If you were an editor, where would you put this story in your paper?

The director general of a controversial private Catholic school in Fairfax County has been found guilty of a misdemeanor charge of failing to report child abuse and fined $500.

Abner I Alanson, head of the Vatican Catholic Academy on Route 1 in the Mount Vernon area, was arrested last month by Fairfax police, who said Alanson had been informed of the possible sexual abuse of a 5-year-old student at the school. School authorities are required by law to report alleged child abuse within 72 hours.

Alanson was charged with misdemeanor counts of failing to report child abuse and obstruction of justice. He pleaded no contest July 24 to the failure to report charge, and Fairfax prosecutors agreed to dismiss the obstruction charge, according to court records.

No brainer, right? Front page -- or at least the front page of the Local news section. After all, the story has everything you could want -- religious school covering up sex abuse and prosecutors working a plea deal to give the offending administrator a slap on the wrist, despite the fact that his actions endangered a small child.

You certainly wouldn't bury it on page B-6, would you?

Well, that's where this story got placed.

The director general of a controversial private Islamic school in Fairfax County has been found guilty of a misdemeanor charge of failing to report child abuse and fined $500.

Abdalla I. Al-Shabnan, head of the Islamic Saudi Academy on Route 1 in the Mount Vernon area, was arrested last month by Fairfax police, who said Al-Shabnan had been informed of the possible sexual abuse of a 5-year-old student at the school. School authorities are required by law to report alleged child abuse within 72 hours.

Al-Shabnan was charged with misdemeanor counts of failing to report child abuse and obstruction of justice. He pleaded no contest July 24 to the failure to report charge, and Fairfax prosecutors agreed to dismiss the obstruction charge, according to court records.

Oh, I see -- it just wouldn't do to give the administrator of an Islamic school the same play that the principal of a Catholic school (or even a public school) would get in such a situation. That would be insensitive and prejudicial towards Muslims -- who as we know are all peaceful and are steadfastly opposed to sex with little children.

Never mind, of course, that the school has been embroiled in controversy for some time because it is apparently teaching religious bigotry and encouraging jihadi terrorism. Bury the story -- because we don't want to provoke the same sort of response that publishing cartoons has caused in the past.

H/T NewsBusters

When a liberal scholar who is generally skeptical about the death penalty says that the Supreme Court screwed the pooch in a decision limiting the death penalty and needs to reconsider the case, you know that the decision is completely screwed up.

And here is the money section of the column.

If a legislature were to exempt the killers of gay men or lesbians from capital punishment, even dedicated death penalty opponents should cry foul in the Constitution's name. So too, should they cry foul when the judiciary holds the torturers or violent rapists of young children to be constitutionally exempt from the death penalty imposed by a legislature judicially permitted to apply that penalty to cop killers and murderers for hire. In doing so, the court is imposing a dubious limit on the ability of a representative government to enforce its own, entirely plausible, sense of which crimes deserve the most severe punishment.

To be sure, holding the line at murder and treason gives the judiciary a bright line that blurs once one says a legislature may include other offenses in its catalogue of what it deems the most heinous of all crimes. But the same may be said of virtually any bright line. Placing ease of judicial administration above respect for democracy and for principles of equal justice under law is inexcusable.

of course, that is precisely the problem with much of the death penalty jurisprudence laid down by the Supreme Court in recent years. Everything that Tribe says in this case could equally well be applied to the decision a few terms back to exempt vicious murderers who were under the age of 18 from the death penalty. Ditto all the tinkering with the mechanism of death banning mandatory death sentences and imposing a convoluted scheme of aggravating/mitigating factors for juries to consider. After all, the nine robed justices are members of the Supreme COURT, not the Supreme LEGISLATURE -- and the naked activism found in Eighth Amendment jurisprudence related to capital punishment demonstrates what happens when the justices forget their proper role.

So the Democrats claim to be the party of the common people. I don't know about the rest of you common working class folks out there, but I sure as Hell can't afford $10 gas.

But at least one Senate Democrat thinks you can -- and he was speaking on behalf of the entire Democrat Caucus when he said that the American people can suck it up if gas goes that high.

Got that, America. Gas at $4 -- no new drilling in America. Gas at $7.50 -- no new drilling in America. Gas at $10 -- no new drilling in America.

So even if your gas and electric, and food, and clothing and other bills increase 250% while your pay increases by a significantly smaller margin (if your job even exists any more), there will be no new oil production in America. You just have to suffer, because the Democrats care less about you than Al Gwhore and the radical environmentalists holding their party hostage.

Want energy independence? VOTE REPUBLICAN!

H/T Hot Air, Human Events

To honor Obama's commitment.

It seems that Barack Obama made a promise to the folks in his ancestral village back in Kenya.

He would help them support their school, which was in need of financial assistance to stay open and educate the children.

They named the school after him.

He did absolutely nothing to fulfill his pledge.

Barack Obama, the Evening Standard can reveal, after we went to the village earlier this month, has failed to honour the pledges of assistance that he made to a school named in his honour when he visited here amid great fanfare two years ago.

At that historic homecoming in August 2006 Obama was greeted as a hero with thousands lining the dirt streets of Kogelo. He visited the Senator Obama Kogelo Secondary School built on land donated by his paternal grandfather. After addressing the pupils, a third of whom are orphans, and dancing with them as they sang songs in his honour, he was shown a school with four dilapidated classrooms that lacked even basic resources such as water, sanitation and electricity.

He told the assembled press, local politicians (who included current Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga), and students: "Hopefully I can provide some assistance in the future to this school and all that it can be." He then turned to the school's principal, Yuanita Obiero, and assured her and her teachers: "I know you are working very hard and struggling to bring up this school, but I have said I will assist the school and I will do so."

Following his promise, the school officials made an ambitions proposal to improve the school they had renamed in Obama's honor, totaling some $125,000. However, according to the school's principal, "Senator Obama has not honoured the promises he gave me when we met in 2006 and in his earlier letter to the school. He has not given us even one shilling."

It seems that he gave his African relatives and their neighbors hope that there might be some change in the education of their children -- and yet his empty promises have come to absolutely nothing as he pimps his African heritage in his presidential campaign and best-selling books. I guess that all of it is just words, just speeches.

But conservative blogger Baldilocks (whose life and ancestry intersects with Obama's in a very interesting way) has been moved to take action to actually do what what liberal politician Barack Obama won't -- honor the commitment made by Barack Obama to improve the lives of one African village that honored him. She has established Save Senator Obama Kogelo School, Inc., a non-profit intended to keep Senator Obama's promise since he apparently has no intention of doing so.

I whole-heartedly endorse this effort, and consider it a matter of honor on behalf of the United States. While Barack Obama puts his naked ambition first, we bitter, fearful, xenophobic Americans who reflexively cling to our religion and guns need to put the children of village of Kogelo, Kenya first on his behalf. And for the record, she has graciously indicated that she will welcome donations from liberals, including supporters of Senator Obama. Who knows -- maybe Senator and Mrs. Obama might feel moved to support the effort.

To support this worthy effort, click here.

H/T Gateway Pundit

UPDATE: New allies to the cause -- Michelle Malkin, The Other McCain, Stuck On Stupid (twice)

Whatever other issues may be raised by this story about the arrest of an illegal immigrant (and there are a bunch of them -- including misuse of government resources and outright fraud), this quote shows how some folks are so clueless that they don't even merit consideration in the immigration debate.

"To go after productive citizens who have been our neighbors and friends for years? It's insane," said Marilyn Tyler, a retired librarian from Burlington who knew the arrested woman. "We can't just stand by and let this happen."

Clearly Ms. Tyler's mind is going in her later years. After all, the precise problem is that Marxavi Angel Martinez IS NOT a citizen. She is a foreigner who has been making fraudulent use of an SSN to illegally obtain employment in this country. And while you can weep about the fact that her parents brought her to this country as a toddler and she grew up in the county. The reality is that that she appears to be guilty of four federal felonies and lied about her citizenship on her employment application to get a job for which she was not eligible.

Of course, Martinez is not responsible for having come to this country illegally. She is, however, responsible for staying and for engaging in illegal, fraudulent practices to do so and to obtain work. And for that, she should be treated like any other felon -- and then deported, like every other immigration criminal.

When will there be charges filed?

Denver officials abruptly have stopped allowing Democratic National Convention planners to gas up at city pumps, acknowledging that the city can't legally sell fuel.

Public Works Department representatives also acknowledged that they never should have started selling gasoline to convention planners back in March before signing a contract with either the Denver 2008 Host Committee or the Democratic National Convention Committee.

The Democrats have been siphoning gas from the city supply for over four months now. What will the penalty be? Who were the beneficiaries of this illegal practice? And when will someone be held legally accountable?

Every American should read this editorial from the Republican-American of Waterbury, Connecticut.

Drive less, pay more

Paraphrasing, here's how the exchange went between congressional Democrats and the president over lifting their respective bans on offshore drilling: President Bush: "We need to lift the bans. Americans are being hammered by high gasoline prices."

Democrats in Congress: "You go first."

President Bush: "OK, I hereby lift the presidential ban on offshore drilling. Your turn."

Democrats in Congress: "Forget that. Gasoline prices are too low. Let's raise the gasoline tax 56 percent instead."

Why would they propose that? Because next year, the Federal Highway Trust Fund, where gasoline-tax receipts collect, will be at least $3 billion in the red; at the start of 2006, it had a $10 billion surplus.

What happened? First, transportation spending is out of control. But Americans also are driving less because Democrats and their green cronies have made gasoline so damned expensive, so excise-tax receipts are coming in below projections.

Democrats have decided to do something about this: reward cash-strapped Americans for conserving energy by raising their gasoline taxes at least a dime to 28.4 cents a gallon. They say if they retain control of Congress, that increase will be "the cornerstone" of the 2009 federal highway bill. That measure is expected to map out $90 billion in annual transportation spending over six years, but that's well below the $225 billion yearly appropriation recommended by the nonpartisan National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission. To fund that much work, the gasoline tax would have to be raised to 71 cents. At today's rates, that would push total motor-fuel taxes in Connecticut to more than $1.20 and the pump price to $4.90.

In 2009, congressional Democrats will have three choices: a) spend less, b) tax more, or c) some combination of the two. Logic and compassion dictate otherwise, but the smart money is on b.

In other words, my fellow Americans, if you vote for the Jackass Party, you will pay more for gasoline -- a lot more, due to the Democrat scheme to raise the gas tax. Can you afford the increase?

I've not paid attention to this story -- but now it appears that I and other Americans ought to do so.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler said Tuesday he will rent a home in Palm Beach County, after a week of criticism since his admission that he hadn't had a home in South Florida for 11 years.

Wexler sold his west of Boca Raton house in 1997, the year he was sworn in to Congress, and moved his wife and children to Maryland.

No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen.

Clearly, Wexler is NOT an inhabitant of Florida by any stretch of the imagination, nor has he been for a decade. Will the House of Representatives, under a Speaker who promised to raise the ethical standards of that body, take appropriate actions by expelling Wexler from the body for having repeatedly and willfully violated the Constitution?

Meanwhile, a South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation into Wexler's Maryland homeownership reveals that he claimed that house as his primary residence for four years and received tax breaks there because of that claim.

Now if his primary residence is in Maryland, how has he qualified as a Florida resident? Easy -- by claiming that his residence is his in-laws' home in a senior community where he would not be permitted to live because of his age (47) and children.

That, my friends, strikes me as nothing short of fraud. Wexler is clearly a Maryland resident.

And this is what the US Constitution says about the issue of residency for house members.

Senator Tom Coburn has delivered babies at the same hospital for years.

When absurd ethics rules made it illegal for him to continue to charge for his services while serving in Congress, Coburn chose not to abandon his patients. he continued to deliver their babies, at no charge, at the same public hospital he had always used.

That public hospital was recently bought by a private firm -- and now Democrats want to claim that it is unethical for him to continue to practice there!

Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-Okla.) office hit back Monday at new attempts to prevent him from delivering babies for free, arguing the Ethics panel might as well investigate Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D-Vt.) cameo in “The Dark Knight.”

Coburn has come under new pressure from the Ethics panel for delivering babies at the Muskogee Regional Medical Center, which changed from a public to a private institution in April last year after it was acquired by Capella Healthcare.

Because of potential conflicts of interest, Senate rules prohibit members from receiving compensation for practicing a profession that involves a fiduciary relationship. Coburn’s work as an obstetrician has been a subject of interest for ethics panels in the Senate and the House when he was a representative.

Sources said the fact that Muskogee is now a private hospital has renewed the ethics panel’s interest in Coburn’s work.

Now let's look at the absurdity of this situation.

First, where is the ethical issue if Coburn continued to practice medicine as he has for decades? Do Democrats and "public interest groups" want to argue that special interests are knocking women up to steer business to Coburn's obstetrics practice?

Second, since he is delivering the babies for free, where does the ethical issue arise at all?

Third, even though the hospital is now private, Coburn had no part in that decision and has not changed anything in how he practices medicine since the sale of the hospital. How can anyone rationally argue that he is unethically endorsing the hospital by practicing there?

I'd like to encourage Senator Tom Coburn to continue to practice, and to continue to deliver babies just as he always has. And I challenge the Senate to censure him or expel him -- immediately, prior to the November election.

Let the American people decide -- is a doctor engaging in the charitable practice of delivering babies for free unethical by any ordinary understanding of that concept?

H/T Malkin

UPDATE: Van Helsing at Right Wing News delivers one of the most cutting lines I've seen on this issue.

Too bad Coburn isn't a Democrat. Instead of delivering babies for free, he could abort them, and the Congressional leadership would start naming hospitals after him.

I've never been a fan of Sen. Ted Stevens. Indeed, the Alaska Senator has been one of my least favorite Republicans.

Now he has been indicted on charges of misleading investigators probing renovations to his home made by various corporate interests.

Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator and a figure in Alaska politics since before statehood, was indicted Tuesday on seven counts of failing to disclose thousands of dollars in services he received from a company that helped renovate his home.

Stevens, the first sitting U.S. senator to face federal indictment since 1993, has been dogged by a federal investigation into his home renovation project and his dealings with wealthy oil contractors.

If the title doesn't make my position on the matter clear, let me say it right now -- Ted Stevens needs to resign from the Senate NOW, and withdraw from his race for reelection. Such a move would be good for the nation, his state, and his party.

That isn't a judgment on his ultimate guilt or innocence of the charges leveled against him -- that is based upon the clear impropriety of the various gifts that he apparently received. He didn't merely cross a line, he blew past it while firing his afterburners. There might be some room to argue about a gas grill or tools or some of the miscellaneous items he received, but the wholesale renovation of his home for nothing or next-to-nothing is sufficient to lead a reasonable person to decide that Stevens is corrupt in the common understanding of the word, regardless of whether his actions meet the legal definition.

And it strikes me that there is only one individual out there who can take his place as the GOP standard-bearer this fall -- Gov. Sarah Palin.

It has been an exciting few days.

After getting her sutures out on Thursday, there was a problem with one of her incisions, and so we spent much of the morning on Friday waiting to get in with the doctor to see if anything further needs to be done. It doesn't -- and this is not an unusual thing with this type of surgery. It just adds to the healing time. Friday aftern0on was spent on various household tasks.

Saturday the A/C went out again -- that meant a three-day stay in a hotel until we could get someone to fix it for us. And proving that I've hit middle age, I pulled a muscle in my back trying to carry too much into the hotel at once so I didn't have to go back out in the nearly 100 degree heat. That kept me done for most of the time at the hotel. The only good thing is that the repair guy admitted he missed the real problem earlier this summer and comped the repair job as a matter of good will.

Yesterday I spent trying to get used to my new glasses -- progressive bifocals. Middle age is officially here, I guess.

So I'm back.

No, not by this.

This.

Yeah, that's right -- campaign banners at the Wailing Wall. Apparently the acolytes of the Obamessiah seem to believe that this remnant of the sacred precincts of the Temple is an appropriate place to actively campaign for President. I don't fault him for visiting the site -- I do not believe anyone should visit Jerusalem without taking a moment to visit the sacred site and offer prayers to the Most High. But this constituted a desecration. And since it was a "surprise visit" to the site, the banners could only have happened with the active complicity of Obama campaign officials.

Quite frankly, it reminds me of this from 1 Maccabees:

And he commanded the holy places to be profaned, and the holy people of Israel. -- 1 Maccabees 1:49

and

On the fifteenth day of the month Casleu, in the hundred and forty-fifth year, king Antiochus set up the abominable idol of desolation upon the altar of God... -- 1 Maccabees 1:57

Apparently some of those gathered there for prayer rather than a campaign event had a few choice words for the candidate who would trump God in this holy place.

Orthodox men interrupted their morning prayers to catch a glimpse of the Illinois senator, reaching out to shake his hand as he passed them by. But not all were taken by the Democrat. One yelled out: “Obama, Jerusalem is not for sale!” before Mr. Obama was whisked away to his waiting plane.

There seems to be a lot of indication that Israelis are not happy with Obama -- especially since "Israelis for Obama" has only six members in Israel (four of whom apparently turned out to hold banners for his campaign).

I hope the Swiss Guards have their halberds ready if Obama tries to visit the Vatican -- he'll be trying o put his logo on the dome of St. Peter's Basilica!

H/T Malkin, Hot Air, Gateway Pundit, RWN, Sister Toldjah

UPDATE -- 7/29/2008: I intentionally did not cover the content of Obama's prayer when it was reported by one of Israel's largest news organizations. After all, removing it from the Wall was wrong, and I believed that any reporting on my part would only further the wrong done to Obama by that newspaper.

Now, however, it appears that Obama and his campaign were parties to a second desecration of the Western Wall -- by actively cooperating with and encouraging the media outlet in question to retrieve the paper with the prayer on it from the Wall for publication.

"Obama's note was published in Maariv and other international publications following his authorization to make the content of the note public. Obama submitted a copy of the note to media outlets when he left his hotel in Jerusalem. Moreover, since he is not Jewish, there is no violation of privacy as there would be for a Jewish person who places a note in the wall."

While that last sentence is somewhat inflammatory (shades of Jerry Falwell's "I do not believe that God answers the prayer of any unredeemed Gentile or Jew.”), it is the rest of the statement that is really big news. That Obama and his campaign were actively complicit in violating the sanctity and privacy of the prayers offered at the Wall is simply an outrage -- but simply one more on which he will continue to get a pass from his adoring acolytes in the Media.

However, I believe that a previous claimant to the title of Messiah may have had something to say about such behavior.

And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. -- Matthew 6:5

Maybe Barack Obama should have attended a church where they spent more time on God's Word than on calling for God to damn America.

UPDATE 2 -- 7/29/2008: Or perhaps they didn't quite approve the note snatching. But Maariv has always claimed that the text of the prayer was released to them by the Obama camp -- which makes the quote from the Gospel of Matthew above still quite fitting.

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You may have noticed I've been sporadic in my blogging in the last few days. My Darling Democrat and I have each been facing some physical ailments which have needed to come first. In addition, we have been dealing with another situation that has had to be dealt with. More later.

The Council has spoken and voted Who Knew? by Done with Mirrors the top council pick of the week. Soldiers Recount Deadly Attack On Afghan Outpost by Stars & Stripes was the winner among the non-council entries. Congratulations to the winners!

Council results

Non-Council results

Expect a big announcement about the Watcher's Council very soon.

Given that conviction for any number of crimes can be grounds for deportation, I don't see why anyone should object to this new law at all -- unless, of course, they carry a brief for border-jumpers and other lawbreakers.

A year after Prince William County launched a crackdown on illegal immigrants, Virginia has implemented a law that requires something similar for every jurisdiction in the state. Jail officials are now required to notify federal authorities of all foreign-born inmates regardless of their immigration status.

The little-noticed law went into effect July 1 and aims to make every corner of the state as unwelcoming as Prince William for illegal immigrants charged with crimes.

Why, exactly, shouldn't we be unwelcoming of criminal immigrants. We've seen what welcoming them does in places like San Francisco, where sanctuary policies reign.

If someone is in this country legally, all this measure does is put ICE on notice that they may be in violation of their immigration status. And if they are here illegally, it tells them to round 'em up and ship 'em back where they belong.

Will someone explain to me what is wrong with that?

Especially when one considers these numbers.

Through various enforcement programs, ICE says it identified 164,296 illegal immigrants who served time in local jails in fiscal 2007, including 2,738 in the District, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

ICE doesn't supply information on the disposition of these cases -- but I dare say that the deportation of even half of these miscreants would make this country a better place.

Every once in a great while, a truly marvelous piece of satire comes along that demands to be shared with everyone. Gerard Baker has produced such a work. What's more, he read it on Hannity and Colmes -- complete with news photos to illustrate the point.

He ventured forth
to bring light to the world

By Gerard Baker

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.

He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the

Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.

And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.

From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.

And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child's very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.

And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares.

From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.

In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace.

As word spread throughout the land about the Child's wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.

And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child's journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over.

The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for.

And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again.

Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it.

And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.

Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length.

But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him.

And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.

Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not.

On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One.

And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.”

Also, I'd like to note that the Obama campaign had his plane repainted for the Obamessiah's trip abroad. When they did, they left something off -- maybe a sign that he really is running for World President, like some of his followers seem to think when they rave about how the Europeans received him.

And for the record, would you care to note one of the many changes in the Obama campaign plane now that it has a new paint job? Here's the old plane.

Here's the tail of the plane now that it has a new paint job.

But we should never, ever, question Barack Hussein Obama's patriotism, should we? Just because his campaign has obliterated the flag on the tail of the plane right before his big foreign trip, we should never, ever, suggest that such a move signifies an atmosphere of contempt for America within the Obama campaign.

But I do have to ask --since Barack Obama seems to now be running for World President, can we just call that aircraft "AntiChrist One"?

Since Barack asked the question, we might as well answer it.

Will we lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty...? Barack Obama Campaign Speech in Berlin July 24, 2008

Not only can we, I'd like to point to a family that did.

[I]n 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The orphanage could not provide the medical care needed to save her life, so Mrs. McCain brought the child home to America with her. She was met at the airport by her husband, who asked what all this was about.

Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and years of rehabilitation. "I hope she can stay with us," she told her husband. Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter Bridget.

[T]here was a second infant Mrs. McCain brought back. She ended up being adopted by a young McCain aide and his wife.

"We were called at midnight by Cindy," Wes Gullett remembers, and "five days later we met our new daughter Nicki at the L.A. airport wearing the only clothing Cindy could find on the trip back, a 7-Up T-shirt she bought in the Bangkok airport." Today, Nicki is a high school sophomore. Mr. Gullett told me, "I never saw a hospital bill" for her care.

And what's more, Barry, the McCains did it without a new government program and massive spending of funds extracted from the pocket of the cash-strapped taxpayers.

But then again, that is the difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Republicans believe that charity is the duty of every individual, according to their means and conscience.

Democrats believe charity takes a village -- a village that takes from you whether or not you can afford it or support the purpose.

H/T Gateway Pundit

Could you imagine the outrage if some foreign politician insisted upon doing a Rose Garden press conference without the President?

Is this really any different?

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks during a news conference at 10 Downing Street after a meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London, Saturday, July 26, 2008

So let's summarize.

• Visit war zone after enunciating policy on war. Check.
  
• Desecrate holiest spot in Judaism. Check.
  
• Give speech at Hitler-connected German site. Check.
  
• Blow off wounded soldiers because of lack of press. Check.
  
• Hold press conference at #10 without British PM. Check.

I've got a reaction to this "controversy" ginned up by the New York Times.

If the conflict in Vietnam was notable for open access given to journalists — too much, many critics said, as the war played out nightly in bloody newscasts — the Iraq war may mark an opposite extreme: after five years and more than 4,000 American combat deaths, searches and interviews turned up fewer than a half-dozen graphic photographs of dead American soldiers.

It is a complex issue, with competing claims often difficult to weigh in an age of instant communication around the globe via the Internet, in which such images can add to the immediate grief of families and the anger of comrades still in the field.

While the Bush administration faced criticism for overt political manipulation in not permitting photos of flag-draped coffins, the issue is more emotional on the battlefield: local military commanders worry about security in publishing images of the American dead as well as an affront to the dignity of fallen comrades. Most newspapers refuse to publish such pictures as a matter of policy.

But opponents of the war, civil liberties advocates and journalists argue that the public portrayal of the war is being sanitized and that Americans who choose to do so have the right to see — in whatever medium — the human cost of a war that polls consistently show is unpopular with Americans.

A story is handed down in my wife's family.

Her mother's cousin was among those who landed on D-Day, and survived that initial onslaught. Five months later, in November, he was killed in battle.

A few weeks later, shortly before Christmas, his mother was glancing through a copy of a magazine at the neighborhood newsstand. Suddenly, she fainted dead away. By awful coincidence, she had turned to a picture of her son (or what appeared to be him -- it could obviously never be confirmed), dead on the field of battle in Europe.

She never recovered from the shock, and joined her son with the Lord much too soon.

You can see why I would prefer that we NEVER see pictures of the mangled bodies of our precious military dead.

For that matter, I recall the trauma of seeing wounded servicemen screaming in pain on television newscasts during Vietnam -- and breaking down in tears because I wasn't sure that the injured man was not my own father, who was serving there at the time.

I respect the notion of "the public's right to know" -- but some in the press adhere to a truly warped version of this doctrine. The reality is that there are some things that we really don't have a right to see, as a matter of public decency.

Did the American public have a "right" to see JFK's autopsy pictures by the day of his funeral?

What about those same shots of MLK, during the first week of April, 1968?

And one of the most tragic stories of the assassination of RFK involves one of his sons, watching the assassination of his father over and over again, alone in his hotel room, seeing his wounded father cradled in the arms of others as he lay dying in that hotel kitchen.

For all we had a right to know in each of these cases, is there a moral limit beyond which our public voyeurism should not be permitted to intrude? And does that not include media self-restraint in the case of those killed in war?

So let me be clear -- if the media will not restrain itself, I've got no problem with the US military refusing all cooperation with a given photographer, reporter, or news organization. For while our free press may be free to cover the war how they see fit -- superficially, seditiously, insensitively -- they are NOT entitled to the assistance and cooperation of the US military to do so.

By the way -- there's a "must-read" at NewsBusters on this same article, which includes additional commentary by one of the soldiers quoted in the article.

A great question, given Obama's rhetoric on how he'll deal with the war on Islamofascist terrorism.

* Given that your candidate acknowledges the need for more combat troops in Afghanistan, will you enlist and do your part? Or do you expect other young Americans to continue to bleed in your place?

* If your man is elected president and orders ground troops into Pakistan - which could lead to a much wider conflict - will you enlist and do your part? We'll need a lot more troops to occupy those badlands.

* If the next president yanks our troops out of Iraq, all the progress disintegrates, Iran moves in and we have to re-invade to clean up the mess, will you enlist and do your part?

You know all the stuff that we've been hearing from the Code Pinkos and other assorted moonbats? Well, the Obamabots become fair game on January 20, 2009 if he wins the election. After all, it will then be President Obama's war -- and by their own logic, it will be his supporters who have a moral obligation to go fight while those who voted against him stay home and engage in a higher form of patriotism -- engaging in "dissent" designed to undercut the lawfully elected president, demoralize the military, and provide aid and comfort to the enemies of America.

I'm already looking forward to "Operation Yellow Donkey", calling out all the College Democrats for not dropping out and signing up in the first 30 days of the Obama Administration -- and asking aging hippies why they have not written to President Obama demanding that he waive all enlistment standards so they can go fight war criminal Chimpy ObHitler's optional war.

After all -- those are things that have passed as appropriate political activity for the party that does not control the Executive Branch during the last seven years. Surely they will have no place to object to our following their example.

It strikes me that he is missing an essential element in this plan.

With less than six months to go before he would be sworn in as the nation’s 44th president, Sen. Barack Obama has directed his aides to begin planning for the transition.

"Barack is well aware of the complexity and the organizational challenge involved in the transition process and he has tasked s small group to begin thinking through the process,” a senior campaign adviser said. “Barack has made his expectations clear about what he wants from such a process, how he wants it to move forward, and the establishment and execution of his timeline is proceeding apace.”

Yo, Barry Hussein -- aren't you forgetting something?

You know -- the formality of winning the election.

My confirmation sponsor (about 30 years back) sent this on to me via my Dad.

IT'S TIME TO RE-EVALUATE OUR INVOLVEMENT

Every day there are news reports about more deaths. Every night on TV there are photos of death and destruction. Why are we still there?

We occupied this land, which we had to take by force, but it causes us nothing but trouble. Why are we still there?

Many of our children go there and never come back. Why are we still there?

Their government is unstable, and they have sporadic leadership. Why are we still there?

Many of their people are uncivilized. Why are we still there?

The place is subject to natural disasters, from which we are supposed to bail them out. Why are we still there?

There are more than 1000 religious sects, which we do not understand. Why are we still there?

Their folkways, foods, and fads are unfathomable to ordinary Americans. Why are we still there?

We can't even secure the borders. Why are we still there?

They are billions of dollars in debt, and it will cost billions more to rebuild, which we cannot afford. Why are we still there?

It is becoming clear...

WE MUST PULL OUT OF CALIFORNIA

Not a bad idea -- indeed, we would lose nothing significant.

What would we lose?

Pelosi.

Boxer.

Feinstein.

I bet the media will overlook this little blurb.

++ Visit to US Military Bases Cancelled ++

1:42 p.m.: SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that Obama has cancelled a planned short visit to the Rammstein and Landstuhl US military bases in the southwest German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The visits were planned for Friday. "Barack Obama will not be coming to us," a spokesperson for the US military hospital in Landstuhl announced. "I don't know why." Shortly before the same spokeswoman had announced a planned visit by Obama.

But not to worry, besides giving a campaign speech in another country, Barack has important stuff on his schedule that trumps meeting with real Americans serving in the military -- especially those wounded servicemen being treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

What sort of important stuff?

Obama noted that in a break from his whirlwind schedule, "we've got some down time tonight. What are you guys gonna do in Berlin? Huh? Huh? You guys got any big. plans? ...I've never been to Berlin, so...I would love to tour around a little bit."

In other words:

H/T Hot Air

UPDATE: Here's the explanation -- sounds like a crock to me.

During his trip as part of the CODEL to Afghanistan and Iraq, Senator Obama visited the combat support hospital in the Green Zone in Baghdad and had a number of other visits with the troops. For the second part of his trip, the senator wanted to visit the men and women at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center to express his gratitude for their service and sacrifice. The senator decided out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign."

So remember -- if Obama meets with any military personnel between now and the election, we must be informed if it was paid for by Obama's campaign, his own personal funds, or the US taxpayer. Because after all, meeting with them using campaign dollars would be inappropriate and disrespectful.

Personally, I think this comes closer.

UPDATE 2: It is even worse than I would have imagined.

One military official who was working on the Obama visit said because political candidates are prohibited from using military installations as campaign backdrops, Obama's representatives were told, "he could only bring two or three of his Senate staff member, no campaign officials or workers." In addition, "Obama could not bring any media. Only military photographers would be permitted to record Obama's visit."

In other words, Obama couldn't whore the wounded soldiers for his own political benefit, so he blew them off. So to use his own words, he canceled his visit to American heroes because he was not permitted to do something he later hypocritically described as "inappropriate and disrespectful".

I've said it in the past, and I will say it again now -- the current policy on homosexuals in the military is an absurdity that does not serve the best interests of the United States.

Now Congress is considering the issue again -- and maybe, just maybe, sanity and common sense will prevail.

For the first time in 15 years, members of the House are holding hearings about the policy which is aimed at maintaining discipline and unit cohesion in the military. Last year, Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee tried, but were prevented by members of their own party who were not eager to revisit the issue. This year the Military Personnel subcommittee manage to put it back on the calendar.

Now let's consider the views of Rear Admiral Jamie Barnett, a recently retired military professional who served our country for over three decades.

A hearing of a House Armed Services subcommittee yesterday offered a critical opportunity to break the silence surrounding how military preparedness has been hurt by the 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" policy barring gay men and lesbians from serving openly. The military has spent more than $363 million since 1994 to throw out gay men and lesbians whose expertise we desperately need, including expensively trained and hard-to-recruit linguists, jet pilots, cyber-warriors, doctors and combat-tested master sergeants. This purging of talent takes place at the same time the military, in order to meet its manpower quotas, feels compelled to increase the number of waivers it grants to people who have had problems with the law -- in some instances almost twice as many as in years past.

* * *

"Don't ask, don't tell" also damages our nation's ability to recruit the best and the brightest. Competing with industry is hard enough already. The military estimates that only three in 10 high school graduates are qualified to serve; the "don't ask, don't tell" policy further reduces the pool of eligible recruits.

And that is a serious reality check for anyone concerned with national security -- we are throwing away qualified volunteers who we need because of their sexual practices. It makes no more sense to disqualify someone for consensual homosexual activity that it does for masturbation or preferring something other than the missionary position.

And add to the above statement the signed letter from 28 retired flag officers, and you start to see a pattern.

“We respectfully urge Congress to repeal the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy,” their communiqué reads. They argue that “As is the case in Britain, Israel,” and other countries where gays may serve truthfully, “our service members are professionals who are able to work together effectively despite differences in race, gender, religion, and sexuality. Such collaboration reflects the strength and the best traditions of our democracy.”

Indeed, as I pointed out some time back,

we have an all volunteer military. Nobody is "forced" to be a part of it. Individuals voluntarily chose to submit themselves to military discipline and military policies.

If anything, [the pro-DADT] argument is much more suited to arguing that the desegregation of the military by Harry Truman was unwise and inappropriate. After all, that happened during the days of the military draft, when there wre thousands of American men involuntarily serving and being forced to live in circumstances not of their choosing. Many of them, especially those born and raised in the segregated South, had no desire to live and work as equals with blacks -- much less find themselves under the command authority of those they had been raised to view as "niggers" who were inferior to any white man. Truman ordered desegregation to happen, and made it clear that those who could not accept the policy should be prepared to leave the military. And it worked.

Now for this to work, there would need to be certain rules in place -- but one's based upon common sense, not fears and biases. Deroy Murdock put it very well in National Review.

Sexual orientation should be irrelevant while inappropriate sexual conduct — gay, straight, or otherwise — should be punished.

I don't know anyone, from the most flaming gay activist to the most prude supporter of DADT who can reasonably argue with that notion. Let's set reasonable boundaries -- no sex in the chain of command, no sexual harassment, no sexual assault, etc -- that apply to every member of the US military. Any one with a normal set of moral values knows roughly what those boundaries ought to be -- we need to make them explicit and enforce them.

But what we don't need is folks like this driving the policy question. And if Elaine Donnelly is correct, that there are religious members of the armed forces who could not serve with homosexuals, then I would submit that they are lacking in their patriotism, unfit for duty, and deserving of a dishonorable discharge -- just like Donnelly's faux national security organization.

If dealing with energy independence is the most important issue facing America, then no one can dispute that this is the right move by Senate Republicans.

Senate Republicans have threatened to block nearly all other bills pending before the August recess if Democrats refuse to vote with them on expanding offshore drilling.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said bills that do not pertain to energy can wait until after the August recess, with gas prices now surpassing $4 per gallon. McConnell and top Republicans indicated Wednesday they would oppose any procedural votes to take up other legislation, which require 60 votes to succeed.

“We think there is nothing more important that we can do right now than to deal with the Number One issue of the country,” McConnell said. “This is the biggest issue since terrorism right after 9/11. People are pounding on their desks, saying, Why don’t these people get together and do something about this problem?”

This has to be a winner for the Republicans -- after all, 73% of Americans support offshore drilling. And we've already seen the positive effects of repealing the Executive Branch portion of the drilling ban -- the effects of repealing the Congressional ban would be no hoax.

Maybe a little more backbone by the GOP will turn things around in November.

H/T Hot Air

One tells you what her husband will make you do.

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

This hospital VP (whose salary was "just coincidentally" increased 250% right after her husband's election to the Senate -- which allowed him to steer earmarks to the hospital) also likes to tell folks not to strive for a high-salary corporate career and lifestyle (while publicly complaining about the cost of summer camp and music lessons for her daughters).

The other is a quiet humanitarian who brings medical services to those in the midst of grave humanitarian crises.

Over the years, [Cindy] McCain has taken medical services to a Sandinista stronghold after Nicaragua's civil war; set up a mobile hospital near Kuwait City while the oil wells still burned from the Persian Gulf War; helped in Bangladesh after a cyclone. And while in that country in 1991 she found her daughter Bridget in an orphanage -- "She really picked me," McCain insists. Sometimes the desire to save every child is properly concentrated on a single child.

Like most of Cindy McCain's life, these stories are generally hidden behind a wall of well-tailored reticence. She values the privacy of her family and resents the intrusiveness of the media. None of her relief work has been done for political consumption or Washington prominence. On the contrary, it has been an alternative life to the culture of the capital -- the rejection of the normal progress of a senator's wife. "It is not about me -- it never has been. I felt it was important -- that I had to do it. I never took government money. It was my own, and I am not ashamed of it."

But all this would have political consequences in a McCain administration. Even if a first lady is not intrusively political, the whole White House responds to her priorities. Cindy McCain has had decades of personal contact with the suffering of the developing world. And in some future crisis or genocide, it might matter greatly to have a first lady who knows the smell of death.

Now tell me -- which one of these women would you want your child to emulate? Which one ought to be held up as a role model for our young people? And which one's husband ought we be electing president?

Thou Shalt Not Disrespect The Obamessiah!

In case their Plantation Bend neighbors had any questions about how Doug and Wendy McKain feel about Barack Obama, the bumper sticker on their pickup could be a clue.

But when Chynethia Gragg spotted the sticker — depicting someone urinating on the name "Obama" — Sugar Land police say, she stopped to express her disapproval, and that's when things got ugly.

Gragg, 35, has been charged with making a terroristic threat after confronting the McKains, telling them the sticker was racist, police said.

Well, she did a little bit more than "confront" and "threaten".

Court documents said Gragg told Norris she saw the sticker on the back of a pickup and stopped in front of the McKain house. She told Norris she confronted McKain about the sticker, saying it was racist.

McKain told the officer he and his wife were driving home when they noticed a female motorist looking closely at his truck. The couple drove home then pulled into their driveway.

"Mr. McKain said shortly later the same person (Ms. Gragg) pulled up to his residence (blocking his driveway behind his truck.) Mr. McKain said Ms. Gragg began to rant and rave about the sticker on the back of his truck," the court document states.

McKain told police Gragg shouted numerous profanities at him and his wife.

"Mr. McKain said Ms. Gragg said she (would) get someone to take care of him later," the report said.

Stalking. Unlawful imprisonment (they could not leave their own driveway to escape this loon). Trespassing. Terroristic threat. Disorderly conduct.

Wanna bet that it would be classified as a hate crime -- and a felony -- if the McKains had done something similar to the Obamabot Gragg?

Too bad she didn't try this over at Joe Horn's place -- it could have been quite amusing.

And for what it is worth -- I think the sticker is pretty distasteful, and would like to see the McKains replace it with something more appropriate. That said, it is neither racist nor beyond the protection of the First Amendment -- at least not until folks like Gragg get power.

Gee -- it was only a couple of weeks ago that Rick Noriega's policy on oil was "No drilling in America -- take it from Iraq by force."

Now he's changed his mind.

Democratic Senate candidate Rick Noriega provided details Tuesday of his energy proposal, saying America needs to use renewable energy and find new sources of oil, in part through offshore drilling.

“Texas leads the U.S. in both fossil fuel reserves and in renewable energy potential and deserves an energy policy that takes both factors into account,” Noriega said in an energy policy document he unveiled in Dallas.

Interestingly enough, his position on drilling (and all the rest) now matches up almost identically with that of his GOP opponent, John Cornyn.

I’m backing several bills to move America closer to energy independence. They include the Gas Price Reduction Act, to facilitate offshore and western shale exploration. The U.S. is well on the way toward transitioning away from over-reliance on fossil fuels. I support aggressively pursuing every source of energy—including nuclear, clean coal, shale, wind and solar. We need it all. But as we move toward alternatives sources, our infrastructure relies on traditional energy.

So now it is pretty clear -- because he is too liberal for Texas, Rick Noriega has taken to cribbing his policy positions from John Cornyn. That being the case, would you care to explain to me why we need to replace the experienced Cornyn with the finger-in-the-wind neophyte Noriega?

An interesting question -- raised tongue-in-cheek -- by a conservative legal scholar.

Barack Obama is too young to be president. Yes I know he is 46 and the Constitution sets the presidential age qualification at 35 or higher, but Obama has said that we ought not to interpret the Constitution woodenly and formalistically. Perhaps we should look deeper at the presidential age limit. If we do, we will find that Obama really is too young to be president.

Many on the legal left these days advocate purposive, pragmatic interpretation of the Constitution. The idea is you look behind the text to see what function it played for the framers and you then translate the text so it will play that same function for us today. What does this mean for the presidential age qualification?

In 1789, the average life expectancy of a newborn was about 40 years, compared with about 78 today. A lot of this was because of infant mortality, but in 1789, even the average life expectancy of every man who reached age 18 was only about 47. This suggests that at best a 35-year-old age limit in 1789 might have functioned then about the way a 55- or 60-year-old age qualification would function today. On this account Obama may be old enough to drive and buy a glass of white wine, but he has a way to go before he can run for president.

Northwestern University Professor of Law Steven G. Calabresi does a fantastic job of showing two things in his article -- why Obama is under-qualified for the Oval Office, and the utter vacuousness of a Constitutional jurisprudence (like that of Breyer, Ginsburg, and other left-wingers) that would set aside the text of the Constitution in favor of some unwritten meaning that judges deem more important (and knowable only by them).

Now here's a big surprise -- when Pete Olson went looking for consultants to perform services for his political campaign, he went to folks who worked for or with Tom DeLay. And why should that be a surprise? After all, DeLay was the congressman here for a couple of decades.

And let's look at the details.

FEC records show Olson spent $50,448 on consultants between April 1 and June 30, some of whom also have faces familiar to District 22 political observers:

- Olson's campaign spent about $15,600 with Dana Benoit of Richmond, for fundraiser consulting services. Benoit served as DeLay's finance director for several years.

- Olson's campaign spent just over $9,000 with Walden & Associates of Houston, also for fundraising consulting. According to Source Watch, the firm is owned by Sue Walden, whom the New York Times described as a "close ally of Tom DeLay" who also served as an adviser to the late Ken Lay, former Enron chief executive.

- Olson's campaign also spent about $9,650 during the quarter with Marathon Strategic Communications, for media and "grassroots" consulting. The firm's address is listed at 3771 Vinecrest Drive in Dallas. Real estate records list the owner of the property at that address as Christopher Homan. Chris Homan was DeLay's former campaign manager.

FEC records show Olson's campaign also owes Marathon another $12,000 for consulting services.

Of course, not one of the individuals involved is accused of any wrong doing -- other than having previously worked on DeLay's campaigns, a capital offense in the eyes of liberal Democrats. That gives them a greater familiarity with the district in which Olson is running, which makes them valuable resources for Olson to draw upon. That makes their involvement with Pete Olson doubly scandalous -- if you are a partisan Democrat who wants to see incumbent Democrat Nick Lampson hang on to the congressional seat in the cherry-red CD22.

What if they threw a fundraiser and nobody gave?

The Texas Embassy in London is not really an embassy, of course. It’s a Tex-Mex restaurant near Trafalgar Square that serves nachos and fajitas. But it became a hotbed of political activity last night during a fund-raiser for Rick Noriega, a Democratic Senate candidate from Texas.

A half-dozen Americans living in London, including three Texans, gathered to sip margaritas and stump for Noriega, who is trying to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn. The group devoured plates of enchiladas and burritos and contributed a not-so-grand total of $400 to Noriega’s campaign.

Let's see here -- they couldn't even muster $100 a head? Pretty pathetic -- but then again, Noriega's entire fundraising operation has been weak, and he trails incumbent John Cornyn by a margin of 9 or 10-1 in the fundraising department.

Why the fundraiser at all?

Event organizer Mark Mullen, a 41-year-old entrepreneur who grew up in Dallas, thinks Noriega is the first Democrat in a while to have a real shot at winning a Texas Senate seat. “Noriega’s a really cool guy. He’s in the Reserves. He’s really well-educated. And Cornyn’s a disaster. It’s just a perfect storm!” he said while dipping into a basket of nachos.

Perfect storm? Yeah, it looks like it -- and Rick Noriega is one of the guys whose boat never made it back to port. He's down by about 10-15 points in every poll (except for one strange outlier a couple months back) and the DSCC has decided not to target his race this year -- and they are targeting a lot of races this year in the hope of getting a veto-proof majority.

But don't worry -- after he is crushed like an empty Lone Star can, he can always return to his hobby of writing a diary at Daily Kos!

He has to be monumentally stupid -- or telegraphing his intent to abandon Israel.

"Let me be absolutely clear," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, said today at a press conference in Amman, Jordan. "Israel is a strong friend of Israel's. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under a McCain...administration. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under an Obama administration. So that policy is not going to change."

So let's be really clear -- under Barack Obama, Israel will still be permitted to be fully supportive of Israel. On the other hand, he won't go on the record as keeping American policy supportive of Israel.

Wanna bet the LeftoSphere won't pillory him on this like they would a Republican?

But George Bush's contemporaneous announcement of the repeal of an executive order on off-shore drilling didn't have anything to do with the 13.5% drop in oil prices.

Oil prices tumbled more than $3 a barrel Tuesday as Tropical Storm Dolly grew increasingly unlikely to threaten supply, knocking out one more reason traders had to prop up prices.

The sell-off was a throwback to last week's sharp declines, and dragged crude to its lowest level since early June. A stronger dollar helped keep prices in check.

Light, sweet crude for August delivery fell $3.09 to settle at $127.95 a barrel in its last trading day on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier the contract, which will be replaced by September crude Wednesday, dropped as low as $125.63. It was crude's fourth decline in the last five sessions.

So, the notion that drilling here immediately will decrease gas prices is a hoax. Speaker Pelosi? If so, then why is the mere hint of doing so depressing oil prices, as well as strengthening the dollar and the stock market?

And as I pointed out recently, Dems actually want to raise gas taxes for the rest of us.

But they will get a gas-tax holiday at the Democrat convention.

The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention is using the city's gas pumps to fill up on fuel, avoiding state and federal highway taxes, officials said today.

"There's something there that just doesn't seem right to me because, in a sense, you're saying then that the officials who pass the laws are not willing to live by them, and that concerns me," Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said.

The issue came up during the council's weekly meeting with Mayor John Hickenlooper when the Public Works Department requested authorization to be reimbursed by the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee for use of "fueling facilities, fuel and car washes."

"By doing it this way, by running it through our Fleet Maintenance, that means that that fuel does not pay state or federal highway taxes," Faatz said.

While Denver's Democrat mayor, John Hickenlooper, says the Republicans are getting the same deal in St. Paul, that isn't true.

Teresa McFarland, a spokeswoman for the Minneapolis-St. Paul host committee, said they're getting their gas at the pump.

"We're not getting a tax break on fuel," she said. "That's not the set-up at this end."

I'm glad to hear that my party isn't evading taxes that the rest of us are paying. But even if they were, getting the gas tax free would still be wrong and should be forbidden.

H/T Hot Air, Don Surber

"I was right because the surge wouldn't have worked if all the things that happened after the surge hadn't happened."

"I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence" in Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, said in January 2007. "In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

In Baghdad yesterday, after a day spent witnessing the reduction in violence in Iraq, Obama was asked by ABC News' Terry Moran if he was wrong..

"Here is what I will say," Obama said, "I think that, I did not anticipate, and I think that this is a fair characterization, the convergence of not only the surge but the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had had enough with Al Qaeda, in the Shii’a community the militias standing down to some degrees. So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct."

Why were teh Sunnis able to do that? Because the American troops were beating back Al-Qaeda. Why were the Shii'a militias standing down? Because of the overwhelming superiority of the combined US and Iraqi militaries. The surge CREATED the conditions for those things to happen.

It is rather like someone saying "I would have been right about the angioplasty being unsuccessful if the blockages in the arteries to the heart hadn't been removed and the blood hadn't started having a less obstructed flow. So while I will admit that the surgeons doing the angioplasty did a fine job, the changes in the conditions of the arteries and the bloodflow are what's really significant, and those might have happened on their own if my strategy of not doing the angioplasty had been implemented."

Who writes these headlines, anyway?

6-legged deer an unusual sight

Yeah -- more than four is definitely an unusual sight.

Found in today's Rome News from Rome, Georgia.

Given the obvious flaws in the decision, pointed out by the press and bloggers around the web, this case is ripe for reconsideration.

Louisiana prosecutors asked the Supreme Court yesterday to revisit its recent decision outlawing the death penalty for people convicted of raping children.

The unusual request is based on the failure of anyone involved in the case -- lawyers on both sides as well as the justices -- to take account of a change in federal law in 2006 that authorizes the death penalty for members of the military convicted of child rape.

The court almost never grants such requests, but lawyers for Louisiana said their situation is different. The 5 to 4 decision, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, said the absence of any recent executions for rape and the small number of states that allow such executions demonstrate "there is a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape."

When Congress in 1994 expanded the number of federal crimes that could get the death penalty, it did not include raping a child, Kennedy said.

Only after the decision was issued on June 25 did anyone point out that Congress changed that law and that President Bush signed an executive order in September 2007 that implemented the change. It was first discussed on a military law blog.

Now here's the problem -- it takes five justices to reconsider a ruling. Will any of the five justices in the majority vote to reconsider the case, given the glaring error upon which the decision was based? Does the majority decision even hold water any longer? And if it doesn't, isn't that an even more serious reason for the justices in the majority to refuse reconsideration, given the strong anti-death penalty bias of several of those in the majority?

Mercy is a good thing -- but so is justice.

And when mercy is perceived by the most vicious of one's enemies to be weakness rather than virtue, and therefore to become more vicious, then mercy becomes a vice which must be set aside in the name of a more firm devotion to bringing justice to those enemies.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach brings the issue of the death penalty for terrorists to the fore.

IT IS time that we articulate what few wish to, namely, that Israel must finally institute a death penalty for convicted terrorists.

To be sure, human life is of infinite value and every human being is equally a child of God. No country upholds this statute more than Israel, which is why it is prepared to set killers free just to retrieve the bodies of its fallen soldiers. Israel could have defeated Hizbullah and Hamas with ease had it not always limited its overwhelming firepower to protect innocent civilians. A country this virtuous naturally balks from putting anyone, even terrorists, to death.

Indeed, since the Nazi Eichmann, there has been no execution in Israel.

And as a result, Israel has been forced to exchange some of the worst of the worst terrorist murderers for captured soldiers -- or the mutilated bodies of soldiers who had been tortured to death by terrorists of the same ilk as those released.

What to do?

As for those who argue that if Israel puts its terrorist captives to death the same will be done to its soldiers once captured, I ask, does anyone seriously believe that it would be otherwise? We once believed that Goldwasser and Regev might likewise come home alive, and for two years Hizbullah manipulated the emotions of the country to believe just that. But like so many other Israeli prisoners before them, they ultimately came home in a box.

I am not suggesting that Israel take unilateral action and simply hang captured terrorists. They should be given a fair trial, just like Kuntar, in which he was found guilty and sentenced to more than 500 years in prison. But once found guilty and allowed an appeal, if their conviction is upheld, they must be executed.

There are times when a country must temporarily violate a principle to ensure it is upheld. Police cars speed to catch those who themselves speed on highways, thereby endangering other motorists. Surgeons cut open people's chests with knives to save their blocked arteries and stopped hearts. And just governments must sometimes take the lives of unrepentant terrorist mass-murderers to protect and uphold the infinite value of human life.

Indeed, I'd argue that there is a moral imperative for the removal of such diseased specimens of humanity from this mortal coil. After all, mercy has gotten Israel precisely nothing.

Begun by the Prince of Darkness himself.

Sources close to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign are suggesting he will reveal the name of his vice presidential selection this week while Sen. Barack Obama is getting the headlines on his foreign trip. The name of McCain's running mate has not been disclosed, but Mitt Romney has led the speculation recently.

The timing would be odd, but not unprecedented. And it might distract from the current Obama Blitz through the Middle East and Europe. But when would he do this? And who would be the pick?

Well, the rumor is Mitt Romney. But that would mean no announcement this week, since Romney is out of the country until Friday or Saturday (for that matter, Cindy McCain is out of the country, too -- and spouses are a must for these events)

Now you understand, I wouldn't mind that choice at all. After all, I was a Romney supporter from the beginning. But does he supply the Oomph!" that the McCain ticket needs? And would his selection harm his prospects in 2012 if Obama wins this fall?

But then again, there is also that meeting scheduled for tomorrow with Louisiana's Bobby Jindal -- another favorite of mine. But Jindal said yesterday that he wasn't going to be the pick. I'd assume that means he hasn't been asked for vetting material -- plus he may be a bit too young. Let him clean up Louisiana and run in 2012 -- at the top or bottom of the ticket, with an even more impressive record.

So if not them, who? Rudy? Crist? Pawlenty? Palin? Portman? Who?

And, of course, WHEN? Politico is saying not quite yet.

Or is this just one of those stories that rises to the surface on a bubble of speculation, only to fall away into obscurity when it does not come to pass.

More From AOSHQ, Next Right, Hot Air, Sister Toldjah, STACLU

Another terrorist, another bulldozer.

Sixteen people were wounded, one of them moderately, as a bulldozer driver went on a rampage in central Jerusalem Tuesday afternoon in an apparent attempt to recreate the terror attack in the capital earlier this month.

The vehicle reportedly left a construction site near the Yemin Moshe neighborhood and set off towards Liberty Bell Park (Gan Hapa'amon), near the corner of Keren Hayesod and King David streets. It drove a distance of approximately 160 meters, attempting to overturn a bus and crashing into four other vehicles - one of which it flipped over. The man was then shot dead by a civilian and a border policeman.

The wounded were evacuated to hospitals in the capital.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police sealed off possible escape routes into east Jerusalem, and were searching for two suspects who fled the scene.

Thank's be to God that there were no fatalities this time.

But remember, folks -- it is all the fault of the evil JOOOOOOOS!

Oh, as an interesting side note -- the attack occurred just down the street from where Obama will be staying tonight.

H/T Soccer Dad

No, not for talk radio.

For the pages of the New York Times.

An editorial written by Republican presidential hopeful McCain has been rejected by the NEW YORK TIMES -- less than a week after the paper published an essay written by Obama, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

The paper's decision to refuse McCain's direct rebuttal to Obama's 'My Plan for Iraq' has ignited explosive charges of media bias in top Republican circles.

'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece,' NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email late Friday to McCain's staff. 'I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.'

Oh -- the decision was made by a former White House staffer during the Clinton Administration. He's the same guy who approved Barack Obama's piece to which McCain was responding. Nothing suspicious there -- just move along.

The paper is, of course, continuing to defend itself. And some journalists are supporting them. But others are not.

But it does raise an interesting question -- why doesn't a piece by one candidate rebutting the views of another candidate expressed in your editorial pages constitute an acceptable response?

McCain's piece is below the fold (twice in one day -- and I almost never go below the fold!) -- and in the New York Post.

Others commenting include MVRWC, Patterico, Malkin, Political Radar, Don Surber, Gay Patriot, Wolf Howling, Election HQ, LGF (noting that NYT won't publish McCain, but will publish Hamas), AOSHQ, Hot Air

Could you imagine the uproar if conservatives tried to get a mildly critical article pulled from a newspaper? Or is right-wing bloggers -- say Michelle Malkin, Powerline, or LGF -- and members of the Free Republic online community raised such a fuss about a piece that the editors of a newspaper or magazine felt obliged to not merely apologize, but also to pull the article in question from their online archives? You know, tried to shove it down the memory hole (here's the Google Cache -- when will it disappear?).

Well, that's what happened in loony-left Austin, Texas, in response to an article about the Krazy Kos Kiddies' annual confab.

The original article by the Statesman’s Patrick Beach knocked the nutrooters for the so-called “surprise” Gore visit, said it turned into a “faint-in,” and that their general feeling was “terribly self-confirming,” among other snippy comments… fun, but snippy. The general tone of the piece was that of amusement at how seriously the nutrooters took themselves. And, even more galling to said nutrooters, this story was the front page editorial of Sunday’s edition. (Original, Google cached version of Beach’s piece.)

This did not sit well with the nutrooters in question.

So, in the true spirit of “tolerance,” respect for “freedom of speech,” and an interest in a “free press,” the denizens of the DailyKos whipped themselves up into a frenzy of complaints. The din was so loud that the compliant folks at the Austin American-Statesman acquiesced to the demands for retribution. The Statesman pulled the piece from their website and made abject, groveling apologies to the folks at the DailyKos.

What did the paper have to say about the article in question?

Readers expect front-page stories to speak directly and clearly about events and issues. Eliminating the possibility of misunderstanding from our work is a critical part of our daily newsroom routine. When we communicate in a way that could be misinterpreted, we fail to meet our standards.

Our front-page story Sunday about the Netroots Nation convention included doses of irony and exaggeration. It made assertions (that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might find herself at home politically in Beijing, for example) and characterizations (”marauding liberals” was one) meant to amuse. For many readers, we failed.

In trying for a humorous take on the Netroots phenomenon without labeling it something other than a straightforward news story, we compromised our standards.

– Fred Zipp, editor

Translation

1. This should have been labeled as commentary rather than straight news.


2. Our editors did made poor editorial choices.


3. Sometimes satirical commentary doesn't amuse its targets.


4. All of this means we fell short of our standards.

Now I don't disagree with point one, or even point two -- especially because point two is pretty common in the Austin American Statesman. And as for number three, that is the very nature of satire. But point four is the big one that bothers me -- in the name of "upholding their standards, they are committing an even bigger violation of their standards and journalistic ethics -- they are covering up their own shortcomings and rewriting history by making the original article inaccessible. We wouldn't want folks to be able to look back and see the putative errors in judgment and journalistic shortfalls of the paper, would we? And we certainly wouldn't want folks to be able to look back and see if the criticisms and apologies are justified! After all, leaving the article in place would allow for both, and it might just expose that those who complained were working out of a narrow ideological agenda and those who caved-in were willing accomplices to censorship.

Perhaps even more shocking is the admission by Editor & Publisher commentator Greg Mitchell that he decided to do a "public service" by posting about it to his Kos Diary! Excuse me -- what ever happened to objective journalism? Daily Kos is a fever swamp of liberalism, every bit as extreme as the cesspool over at Democratic Underground. Would editors and publishers be as open to employing Freepers in their newsrooms and on their editorial staffs? So now we have a professional journalist setting himself up as "media commisar" on behalf of an extremist ideological group to make sure that offending pieces don't see the light of day -- or at least not for long. What next? Burning printing presses?

Anyway, as a public service, I'm not going to let the article go away so easily. So click below the fold to see what chief censor Greg Mitchell, the Krazy Kos Kiddies, and the Austin American Statesman don't want you to see. After all, it is only reasonable that the public have the capacity to be fully informed about the issues of the day -- and to determine whence the threat to freedom of the press really emanates.

When my wife and I moved into the area where we live, we joined a church just down the road. Among the many special people we met there were an older couple, George and Eliza. They were a truly loving couple who had married right after the war ended in 1945. George would tell stories us stories about his time in the Navy and working at NASA – including stories about interactions with our nation’s first astronauts – I remember him off-handedly referring to Neil and Buzz in one story about the Apollo program. But I haven’t heard these stories in recent years – a couple of years ago the doctors diagnosed George as having Alzheimer's disease. Now his train of thought is too short to tell such a story is gone. The dementia that comes from the brain damage associated with Alzheimer's, damage caused by the irreversible destruction of brain cells that let him share those wonderful tales. I’ll be honest -- I miss my old friend very much. And I know Eliza does as well.

What can we do for folks like George and Eliza? What can we do for to stop this terrible disease that tears our loved ones away from us while leaving their bodies still present. We can support the Alzheimer's Memory Walk this fall, either by pledging, walking, or serving as a team captain. Too many have lost too much to Alzheimer’s – we need to act now to prevent others from facing the same sad fate.

The Watcher is retiring, but the Watcher's Council will continue. We members of the Council are trying to figure out the exact details. Watch this space for details.
Visit my fellow this week's Council Results over at JoshuaPundit. The winners for the week are:

Council Winner: Wolf Howling -- Critiquing The Obama Manifesto On Iraq.

Non-Council Winner: Melanie Phillips -- Sleepwalking Into Islamization.

There were some really great pieces this week, so check them all out!

Yeah -- the problems in the Middle East are all the fault of the JOOOOOOOOOS!

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown demanded Sunday that Israel cease settlement construction and promised more money to jump-start the battered Palestinian economy.

In his first trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories as Britain's leader, Brown repeatedly stressed that economics are key to Mideast peace and said Israel should ease travel restrictions in the West Bank that have hindered commerce.

But his strongest comments were reserved for the settlements: "I think the whole European Union is very clear on this matter: We want to see a freeze on settlements.

"Settlement expansion has made peace harder to achieve. It erodes trust; it heightens Palestinian suffering; it makes the compromises Israel needs to make for peace more difficult," Brown said at a news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

Abbas went further in his criticism of Israel's construction in disputed east Jerusalem and the adjacent West Bank, telling Brown that Israel lacks commitment to the "principles and spirit" of Mideast peace efforts. He singled out stepped-up construction of homes for Jews in areas of Jerusalem the Palestinians claim for their capital.

Now let's remind Prime Minister Brownstain that Israel gave up all settlements in Gaza a few years back, to making the area every bit as Jew-free as Hitler wanted the Third Reich. The result? Continued terrorist attacks on Israel from the abandoned territory. So we have seen how well "no settlement" and "land for peace" has worked -- but Brownstain still wants Israel to try it some more. Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over in the hopes that next time it will have a different result?

And, of course, Prime Minister Brownstain wants to give the government of terrorist leader Abu Mazen more money -- yeah -- money for terrorists is sure to bring down the level of violence and promote peace and stability.

Because remember -- it's all Israel's fault.

It is a message of Christianity that is as old as Christ -- indeed, in the New Testament is is presented as "seek ye first the Kingdom of God." Ad the many young pilgrims who traveled to Sydney, Australia for the World Youth Day celebration with Pope Benedict XVI heard the pontiff restate it for them.

Indeed, he noted that placing the spiritual before the material was the key to bringing about the renewal of our modern society.

"In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair," the pontiff said.

Quite true -- indeed, we see the results of that emptiness every day in news reports and popular entertainment that rejects the values of God.

Sadly, the need to focus on the sensational over the spiritual was demonstrated by AP and CNN, when they recast their article to focus not on the message but on a meeting with a small group of victims of clergy abuse and the complaints by Church critics that they were not included. Perhaps the most obvious sign of this was CNN's change of headline -- from

Pope: 'Spiritual Desert' Growing Across World

Pope meets abuse victims in Australia

After all, it would never do to focus on the Good News when the salacious is available.

From the great state of Tennessee, I bring you the incredibly corrupt John Ford -- and yes, this would be Harold Ford's uncle.

In the end, former state Sen. John Ford's disclosures, the ones he revealed and the ones he tried to hide, led to the downfall of the once-powerful Memphis Democrat, who was convicted Friday on federal corruption charges.

A federal jury convicted Ford on two counts of wire fraud and four counts of concealing material facts stemming from the secret payments he took from two TennCare contractors while he was in the Tennessee Senate.

The nine-woman, three-man jury agreed with government prosecutors: Ford cheated the people of Tennessee.

For all his gravitas and influence, Ford seemed resigned to his fate. When he heard the verdict, he didn't react. A federal judge will sentence him on Sept. 29.

The wire fraud convictions each carry a maximum penalty of 20 years. The false statement charges carry a maximum penalty of five years each. He could get a maximum sentence of 60 years in prison. Ford, 66, is serving 5½ years for a bribery conviction in an unrelated case.

Oh, yeah -- the whole thing was triggered when John Ford lied about his income during a child support hearing. That means that he not only ripped off the people of Tennessee, but was also trying to rip off his own children as well.

What a prince!

Your Democrat elected officials in action!

Extreme partisanship? Check.

Disrespect of military service and time as a POW? Check.

Blatant anti-Asian racism? Check.

So where's the outrage over this illustration from Rolling Stone magazine?

And yet there has been nary a peep from the media over this, while we've heard all sorts of discussion of the New Yorker cover lampooning false beliefs about Obama.

What's the difference?

Oh, I think we know the answer.

The MSM is in the tank for Barack, but is willing to allow a lot of garbage to be slung at John McCain. And if that mean not commenting upon those who mock his torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese as a POW -- and the use of exaggerated facial features reminiscent of the worst stereotypes of the 1930s and 1940s (or even earlier), then so be it.

And interestingly enough, neither the McCain campaign nor the candidate himself have made a big deal about this -- in sharp contrast to the manner in which Obama and his surrogates dealt with the New Yorker cover. That just shows that John McCain is a real man who can take the nastiness that comes from the press when you are a candidate for president (and when you actually have the job) -- and that Obama's thin skin is simply one more reason that he isn't ready for the Oval Office.

More At STACLU

If you are going to adopt "sanctuary city" policies that allow violent criminals to run free when they should be deported, are you not an accomplice to their criminal activity?

The man charged with killing a father and two sons on a San Francisco street last month was one of the youths who benefited from the city's long-standing practice of shielding illegal immigrant juveniles who committed felonies from possible deportation, The Chronicle has learned.

Edwin Ramos, now 21, is being held on three counts of murder in the June 22 deaths of Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16. They were shot near their home in the Excelsior district when Tony Bologna, driving home from a family picnic, briefly blocked the gunman's car from completing a left turn down a narrow street, police say.

Ramos, a native of El Salvador whom prosecutors say is a member of a violent street gang, was found guilty of two felonies as a juvenile - a gang-related assault on a Muni passenger and the attempted robbery of a pregnant woman - according to authorities familiar with his background.

In neither instance did officials with the city's Juvenile Probation Department alert federal immigration authorities, because it was the city agency's policy not to consider immigration status when deciding how to deal with an offender. Had city officials investigated, they would have found that Ramos lacked legal status to remain in the United States.

Edwin Ramos murdered three American citizens, aided and abetted by the City of San Francisco. This wasn't an oversight or a case of human error. This was a policy decision by the elected officials of the city to allow rabid beasts like Ramos to roam the streets when there was a legitimate way to promote public safety by turning him over to federal officials for deportation. That is a violation of federal law -- and makes those officials complicit in the murder of Tony, Michael, and Matthew Bologna. Will some courageous prosecutor -- state or federal -- hold Gavin Newsom and the members of the City Council accountable for their actions by indicting them and taking them to trial?

More At Michelle Malkin, Patterico

That is the suggestion of Lani Guinier, commenting on the sort of Obamanations that will be nominated to the Supreme Court if the Democrats win the presidency this fall.

Harvard law professor Lani Guinier hopes to get scholars, as well as judges, to rethink the role of a Supreme Court justice, a role she describes as "the justice as a teacher in a national seminar, an educator."

"They're not just making laws and delivering those tablets from Mount Olympus," Guinier said. "The project of being a Supreme Court justice is also a project of being an important citizen in a democracy."

While Guinier said she would not necessarily argue that the next president should nominate a politician, she said it was important to "make the court more democratically accountable."

Funny, I've read the US Constitution -- it does not include any role for a justice as "teacher in a national seminar". It vests them with the judicial power -- the authority to interpret and apply the laws and the Constitution. Indeed, too many judges have forgotten that since the 1930s, believing that the language of statutes and Constitutional provisions are secondary to the latest legal theory or foreign law and precedent.

But if she really wants to make the Supreme Court (and the rest of the courts, too) "democratically accountable", I've got an idea -- let's follow the model here in Texas. Let's bring some real democracy into the picture by allowing the voters to democratically elect judges.

Indeed, let me offer a proposal. We have nine Supreme Court justices Let's break them into three separate classes, just like we do Senators. Stagger their elections -- put three of them up for election to a twelve year term every four years, during the even-numbered year in which there is not a presidential election. Give Circuit Court judges eight year terms, staggered so that half are reelected every four years in the non-presidential year. Put District Court judges on the ballot every four years, during the non-presidential year.

Oh, wait, you don't want them THAT democratically accountable? You're afraid that the people will vote the entire Ninth Circuit off the island? That the justices who oppose the Second Amendment and coddle terrorists and teenage killers would be booted from the bench -- along with any judge who tried to impose gay marriage nationwide? Isn't that "democratic accountability"?

Oh, I see -- what you meant is that the justices must be "Democratically accountable". That there must be some mechanism for getting them to always rule in a manner consistent with the Democrat platform, since it is so hard to get many of its more liberal ideas enacted by legislative bodies that are "democratically accountable".

And given that the overwhelming majority of Americans view the Supreme Court as "just right" or "too liberal", I find your suggestion that the Court doesn;t really represent the mainstream of the American mind to be rather disingenuous anyway.

It doesn't matter what the people have to say on the matter. It's all about Queen 9% and what SHE wants.

A plan to lift the ban on coastal drilling is stalled on Capitol Hill, for one simple reason: A Californian who opposes President Bush's proposal is calling the shots in the House of Representatives.

Despite growing public support for ending the ban, even in California, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco said she won't allow the immediate vote the president wants.

"I have no plans to do so," Pelosi said last week.

Her position is that if drilling won't reduce prices tomorrow, it shouldn't happen -- but she supports all sorts of alternative energy programs that ALSO won't do a damn thing for energy prices tomorrow. Maybe we shouldn't do solar, geothermal, or windmills -- oh, that's right, no windmills where they might obscure the view of Senator Teddy the Hutt (D-Chivas, Oldsmobile, and Chappaquiddick Bridge).

So while 73% of Americans -- and 51% of Californians -- support such drilling, it isn't going to happen because Nancy Pelosi doesn't believe it should happen.

What do we need here? Tar and feathers? A short rope and a tall tree? What will it take to get rid Queen 9% to quit obstructing energy independence?

I remember sitting and watching this as it happened, live.

(H/T Ace)

Hard to believe it has been thirty-nine years -- and that it has been three-and-a-half decades since man last walked on the moon.

And that our space program has been such a mess in the decades since that I'll be approaching sixty before Americans again set foot on Earth's closest neighbor. I doubt I'm alone in considering that to be shameful.

On the other hand, I am blessed to have a number of friends -- honest-to-God rocket scientists -- who work over at Johnson Space Center. Among other things, one of them is working on Project Constellation, hoping to see Americans back on the moon before his daughters finish college. It is history in the making, made by ordinary men and women doing extraordinary things.

And I'm also blessed to be friends with a number of old NASA hands who tell some of the funniest "inside stories" about the glory days. One couple that I love dearly told me stories about a group of NASA wives making dinners for the families of the Apollo crews during the missions -- and how thirty-nine years ago their kids made a killing selling lemonade to the reporters covering the Armstrong home just around the corner, since it was a typical sweltering July here in Houston. It's the sort of stuff that doesn't make it into the history books.

So take a moment to remember that moment when mankind accomplished one of the greatest achievements of the twentieth century.

That seems to be the course being taken by the Democrats now that the price of gas has doubled during their control of Congress.

The political vision of a summer gas tax holiday died a quick death in Congress, losing to a view that federal excise taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel will have to go up if they go anywhere.

Despite calls from the presidential campaign trail for a Memorial Day-to-Labor Day tax freeze, lawmakers quickly concluded — with a prod from the construction industry — that having $9 billion less to spend on highways could create a pre-election specter of thousands of lost jobs.

Now, lawmakers quietly are talking about raising fuel taxes by a dime from the current 18.4 cents a gallon on gasoline and 24.3 cents on diesel fuel.

In other words, Democrats think you aren't paying enough for gas -- especially since you are driving less -- so they will add an additional dime to the cost of every gallon you buy. So the net time you here Democrat leaders talk about the price of gas being too high, remind them that it is their own party that wants to INCREASE the cost of gasoline while prohibiting new exploration and drilling in this country that will bring the price down -- even though it might take much less than ten years to bring the new oil to market.

And then there is this gobbledy-gook from carbon sasquatch Al Gwhore.

Doug Ross offers these stickers for your consideration.

H/T Gateway Pundit

This would have to be one of the more arrogant moves by a political party in the history of the United States -- but then again, it is being done in the service of the most arrogant presidential candidate of my lifetime, an accomplishment-free neophyte who thinks he is somehow owed the support of those who oppose his candidacy.

Dear Democratic Friends:

2008 is a Democratic year-at all levels in all the states. The opportunity is ours. We just have to seize it.

We experienced an exciting, intense, sometimes difficult, campaign to nominate our presidential candidate. Now it's over. Barack Obama won.

I supported Hillary Clinton and am proud and pleased that I did. But she lost. Barack Obama won. It's over.

It is time for all Democrats, supporters of Senator Clinton and all other contenders for the nomination, to stand with him to secure his election and the election of Democrats at all levels of competition.

I must confess a bit of fatigue and irritation with people who continue to carp, complain, and criticize the results of the primary and lay down conditions for their support. The Los Angeles Lakers didn't establish conditions to recognize the Boston Celtics as NBA Champions; Roger Federer did not demand concessions before recognizing that Rafael Nadal defeated him at Wimbledon.

It is time to act in a mature and resourceful fashion. It's time to put the primaries behind us. It's time to support Barack Obama without conditions or demands.

It's time to WIN for Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, America, and our future. We have an unparalleled opportunity. I hope we will all do everything we can to seize the moment.

See you at the Inauguration.

Sincerely,

Don Fowler
DNC Member At-Large, South Carolina
Former Chair of the Democratic National Committee

Alice Germond
Secretary, Democratic National Committee

Can you believe the insanity of this email?

The difference between Barack Obama and the Celtics or Nadal is that Obama has yet to win anything -- he technically is not even the party's nominee yet, and the rules of the DNC allow delegates to change their mind on who they support between now and the convention, so there is absolutely no guarantee that Barack Obama will be the actual nominee. Indeed, that is one of the "conditions" laid down by those who supported Hillary -- that she actually be nominated at the convention and the delegates actually be permitted to reflect the vote of the people by casting their votes for her if they so choose.

But beyond that, Fowler and Germond forget one other aspect to this matter -- the election isn't over yet. Indeed, these folks who are unhappy with Barack Obama and the DNC are fully vested with the right to vote for any candidate they want in November, including John McCain. As American citizens, their ballots belong to themselves, not to the Democrat Party to dictate for them even if they are not satisfied with the party's nominee. They might want to re-read the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution -- put there by Republicans over the howling protests of an earlier generation of Democrats.

Besides, the folks receiving this email are acting in the best tradition of their party -- the Democrats "continue[d] to carp, complain, and criticize the results" of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, attempting to overturn the results of one of them in the courts and questioning the legitimacy of the Bush presidency for the last 7 1/2 years. Carping, complaining and criticizing are the only things the Democrats have been good at during this time -- Lord knows they have been repeatedly unsuccessful in passing much meaningful legislation in support of their own agenda even with a majority of both houses of Congress.

On the other hand, this Republican wants to point out that we respect the right of every American citizen to vote their conscience this November -- and that includes disaffected Democrats who choose to reject Barack Obama's candidacy for the presidency and instead vote for a candidate with a substantive record of accomplishment and service to this country -- John McCain.

More At Wake up America, No Quarter, Buck Naked Politics

UPDATE: Protein Wisdom points out that one Jesse Jackson was given significantly more respect two decades ago than Hillary is getting today from the Obamessiah. He asks why. I think we all know the answer to that question -- the relative melanin levels of the candidates. The Democrats can't win without blacks, but think they can without women.

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Now I'll be honest -- I have some problems with the treatment this woman received. Some of what was done probably should not have been.

However, this quote shows a certain arrogance on her part that infects a great many border-jumping immigration criminals.

“I felt like they were treating me like a criminal person,” Mrs. Villegas said, speaking in Spanish in a telephone interview. The phone in her room was turned off, and she was not permitted to speak with her husband when he came to retrieve their newborn son from the hospital on July 7 as she returned to jail, she said.

Let's see -- she was driving in a manner just one step below what would get her charged for reckless driving. She had no driver's license (and presumably no insurance). She was in the country illegally, and had reentered the US after having been deported once before for illegally living and working in this country.

Imagine that -- she was treated like she was a lawbreaker!

Round 'em up. Ship 'em back! Build a wall!

Well, not explicitly.

However, John McCain does make a telling point here.

“His voting record … is more to the left than the announced socialist in the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont.”

McCain is, however, not quite correct. The American Conservative Union gives both Obama and Sanders an 8% rating -- meaning that Obama is not more left-wing than a socialist, merely as left-wing as a socialist. However, I don't think that is anything that Obama wants to brag about.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey offers a somewhat different take.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson's Website, Rosemary's Thoughts, Right Truth, DragonLady's World, Shadowscope, Leaning Straight Up, Cao's Blog, The Amboy Times, , Democrat=Socialist, Conservative Cat, Allie is Wired, Faultline USA, third world county, McCain Blogs, Woman Honor Thyself, The World According to Carl, , Pirate's Cove, , The Pink Flamingo, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, , CORSARI D'ITALIA, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

One year on, it appears that too many on the Left don't get the point on last year's Supreme Court decisions upholding Brown v. Board of Education's essential ruling that race-based school decisions on where children should attend school were a violation of the Constitution.

With its decision in Meredith, the court was forcing Louisville to rethink the way it would assign elementary-school students and, in the process, to confront some tricky questions. Is the purpose of integration simply to mix students of different colors for the sake of equity or to foster greater familiarity and comfort among the races? Should integration necessarily translate into concrete gains like greater achievement for all students? If so, is mixing students by race the most effective mechanism for attaining it?

The problem, of course, is that INTEGRATION of schools is not a requirement under the US Constitution -- ending de jure segregation is the standard which has to be met. Thus, when I go to work this fall at a school that is around 90% Hispanic, there is no Constitutional violation provided the school receives appropriate resources and the attendance zone decisions are not made on racial criteria -- the residential patterns of the district and the district and the geographic reality of an interstate highway that serves as the north/south attendance boundary between my district's high schools serve as a legitimate basis for de facto differences in the ethnic make up of the two schools.

Desegregation, properly understood in light of Brown, requires that race-based government action not result in segregation of schools. Equity requires color-blindness only. It does not mean achieving "balance" everywhere, regardless of geographic realities and parental choice. And while "familiarity" and "comfort" may be nice goals, being treated as an individual rather than a member of a group who must atone for ethnic sins (or be compensated for the ethnic sins of others) is the Constitutional standard.

And improving achievement is an entirely separate goal from the mixing of races in some bureaucratically defined proportion -- which is why the kids at the school I'm moving to performed at the same high level on my subject's TAKS test as did kids at the more ethnically diverse school where I taught last year. It comes down to how and where you focus your efforts and money in order to maximize achievement by every student -- and the expectations you set for the students to accomplish that end.

After all, if the point is to get uranium enrichment suspended, this statement negates the entire purpose of the meeting.

Iran on Saturday ruled out freezing its uranium enrichment program, casting doubt over the value of its talks with six world powers less then an hour after they started.

The talks _ with the U.S. in attendance for the first time _ had raised expectations of possible compromise on a formula under which Iran would agree to stop expanding its enrichment activities. In exchange, the six powers _ including the five permanent U.N. Security Council members _ would hold off on passing new U.N. sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

But the comments from Keyvan Imani, a member of the Iranian delegation, appeared to indicate that his government was not prepared to budge on enrichment _ at least going into the talks.

"Suspension _ there is no chance for that," he told reporters gathered in the courtyard of Geneva's ornate City Hall, the venue of the negotiations.

Time to put away the documents, lock the briefcases, and return home. Iran just isn't interested in progress towards disarmament.

Looks like the Israelis may have to handle this matter after all.

After all, that is usually my reaction to Conan O'Brian.

There, the Republican nominee-to-be was well-received, even when Conan begged the 71-year-old war vet and POW to give late-night comedians something other than his age to joke about.

There was a pause. And McCain fell over asleep.

Sorry, Conan, McCain's right. You are boring. You put people to sleep. Now you are even putting your guests to sleep.

This is Bud Day.

He served this country in three different branches of the United States military (Marines, Army, Air Force) in three different wars (WWII, Korea, Vietnam).

See that medal hanging around his neck?

Yeah, the one on the blue ribbon.

Here's a close-up of it.

It is the Air Force version of Medal of Honor. And here's an explanation of what he did to receive our nation's highest military honor.

So why am I pointing all this stuff out? So that what I say next has its full context.

BUD DAY HAS EARNED THE ABSOLUTE RIGHT TO SAY WHATEVER HE WANTS ABOUT WHATEVER HE BELIEVES -- and those who disagree with him, while free to do so, have an obligation to do so with deep respect for his military service which defended and vindicated their right to do so.

So what did Bud Day say that has so many people's panties in a twist?

The Muslims have said either we kneel or they're going to kill us. ... I don't intend to kneel and I don't advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn't advocate to anybody that we kneel. (.wav file)

Now that is a very stark, striking statement about the reality of the current battle against terrorism that we are fighting. And sadly, it is accurate -- though I would be inclined to suggest that dropping the first word of the statement would make it more accurate -- and it appears that Bud Day may agree with me.

Here's the reality. For at least the last 15 years, America has been subject to a series of terrorist attacks by those acting in the name of Islam. They have been Sunni and Shi'a, from many different countries. What they have shared is an ideology of Islamic supremacy that would require that those of us who reject Islam convert, submit, or die.

Such individuals were responsible for the first World Trade Center attack in 1993. They were responsible for attacks on American Embassies in Africa, the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and the USS Cole. They were responsible for the September 11 attacks, and they have been our opponents in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last seven years. Their leaders explicitly state that the imposition of some form of Islamic domination over us is their goal. These facts about violent jihad against America cannot be denied, however inconvenient some may find them.

Not only that, we have seen multiple attempts to use "soft jihad" tactics here and abroad to limit the rights of others to speak critically of Islam. Need I remind anyone of the Muhammad Cartoon controversy, and the Islamic response? You do remember that some of those involved in publishing them are under the threat of criminal prosecution by "moderate" Jordan, don't you? Salman Rushdie still finds it difficult to go out in public, two decades after publishing his (really awful) book, The Satanic Verses. In Canada, so-called Human Rights Tribunals are being used by Muslims to silence those who speak words that call Islam into ill-repute -- under rules which hold that the objective truth of those words is no defense. In Australia, Christian ministers were convicted of inciting hatred against Muslims after outcries from Muslim groups there -- for quoting the Qu'ran accurately. Muslim nations are currently seeking to make it a violation of international law to speak in a manner that Muslims view as denigrating of Islam. I yesterday pointed out what the Saudis are teaching their own kids -- and kids in this country and around the world. And I won't even get into the efforts a couple of years back to silence me for daring to speak negatively about Islam.

So yes, Bud Day is essentially correct. There are Muslims out there who insist upon submission or death. Indeed, there are a lot of them -- if only 10% of Muslims hold to such beliefs we are talking about over 100,000,000 who want us dead or enslaved. And some polls show that the number is well above 10%.

But I'll be the first to agree with those who say there are many decent, peaceful Muslims who are not out to destroy or subjugate the rest of us. There are many Muslims I know who are not -- from my wife's many doctors to the Muslim students I have taught to dear Ruth who is finally able to open her Islamic bookstore nearby. Most Muslims in America are patriots, and most Muslims around the world ARE decent peace loving people -- but that does not negate that there are too many who are not. Those are the folks to whom Bud Day refers, and to whom we as a nation (regardless of race, or religion) must never, ever submit!

So to those who take offense at the words of Col. Day, I ask you this -- are you merely offended at the inartful phrasing of his words? Or do you truly believe that we should submit to those who are out to destroy American liberty? Answer carefully -- for your answer determines which side you are really on.

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What have they done? The same thing as always -- put out textbooks that peddle hatred. Oh, and by the way, they are used in at least one school operating under the auspices of the Saudi embassy almost within the shadow of the US Capitol itself!

What is included in these books?

They assert that unbelievers, such as Christians, Jews, and Muslims who do not share Wahhabi beliefs and practices, are hated "enemies." Global jihad as an "effort to wage war against the unbelievers" is also promoted in the Ministry's textbooks: "In its general usage, 'jihad' is divided into the following categories: ...Wrestling with the infidels by calling them to the faith and battling against them." No argument is made here that such references to jihad mean only spiritual and defensive struggles.

Lessons remain that Jews and Christians are apes and swine, Jews conspire to "gain sole control over the world," the Christian Crusades never ended, the American universities of Cairo and Beirut are part of the continuing Crusades, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are historical fact, and on Judgment Day "the rocks or the trees" will call out to Muslims to kill the Jews.

They teach that it is permissible for a Muslim to kill an "apostate," an "adulterer," and those practicing "major polytheism." Shiites are among those identified as "polytheists." One lesson states that "it is not permissible to violate the blood, property, or honor of the unbeliever who makes a compact with the Muslims," but is pointedly silent on whether security guarantees are extended to non-Muslims without such a compact. Other lessons demonize members of the Baha'i and Ahmadiyya groups.

A lesson from a tenth grade text now posted on the Saudi Ministry's website sanctions the killing of homosexuals and discusses methods for doing so.
In the lessons examined in this report, the Saudi government discounts or ignores passages in the Qur'an to support tolerance.

Yeah, that's right -- "queer killing" is a part of the official curriculum of Saudi schools, including the one operating in Fairfax County, Virginia! And the Saudis must be proud of that fact, since they highlight that lesson on their Education Ministry's official website.

Now just imagine the howls or outrage if there were a Christian school operating with a curriculum even half that outrageous. The school would quickly lose its accreditation, the relevant state and local governments would step in to close the place down, and the children would be taken into state custody because of their parents' educational neglect. But nothing even close to that has happened with regards to The Islamic Saudi Academy. While there have been requests for a State Department investigation, those have come only after those who questioned the schools operation have been accused of slander and labeled as bigots and hatemongers by those requesting the investigation -- even as the school's director is arrested for covering up the abuse of a student!

And remember -- this school provides the same fine education received in, and is subsidized by, our friends in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia!

UPDATE: Debbie Schlussel notes this bit of information from Radar magazine -- some of the official parts of the Saudi curriculum.

What follows are excerpts from textbooks used by Saudi children during the 2007-2008 school year, which really illustrate the House of Saud's devotion to tolerance, peace, and interfaith understanding. It'll also help explain why a Saudi conference is being held in Spain.

1st Grade
"Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words—(Islam, hellfire)
'Every religion other than ____ is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters ____.'"

5th Grade
"A Muslim is forbidden to love and aid the unbelieving enemies of God...."

"Which of the following should you love in God, and which of them should you hate in God?
Example: One of your relatives who does not pray, does not fast, and does not worship God.
Answer: I hate him in God."

"Just as Muslims were successful in the past when they came together in a sincere effort to evict the Christian crusaders from Palestine, so will Muslims and Arabs emerge victorious, God willing, against the Jews and their allies if they stand together and fight a true jihad for God...."

8th Grade
"Lesson Goals: 1) The student notes some of the Jews condemnable qualities...."

"God told his Prophet, Mohammed, about the Jews, who learned from part of God's book that God alone is worthy of worship. Despite this, they espouse falsehood through idol worship, soothsaying and sorcery. In doing so, they obey the devil..."

"God told his Prophet Mohammed: say to those who cast aspersions on your religion: has anyone told you who will receive the harshest punishment from God on the Day of Resurrection? They are the Jews, whom God has cursed and with whom he is so angry that he will never again be satisfied. Some of the people of the Sabbath were punished by being turned into apes and swine. Some of them were made to worship the devil..."

"God punished the Jews in several ways for their unbelief and error. Explain the ways...."

9th Grade
"The prophet said, 'The hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, until the Jew hides behind rocks and trees, until the rocks or the trees say, 'O Muslim! O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him'...."

"(1) It is part of God's wisdom that the struggle between the Muslims and the Jews should continue until the hour of judgment. (2) The good news for Muslims is that God will help them against the Jews in the end, which is one of the signs of the hour of judgment...."

10th Grade
"Basic Elements of Zionist Faith:
The Jews are God's chosen people and the souls of the tribe of Israel are a part of God. Other souls are Satanic souls that are like the souls of animals.
The world belongs to the Israeli. It is his right to rule and he has sovereignty over the world in his capacity as God's chosen people above all humankind...."

"How the Zionists Achieve their Goals:
Sedition, ruses, and conspiracy theories throughout history.... The First World War: the Jews played a role in starting it....
Attempting to inundate peoples with vice and rampant prostitution.... They manage bars in Europe and America, as well as in Israel itself.
Gaining control over literature and the arts; spreading degenerate pornographic literature, and encouraging perverted trends in literature, thought and art.
Gaining control over the film industry in the Western world and elsewhere.
Fraud, bribery, theft, and swindles."

"Homosexuality is one of the most disgusting sins and greatest crimes.... It is a vile perversion that goes against sound nature, and is one of the most corrupting and hideous sins.... The punishment for homosexuality is death. Both the active and passive participants are to be killed whether or not they have previously had sexual intercourse in the context of a legal marriage.... Some of the companions of the Prophet stated that [the perpetrator] is to be burned with fire. It has also been said that he should be stoned, or thrown from a high place."

11th Grade
"The Prophet said, 'Do not greet Jews and Christians with the words 'Peace be upon you.' If you come upon one of them on the road, force him to the narrower part.'"

Taught in Saudi Arabia -- and, courtesy of the Saudi Embassy, in America. Not to mention around the world.

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Adding more capacity that the aggregate capacity of the next 14 states combined!

Texas officials gave the go-ahead Thursday to the nation's largest wind-power project, a plan to build billions of dollars worth of new transmission lines to bring pollution-free energy from gusty West Texas to urban areas.

Texas is already the national leader in wind power, and wind supporters say Thursday's move by the Public Utility Commission will make the Lone Star State a leader in moving energy to the urban areas that need electricity.

"We will add more wind than the 14 states following Texas combined," said PUC Commissioner Paul Hudson. "I think that's a very extraordinary achievement. Some think we haven't gone far enough, some think we've pushed too far."

Once again, it is up to Texas to lead the way in the search for energy resources for our country -- this has the potential to be the Spindletop of wind energy.

Too bad certain a certain liberal Senator from a very blue state can't accept a little inconvenience in behalf of energy independence. Typical lib-ocrite.

And by the way -- while this is great, it is only one part of the solution.

We need to increase nuclear power.

And tap the oil resources of ANWR and the outer continental shelf.

DRILL HERE!

DRILL NOW!

This would be front page news if such things happened to Obama supporters at the hand of disgruntled Clinton backers or Republicans.

Why the silence from the media?

Why the lack of condemnation from the Obama campaign?

I live in a neighborhood that is poor and predominately African American. The Obama campaign has staked out my neighborhood since the PA Primary. I live in Allegheny County-- the Democratic Nominee must win Allegheny County and Philadelphia if they wish to win the state of PA. The Obama campaign used very dirty tactics for which I seemed to be a target. Why? Because I was backing Hillary Clinton. I was called names and had these volunteers coming onto my property and taking down my Hillary sign. I made her put my sign back up.

On June 3, 2008 I put a PUMA sign up on my front door. I also put an nobama sign up. The entire neighborhood knew I was not going to vote for Obama {Most told me I would be stupid to vote for the man who spent weeks trying to terrorize me.}.

Two weeks later as PUMA began to gain attention the Campaign began bothering me again. I received an email and then the phone calls started.
One evening I received a phone call another death threat and then shortly after my son came in and yelled fire. Someone set my tree on fire. The fire department said the fire was arson.

There is a list Obamabot threats and violence against other PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) Democrats being kept here.

And Doug Ross is also chronicling the rising problem of Maoist tactics by Obamabots, as is Wake Up America.

H/T Gateway Pundit

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Seems to me the AP just wants to find a scandal where none exists in order to smear John McCain.

What's the best they can do?

Criticize John McCain for taking his Social Security Check when he dares to criticize the system as a failure.

Although Republican presidential candidate John McCain has called Social Security "a disgrace," he still cashes his own retirement check every month.

Big freakin' deal. The man paid into the system. He is legally and morally entitled to receive money from the system.

He is also correct in stating that "the system is broken and, unfortunately, my children and grandchildren, according to the trustees of the Social Security system, will not have the same benefits the present retirees have." Heck, there is a serious question as to whether the system will be capable of paying benefits at a reasonable level when I reach retirement age in another couple of decades -- something I don't have to worry about because federal law screws me out of my Social Security benefits that I paid for before I started teaching (and also from other jobs after I started teaching) because I will be receiving benefits from my state's teacher retirement fund.

Heck, I've got criticisms of how our teacher retirement system works down here in Texas -- would I be a hypocrite for daring to question this government program while also taking the benefits I paid in for?

Here's the problem for the AP (and the rest of the MSM) -- McCain is an incredibly clean, honest candidate, so they have to make crap up to try to diminish his stature and derail his campaign against the Obamessiah.

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I think I may have found the single most asinine complaint about John McCain by a media source -- he is actively raising money for his presidential campaign by appearing at fundraisers.

So what's to made of McCain's oh-so familiar routine?

Yes, good point, he does seem to be hop-scotching all over. His campaign days sure don't start at dawn with morning shows. And there are the ubiquitous media interviews, as always.

They're free, after all. And while he can speak to 200 potential voters at a townhall, he can more efficiently reach hundreds of thousands through film of that session and media interviews afterwards with slightly-starry-eyed local reporters, some of whom will secretively ask for autographs despite their outward objectivity.

Give you a hint. Follow the money.

Just 3 1/2 months out from the presidential election, McCain's national campaign schedule is being driven by the quest for money, not by the hunt for votes in 50 individual state elections. Allright, every campaign says it's gonna compete everywhere. But they don't.

He's always looking for votes wherever he goes. But whereever he goes is determined not by votes but by where his finance folks have found enough donateable money to set up fundraisers.

For McCain for now his itinerary is built on the quest for dollar$ not votes. That helps explain the widespread sense of unease among many Republicans nationally who do not deny he's working very hard.

Good heavens -- he's running against a flip-flopping clown who backed out of his commitment to publicly fund his campaign. You bet he needs to raise money! That should not be any sort of surprise to anyone.

Oh, yeah -- let's not forget the other great scandal this piece discloses. John McCain does interviews with local television reporters -- to make sure there is film at 11.

I'm convinced -- the LA Times' Andrew Malcolm is an absolute ninny. If he is an example of what passes for quality at the paper, it is no wonder that it is on the brink of collapse.

And with how many bombs?

Proving once again that Barack Obama is out of contact with reality, he limits the attack on Pearl Harbor to a single bomb, and can't even bring himself to acknowledge that the US Fleet was the subject of an unprovoked attack by Japan.

Throughout our history, America's confronted constantly evolving danger, from the oppression of an empire, to the lawlessness of the frontier, from the bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor, to the threat of nuclear annihilation. Americans have adapted to the threats posed by an ever-changing world.

And this from a guy born and raised in Hawaii. The ignorance of history is astounding!

And the text of the speech would have that bomb appearing out of nowhere, and doing its dirty work of its own accord.

And this guy wants to be President?

H/T Dean Barnett, Hot Air

Well, I guess we now understand why the high priests of the Church of Global Warming proposed the imprisonment of those heretics who reject their dogma -- because many of the experts in the field of climate studies don't support the theory! There's no better way to stop dissent than to jail the dissenters.

Well now the cat is out of the bag.

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming.  The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science.  The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming "incontrovertible."

In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."

The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity -- the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause -- has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling.   A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate.

Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chairman of the New England Section of the APS, called Monckton's paper an "expose of the IPCC that details numerous exaggerations and "extensive errors"

So you see, there is considerable disagreement among those who study the issue -- including over the validity of the models put forward by the followers of the Wamingist cult to support their religious beliefs that man is destroying the planet. And now that the Warmingists have tried to claim consensus, those who have a more rational view are beginning to publish materials that disprove the alleged scientific basis of the false dogma around which Warmingists have claimed consensus.

Carbon Sasquatch Al Gore was too busy selling carbon indulgences to comment.

Again proving that the real racial problem in this country stems from African-Americans who want to keep grievances alive rather than white racism.

After all, when you slap down someone for saying it is NEVER acceptable for anyone of any race to use a certain historically sensitive racial slur by dismissing them as "very white", it is really clear that you are the anti-MLK.

What a crock! But then again, Whoppi is phenomenally ignorant on a wide range of subjects.

Hey, Whoopi -- here's a big box of something for you courtesy of Mr. Chris Rock.

When you and the institution you lead have only a 9% approval rating, where do you get off making a statement like this?

"God bless him, bless his heart, president of the United States -- a total failure, losing all credibility with the American people on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject."

After all, with a 33% approval rating, President George W. Bush is standing head and shoulders above Congress in terms of his credibility with the American people.

And let's consider some things:

1. We've won in Iraq -- a war you and your party said was lost.
   
2. Bush's repeal of Executive Branch drilling restrictions resulted in a huge drop in oil prices -- you call drilling a hoax.
   
3. Oh, yeah -- that resulted in an increase in stock prices, while you still refuse to allow a vote on offshore drilling.

So, Ma-DUMB Speaker, I wouldn't go raising the credibility issue. That would be even uglier for you than your last face-lift and botox treatment.

H/T Colossus of Rhodey

Well, this time it is the official campaign apparatus of the Senate Democrats engaging in ILLEGAL COORDINATED EXPENDITURES with the Senate campaign of Ronnie Musgrove (Corrupt Democrat -- Mississippi).

On Tuesday the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and Ronnie Musgrove began running a television ad that overtly violates campaign finance laws. Now is time for them to explain their actions.

The Federal Elections Commission (FEC) requires coordination between a campaign and a National Committee like the DSCC not to exceed $180,800. The DSCC ad on behalf of Ronnie Musgrove is valued at an estimated $240,214 (not counting production costs, view coordinated expenditures.) This ad combined with previous coordinated expenditures with the DSCC ($55,133 in first quarter) surpasses the legal limits by $114,547.

The ad featuring Ronnie Musgrove was filmed on Wednesday, July 9, at the Madison County Economic Development Authority (MCEDA) and on the Canton square, according to MCEDA officials.

This isn't the first such illegal coordinated expenditure by the DSCC -- and even liberal folks like those at Talking Points Memo aren't buying the Democrat spinning of the expenditures. My favorite line from the story of the Oregon violation is this line from the Democrat Senate candidate's spokesperson -- "This isn't a coordinated expenditure, it's an expenditure that's coordinated."

Your Democrats at work -- engaging in corruption so you don't have to.

H/T Next Right

Putting every gay marriage in a sort of legal limbo when it passes.

The California Supreme Court has cleared the way for Californians to vote in November on whether to ban same-sex marriages in the state.

The court on Wednesday denied a petition to remove the initiative from the state's general election ballots. The unanimous decision was handed down without elaboration.

Hundreds of marriage licenses have been issued to same-sex couples since mid-June, a month after the court overturned the state's laws against such unions.

However, on June 2, opponents of same-sex marriage filed for a ballot initiative that would ban such marriages in the state's constitution. Such a ban would overturn the court's May ruling.

Interestingly enough, by making it state policy that such marriages are not recognized by the state of California (which is arguably already the law in the state -- California voters passed precisely such a measure several years ago, though the will of the people was ignored by the California Supreme Court in its ruling this spring), the status of marriage entered between June 17 and the passage of this measure is quite tenuous. After all, the effect of the law may well be to derecognize same-sex California marriages entered into during that time, as well as prevent future ones.

Expect some fum litigation to come out of this if it passes.

The governor of Illinois is talking about deploying troops in the streets of an American city to deal with rising violent crime.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Wednesday raised the possibility of bringing in state troopers or even the Illinois National Guard to help Chicago combat a recent increase in violent crime -- an offer that Mayor Richard Daley didn't know was coming.

Appearing at signing ceremony for a bill that toughens the penalty for adults who provide guns to minors, Blagojevich said "violent crime in the city of Chicago is out of control."

"I'm offering resources of the state to the city to work in a constructive way with Mayor Daley to do everything we can possibly do to help ... stop this violence," said the governor.

Blagojevich said Daley had not asked for help and he had not talked to the mayor about offering it, adding he would call Daley after he met later in the day with the state police, National Guard and others.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to submit to you that the city of Chicago is not worth the life of a single member of the US military -- active duty, reserve, or National Guard. Chicago did not attack us on 9/11, and those who flew the planes that day were not Chicagoans. Al-Qaeda is not in Chicago, and deploying troops in a location where it is clear that there exists a state of civil war is foolish and not in the best interests of the United States or the state of Illinois.

I therefore think it is imperative that we find out immediately -- what is Barack Obama's exit strategy from Chicago? What is his timetable for withdrawal of US forces? I realize that such a withdrawal may result in increased violence and perhaps genocide -- but abandoning the city to its own devices is the only proper course of action.

NO WAR FOR DEEP-DISH PIZZA!

Gee -- I guess that Bill O'Reilly was right. The castration fantasy indulged in by Jesse Jackson wasn't the worst thing to come out of his mouth that afternoon.

Barack...he's talking down to black people...telling n—s how to behave.

Frankly, I'm offended that Fox News protected Jesse that way -- after all, he crusaded against use of that word by Michael Richards at a comedy club, and wanted to destroy his career for it, and demanded that NO ONE use the word. Indeed, he defined blacks who use it as "self-hating".

Frankly, I think the use of that particular word is even more serious than the whole emasculation fantasy.

UPDATE: Hot Air cites Bill O'Reilly as calling those who leaked/reported this story to be "weasels". I'm curious -- why has the grand poobah of the "No Spin Zone" been covering for this expletive-spewing, poverty-pimping race-ho?

H/T Malkin, AOSHQ, Gateway Pundit, STACLU (thanks for the link), Sister Toldjah

I hear you don't like the way we deal with murderers down here in Texas -- giving them the justice they deserve, especially when they rape little girls. I've got a message for you.

The World Court ordered the United States on Wednesday to do all it could to halt the imminent executions of five Mexicans until the court makes a final judgment in a dispute over suspects' rights.

The row, which has strained relations between the neighbors, centers on the fact that the United States failed to inform 51 of its citizens sentenced to die in U.S. jails of their right to consular assistance.

One of the five Mexicans on death row, Jose Medellin, is due to die on August 5 in Texas.

My personal solution? Daisy-chain the other four Mexican murderers (César Roberto Fierro Reyna, Rubén Ramírez Cárdenas, Humberto Leal García, and Roberto Moreno Ramos) to José Ernesto Medellín Rojas on August 5 and make the entire matter moot. And should the World Court decide to send the World Police to take Texas officials to the World Jail, we'll show them all what Texas justice looks like.

Oh, and to the government of Mexico that is struggling to keep these despicable pieces of garbage alive, I repeat my earlier message.

But then again, that's my attitude towards Mexico in regards to most everything.

Especially since I teach high school, I find the notion of an adult wanting to have sex with a teenager to be repulsive. And I certainly don't understand the idea of luring victims via the internet -- both because it is disgusting AND because it is well, known that the cops troll chat rooms looking for pedophiles.

But to show up for your rendezvous wearing this particular item is even sicker.

33-year-old Michigan man is accused of wearing a "World's Greatest Dad" shirt to a meeting for sex with what he thought was a 14-year-old girl.

Daniel Allen Everett of Clarkston was arraigned Tuesday in Novi on charges of child sexual abuse and using the Internet to attempt child sexual abuse.

Here's hoping that this sick puppy spends many years in jail -- where Everett will no doubt spend much of his time answering his cellmate when he asks the question "Who's your daddy?"

You know, I almost hesitate to raise this one, because I actually am somewhat sympathetic to the Democrat in question. But since one of our local Democrats (with his own history of ethical lapses) seemingly wants every technical violation in a campaign expenditure report to result in life in prison if committed by a Republican, I figure this much more serious offense is fair game.

A complaint against U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, has been filed with the House Committee on Conduct of Official Standards by Friends of the Border Patrol after Reyes' office asked a federal law enforcement agency for help in the kidnapping of a relative in Juárez.

"Reyes, former chief Border Patrol agent, knows that this type of request is frowned upon by the U.S. Border Patrol," said Andy Ramirez, chairman of Friends of the Border Patrol, who submitted the complaint Monday.

The complaint alleges Reyes violated the House Code of Official Conduct because his office was used to benefit a relative.

Rather than deny the charge, the corrupt El Paso Democrat instead chose to attack those who filed the complaint against him as "anti-immigrant" and implicitly bigoted against Hispanics -- even though the complaint is supported a complaint by the former head of the DEA in El Paso and current president of the Federal Hispanic Law Enforcement Officers Association, Sandalio Gonzalez, who notes that Reyes does not seek similar federal law enforcement assistance for constituents whose Mexican relatives have been kidnapped in Mexico.

In other words, Reyes demanded for himself and his family what he would never seek for anyone else, using his official position to get special treatment.

Anyone want to bet this is ignored by the Democrat blogger mentioned above?

There you have it -- your Democrat elected officials in action!

After all, can't St. Vincent's Hospital do its charity work somewhere else? You know -- so that second-rate performers like Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins don't actually have to see or come in contact with such peasants in their daily lives.

"The hospital provides $40 million in care to the indigent every year," one proponent told us. "Robbins dismissed more than 100 people rallying in support of the hospital - low-income, union workers and veterans of the AIDS crisis - as 'those people out there.' " Sarandon said in a statement: "Improving the hospital is a great idea. However, this can be accomplished without compromising the neighborhood. St. Vincent's should consider the proposed alternative solutions."

Seems to me that "those people out there" -- and the rest of us -- need to make sure that we don't spend any money watching these snooty liberals who put buildings and personal convenience above actual human beings in need of medical care.

And I wonder -- since this pair are supporters of Barack Obama who have threatened to leave America if he loses, what does the candidate have to say about their hope that the city will make the hospital change its plans to suit their NIMBYism?

Not only has he been violating New York rent control laws, now it seems that Rep. Charles Rangel is making illegal use of his position to raise money for a nonprofit organization -- named after himself, of course.

Rep. Charles Rangel acknowledged yesterday he may have violated House ethics rules when he used congressional stationery to solicit donations for a Harlem "center for public service" that will be named after him.

Rangel has used his office letterhead to try to raise funds for the controversial center in Harlem from Donald Trump, Hank Greenberg, the former head of the AIG insurance giant, and others, it was revealed yesterday - even though congressional rules bar the stationery from being used for solicitations.

"The entire thing appears dicey, and there's no question that, as soon as I can, I'm going to take a look at it," Rangel said following a report in yesterday's Washington Post exposing the practice.

Yeah -- he'll "take a look at it". Notice, he doesn't say he'll stop it, only that he'll take a look at it.

But I can understand his distraction right now -- after all, Rangel has been under fire for having essentially taken over a floor of an apartment building in his district by structuring a deal to rent no less than FOUR rent-controlled apartments there. But after it was disclosed that he was illegally using one exclusively as an rather than a residence, Rangel is graciously "voluntarily" giving up that one -- but somehow not facing any charges of the illegal scheme.

Your Democrat elected officials at work.

But we certainly wouldn't call it media bias.

Here's the headline.

Democrat Noriega needs help cutting Cornyn's 10-1 lead in cash

That is also what shows up on the Houston & Texas news page, and in the title bar at the top of your browser when you click the link -- though to their credit the headline on the article itself is more neutral.

Noriega losing fundraising race

How much of a cash difference are we talking about?

Houston Democrat Rick Noriega's uphill campaign to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn began a year ago as a populist battle. But, with 113 days left until the election, Noriega has yet to show he can fan embers into a prairie fire.

Noriega's biggest problem is money, not having enough to get his message out to a statewide audience that can only be reached by television advertising, which costs as much as $1.4 million a week for a saturation buy.

Campaign finance reports to be filed today will show Cornyn has more than $9 million in the bank, while Noriega has $915,000.

Almost half of the $930,000 that Noriega raised in the quarter ending June 30 came from the national Democratic Web site ActBlue. The Daily Kos, a left-leaning Web site that has been supportive of Noriega from the start, called his recent fundraising "a disappointing take."

In other words, Noriega is getting his butt kicked every which way -- even the "left-leaning" Daily Kos has admitted it (no comment from the "right-leaning" John Birch society).

But then again, what do you expect about to happen in Texas when the candidate blogs at Daily Kos, traveled north to pander to the KOSsacks last summer, and has been photographed with his arm around Kos himself?

But none of that is a surprise -- the problem is the campaign fundraising appeal placed on the Chronicle's website. Why are they whoring out their headlines for the financially floundering Noriega campaign?

H/T to Robbie at Urban Grounds for the screenshot (which showed up in the RSS feed as I was typing this post).

Wonderful -- just wonderful.

And this is the guy who will be in charge of ICE if he wins in November -- and in command of those who terrorize poor defenseless immigration criminals and their families by enforcing our nation's laws?

When communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel, when all that is happening, the system just isn’t working, and we need to change it.

I'm curious -- what other laws does Obama want to see go unenforced because parents and children might be separated? And how does he square that with the constitutional obligation of a president to see that the laws are faithfully executed?

Oh -- and what other federal law enforcement agencies does Barack Obama view as terrorists?

After all, what do they have to fear from an open vote on their party's presidential nominee?

She may have given up, but a few of Hillary Rodham Clinton ’s people haven’t.

The senator from New York is said to be negotiating a respectful presence followed by a graceful exit from next month’s Democratic convention, and last week the party announced that Barack Obama would formally accept the party’s nomination in the stadium built for the Denver Broncos. But there are Clinton supporters clinging to the hope that if her name is placed in nomination and the roll call of the states is conducted, she might — might — still win.

Good grief -- even Jimmy Carter allowed teddy Kennedy an open vote on the convention floor. It was a sign of strength on his part -- and it was a positive step towards healing the party. Shouldn't Barack Obama follow the same precedent? If he really believes he is operating from a position of strength.

H/T Hot Air

Could be, according to a woman speaking at an Obama campaign roundtable at University of Missouri -- Kansas City.

Who was this evil right-wing purveyor of sleazy stories about the Obamessiah?

Michelle Obama -- the candidate's own wife.

His own mother, [Michelle Obama] said at the beginning of her remarks, was "very young and very single when she had him."

Very single?

That's not part of the narrative that Obama and his campaign have been putting out for the last four years. Their story has been that barack Obama's parents were married. Even granting that the marriage was arguably invalid -- it is unclear if Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. ever actually divorced first wife back in Kenya, given his continued relationship with her after his marriage to the candidate's mother, including fathering additional children with her.

So we have to ask the question -- has Michelle Obama revealed to the American people that Barack Obama has been lying to them during his entire public career? After all, she isn't some anonymous emailer -- she is the man's wife.

Seems to me that we now need access to several documents to settle the question:

1. Obama's original birth certificate (which would settle questions about citizenship, his birth name, and possibly his parents' marital status);
   
2. His parents' marriage license;
   
3. The decree of divorce or nullity regarding his parents' marriage.
   

However, the lack of candor on his part would be more damning than the issue of bastardy. As they say -- the cover-up is always worse. And when your own wife outs you, the cover-up could be very damning indeed.