Left (West) Wing Part Deux

By now, many of you have heard of the joyous little piece called "Commander in Chief", starring Geena Davis, due to premiere soon on ABC. Of course, those on the Left are absolutely delirious with delight. John Fund at the WSJ's Opinion Journal gives an interesting account of what he's been hearing. The show's creator, Rod Lurie, has made it clear that he'd love to see this as West Wing + Hillary type figure, but of course business being business he can't alienate everyone just yet. There are the ratings for the premiere to consider and all.

Mr. Lurie insists that red-state viewers need not shun the show. He admits that he "can't write to a belief system that I can't swallow myself," but he says that he has hired some conservative writers to make up for his deficit. Not that a balanced approach was evident at last week's series-celebrating parties, in Washington and New York, hosted by the feminist White House Project.

Can't swallow those hilljack red-state values, but hey I'll hire a couple of writers who believe in that schlock if it means you'll watch. Not that there material will make it into the script...

Frankly, I never liked the whole "red state" designation anyway. I always envisioned it as some network exec's cute idea of getting back at people who traditionally were the leaders in hating communism by identifying them with the phrasology that we in those states used to employ. Of course, that's just my little pet conspiracy theory.

I'll go ahead and make the obvious prediction. It'll be an homage to Hillary's 2008 run as what the Left would like to believe her presidency would be like, just as the Left Wing was how they wished Bill Clinton would act more like Martin Sheen. Of course, the predictable public backing the Leftist champion scenes will likely continue in defiance of reality. I'll take it for what it likely will be, a true comedy fantasy, like "Never Been Kissed" or Al Gore thinking he's President.

It's like watching game films to see the Left's dream agenda if the American public actually bought into their crap. And who can beat leftist Donald Sutherland (who also is a great actor to watch) playing a mean bad conservative (or at least the leftist vision of all conservatives as Teutonic Knight-type book-burning slaughters of the innocent and poor), following in the mold of the other great leftist Richard Dreyfuss from "The American President". Should be a hoot.

Pearls of Wisdom

I thought I'd share a few thoughts on two sadly misunderstood Amendments to the Constitution, the 9th and 10th. Just to refresh your memory, they read...

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Do you know what that means? In modern terms, it means 'we wrote a very specific document with very specific powers for the government and if we didn't put it in there, it's up to the States and the people to figure it out and not for the federal government to assume it has the right to decide what it wants to power over.

No nuances, no emanations of penumbras there, just very straight forward language from some very straight forward men. So how do we have this mammoth government with seemingly limitless power? And how did we get a Supreme Court that believes it's the secular equivalent of the tablets on the Mount (ironic considering their disdain for those tablets)? Dozens if not hundreds of books have been written on that, but perhaps I can offer a thought or two, just to crystallize the issue.

We, the People, let them do this to us. Them is every man and woman who went to washington and eventually got more concerned with their own power and self-importance than our freedom. That's not every person, by any means, but it has been the majority, and they have done a lot of damage. This corruption transcends party lines. Power corrupts, and makes a person crave more power. It's a drug, and most of Washington is hooked hard.

You can always vote out those abusers currently in office, but more importantly you have to hold every politician accountable. Make them justify their jobs. Make them remember that at the end of the day, they work for you.

In today's busy world, that's not an easy task, but it wasn't an easy task 200 years ago either. I've heard said before, "America isn't easy" and they're right. It's not. This is something we have to want and work hard to keep, even to restore. It's easy to let apathy help that slip away, but not much really worth having comes easy in this world. Our natural rights and freedoms (not civil rights, abortion on demand or whether we can marry that hot eucalyptus tree down the block) are worth fighting for. As dearly as our loved ones are worthy of every effort to keep them safe and healthy, so our are freedoms.

As you go about your day, I hope you will keep this in mind. God Bless America.

DEFINE IRONY

Jesse Jackson is being put on trial for, among other things, Civil Rights abuses. It would seem the good reverend at his shakedown of Toyota in 2001 incited a small mob against a conservative reverend who was attempting to call out the Right Out Rev on his mob-like intimidation of Toyota for not being "diverse enough". Such things are common with the Rev, whose Rainbow/PUSH Coalition makes its bread and butter from threatening major corporations with racial boycotts.

First, one might wonder why these corporations are so retarded as to think that Jackson or his cronies speak for any significant amount of people. Perhaps they more rightly fear the adoring media, who typically gives Jackson a pass. That can be observed by this story being on Judicial Watch and not MSNBC or CNN's site so quickly, if not the years of preferential news stories. Jesse doesn't speak for the black community, he speaks for the Leftist community and there in lies the joy I feel over this story.

When a lawsuit against such a vile gangster is finally brought forth like this, vermin like Jackson have no where to scurry and hide. They're drawn out into the light and exposed for the worthless human beings they are. Exhibit this quote from Jackson at the above-cited Toyota "rally" that shows his contempt for fellow minister Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson. When Rev. Peterson, head of the conservative Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND), contemptously asked if organizations like his would have to go through Rainbow/EXTORT to get to Toyota, Jackson noted:

“And the issue, for the record…is not conservative or liberal. The issue is certain parasites trying to pick up fruit from trees they didn’t shake.”

Nice, yes he cares for the black community, only if it follows him, otherwise you're a parasite stealing from the tree that he rightly shook. What a piece of filth. If there's any justice left in the courts, this worm will get what's coming to him.

Who's Got the Tired Old Rhetoric?

Raising Taxes, a bogeyman the Left has shied away from for some time after feeling the public's backlash time and again, is an issue that has returned with a vengeance among the Talking Heads. MRC on Monday had a who's who of those in the Media beating the drum and carrying loads of water for the pro-tax movement on the Left. Nina Totenberg, Ms. "I don't think the Media is Biased except for Fox News" and lifetime NPRite, remarked that President Bush's September 19th speech would have been an excellent time for him to say the following

'look, I'm for tax cuts, but we need a Katrina tax, we need to really pay, to do this and to pay for it.'

When pressed by Gordon Peterson on Inside Washington if she wanted more taxes, she said bluntly "I want more taxes, yes." Don't think for a moment this little charmer represents the fringe view. Her views are what every left-leaning NPR listener hears and parrots daily.
MRC also caught this lovely exchange between Charles Krauthammer, Nina Totenberg, and Evan Thomas, which speaks volumes about how the press will be spinning the desire to tax us back into oblivion

Charles Krauthammer: "Our crisis of today is Katrina, probably a couple of hundred billion, and I think you start by canceling every earmark, all 6,371 earmarks, special pork spending, in the newly-passed transportation bill. It's only $24 billion, lunch money, but it's a rather ample lunch."

Nina Totenberg: "It's lunch money, but, it's lunch money, but if you canceled the tax cuts, you'd get $225 billion."

Krauthammer: "You'd wreck the economy. That's the difference."

Totenberg: "You wouldn't. You wouldn't. I mean, this economy was, is doing just fine, thank you, but it is about to sustain incredible blows because of the energy business, and if we don't, if people who are richer in this country don't pay more, we can't take it out of the hides of poor people, which is what the conservative group that is actually in Congress that's put out earmarks of what they think we ought to cut -- Medicaid, Medicare. That's money we, you know, for the poorest segment of our society."

Host Gordon Peterson: "Even Republicans are getting edgy about this, aren't they?"

Evan Thomas: "Yeah, sort of good. I mean, there's a split in the Republican Party. Republicans used to be, once upon a time, for fiscal conservatism, and there are a few of those left, and they're starting to murmur more, and, you know, people forget Ronald Reagan raised taxes, you know, he cut taxes, but then he raised taxes. George Bush, the father, raised taxes. It's not, there's no law in the Bible that says a Republican can never raise taxes."

Yep, they've got that finger right on the pulse of America. A pork-fest like this is what they've been waiting for for five years to say that not only were the tax cuts needing repealed and now they have a case, but that there's also a case for more taxes. I mean, it's not written in the Bible or anything. Oh, and Evan, for that patronizing anti-Christian crap, you can put that remark where the sun don't shine, beautiful. You're about as fit to speak for the people of this country as Eugene Debs or Jack Reed. Of course, you'd likely see that as a compliment.

This is what they want from you, they want you and me to open our wallets and let the government suck it dry because, after all, we're children and they're the parents who gave US the allowance, right? Washington might as well be its own separate alternate reality, because that's how the people that run us from there live.

Eleanor Clift, wearing her "Hope, Arkansas birthed my male love god" T-shirt, spoke on the McLaughlin Group such wisdom as this

"The obvious solution is to roll back the tax cuts. It's going to cost $500 billion over ten years to relieve people, couples, with estates of over $5 million. Do they really need that money? I don't think so."

Thanks, Eleanor, for telling other people they don't need their money so you think it should be confiscated at gunpoint. You're a peach. Isn't it time for your nightly call to Bubba C's 900 line?

Even the media's straight arrow Tim Russert seems to be jumping on the tax bandwagon, as he said this on Meet the Press to feed his panel of tax lovers.

"The President's been very resistant to talk about tax cuts or certainly the repeal of them. Is there any possibility he would say, 'We have these massive deficits. I believe in the war in Iraq. It's going to bring democracy to the Middle East. I believe in rebuilding New Orleans and helping the people of Texas. But to the people in my income bracket, I have to freeze the tax cut I had planned'?"

Everybody get that? The plan is this. Get the media talking about how inevitable it is, and presumably the sheeple will all fall in lockstep behind the left to demand the Feds take their money! That's it, that's the ticket!

I'm praying very hard for reality to smack these boys and girls hard in the face. Alternate media, leftists losing elections, nothing seems to shake them out of their fantasy land. The American people DO_NOT_WANT higher taxes...period. Let that sink in, Sunshine boys and girls. Otherwise, you doom yourselves to a well-deserved extinction.

Leftists of the World Unite!

In an age where tolerance and acceptance that some people just want to be who they want to be, explain to me please how members of this drippingly hypocritical group can wake up every morning and say "We're gonna do right t'day!". Members of the group Scouting For All plan an October 9th march on a boy scout camp to protest their view that homosexuals, atheists, and girls should be allowed in to that organization.

According to World Net Daily, the group has previously equated the Scouts with the Ku Klux Klan. I know, because when I was talking with our local Scoutmaster after his weekly cross burning... Come on, people. This equating conservative organizations with Nazis or Klan or Nazi Klan members goes beyond the pale of ludicrous. The Boy Scouts of America, much like other exclusive organizations (like GLAAD or the NAACP), is a private club with its own set of rules and regulations and can associate with whomever it wishes. The left-leaning socialist Supreme Court even agreed with that opinion, as you might recall.

That in mind, perhaps you should practice a little of that tolerance and acceptance that I constantly hear preached by leftists for this organization. Or perhaps you would like to appear morally inferior to such a group by practicing the very thing that you, the atheist, claim bible-thumping Christians do to you, or you the homosexual, used to have to deal with gay-bashers doing to you. Or is it ok to be an intolerant prejudicial bunch of losers because your leftists? Again, your hypocrisy knows no bounds. Lenin and Hitler and even good old Nathan Bedford Forrest would be proud. Preaching that others by tolerant of you by being intolerant of them is about as round the bend is you can get, don't you think?

Now, some celebrities joined with the organization to add their star power and provide their plain-spoken 'we're from Hollywood and we're morally superior to the rest of you inbred yokels' down-home feel-good logic to this, such as X-Men and LOTR's Ian McKellan (A great actor I will always admit) who noted,

"Institutionalized homophobia in the Scouts or in church or school is the cruelest of all," It makes life miserable for young gay people and it misleads their peers with regard to the 'truth' about gay people – that they are remarkably similar to the rest."

Institutionalized homophobia in the Church, like the kind that led to gay pedophile priests causing the current scandals that have crippled a good portion of America's Catholic Church, yes, yes... horrible. So instead of openly coming into the Church, they disguised their true intentions and committed those unspeakable acts and then the Church covered for them. I suppose it would have just been easier to let them in openly and let them commit the unspeakable acts. Then at least the Church couldn't be accused of being institutionally homophobic...

And not that McKellan cares for the concept of tolerance of other's beliefs if it affects his favored group. Here's a thought, Ian, you're rich. You have rich friends, why don't you fund a scouting style group that is for homosexuals, atheists, and girls? Then they would have their own outlet and wouldn't have to feel so put out. That's American. That's what the rest of us do when we look for something bigger than ourselves to belong to. That's tolerance in action. You could even let heteros and Christians in if you felt really tolerant, instead of simply picking on another group and trying to force your narrow-minded will on them. Or would that be too simple of a solution? Is that not what you actually want to do? Do you just want to force everyone into your Orwellian Group-think? When you come clean and provide your actual agenda, we'll continue this discussion.

I Hate Message Films

The new film, Lord of War, is out and I'm not sure if I want to see it. After reading Megan Basham's review on Townhall, though, I think I might. There seems to be a glimmer of fun in a preachy movie by a director who hates the gun culture.

From Morgan's review, what makes this Message Film probably worth the view is that it absolutely fails to make a good case for guns being the root of evil in the world, which is obviously the writer/director's intention. The only way he can even lean back to it is to have Cage give some preachy dialogue here and there, allegedly, to make up for it.

Here in lies my conflict. I hate message movies, which Hollywood is full of these days. I'm not talking the "It's a Wonderful Life" kind of message. I'm talking the "I'm from California and I know better than you and the rest of the world how everything works so sit down and let me spoon feed you my 1st year college philosophical/psychological crap for two hours and you will shut up and take it and pay $9 for it!" kind of message.

Whatever happened to the good old-fashioned blow'em up kind of films with no message and where the main character delivered pithy one-liners while laying waste to his nemeses? I guess they're still around, but occasionally you get one like this who figures he can impress his view of the world on people who normally wouldn't stop and listen long enough for him to breathe in to say "Hello".

I still have yet to determine how governments and groups of thugs owning guns are morally superior to the average citizen owning a gun, something even this movie seems to have trouble reconciling. This is, however, what the UN and most of the dictatorial countries who are part of it want, and about what they are trying to con the democracies and Leftists in those democracies into agreeing with them.

The general leftist/facist contention is that you or I are not grown-up enough to own firearms. We're such children, that only those in power should have the guns or weapons of any kind. They spend inordinate amounts of money for media campaigns and studies to try and prove that guns are useless to their owners for either personal protection or protection from tyranny. Not that I've seen one of those studies or media reports stand up to any degree of scrutiny, but again what's truth to someone with a leftist agenda. Truth is the casualty of progress on the Left and none suffers more than the person who owns a firearm to protect themselves.

Consider this, yes, the weapon trade is a horrible business. It arms thugs and outlaw governments as readily if not moreso than it does those who would fight for their freedom against such oppression. As long as there are those with power, they will need a way to exercise it, and those buried under that power will need something to help get them clear of it. Ghandi and Martin Luther King had relatively benign governments for their peace movements to succeed. The world has seen far more Stalins and Hitlers than it has seen Ghandis and likely always will.

Until then, I'll stick with the right to defend myself and encourage the rest of the people of the world to think likewise. At least we might be able to keep the wolves from the door.

Doing Your Duty As a Citizen

Yesterday I gave testimony on my thoughts regarding eminent domain before a State committee. The beauty of this sort of thing is, any citizen can do it. The sad part about it is, most of us rarely if ever do. I think a large part of that is due to the fact that we by and larger are working stiffs who have day jobs, the same time that most governments hold these hearings.

Still, if you have a chance, keep an eye on what your local and state governments are doing. Scan a paper. Visit a web site. It's as simple as that. For the meetings you can make, do go. I am a firm believer that it makes a difference.

That being said, our meeting on eminent domain seemingly failed to convince the committee to cut off at the root the use of eminent domain for private development. The "expert" testimony of a town lawyer and their own hesitations made them think they might not be able to handle blighted neighborhoods or industrial parks unless they still had that power.

I wanted to respond, had I been able to give another statement, that we are all big boys and girls in this state. We don't need, and often don't want nanny governments coming in to try and revitalize an area. We want businesses to come in and families to follow. If you have to be involved, give them a tax break for moving in there. That's a fairly common incentive, and seems to work.

My feeling after that meeting is this. The chairman of the committee, David Wolkins, a very good man in his own right, seemed to be begging for constructive ideas. Well, I for one am going to start corresponding with him and offer my ideas. It only hinders if you don't provide input and allows those without our best interests in mind to provide their own input. I figure it's a no-brainer. In the meantime, I'm going to post the info from my friend Mike Kole's comments on an earlier eminent domain post on how to contact the chairman of this commmittee. By all means, feel free to contact him.

1-800-382-9841.
State Representative Dave Wolkins
Indiana House of Representatives
Room 401-8, Statehouse
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Trucking Ice to Ski Slopes

By now, you've likely read the story of truckloads of ice meant for the Katrina victims being purchased by the federal government and then FEMA ordering it to be shipped to Maine.

Spokesperson Peter Dewitt says as many as 200 trucks could come to the city by the end of the week.The trucks are storing the ice at Americold, a company with a warehouse on Read Street in Portland. People who live nearby say all the traffic has been baffling them for days.

Apparently they drove to Louisiana and then were told by FEMA after a few days to drive to Maine to store it. The reason could be, you know, because it's cold in Maine and the ice should keep or something... I mean, everyone knows those southern states are perpetually hot and ice can't survive there...

Sorry, just trying to think like a Fed for a moment. I'll stop hitting myself in the head with a hammer now. Ah, there we go, back to reality.

Do we have to say why this is ridiculous? Or can it be seen for what it is, another example of the government being clueless in the face of anything important to its citizens. It's not just a matter of elected officials. This isn't a Republican or Democrat thing. This is a giant, bloated federal bureaucracy thing. Of course there are good apples among the Feds, and a lot of individuals who perform outstandingly. God bless them. The trick is that they are in the minority, a serious minority, in a sea of incompetence and failure. Elected officials must stand for eliminating every program and every official that proves to be an unnecessary drain on our tax dollars. It's not as hard as you might think. After you've stopped screaming about whatever favorite pet program came to your mind being too important to get rid of, stop and actually consider what that or other programs have really done for Americans. More often than not, I believe, if you review it soberly, you'll discover the majority has done exactly squat.

An Interesting Question on the Role of Government

New York Law School, in a perhaps not-so-surprising move, is protesting the law requiring Constitution Day, a law authorized by Congress and authored by none other than the so- called "conscience of the Senate" Robert Byrd, a normally very left-leaning Democrat. The law requires that schools that receive taxpayer funding must teach students about the US Constitution on or around the 17th of September, the day the document was signed in 1787.

NY Law School has decided to spend the day discussing if Constitution Day is Constitutional. Fascinating. More specifically, they plan this.

Panelists will consider the constitutionality of the requirement for schools to present programs or distribute materials relating to the United States Constitution on or about Sept. 17 each year, and they will discuss potentially more appropriate ways to teach Americans about the Constitution.

According to New York Law School, the requirement "resembles a federally mandated educational curriculum -- a mandate that many people would argue is not actually permitted by the Constitution."

I get the sneaking suspicion the Law School does not have any trouble with the feds funding other matters of dubious constitutionality, like Welfare, Social Security, and the endless stream of pork barrel projects that seem to flow like a river from Congress no matter who's in charge. But, who's to say? Certainly given the fact that the phrase "social justice" appears more than once in their Justice Action Center's pages, I doubt they're heavily conservative.

At the very least, I agree with them that the federal government mandating education requirements and even more so funding education requirements is not only ridiculous, but in fact unconstitutional. Nowhere in the Constitution does it speak of Congress funding education, and yet the US Department of Education has a budget of $71.5 billion this year alone.

Allow me to retort to the NYLS. Would you be amenable to providing that $71.5 billion back to the states to use as they saw fit in restoring their schools and educating the young? Is it better, in fact, for a bureaucracy isolated in Washington D.C. to determine how best to spend the citizens' money on education, or for state or local agencies on the front line? Not that they're perfect mind you, but they would likely be better.

Also, one wonders of course why they chose this piece of legislation over the mountain of others that deals with what the federal government mandates in terms of education. It almost seems a little of the case of fixing the barn door after the horses got out, raises another 3 generations and died. Of course, that they would choose to ignore social engineering programs to attack a mandate to study the founding document of our currrent system of government is amusing in and of itself. The irony simply drips from that premise.

Me, I wish they would just teach about the Constitution like they did when I was in school, or the umpteen generations before me. The only thing seemingly taught in public schools these days about it is how it was written by slave-owning dead white men. Seems as if such dialog is more meant to belittle it and reduce its significance, but as one might be aware, such are the tools of autocrats and despots throughout history. When you reduce the significance of such an impediment to social engineering, you can better shape and evolve society as you wish, and the Left certainly has learned the lessons of Lenin well.

Something about Glass Houses and Stones...

Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time. Ex-President Clinton, "Bubba" to his friends, has decided it's time to unleash his expert opinion on why the country is in such horrible shape. In this Yahoo article, he offers us many gems.

Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction."

The Iraq war diverted US attention from the war on terrorism "and undermined the support that we might have had," Bush said in an interview with an ABC's "This Week" programme.

Clinton said there had been a "heroic but so far unsuccessful" effort to put together an constitution that would be universally supported in Iraq.

I'd always assumed Clinton read MoveOn.Org's site, but this kind of confirms it. Those couldn't be more well-packaged if they'd come out of the Mall Courtesy Christmas Packaging Kiosk. Naturally, it's everything the Left wants to hear from their darling law breaker of a President. I can't understand a group that dismisses actual crimes committed by a man like Clinton that he was found guilty and disbarred in his own home state for, versus imagined crimes of a sitting President that they can find absolutely zero evidence on. That may just be me, of course.

On Hurricane Katrina, Clinton faulted the authorities' failure to evacuate New Orleans ahead of the storm's strike on August 29.

"If we really wanted to do it right, we would have had lots of buses lined up to take them out," Clinton.

Oh, you mean like these buses, Bill? The Left really needs to watch what talking points they feed him, especially ones with such accessible evidence that it was their own Party kin who helped facillitate this little fiasco.

On the US budget, Clinton warned that the federal deficit may be coming untenable, driven by foreign wars, the post-hurricane recovery programme and tax cuts that benefitted just the richest one percent of the US population, himself included.

Bubba and I may actually agree on part of that. The bloated federal budget, along with the idea of it getting more bloated by hurricane relief, gives me no comfort. Of course, Bill isn't alone with the tax cuts mantra. Good Old Eleanor Clift, who I believe still has a Tiger Beat pinup of President Clinton, gleefully agreed on the tax issue.

If there’s an upside to Katrina, it’s that the Republican agenda of tax cuts, Social Security privatization and slashing government programs is over.

It's as certain as Death and Taxes (ironically) that any excuse for the Left to talk up more taxes, like say a disaster, will bring them giddily out of the woodwork. This point should be enscribed on a plaque and hung in every public office in America. The only consideration for the Left is how much of your money they can squeeze out of you at the point of a gun and then what they can spend it on. Never will they consider this "your" money. It's theirs to spend on socialist programs and don't you forget it. Please shoot Ms. Clift an email if you disagree with that line of thinking. Should she actually respond, I'm sure it would be an entertaining read at the very least.

Update: The Media Research Center has a good summary of Clinton's spoon feeding of talking points from Tim "I'm really non-partisan" Russert and George "Pretty Boy" Stephanopoulos. It still amazes me how brazen our former Prevaricator in Chief can be to wag his finger even after everything that he's done and been convicted of and pretend that he knows better than the rest of America.

Tom Oliphant Can't See What the Big Deal Is...

Tom Oliphant, a well-known and very left-leaning columnist for the Boston Globe, illustrated quite well on PBS the other day how he can't understand what the big deal about the Kelo decision is.

Tom Oliphant, Boston Globe: "Well, what's interesting -- to me, anyway -- has been the much greater concentration on the social issues on the left side of that committee table than on the right. I mean, okay, defending the right to choose is a big deal and will be so for the next decade. I suspect it'll probably exist after another decade, though we're uncertain about what the form is. What surprised me today, given that Senators and Congressmen often will just simply reflect the heat they get from their constituents, is the vigorous nature of this opposition to a rather mundane eminent domain case from New London, Connecticut, this Kelo thing. I mean, as you know, this issue has been around for decades, especially connected with urban renewal.

It's the primary reason our sainted Brooklyn Dodgers became the Los Angeles Dodgers. But all the way down that side, the younger ones especially, who maybe aren't quite as used to the heat and the bright lights, were reflecting this. And Roberts was really pushing back, I thought. Much as he wouldn't give, he wouldn't talk to them about when life begins or when it ends, but he also was trying to explain to them, you know, almost like 'read the Kelo decision.' There was a very explicit connection there with the eminent domain involved with an urban redevelopment plan for the area as a whole.

And there wasn't anything all that special about it, really, and I think he expressed some mystification, that I felt here, and I think what Brownback, Coburn, I heard Lindsey Graham, too, I think were reflecting were younger Senators who got a lot of heat on an issue that they weren't expecting and reflected it."

See, it's all a big understanding, we're just latecomers who don't understand issues that were settled 30 or 40 years ago. We unwashed masses, those of us who cannot see how the Fifth Amendment could be used to justify the seizure of private land to give to other private figures by the government are really just backward cretins who thump our chests and make our Senators dance for us to appease our sense of outrage.

Wow, Oliphant's really got his finger on the pulse of America. And I'm sure everyone he knows voted for Kerry as well.

Let's try to explain something, Tom. In no way does anyone remotely right of center or libertarian consider this matter "settled". We see it, and rightly so, as a continuing violation, an erosion of rights by those more interested in collectivization and accumulation of power in the hands of government than in the people they represent. Brownback, Coburn, and oh Lindsey Graham too, seem to understand that just a little bit. They are new and thus not as entrenched in the facist thought of you and yours who believe you know better than the rest of society, not just educationally, but in deciding what is best. Your failure is that you continually do not refer back to the wellspring, the foundation of our law. You assume the socialism since the New Deal is all the law we have ever had or will ever have and that anything else is either from people below your concern or opinions that no longer are relevant in the modern age.

Luckily for the rest of us, we see for what it is that such opinions are more relevant now than they ever were. Swallow these tasty morsels of logic from the great James Madison himself.

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Amen, brother...

Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.

And so we have...

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

60 years after the New Deal, 40 years after the Great Society, by George I think James is onto something here... This is what Oliphant needs to review. After you get done with 1st year government and US History, give me a call Tommie, and we'll play this game again.

David Limbaugh Breaks Down the Argument

Once again, the esteemed David Limbaugh has produced a well-written piece regarding the Pledge case now working its way through the socialist 9th US Circuit. He makes it very clear that not only could the "Under God" phrase be ignored with a 'nuance' from the Court that the Pledge is primarily patriotic and thus such references are incidental, but also that they shouldn't have to in such a case.

The Establishment Clause was never intended to apply to such removed, indirect nods toward religion. And it does not guarantee our right not to be offended or made to feel uncomfortable.

But more importantly, it was not intended to be used as a sword against the free exercise of religion. By going out of its way to find Establishment Clause violations on such tenuous grounds, the Court deprives students who want to recite the Pledge of their free exercise rights. In this way, the religion clauses are turned on their heads to achieve a result entirely opposite from that intended by the Framers.

Those who wish to restrict freedom often make you look with blinders at whatever little part they think aids that restriction. Clauses like the State Militia or Establishment Clauses are trotted out as whole and without accompaniment, ignoring the Free Exercise and Shall Not Infringe Clauses. It makes it easier to argue if you can ignore inconvenient realities like this, and the left most certainly does. Also consider that the Bill of Rights enshrines certain rights, but was obviously never meant to be an exhaustive list or to limit what were the rights of the States or the People. And yet, the States and the People are routinely the victims of this misuse of language, as in this case of the left's ridiculous agenda.

Only in San Francisco...

I've been there, loved the city, but after seeing the people there and their general mentality, only there could something this ridiculous have found root...

A federal judge has declared it unconstitutional to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.

It's happened before with the famed Michael Newdow, avowed atheist, and it has now happened again, based on the little loophole the Supreme Court left him. He found new families to be offended that the Pledge uses the phrase "Under God" and is shepherding them through the court system. This one will likely go to Mother of All Battles status. Expect the Right and Left to mobilize fully over it. Whether anything will actually come of it, hard to say. One never knows what nefarious and odious compromises might arise out of such a conflict.

This is one of those very big mud-slinging contests where everyone will get dirty. Let's dig in and get ready for the show. For a good primer, I advise reading David Limbaugh's excellent work, Persecution. He lays the groundwork for this battle quite well. Acknowledging that God has a place in our society is hardly establishing a Federal religion. It acknowledges, as our Founding Fathers often did, His place in our existence. That I see no problem with. If you strip away their religious and moral base, nothing defends the true Constitution, nothing.

A Republican Says This?

Delay apparently is declaring 'victory' in cutting spending in a recent Washington Times article. I did a quick double-check, and yes this guy is in fact a Republican, allegedly quite the conservative Republican, but at this moment I think we might need to call the psychiatric ward. Somebody's done flew his coop. Let's examine.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said yesterday that Republicans have done so well in cutting spending that he declared an "ongoing victory," and said there is simply no fat left to cut in the federal budget.

Kind of like a 400 pound man looking in a mirror and thinking he's dead-sexy thin. Tommie, I have a little news for you, the longest running joke in the history of this country, from Will Rogers on to today, is just how full of pork and fat that 'victory' of a budget you're holding. I wonder if Delay has trouble reading. Perhaps he's actually been an illiterate all this time and didn't know what the pretty pages said. Let's reenlighten with this James Madison quote.

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

And there it is. Tommie, did you get that one? Don't you think the guy that wrote most of the document you're currently dancing on might be onto something here? Of course, he's already answered that.

"My answer to those that want to offset the spending is sure, bring me the offsets, I'll be glad to do it. But nobody has been able to come up with any yet," the Texas Republican told reporters at his weekly briefing.

Godsakes, someone get me a laser printer, 20,000 sheets of paper, some fresh toner and a dump truck. I think we can have him a full account of all the programs that should be cut in a week assuming the printer doesn't give out.

Tom Delay has been in office too long or lived inside the BubbleBoy mentality of Washington for far to many years to truly understand the idea of limited government. Maybe someone needs a little refresher course in what it means to be the party of small government.

Could He Be Anymore of a Cliche?

Congressman William Jefferson (D-La.) has been implicated in a scandal involving the misallocation of rescue efforts as he used a National Guard truck and crew to retrieve personal belongings from his house.

Military sources tells ABC News that Jefferson, an eight-term Democratic congressman, asked the National Guard that night to take him on a tour of the flooded portions of his congressional district. A 5-ton military truck and a half dozen military police were dispatched.

Now that doesn't sound so bad. Sounds pretty innocent, a Congressman wanting to see what he could do to help. And it's rough out there, lots of shootings, he needs an escort most likely. Until...

Lt. Col. Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard tells ABC News that during the tour, Jefferson asked that the truck take him to his home on Marengo Street, in the affluent uptown neighborhood in his congressional district. According to Schneider, this was not part of Jefferson's initial request.

The water reached to the third step of Jefferson's house, a military source familiar with the incident told ABC News, and the vehicle pulled up onto Jefferson's front lawn so he wouldn't have to walk in the water. Jefferson went into the house alone, the source says, while the soldiers waited on the porch for about an hour.

Whoa, we gotta stop where? So valuable Guard assets that could have been rescuing someone are stuck outside some Congressman's house for an hour while he collects his goodies. Nice. Now we've reached scandalous proportions. But wait, there's more!

Finally, according to the source, Jefferson emerged with a laptop computer, three suitcases, and a box about the size of a small refrigerator, which the enlisted men loaded up into the truck.

Jefferson said the trip was entirely appropriate. It took only a few minutes to retrieve his belongings, he said, and the truck stayed at his house for an hour in part to assist neighbors.

Oh come on now, we're getting into t he realm of the outrageous. He's bringing out a refrigerator-sized box? Maybe it's only like a dorm mini fridge. And a laptop? They don't have computers in Washington? And three suitcases, apparently his wardrobe has thinned out in DC as well. What a schmuck. And the 'only a few minutes' line is priceless. You got all that packed and ready in 'only a few minutes'. Nice.

"This wasn't about me going to my house. It was about me going to my district," he said.

Pay attention folks, it takes a Congressman to lie so convincingly to the world when caught that red-handed.

Oh, but that's not the end of this story, not even close...

The Louisiana National Guard tells ABC News the truck became stuck as it waited for Jefferson to retrieve his belongings. Two weeks later, the vehicle's tire tracks were still visible on the lawn.

The soldiers signaled to helicopters in the air for aid. Military sources say a Coast Guard helicopter pilot saw the signal and flew to Jefferson's home. The chopper was already carrying four rescued New Orleans residents at the time.

A rescue diver descended from the helicopter, but the congressman decided against going up in the helicopter, sources say. The pilot sent the diver down again, but Jefferson again declined to go up the helicopter.

After spending approximately 45 minutes with Jefferson, the helicopter went on to rescue three additional New Orleans residents before it ran low on fuel and was forced to end its mission.

So now he's got a helicopter and rescue diver, assets arguably more valuable than the truck and MP's, tied up trying to get the Congressman, but he won't leave because the National Guard has his luggage. And that's a matched alligator set, by the way, can't just leave those with scruffy working class. So how many people suffered because of this bs, because those assets weren't available to help elsewhere?

The Louisiana National Guard then sent a second 5-ton truck to rescue the first truck, and Jefferson and his personal items were returned to the Superdome.

So now we have two trucks, a coast guard helicopter and a rescue diver. If we get a rabbi and a Catholic priest, we've got a good bar joke in the works. This shameless jerk hasn't even felt an iota of shame from what I can see for what he did. And best of all, you won't see this story stay national. He's a Democrat. Most media outlets do the See No Evil, Hear No Evil when this happens.

Jefferson insisted the expedition did not distract from rescue efforts.

"They actually picked up a lot of people while we were there," he said. "The young soldier said, 'It's a good thing we came up here because a lot of people would not have been rescued had we not been in the neighborhood.'"

Yeah, the Congressman is still kind of bummed about that, if they hadn't had to rescue other Orleaners, he could have fit his plasma TV in the truck. It's for the good of the country, though. Everyone who should be blamed for making this worse of course has not been. The Mayor, whose primary job it was to oversee disaster relief (has there been one comparison between Nagin and Giuliani in the MSM?), the Governor for delaying her assistance for over 24 hours, or a corrupt Congressman for interrupting rescue ops for personal mission. should all be taking some blame as a useless bureaucracy that only hindered instead of helped. The left and MSM are only interested in blaming the President, because that's what they do.

With stories like these, one has to remember that there's a whole big bureaucracy out there that your tax dollars pay for, but that in moments like these doesn't do squat. They look out for themselves by and large, and everything is a political game, again played with other peoples' money. Just another thought to make you feel all warm and fuzzy when you go to the election booth in November on every even year.

Mahmoud Abbas Fiddled...

Or is it Ariel Sharon? Hard to say, but after the tragedy of people being ripped from that which they'd spent a lifetime building in Gush Katif, the Palestinians have shown what a truly civilized people they are. As the Israelis look in their rear views and Abbas celebrates, the Gazans raided and looted the former Israeli settlement at Gush Katif

But the violence went well beyond the scope of religious extremism and militancy. The stampede into Jewish settlements touched off large-scale looting by people from all walks of life, who were reeling from poverty after five years of intifada.

Many spoke of their first visit to the settlements as a chance to do one-stop shopping before the Palestinian security forces started to crack down on their escapades.

While housewives and unemployed men lugged off rubber, copper wire and sheet metal, stacked in trucks, vans, strapped on bicycles, ladders, or even donkey carts. Some men almost came to blows over who would cart away a bashed up water heater.

Maybe it's time for the Palestinians to do a little thing that we in the civilized world like to call "self control". Or perhaps they're just imitating the criminals in New Orleans. So this is the noble and ancient Palestinian culture? These are people who are ready for self-government? Please, this is a class of people who have been oppressed by their own leaders and made to fear the bogeyman of Israel so long, there is nothing remotely civilized about their society. They are an artificially created Third World culture, a creation of their own leaders and fellow Arab nations' greedy desires and international machinations, and now we see the result.

Even a 10-year-old boy, no more than four-feet-tall, was banging a tiny hammer at a door that was twice his size, hoping to surprise his parents with a replacement for the broken door at home since they couldn't afford one on their own.

The Next Generation...

And let's not forget the sensitive respective Muslims who don't hate Jews, just Israelis.

Religious extremists Hamas and Islamic Jihad raised their flags on the community's temple and smashed windows. In another show of force, black-hooded Islamic Jihad militants toting rockets and Kalashnikovs threatened to burn the religious sanctuary to the ground Monday.

Very tolerant, model of civilized behavior. Anyone who doesn't see this whole mess as an uncouched disaster must be blind, deaf, and very dumb. My heart goes out to the poor residents of Gush Katif who were ripped from their homes. They are further casualties in a war that will definitely end badly, no matter the outcome.

A Mind Sure is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Read, fellow travelers, read. It's the best advice I can give anyone on the left or the right. The only way to have intelligent discussions and to prove your point is to be educated on that point. So often in debating someone on an issue, any issue, I find that they have failed to do the homework and thus usually do two things, embarrass themselves, and waste their fellow debater's time.

I just finished the Politically Incorrect Guide to American History by Thomas E Woods Jr. and 1776 by David McCullough.

Politically Incorrect Guide to American History is, as the left has called it, a "cherry picking" of moments in history, although it does provide good coverage. It is called "revisionist" by Publishers Weekly, but I find it and books like it more restorative of American History. From even my sheltered Catholic school days of the 70's and 80's, I recall being taught a history that I also heard from my grandparents. I do not hear that history when I listen to my daughter telling me about what she learned in school, or when I review sites like Tongue Tied and its ilk. I hear a warped retelling, designed to fit an agenda that dissolves the links to the past in order to reforge the nation and the culture in the image of those who would see the ideas and ideals of the Founders erased and forgotten. Books such as this one are an excellent start in taking back our history, the history of the real America.

1776 is sort of a pop history book at the moment. Its author, David McCullough is quite an excellent researcher and presents the more human side to the early members of the Revolution and the problems and doubts they faced. It teaches important lessons that allow us to better understand who these people were and what they were fighting for, and helps us also to see how they matured into the legends they have become. I did not find the book particularly biased. McCullough seemed to want to present a side of the early war that doesn't get covered in the mainstream texts, not only from a standpoint of the people, but from the military aspect as well. I recommend it highly.

I'm currently working through Oliver North's War Stories - Operation Iraqi Freedom. I find myself laughing one moment and then deeply moved another. North, love him or hate him, puts a very human face on the soldiers who fought their way across Iraq in 2003. His writing of his time as a FOX News correspondent during Iraqi Freedom is that of a typical old soldier, but one who doesn't believe he has all the answers. If you want to know a bit of what it was really like for those soldiers, and what the real story (not the current attempt at revisionism is trying to forge it into) of the buildup in the region and its reasons, you should really pick up this book.

I'm muddling through Into the Storm by Tom Clancy and Fred Franks, a story of the First Gulf War (remember when we called the Iran/Iraq conflict the Gulf War?). The initial part of the book covers the modern history of the Army and its rebuilding after Vietnam, so if you're not into that, it's a little slow. Even if you are into it, it's a little slow. Franks is a bit dry, but good still at conveying the overall feel of the era. I'm eager to get into the section detailing the VII Corps operations, but it is a slow read. Still, there aren't many books discussing the First Gulf War, and you take what you can get.

I'm eager to look into two works, Paul Williams' new release, Al Qaeda Connection, and Congressman Curt Weldon's new book Countdown to Terror. Both shed some light on how inept our government has been at responding to the Jihadist threat to the United States, noting once again in their own way that the one thing we should be entrusting out government with (our defense) is the one thing at which it consistently fails.

Thus ends my first book review and recommendation to anyone who has the time. Take the time to read, and choose your books carefully. Make sure they can provide you with some useful information and not just hate-filled propaganda.

All Opposed? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

For those who voted for this ridiculous extra percentage sales tax (and you know who you are), may I just say bravo. From the Indianapolis Star, note these amusing situations.

The Carmel City Council voted in front of an empty room after it decided to hold an unusual Tuesday night meeting for the vote. Council member Fred Glaser asked in vain to postpone the decision to allow more public input.

"There was not adequate public notice by Carmel," said (John) Livengood, who hurried to attend the meeting after learning of it late Tuesday afternoon.

No kidding. Not adequate public notice? No citizens were actually there!!! Why don't they just meet in the Men's Room at the City Hall? They might have had a bigger local response. "All in Favor?" *Flush*, "The aye's have it!"

Look, I know this was back in June, but not only was my blog not around to publicly chastise them, it's worth noting especially now that we see the ridiculous stadium deal that got us in this mess just made the rest of us look like even bigger saps.

"This is another tax on the citizens of Noblesville, and we can't call it anything else," (Terry) Busby said. "But we're in a financial position where we really need the money. There's no sense in delaying this."

Read: We can't figure a better way to soak our town constituents any other way that they won't scream bloody murder, and we're so inept at handling the books that there's not enough cash for those half dozen pet projects of ours as well as the job for my cousin's daughter's drop-out boyfriend paying $50k a year that we just HAD to tax your dumb hick @sses!

Noblesville Mayor John Ditslear didn't buy it.

"We're talking about 10 cents on 10 bucks," Ditslear said. "Yes, it may be a new tax, but it's not a significant one."

Because at every restaurant up here the food costs less than 10 bucks! A family of three easily spends $40 or $50 for dinner, depending on where you go. In addition to the other 7 cents on the dollar, yes, in fact, Mayor Ditslear, that adds up. On top of that, it's the principle, because you and those like you use this to justify every damn tax you throw at us. Oh, it's just $200 on the property tax, no big deal. It's just $50 on the auto excise tax. It's just another $1 a gallon for gas or $10 a pack for cigarettes. Surely the average citizen doesn't have a problem with THAT!

Amazingly, Mayor, we do, and let me say categorically and for the record, and I think I speak for most everyone, when I say take your tax and stick it where the sun don't shine.

Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard said the tax would be paid in part by people who don't pay Carmel property taxes but who work there and use city services.

"It's a way for those people to help when they eat lunch here."

And all the families that live in Carmel who don't want to leave Carmel for dinner and lunch, or did you forget them? Oh, I forgot, your version of Carmel doesn't seem to include families does it Mayor Brainard? It seems to focus on turning our beloved town into a bricked-over Castleton. I pay Carmel property taxes, Mayor Brainard. Does that mean I get an exemption from your B.S. tax? It's amazing what people will use to justify their ridiculous proposals, even to the point of either flat out lying or deluding themselves. And you thought only Democrats did that kind of thing!

In Carmel, council member Mark Rattermann was the lone vote against the tax.

In Noblesville, Rowland and Council President Alan Hinds voted against the tax.

God bless you guys, really. I'm always impressed when a politician can just say no.

Mayors Brainard and Ditslear argued passing the tax would help keep property taxes low.
That's why Carmel Council President Kevin Kirby voted for it.

"It's moving away from property taxes and toward user fees," Kirby said. "The food and beverage tax is a user fee. It's a choice whether or not you go out to eat."

I have to give those three that. We do choose whether or not to frequent the restaurants in our own town, and if we don't like their tax, we don't have to economically support the businesses in our own communities. Although, honestly that's sort of a dumb thing to promote if you're a mayor. "Noblesville and Carmel... you can live here, we guess, but for godsake don't patronize our businesses. They're only for people who work or have lunch here!"

And anything to keep property taxes down, which are already an unnecessary burden on the people, but one could also make the point that if the current tax base, which used to work, isn't now, perhaps the Mayors need to look at their fun city budgets and keep them a little more trim and slim. I know that's the last thing government thinks about anymore, but I'm sort of old-fashioned that way.

Buying Million Dollar Babies Gold-Plated Diapers

For those in Indiana, especially those in central Indiana, you are likely soon to feel the bite of a number of sales tax increases designed to pay for the ridiculously expensive $500 million new Colts Stadium in Indianapolis.

Not only that, but several towns around Indianapolis have all jumped on the band wagon and decided to start charging an extra percent tax because they are greedy scum bags. But I digress, if you live in or around Hamilton County, you know the town councils are greedy scumbags, kind of like water's wet and the sky is (usually) blue. I'll discuss that later.

That digression aside, it appears that the Colts have finally signed off on the deal to build the new stadium and stick around for a few more decades. The Colts allegedly will foot part of the bill, although they did get a break on their one sticking point.

Kenley said one of the final sticking points, a $3 tax on Colts tickets authorized by the state legislature to spread the cost burden, would not be implemented. The Colts have argued against the tax because fans will already be paying a 6 percent admissions tax on all events at the stadium.

State officials decided the $2.5 million the ticket tax would raise annually wasn't necessary to finance the project. The team will pay $100 million, and the other 80 percent of the cost will come from increased taxes on prepared food and beverages in the Indianapolis metro area, as well as a tax on hotels and rental cars in Marion County.

Of course, what's not mentioned in all this, with the Colts skating out on the $3 ticket tax, is the fact that they will get the proceeds from selling the naming rights on the Dome, conservatively $1 million over 30 years, plus they get a $48 million kickback as part of the deal, plus they get a large percentage of the usage fees for the dome generated from non-football use. The esteemed Abdul Hakim-Shabazz at our local WXNT 1430 has estimated that after all these sweetheart backdoor angles, the Colts will come out with over $80 million over and above what they're originally putting in, an over 80% return on their investment in a project they will fully benefit from and only have to put in 20% of the startup cost.

Now, I'm not sure about you, but that's got to be one of the sweetest deals ever negotiated. There are loan sharks and late-night infomercial salesman looking at this muttering "Irsay you mangnificent bastard!" This, my friends is what corporate welfare provides us. It gets us gold-plated diapers for crybaby millionares who feel that everyone, especially the people that live within 50 miles of them, owes them a living and a playground apparently.

Hat's off to Irsay and crew. They pulled off the scam of the century and we and likely our grandchildren will be paying for the short-sighted retarded sell-out behavior of our mayors, town councils, and state legislature. This socialist money redistribution scheme will go down as one of the worst ideas we the citizens of central Indiana ever allowed to be floated. I can say nothing except that we voted for these morons. I'm still waiting for the explanation of how and why doing so was such a good idea. Someone, please, tell me how voting in these tax-loving millionare coddling schmucks has now helped us. I dare you.

A Fine Example of Real Americans

Much of the reporting on the aftermath of Katrina revolves around who to blame and why the powers-that-be did not move faster to protect the little guy. Most people interviewed who have been rescued from New Orleans claim they either didn't have the money or resources to move or to protect themselves over the long term. This, we are told over and over, is the norm. People are just sheeple and need big Mama government to come and save them.

Then you see stories like this story on Fox News.

When night falls, Charlie Hackett climbs the steps to his boarded-up window, takes down the plywood, grabs his 12-gauge shotgun and waits. He is waiting for looters and troublemakers, for anyone thinking his neighborhood has been abandoned like so many others across the city.

Two doors down, John Carolan is doing the same on his screened-in porch, pistol by his side. They are not about to give up their homes to the lawlessness that has engulfed New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. "We kind of together decided we would defend what we have here and we would stay up and defend the neighborhood," says Hackett, an Army veteran with a snow-white beard and a business installing custom kitchens.

"I don't want to kill anybody," he says, "but I'd sure like to scare 'em."

With generators giving them power, food to last for weeks and several guns each for protection, the men are two of a scattered community holed up across the residential streets of the city's Garden District, a lush neighborhood with many antebellum mansions.

These people have stuck together and are protecting themselves. One reason, it would appear is because they didn't want to leave their property to the mercy of thieves and looters. The other reason, it would seem, is because they feel they could do a better job than the government in protecting themselves.

Of course, you could make the argument that they appear to have spent lots of time stocking up and not everyone can do that. To which I reply BS! This is America. I've been poor, I've been poorer than poor, and lived around people just as poor, and amazingly we all still had multiple TV's, cable, fully stocked fridges, and enough money to get around on. There wasn't a reason, even with only a few day's notice, most people couldn't have focused the money to buy that extra pair of Nike's or even the utility and grocery buget into survival supplies, even from the gub'mint check so many use as their primary source of income.

They didn't do it because they expected the government to help them, and look what it cost us all. That is the true legacy of the socialist nanny state; a ruined city with hundreds of thousands of people blaming someone else for life's difficulties.

People like Charlie and John are the shining examples that remind us what is was like when the country was populated by real Americans, and maybe can be again some day.

Shot Across the Bow of Reality

Joseph Cannon over at Cannonfire is a man with a lot of hate, and most of it is misdirected. However, even in his wild ranting of real global warming causing Katrina to purposely pick New Orleans to destroy and how Bush allegedly caused the whole thing, I saw one point in his fantasy rant that actually could be used constructively. I attach below a bit of his rather bitter and particulary assinine rant.

We Californians and New Yorkers already pay far more to the federal government than we receive -- unlike the folks in Texas and Alabama and Louisiana, who take and take and TAKE. And then they take some more -- even as they lecture us about spending. What sheer gall!Now those mother- (and sister- and brother-) fucking red state LEECHES want Californians to open their wallets even wider. Those Bush-loving Darwin-hating quasi-retarded brutishly-primitive hillbillies want us to fork over more of our hard-earned money in order to get them out of a deadly fix they brought upon themselves. Newsflash, y'all: If you want money from us blue-staters, you're also going to have to listen to our words. That's the price.No, we will not listen to anything you have to say in response. You are leeches. Leeches do not have the right to a response.You want us to give you a hand-out? Fine, we'll give it to you -- but ONLY if you sit still, hold your bloody tongues (bite 'em until they bleed, if you have to) and let a much-deserved lecture sink in. No lecture, no hand-out. It's that simple. You have to pay the price; otherwise, get the money from Jesus.The lecture comes down to this: BUSH CAUSED THIS DISASTER.

So, while it's nice that he thinks no one but Leftists have the right to speak their minds (sounds awfully like ole' Uncle Joe "the Steel man" Stalin, no?), he actually makes a point I've been trying to make to the left for years. If you don't want someone like Bush deciding where your tax money goes (and he doesn't, that's Congress' job), then perhaps you'll finally agree that the whole idea of tax redistribution, in which the federal government takes oodles from the States and the people and then redirects as they see fit, is ready for the scrap heap.

If you or anyone on the Left truly believes that bile you're spewing, perhaps you'll finally join with those of us who would rather see the States take care of themselves and use that money to their benefit. Perhaps it's a pipe dream, but reminding them how much they lose to the Feds might actually shock them into the reality that this whole taxation with minimal to no representation isn't all it's cracked up to be. Of course, that's just my opinion.

Fevered Ego's

You just can't get funnier than this folks. I didn't think it was possible in a tragedy to have this much comedy, but apparently Sean Penn can do slaptick after all.

Sean Penn's rescue bid sinks
From correspondents in New Orleans05sep05

EFFORTS by Hollywood actor Sean Penn to aid New Orleans victims stranded by Hurricane Katrina foundered badly overnight, when the boat he was piloting to launch a rescue attempt sprang a leak.Penn had planned to rescue children waylaid by Katrina's flood waters, but apparently forgot to plug a hole in the bottom of the vessel, which began taking water within seconds of its launch.

The actor, known for his political activism, was seen wearing what appeared to be a white flak jacket and frantically bailing water out of the sinking vessel with a red plastic cup.
When the boat's motor failed to start, those aboard were forced to use paddles to propel themselves down the flooded New Orleans street.

Asked what he had hoped to achieve in the waterlogged city, the actor replied: "Whatever I can do to help."

With the boat loaded with members of Penn's entourage, including a personal photographer, one bystander taunted the actor: "How are you going to get any people in that thing?"

I know it's a step away from our usual discussion, but sometimes I can't resist picking on the Fevered Ego's of this world (to quote the late great Bill Hicks) and pointing them out for the self-righteous schmucks that they really are.

Straight Shooter

Ben Stein is likely one of the straightest shooters I know. The man has been in politics long enough to summarize things into very plain English for those outside the Beltway. His latest article in the American Spectator explains and ridicules the amazing blame game that started before Katrina had even stopped churning, both of the President and those trying to help.

President Bush is not the greatest President we've ever had. He's a firm believer in the nanny state, despite statements to the contrary, and he wants nothing to do with addressing the issue of our sieve-like borders, but I will say this. In a tragedy of this or any magnitude, he's a good man to have by your side, and despite what's being said, he has excelled with Katrina.

But I digress, read Stein's article and it should crystallize and refute all the arguments of the left rather succinctly for you.

William Rehnquist R.I.P.

Of course by now all have heard of the loss of Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The Chief Justice lost his battle with thyroid cancer last night. American Princess has a wonderful piece on him and on the future. It is sad to see the loss of anyone, but Rehnquist was the leader of an attempt to maintain and restore individual rights for the average US citizen. He led the fight against the collectivists (Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter, and Stevens) who sought to rewrite the Constitution as if they were there Founding Fathers. Some would say he has been not so successful, being saddled with several Justices who, even with the promise of going right in some instances, swung far left. His attempts to retain the intent of the Founders were strong, but often thwarted by the likes of Kennedy and O'Connor, who notoriously vacillated between what was right and what was popular. His only true allies, Scalia and Thomas, were as equally dedicated to his beliefs, and we can but pray that the President nominates a like-minded individual to succeed him.

I honestly wish Rehnquist had retired after 2001, when there was a good chance a constructionist could be chosen to replace him and when Bush still had another election to run and would have been more pressured to pick a like-minded replacement. Sadly, he chose to fight until the end, possibly believing that another Kennedy or O'Connor might take his place; something I'm sure he dreaded. He might have seen in this President that he is not a serious conservative and therefore not someone who could be guaranteed to appoint the right person. Whatever his reasons, now we are left with the aftermath.

The only hope for we citizens is that more justices like Rehnquist get appointed. The idea of a "Living Constitution" so sickens me as to make the thought of more leftists on the bench intolerable. It's almost as if the whole idea of how our government was meant to function has been forgotten. The Court over the years has become a social arbiter, something no one ever expected it to be. Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas fought to return the Court to its proper role, a role even still stretched beyond its original intent. I pray that battle will continue and succeed.

I would ask those on the left, the socialists seeking to remake America in their own image, would you want conservatives deciding social issues for you, like what your "social rights" are, for example? Or even your individual rights? I have a sneaking suspicion the answer would be no. The focus of the Left is not to educate the rest of America to what the real function of the Supreme Court is, as they see it. Their focus is to use that body to pursue an agenda they have not been able to sell to the American people.

Surprisingly, even the Leftist Four on the Court are now turning against their own and voting on issues the Court has no business reviewing, like medical marijuana. Whether such things as abortion or drugs or saying Under God in the Pledge are right or wrong (and we all have our opinions on them don't we?), I fail to understand how even the most die hard leftist could think that nine old people forming a Judicial Oligarchy have the right to decide those issues for the other 280 million of us.

Rehnquist was a good man and a fighter for the individual American. Let us always remember him for that and let us pray his loss in body is not lost in spirit on our Supreme Court.

Global Warming Caused by Hysterical Leftists, New Study Finds.

Everyone from the Germans to the leftist editorials at the Boston Globe to the LA Times to the venerable Time magazine is screaming bloody murder that Katrina and future storms are a by product of the global warming bogeyman. The general consensus seems to be that a combination of not signing the Kyoto Protocols, a socialist nightmare if there ever was one, George Bush being an evil president, and capitalists and Americans in general being dismissive of Mother Nature has created this horrible catastrophe.

Leave it to a group with zero shame to blame the source of their hatred for what nature does. I suppose if it had been a comet strike for example, the same people would now be getting blamed. The fact is, it just isn't so. These Chicken Littles have been running around yelling that the Climate Sky is Falling for the better part of 40 years now. As Thomas Sowell notes in a recent editorial:

"Back in the 1970s, the hysteria was about global cooling and the prospect of a new ice age. A National Academy of Sciences report back then led Science magazine to conclude in its March 1, 1975, issue that a long 'ice age is a real possibility.'According to the April 28, 1975, issue of Newsweek, 'the earth's climate seems to be cooling down.' A note of urgency was part of the global cooling hysteria then as much as it is part of today's global warming hysteria. According to the February, 1973, issue of Science Digest, 'Once the freeze starts, it will be too late'."

All that seems to get accomplished when this is discussed is that the coffers of profit-based groups like the Sierra Club (yes they're now profit-based) swell with money from people who won't do their homework. Environmentalism is just as big a business as the corprorations involved in logging, energy production, and pharmaceuticals the left likes to assault and it's perhaps more greedy and disingenous. I can't recall the last time I saw a serious news piece in print in a mag like Time or on the Big Three networks where any facet of environmentalism or its economic goals were ever seriously questioned. I probably could give the hour and day of the last news quote I saw blaming one of the left's corporate or political enemies for some horrible crime against the Earth.

The reality is, once you get past everyone having an agenda and look at the facts involved, you'll find Katrina isn't any more special than any of its fellow hurricanes. See Glassman's quote:

"Katrina has nothing to do with global warming. Nothing. It has everything to do with the immense forces of nature that have been unleashed many, many times before and the inability of humans, even the most brilliant engineers, to tame these forces.
Giant hurricanes are rare, but they are not new. And they are not increasing. To the contrary. Just go to the website of the National Hurricane Center and check out a table that lists hurricanes by category and decade. The peak for major hurricanes (categories 3,4,5) came in the decades of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, when such storms averaged 9 per decade. In the 1960s, there were 6 such storms; in the 1970s, 4; in the 1980s, 5; in the 1990s, 5; and for 2001-04, there were 3. Category 4 and 5 storms were also more prevalent in the past than they are now. As for Category 5 storms, there have been only three since the 1850s: in the decades of the 1930s, 1960s and 1990s." -- James K. Glassman

The statistics don't lie in this case. Strip away the leftist socialist fantasy agenda and you're left with reality. Hurricanes are a real phenomen that have been around since long before we were here and they'll be around long after we're gone. It is sheer arrogance to believe we could seriously affect or alter how the climate model of this planet works. That's several years of geology education talking.

Katrina was horrible, but neither Exxon or Bush or the Keebler Elves were responsible for it. Amazingly enough, even the leftists aren't responsible for the hurricane. And consequently, they aren't responsible for global warming, although I'm not sure about the Keebler Elves. You can't tell me there isn't some ultra toxic world-destroying formula involved in making soft batch chocolate chip cookies. That's just unnatural.