" men being bled off through wars of aggression.

Dead Taliban!

Caught in the middle of the Helmand river, the fleeing Taliban were paddling their boat back to shore for dear life.

Smoke from the ambush they had just sprung on American special forces still hung in the air, but their attention was fixed on the two helicopter gunships that had appeared above them as their leader, the tallest man in the group, struggled to pull what appeared to be a burqa over his head.

As the boat reached the shore, Captain Larry Staley tilted the nose of the lead Apache gunship downwards into a dive. One of the men turned to face the helicopter and sank to his knees. Capt Staley's gunner pressed the trigger and the man disappeared in a cloud of smoke and dust.

And that isn't even the good part -- die, terrorists, die!

I am curious, though -- why is this story appearing in a British newspaper, and not an American one? You don't suppose it could have anything to do with the bias of the MSM, do you?

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Stop the ACLU, Outside the Beltway, A Blog For All, 123beta, Maggie's Notebook, basil's blog, The Pet Haven Blog, Shadowscope, The Amboy Times, Conservative Cat, Pursuing Holiness, Rightlinx, stikNstein... has no mercy, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, , The World According to Carl, The Right Nation, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, and Dumb Ox Daily News, Church and State, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

He says he has no right to interfere in Canadian politics -- and then does so anyway.

The Conservatives' new environmental platform is a "complete and total fraud" that is "designed to mislead the Canadian people," former U.S. vice-president Al Gore said Saturday.

* * *

Gore acknowledged he is not a Canadian citizen and said he has "no right to interfere in your decisions."

However, he said, the rest of the world looks to Canada for moral leadership and that's why this week's announcement was so "shocking."

But the Tories proceeded to bitch-slap the former vice president and noted hypocrite (who still has done nothing to make an actual reduction in his "carbon footprint").

Baird released a statement later in the day Saturday in which he refuted Gore's criticisms.

"The fact is our plan is vastly tougher than any measures introduced by the administration of which the former vice president was a member," Baird said in the statement.

After all, the Clinton/Gore Administration never submitted the Kyoto Protocol for ratification.

Oh, and by the way -- Gore says "intensity reduction" is nothing but a focus-group tested deception by "Big Oil". I suppose that would make it the equivalent of "carbon off-sets", a phrase test-marketed by those who sell them to make a profit off of the failure of Left-wing trendoids to reduce pollution -- by folks like Al Gore, who profits from selling these latter-day indulgences.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Stop the ACLU, Outside the Beltway, A Blog For All, 123beta, Maggie's Notebook, basil's blog, The Pet Haven Blog, Shadowscope, The Amboy Times, Conservative Cat, Pursuing Holiness, Rightlinx, stikNstein... has no mercy, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, , The World According to Carl, The Right Nation, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, and Dumb Ox Daily News, Church and State, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

The Raiders will set the tone for the draft.

The Oakland Raiders kept everyone in the league guessing yesterday about what they were planning to do with the top overall selection in today's NFL draft. Many people around the league continued to assume that the Raiders would use the pick on Louisiana State quarterback JaMarcus Russell, but there were conflicting accounts, and Georgia Tech wide receiver Calvin Johnson and Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn apparently remained possibilities.

The rest of the first round, which promises to include runs on wide receivers and defensive linemen and could produce an unusually high number of safeties chosen, hinges on the Raiders' decision. Teams were making contingency plans and lining up potential trades, but everything was on hold until Raiders owner Al Davis and first-year coach Lane Kiffin finally tip their hand.

The Raiders had contract discussions during the week with the representatives for Russell, Quinn and Johnson. NFL rules permit the team with the first pick to sign the player that it intends to choose before the draft, a tactic that eliminates the possibility of a combative set of contract negotiations during the summer that might delay the player's arrival at his first training camp. But as of last night, there was no indication that the Raiders had a deal in place with any of the players.

And who will they pick? ESPN is offering this tidbit.

It appears the Oakland Raiders have made their choice, and it's JaMarcus Russell. According to two sources, one with the Raiders and one close to Russell, the team called the LSU quarterback Friday to inform him he would be the No. 1 pick in the 2007 NFL draft.

We'll know soon.

But my big question is this -- what will my Houston Texans do? And will it help improve a team that was on on the cusp of being good last season?

This is a personal peccadillo, not a professional one -- will the Democrats try to make a bid deal about it? After all, this is just about sex.

Randall L. Tobias, the deputy secretary of state responsible for U.S. foreign aid, abruptly resigned yesterday after he was asked about an upscale escort service allegedly involved in prostitution, U.S. government sources said.

Tobias resigned after ABC News contacted him with questions about the escort service, the sources said. ABC News released a statement last night saying Tobias acknowledged Thursday that he had used the service to provide massages, not sex.

Tobias has been Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's point man in an ambitious effort to overhaul how the U.S. government manages foreign aid, a key part of her "transformational diplomacy" agenda. Just two days ago, President Bush lauded Tobias for his work in the administration leading "America's monumental effort to confront and deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the continent of Africa."

I hope the Democrats wait to pounce until Barney Frank can weigh in upon this matter.

It is one of the uglier parts of early Mormon history -- the murder of non-Mormon settlers passing through Utah. Among the questions in dispute is the role of Brigham Young in the events? Did he order the murders? Did he fail to act to prevent them? Or is there some point in between.

One hundred fifty years ago, a glorious September morning in the Utah mountains morphed into Mormonism's darkest hour when a militia opened fire on a wagon train, leaving more than 120 men, women and children dead in a flowery field.

Now the "Mountain Meadows Massacre" is becoming more than a subject of somber reflection within tight-knit Mormon circles. Two new films and a forthcoming book aim to tell the nation what happened, why and -- perhaps most important -- whether the revered Mormon prophet Brigham Young ordered the killing.

At stake are not just the details of a tragic moment in pioneer history. For the 5.8 million Americans who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon church is officially known, the integrity of one of their most important heroes hangs in the balance. For others, the depictions stand to forge new impressions of a controversial religious minority that has known both violent persecution and substantial influence across its tumultuous 180-year history.

"As a society, we are definitely at a crossroads" in terms of rethinking Mormonism, says Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. "This is a huge moment, because it's a very important religion."

There are three projects in the works. One, a movie, depicts the events sensationally and stakes out the position that this was an act inspired by, if not ordered by, Brigham Young. The second, a PBS documentary, tries to contextualize what happened and does not, in so far as I can tell, really take a clear position on Young's involvement. And an upcoming book by three Mormon historians takes the official Mormon position that Young had nothing to do with the events of that morning at all -- and that he tried to stop it.

What is the answer? In the end, I suspect the PBS documentary may do a great service by contextualizing the events, coming as they did as a part of the "Mormon War" in Utah. And personally, I doubt that Young actually ordered these murders -- but I do suspect that his words, like those of Henry II in the case of Thomas a Becket, could legitimately have been taken by some of his more loyal followers as an implicit call for these events. As such, one might fairly impute an indirect moral responsibility to the Mormon leader, though perhaps not the sort that those who claim he directed the massacre would insist upon. But regardless, the events of September 11, 1857 remain a blot upon the history of the LDS Church -- and will likely continue to be a source of controversy.

If you want to decrease dependence upon foreign oil, you must find domestic sources.

The Interior Department will announce a proposal Monday to allow oil and gas drilling in federal waters near Virginia that are currently off-limits and permit new exploration in Alaska's Bristol Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, according to people who have seen or been told about drafts of the plan.

The department issued a news release yesterday that was lacking details but said that it had finished a five-year plan that will include a "major proposal for expanded oil and natural gas development on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf." Department officials declined to describe the plan.

Congress would still have to agree to open areas currently off-limits before any drilling could take place off Virginia's coast. Every year since 1982, after an oil spill off Santa Barbara, Calif., Congress has reaffirmed a moratorium on drilling off the nation's Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Last year, after a vigorous push by drilling advocates, Congress opened new waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Interior Department might still go ahead with environmental and geological seismic studies off Virginia, but the plan does not envision drilling there before 2011, according to a congressional source who saw an earlier version of the proposal. The sources who described the plan spoke on the condition of anonymity because they didn't want to compromise relationships with people who showed them drafts.

So, what's it going to be -- more domestic production, or continued reliance on dictators in the Middle East and Latin America for our oil?

Kucinich /Gravel in 2008

Some headlines just leap out at you.

Polygamous lesbians flee Sharia

Uhhhh -- yeah.

The sickness of these diabolically-inspired individuals knows no bounds.

Having arranged to meet these three Christians on Sunday morning for a Bible study, they brutally martyred Tilman Ekkehart Geske, Necati Aydin, Ugur Yuksel.

After Necati read a chapter from the Bible the assault reportedly began. "The young men tied Ugur, Necati, and Tilman’s hands and feet to chairs as they videoed their work on their cell phones," ICC said, adding that what "followed in the next three hours is beyond belief."

ICC said the men were "disemboweled, and their intestines sliced up in front of their eyes. They were emasculated and watched as those body parts were destroyed." The group added that "fingers were chopped off" and "their noses and mouths and anuses were sliced open" as part of what it called "satanic torture."

It added that "possibly the worst part was watching as their brothers were likewise tortured. Tilman was stabbed 156 times, Necati 99 times and Ugur’s stabs were too numerous to count."

Finally, their throats were sliced from ear to ear, and their "heads practically decapitated," ICC said.

Such brutality would be shocking – were it not all too common among those who have taken to murdering non-Muslims in the name of the Islamic faith. Let us hope that the government of Turkey will vigorously deal with these perpetrators of these horrific actions. And may the blood of these martyrs be a spring that nurtures the Christian faith in Turkey, and draw more and more to the truth of the Christian faith.

H/T Jawa Report, Christian Persecution Blog

UPDATE: Will there be justice for Christians in Turkey? I think it is doubtful, given the arrest of four street evangelists in Turkey for attempting to spread the Gospel. Especially when you get quotes like this from senior officials of the Ministry of "Justice".

“Missionaries are more dangerous than terror organizations,” Niyazi Guney, Ministry of Justice director general of laws, reportedly commented only a day after the murders.

Words you never thought you would see on this blog – but which are true in this case.

Legislation that would lift an online gambling ban imposed by Congress last year was introduced on Thursday by the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Calling the Internet gambling prohibition "imprudently adopted," Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts outlined a bill to make it legal again for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites.
"The fundamental issue here is a matter of individual freedom," Frank told a news conference, adding his committee would hold a hearing on the matter in June.

The bill includes provisions for licensing and regulating online gambling companies to protect against underage gambling, compulsive gambling, money-laundering and fraud.

I said it was a stupid law when it passed, and I still believe that to be the case. Repeal the online gambling ban NOW!

I’m shocked by the lack of respect for the US Constitution shown by Dan Simpson, a retired diplomat and member of the editorial boards of both the Toledo Blade and the Pittsburgh Gazette. After all, he proposes nothing less than gun confiscation – and warrantless searches of any person or place without suspicion of any crime.

Now, how would one disarm the American population? First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.

* * *

The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.

Clearly, since such sweeps could not take place all across the country at the same time. But fairly quickly there would begin to be gun-swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms. If there were, those carrying them would be subject to quick confiscation and prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for "carrying."

What’s more, he even notes positively that the slowness of the courts would enable many jurisdictions to disarm the citizenry before their rights under the Constitution could be vindicated.

Let’s see, besides the obvious violation of the Second Amendment contemplated under this proposal, there are a number of other abrogations of the Bill of Rights that should trouble even the most ardent gun-grabber. I see violations of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments as well.

But what is more disturbing is that Simpson has apparently forgotten the history of this country that led to the American Revolution. Indeed, his search proposal is nothing less than the “Writ of Assistance” issued by the British government – one of the abuses of the rights of colonists that helped precipitate the American Revolution.

Indeed, I’m not sure what disturbs me more – Simpson’s un-American proposals, or the fact that a man so disconnected from the fundamental values contained in our Constitution was ever permitted to serve as in any capacity in the Foreign Service, much less at the ambassadorial level.

H/T Captain’s Quarters, Q and O, No Runny Eggs, The Liberty Papers

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I am not a backer of Rudy Giuliani for the presidency – and I’ve acknowledged my concerns over his personal life.

But when Howard Dean raises such issues, I’m stunned by the hypocrisy.

Democratic party chairman Howard Dean said on Thursday that Rudy Giuliani "personal life is a serious problem."

Dean sent the warning on CNN's SITUATION ROOM with host Wolf Blitzer.

Chariman Dean said the former New York City Mayor "has a lot of character issues that he has to answer for. And overwhelmingly, Americans are going to vote on honesty and integrity.... We've begun to reach out to evangelical Christians, and that's a real problem for him. His personal life is a serious problem for him."

BLITZER: Well, describe those character issues...

DEAN: No, I'm not going to get into that stuff. I don't like attacking people on their personal lives, but I can assure you that in the Republican primary, given what went on in the 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina between George Bush and John McCain, those attacks will be made in the Republican Party.

For this to come from the leader of the party of Barney Frank, Gerry Studds, Ted Kennedy, and Bill Clinton is rather shocking. After all, Giuliani has never let a prostitution service run out of his home, had sex with a teenage page, left a woman to drown in his car after diving drunk, or committed perjury about his sex life. After all, the familial sins of Rudy Giuliani don't hold a candle to theirs.

That is the only conclusion possible, if the claims of the Illinois Senator are accurate.

The Senate's No. 2 Democrat says he knew that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained silent because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence committee.

"The information we had in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it," Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said Wednesday when talking on the Senate floor about the run-up to the Iraq war in 2002.

"I was angry about it. [But] frankly, I couldn't do much about it because, in the intelligence committee, we are sworn to secrecy. We can't walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress."

If, as Durbin claims, he knew of falsehoods being given to the American people, he had a moral and Constitutional responsibility to speak out. But he didn’t. And his claims are contradicted by his fellow Democrats on the Intelligence Committee.

That leads me to two possibilities.

1) Dick Durbin failed to do his duty to the American people by not exposing these so-called misleading statements – especially given his statements that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States.

2) Dick Durbin lied to the American people in making this claim of that the administration lied to the American people.

Only one conclusion can be drawn at this point – Dick Durbin is a liar, and unfit to serve in the United States Senate. He should resign immediately.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Stop the ACLU, Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, Big Dog's Weblog, The Pet Haven Blog, Shadowscope, Stuck On Stupid, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Pursuing Holiness, Rightlinx, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, stikNstein... has no mercy, , Pirate's Cove, The Right Nation, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, A Blog For All, 123beta, Adam's Blog, basil's blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao's Blog, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Remember – these are the folks who believe in global warming. You would think they might actually practice what they preach by reducing their carbon emissions and fossil fuel usage. You would be wrong.

A flock of small jets took flight from Washington Thursday, each carrying a Democratic presidential candidate to South Carolina for the first debate of the political season.

For Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, it was wheels up shortly after they voted in favor of legislation requiring that U.S. troops begin returning home from Iraq in the fall.

No one jet pooled, no one took commercial flights to save money, fuel or emissions.

Lifestyle changes to combat global warming? That’s for the little people.

Because the politically powerful are different from you and me.

I’m not a big Oliver North fan, and never have been. I don’t watch his television work, and rarely read his column. However, he does ask a question that we should demand the Neo-Copperhead Democrats be forced to answer.

Reid and his cohorts in Congress who believe "this war is lost" have acted to ensure that it will be. No one asked them: "If we lost, who won?" The answer should be obvious.

So come on, my Democrat friends – if we follow your plan for defeat in Iraq, who is the winner?

Found in a child's scrapbook, compiled 180 years ago at the time our nation marked the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

The letter from George Washington is pasted between poetry and party invitations, stuffed into a dusty scrapbook amid jokes and cutouts of handsome men, and all the highlights of a lucky little girl’s life.

It was written in May 1787 and addressed to Jacob Morris, grandfather of Julia Kean, the precocious 10-year-old who started the brown leather scrapbook in 1826 and put the letter under a portrait of the nation’s first president.

The letter is just 111 words long, a scant two paragraphs, but it mentions a rival of Washington, Horatio Gates, and includes enough hints of intrigue to whet the appetite of scholars. They learned of the letter’s discovery only recently, after it was found among the private papers of one of New Jersey’s most prominent families.

What a neat treasure to find -- and the words of the letter are significant, written during the Constitutional Convention over which George Washington presided.

“The happiness of this Country depend much upon the deliberations of the federal Convention which is now sitting,” reads the second paragraph of the quill-and-ink letter. “It, however, can only lay the foundation — the community at large must raise the edifice.”

Indeed -- the Constitution is mere paper unless We, the People, build and maintain the structure it designs. Have we lived up to that responsibility in the 220 years since that great man wrote those words?

Lynne Stewart is no longer a lawyer.

he's still out on the street, but convicted terror helper Lynne Stewart is out of the legal profession.

A state appeals court yesterday formally disbarred Stewart, officially ending her 30-year career as a lawyer.

The Appellate Division made the disbarment retroactive to Feb. 10, 2005. That's the date she was convicted of providing material support to terrorists by helping her jailed client, blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, communicate with his followers. He is the suspected mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing .

The unsigned decision by the five-judge panel also rejected Stewart's bid to resign from the bar, which her lawyer made 18 months after she was convicted.

I can't wait for her to rot in jail after her appeals are over.

A bit of my childhood has died.

He does the "Monster Mash" no more. Bobby "Boris" Pickett, whose dead-on Boris Karloff impression propelled the Halloween anthem to the top of the charts in 1962, making him one of pop music's most enduring one-hit wonders, has died of leukemia. He was 69.

Pickett, dubbed "The Guy Lombardo of Halloween," died Wednesday night at the West Los Angeles Veterans Hospital, said his longtime manager, Stuart Hersh. His daughter, Nancy, and his sister, Lynda, were at Pickett's bedside.

"Monster Mash" hit the Billboard chart three times: when it debuted in 1962, reaching No. 1 the week before Halloween; again in August 1970, and for a third time in May 1973. The resurrections were appropriate for a song where Pickett gravely intoned the forever-stuck-in-your-head chorus: "He did the monster mash. ... It was a graveyard smash."

Rest in peace, and may your family be comforted.

So now the rent assistance will be extended to three-and-a-half years.

Thousands of families displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita will receive housing assistance for 18 additional months but must begin contributing to their rent next year, federal officials said Thursday.

Evacuees, their advocates and local officials welcomed the news as a realistic acknowledgment that many families still need help but must prepare to assume more responsibility for their own lives.

"I want the city of Houston to know that the majority of the people of New Orleans are trying as hard as they can," said evacuee Samuel Pollen, 63, who is taking classes for certification to work as a teacher. "They gave up on us too soon because of the bad ones."

Housing assistance for more than 120,000 displaced families, which was scheduled to end Aug. 31, will continue through March 1, 2009. Starting March 1, 2008, recipients will be required to make monthly payments starting at $50 and increasing to $600 by the time the assistance ends.

Oh, the horror! After 2-and-a-half years these folks will actually be expected to do something to provide for themselves!

Personally, I like this response from a fellow Houstonian.

Instead of endless Federal Emergency Management Agency's handouts, perhaps it's time for Katrina evacuees to take those jobs "Americans just won't do." This seems to be working well for illegal immigrants in this country.

Indeed -- but then again, the illegals haven't been raised with the expectation that the government will support them through some form of public dole, which many of them were on BEFORE the hurricane.

And the more we know, the more we can do to find a cure.

Researchers said yesterday that they had identified seven new genes connected to the most common form of diabetes — the latest result of an intensifying race between university researchers and private companies to find genes linked to a range of diseases.

The findings, presented in three reports by university scientists and one by a private company, offer novel insights into the biology of a disease that affects 170 million people worldwide.

And the sudden spate of new results mark an acceleration, and perhaps a turning point, in the ability to find disease genes, the long-promised payoff from the human genome project that began in 1989.

Yesterday’s reports bring the number of well-attested genes involved in adult-onset, or Type 2 diabetes up to 10, from the 3 known previously. The new genes do not immediately suggest any new therapy, but may point to a new biological basis for the disease, from which effective treatments could emerge in time.

And in the mean time, I'll just keep taking my pills.

Because after all, heeding the two constituencies closest to the events in Iraq would force them to reconsider their pre-conceived cut-&-run-&-surrender strategy.

The Senate approved a $124 billion Iraq war spending bill yesterday that would force troop withdrawals to begin as early as July 1, inviting President Bush's veto even as party leaders and the White House launch talks to resolve their differences.

The 51 to 46 vote was a triumph for Democrats, who just weeks ago worried about the political wisdom of a veto showdown with the commander in chief as troops fight on the battlefield. But Democrats are hesitant no more. And now that withdrawal language has passed both houses of Congress, even Republicans acknowledge that Bush won't get the spending bill that he has demanded, one with no strings attached.

Sad, isn't it, that the Democrats need to bring about the defeat of the United States military in the central front of the war on terror in order to achieve political "triumph".

Of course, a veto looms.

Which is appropriate, given the words of General Petraeus and the Iraqi government.

The top military commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, warned Thursday that an American troop pullback this fall would lead to an escalation in sectarian killings and worsening violence.

“My sense is that there would be an increase in sectarian violence, a resumption of sectarian violence, were the presence of our forces and Iraqi forces at that time to be reduced,” General Petraeus said at a Pentagon news conference.

And

An Iraqi government spokesman criticized the U.S. Senate vote to begin withdrawing U.S. troops by Oct. 1.

"We see some negative signs in the decision because it sends wrong signals to some sides that might think of alternatives to the political process," Ali al-Dabbagh told The Associated Press.

I'm sure glad that this crop of Democrats wasn't around on the worst days of WWII. We'd all be speaking German and Japanese.

When you or a loved one needs help with drug addiction, where would you turn? Would you know of a reputable facility to send them to for treatment? Or would you find yourself confused, and torn over how to help? If you are like most folks, I'd bet the latter.

That is why 1800NoDrugs.com exists -- to provide you with a resource to turn to when faced with a crisis brought on by drug abuse. They can point you to a drug rehab facility that meets the needs of the addicted individual -- one that will hopefully help them achieve sobriety. And that, after all is the goal.

Paid Endorsement.

And i do condemn the actions of whoever attempted to engage in terrorism against this abortion clinic.

A package left at a women's clinic that performs abortions contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death, investigators said today.

"It was in fact an explosive device," said David Carter, assistant chief of the Austin Police Department. "It was configured in such a way to cause serious bodily injury or death."

The package was found Wednesday in a parking lot outside the Austin Women's Health Center, south of downtown Austin.

Nearby Interstate 35 was briefly closed, and a nearby apartment complex was evacuated while a bomb squad detonated the device.

Abortionists are among the scum of the scum of the earth in my book, a mere half-step above Osama. However, acts of violence are unacceptable in the pro-life cause, and I cannot remain silent when one occurs. I hope that the perp is caught, prosecuted, and given the maximum sentence.

Parole them, then deport them.

Nevada’s Pardons Board on Wednesday commuted the sentences of 46 illegal aliens in the Nevada prison system, clearing the way for the Parole Board to release them.

But they won’t be let go. Instead, they’ll be released to federal immigration authorities who will deport them.

Supreme Court Justice Jim Hardesty suggested releasing many of the illegals, who may constitute more than 10 percent of the prison population, as a way to reduce overcrowding. He said there are 1,065 illegal aliens in the Nevada prison system, many are being held for nonviolent crimes.

David Smith, of the Parole Board, said 35 illegals have been turned over to federal authorities. But the group dealt with Wednesday wasn’t eligible for release because they hadn’t served their minimum sentences yet. Only the Pardons Board, which consists of the seven Supreme Court justices, the attorney general and the governor, has the power to make them eligible for parole early.

Hardesty said another 40 or so will become eligible for parole and deportation before June. Altogether, he said, the parole board should be able to turn over a total of 121 illegals by June 15.

But he said that’s just the first phase of the plan. He said another 186 inmates will be considered at the Pardons Board on May 29. He said the inmates on that list are also good candidates for deportation since their crimes are nonviolent. Once the Pardons Board commutes their sentences, the parole board can release them for deportation as well.

In the future, he said, the board hopes to develop a system that routinely hands over
illegals to the federal government for deportation.

And the great thing about it is that if they do return, they are parole violators who can be quickly and easily incarcerated if caught.

Round ‘e up! Ship ‘em back! Rawhide!

The words painted on the side of the house are offensive – but if a homeowner does not have the right to engage in free speech (as undeniably reprehensible as it is) on his own property, does the First Amendment mean anything anymore? That is my question for columnist Carol McAlice Currie.

The words "Go to F...... Hell Jew Bastard" drip in 3-foot-high letters along the side of a house in northeast Salem. Neighbors and passers-by can't miss the message any time they drive west along the rural road.

But getting Marion County to order the owner to paint over it is proving a chore because, despite its vulgar and violent message, it's protected free speech.
Well, here's some more free speech: Horse manure!

While county officials sit around considering their options, the sideshow gets more attention daily.

The county's legal eagles are correct about the First Amendment. Because there's a possibility that Chadwick Michaels himself wrote the words on his home at 4063 Hayesville Road NE (he refuses to say), they're protected free speech. As intolerant and offensive as they are, they apparently don't meet legal tests for presenting an "immediate and imminent danger."

* * *

As a journalist, the First Amendment is sacred to me. I don't take suppressing it well. So I accept that as miserable a message as it is, it's Michaels' right to say it.

Michaels is not shouting "fire" in a movie theater, so he shouldn't be muzzled. But he is advertising hatred on a big, two-story brown sign in a residential neighborhood of farms and fields.

Surely we can regulate that without trampling on the Bill of Rights.

Notice the hypocrisy, please. She acknowledges the theoretical right to speak – but demands censorship anyway. How liberal of her.

WARNING! PICTURE OF HOUSE BELOW FOLD.

« All done with "Columnist Demands Censorship Of Message She Despises"?

Rosie! Rosie! Rosie!

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson's Website, Big Dog's Weblog, basil's blog, The Amboy Times, Leaning Straight Up, Conservative Cat, Pursuing Holiness, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Allie Is Wired, , Pirate's Cove, Renaissance Blogger, The Pink Flamingo, High Desert Wanderer, OTB Sports, The Yankee Sailor, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Who says that the Japanese are smarter than Americans?

THOUSANDS of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles. Flocks of sheep were marketed as fashionable accessories - available at $1600 each - by a company called Poodles as Pets.

A real poodle retails for twice that much in Japan.

The scam was uncovered when Japanese film star Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food.

She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep.

Hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say they feared their new "poodle" was also a sheep.

One couple said they became suspicious when they took their "dog" to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.

Police believe there could be 2000 people affected by the scam.

One would have hoped that these people would have figured it out when the “dog” said “Baaaaaaaaaaaa!”

And I have to ask – was there an Aggie involved in this scam?

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson's Website, Big Dog's Weblog, basil's blog, The Amboy Times, Leaning Straight Up, Conservative Cat, Pursuing Holiness, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Allie Is Wired, , Pirate's Cove, Renaissance Blogger, The Pink Flamingo, High Desert Wanderer, OTB Sports, The Yankee Sailor, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

What next – a memorial to Cho at Virginia Tech?

The father of a University of Oklahoma student who died after a homemade explosive he was carrying detonated near a packed football stadium said the placement of a memorial to the young man on campus wasn't his idea.

A football fan attending OU's Red-White game on April 7 spotted a stone paver outside the student union with Joel Henry Hinrichs III's name on it.

"I was just kind of horrified," Jenny Clemons told The Oklahoman. "I don't think he has any business being out here."

The school's student affairs division arranged to have the stone placed, an OU alumni affairs employee said. Families pay for such memorials, which cost about $150, officials said, but Hinrichs' father told the newspaper the school offered to place the stone and never billed him.

Hinrichs, an engineering student, died Oct. 1, 2005, when his bomb went off as he sat on a campus bench not far from Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, where a night game was being played.

The FBI investigated whether the 21-year-old Colorado Springs, Colo., resident tried or intended to enter the stadium but reported finding no conclusive evidence.

Joel Hinrichs Jr., the student's father, said OU's dean of students, Clarke Stroud, offered to have the stone placed. In an e-mail, the father told The Oklahoman the dean "very kindly understood that Joel's act was one of loneliness, not of aggression, and offered to have the stone placed in the memorial courtyard; he also indicated that the wife of the university president might select a tree to be placed on campus, also in Joel III's memory."

Even if we presume (just for a minute) that Hinrichs didn’t intend to detonate the bomb at the game, the mere fact that he made it and detonated it in a public place is sufficient to make the memorial inappropriate and unseemly – and the appropriation of public funds for that purpose outrageous.

Than Harry Reid. So says liberal columnist David Broder.

Given the way the Constitution divides warmaking power between the president, as commander in chief, and Congress, as sole source of funds to support the armed services, it is essential that at some point Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi be able to negotiate with the White House to determine the course America will follow until a new president takes office.

To say that Reid has sent conflicting signals about his readiness for such discussions is an understatement. It has been impossible for his own members, let alone the White House, to sort out for more than 24 hours at a time what ground Reid is prepared to defend.

Instead of reinforcing the important proposition -- defined by the Iraq Study Group-- that a military strategy for Iraq is necessary but not sufficient to solve the myriad political problems of that country, Reid has mistakenly argued that the military effort is lost but a diplomatic-political strategy can still succeed.

The Democrats deserve better, and the country needs more, than Harry Reid has offered as Senate majority leader.

The only question is, would Schumer or Durbin be any better?

If the proposed law on hate crimes isn’t intended, in part, to silence religious believers, then why oppose this amendment.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) proposed an amendment protecting freedom of religion: "Nothing in this section limits the religious freedom of any person or group under the constitution," the amendment read, but that, too, was defeated.

Why on earth would anyone refuse to vote for an amendment stating that the law is to be interpreted consistent with the requirements of the First Amendment – unless it is the intent of those backing it that the law be used to limit rights guaranteed under the First Amendment. The failure of the amendment is therefore reason enough to oppose this legislation.

For the second time this month, an attempt by liberal student governments to punish conservative speech they disliked has been beaten back – this time at the University of Rhode Island. Or has it been?

College Republicans at the University of Rhode Island won't have to apologize for sponsoring a satirical scholarship for white, heterosexual men.

Instead, URI's student Senate says it will ask the Republican group to write letters to the 40 people who applied explaining that the scholarship was fake and that a newspaper advertisement for it was intended purely as satire.

Applicants were asked to write about what it means to be a "white, heterosexual American male" and to describe any adversity they had dealt with and overcome.

A student Senate committee had demanded an apology and threatened to cut off funding and other perks. But the entire Senate instead decided to ask the group to send clarification letters to the applicants.

Frankly, I find even that much of a sanction unacceptable, but acknowledging in writing what has always been acknowledged (that the scholarship was an act of satire) is not worth fighting.

Unfortunately, there does appear to be another element that is more disturbing.

The senate also added an amendment requiring the College Republicans to notify the governing body about its activities and events. The bill only allows the senate to act as an adviser.

LaRocca originally opposed the bill when it was written in the committee, but changed her views after the amendments. "I still have my concerns that this may not happen the way we want it to, but I am going to try to look on the bright side and work on it in the best way that I can," she said.

Another amendment stated, "If the URI College Republicans fail to follow through with the actions outlined in this bill to the satisfaction of the senate, then their recognition status shall be revoked for one year."

Cavanaugh said not to worry about the College Republicans. "I guarantee that they are going to follow through with this," he said.

So the threat of derecognition remains over the head of the College Republicans because they engaged in a constitutionally protected activity. As such, I don’t know that we can really say that freedom won.

At least on this point.

"If I never acted again I couldn't care less," Baldwin said in a pre-taped appearance for ABC's "The View," scheduled to air Friday.

I also couldn’t care less if Alec Baldwin never acts again – but then again, he hasn’t made a good movie since Hunt for Red October.

I don’t know about one of these charges. The charge of “aiding the enemy” sounds an awful lot like the definition of another crime – the only one defined by the US Constitution.

A senior U.S. officer has been charged with nine offenses, including aiding the enemy and fraternizing with the daughter of a detainee while he commanded a military police detachment at an American detention facility near Baghdad, the military said Thursday.

Army Lt. Col. William H. Steele was accused of giving "aid to the enemy" by providing an unmonitored cell phone to detainees.

Steele was the commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment at Camp Cropper, a U.S. detention center on the western outskirts of Baghdad, when the offenses allegedly occurred between October 2005 and February, military spokesman Lt. Col. James Hutton said.

Steele was being held in Kuwait pending a grand jury investigation, Hutton said.
The other charges included unauthorized possession of classified information, fraternizing with the daughter of a detainee, maintaining an inappropriate relationship with an interpreter, storing classified information in his quarters and possessing pornographic videos, the military said.

Steele also was charged with improperly marking classified information, failing to obey an order and failing to fulfill his obligations in the expenditure of funds, the military said.

All of this is serious. All of it needs to be punished. But if Steel has provided “aid to the enemy”, doesn’t that fall within the scope of the definition of “treason” contained in Article III, Section 3 of the US Constitution?

Do your homework, go to jail – if it troubles your teacher.

High school senior Allen Lee sat down with his creative writing class on Monday and penned an essay that so disturbed his teacher, school administrators and police that he was charged with disorderly conduct.

"I understand what happened recently at Virginia Tech," said the teen's father, Albert Lee, referring to last week's massacre of 32 students by gunman Seung-Hui Cho. "I understand the situation."

But he added: "I don't see how somebody can get charged by writing in their homework. The teacher asked them to express themselves, and he followed instructions."

Allen Lee, an 18-year-old straight-A student at Cary-Grove High School, was arrested Tuesday near his home and charged with disorderly conduct for an essay police described as violently disturbing but not directed toward any specific person or location.

So let’s see – writing an essay assigned by a teacher has gotten this boy arrested and sent to a different school, despite the fact that he made no threats towards anyone. Why? An over-reaction to the Hokie Horror.

I’m curious. Are we going to start arresting Hollywood types – directors, producers, screenwriters, actors – for their creation of “violently disturbing” movies and television shows?

After all, if they are going to resist federal attempts to enforce federal law on immigration (which, liberals constantly remind us, is a federal responsibility), then they certainly should not benefit from federal funds under other federal laws.

Oakland city officials today announced two new resolutions condemning recent federal immigration raids and formalizing the city's intention not to cooperate with the U.S. government effort to deport undocumented residents.

The resolutions, one by Mayor Ron Dellums and the other by Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, both condemn the recent raids, which included one on Friday at an East Oakland manufacturer.

Both resolutions are also an effort to update Oakland's 1986 "City of Refuge" ordinance which only applies to refugees fleeing political violence in Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua and South Africa, De La Fuente said. His proposed ordinance would give refuge to any undocumented immigrant regardless of national origin.

The council president, Dellums, Police Chief Wayne Tucker, City Councilwomen Jean Quan and Jane Brunner, and other city officials appeared at a City Hall news conference to support both resolutions.

The measure by De La Fuente and co-sponsors Quan and Brunner would direct city departments and staff not to cooperate with any federal immigration investigation, detention, or arrest procedures. They will introduce the measure Thursday to the City Council Rules Committee, De La Fuente said.

"The City of Refuge declaration is just as relevant today as it was 21 years ago, if not more, as our federal immigration policies are still in need of comprehensive reform," said De La Fuente, a native of Mexico and one of the Bay Area's more prominent immigrant elected officials.

City of Refuge? Let’s call it what it is – City of Lawlessness. And let’s take it a step further – these actions are reminiscent of the actions of South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis of the 1830s – and no more legitimate.

A law to ban guns from college and university campuses failed in the Arizona legislature. That should come as no surprise.

The surprise should be over this ignorant comment from its sponsor, Rep. Steve Gallardo (D-Phoenix)

"My amendment was not taking away gun rights; it was protecting students," he said.

Yep, just like being on a gun-free campus protected students at Virginia Tech last week.

If the Times says there is something improper about the firing, then there must be. After all, they are the New York Times!

Congressman Rick Renzi, an Arizona Republican, was locked in a close re-election battle last fall when the local United States attorney, Paul Charlton, was investigating him for corruption. The investigation appears to have been slowed before Election Day, Mr. Renzi retained his seat, and Mr. Charlton ended up out of a job — one of eight prosecutors purged by the White House and the Justice Department.

The Arizona case adds a disturbing new chapter to that scandal. Congress needs to determine whether Mr. Charlton was fired for any reason other than threatening the Republican Party’s hold on a Congressional seat.

* * *

There is reason to be suspicious about these events. Last week, all Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could offer was weak excuses for the firing — that Mr. Charlton had asked Mr. Gonzales to reconsider a decision to seek the death penalty in a murder case and that he’d started recording interviews with targets of investigations without asking permission from Justice Department bureaucrats.

Now wait -- you've got a US attorney bucking Justice Department policy and rebelling against top-level decisions coming out of Washington. That isn't a weak excuse -- that is a pretty good one, in my book. The guy was out of step with the priorities of the department. Indeed, that would be sufficient to get you or I fired from our jobs, and is legitimate reason for firing this US Attorney.

Now, if there is ANY ACTUAL EVIDENCE that the firing was improper, bring it on and present it -- I'll gladly support the resignation and prosecution of anyone involved in obstruction of justice. But until there is actual evidence of such activities, the only thing dubious is this NY Times editorial -- and the claims of partisan Democrats looking for a scandal.

Looks like Rick Perry may not get to play doctor with the eleven-year-old girls of Texas after all.

A revolt by lawmakers has blocked Gov. Rick Perry’s effort to make Texas the first state to require sixth-grade girls to be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.

In a 135-to-2 vote that appeared veto-proof, the Texas House gave final passage on Wednesday to a Senate bill that bars the state from ordering the shots until at least 2011. Even many supporters of the governor resented Mr. Perry’s proposal as an abuse of executive authority.

Indeed, it is the latter issue that is the problem for a great many of us here in Texas. It isn't that we are "pro-cancer" or "anti-woman", but rather that we insist upon the proper constitutional limits on the governor's power be abided by -- and Rick Perry blew right through those. We also have some concerns about the vaccine itself, the question of parental rights, and the possible quid-pro-quo that got the governor to issue this executive order.

More to the point, many of us are all for making the vaccine more widely available -- just not mandatory. After all, Merck's ads for Gardasil tell women to ask their doctor IF the vaccine is right for them.

Yep, I guess the economy really must suck -- not.

The Dow Jones industrial average surged past the 13,000 mark for the first time Wednesday, as U.S. stocks rallied on better-than-expected manufacturing data and strong corporate earnings.

The close, 13,089.89, comes less than two months after a late February plunge in world markets sent investors heading for safer ground. The broader market has been rising almost uninterrupted since late March. If the trend holds, U.S. stocks are on track to finish April with the biggest monthly gain in more than three years.

So I guess it would appear that the state of the US economy is quite sound -- at least according to those whose money makes the engine of capitalism run.

If the First Amendment and the questions asked in yesterday's oral arguments before the Supreme Court are any indication, quite possibly.

The Supreme Court put defenders of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law on the defensive on Wednesday in a spirited argument that suggested the court could soon open a significant loophole in the measure.

At issue is a major provision of the five-year-old law that bars corporations and labor unions from paying for advertisements that mention the name of a candidate for federal office and that are broadcast 60 days before an election or 30 days before a primary. By a 5-to-4 vote in December 2003, the court held that the provision, on its face, passed First Amendment muster.

But a new majority may view more expansively the Constitution’s protection of political messages as free speech, and invite a flood of advertising paid for by corporations and unions as the 2008 elections move into high gear.

The argument on Wednesday was over whether, despite the 2003 blanket endorsement, the law would be constitutional if applied to three specific ads that an anti-abortion group sought to broadcast before the 2004 Senate election in Wisconsin.

The ads, sponsored by Wisconsin Right to Life Inc., mentioned the state’s two senators, both Democrats: Russell D. Feingold, a co-sponsor of the McCain-Feingold law, who was up for re-election, and Herb Kohl, who was not. The advertisements’ focus was a Democratic-led filibuster of some of President Bush’s judicial nominees. Viewers were urged to “contact Senators Feingold and Kohl and tell them to oppose the filibuster.” The ads provided no contact information, instead directing viewers to a Web site that contained explicit criticism of Mr. Feingold.

A special three-judge Federal District Court here ruled that because the text and images of the ads did not show that they were “intended to influence the voters’ decisions,” they were “genuine issue ads” that the government could not keep off the air.

McCain-Feingold is bad law all the way around -- but this particular provision may be among its worst, effectively stifling the ability of the people to engage in political speech and to petition the government for a redress of grievances -- a two-fer of First Amendment violations. While I'd love to see the entire law declared unconstitutional, I'd settle for this provision. But then again, I've always been one who sees more political speech as better than less.

I love this line from a letter in today's Houston Chronicle.

After responding to more than 70 questions with some variation on the words, "I don't recall," [Gonzales] demonstrated he is either a gross incompetent, a party hack or a liar.

Now let's see, if that makes the attorney general "either a gross incompetent, a party hack or a liar", what would answering "I don't recall" or some variation 50 times during testimony before a House committee make a Democrat? Oh that's right -- First Lady, Senator from New York, and the leading candidate for her party's presidential nomination!

Thanks to James Taranto over at Opinion Journal for pointing out these two pictures.

Reuters has a couple of amusing photos from a mass gathering in the Palestinian territories. This one shows a guy brandishing a rifle in his right hand and shaking his left fist. At least one more rifle is visible among the crowd walking behind him. This one shows another guy, holding a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher. Both photos have the same caption:

Palestinians attend a demonstration against violence in Gaza April 23, 2007.

We've often noted that many so-called pacifists seem to have a taste for tumult, but only in Palestinistan would a peace protester carry an RPG launcher. Or should we say only in Reuterville?

Gotta love those anti-violence Palestinians!

Lawmakers in Pennsylvania are all in an uproar over a pro-gun sign held by Second Amendment rights activists at the state capitol.

Members of the Legislative Black Caucus called yesterday for a state police investigation into the display of what they called a racist banner in the Capitol that said a Latino lawmaker should be "hung from the tree of liberty for his acts of treason against the Constitution."

The outcry came hours after several gun-rights proponents unfurled a banner saying that State Rep. Angel Cruz (D., Phila.) should be hanged for introducing legislation that would require people to register their guns and pay a $10 fee to the state police.

"People want to hang me for doing my job," Cruz said, adding that his bill was aimed at trying to reduce gun violence in his district.

"I am appalled by the actions by a group of demonstrators," State Rep. Jewell Williams (D., Phila.) said. "We will not tolerate people making threats against members."

Williams was one of 10 Philadelphia-area lawmakers who appeared at a news conference yesterday afternoon to denounce the banner's language as a "terroristic threat" that raised the ugly specter of mob violence against African Americans.

Cruz, who is of Puerto Rican ancestry, is a member of the Black Caucus.

Now here’s the sign that so offended folks.

Now the language is provocative, but clearly not a threat – especially if one has any notion of the quote referenced by the phrase “the tree of liberty”.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Who was the hate-mongering terrorist who is responsible for such an evil sentiment being expressed?

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence an third President of the United States – generally credited as being one of the greatest Americans who ever lived. It refers to the reason why the right to keep and bear arms was and must be viewed as fundamental to a free society – that a free people must be armed to preserve their liberty in the face of tyranny.

So cool your jets, folks, and recognize that these demonstrators are simply more historically literate than you are. And to the demonstrators, might I suggest that you recognize your average lawmaker is not terribly bright, so it is probably best to assume that they won’t understand an appeal to the words of any president that predate “I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.”

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson's Website, The Random Yak, Adam's Blog, Maggie's Notebook, Big Dog's Weblog, The Pet Haven Blog, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Pursuing Holiness, Conservative Thoughts, The Magical Rose Garden, Faultline USA, stikNstein... has no mercy, , Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Renaissance Blogger, Planck's Constant, CORSARI D'ITALIA, Gone Hollywood, The Yankee Sailor, and OTB Sports, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

When is enrichment of uranium mot enrichment of uranium? When the European Union might otherwise have to show some backbone and stand up to Iran over its illegal nuclear program.

On the eve of talks in Ankara today between top Iranian nuclear envoy Ali Larijani and EU foreign-policy chief Javier Solana officials familiar with the negotiations said the discussions, for the first time, could try to sidestep the deadlock over enrichment by trying to agree on a new definition of the term.

Iran's defiance of a U.N. Security Council demand to freeze all activities linked to enrichment -- a possible pathway to nuclear arms -- has led to two sets of sanctions against the country. Although the punishments are limited and mild, they could be sharpened if the Islamic republic refuses to compromise.

The Europeans like to work with Muslim dictators because it is profitable – look a how they supplied Saddam Hussein with material in violation of UN resolutions. Why should we expect any change in their behavior now – after all, they have been appeasing tyrants since at least 1938.

Bigots! What else can you call a bunch of “religious” leaders who condemn public officials based upon their religion because they properly carried out their constitutionally defined role?

Hypocrites! What else can you call a group that complains that judges applying the Constitution and the clear (as mud) standards set out in Roe v. Wade to uphold an act of Congress are guilty of imposing their religion upon the American people – and then insist not only that THEIR religious values should be enacted but also that legislation be passed to forbid medical personnel from abiding by their own values?

A coalition of religious leaders took on the Catholic Church, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Bush administration on Tuesday with a plea to take religion out of health care in the United States.

They said last week's Supreme Court decision outlawing a certain type of abortion demonstrated that religious belief was interfering with personal rights and the U.S. health care system in general.

The group, calling itself the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, said it planned to submit its proposals to other church groups and lobby Congress and state legislators.

"With the April 18 Supreme Court decision banning specific abortion procedures, concerns are being raised in religious communities about the ethics of denying these services," the group said in a statement.

"They are imposing their points of view," Barbara Kavadias, director of field services for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, told reporters in a telephone briefing.

She noted that the five Supreme Court justices on the majority in the 5-4 decision were all Catholic men -- Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Anthony Kennedy, Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia.

All were appointed by conservative Republican presidents who oppose abortion, including President George W. Bush.

The group also complained about Catholic-owned hospitals that refuse to sterilize women who ask for it, refuse to let doctors perform abortions and do not provide contraception.

"Doctors, pharmacists and nurses are also increasingly exercising a so-called 'religious or moral objection,' refusing to provide essential services and often leaving patients without other options," the group said in a statement.

In other words, they not only want to disqualify Catholics and other conservative Christians from holding public office (or at least bringing their values with them), but they want to require that Catholic hospitals quit being Catholic and that Catholic and other conservative Christian medical professionals stop acting on their religious beliefs.

I think that this response says it best.

Marie Hilliard of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia said she had grave concerns about the report.

"There is no recognition of the true meaning of the separation of church and state, which mandates that the free exercise of religion, including that of the provider, be respected," she said.

And at the risk of offending these hypocritical religious bigots in pastor’s robes, may I heartily say “Amen!”

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson's Website, The Random Yak, Adam's Blog, Maggie's Notebook, Big Dog's Weblog, The Pet Haven Blog, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Pursuing Holiness, Conservative Thoughts, The Magical Rose Garden, Faultline USA, stikNstein... has no mercy, , Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Renaissance Blogger, Planck's Constant, CORSARI D'ITALIA, Gone Hollywood, The Yankee Sailor, and OTB Sports, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

You won’t be missed, Rosie.

On the heels of her obscene comments at a recent media event, an infamous feud with Donald Trump and countless politically sensitive remarks, Rosie O'Donnell is leaving "The View" at the end of her first season on the show.

ABC said Wednesday it was unable to agree on a contract with the opinionated host, and she'll leave the show in June.

O'Donnell said in a statement that "my needs for the future just didn't dovetail with what ABC was able to offer me."

"This has been an amazing experience," she said, "and one I wouldn't have traded for the world."

And there are a whole bunch of folks around the blogosphere who are in mourning today – after all, what will they do for material once the Voice of Inanity is off the air?
But not to worry – ABC is going to try to get her back for a number of specials next year, so she may still be available to spew liberal stupidity while chewing the blubber fat with her brainless gal pals.

This case could have a big impact upon the legal accountability of members of Congress – including, perhaps, the issues surrounding last year’s search of William Jefferson’s office. The issue is simple – how far does the “speech and debate” clause of the Constitution extend in immunizing Senators and Representatives, and to what degree do statutes (and, one presumes, warrants) have upon Congressional offices.

To ensure robust debate, the U.S. Constitution protects members of Congress from lawsuits rising out of their legislative duties. But does that provide immunity from an aide's claims of discrimination?

The U.S. Supreme Court took up a Minnesota case Tuesday that could answer that question.

The case involves former Minnesota Sen. Mark Dayton, who was sued by staffer Brad Hanson for discrimination after he was fired in 2002.

Dayton said he dismissed Hanson, who directed his Minnesota office, for poor performance; Hanson claimed it was because he had a heart condition and needed time off.

A lower court allowed the lawsuit to proceed, but the case has never been tried, pending higher court rulings on whether it should be.

The issue at hand is whether the staffing of one’s congressional office is an administrative act or a part of the legislative process. If the court holds that it is the latter, it seems to me that one could then infer that any activity or material in the office could be deemed a part of the “legislative process”, rendering those offices “safe zones” for stashing evidence of criminal conduct. On the other hand, a ruling for the plaintiff in this case would apply the laws of the land to members of both houses by upholding the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995, which gave congressional employees the same legal rights as other American workers (holding for Dayton would effectively strike down this law as unconstitutional).

Dayton’s team is now arguing that the case should be deemed moot because he was able to stall the matter until he left office. That argument should not fly, because for four years Brad Hanson may have suffered the consequences of illegal employment discrimination, and he is therefore entitled to his day in court.

Ten years ago, Democrats called impeachment an attempt to “overturn the results of an election”. Today, at least one of those same Democrats calls it a fulfillment of the Declaration of Independence.

"I do not stand alone," Dennis Kucinich said as he stood, alone, in front of a cluster of microphones yesterday evening. The Ohio congressman, a Democratic presidential candidate, was holding a news conference outside the Capitol to announce that he had just filed articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney. But subsequent questioning quickly revealed that Kucinich had not yet persuaded any of his 434 colleagues to be a cosponsor, that he had not even discussed the matter with House Democratic leaders, and that he had not raised the subject with the Judiciary Committee. Kucinich did have one thing: a copy of the Declaration of Independence. And he was not afraid to read it. "We hold these truths to be self-evident," the aspiring impeachment manager read at the start of his news conference. He continued all the way through the bit about the right of the people to abolish the government. "These words from the Declaration of Independence are instructive at this moment," he said.

I looked at the resolution, and Kucinich wants to declare disagreements over policy and good-faith reliance upon the best available intelligence into a high crime or misdemeanor. On the other hand, he and his party couldn’t support impeachment of a president over perjury – an actual felony (AKA "high crime"). That tells you everything you need to know about the Democrats – they seek power at any cost, even the integrity of the US Constitution.

After all, it might get in the way of cutting, running, and surrendering. So one simply chose not to hear what General Petraeus has to say – and the other declares anything that contradicts the assertions that the war is lost is a lie. At least one Republican has had the guts to speak out on this disgraceful situation.

On the other hand, the (relatively) moderate Arab states in region don’t want the US to withdraw from Iraq because of the very real, very negative consequences of such a course of action.

The so-called axis of moderate Arab states - comprising Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan - dreads an early US withdrawal. First, because it would be widely interpreted as an American defeat, which would weaken these pro-American regimes while both energising and radicalising their populations.

Second, if the US leaves, the emergence of a Shia regime in Iraq - in itself an offensive prospect to them - would only be a matter of time. Facing Arab antipathy, this regime would be likely to look eastward and forge close ties with its Iranian co-religionists. In the view of most Arabs, this would present a formidable challenge, setting in motion a series of dangerous events - an Iranian-Iraqi alliance; political and material support from Arab countries being offered to disgruntled Iraqi Sunni groups; retaliation by Iraqi forces; and the threat of broader regional involvement.

Third, a US departure risks triggering Iraq's partition. As some Arabs see it, the occupation is what holds the country together. So long as coalition forces are deployed, a full-blown breakup can be avoided.

But the no-faith (in our troops) based Democrats don’t care about the consequences of their strategy – except the hoped-for electoral success a perceived military defeat brings to their party. It must such, having to root against your country to get power for yourself. A patriot couldn’t do it.

As I reported yesterday -- a school burns down, and the biggest concern of the state of Texas is -- making sure the kids retake the TAKS test since the answer sheets from the original administration were destroyed in the fire.

State education officials have approved a plan to let high school students whose TAKS tests burned up in a deliberately set fire to retake the exams, possibly as early as next week, officials said.

The test results were destroyed when the fire heavily damaged Needville High School early Monday in rural Fort Bend County. The tests were administered last week.

"Once we determine a date when they are actually going to conduct the testing, then we will ship those materials out to them," Texas Education Agency spokeswoman Suzanne Marchman said Tuesday.

Marchman said the tests could be sent to Needville at the end of this week so that ninth-, 10th-, and 11th-grade students could take the state-mandated exams sometime next week.

The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills is an annual statewide standardized test used to measure student and school performance.

Classes for high schoolers will resume Monday with students going to school on a staggered schedule, said Needville Independent School District Superintendent Curtis Rhodes.

"With the classroom space that is available, we will just kind of double up and share the classrooms," Rhodes said.

Only 19 instructional days remain in the school year.

Like they don't have better things to do with those last four weeks of school.

Shameful -- just shameful!

After all, they are the media and have special rights -- the rest of America has no right on under the Constitution to comment on political matters if the government incumbents order them to shut up.

Corporations have been prohibited since the early 1900’s from contributing to political campaigns. This ban and a similar one imposed later on unions prevents these wealthy entities from buying elections and elected officials. The Supreme Court, in upholding these bans, has recognized that Congress has a compelling interest in preventing the “corrosive and distorting effects” of corporate and union contributions.

Corporations and unions have, not surprisingly, tried to get around the ban. One tactic they have used is bankrolling phony “issue ads”: commercials that purport to educate the public about a policy issue, but are actually intended to elect or defeat a particular candidate. Today’s case involves phony issue ads run on radio and television by a group called Wisconsin Right to Life, which accepted major contributions from corporations against Senator Russell Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin.

The ads attacked Mr. Feingold and Wisconsin’s other senator, Herb Kohl, for blocking President Bush’s judicial nominees, and urged the public to contact the two men to complain. Clearly the ads’ purpose was to try to prevent Mr. Feingold’s re-election. Wisconsin Right to Life had made it clear that it was targeting him for defeat. Mr. Feingold’s opponents were using the issue of judicial nominees against him. The ads ran shortly before the election, while the Senate was in recess and no votes on judges were being held. And they did not provide contact information for Mr. Feingold and Mr. Kohl.

Let's be quite honest here -- these ads were really no different in content from the sort of things that regularly appear on the editorial pages of the New York Times (a corporation, don't you know) on a daily basis, urging a position and implicitly seeking to influence the behavior of politicians and the actions of voters. In fact, the corporation known as the New York Times offers endorsements -- specific directions to voters on who to vote for. But this corporate entity, the New York Times, is unrestricted, while issue-related groups like Wisconsin Right To life (which receives money from both individuals and corporations) is banned from speaking. Hardly seems reasonable -- especially since Wisconsin Right To Life is engaged in speech, the freedom of which is as firmly guaranteed by the First Amendment as is freedom of speech.

But I'm particularly disturbed by this closing line.

It would be disturbing if the court now changed the rules to make it easier for special interests to corrupt American democracy.

Actually, no it wouldn't be -- what would be disturbing is for the Supreme Court to turn the First Amendment on its head and decree that pornography, a crucifix dipped in urine and flag burning have more protection under the Constitution than measured and responsible speech on political matters and politicians.