America Coming Together Comes Apart

The Democrats’ great hope goes away.

Byron York writes about the demise of "America Coming Together" in this article from The National Review. For those of you who may not remember, ACT was a left wing activist group formed for the 2004 election and which worked to elect John Kerry and the Democrats. Funded in lavish amounts by George Soros, ACT had grandiose plans of turning around a string of Democratic electoral defeats. But the reality was that for the most part, it was just another Democratic activist group talking to other already Democratic activist groups.

In the end, you can't win elections unless you are able to get centrist voters out to support your candidate. And the Hate America Left just wasn't interested in doing that. On the contrary, the last election was notable for the fact that The Angry Left spent a great amount of time and money to tell American voters how stupid, bigoted and racist they all were and how they were evil to support George Bush and the war on terrorism. This is, of course, what Democrats consider to be a winning strategy of getting the "little people" to vote for a millionaire elitist who is known for asking in imperious tones, "DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"

“Mad Max” Stands with the Right

A Left-Right coalition for property.

Maxine Waters is a loon. But even a loon can be right from time to time as Rich Lowry writes in this article from The National Review. Representative Waters understands that the recent Kelo decision from The Supreme Court is mostly a danger to those who own homes, but are neither rich nor powerful and who are not well-connected. It stands to reason that these are the people who are most likely to have their homes stolen from them by their local governments and given to whatever powerful special interest has the most political pull with the local zoning board. Thus even Maxine Waters understands the importance of protecting the private property rights of the individual homeowner against the power of big government and big corporate interests. Who would have thought it?

60 Years Later

Considering Hiroshima.

Victor Davis Hanson writes about the history of WWII in this essay that looks at the use of atomic weapons against the empire of Japan. These days the politically correct crowd has plenty to say about how America was wrong to use those bombs, but somehow they never seem to be able to explain the reasons why it would have been better to go the much more bloody route of a conventional invasion. Thinking historians, such as Hanson, are in agreement that such an invasion would have cost many more lives both American and Japanese. But this never seems to enter into the calculations of the "America is always wrong" cocktail party set.

Thank goodness they weren't running things back then.

Democrats' New Strategy: Almost Winning

Mark Steyn of The Chicago Sun-Times takes a look at the new Democratic strategery of "nearly winning the biggest political upset in recent history." This of course is another way of saying loser. Steyn points out what everybody knows; that the Democrats as a party have become soft and flabby. They have no intellectual energy or new ideas. They have old ideas of course. But those ideas just didn't pan out that well when socialism proved to be a massive failure everywhere it was tried. So now they have nothing to fall back on but hatred of Republicans and George Bush and blaming their problems on everything and everyone but themselves.

And one has to ask what they will do in the near future to solve their problems, if anything. They should be able to grasp the fact that the President is not going to be running again. But Democrats are still acting as though they have to stop Bush from achieving power. It is a weird dynamic from a so-called reality-based party. Of course the truth is that the Democrats are caught in an intellectual cul-de-sac from which there is no escape unless they are willing to question their most fundamental assumptions about the nature of the world in which we live.

The reality is that both theory as well as practice show the success of limited government and democratic capitalism. The Great Socialist Utopia is a mirage which will never be achieved in practice without the kind of tyranny and bloodshed which we commonly saw in the 20th century. And no one who has a choice wants to live under such a repressive system. Only democratic capitalism protects the rights and dignity of the individual while making progress and achievement possible. And the public knows that the Democrats are standing in the way blocking the way to that progress in any way they can.

Speaking of shivering coatless girls in Bush's America, spare a thought for the underprivileged urchins of the Bronx. The Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club, a nonprofit social-services organization in New York, receives millions of dollars in government funds to give disadvantaged youth in poor neighborhoods a leg up the ladder of life. But mysteriously much of the money wound up being diverted to the coffers of Air America, the liberal talk-radio network whose ratings are yet another example of "deferred success." The needs of disadvantaged Al Franken and his pals apparently outweigh those of Bronx welfare recipients. Perhaps Janeane Garofalo is the coatless girl John Edwards was talking about all those months. Air America looks like the broadcast version of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program, whereby money earmarked to save starving moppets somehow winds up in the bank accounts of bloated self-described do-gooders with political connections.

Air America Listeners to the Rescue?

David Reinhard of The Oregonian thinks that all 19 AirMoonbat listeners should consider motivating themselves to do something proactive to clean up the scandal. At the very least they could have a rock concert to "raise awareness."

Liberals are always letting the rest of us know just how much sharper and more compassionate they are than the rest of us. Now it's time to prove it: Air America Needs You.

First, its listeners should unleash their "we know better" candlepower and their you-can't-fool-us cynicism to get to the bottom of the Air America's kids-for-kilowatts scandal. And, clearly, a scheme that hurts children and Alzheimer's patients to fund left-wing outreach should appeal to progressives' dark sense of irony.

Second, Air America's listeners should go beyond the network owners on the financial front. Simply repaying funds to club isn't enough. Really, how cover-your-assets corporatist is that? Leftist listeners need to really showcase that storied compassion of theirs. Yes, how about a radio-thon to raise funds for kids and Alzheimer's patients across this broad land? Lefty listeners could, well, "Give piece of change."

Better yet, progressive forces should do what they do best -- hold a rock concert. Franken probably could put the finger on some major talent. It's hard to imagine that the Dixie Chicks, Madonna, Sheryl Crow, Bruce Springsteen and Barbra Streisand wouldn't want to participate in a Live Air America-Aid concert. The guess here is that even stars who said they would leave the United States if Bush were elected or re-elected would return home to help the victims of this hideous corporate scandal.

Granted, Air America's overall rating have fallen in major markets. But here, the left-wing network is still going strong, particularly in the crucial male-ponytail demographic. A little advice for the network's Portland affiliate:

Think globally and act locally.

A Scandal Below the Radar

Doug MacEachern of The Arizona Republic reports on the story within a story concerning AirMoonbat radio. The question of the day, and the past week, is why does The Elite Media Monoculture, in particular The New York Times, remain silent on the story. When AirMoonbat first went on the air, there were plenty of articles from the paper of record to give us all the details of how this liberal start-up was going to challenge conservative talk radio. But now that a scandal is brewing right in their back yard we hear only the sound of crickets. Could it be a case of liberal bias? Say it ain't so.

For the Boys & Girls Club, meanwhile, the results have been disastrous. The New York Department of Investigation announced in June that city grants and contracts to Gloria Wise - about $10 million worth - were to be suspended because its officials had approved "significant inappropriate transactions and falsified documents that were submitted to various city agencies."

You don't have to be a Columbia School of Journalism grad to sense that this developing story might have legs.

A private media start-up with huge political pretensions and meager financial underpinnings uses taxpayer dollars from a Boys & Girls Club to help pay the salaries of high-profile hosts like comedian Al Franken. As a result of these dubious loans and other self-dealing, the Gloria Wise club will be sending no more poor kids from the Bronx to summer camp. It will be providing a lot fewer services, if any, to the Alzheimer's patients it helped.

"I'm still rocking from the experience," said Anna Capell, 80, a member of the club's executive committee.

Wholly unrocked by the experience, however, is the Bronx-area paper of record, the New York Times, which, since the story began to seriously break on July 29, has published exactly nothing on the scandal.

The Air Out There

The mainstream media may be close to discovering the Air America scandal.

Hugh Hewitt has a new article in The Weekly Standard which suggests that the media break-out point for the continuing AirMoonbat radio scandal may be approaching. I am not so sure about The Elite Media Monoculture on this. The New York Times is still squashing the story just as CBS stonewalled on the fabricated memos. But some smaller media outlets are indeed starting to pick up the scent of scandal and are reporting on it. As usual the blogsphere was there first and is still out front with timely reporting. In particular we must thank Brian Maloney, Michelle Malkin and Hugh Hewitt for covering the story and staying with it despite MSM apathy.

Missing the Perfect Storm

The mainstream media ignores a story tailor-made for them.

And on a related note, Ed Morrissey of Captains Quarters asks where The Elite Media Monoculture is regarding this story. I have to say that this is the most amusing aspect of this story, if one can call it amusing. Because as we all know, this is the kind of story just made for the modern day journalist who fancies himself a crusader for the poor and downtrodden. Except of course when the people doing the trodding are self-congratulatory Angry Leftists whose primary purpose in life is lashing out at all conservatives and Republicans and everything they stand for.

But note the deafening silence here as well as from the poverty pimps. The Elite Media Monoculture spent vast amounts of time and ink to laud the new network when it launched and it has done everything it can to keep a lid on the news of AirMoonbat's failing ratings and the economic disaster it has so quickly become. Now we have a real live scandal in which Rich White Leftists have stolen from poor widows and orphans and do we hear even a peep from The New York Times, CBS, The Washington Post or the other overlords of The Elite Media Monoculture? The answer is obvious. Only the alternative media has reported on this story, along with a few conservative newspapers like The Washington Times and a few others. But remember, there is no liberal media bias!

Air America and the Race Hustlers

At Townhall, Michelle Malkin ask where Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have disappeared to now that the story about AirMoonbat stealing from widows and orphans has broken across the blogsphere. And indeed one has to wonder given the fact that the charity which was so successfully embezzled by AirMoonbat serves a poor and minority community in the heart of blue-state New York. If a conservative radio network, say that of Rush Limbaugh, had engaged in the stealing of almost a million dollars from widows and orphans, do you really think that Jesse and Al would have remained silent? Neither do I. Thus we have to ask whether the political views of the criminals at AirMoonbat, and their great cause of defeating all things Republican, might be a factor in the deafening silence.

Backlash Begins

Liberals Not Happy With Air America Scandal Reporting

Brian Maloney over at Radio Equalizer has some further reporting on the continuing AirMoonbat Radio scandal. He looks at the public statements from AirMoonbat and pulls them apart using logic and reason; tools with which The Angry Left seems unfamiliar.

And if you would like your very own AirMoonbat scandal counter, take a quick visit over to BoreAmerica and you can add it to your own web page.

The Muslim Mind is on Fire

Youssef M. Ibrahim writes in this editorial that the continued attacks on the West by Islamofascists have caused a change in Western opinion regarding the status of Islam and the war on terror. He argues, correctly I think, that the West as a whole is just about fed up with the excuses of Muslims everywhere that Islam is a "religion of peace" when in fact we get daily demonstrations of just the opposite.

When this tipping point comes about, we can expect a harsh reaction from Western governments and from their populations with respect to Muslim populations both within as well as outside their borders. The continued calls for jihad coming from Muslim pulpits in mosques around the country will not long be tolerated if suicide bombings come to America. And the chances are that they will come. The result will be a disaster for the Muslim community if it remains silent on the subject. It will be seen by the rest of the population as complicity in the terror and apathy regarding any internal solution that they might have acted on earlier.

After such attacks as we saw in London, there will be little patience and less sympathy for the terrorist sympathizers, both in the Muslim community as well as among The Angry Left.

Mugged by reality?

Mark Steyn has a bit of fun at the expense of British and American multiculturalists who have been rushing to explain the "root causes" of people blowing themselves up on buses and trains.

The Increasingly Ugly Left

Now here is an article that I probably would not have though of writing myself because it would not have occurred to me to link leftism with health issues. But feminist Tammy Bruce, who has some great books by the way, takes a look at the left's new anti-fitness ideology. Jonathan Chiat apparently is very unhappy that we have a President who takes care of himself and exercises regularly. And indeed, the left seems to have a thing with physical fitness. Janeane Garofalo likes to complain about athletes and jocks all the time on here little-listened to show on AirMoonbat, so perhaps Tammy Bruce has a point.

I guess when you look at those shining examples of physical perfection like Michael Moore, Rosie O'Donnell and Andrea Dworkin you might indeed think there is a pattern there.

During my time with the National Organization for Women, one of the (many) things that disturbed me during national board meetings was the fact that many of the women seemed to be allergic to bathing, and especially frightened of the concept of ‘grooming.'

The simplest things reveal that you are in a room full of unhappy people — many were significantly overweight, and by grooming I mean engaging in the simple act of running a brush though your hair, brushing one's teeth, visiting a dentist if need be (at least on occasion), and simply caring enough about yourself to at least attempt to appear healthy.

When I would dare to bring up the issue of appearance (as gently as one could imagine), that notion, of course, was rejected as "surrendering to the male-dominated view of female beauty." Hey, how about surrendering to not being repulsive? That helps every cause, whatever it may be.

Of course, on the Left, one gets lost in groupthink. Personal health, exercise and being aware of one's own body in itself is an indication that you're conscious of yourself. Yet it is personal unconsciousness which is encouraged and fostered in leftist activist and leadership circles.

Being Unhealthy and celebrating the Ungroomed is an art form on the Left. And ultimately, as evidenced by Chait's opinion piece, those who do take care of themselves, and dare to remind society of how things should be, are demonized. Why? Because they serve as a counterpoint to what the Left is not.

Robin Hood and Air America

Washington Times Editorial

And speaking of AirMoonbat radio, it seems that there is now an interesting story out that the New York Department of Investigation is looking into the radio network's shady finances. It seems that the radio empire of The Angry Left can't stay afloat unless it steals money from widows and orphans. Hey Janeane, I guess those big checks you got from "Dog Park" and "Mystery Men" just weren't big enough, right? I mean, how is one supposed to keep up the reputation as America's most alternative ingenue without a little graft?

In late June, city officials designated the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club, a nonprofit organization that runs mentoring programs for children and day care for Alzheimer's patients, a "non-responsible city contractor." Investigators found "significant inappropriate transactions and falsified documents that were submitted to various City agencies." The city subsequently suspended the club's contracts, which run well into the millions.

It turns out, according to sources quoted anonymously by the Bronx News, that the mishandled money went to Air America. One source claims that $480,000 was wrongly transferred. The city investigation is concentrating on Charles Rosen, the club's president for 15 years, and Evan Cohen, the development director, who is a former chairman of Air America. Mr. Cohen resigned from Air America in May after the network's leasing plans in Chicago, San Francisco and elsewhere fell through.

The Same Old, Same Old

An anatomy of the London bombing.

The useful idiots don't bother to read Victor Davis Hanson, but he understands them all too well. In this essay he looks at the motives behind the London bombings and the predictable response we can expect from The Angry Left. In particular I like this quote which sums it up quite nicely:

So the attacks will never quite be of such a stature to convince Western voters that one more such explosion will destroy their societies. The trick is instead to wage war insidiously, incrementally, and stealthily to avoid an overwhelming response. A cooling-off period in between 9/11 and 7/7 in which Western apologists, pacifists, and Islamist sympathizers go to work is essential for the terror to continue.

It’s All About 9/11

The president links Iraq and al Qaeda — and the usual suspects moan.

It has been busy at work and so I have not gotten around to some articles I wanted to read until lately. But this one from Andrew McCarthy at National Review should be required reading for all members of The Angry Left. In this piece Mr. McCarthy lists some of the many indications that there had long been a connection between the radical Islamofascists and Saddam. Mike Maloy over at AirMoonbat has been trying to come up with lots of new ways to call the President a criminal and a thug. Well little Mikey, try to wrap your little wooden brain around some of these questions and tell us all what you have to say about the following:

Ahmed Hikmat Shakir — the Iraqi Intelligence operative who facilitated a 9/11 hijacker into Malaysia and was in attendance at the Kuala Lampur meeting with two of the hijackers, and other conspirators, at what is roundly acknowledged to be the initial 9/11 planning session in January 2000? Who was arrested after the 9/11 attacks in possession of contact information for several known terrorists? Who managed to make his way out of Jordanian custody over our objections after the 9/11 attacks because of special pleading by Saddam’s regime?

Saddam's intelligence agency's efforts to recruit jihadists to bomb Radio Free Europe in Prague in the late 1990's?

Mohammed Atta's unexplained visits to Prague in 2000, and his alleged visit there in April 2001 which — notwithstanding the 9/11 Commission's dismissal of it (based on interviewing exactly zero relevant witnesses) — the Czechs have not retracted?

The Clinton Justice Department's allegation in a 1998 indictment (two months before the embassy bombings) against bin Laden, to wit: In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.

Seized Iraq Intelligence Service records indicating that Saddam's henchmen regarded bin Laden as an asset as early as 1992?

Saddam's hosting of al Qaeda No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri beginning in the early 1990’s, and reports of a large payment of money to Zawahiri in 1998?

Saddam’s ten years of harboring of 1993 World Trade Center bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin?

Iraqi Intelligence Service operatives being dispatched to meet with bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998 (the year of bin Laden’s fatwa demanding the killing of all Americans, as well as the embassy bombings)?

Saddam’s official press lionizing bin Laden as “an Arab and Islamic hero” following the 1998 embassy bombing attacks?

The American Way?

The high court "battle" began back in 1935.

Daniel Henninger writes about the Supreme Court's drift away from the traditional role which was envisioned by the founders to its current political activism. Interestingly this change coincided with the ascendancy of socialism and the doctrine that all problems were the province of the state and state planners. But just as socialism has failed in the realm of economics, so has it failed in the realm of the judiciary.

The attempt by utopians on the court to fashion the perfect society has resulted in an explosion of litigation and a collapse in public confidence in the fairness and objectivity of the court. Thus the court is seen more as a means for the well-connected to redistribute wealth and power to themselves rather than as a forum for the objective application of law and justice. That was the message of the recent Kelo case. The solution is to return the court to its traditional role as impartial arbiter of the law rather than as an arm of the utopian's social engineering schemes. And you can bet that the Angry Left will understand this and fight against it with all their might.

The Neoconservative Convergence

Some once famously dissenting ideas now govern U.S. foreign policy, maturing as they go.

Here is a lengthy but fascinating article from Charles Krauthammer on the subject of neoconsertavtism as it has been applied in practice by the Bush administration and how it came to be the dominant view of the conservative movement in foreign policy. This is a long essay, but worth reading if you want a brief history and analysis of how other views have proven inadequate. Of course you won't get this kind of sophisticated evaluation from the purveyors of Bush=Hitler bumper stickers as it would require some actual thought.

Roberts Rule of Order

Here is a bit of a round up on the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. There is some mixed opinion here and there, but overall the reaction from many conservatives is positive so far. I think we can say that the next several months are going to be very interesting.

Manuel Miranda writes about the nomination of Judge Roberts in The Wall Street Journal. He notes how quickly the rumors shifted from Edith Clement to Roberts late in the day yesterday. But he is quite happy about the pick.

Last night George Bush kept his campaign promise that he would name a justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. And I for one am ashamed that I ever doubted him. I should have understood the president better. In John Roberts, the president got what he wanted, and we conservatives did too.

But what a day! From the earliest moments on Tuesday, the Capital's rumor mill predicted with increasing "certainty" that the nominee was Edith Brown Clement of Louisiana, whom President Bush elevated four years ago to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

At Powerline blog they are enthusiastic:

Pop the champagne corks, conservatives. Roberts is a fantastic choice, a brilliant and bulletproof conservative. And it was fun to see Pat Leahy and Chuck Schumer on television tonight; they looked just awful. After President Bush's terrific, upbeat presentation of Roberts, and Roberts' graceful, brief talk, Leahy and Schumer sounded like they had just dropped in from another planet. They were dour, hateful, and came across as sad and pathetic minions who have been sent on a hopeless mission by their bosses at "People for the American Way."

It's a great day for conservatives and for America. Thanks to President Bush for nominating the best person for the job--or, certainly, one of the best people, along with McConnell, Luttig and one or two others--rather than taking the easy, politically correct way out.

And Hugh Hewitt thinks the President hit a home run with this choice:

John Roberts: A home run for the president, the SCOTUS, and for the United States.

Judge John Roberts may be the smartest lawyer I have known, and he combines that intellect with a graciousness and good humor that will make it hard for any except the most extreme ideologues to oppose him. Here's his bio, but it cannot fully convey the great intellectual force which Justice Roberts will bring to the SCOTUS.

Full disclosure: Judge Roberts and I were colleagues in the White House Counsel's Office in 1985/1986. A colleague of his from his Hogan & Hartson days, Dan Poneman, was a guest on the program earlier and a transcript of that conversation will be posted at Radioblogger.com. Poneman is a center-left specialist on national security issues, having served both the first President Bush and President Clinton on the NSC. Poneman's enthusiasm for the Roberts nomination will be mirrored across official Washington which will have a very hard time summoning any energy to smear as well regarded and liked man as Judge Roberts

And in addition to being enthusiastic, Powerline has a good analysis of how the Democrats are likely to proceed regarding this nomination. The left is, of course, going to engage their automatic knee-jerk anti-conservative reaction. Unfortunately for them, they have little else to work with than anti-conservative, anti-Bush hate. And that coin has been pretty well spent. What they will try to do is to ask a bazillion question, most of which they are not traditionally supposed to ask and the nominee is not supposed to answer due to the fact that it would show him to be prejudiced regarding cases he has not seen yet, and then they will claim that the nominee is "unacceptable" because he is not "forthcoming."

Bush's Justice and the War on Terror

And in this article from FrontPageMagazine, Mark Henry Holzer shows how Judge Roberts has ruled in cases which are important to the war against the Islamofascists. Incidentally, check out the "friends of the court" who filed a brief in favor of the terrorist in the "Hamdi v Rumsfeld" case. It really is enlightening.

“Friends of the court” supporting the terrorist included dozens of law professors, “305 United Kingdom and European Parliamentarians,” “Military Attorneys Detailed to Represent Ali Hamza Amhad Sulayman Al Bahlui,” “Military Law Practitioners and Academicians,” “National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers,” “Human Rights First,” “General Merrill A. McPeak,” “People for the American Way,” “The World Organization for Human Rights USA,” “Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights”—and, worst of all, the prestigious “Association of the Bar of the City of New York.”

Despite this array of “friends,” the Court of Appeals panel—one of whom was John G. Roberts, Jr., President Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court—reversed Judge Robertson, rejecting his conclusion that Hamdan was covered by the Geneva Convention, which could be enforced in a United States federal court. Robertson had conveniently ignored the Supreme Court precedent of Johnson v. Eisentrager (which the current liberal Court majority massaged, in order to reach its conclusion in Rasul), which held that the Geneva Convention, a compact between governments, was not judicially enforceable in a private lawsuit. Period!

Breeding Stupidity

Where does the insistence that the war in Iraq is creating terrorists come from?

One of my favorite radio guys, Hugh Hewitt, takes on the popular leftist theory that today's terrorists were bred in Iraq. The notion is utter nonsense. Indeed, the real breeding ground is not today's Iraq, but the 90's Afghanistan. And it was Bill Clinton and the Democrats who did nothing in the eight years of his administration to stop the Islamist cancer that was growing there unchecked.