Wednesday, January 31, 2007

'The Future of Religion and American Politics'...

For anyone local (or not) who's interested in attending... Regent University in VA Beach is hosting the Ronald Reagan Symposium 2007 this Friday from 9:00am to 4:00pm. It's free!

Speakers

Register here.

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Sunday, January 28, 2007

Funny, and yet not...

Joke of the DayCourtesy of Crush Liberalism:
Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Cokie Roberts, and a tough old U.S. Marine Sergeant were all captured by terrorists in Iraq. The leader of the terrorists told them that he would grant them each one last request before they were beheaded.

Dan Rather said, "Well, I'm a Texan; so I'd like one last bowlful of hot spicy chili." The leader nodded to an underling who left and returned with the chili. Rather ate it all and said, "Now I can die content."

Peter Jennings said, "I am Canadian, so I'd like to hear the song "O Canada" one last time." The leader nodded to a terrorist who had studied the Western world and knew the music. He returned with some rag-tag Musicians and played the anthem. Jennings sighed and declared he could now die peacefully.

Cokie Roberts said, "I'm a reporter to the end. I want to take out my tape recorder and describe the scene here and what's about to happen. Maybe someday someone will hear it and know that I was on the job till the end."

The leader directed an aide to hand over the tape recorder and Roberts dictated some comments. She then said, "Now I can die happy."

The leader turned and said, "And now, Mr. U.S. Marine, what is your final wish?"

"Kick me in the ass," said the Marine.

"What?" asked the leader? "Will you mock us in your last hour?"

"No, I'm not kidding. I want you to kick me in the ass," insisted the Marine. So the leader shoved him into the open, and kicked him in the ass.

The Marine went sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled a 9 mm pistol from inside his fatigues, and shot the leader dead. In the resulting confusion, he leapt to his knapsack, pulled out his M4 carbine and sprayed the Iraqis with gunfire. In a flash, all the Iraqis were either dead or fleeing for their lives.

As the Marine was untying Rather, Jennings, and Roberts, they asked him, "Why didn't you just shoot them in the beginning? Why did you ask them to kick you in the ass first?"

"What??" replied the Marine, "And have you three a**holes report that I was the aggressor?"
Kinda funny... kinda on the mark... kinda depressing.

(hat tip Fred)

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Monday, January 22, 2007

Saturday Night Live nails Hillary...

... and Darrell Hammond does an AWESOME Chris Matthews. You've got to watch:


"For every one point increase in Senator Obama's poll numbers,
7500 troops will have to be withdrawn.
"

Outstanding!

(Thanks Allah)

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Some nice quotes from today's Patriot Brief...

From Mark Alexander's Patriot Post:

Thomas SowellThomas Sowell:
“The most fundamental difference between President Bush and his critics has not been in who has made mistakes, because both have. The biggest difference has been that the President has taken a long-run view of the worldwide war on terror, while his critics are seeking a quick fix. Critics claim that there is no connection between the war on terror and the war in Iraq. They don’t seem to notice that the terrorists themselves obviously see a clear connection, which they express in both words and deeds. Terrorists are pouring into Iraq, even at the cost of their lives, in order to prevent a free, democratic government from being established in the Middle East. They see victory or defeat in Iraq as having major and long-lasting repercussions throughout the region and even throughout the world.”

Ronald ReaganRonald Reagan:
“[A]bortion is not a harmless medical procedure but the taking of the life of a living human being. This tragic and terrible toll continues... Our national commitment to the dignity of all human life must begin with the respect for our most basic civil right: the right to life... America will never be whole as long as the right to life, granted by our Creator, is denied to the unborn. Together we can overturn Roe v. Wade, and end this national tragedy... Each woman who chooses life for her child affirms our reverence for human life and ennobles our society. Each child is a unique, unrepeatable gift, and every child who escapes the violence of abortion is an immeasurable victory for life... Together, with God’s help, we will finish the task and heal our wounded nation.”

Tom PurcellTom Purcell:
“It’s not that I dislike government... I just don’t trust government. Which brings us to the Democrats. Democrats love government. They think government and good intentions can solve all the woes of the world. And now that they’re running Congress, they’re going to try to do just that. They’ll promise to ‘fix’ our health care troubles by having the government take over, which will increase our troubles and limit our health care. They’ll ‘fix’ Social Security by raising taxes and growing the program, only to hurt the economy and damage the program. They’ll ‘fix’ the gap between rich and poor by raising taxes on the rich, which will slow the economy and make all of us poorer—especially the poor. The Democrats will unwittingly unleash a legion of federal meter maids who will regulate, monitor and punish—and unwittingly accomplish the opposite of whatever they set out to accomplish.”

Subscribe to the Patriot Post here.

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Novak: Republicans are divided and listless...

Novak - Student Loan Scam... and the latest, best example is the Student Loan Scam:
...In contrast to ideologically diverse Democrats who controlled Congress in the past, today's House majority members look like automatons not only in the way they look but how they talk. The hand of Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, was apparent as Democrats newly elected under his chairmanship took the floor to deliver nearly identical speeches of how this bill will help poor students. ...

... Because Democrats are now committed to "pay-go" (offsetting all spending increases), this bill means cutting $6 billion from other federally subsidized student loan programs on top of a net $12 billion cut by the last Republican-controlled Congress. ...

... The once militant, united House Republicans are demoralized and on the run. They were battered in the last campaign for cutting school loans in the previous Congress and are willing to go along with a sham bill, hoping for Senate gridlock and a presidential veto.
Crap.

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Friday, January 19, 2007

Onward Christian Mothers...

Onward Christian MothersAnother great column from Mac Johnson:
... Men and women may be morally equal, but they are not functionally equivalent. They need to nurture their separate identities, and must be treated differently in law and culture to ensure that little things like law and culture have future generations to be passed down to. It is not just major issues of ideology preventing action either, sheer incompetence and lack of vision comes into play as well. The U.S. Congress cannot even eliminate the marriage penalty and seems to think that it costs about $3400 per year to raise a child -- and this crack force is supposed to reverse the deepest demographic decline since the Black Death? Government is a lost cause on this issue.

The churches are perhaps the only forces that can reverse our demographic decline and re-center a large part of society onto the idea of family and sacrifice, rather than career and wealth. The churches of America and Europe must begin to preach the gospel of family and to teach again that part of the mission to which the faithful are called is parenthood. And no, I’m not talking about encouraging a program of breeding by fanatics.


The whole difference between
a Christian civilization in decline
and one in growth is simply
having three kids per family


The whole difference between a Christian civilization in decline and one in growth is simply having three kids per family become the standard for your average imperfect Christians (like the kind that go to church every few weeks), rather than the two per family that has been sold to society by the mental duds that sought to defuse the “Population Bomb.” One need not have so many children that the TLC channel starts making documentaries about your laundry needs and grocery shopping. The path to a better world, filled with sufficient people of shared philosophy to maintain, defend and expand our civilization is simple:

1. Have kids before one’s ovaries require pharmacological starter fluid, and

2. Have three or four instead of one or two.

Churches can encourage this small, but potent change in our mores, by not only teaching that a kid is a better use of funds than a bass boat or a BMW (and more fun some days), but by focusing on the centrality of family in their ministry. The leaders of the church need to live the example of the ministry of parenthood as well. What sort of shepherd has no time for his own lambs? ...
Read it all.

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Bryan Preston from HotAir reports on Iraq...

Vent-Iraqis Speak to America(Click the image to the right for today's Vent Video Report from Baghdad.)

Bryan Preston has a couple of outstanding posts this week that you should read.

The first discusses good/bad 'JAM', the mafia, and how petty politics hinders our ability to see reality. The core question: is Iraq in a "civil war" or not?...
Thanks mostly to political environment, we’ve all been mired in a debate over whether Iraq is in a state of civil war or not. What should be a cold assessment of truth on the ground in Iraq has, like every single aspect of the war, become politicized. If you describe the situation in Iraq as a “civil war,” it’s taken as an implied or direct criticism of President Bush more than your opinion of the actual state of play in Iraq. If you resist calling it a “civil war,” you’re usually seen as an apologist for the Bush administration and its policies.

Why everything has to revolve around Bush is a mystery to me. Making everything about him trivializes the war and personalizes it to the point that real policy debate becomes impossible. It makes our politics petty and hinders our ability to see reality for what it is and learn to adjust to it. It’s childish, but it’s where we are as a country.


Making everything about [Bush]
trivializes the war and personalizes
it to the point that real
policy debate becomes impossible.


Nevertheless, I’m going to wade into this. Having seen a little bit of Baghdad up close and talked with the troops serving there, I don’t believe Iraq is in a state of civil war. Before you liberals run off declaring me a neo-con or Bush apologist, hear me out. You can always mischaracterize me later, but at least do me the honor of using my actual words. And before any war supporters cheer, hear me out.
Read it all.

'Victory Over America' palaceThe second post/report (just in) called Tomba Kids discusses the devastation of the UN’s Oil-For-Food program and how Iraq's next generation just wants to play a little soccer...
...The UN’s Oil-For-Food program was supposed to prevent Iraq’s weakest from just this sort of calamity. Instead OFF cash went to build palaces like Al Faw, near Baghdad Airport, and the unfinished Victory Over America palace. Iraq was a failed state before 2003; the world just didn’t know it yet. It took an invasion to find out.


Iraq was a failed state before 2003;
the world just didn’t know it yet.
It took an invasion to find out.


Looming over the slum is a sort of monument to Benan Sevan and Kofi Annan: An Oil-For-Food warehouse. Captain Stacy Bare, civil affairs officer at Forward Operating Base Justice near here, describes Oil-For-Food as “the worst thing the UN could have done” for Iraq. I’d say it’s the second worst, the worst being the UN’s failure to enforce its own resolutions against Saddam. But I won’t argue with Bare’s assessment of OFF. It was a travesty that fueled a tragedy. ...

... The kids kept coming up to me and yelling what to my untrained ear sounded like “tomba, tomba!” I had no idea what they were asking me until one of our interpreters explained that they were saying “ball.” Pretty soon I heard one kid say “fut bol” and then it clicked–they want soccer balls. These kids have nothing. No PS3. No Wii or Nintendo DS (though a few do have pirated satellite dishes, and televisions powered by illegally tapping into the power lines overhead. MacGyver would be proud of the ingenuity on display here). They just want a ball to kick around in the dirt and chase around with their friends. It just about broke my heart to explain that I didn’t have a soccer ball to give them. Not that they understood a word I was saying. They just kept mugging for the camera. ...

...Iraq could be prosperous, stable and free, and sooner than most people think. But to get there its people will have to get over their sectarian differences and see themselves as Iraqis first. Or better yet, as humans first. Can they? In time, maybe. But not tomorrow or next week. It’s going to take time to cool things down. It’s going to take the presence of a benevolent outside power to give them that time.

The Iraqis say they need 15 years of peace before they’ll be a normal nation again. Iraq hasn’t known 15 years of peace in forever, it has barely known 15 minutes of peace, and it’s in the wrong neighborhood to expect more than a year or two of peace in a run. Then again, for the past 35 years Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was the fountainhead for much of the region’s unrest, and he’s gone. So maybe a few years of peace aren’t too much to hope for. Eventually.

Iraq’s next generation just wants to play a little soccer. What might the next few decades look like if their soccer balls bore a stamp saying “Gift of the United States of America”?
Previous report.

Losing Strategy

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Thursday, January 18, 2007

Conservative Glenn Beck Continues to Infultrate the Liberal MSM...

Why is Glenn Beck back on Good Morning America?...and they're not happy about it.

I get it... no one is allowed to believe in anything for fear of offending, so the proper thing to do is to not believe in... anything?

From Glenn:
As some of have heard me mention by now, I’ve been asked by Good Morning America to be a contributor. If this is the first time you’re hearing this, let me give you a moment to let it sink in (I still have trouble believing it). Go ahead—I’ll wait…

(elapsed time: 2 Twix Bars, 1 Twizzler)

Okay—has it sunk in? Good. I can imagine that now one of three things must be going through your mind:

1) Wow--it’s finally happened. He’s lost it and has started hallucinating.

2) There must be another show called Good Morning America--he can’t possibly mean the award-winning program hosted by Diane Sawyer.

3) Can it be true?

For those of you who guessed answer 3, you’re right! (For those who picked number 1, you get partial credit.) Being asked by Diane Sawyer to join the team meant a great deal, but the reason she did so has as much to do with all of you as with me. The work that I do--the radio show…the TV…the tours—I only get to do that stuff because of you. You’ve kept the show going all these years—some of you have been with me since the Tampa days, and I want you to know how much I appreciate it. All the ideas and issues that we talk about on a daily basis (well, most of them anyway) are sneaking into the mainstream—this GMA invitation is proof of that. I just say what’s on my mind about everything from what’s on television to who’s in the White House. Sometimes you agree and sometimes you don’t (and you’re never shy about telling me just how wrong you think I am). Mostly though, we talk and we listen to each other.
NewsBusters has a long catalog on Diane Sawyer's liberalism as well as GMA in general. It's great to see Glenn breaking through!

Glenn's A Brief History of Christmas courtesy of age234. Funny, and yet not so funny:


Merry Freakin' Winter!

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Wednesday, January 17, 2007

HotAir reports from Baghdad...

Click the image to the right for a must-watch video report from Michelle.

Click here for a must-read (photos too) post titled "Assessing Iraq" from Bryan... it's fantastic:
This post is mostly about mistakes. The troops didn’t sit down with us and tick off all the mistakes that they think we have made in Iraq to date, so what follows isn’t their gripe list being published under my name. They did answer our questions forthrightly and we learned much from interviewing them and just talking with them over chow and listening to their crosstalk in the Humvees. So this post is made up of my observations after seeing the war up close and following it from afar, including mistakes, fumbles and ways forward to win–and what victory actually looks like.
Take a few minutes to read it all. I hope our politicians in Washington do... especially President Bush and Senator Webb before the upcoming State of the Union address/response.

Also, Michelle writes in her latest column about what she saw in Iraq:
I came to Iraq a darkening pessimist about the war, due in large part to my doubts about the compatibility of Islam and Western-style democracy, but also as a result of the steady, sensational diet of "grim milestone" and "daily IED count" media coverage that aids the insurgency.

I left Iraq with unexpected hope and resolve.

The everyday bravery and consummate professionalism of the troops I embedded with have strengthened my faith in the U.S. military. These soldiers are well aware of the history, culture and sectarian strife that have wracked the Muslim world for more than a millennium. "They love death," one gunner muttered as we heard explosions in the distance while parked in al Adil. Nevertheless, these troops are willing to put their lives on the line to bring security to Iraq, one neighborhood at a time. ...

... The troops I met scoff at peace activists' efforts to "bring them home now." But they are just as critical of the Bush administration and Pentagon's missteps -- from holding Iraqi elections too early, to senselessly breaking up their brigade combat team, to drawing down forces and withdrawing last year in Baghdad and Fallujah, to failing to hold cities after clearing them of insurgents. They speak candidly and critically of Shiite militia infiltration of some Iraqi police and Iraqi Army units and corruption in government ministries, but they want you to know about the unheralded good news, too. ...

... Winning the counterinsurgency battle is not just about keeping Iraqis safe. It's about keeping Americans safe -- by sending a message that the mightiest military in the world cannot and will not be outwitted and outlasted by the fleas. On the emblem of the Dagger Brigade are two imperatives: "Continue mission!" and "Duty first." These troops are committed to their mission. They deserve our commitment to them.

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Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Amazing pictures from 'A Crowded Womb'...

From the Daily Mail:
A twin leans over and kisses the cheek of her sister in a heart-warming picture that would not be out of place in any family home.

Yet these siblings are a not even born and the astonishing images have been captured on a new 'four-dimensional' ultrasound scan of the womb. ...

... The new 4D scan us ses the same frequency of sound waves w as in a normal ultrasound. But the sound waves are directed from many more angles, producing a 'real-time' video of the foetus as it moves and allowing scientists to say the images are in four dimensions.

This advanced technology has allowed scientists to capture the development of foetuses like never before, including twins and triplets jostling for space in the womb while grasping each other's hands and even faces.
Amazing.

Now, a funny reminder of how we got here from our friends at South Park.

Go Ms. Garrison!:

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Monday, January 15, 2007

Must-watch dispatches on UK Mosques...

"An ideology of bigotry and intolerance spreading through Britain".

Britain is screwed:
Part I of III from Kasper1062:
This investigation into Britain's mosques, by Channel 4's respected Dispatches programme,has revealed worrying evidence of just how rife Islamic extremism is among Muslim preachers.

The undercover TV inquiry, conducted over ten months, reveals some religious clerics urging their congregations to start preparing for jihad (holy war) against infidels or non-Muslims. Another is caught on camera telling families to hit their daughters for not covering their heads with the veil or hijab.

One imam from a Derby mosque, called Dr Ijaz Mian, was filmed calling for the creation of an Islamic 'state within a state' in Britain before the country is taken over by Muslims.

Addressing a group of youths, he said: 'King. Queen. House of Commons ... if you accept it, you are part of it. If you don't accept it, you have to dismantle it. So you being a Muslim, you have to fix a target. There will be no House of Commons ... Muslims just grow in strength ... then take over.'

The programme paints an alarming picture of how preachers, even at what are regarded as the most moderate mosques, urge their followers to reject Britain's legal system in favour of shariah law and its radical rulebook.

The investigators spent four months filming undercover at one mosque, Green Lane in Birmingham, which caters for thousands of worshippers.

The main preacher is Abu Usamah, an American convert to Islam, who studied at Medinah University in Saudi Arabia, before coming to Britain. He is seen telling worshippers not to believe that Islamic terrorists are operating in Britain, as all non-Muslims are liars.

In another sequence, he is heard saying that Christians and Jews are 'kuffaars' (non-believers) and the enemies of Islam. 'No one loves the kuffaar, not a single person loves the kuffaar,' he rants. 'We hate the kuffaar!' Then he adds, triumphantly: 'Allah has not given those people who are kuffaar a way over the believer. They shouldn't be in authority over us. Muslims shouldn't be satisfied with anything other than a total Islamic state.

'I encourage all of you to begin to cultivate ourselves for the time that is fast approaching - where the tables are going to turn and the Muslims are going to be in the position of being uppermost in strength. And when that happens, people won't get killed - unjustly,' he promises.

As for women, he says they are 'deficient, even if they have a PhD. Her intellect is incomplete. She may be suffering from hormones that will make her emotional. It takes two witnesses of a woman to equal the one witness of a man.'

He goes on to say that gays deserve to die. 'If I were to call homosexuals perverted, dirty, filthy dogs who should be murdered ... that's my freedom of speech, isn't it?'

The TV investigators also bought damning videos and DVDs of speeches by Muslim preachers from a shop at the London Central Mosque in Regent's Park.

The mosque has always been hailed by the Muslim Council of Britain and the Government as a symbol of reason and mainstream Islamic life in this country.

But the programme's team found copies of films of preachers decrying the equality of women as a 'bunch of foolishness' and claiming that Christian missionaries put the Aids virus into medicines in order to poison the people of Africa.

The TV exposé, like the Mail's own investigation in Surrey, shows that the systematic brainwashing of Muslims by their religious leaders is now commonplace. And it appears to be producing results.

Twenty-eight per cent said they believed Britain should be an Islamic state. In another worrying sign, one in three young Muslims said that the London bombings were justified because Britain had joined America in the 'war on terror'.
Part II:

Part III:


(Thanks to Allah for the tip.)

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Sunday, January 14, 2007

Unity, forgiveness, mercy, and constant appeasement are to be more highly favored than righteousness, holiness, faithfulness, and obedience...

Kevin McCullough is absolutely right with Why the 'Christian Left' is not:
All three men shun the thought of biblically based Christians from standing firm against the creeping peril of evil in our culture. "Be more tolerant," they would advise. "Reach out with love and understanding, not judgment and division."

The 'Christian Left' is rife with such belief.

Unity, forgiveness, mercy, and constant appeasement are to be more highly favored than righteousness, holiness, faithfulness, and obedience.

In doing so the 'Christian Left' also claims to align itself with liberal ideas for the cause of helping the poor, the oppressed, and the downtrodden. When I asked Dr. Campolo for an example he actually cited, "a woman's right... to vote." What is this 1920?

If Wallis, Warren, and/or Campolo are reading this now, please hear this. There is a divide between liberals and conservatives over the relief of poverty, the easing of suffering, and setting the enslaved free. The divide is not the substance however, but rather the methods.

The American political left believe that only Americans should have the right to live in freedom, thus their hesitation and belligerence in advancing freedom in other corners of the globe. But is not freedom a gift from God, for his creation? The American political left is not concerned with the freedom and liberation of the unborn child - but they will speak at length about the evil of slavery that ended in the 1800's. It was not leftists that marched for full civil rights in the 1960's and it was not democrats who granted full civil rights in the 1870's.

Wallis and company will argue for the relief of poverty but give political support to liberals in America who seek to keep the poor impoverished, and dependent upon government for the well being of their family, and future. Conservatives are the ones who wish to see taxes reduced, so that government revenues increase, safety net programs insured - and fewer people needing them in the first place.

And who was it that brought relief in record supply to Tsunami and Katrina victims - not the leftist Academics, spoiled Hollywood starlets, or the National Organization for Women.

It was the bible-believing, faith practicing, church going religious right.

For biblical Christians to associate themselves in any way with the progressive leftists in America today is to associate oil with water.

So take your pick, choose to be a faithful, biblically centered Christian, or a godless, amoral leftist - but the two do not go together.

Not if you're sincere...
Exactly.

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O'Reilly: '[T]he media now have a vested interest in America's failure'...

O'Reilly: The Future of IraqBill O'Reilly backing up his opinion by pointing to two facts:
First, The New York Times summed up President Bush's speech on Iraq this way: "There is nothing ahead but even greater disaster in Iraq." That doesn't leave The Times much wiggle room, does it?

And second, the execution of Saddam. We now know that the Bush administration asked the Iraqi government to postpone the hanging by two weeks, at least. The Iraqis said no and demanded the dictator be handed over. The president complied.

The Iraqis then totally botched the execution, and the long knives came out. The American press pounded the Bush administration for being incompetent once again. NBC's Tom Brokaw called the execution a "Wild West hanging," and flat out said it would lead to more violence in Iraq.

Well, so far, violence levels have not risen, and while Mr. Brokaw is certainly entitled to his opinion on the Wild West front, I can only wonder what the anti-Bush press would have said if the USA had not handed Saddam over to the Iraqis. The likely headline would have been something like: "Bush Insults the Iraqi Justice System." The articles and punditry would have emphasized that America was usurping Iraqi authority.
And Mark Alexander asks... If not Iraq, then where, when and at what cost?:
Shoring up our critical national interest in the Middle East and protecting our homeland from another catastrophic attack must trump rancorous politics. John Stuart Mill wrote, "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse." Operation Iraqi Freedom is a bitter pill, to be sure, but one that will become less palatable only if we refuse to take it now.
Take it now.


Grateful Dead - Estimated Prophet, 4/26/77

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Friday, January 12, 2007

Converted Muslim Dr. Ergun Caner talks about his conversion to Christianity in 'A Story of Hope'...

Part I: "Christianity marches on the shoulders of anonymous people"


Part II: "Fear the scales"


Part III: "Mercy and Grace"


Part IV: "The Trinity is not a trick"

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The Conservative Movement Needs Leaders...

Conservative Movement Needs LeadersKen Blackwell is right:
... Twelve years of Republican majorities have witnessed expansive corporate welfare, ineffective industrial subsidization and the increasing federalization of education and health care. The GOP Congress has responded to failing federal initiatives with equally unsustainable programs, and Americans have learned the hard way that a government cannot spend away its own inefficiency.

Many Republican leaders have demonstrated little commitment to one or more of our conservative principles — limited government, individual liberty, free-market enterprise and belief in the sanctity of life. ...


Republican leaders have demonstrated
little commitment to one or more
of our conservative principles


... The battle conservatives face and must fight is for the recognition of the individual, in both our moral culture and in our marketplace. The human being is set apart by his ability of self-direction. The faculty of reason and control of one's actions and intentions belongs to humankind alone. In this capacity, individuals reflect their inherent dignity of beings created in the image of God, and from this they derive their natural and unalienable right to human liberty.

We on the right are particularly equipped to defend human freedoms, for we embrace a tradition established in the United States by our Founders and ordered in the universe by our God: the understanding that the state of a society is determined by the liberty of and choices made by each of its members. As Americans we are entitled to political and economic freedom as individuals; because we were willed one-by-one into existence by our Creator, our lives have uninfringeable worth.
Read the rest here at Human Events.

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Rush on Bush, emotion, and apologies...

W.'S TEARS FOR A HERO & PEP TALK FOR GISAgain from Rush yesterday:
Now, I mentioned earlier that the president in his speech last night admitted that he made mistakes. Boy are they so ginned up about that, they're so excited about this in the Drive-By Media. [Are they] saying, “Do the libs ever apologize for the mayhem and inhumanity that they cause?” Does anybody ever demand that they apologize? Why do we allow ourselves to constantly be on defense about this? Who says that our very existence requires an apology? Hey, libs, how's that war on poverty going, huh? How many casualties in the war poverty? How many casualties from being weak on crime? How many casualties to our culture and society from liberal judges who slap criminals on the wrist? How many inner city families, libs, have you busted up? You feel bad about that? Oh, I'm sorry, we're not supposed to look at liberals' results, ladies and gentlemen. No. We're supposed to examine their good intentions.


[W]e're not supposed to look at liberals' results...
We're supposed to examine their good intentions.


But when it comes to George W. Bush and the war on terror to defend and protect the country, and the US military charged with the actual responsibility for doing this, we're never allowed to examine the good intentions. We're never allowed to look at Bush's heart and understand maybe he just wants the best that he sees. No. No. We don't look at results, either. We make up results. We lie about what a failure Bush is. We lie, the liberal Democrats lie about his policy and how it's a failure. We never, ever hear them apologize for diddly-squat. How about the cost to taxpayers for all these failures in the Great Society, libs? How about apologizing for the judicial appointments that Carter and Clinton have made that have so gummed up the works of having to fight the war on terror?


We're never allowed to look
at Bush's heart and understand maybe
he just wants the best that he sees.


How about apologizing for the abominations that have put on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California? If there's ever an embarrassment in liberal land, that's it, how about some apologizes for what you've done? Why should they apologize. Their arrogance and condescension is such that they are never wrong. Where's the hand-wringing? Where are the graphics? Which takes me to a couple of audio sound bites last night when the president addressed the nation. Here's a portion of what he said. This is the line the Drive-By Media begged for and they're having orgasms over it.


Their arrogance and condescension
is such that they are never wrong.


THE PRESIDENT: The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people, and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.

...

RUSH: And here we have it, ladies and gentlemen, the Oprahized society that loves apologizes and loves emotion. They wanted him to cry, they wanted to see a tear, or they wanted to see a bitten lower lip, à la Clinton. Look, people, he is president of the United States. It was a speech delivering facts, it was a speech informing the country and the world of what had gone wrong and what was now being planned to fix it. This was not about making you feel good, first, foremost, and only. “I wish he'd have had more emotion.” Probably would have been a better acceptance rate if he had, but he is who he is. I don't think his view of the presidency is that people want to see the commander-in-chief in any kind of an emotional display. Trust me. That's not a measure of strength, folks.

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A thoughtful tribute to those who sacrifice in this war in Iraq...

To the right is a nice tribute from lewismdmx.

Rush related to this subject of sacrifice yesterday as he talked about our "war weariness"...
I saw a story last night, what was it, AP, talking about war-weary Americans. I just threw my hands up in frustration, as if any of us have some kind of direct role in prosecuting this war. If you are a war-weary American and you are not a military family, and you have not been sent to combat, then grow up! What do you mean, war-weary? What are we becoming here? A nation of linguini-spined pacifist wimps? “I don't want to be made uncomfortable, that's why I'm war-weary, Mr. Limbaugh.” On the one hand, all the libs are out there saying that we don't sacrifice, we're not making any sacrifice. So how in God's name can we be war-weary? The same people say we need to sacrifice and we’re not sacrificing, and in the same breath they then claim that we are war-weary. War-weary Americans? This is the media describing you.


If you are a war-weary American
and you are not a military family,
and you have not been sent to combat,
then grow up!


This is a news story in which you are described as war-weary Americans, as if you have some kind of direct role in prosecuting this war, as though you're tired of being shot at, tired of spending time in military hospitals. They are projecting their reality on to you and all of us again, and their reality isn't reality at all. They may be war-weary because they don't like war, and because they're afraid that we might win this. This is what I say when we have become a nation of pacifists, we delude ourselves as if we are suffering so. Who among you, who is not a member of a military family and hasn't been sent to any theater of military operations, who among you can say that you are suffering? I want to hear from you. I want to hear about the virtue of your suffering, when you're not a military family. I don't hear the military families complaining. I don't hear US military people, “We are weary of this war, and we want to come home.” I hear the exact opposite. They're frustrated, they want to be turned loose, they want to kick butt, they want to win. I know many of them now. Gotten to know a lot of them. I get e-mail from them, people who are there now and people who have been.


we have become a nation of pacifists,
we delude ourselves as if we are suffering so.


Now all of a sudden average Joe Six-Pack, wife Mary Jo and the 2.8 kids and the white picket fence and the two SUVs in the garage are war-weary and suffering? We got the economy chugging along, we are surrounded by luxury, we don't even realize how good we have it. We are so self-indulgent and we are so affluent -- this is exactly what I mean when I say we have a generation here who has had to invent its own traumas to convince itself that it is living through tough times, like our parents and grandparents did. So now we are war-weary, eh? Well, that's a morale booster. You want to talk about war-weary, talk to people who actually fight them and ask them what war-weary is. You know what they'll tell you? They'll tell you that war-weary is being fed up with their morale constantly assaulted, with having to hear on the news that they're losing and can't win, and that what they're doing is not worth it. That's what war-weary is.


war-weary is being fed up
with their morale constantly assaulted,
with having to hear on the news
that they're losing and can't win,
and that what they're doing
is not worth it.


War-weary, I'm sorry, is not you sitting watching the evening news or going to a movie or whatever you do or walking around the mall feeling uncomfortable about it when you have no involvement. That really frosts me, folks. This, of all things I read last night. It's time for this nation to grow up and become adults. But it's going to be hard to do with the liberals now running Congress, Oprah off in South Africa spreading Oprahization to Africa now that she's done it here in America. We got Dr. Phil out there and all these other touchy feel good things.
Lori Byrd weighs in also:
...While I have great sympathy for the loved ones of fallen soldiers, it seems that for many on the Left their “support” of the troops is expressed as sympathy for anyone in the military. Some lament that our soldiers (or kids as they often refer to them) have been sent to fight an unjust war by an idiot President who decided to invade Iraq to line the pockets of his rich oil buddies. To those people, the troops are seen as victims to be pitied. After all, they were just trying to escape the less fortunate half of John Edwards' two Americas, seeing the military as a last ditch resort to get a free education and job training.

I have been married to a Marine Corps veteran for the past 15 years, and I am confident in saying that sympathy is not what those in the U.S. armed forces want. They want the support and the respect of those they risk life and limb to protect. If they get spat upon, or accused of being terrorists or torturers instead, they do their jobs anyway. It makes the job easier though when they know the support and respect is there, and it is impossible to properly respect those in our military without acknowledging the work they are doing and the value of the sacrifices they are making.

We frequently hear even major opponents of the war say they "support the troops." What we rarely ever hear, though, is much about what the troops have done right in Iraq. I would love to hear anyone who disagrees with me on this one list of a dozen U.S. military accomplishments in Iraq that the average American could name. To say that things have not gone as hoped in Iraq is an incredible understatement, but that does not mean there have not been significant accomplishments made in the face of great difficulty.

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Thursday, January 11, 2007

Stretched thin in Iraq...

Michael Yon - Walk the Line 2From Michael Yon, Walk the line part 2 of 3:
... This does not look like a big or intense war to people at home. It doesn’t look like that because we have so few troops actually in combat. But for those who are truly fighting, this is a brutal death match where every mistake can get them killed, or make worldwide headlines. Yet when the enemy drills out eyes or tortures people with acid, it never resonates.

There is an explanation for why when some of these young soldiers and Marines go home and people are trying to talk with them they might be caught silently staring out a window. Many people back home seem to think they have an idea what is happening here, but most do not. And nobody is here to tell the story of our people in this war. ...
Read it all.

I'm really looking forward to hearing from Michelle and Bryan.


That's how we play the game.

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Little reminders that hockey (and youth sports in general) is more than goals and victories...

OneGoalMy son's hockey coach just forwarded this around. It's a column from a few years ago called Fun is the Winner.

This blog doesn't cover much in the way of sports (read Bill Simmons), but this is nice...
It happened during a playoff game years ago, when I turned from the bench, heard the screams in the crowd, saw the tight faces and parental anxiety, and understood completely the great contradiction that is minor hockey.

A little boy, no more than nine years old, in a one-goal game, with minutes to play, tapped me with his stick and asked a most important question.

"Coach," he said, "Do we get snacks today?"

"Snacks," I almost shouted but quickly composed myself. And in my mind I'm thinking, we're up by a goal, time is running out, the play is in our end, we're barely hanging on ...

Who cares if we have snacks?

Except the little boy cared. More about the juice than the score. More about the snacks than winning. More about the experience of hockey than the end result.

I thought about telling his father this story after the game but the father was one of those "kill the referee" kind of parents. If I told him this story, much as I found it amusing and telling once perspective set in, he might have destroyed his son's future in hockey.

Can't you just hear the dad?

"Snack, I'll give you snacks. Son, there's a game to win here, a big game. Think smacks, not snacks. This is no way to be a champion."

It is a way to be a child. An honest way. A fine way.

And too often we forget that. Too often we get too caught up in the result. That game, that day, that shift, that moment. We don't see the world and the game the way our kids do -- and we should try to see it that way more often.

That's why I love coaching. Every time you think you're the next Scotty Bowman, every time you're planning your next line or your next power play, you get one of these little reminders:

"Coach, I have to pee."

Nothing is quite as real as that.

And suddenly, that's all that matters, you learn how little minor hockey is about winning or losing. It is about being there. The more parents who understand that, the more hockey would develop well-rounded families -- not children but entire families.

A fascinating poll was presented at the On Ice Summit of a few years back. It asked young players what they would prefer -- more ice time or more winning. The overwhelming response came in favor of ice time, not victories.

Ask the parent the same question and the answer might be different. Ask most coaches and the answer would almost certainly be different.

Adults want to win. Kids want to play. Adults want to be in charge. Kids want freedom.

Adults push for more power skating and hockey schools. Kids want a sheet of ice and a puck on their stick and no questions asked.

And what minor hockey could use is more adults who thought like they did when they were eight. Adults who make the game fun. Adults who don't shout. Adults who don't make the car ride home a 20-minute lecture. Adults who listen instead of judge.

This game of ours can be a wonderful tool for any family. But it has to be first and foremost for kids. We can't lose focus of that. We can't give in to executives whose minds are so closed they can't see they're strangling kids in the process.

The little boy was right. This game should be about snacks. The more we lose our priorities the more minor hockey becomes for the adults instead of who the game was intended for in the first place.

And last time I checked, we weren't the ones playing.

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Michelle Malkin and Bryan Preston are embedded in Iraq... (update)

In the slums of BaghdadMichelle has pics and commentary here...
We have much to report and will be publishing a multi-part video and audio series, blog posts, and op-eds on security conditions, media malpractice, and the big picture on the war next week. Having met, watched, and interviewed a broad cross-section of our troops during our brief but fruitful travels, my faith in the U.S. military has never been stronger-- but I will not sugarcoat my skepticism and doubts about decisions being made in Washington. For now, I'm posting a few pictures I took from one of our recent trips on patrol through the slums of Baghdad.
Bryan writes here...
Without hesitation, I can say that this fight is the most intricate and complicated mission our military has ever faced. Our troops are daily engaging in missions that their military training never prepared them for, but they are performing those missions with amazing thought and skill. When you add in the external forces at play, whether they’re stateside politics or the mix of enemies on Iraq’s doorsteps and operating on its streets, the mission in Iraq becomes a Gordian knot of military, political and humanitarian issues that overlap to the point that failure in any one will precipitate failure in all of them. So far, we’re failing in several but not to the point that the situation can’t be rescued. The failures are, in my opinion, almost entirely products of Washington politics and decision-making. Washington has yet to make the war in Iraq a truly national effort, and has not yet brought to bear the full range of American resources it will take to give us a chance of success here.
Stay tuned to HotAir for video updates next week.

Cut and Run

Update: Left-wing ridiculousness.

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Friday, January 05, 2007

Speaking of wrong...

Madame SpeakerMichael Reagan has some questions about some wrong answers:
...Take the pledge to increase the minimum wage. Sounds good – after all, who wants people to be denied a living wage? It raises up images in the public’s mind of employees struggling to exist on a pittance. It also ignores some very inconvenient facts Heritage scholars exposed:

  • It is an extremely ineffective anti-poverty measure. It does not help the poor, low-income workers. Most minimum wage workers do not need government assistance. Less than one in five live below the poverty line, and the average family income of a minimum wage earner is almost $50,000 a year. The majority of minimum wage workers are between the ages of 16 and 24, and over three-fifths work part time.

  • Many will lose their jobs because as it gets more become more expensive to hire workers, companies hire fewer of them. The bulk of research on the minimum wage confirms that the minimum wage costs jobs. Some workers may get a raise while others lose everything.

  • Those most likely to lose their jobs are the especially vulnerable workers that the increase is intended to help, because a higher minimum wage makes hiring unskilled workers particularly unattractive to businesses. Employers will not hire low-skilled, inexperienced workers for $7.25 an hour when they can hire more-skilled and experienced workers at the same rate. The minimum wage puts the workers who most need to gain experience and skills at a disadvantage.

  • Research shows that higher minimum wages do not reduce poverty rates or improve the lives of low-income workers -- low wages are not a primary cause of poverty. Most poor Americans do not work for the minimum wage -- most poor Americans do not work at all, for any wage. Over three-fifths of individuals below the poverty line did not work during 2005, while only 11 percent worked full time, year-round. Families are not poor because they earn low wages but because they do not have full-time jobs. If at least one parent in every poor household worked full-time year round, the child poverty rate in the United States would plummet by over 70 percent.

    This is just one of Madame Pelosi’s proposals. The rest are just as badly thought-out and will in every case do more harm than good. To get an idea of just how foolishly demagogic and dangerous they are, take a look at Heritage’s monumental study “The 100-Hour Agenda: The New Congressional Majority’s Uneven Proposals. It’s all there.
  • Indeed.

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    'Sending more U.S. combat troops is simply sending more targets'... (updated)

    More troops=More targetsWhen Ollie North talks about what to do in Iraq, I listen:
    For months, advisers to President George W. Bush have been trying to convince the commander in chief that more U.S. troops in Iraq will improve prospects for victory. Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), both recently returned from Iraq (and a courageous surprise stopover in Ramadi, capital of bloody Al Anbar Province) also support adding more American troops. Unfortunately, they are wrong.
    Here's why.

    Update: Ollie - "So he didn't take my advice."

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    Thursday, January 04, 2007

    'Are we a Judeo-Christian country with liberty for people of every, and of no, faith?' ... (updated)

    America Founded to Be Free... "Or are we a secular country that happens to have within it a large number of individuals who hold Judeo-Christian values?"

    Dennis Prager discusses in his latest - America Founded to Be Free:
    ... This country was founded overwhelmingly by men and women steeped in the Bible. Their moral values emanated from the Bible, and they regarded liberty as possible only if understood as given by God. That is why the Liberty Bell's inscription is from the Old Testament, and why Thomas Jefferson, the allegedly non-religious deist, wrote (as carved into the Jefferson Memorial): "God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?"

    The evidence is overwhelming that the Founders were religious people who wanted a religious country that enshrined liberty for all its citizens, including those of different religions and those of no faith. But our educational institutions, especially the universities, are populated almost exclusively by secular individuals and books who seek to cast America's past and present in their image. ...
    He concludes:
    ... If you are undecided which side to fight for, perhaps this will help: Western Europe has already become a secular society with secular values. If you think Western Europe is a better place than America and that it has a robust future, you should be working to remove Judeo-Christian influence from American life. On the other hand, if you look at Europe and see a continent adrift, with no identity and no strong values beyond economic equality and possessing little capacity to identify evil, let alone a will to fight it, then you need to start fighting against the secularization of America. ...


    If you think Western Europe
    is a better place than America
    and that it has a robust future,
    you should be working to remove
    Judeo-Christian influence
    from American life.


    ... If America abandons its Judeo-Christian values basis and the central role of the Jewish and Christian Bibles, its founders' guiding text, we are all in big trouble, including, most especially, America's non-Christians. Just ask the Jews of secular Europe.

    Update: I'd call this a must-watch video. It's long (close to an hour), but worth it.

    Here's the summary:
    Research by David Barton, founder of Wallbuilders, Inc. exposes the alleged separation of church and state for the myth that it really is.

    The words "separation of church and state" don't appear in any official government documents authored by the founding fathers. This concept and these particular words were fabricated by an ACLU attorney named Leo Pfeffer in 1947 in the Supreme Court case of Everson versus Board of Education of Ewing Township. That liberal supreme court imposed it on the nation by a 5 to 4 vote.

    The ACLU and other anti-Christian organizations and individuals have used it to harass Christians with ever since. It is also used by evolutionists to try to keep a theistic explanation of origins out of the public schools. Many young people today are not aware of the fact that this concept is an ACLU invention, and that it is a concept our founding fathers would have been appalled at.
    (Grateful hat-tip to Jay at STACLU)

    Maybe the best book cover of all timeUpdate #2: David Limbaugh believes that "the main animating difference between conservatism and liberalism is that the former believes in the Biblically revealed sinful condition of mankind".

    From his latest:
    ... I agree that many Democrats are Christians, but that doesn't change the fact that the Democrats' guiding ideology (liberalism) fervently promotes secular values, even at the behest of government, whose endorsement of "religion" it unpersuasively purports to oppose. Nor does it negate the political left's commitment to reducing Christianity's influence, not just in government, as it claims, but in our culture and on our moral principles.

    The left's aversion to Christianity can be seen in several current books urging Christians to keep their noses out of politics or arguing that Christianity has been a destructive force in history and that diminishing its influence will benefit society.

    New stories abound chronicling efforts of atheists and secularists to denigrate Christianity and its values. These aren't just appeals to Christians to be more tolerant of nonbelievers. They are manifestations of the profound intolerance of secularists toward Christians.

    Many liberals deny any antipathy toward Christianity, hiding behind the convenient pretext of vindicating First Amendment principles. But their selective opposition to the government's "establishment" of the Christian religion and their hypocritical support for the government's endorsement of secularism betrays their true mindset.

    They also deny that conservatism reflects Christian values and maintain that liberalism is truer to the teachings of Jesus Christ, especially in its alleged heart for the poor -- a point about which liberals, in my opinion, are most misguided, confusing the role of the individual with that of the government.

    While I don't doubt that many liberals sincerely believe liberalism is "more Christian" than conservatism, they can't explain away the left's abiding discomfort with Christianity. That's because liberalism -- no matter how you sugar coat it -- is fundamentally incompatible with the Christian worldview.
    Good work.

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    The war in Iraq has become a proxy war with Iran... (update)

    Cox & Forkum - Show GrayThe NY Sun has the story of Iran's Secret Plan for Mayhem:
    Iran is supporting both Sunni and Shiite terrorists in the Iraqi civil war, according to secret Iranian documents captured by Americans in Iraq.

    The news that American forces had captured Iranians in Iraq was widely reported last month, but less well known is that the Iranians were carrying documents that offered Americans insight into Iranian activities in Iraq.


    Iran is working closely
    with both the Shiite militias
    and Sunni Jihadist groups


    An American intelligence official said the new material, which has been authenticated within the intelligence community, confirms "that Iran is working closely with both the Shiite militias and Sunni Jihadist groups." The source was careful to stress that the Iranian plans do not extend to cooperation with Baathist groups fighting the government in Baghdad, and said the documents rather show how the Quds Force — the arm of Iran's revolutionary guard that supports Shiite Hezbollah, Sunni Hamas, and Shiite death squads — is working with individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq and Ansar al-Sunna.

    Victor Davis Hanson homepageVictor Davis Hanson has two options for us in Iraq in A War of Endurance:
    One, we can withdraw ground troops and return to punitive and conventional bombing — tit-for-tat retaliation for each attack in the future. That way, the United States stays distant and smacks the jihadists on their home bases below. Few Americans die; terrorists sometimes do. The bored media stay more concentrated on the terrorists' provocations, not on our standoff response from 30,000 feet in the clouds.


    Prosperity, security and liberty
    are the death knell to radical Islam.
    It's that elemental.


    Or American forces, at great danger, can continue to change the political and economic structure of the Middle East in hopes of fostering constitutional governments that might curb terrorism for generations. This current engagement demands our soldiers fight jihadists on their vicious turf, but by our humanitarian rules. For this, we must pay the ensuing human and materiel price — all broadcast live on the evening news.
    He concludes:
    Imagine this war as a sort of grotesque race. The jihadists and sectarians win if they can kill enough Americans to demoralize us enough that we flee before Iraqis and Afghans stabilize their newfound freedom. They lose if they can't. Prosperity, security and liberty are the death knell to radical Islam. It's that elemental.
    That's as good an analysis as I can find.

    Update: Glenn Beck discusses the gathering storm with Winston S. Churchill...

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    Jimmy Carter: Following the (anti-Israel) money...

    Jimmy Carter's Li'l Ol' Stink TankInvestors Business Daily discusses Jimmy Carter's Li'l Ol' Stink Tank:
    ... His new book, "Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid" lays all the blame on Israel for the Palestinian conflict in an interpretation worthy of a Cairo coffee shop. It is so extreme — and so seemingly out of character — that a top staffer at the Carter Center resigned in disgust.

    It may be easy to dismiss Carter's nutty statements about Israel as the ranting of a bitter man in his twilight years. But it's not so easy to look the other way as Arab cash flows into the Carter Center from people known to demand something in return. It is worth noting that the center's anticipated contributions receivable and Carter's anti-Israeli diatribes have both increased dramatically.

    Carter's foundation has a $200 million endowment, according to Rachel Ehrenfeld, an expert on terrorism, writing in the Washington Times, and the center's own 2004-05 statement says it took in $172 million in donations, with some as high as $25 million.

    Fat cats who've given $1 million since the center's founding in 1982 (and in the hazy disclosures we don't know how much more) include the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, the Saudi Fund for Development and the Government of the United Arab Emirates.

    Among individuals who donated more than $100,000 in 2004-05, there is His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said of Oman, in addition to bin Talal. Among listed "founders" of the center are the king of Saudi Arabia, BCCI scandal banker Agha Hasan Abedi and Arafat pal Hasib J. Sabbagh.

    All of these contributors have virulently anti-Israel elements, and most have medieval records of opposing and obstructing democracy in their own countries. Maybe someday, in one of those softball interviews he gives, Carter will be asked to reconcile what he supposedly stands for with those from whom he gets his money.
    Most unhelpful ex-President ever.

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    'Liberals spent the Vietnam War rooting for the enemy and clamoring for America's defeat, a tradition they have brought back for the Iraq war'...

    Cox & Forkum - Grim CountdownAs always, Ann Coulter hits liberalism hard, likening the Democrats to a vast sleeper cell:
    ... They insisted on calling the Soviet-backed Vietcong "the National Liberation Front of Vietnam," just as they call Islamic fascists killing Americans in Iraq "insurgents." Ho Chi Minh was hailed as a "Jeffersonian Democrat," just as Michael Moore compares the Islamic fascists in Iraq to the Minute Men.

    During the Vietnam War, New York Times scion Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger told his father that if an American soldier ran into a North Vietnamese soldier, he would prefer for the American to get shot. "It's the other guy's country," he explained.

    Now, as publisher of the Times, Pinch does all he can to help the enemy currently shooting at American soldiers.

    After a half-dozen years of Democrat presidents creating a looming disaster in Vietnam — with Kennedy ordering the assassination of our own ally in the middle of the war and Johnson ham-handedly choosing bombing targets from the Oval Office — in 1969, Nixon became president and the world was safe again.

    Nixon began a phased withdrawal of American ground troops, while protecting the South Vietnamese by increasing the bombings of the North, mining North Vietnamese harbors and attacking North Vietnamese military supplies in Cambodia — all actions hysterically denounced by American liberals, eager for the communists to defeat America.

    Despite the massive anti-war protests staged by the Worst Generation, their takeovers of university buildings and their bombings of federal property to protest the bombing of North Vietnamese property, Nixon's Vietnam policy was apparently popular with normal Americans. In 1972, he won re-election against "peace" candidate George McGovern in a 49-state landslide.
    Read it all... classic Coulter. I love it.

    The Democratic Party: A Vast Sleeper CellCoulter concludes:
    ... In addition to being wrong about Ford's pardon of Nixon, liberals were wrong about a few other things from that era. Democrats haven't admitted error in rejecting Ford's pleas on behalf of South Vietnam because there are still dangerous foreigners trying to kill Americans. Nixon is safely interred in the ground, but the enemies of America continue to need the Democrats' help.
    And the help of the drive-by msm.

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    The conservative case for George W. Bush...

    President still waves the conservative flagDonald Lambro says that the President still waves the conservative flag:
    ... The biggest fiscal achievement of his presidency is the $1.7 trillion in tax cuts that helped the U.S. economy overcome the blows inflicted by the 9/11 attacks, the corporate accounting scandals and Hurricane Katrina.

    Those tax cuts are conservative free-market economics at its best, and they are the reason why our economy remains -- through wars and numerous domestic disasters -- the strongest and most affluent in the world.

    No conservative reform is bigger than the idea of privatizing Social Security, a revolutionary notion that most Republican leaders were afraid to embrace. Bush not only proposed it but he ran for president on its merits and traveled around the country arguing for its implementation.


    That he did not succeed
    is beside the point.
    He was willing to spend a lot
    of his political capital for
    a gigantic conservative idea


    That he did not succeed is beside the point. He was willing to spend a lot of his political capital for a gigantic conservative idea: freeing workers to invest some of their payroll taxes in stocks and bonds to create wealth. It's unlikely Bush can resurrect his proposal in the next two years, but he has boldly opened a path for a future president to follow and deserves great credit for the boldness of his attempt to bring down the last pillar of the New Deal welfare state.

    Even his prescription-drug program, which expanded entitlements at a time when they are going through the roof, has turned out to be far less expensive than its critics forecast. Democrats and Republicans wanted something bigger and costlier and would have gotten it, too, but Bush won a more limited and price-competitive alternative.

    Presidents never do everything we want them to, and Bush is no exception. But on some of the biggest ideas of conservative orthodoxy he has been willing to enter the arena, take some big risks and fight some big battles, winning some and losing others.

    Win or lose, these initiatives need to be added to the scorecard when we measure his presidency against all of the others.
    The passing of Gerald Ford gave us a great example of how a few decades can make all the difference for a President's legacy. I do give him a lot of credit for Roberts and Alito, although Scalia would have been my first choice for Chief Justice and Miers was a disaster.

    From the same column, here are Lambro's thoughts on Bush's Iraq policy:
    As bleak as things look right now, Bush's advisers believe that planting the seeds of democracy in the midst of these terrorist breeding grounds is the only way to combat a fanatical Islamic movement that still threatens the safety and security of the West.

    As chaotic as things seem, these governments, still in their infancy, are going to survive. They have made mistakes and no doubt will make others, as our young government did before them. But Bush believes, as I believe, that these free and independent governments will exist long after he has left office and that they will ultimately triumph over the terrorists.
    Time will tell George, and I hope you're right.

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    Stop The ACLU: A New Year Resolution

    Stop The ACLU New Year ResolutionJudge Roy Moore makes a New Years Resolution that I'm definitely on board with.

    Each year the American Civil Liberties Union and other liberal organizations continue their efforts to destroy traditional values that we once assumed were self-evident and beyond question. And each year we sit quietly by doing nothing to stop their relentless assault on our culture and our religious heritage. As our resolution for the New Year, let us join together to defeat the ACLU's anti-Christian agenda and restore our civil and religious freedom.
    Most definitely the ACLU's attack on religious freedom is one of many good reasons we should resolve to join together and fight back. We have a whole list of other good reasons. The damage the ACLU has done to our National Security, the War on Terror, and our National Soverignty are at the top of my personal list.

    There are many reasons to stop the ACLU's agenda, but what people need to know is how. Everyone needs to get involved. There is a lot that can be done.

    One thing to do is to get active. Email, write, or call your elected officials and let them know that National Security is of primary concern. This time last year the ACLU were running full page ad propaganda war against the NSA and the Patriot Act. Even though the Democrats made a show of not clapping for the Patriot Act, in the end they lost that battle. They are still beating the dead horse over the NSA program.

    Another thing is to elect people who will appoint Constitutionalist judges. We've made progress in this area over the past year. Last year around this time the ACLU announced their official opposition to the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Many of the ACLU's biggest fans in the Senate fought hard to paint him as a woman hater and bigot, to the point of bringing his wife to tears, but in the end they all lost that battle.

    When it comes to religious freedom, the ACLU is America's number one censor. They have compared Christians to terrorists, and even called for jailing people over prayer. The most outrageous thing about this is that when these cases their attorney's fees are paid for by the taxpayer. We have made progress against this in the past year. Currently there is legislation to put a stop to this and we got it passed in the House of Representatives. The bill is still pending before the Senate, and just because we lost the majority is no reason for us to let up.

    Support groups that are fighting the ACLU. There are many out there including the Alliance Defense Fund, ACLJ, Liberty Council, and Thomas More Law Center. Join one of them, donate to them, and tell others about them.

    Educate the public about the ACLU's agenda. This last one is the New Year's resolution we are making...to continue our fight against the ACLU by educating the public. Join us and over 200 other blogs in helping to expose the ACLU's agenda to the people.

    This was a production of Stop The ACLU Blogburst. If you would like to join us, please email Jay at Jay@stoptheaclu.com or Gribbit at GribbitR@gmail.com. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll. Over 200 blogs already on-board.

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