Terrorist Dry Run

The Washington Times writes in this article that the incident reported by Annie Jacobsen three years ago was indeed a probable dry run to test airline security for further terrorist attacks. In view of this new information should we not be taking any odd behavior by Muslims aboard airplanes, such as that of the "flying Imams", as a threat? Why should we be giving Muslims on airplanes, or anywhere else for that matter, the automatic benefit of the doubt?

The inspector general for Homeland Security late Friday released new details of what federal air marshals say was a terrorist dry run aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles on June 29, 2004.

Several portions of the report remain redacted. The release stems from a Freedom of Information request by The Washington Times in April 2006. The Times first reported on July 22 that this and other probes and dry runs were occurring on commercial flights since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The President's Empty Political Rhetoric

Bush attacks his own base as ignorant manipulators and undermines the party

The Boston Globe brings us this article that shows us what the President really thinks of the conservative base of the Republican party. And the news is not at all good. It seems that the President considers the base of the party to be completely disposable as long as he has the votes of liberal Democrats and RINO Republicans who will keep the borders wide open. How could it be otherwise given his propensity to smear critics in the manner of a liberal rather than deal with the legitimate issues that they have raised? We expect more from someone who is the leader of the party and who should know better than to alienate the conservative base.

For a long time this President has shown that he has a tin ear when it comes to understanding the dynamics that got him elected and how to hold a party together. It was the conservative base that donated money, time and energy to make sure that the President won re-election. Bush seems to have forgotten that fact. On issue after issue he has strayed to the left. And time after time he has acted with disdain for the party base, apparently on the assumption that we had nowhere else to go.

He seems not care about the long term damage that will be the result if this bill should be passed into law over the objections of those people who worked so hard in the election of 2004. Reagan would never have been so arrogant and would never have made this sort of error. Indeed, it is the Reagan legacy that this President is abandoning for the sake of this amnesty bill. And the long term result will be serious, if not fatal damage, to the Republican party in addition to the damage it will do to the country. The conservative base will not soon forgive such a serious betrayal, nor will they give money or time to the party in the foreseeable future if they have no confidence in the party leadership. And that is the current situation.

Conservatives from across the nation have spent the last two weeks looking at this bill in extraordinary detail. From The National Review to The Heritage Foundation to just about every major player in talk radio to the entire conservative blogsphere, the critics have spent huge amounts of time and energy dissecting this bill and trying to determine, not only what the bill actually says, but the long term ramifications of putting it into place. Whether you agree with the position of the President or the critics, there can be no doubt that the base has given serious thought to the consequences of this bill. But the President, in his remarks reported in this story, shows that he is tone-deaf and out of touch with his party's base and has no real idea of what is going on in the heart of the country with regard to immigration.

Bottom Line: The base wants security first and they don't want amnesty. Get that Mr. President? Push this bill though at your own peril and the peril of the party. The base will not support you or the party in the coming election. Indeed, a major house cleaning is probably already a forgone conclusion given the way that the party leadership has failed to uphold conservative principles. Attacking the party base only serves to underline the need for new leadership and a return to Reagan conservatism. The end result will be that conservatives will stay home on election day rather than allow this to continue. Many of the current crop of liberal Republicans will be turned out of office and we will have to suffer for a while at the hands of Democrats. But there will be little other alternative. For one has to ask how our current situation is much different and why allowing it to continue would be better for the nation or for the party in the long term?

This administration has been liberal on most every issue other than defense. And even on the war, the President has been half hearted and unable or unwilling to intellectually defend the need for a strong defense policy. He has not gone after the media for leaking national security secrets. He has not prosecuted the leakers. He has not hit back against the critics of the war. He has been unwilling to play the kind of hardball that is the reality of Washington politics. He has projected, not strength, but continuing weakness and moral confusion. He might as well be wearing a "kick me" sign on his back. The result has been a slow, constant undermining of our defense on moral grounds. In the long run, that is a losing strategy. It seems clear that the time has come for a major house cleaning. We need to return our party to its conservative principles. We need a leadership that actually believes what it says about our ideas. And while it may take some time to achieve this, it will be better to have a President and a congress who are willing to defend America from both a moral and practical point of view, than the current crop of politicians who sell us down the river because they think it will get them the votes of illegal aliens.

This President has demonstrated that he is not a conservative and that he will throw the conservatives who elected him under the bus when he thinks it convenient. That is not strategy for long term success. It is not a strategy for the future of the nation and the party.

Time for a broom.

A Virtual City State

Bill Whittle at Eject! Eject! Eject! brings us another of his great thought provoking essays in which he looks at the prisoner's dilemma and how it is a lesson for all of us who wish to protect and promote the values and ideas of Western Civilization from the current onslaught that is being waged against them, and us. And while the enemies of civilization are indeed dangerous, we have for the first time in history a communications tool that allows us to organize and share information with all of the other people who are similarly inclined. You are using it at this very moment to read these words. And because of this extraordinary tool of communication, we have the possibility of working together to save Western Civilization even with the corruption and incompetence of our vaunted elites who seem to be oblivious to what is happening all around them.

Economist Freidrich Hayek won a Nobel Prize, in part, for pointing out that a free society is not really organized from the top down. While it is true that we have a framework of laws and customs, these are for the most part the result of time and tradition, which is another way of saying that they are the ways of living which have been found over time to be the ones that work the best and we have adopted them for that reason. But total top down planning is a feature of tyrannies, not of free societies. Even now, we still have a society which is mostly free and thus lacking in that kind of top down total control. The enemies of Western civilization see this and make the mistake of assuming that because we are not a top down society that we therefore have no organization at all. What they fail to see, as Hayek pointed out, is that we are indeed a very organized and planned system; it's just that most of the organizing and planning comes from the bottom up.

This bottom up planning requires a foundation of trust, honesty and other positive virtues in the vast majority of the population because to plan anything that is at all complex or long range also requires the cooperation of many people to accomplish. That we have such a culture makes possible the kind of societal achievements and economic progress that no other societies have been able to match, at least until such time as they have learned to adopt those same values.

Ultimately this bottom up approach is the real strength of Western Civilization, and the Internet allows those of us who wish to protect our way of life to self-organize in ways which were previously impossible and unimaginable. I think that process is now at work and the people who are motivated by their love for our culture will use this technology to fight back the forces of darkness. Bill Whittle thinks we will win, and so do I.

Go and read the whole thing.

Muslims; Enemies of the World's Great Art

Fjordman at Brussels Journal writes on the subject of how Western Art is different than that produced by other cultures and other times in history. And while I am tempted to comment on the superiority of Western Art in general, this essay makes another very important point that should be of concern to all those who value not only the artistic heritage of the West, but also art produced by other non-Western cultures. For it seems that wherever Muslims go in the world, they bring their destruction and hate with them. History shows that Muslims have no tolerance for the art of any culture and that they will go out of their way to destroy any cultural artifacts which do not conform to their primitive and backwards stone-age prejudice. If you value art, you must reject Islam and the savages who love to destroy beauty.

The great Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan were demolished by the Taliban regime in 2001, who decreed that they would destroy images deemed "offensive to Islam." The Taliban Information Minister complained that "The destruction work is not as easy as people would think. You can't knock down the statues by dynamite or shelling as both of them have been carved in a cliff. They are firmly attached to the mountain." The statues, 53 meters and 36 meters tall, the tallest standing Buddha statues in the world, turned out to be so hard to destroy that the Taliban needed help from Pakistani and Saudi engineers to finish the job. Finally, after almost a month of non-stop bombardment with dynamite and artillery, they succeeded.

Judging from the experiences with the Bamiyan Buddhas, it is tempting to conclude that the only reason why the pyramids of Egypt have survived to this day is because they were so big that it proved too complicated, costly and time-consuming for Muslims to destroy them. Had Saladin's son Al-Aziz had modern technology and engineers at his disposal, they might well have ended up like countless Hindu temples in India or Buddhist statues in Central Asia.

Heritage Foundation Immigration Bill Analysis Part II

The Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector has done an in-depth analysis of the financial costs of illegal immigration to the U.S. taxpayer. This is a long article with many details, but the bottom line is that many of the illegals in the country now, who would be made into permanent citizens through the amnesty bill, are a net drain on the rest of the country. The math is relatively straightforward. The illegals who we are talking about are often high school drop outs with few marketable skills and little education. And interestingly, the fact that they are working most of the time makes no difference in the overall picture. The problem is that the jobs which illegals are likely to have are low skill and thus low paying ones. And because of the nature of the jobs which illegals are likely to have given their low educational levels, they pay much lower levels of taxes back into the system. In fact, according to Rector's analysis, the average illegal will take out nearly twenty thousand more than they put into the system, creating a huge fiscal deficit which will be felt for decades to come. Read it yourself to see the devastating impact which is to come on our nation and your pocketbook.

The net fiscal deficit of a household equals the cost of immediate benefits and services received minus taxes paid. As Chart 5 shows, if the costs of direct and means-tested benefits, education, and population-based services were counted, the average low-skill household had a fiscal deficit of $19,588 (expenditures of $30,160 minus $10,573 in taxes).

At $19,588, the average annual fiscal deficit for low-skill immigrant households was nearly twice the amount of taxes paid. In order for the average low-skill household to be fiscally solvent (taxes paid equaling immediate benefits received), it would be necessary to eliminate all Social Security and Medicare, all means-tested welfare, and to cut expenditures on public education roughly in half

Media Traitors Expose Another Defense Secret

The mavens of The Elite Media Monoculture have once again demonstrated their hatred of America by publishing critical intelligence information about the administration's plans to undermine the theocratic tyrants in Iran. The methods that would have been used were those short of actual military force or invasion. And because the elites at ABC are so much smarter and wiser than all of the rest of us or anyone in the administration, they took it upon themselves to go ahead and alert the Iranians and the whole world to the existence of this secret plan. Well, I guess it's not so secret any longer, is it? My question is, when are these journalists going to be taken out and shot for treason?

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions.

Of course The Angry Left has been howling for some time about the administration's "aggressive" policies towards Iran and there has been plenty of speculation about plans for an attack. The irony here is, of course, that this leak makes such an attack more, rather than less, likely. Being able to undermine the mullahs without having to use a military attack would certainly be much better for everyone involved if it were possible. But with the release of this information it makes such a strategy all but impossible and takes away one of the options that we had. When will this administration start taking these attacks on America's defense capability by the Elite Media seriously and start prosecuting?

Heritage Foundation Immigration Bill Analysis Part I

The Heritage Foundation has taken a look at the proposed immigration bill and done some digging to find just what is buried in it. The list of horrors is a long and sad one. I'll be reading these over the next few days, but you can take a look at part 1 here in which they look at how the bill undermines the rule of law.

The bill would make it extremely difficult for the federal government to prevent criminals and terrorists from obtaining legal status. Under Section 601(h)(1), the bill would allow the government only one business day to conduct a background check to determine whether an applicant is a criminal or terrorist. Unless the government can find a reason not to grant it by the end of the next business day after the alien applies, the alien receives a probationary Z visa (good from the time of approval until six months after the date Z visas begin to be approved, however long that may be) that lets him roam throughout the country and seek employment legally.

The problem is that there is no single, readily searchable database of all of the dangerous people in the world. While the federal government does have computer databases of known criminals and terrorists, these databases are far from comprehensive. Much of this kind of information exists in paper records that cannot be searched within 24 hours. Other information is maintained by foreign governments.

The need for effective background checks is real. During the 1986 amnesty, the United States granted legal status to Mahmoud "The Red" Abouhalima, who fraudulently sought and obtained the amnesty intended for seasonal agricultural workers (even though he was actually employed as a cab driver in New York City). But his real work was in the field of terrorism. He went on to become a ringleader in the 1993 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center. Using his new legal status after the amnesty, he was able to travel abroad for terrorist training.

McCainiac

The New York Post reports that THE ALL KNOWING AND OMNISCIENT LIGHT OF THE UNIVERSE, HIS MAGNIFICENT WONDERFULLNESS JOHN McCAIN dropped in on the Senate recently to help guid the passage of the new "immigration reform" bill. In a brief departure from HIS glorious and resplendent campaign, HE attempted to explain to the other lesser Senators there that HE was far better informed and aware on the subject of immigration "reform" than any other sentient being in the universe. When John Cornyn "the insignificant" posed certain presumptuous questions to HIS HIGHNESS, THE MOST BRILLIANT JOHN McCAIN, he was rebuffed by THE MOST WISE AND WORTHY JOHN McCAIN for daring to impertinently ask such questions that might slow the progress of THE MOST IMPORTANT LEGISLATION IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, which was crafted with such care and wisdom by JOHN McCAIN THE SPECTACULAR.

Those wishing to abase themselves further should call the office of THE MOST MAGNANIMOUS AND SUBLIME SENTATOR JOHN McCAIN should they wish to be instructed to shut up and do as they are told.

The Empire of Lies

The twenty-first century will not belong to China.

Guy Sorman shows us in this essay, that despite cosmetic changes on the surface, China is still in the grips of a hard leftist communist government and that it therefore suffers from all of the problems that are typical of such a brutal and oppressive regime. Indeed, reading this article, one is struck by the similarities to the old Soviet Union in terms both of lack of economic freedom as well as the overriding arrogance of the political elites who cling to power in China regardless of the dire consequences that affect most of the population Of course we must exclude those who are politically connected. As in the Soviet Union, the politically connected are a different class and thus gain what rewards are available under such a system. And as was the case in the Soviet Union, most of the regular population is exploited for the benefit of that few.

Hayek pointed out in his writings why this must be the inevitable result in a system which is not free politically or economically. In fact, there are a wealth of books by the major free market economists of the 19th and 20th century that go into great detail about the results that can be expected from socialist systems. It is no accident that not only have all of them failed, but that they follow the same pattern of failure. The very existence of such a pattern should be an indication to those on The Angry Left that there are immutable economic laws at work in our universe and that they can no more be ignored than can the laws of physics or chemistry.

But leftists are uninterested in the evidence provided by the history of the 20th century. Over one hundred million deaths can be attributed to socialist and communist systems in the last century. That should be ample evidence for anyone. But the left continues on without so much as taking a breath. They simply keep on repeating the same tired slogans over and over again as if doing so would somehow make them true. But the laws of reality do not change just because they are politically inconvenient.

I’ve been to many Chinese villages, and everywhere I have encountered the peasantry’s feelings of helplessness and anger when dealing with the Communist authorities. When in late 2006, I reached one village in the heart of the Shaanxi Province, after a 40-hour journey from Beijing by train, car, and tractor, I saw no trace of the uprising that had taken place a month earlier. Alerted by a text message sent from the village, the Hong Kong press had reported a violent clash between the peasants and the police, leaving people injured and missing—or even dead, with the authorities spiriting away the bodies. I stayed in the house of a taciturn widow, who kept feeding me fresh walnut kernels—ideal, she said, for those doing intellectual work. The kernel looks like the brain; traditional Chinese medicine bases itself on such morphological approximations.

I pieced together the very ordinary reasons that had provoked the uprising from bits of information divulged by the children rather than the adults. The village had a dilapidated school, without heating, chalk, or teacher. In principle, schooling is compulsory and free, but the Party secretary, the village kingpin, made parents pay for the heating and chalk. Then a teacher came from the city. He held that his government wages weren’t commensurate with his status and demanded extra money from the parents. Half of the parents, members of the most prosperous clan, agreed to pay; the other half, belonging to the poorer clan, refused. A skirmish erupted between the two clans, and the teacher fled. The Party secretary tried to intervene and was lynched, the Party office plundered. Then the police roared in with batons and guns. The school has reopened, the teacher replaced with a villager who knows how to read and write but “nothing more than that,” he admits.

The government puts the number of what it calls these “illegal” or “mass” incidents—and they’re occurring in the industrial suburbs, too—at 60,000 a year, doubtless underreporting them. Some experts think that the true figure is upward of 150,000 a year, and increasing.

Building A Compassionate Disaster

Or how to piss off you entire base and destroy the country at the same time for a few votes

Katherine Jean Lopez at The National Review reports on the looming catastrophe that is the congressional immigration putsch that will grant immediate amnesty to 12 million illegal alien lawbreakers and open the door wide for lots and lots more. This bill is a huge neon sign at our borders that screams "COME ON DOWN", and don't worry about all of that legal stuff we have written on the books about having to go through a process to become an American citizen. No siree, you just have to sneak across the border without getting caught and those nifty folks in that thar Washington D.C. place will make you feel right at home with all of the wonderful money transfers that all of our own domestic indigent population has come to expect as a matter of right.

This bill, if it is enacted, will be nothing short of a disaster for the republic. We cannot deal now with the numbers of illegal aliens who have come into the country. We don't know where most of them are and even when we do, our leviathan government seems unable and unwilling to do anything about it at all. Now the elites in Washington want to put in place a program which will act as a magnet to millions more. Those who cross over illegally will not only not pay a price for breaking our laws; they will be rewarded with all of the benefits of instant citizenship at no cost.

And all of those "triggers" in the bill? Does anyone really imagine for a moment that they will really be enforced? They certainly have not been in any of the similar bills in the past. The only result has been more and more illegal immigration. Michelle Malkin brings us the lowdown on that nasty piece of business:

There have been seven illegal alien amnesties passed into law since 1986:

The 1986 Immigration and Reform Control Act blanket amnesty for an estimated 2.7 million illegal aliens

1994: The "Section 245(i)" temporary rolling amnesty for 578,000 illegal aliens

1997: Extension of the Section 245(i) amnesty

1997: The Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act for nearly one million illegal aliens from Central America

1998: The Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act amnesty for 125,000 illegal aliens from Haiti

2000: Extension of amnesty for some 400,000 illegal aliens who claimed eligibility under the 1986 act

2000: The Legal Immigration Family Equity Act, which included a restoration of the rolling Section 245(i) amnesty for 900,000 illegal aliens]

Guess what? None — not one — of those amnesties was associated with a decline in illegal immigration. On the contrary, the number of illegal aliens in the U.S. has tripled since President Reagan signed the first amnesty in 1986. The total effect of the amnesties was even larger because relatives later joined amnesty recipients, and this number was multiplied by an unknown number of children born to amnesty recipients who then acquired automatic US citizenship.

What is the reason for this? The answer is simple. This administration, as well as the liberal Democrats, do not want the law to be enforced. They want massive immigration. Republicans want it because big business wants cheap labor and Democrats are just drooling over vast numbers of new, welfare dependent voters to keep them in office. The Republican leadership is selling us all down the river and destroying the last of the Reagan legacy that they have squandered. If this bill passes you can kiss the election of 08 goodbye. Conservatives in the party will stay home on voting day and that means victory for the socialist Democrats.

Hugh Hewitt keeps trying to blame this on Tom Tancredo, but he is dead wrong. The problem is that we no longer have a conservative party in the Republicans and our President is a liberal on virtually every issue other than Iraq. There is no putting lipstick on this pig. Republican is not the same thing as conservative. But Hewitt is right when he talks about the GOP's collective contempt for the voter base and in particular he accurately translates John McCain's wonderful me-ness statement of solidarity with himself:

Deal's done. I am the guy. I made it happen. My opinion mattered, not yours. What I do in the middle of a campaign for president has nothing to do with politics. My critics are all motivated by politics. Since I have already made up my mind, no debate is necessary, so shut up. Republicans especially shut up. This is how things get done in D.C.: You roll over for Democrats. And by the way, cutting half the fence and leaving the other half subject to the whims of the anti-border security bureaucracy equals protecting national security, just like the Gang of 14 was good for the confirmation process and McCain-Feingold good for the First Amendment. So, if you didn't hear me the first time: Shut up. Sit down. I'm your nominee.

The current Republican party is a dead horse no longer worth beating. Time to get rid of the old nag and replace it with a young colt that can actually cross the finish line.

Fortress America's Gate is Open

Mark Steyn writes in The Chicago Sun Times about how the massive problem of illegal immigration that we now have in this country is a national security problem and not just one of economics. For it is not just Mexican people coming over our borders to find a job and send money back home. Our borders are wide open and terrorists are taking advantage of it by crossing into America and moving into the already vast network of illegals who are already here.

The three Duka brothers were (if you'll forgive the expression) illegal immigrants. They're not meant to be here. Yet they graduated from a New Jersey high school and they operated two roofing companies and a pizzeria. Think of how often you have to produce your driver's license or Social Security number. But, five years after 9/11, this is still one of the easiest countries in the world in which to establish a functioning but fraudulent identity.

Consider, for example, the post-9/11 ritual of airline security. You have to produce government-issued picture ID to the TSA official. Does that make you feel safer? On that Tuesday morning in September, four of the killers got on board by using picture ID they'd acquired through the "undocumented worker" network in Falls Church, Va. Half the jurisdictions in the United States issue picture ID to people who shouldn't even be in the country, and they issue it as a matter of policy. The Fort Dix boys were pulled over for 19 traffic violations, but because they were in "sanctuary cities," any cop who suspected they were illegals was unable to report them to immigration authorities. Again, as a matter of policy.

So far we have been able to avoid another serious attack on our shores, but the current dynamic can't be working in our favor. There are only so many law enforcement resources to go around and as more and more illegals come here those resources must, by definition, become more and more stretched. Moreover we have, for reasons of political correctness, refused to really address the issue in a serious sort of way. We need to have real control of our borders and to know who is coming into the country. The current policy of ignoring the problem only makes another attack more likely.

Jefferson Versus the Muslim Pirates

Christopher Hitchens writes in City Journal about America's first encounter with the arrogance of the Islamic world in the form of the Barbary Pirates. Millions of Europeans and Americans were enslaved after being captured on the high seas until America's new navy put a stop to their predations.

Let us not call this view reductionist. Jefferson would perhaps have been just as eager to send a squadron to put down any Christian piracy that was restraining commerce. But one cannot get around what Jefferson heard when he went with John Adams to wait upon Tripoli’s ambassador to London in March 1785. When they inquired by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American shipping, enslaving both crews and passengers, America’s two foremost envoys were informed that “it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.” (It is worth noting that the United States played no part in the Crusades, or in the Catholic reconquista of Andalusia.)

Ambassador Abd Al-Rahman did not fail to mention the size of his own commission, if America chose to pay the protection money demanded as an alternative to piracy. So here was an early instance of the “heads I win, tails you lose” dilemma, in which the United States is faced with corrupt regimes, on the one hand, and Islamic militants, on the other—or indeed a collusion between them.

It seems likely that Jefferson decided from that moment on that he would make war upon the Barbary kingdoms as soon as he commanded American forces. His two least favorite institutions—enthroned monarchy and state-sponsored religion—were embodied in one target, and it may even be that his famous ambivalences about slavery were resolved somewhat when he saw it practiced by the Muslims.

Fat Ugly Diseased Cow Leaving "The View"

ABC news brings us this story about Rosie "Side-O-Beef" O'Donnell, who will be leaving the ABC morning program "The View". The article is written in such a way as to give the impression that the main issue was financial, but frankly I'm not buying it. Rather, I think that ABC probably got tired of the constant stream of bad publicity which has been coming from the rotund anti-American loser and they put their foot down and said "enough is enough". And it is not, of course that the establishment media really disagrees with her all that much. But there are limits even for ABC and we seemed to have reached them, at least for now.

ABC executives weren't the only ones unable to agree on "key elements" with O'Donnell. O'Donnell has been the subject of recent headlines for her ongoing feud with real estate mogul Donald Trump and a dispute with Bill O'Reilly over the war in Iraq.

Trump and O'Donnell butted heads when O'Donnell called him a "snake oil salesman," after he announced he would not fire scandal-plagued Miss USA Tara Conner. Trump threatened to sue O'Donnell, but later backed down. Conner's crown was in jeopardy after a bout of underage drinking and substance abuse, but Trump gave her a second chance.

Trump pushed Walters to fire O'Donnell for her wayward comments, even saying, "And here's my prediction. She will have a huge fight ultimately with Barbara Walters, and she will be fired."

Dim Harry Proclaims War is Lost

3rd rate senator promotes himself to general

Fox news reports that Harry Reid is clamoring to get attention for himself just as fast as he can wave his spindly little arms. The attention starved senator has chosen to abandon the troops and proclaim defeat as the means to this end. Naturally this has had the effect of attracting every Elite Media Monoculture reporter with a camera within 100 miles of Washington and of emboldening our enemies whilst simultaneously demoralizing our troops on the ground in Iraq who were under the impression that they were actually doing pretty well.

General Reid pushed his way onto the national stage this week with the pronouncement that America is the weakest superpower in history and that it cannot win a fight against a bunch of guys armed only with basic weapons and copies of the Koran. And right on cue every "journalist" who works for a liberal paper is pronouncing this a wise and progressive viewpoint, regardless of the Defeatocrats lack of a plan which does not include impeaching the President.

WASHINGTON — Republicans blasted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's comments that the Iraq war is 'lost,' saying it sends the wrong message to U.S. troops fighting in Iraq.

"What a terrible message for our troops fighting this very minute," Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, said on the House floor Thursday night. "Instead of a roadmap to success, we are being asked to support a plan for defeat. We're being asked to announce to our enemies a date for surrender."

Reid, D-Nev., said Thursday that the war in Iraq is lost and President Bush's plan to send more troops there to respond to sectarian violence won't work.

"I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and — you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows — (know) this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq (Wednesday)," Reid said.

Meanwhile, Victor Davis Hanson replies to the tiny senator here.

The reality is, of course, that the Democrats are grandstanding for the benefit of their hard-left-wing party base. The Angry Left cannot stomach George Bush and thus they hate any policy of the administration, even one which is intended to defend the country against enemy attack. The Kos wing of the party wants America defeated in Iraq because it means the defeat of the President and of his party. The left does not care about the long term consequences of defeat; they don't care that it puts the country in danger; they want America out of Iraq now.

If the Democrats in the leadership of the party really believe that the war cannot be won, then the logical course of action is for them to simply pull the funding right now. They have the constitutional authority to do this at any time they wish. And there can be no doubt that if all the Democrats agreed with such a policy, they would have the votes to pass legislation out of the house.

The Democrats are not doing this, however, because they know that there is a stiff political price to pay for such action. The American people do not want to simply give up and go home, even if many of them are troubled by the length and difficulty of this fight. Many certainly wish that it was over, but they also know that simply running away, when we have the means and ability to fight, is bad policy and sends a very bad message to the terrorists and their state supporters. And while it might satisfy the hard left base of the party, they do not have enough votes to assure victory in the next election. For Democrats to win, they must attract the voters in the middle of the political spectrum. But whether they can do so by virtue of out and out surrender to the terrorists is doubtful.

Thus the Democrats play a dangerous game of demoralizing our troops, who they hope will not be able to win and make the President's plan a success, while emboldening the terrorists to greater violence against us, while at the same time hoping that the vast middle does not notice the red meat that they have tossed to their rabid left wing base.

Out Damn Spot

Hugh Hewitt brings us the views of several journalists of both the left and the right in their condemnation on NBC's decision to air the Cho death video on their nightly news broadcast. The opinions are pretty similar across the board. The network was remarkably irresponsible in airing the video and deserves condemnation. Hugh seems to think that they should be sued as well, which as Patterico says is just silly. Still, it is hard to excuse the executives given that they are a law unto themselves and clearly did not consider the wider effects of their actions. At the very least, I would say don't bother watching them any more, assuming that you are still watching them at all. The networks are on the way out in any case. This is just a desperate attempt to prolong their existence before the ship sinks beneath the waves. They don't deserve a lifeboat.

Nifong Bitch-Slapped

Not to mention the accuser, and the Duke faculty members who all lined up on the side of a proven liar.

I have not really blogged on the subject of the Duke rape case as others have been doing a far better job of reporting on it than I could do. But, like many people I have followed the events in question and have looked with some trepidation at the actions of Mike Nifong as well as all of the usual suspects who have a tendency to line up on the side of the perpetually aggrieved whenever the manufactured charge of racism rears its ugly head. And there is little doubt that The Angry Left loves to complain about any perceived insult or grievance. Well as you may have just seen, the Attorney General has just cleared the Duke players and suggested, in no uncertain terms, that the whole case was an abomination, and that apologies are due from many people to the real victims in this case.

I cannot help but wonder if all those on The Angry Left who screamed "racism" will apologize to the Duke lacrosse players now that they have been shown to be utterly and completely innocent of all charges.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

RALEIGH, N.C. - Prosecutors dropped all charges Wednesday against the three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting a stripper at a party, saying the athletes were innocent victims of a "tragic rush to accuse" by an overreaching district attorney.

"There were many points in the case where caution would have served justice better than bravado," North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said in a damning assessment of Durham County District Mike Nifong's handling of the sensational case.

Cooper, who took over the case in January after Nifong was charged with ethics violations that could get him disbarred, said his own investigation concluded not only that the evidence against the young men was insufficient, but that no attack took place.

A Pratfall in Damascus

The Washington Post, not known for being a conservative bastion, brings us this view on the latest antics of The Silly Party and one of its most fearless leaders, Nancy Pelosi. In case you missed it, the famed plastic surgery victim shoved her way into the nation's foreign policy arena, which is constitutionally the domain of the executive branch of government, and immediately fell on her posterior in a vain attempt to appear competent. Because the Democrat party has devolved to a level which is now beneath comedy, the witless wonder was unable to distinguish fantasy from reality on her appeasement quest to Syria. She made up a fake message from the leader of Israel, Prime Minister Olmert, and delivered it to the murdering dictator. Naturally, the rest of us were not amused. The Washington Post comments:

Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message. "What was communicated to the U.S. House Speaker does not contain any change in the policies of Israel," said a statement quickly issued by the prime minister's office. In fact, Mr. Olmert told Ms. Pelosi that "a number of Senate and House members who recently visited Damascus received the impression that despite the declarations of Bashar Assad, there is no change in the position of his country regarding a possible peace process with Israel." In other words, Ms. Pelosi not only misrepresented Israel's position but was virtually alone in failing to discern that Mr. Assad's words were mere propaganda.

Imagine, if you can, the absolute narcissism which would be required for a member of the congress to not only attempt to take over the responsibilities of our own executive branch of government, but those of a foreign nation. The arrogance is difficult to even quantify. But this is now the normal behavior of the Democrat party. It is today a party run by spoiled children who never grew out of their childish 60s' fantasy role playing and is determined to foist it on the rest of the world in a pompous attempt to justify their own irrational self-indulgence.

A River Runs Through It

In this story from Reuters we learn about the collapse of a reservoir wall that allowed a flood of sewage to overwhelm a village in northern Gaza. The flood killed a number of people and destroyed homes in the area. Of course one has to point out the sad fact that the Palestinians deserved this. In poll after poll the vast majority of the Palestinian people have shown their desire for the continuation of terrorism against the Jews of Israel and their hatred of the west. They voted to put a terrorist government into power. And the primary purpose of that government is not to take care of its people or the infrastructure on which they depend. It is, rather, in power to kill the Jews.

Their thirst for blood is so great that they have been willing to allow the decay of their own lands if it means that they will be able to strike their foes. All of their energy and resources are given over to their hate of Israel with nothing left over for the building of a productive society. They would rather spend their time and money on the destruction of Israel than pay attention to the plumbing. Thus their world collapses around them.

The Real Target of the 6 Imams "Discrimination" Suit

Making America safe for hijackers and terrorists

In this story from Katherine Kersten of the Star Tribune, we find that members of "The Religion of Peace" are suing people for the crime of wanting to be safe from Islamic hijackers. You may remember that not too long ago 6 Islamic "clerics" were removed from a US Airways flight for engaging in suspicious behavior and failing to obey the orders of the flight crew. We know that prior to 9-11 several of the terrorists that later hijacked those planes, engaged in test runs on flights to evaluate the security on board as well as to test their procedures. It does not take much imagination to see that these "clerics" were performing much the same function by testing the limits of what the flight crews and non-muslim passengers would tolerate.

Of course, they are now suing the airline for "discrimination". Apparently if you belong to a permanently aggrieved group from which have come virtually all of the terrorist attacks on the civilized world, you get to show your displeasure that other people might have noticed that there is a problem. But what is more troubling is that the 5th column "clerics" and their agitation lobby, CAIR, are now going to sue the passengers as well for having noticed the suspicious behavior and reporting it to the proper authorities. I guess that if you are a Muslim follower of the pederast prophet, it is just peachy to slit the throats of flight attendants and crash planes full of civilians into buildings, but if you object to that kind of treatment, well you must be some kind of racist criminal who deserves to be hauled into court by the ACLU.

But the most alarming aspect of the imams’ suit is buried in paragraph 21 of their complaint. It describes “John Doe” defendants whose identity the imams’ attorneys are still investigating. It reads: “Defendants ‘John Does’ were passengers ... who contacted U.S. Airways to report the alleged ‘suspicious’ behavior of Plaintiffs’ performing their prayer at the airport terminal.”

Paragraph 22 adds: “Plaintiffs will seek leave to amend this Complaint to allege true names, capacities, and circumstances supporting [these defendants’] liability ... at such time as Plaintiffs ascertain the same.”

In plain English, the imams plan to sue the “John Does,” too.

Who are these unnamed culprits? The complaint describes them as “an older couple who was sitting [near the imams] and purposely turn[ed] around to watch” as they prayed. “The gentleman (’John Doe’) in the couple ... picked up his cellular phone and made a phone call while watching the Plaintiffs pray,” then “moved to a corner” and “kept talking into his cellular phone.”

In retribution for this action, the unnamed couple probably will be dragged into court soon and face the prospect of hiring a lawyer, enduring hostile questioning and paying huge legal bills. The same fate could await other as-yet-unnamed passengers on the US Airways flight who came forward as witnesses.

The Coming War with Islam

Solly Ganor writes at FrontPageMagazine about his chance encounter with a Christian Arab and the conversation that they had about the coming conflict between the Western world and the Islamic world. It is an essay worth reading because most Westerners still do not understand the fact that the Islamic world is at war with us and intends to wipe us out. And it is crucial to understand that this is not really a fight we have a choice about. They are going to continue to attack us whether we acknowledge its reality or not. Moreover, most Americans also do not yet understand that this is an existential threat to our very survival, just as the second world war was in the last century. The momentum in this fight is still building, and while we have escaped being attacked since 9-11, the chaos in the rest of the world is spreading. How long will it be before it reaches our doors once again?

“As a matter of fact, the whole Moslem world, not only the Arabs, simply couldn’t believe that the mighty Israeli Army that defeated the combined Arab forces in six days in 1967, and almost captured Cairo and Damascus in 1973, couldn’t defeat a small army of Hezbollah men. As usual the Moslems see things the way they want to see things. Most think that the present generation of Israelis have gone soft and can be defeated."

“The American bungling of the war in Iraq only added to their conviction that victory not only over Israel but also over the West is not only possible, but certain. The ramifications of these two bungling wars may bring an Islamic bloody Tsunami all over the West, not only in Israel. The sharks smell blood and these two wars gave them the green light to attack sooner than they had in mind. Your problem is that you are on the defensive and they have the option to choose the time and the places when and where to attack and there is nothing much you can do about it. When will you Westerners realize that half measures don’t work with people who are willing to die by the thousands for Allah to achieve their goal? In their eyes the Western World is simply an abomination on earth that has to be wiped out.”

He spoke quietly and I could just picture him in the school giving his students a lecture. I poured him another cup of coffee and encouraged him to continue.

“The Americans, the Europeans, and even you Israelis really don’t know what it is all about, do you? During the last generation hundreds of thousands of children have been taught all over the Moslem world in Madrass schools to become martyrs for Allah in order to kill the infidels. These youngsters not only are ready to do it, but are actually in the process of doing it. Bombs are going off all over the world killing and maiming thousands of people, not only on 9/11 in the US, in London Madrid and Bali, but in Africa, India, Bengladesh, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and many other places. The first signs of the Islamic Tsunami is already here, but the West doesn’t understand, or doesn’t want to understand what is coming."

Canada's Jihadist Fifth Column

Stephen Brown at FrontPageMagazine reports on the results of a poll taken in Canada which shows that a significant minority are terrorist sympathizers. You may remember the incident in June of last year in which 18 Muslims who "represented a broad cross-section of Canadian society", were caught by Canadian authorities trying to buy three tons of explosives. Their plan was to set of those explosives in Toronto, invade the Parliament and to behead the leaders there, including the Prime Minister. We were told, of course, that the people involved in this plot did not represent any particular group or ethnic demographic. In reality the terrorists were all Muslims who were anxious to commit Jihad against the West that had so generously, and mistakenly, given them a haven. Biting the hand that feeds you is obviously a trait which is common amongst the Jihadist Muslims. In this story we find that as many as 12 per cent of the Muslim population in Canada thought that the actions of those terrorists would have been justified. In case you're doing the math, that is about 50,000 people who are terrorist sympathizers in Canada. One is, of course, tempted to wonder what the corresponding number is here in America.

Most shocking about this whole matter was the question that was not asked. While the number of Muslims in Canada who support jihad against their fellow countrymen and the CBC’s less than overwhelming reaction to this startling news contain no surprises, many Canadians would probably be stupefied if they discovered how many of their Muslim fellow citizens would like to see Canada’s liberal-democratic political and social order replaced by Islamic Sharia law. Polls in England and Germany containing this highly enlightening question have already disclosed that almost a third of the Muslims living in these countries would like to see Sharia become the law of their lands.

In the end it is these Muslims who represent a greater threat to Western civilization than the jihadists themselves. One of their tactics is to bring about the disappearance of our liberal-democratic order through legal, peaceful means, destroying its foundations bit by bit. And as the left has likewise so gradually, and successfully, transformed society since the 1960s, the march towards a sharia-dominated state will also not be an overnight revolution. But in forty years many may be forced to admit that a revolution it has been.

Why Europe Won't Be Running the 21st Century

Soeren Kern reports at The American Thinker that recently some Europeans have put forth the view that they will be running things in the 21st Century. But all of the factual evidence points in the other direction. The numbers tell the story of demographic, political and economic decline.

The future does not lie in Europe, but in America and the Pacific rim.

Fat Ugly Diseased Cow Defends Terrorists

More things to do in Hollywood when you have no brain

Well, Rosie is at it again. This time she is providing us with great insight into the intellectual bankruptcy of The Angry Left by defending the terrorist who was the mastermind behind the attacks of 9-11 as well as many others. Naturally Rosie has to stand up for all sick, twisted psychopathic mass murderers rather than the victims of their evil because that's what all cool Hollywood people do to get invited to all the right parties.

Watch the video at Hot Air.

Why Do Intellectuals Oppose the Military?

At The American Thinker, James L. Holmes looks into the question of why our elite chattering classes are so opposed to the military. He takes as his starting point an essay by Robert Nozick that asked the question, in broader terms, of why intellectuals often oppose the capitalist free society that makes their lifestyle possible. In both cases the answer seems to be that the wider society does not automatically provide them with the respect and rewards that they deem themselves worthy to receive. Coming from a rigid educational background, our elites are used to being the best and brightest in a highly structured and stagnant environment. When confronted with the larger culture with all of its uncertainties and its differing value system, they reject it because it is "unfair" to them.

Almost a decade ago the late Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick penned an essay asking "Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?" That is, why would those who live well reject the open society that allows them to do so? The essay was less a venture in social science than a thought experiment about the upbringing of intellectuals and the outsized influence this group exerts on society. Much of what Nozick says about intellectuals' reflexive disdain for capitalism also helps explain their disdain toward the military - and even the differences are intriguing. So his essay is worth pondering today as we survey civil-military relations in a nation at war.

Whom are we talking about? In his book Intellectuals, Paul Johnson defines a member of this elite group in general terms, as "someone who thinks ideas are more important than people." By contrast, Nozick confines his attentions to "wordsmith intellectuals" concentrated in professions such as the academy, print and electronic journalism, and government. He deems "numbersmiths" working in the sciences, business, and other quantitative fields less prone to anti-capitalist animus, despite similar intelligence and academic attainment. (Why this should be true warrants looking into.)

Schooling, maintains Nozick, breeds in intellectuals a sense of superiority, and with it a sense of entitlement to the highest rewards society has to offer - not just top salaries but praise comparable to that lavished on them by their teachers. After completing their formal academic training in the centralized environment of the classroom, intellectuals go forth into a seemingly chaotic capitalist society, which purports to reward individual citizens by merit but in fact applies a different standard of merit from the one imparted in the classroom.

A Reporter Who Gets It

Pamela Hess is a reporter for the AP who has done something that few in The Elite Media Monoculture have bothered to do; she actually has gone to Iraq to do some real reporting on the war and how it has played out for both Iraq as well as America. Hot Air has two vids that you have to watch if you are tired of the left wing slant from the Drive By Media. They are definitely worth watching.

Vid One

Vid Two

Democrats Say We're too Patriotic!

Christopher Chantrill writes at The American Thinker about the recent incident in which Vice President Cheney spoke on the subject of Al Qaeda and the question of what strategy would be most wise in Iraq. The Democrat party wants to cut and run. John Murtha refers to it as a "slow bleed" in which the troops would be cut off at the knees while the Democrat leadership dances in the aisles of congress. All the while the Surrender Party would, of course, proclaim that it was doing this "for the children". One is tempted to point out that the Dems consider us all to be children in need of continual foster care provided by a leviathan nanny state.

Among the numerous issues on which Democrats are hypersensitive to criticism -- or as you and I might say, critique -- is patriotism. Do not dare question a Democrat's patriotism, at least not like Vice-President Cheney:

"I think if we were to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are suggesting, all we will do is validate the Al Qaeda strategy," the vice president told ABC News. "The Al Qaeda strategy is to break the will of the American people ... try to persuade us to throw in the towel and come home, and then they win because we quit."

Speaker Pelosi was having none of that:

"You cannot say as the president of the United States, \'I welcome disagreement in a time of war,\' and then have the vice president of the United States go out of the country and mischaracterize a position of the speaker of the House and in a manner that says that person in that position of authority is acting against the national security of our country," Pelosi said.

MoveOnOutofMichigan.org

High taxes lead businesses to flee the Wolverine State.

The Wall Street Journal brings us this report on how ever increasing taxes in Michigan have pushed businesses and people out of the state in search of less hostile economic environments. Those who understand the basics of economics and how free societies work will not be surprised at the results when a state government gobbles up more and more resources every year. The citizens of Michigan are voting with their feet. And the vote is not in favor of high government spending and taxes.

Politicians and academics who think that you can do this sort of thing indefinitely without adverse consequences are just plain wrong. For while it is true that you need to have some government services, there are real limits on how far they can go without killing the economic base that makes it all possible.

Comerica Inc. was founded in 1849 in Detroit and the Detroit Tigers play in Comerica Park, but this week the bank holding company announced it is moving its headquarters to Dallas--where, it said, the bigger growth opportunities are. Consider it one more vote of confidence in the state the national expansion forgot, and especially in Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm's economic agenda.

Re-elected last year, Ms. Granholm recently rewarded the voters by announcing some $1 billion in new fees and tax increases. The plan would charge Michigan residents higher levies for almost every activity inside the state with a moving part. She would tax trucking, shopping, smoking, hunting, fishing, drinking beer and liquor, using a cell phone and, yes, even dying.

George Soros Buys 2 Million Shares of Halliburton

In this article from Reuters we learn that the well known left wing moonbat and America hater George Soros has scooped up nearly two million shares of evil right wing corporation and war monger Halliburton. Reports that members of MoveOn.org and International ANSWER have responded by throwing themselves off of bridges and tall buildings cannot currently be confirmed.

Ariana's Huff Celebrates Assassination Attempt

ABC News reports that in Afghanistan a suicide bomber tried to kill Vice President Cheney. Although the Vice President escaped, at least nine other people were killed and 12 more were injured. And while we can't question their "patriotism", we can point out that over at The Huffington Post, angry leftists were crying into their adult beverages when they found out that Cheney had survived. Big Brother came along and whitewashed the thread (by closing the comments section) in the hopes that it would vanish down the memory hole, but Michelle Malkin has the whole disgusting thing saved over at her Hot Air site.

Steve Jobs Takes on Education

In this story from The New York Sun, Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs points out the obvious regarding the state of the government monopoly school system and some of the reasons for its systemic failure. Rush talked about this on his show, noting that Mr. Jobs will probably not come in for a great deal of criticism due to his liberal political leanings. And indeed, there has been very little from Dinosaur media in the form of critical commentary since it was first reported.

But perhaps more important than the political aspect of this story, is the place that Mr. Jobs and Apple hold in the modern information based economy which we are all now enjoying and from which we have derived so much benefit. If there is any company which can be said to be forward thinking and known for its dedication to innovation and excellence, it would be Apple. And so it should matter that Steve Jobs, who is responsible for so much of Apple's success, should have something to say about an institution which is not only failing in the most dramatic of ways, but is also mired in the past and which has changed and adapted so little from the days of its first inception. The education monopoly has resisted both change as well as innovation.

The schools have largely become institutions for the liberal indoctrination of the students, who are literally a captive audience, having been collected through the force of law and whose parents have no choice about paying for a product that they may, or may not, have approved. The real and necessary job of educating students in serious subjects has been replaced with fashionable nonsense and political correctness while math, science, literature and history languish. It is any wonder that so many kids are unable to even read their diplomas at graduation time? And is anyone really surprised that businesses and corporations are finding it more and more difficult to hire qualified applicants who, all too often, have difficulty with basic math, science and grammar?

The education system should be taken out of the hands of the government and completely privatized so that it will have to actually compete and demonstrate real results instead of serving as a political platform for people who cannot find real employment elsewhere.

Steve Jobs has guts — enough guts to speak his mind about what he thinks is wrong with public education even at the risk of harming his business interests.

In a speech on Friday, the chief executive officer of Apple and Disney honcho declared: "I believe that what's wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way."

The problem with unionization, Mr. Jobs argued, is that it has constrained schools from attracting and retaining the best teachers and from dismissing the less effective ones. This, in turn, deters quality people from seeking to become principals and superintendents. "What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that they thought weren't any good? Not really great ones because if you're really smart you go, ‘I can't win,'" Mr. Jobs said. He concluded by saying, "This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."

What is the Mystery Component?

Hugh Fitzgerald, who blogs at JihadWatch, asks us to consider the underlying component in some of the recent attacks here in America by individuals who go out and start to kill people without warning. Is it money, revenge or a crime of passion? Or is their another motivation; a religious motivation that teaches that if you are a Muslim then you are superior and you are free to kill all of the inferiors that you want? Is there an ideology in which the term "master race" is now replaced with a master religion? Do those who follow this death cult even see you as a human being? And if they don't, then why would you be surprised when they start to slaughter your friends and family in the name of Allah?

What if you are a Muslim? You don't have to blame your parents, your siblings, or anyone or anything else except: the Infidel. And you don't need to be part of Al-Qaeda, or Islamic Jihad, or Jaish-e-Muhammad. You don't even have to have been a faithful attender of a mosque. You can be Intel engineer "Mike" (Muhammad) Hawash, married to an American, with Little-League-attending children, earning $360,000 a year. And when the banality and boredom of life assails you, you can return to that Old-Time Religion, that is to Islam, and start reading, and re-reading, with the effects we all know, the Qur'an. Then you can light out for the territories, in this case those territories being Western China, and thence, you hope, to Afghanistan, in order to kill Americans. Yes, you are technically an "American" yourself, but the categories and the loyalties of the Infidel nation-state mean nothing to you: you are a Muslim, and that is the only Category that counts, Muslim as opposed to Infidel.

All that one need have asked in the case of Sulejman Talovic was why he went out to a mall, and not in a sudden mental raptus, and quietly and calmly proceeded to kill as many people as he could. Did he see it as killing Infidel after Infidel after Infidel? No one need have asked if he had a collaborator, to be guilty of violent Jihad. No one need have asked if he wrote it out. All one needed to do was find out what his worldview was: did he, or did he not, see the world as divided, as so many Muslims are taught to see it, between Believer and Infidel? Did FBI agents determine this before they dismissed “terrorism” in this case? The answer to that question is not known.

Moonbats Gone Wild

Michelle Malkin reports on this story about an unhinged, self-hating, misery filled moonbat leftist who, unwilling to get help for his obviously deteriorating mental condition, decided to take out his frustration with his own failures on the nearest successful and happy person he could find; Richard Pannell, who is a college Republican.

He showed up at his house, lied about his identity and then attacked Pannell and his roommates before being arrested by the police for assault and battery. The man in question, one Andrew Stone, is clearly suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome, and is in desperate need of immediate medical intervention to prevent him from becoming completely psychotic.

Liberals; Shiny Happy People!!

The Dread Pirate Hillary

In this article from The Business & Media Institute, author Dan Gainor informs us of what the junior Senator from New York has in mind for all of us once she seizes power in Washington. At a recent meeting of The American Communist Party The Democrat National Committee, she gave a speech in which she proclaimed her right to steal redistribute the profits of successful businesses into the pocket of, well, herself.

“The other day the oil companies recorded the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits. And I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy, alternatives and technologies that will begin to actually move us toward the direction of independence,” she told the audience.

Let's be clear about this. A major American politician is proposing that you have no right to your property and that it is perfectly acceptable for her to loot it from you, so that she can use that wealth to fund her own pet schemes, based on her own personal private utopian vision. This is the core idea at the root of socialism and communism, and it is the primary reason that 100 million people were murdered by the communist and socialist governments during the twentieth century. Hillary and the left are proclaiming that they are smarter than the whole of society; that they have right to sail in, loot your hard earned wealth from you, and "re-distribute" it as they see fit, because society didn't turn out the way that they think it should have.

This noxious idea is the root of most of the evil that plagued the last century, and it is clear that neither Hillary Clinton, The Democrat party or The Angry Left has come to grips with the reality that socialist and communist ideas are fundamentally evil and that they must invariably result in the worst sorts of tyrannical dictatorships, as well as inevitable economic chaos and collapse. There are still some communist countries around today, even after the fall of the Soviet Union, and we can see for ourselves that none of them is fit for human existence.

It should be clear that Hillary and her fellow communists Democrats have no real desire to learn why these ideas have always failed in the past whenever they have been put into practice. Over the last hundred years or so there has been a wealth of material written by a host of authors to explain why these socialist schemes never achieve the ends that their proponents claim they want. Writers such as Ayn Rand, Milton Freidman, Ludwig Von Mises and Frederick Hayek, just to name a few, have produced literally hundreds of books that delve into the workings of free markets and what happens when you attempt to "re-design" or "re-engineer" society to suit a leftist political agenda. The results of these attempts to "recreate" civilization are invariably disastrous. And the reasons are not a mystery. Free market authors have explained them in detail. The Democrats could learn them, if they wished.

As Friederich Hayek has pointed out, the market is a vast and complex network of human interaction and relationships. This network is so complex, in fact, that no one person or group can possibly hope to fathom more than a tiny segment of it. The reason that it works, is that it is guided not by commands, as in the case of a socialist economy, but by rules. These rules function as parameters within which a great diversity of possibilities are allowed. But the rules are guidlines only. They largely determine the broad outlines of what we may do, but they do not require any particular result. Thus they allow individuals and groups to freely experiment and to advance in ways which are often unexpected and beneficial. This is what socialists refuse to understand; that modern societies are rule based rather than outcome based.

A good example of this would be traffic laws. They dictate what we may not do; we may not go through a red light; we may not cross the yellow line, etc. But they also leave us free to go where we want to, provided that we obey them and don't run into anyone else along the way. Thus we are free explore the possibilities and choose any destination. We are free to make our own choices and to act on them. But this freedom to choose is not the leftist way.

What Hillary and The Angry Left want is to command specific outcomes. Unsatisfied with the results of the free market that are the result of individual choices that we all have made, they seek to "re-engineer" the results to suit their own utopian tastes. If a company or an individual that they don't like is a success, they will take those profits away and give them to the latest politically correct failure. What Hillary and the left seek, is to reverse the progress that civilization has made over the course of centuries by repealing the rule based society that has brought us the most advanced standard of living in history, and go back to the command based tribalism of the past, in which a chief strongman tells everyone what to do.

But as we have seen in the last century, modern societies can't be run on this basis. While it may work in a small tribe or clan, it is totally inadequate for an advanced, modern society. When put into practice, the result is invariably suffering, poverty and oppression on an inhuman scale.

Refusing to Bleed Out

Hugh Hewitt has a number of suggestions for The LA Times, in this Townhall column, that might help it to survive. But as he also points out, they will probably not take any of them. Dinosaur Media is in a state of free fall, losing readers at a pace that can only be called astonishing. And the primary reason is content. The Elite Media Monoculture doesn't even try to hide its leftist bias any longer. With story after story attacking Republicans, conservatism and the administration on virtually every subject one can name, there is little doubt that they are an organ of the Democrat party. The alternative media has taken off because people are tired of the status quo and are looking for something other than the left wing spin. Why should that be hard to figure out?

Mirror, Mirror

Robert Novak brings us this item in which we learn that the Republican leadership is still reluctant to come to terms with the real reasons that they were handed such a stunning defeat in November. Criticism is always difficult to hear, but that does not make it less important. Author Frank Luntz has a new book out, "Words That Work", but you would never know it by looking at the stultified Republican leadership. It took a petition with over thirty thousand signature just to get them to notice that most of the base of the party didn't want to cut and run from Iraq or a resolution that demoralized the troops. Frankly I think we are in for a long drought, unless we are lucky enough to get a serious Republican leader elected to the White House in the next election. The Republicans in the congress certainly are not learning much about why the lost or what they need to do in order to be winners again.

"The Republican Party that lost those historic elections was a tired, cranky shell of the articulate reformist, forward-thinking movement that was swept into office in 1994 on a wave of positive change," Luntz wrote. He went on to say that the Republicans of 2006 "were an ethical morass, more interested in protecting their jobs than protecting the people they served. The 1994 Republicans came to 'revolutionize' Washington. Washington won."

Except for momentary defection to independent candidate Ross Perot in 1992, Luntz has been a Republican operative who has counseled Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani and Trent Lott. But he often has worked for the media, making comments too harsh for the ears of reclusive Republicans. He has clashed frequently with Rep. John Boehner, the current Republican leader of the House who stifled ethics legislation last year when he was still majority leader.

Boehner, elected chairman of the House Republican Conference when the party took control in 1995, tried then to keep Luntz from addressing closed-door meetings but was overruled by Speaker Gingrich. When Luntz in October 2005 publicly warned of rejection by voters in 2006, he was forced to deliver an abject apology before he could speak at a retreat of House Republicans held at the Library of Congress. After seven straight years on the program, Luntz was kept off last week's 2007 session at Cambridge, Md., by Boehner.

Palestine, The Hell Planet

Caroline Glick writes in The Jerusalem Post about the wonderful world of Palestine. Palestine is, of course, one of those places that the left always tells us about in terms both pompous and dramatic. The Angry Left loves to swoon over the Palestinians and their noble efforts to create their own state. The Palestinians are bravely trying to build their own nation; trying to escape the bonds of oppression; struggling to rise above the cruelty of those pesky Jews who keep them down and so forth. The trouble with this narrative is that the Palestinians are a people who are largely focused on their love of death and destruction. They would rather die and take a bunch of infidels with them, than have a functioning society. And so the predictable result is the uncontrolled mayhem that has ensued now that Israel has withdrawn from Gaza and left the Palestinians to their own devices. They are, for the most part, devices of torture and murder. And they are using them against themselves in a war of all against all. Remember this when an Angry Leftist tries to tell you that all cultures are the same and ours is no better than any other.

In the State of Palestine 88 percent of the public feels insecure. Perhaps the other 12 percent are members of the multitude of regular and irregular militias. For in the State of Palestine the ratio of police/militiamen/men-under-arms to civilians is higher than in any other country on earth.

In the State of Palestine, two-year-olds are killed and no one cares. Children are woken up in the middle of the night and murdered in front of their parents. Worshipers in mosques are gunned down by terrorists who attend competing mosques. And no one cares. No international human rights groups publish reports calling for an end to the slaughter. No UN body condemns anyone or sends a fact-finding mission to investigate the murders.

In the State of Palestine, women are stripped naked and forced to march in the streets to humiliate their husbands. Ambulances are stopped on the way to hospitals and wounded are shot in cold blood. Terrorists enter operating rooms in hospitals and unplug patients from life-support machines.

In the State of Palestine, people are kidnapped from their homes in broad daylight and in front of the television cameras. This is the case because the kidnappers themselves are cameramen. Indeed, their commanders often run television stations. And because terror commanders run television stations in the State of Palestine, it should not be surprising that they bomb the competition's television stations.

A Mighty Wind

Give yourself to the dark side...

In this screed, by William Arkin of The Washington Post, we get to see, in all its glory, the naked and unvarnished hate of the Anti-American left and The Elite Media Monoculture. Nowadays they are pretty much one and the same thing. It is getting more and more difficult to tell the difference between the rantings you might find at "The Daily Kos" and what you will be treated to from a "mainstream" American newspaper such as the Post. What we can surmise from this is that The Angry Left either feels safe enough to let their hate be seen clearly for what it is, or they are no longer capable of controlling themselves and putting up a false front that would make them appear more reasonable. Personally I'm inclined to think it is the latter.

The subject of Arkin's post is his view of the people in the military, and particularly those overseas in Iraq. He leaves us no doubt about the contempt in which he holds those who are defending his freedom with their own lives. And by implication he tells us what he thinks about all the rest of us.

So, we pay the soldiers a decent wage, take care of their families, provide them with housing and medical care and vast social support systems and ship obscene amenities into the war zone for them, we support them in every possible way, and their attitude is that we should in addition roll over and play dead, defer to the military and the generals and let them fight their war, and give up our rights and responsibilities to speak up because they are above society?

I can imagine some post-9/11 moment, when the American people say enough already with the wars against terrorism and those in the national security establishment feel these same frustrations. In my little parable, those in leadership positions shake their heads that the people don't get it, that they don't understand that the threat from terrorism, while difficult to defeat, demands commitment and sacrifice and is very real because it is so shadowy, that the very survival of the United States is at stake. Those Hoover's and Nixon's will use these kids in uniform as their soldiers. If I weren't the United States, I'd say the story end with a military coup where those in the know, and those with fire in their bellies, save the nation from the people.

But it is the United States and instead this NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer - force that thinks it is doing the dirty work.

It should be pointed out that the proper definition of a mercenary is one who is paid to fight for a country which is not his own. A soldier for hire who sells himself to the highest bidder. The use of this term by The Angry Left is actually quite revealing. For members of this fifth column don't really consider themselves to be Americans in any traditional sense of the word. Indeed, they will often go to great lengths to proclaim that they are "citizens of the world" rather than Americans. They distance themselves from the ideas and values which are commonly understood to be at the base of the American experiment in freedom, individual rights and private property.

Thus, from their point of view, our soldiers are fighting for a country not their own. The Angry Left see themselves as in a foreign land which they are desperately trying to change according to their utopian schemes. They wish America to be something very different than what it was originally intended to be. And most Americans, at some level, still see it in its more traditional terms. But The Angry Left sees it as the enemy, and so American soldiers who are fighting to defend the original ideas of freedom and liberty over seas are also seen as the enemy. How could they not be when their actions prevent the hate filled left from achieving their dreams of a socialist America?

And so we get this sort of malevolent exposition from a member of the Dinosaur Media that shows the snarling fangs hiding behind the false front of "tolerance" and "moderation" that are so often claimed as the real soul of the left. But the facade is rapidly crumbling and no amount of remedial repair can keep it from showing through.