Your tax dollars subsidizing Hollywood

Technically, it's a tax cut - no stimulus, no actual help hiring the unemployed -- it's just a gift from the Democrats to the propaganda machine that keeps promoting them against national interests. That is to say, Congress is readying itself to give a quarter of a billion dollars in tax subsidies to one of the richest, most successful industries in the country.

With that "stimulus" or "bailout" in mind, I'm thinking that, since we're all taxpayers, we now become part-owners of the studios, so we should be able to go into the nearest cinema, sit down and watch a show without paying for anything but what we pick up at the concession stand. Maybe not every week, but shouldn't we be able to catch at least one free blockbuster per taxpayer, this year? After all, you've paid for it already.

Of course, the problem with this plan is that we first have to find a flick they've produced which we want to see. So far, those pickings are pretty slim.


Update: Well, that didn't take long. It looks as though this particular little gift has been removed from the Generational Theft Act already. Dang, and I was so hoping to see a crappy blockbuster show this year....

Threats don't scare me...

Okay, threats do scare me, especially when they're couched as promises from members of the government or those who would be.

The Clintama campaigns promise mandatory health care, having plans for the the government to make sure I'm properly cared for, just like all those lucky people in Fwance and England and Canada and other lands with socialized medicine and long, long waiting lists for treatment for little things like pneumonia and emergency organ transplant and such.

I think the one thing that always gets my goat about all this stuff they're pushing is the promise that it will drive costs down. Correct me if I'm wrong, but, wasn't that what they were saying Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) would do? Join an HMO, it will check you early and often (just like voting in Chicago), and catch diseases like cancer, hypertension, and such long before they became costly and debilitating blah blah blah.

Before the advent of the HMO (back in the dark ages, when disco ruled the day), my average office call to the local quack was about ten dollars. Now the clinic down the way asks for more than that, just as a "small deductible." Allstate only knows how much the actual bill has become! Between the corporate bureaucracies and the government red tape, a brand-name adhesive bandage strip, which I can buy in the store in boxes of 36 for $2.50, cost my best friend's insurer $68 per each at the hospital. I don't remember how much the other parts and labor cost. I'm pretty sure it was more than I make in a month, these days.

If I sprain my ankle, as I did last week, I can put ice on it (or put it in slush), elevate it, wrap it in an elastic bandage and take a couple of over-the-counter pain tablets, as, again, I did last week, costing me... uh... the bandage was one I'd had from a few years ago, the ice (slush) was provided by mommy nature in a puddle by the curb, and the painkillers were from Sam's Club, thousands for under ten bucks... you figure it out. My math is still sucky.

All I can say is, it was way, way cheaper than going to the urgent care facility. I'm walking just fine, too (not counting the occasional swear-word when I bump the bruises against something, again).

And it's pretty much what I'd have done thirty years ago, before the early years of the Health Maintenance Organizations. But then, the HMO began to insist that they peek at our every paper cut, listen to our every sniffle, and indirectly bill us and our employers for everything they did or didn't find. Meanwhile, the HMO stockholders started expressing concern that they weren't getting any real dividends. More bean counters were hired. Costs climbed. Prices climbed. It got expensive for all of us. So the HMO began to say "pre-existing condition" as though it were a mantra, any time somebody tried to upset them by filing a claim. And, then, people started suing the HMO for pain and suffering. The HMO started jacking up prices even more, and denying more claims. More lawsuits, more insistence on paying for piddly stuff and then for non-members, via new taxes, and voilá! Cries were made for more government controls, because the HMO was trying to recoup its losses via raising prices, and jacking up prices due to rising costs for operation just isn't cricket.

And, now, when it's obvious that the HMO bureaucratic system is really pretty crappy at "maintaining the health" of its members, Clintama want the government to take over the same failing system and run it the same messed-up way, only with the force of law behind it, too.

My family knows I have health issues. They know I can't afford medical insurance, let alone regular treatment. They also know that I've done my homework to the best of my abilities, and do what I can to keep myself from falling apart. I avoid "triggers," for mental and physical problems, tot he best of my abilities, and cope with the little daily inconveniences of being crazy, clumsy, and allergic to life in general. If something big happens to my body, I suppose I'll mortgage -- or just plain sell -- my house (if it's really big, I won't need the house any more anyway) to pay costs. I don't expect my family to bail me out (I'm eternally grateful when they do, but if they didn't, it wouldn't hurt my feelings). Why would I therefore want the government to do what I don't ask my own family to do?

And so the question must follow: why should the uninvited government, then, be butting in?

Where is the foaming left, with their old chant of "keep your laws off my body," now? They're campaigning to invade my body's privacy, instead.

Keep yer filthy green paws off my beer fridge!

I don't have much in this life. In fact, by American standards, I qualify as dirt poor -- I don't own a car, I don't have cable or satellite tv, I don't have a phone of my own, I don't even own a working computer, any more (thx, Mom, for the use of yours!). My house is crumbling around my ears (thx, kittehs!) and I'm ungainfully unemployed (thx, IL gummint, thx to my crazy ancestors who handed down the crazy gene, and thx also to uneven sidewalks in Chicago!).

But still, I have one thing to which I can still cling: I have a lovely 1950s or early '60s Coldspot refrigerator with pink-and-coppertone interior, out there in my non-car-holding garage. In the summer, I clean that puppy up, plug it in, and fill it with my favorite beverages, so they'll be handy for all of us folks who play in the dirt in my back yard.

But now, some eco-wackos are saying that it's a bad thing, and they want to take that luxury away from me and others like me. They think that beer fridges are causing the icecap in the arctic circle to shrink, and Canada to thaw. Well, I say, Canada needs a longer growing season! Pass me those six-packs -- I'm gonna head right back out to scrub my machine out, and I'm gonna plug it in just a little early, this time. Anyone up for a really cold one?

Elizabeth Edwards: disabled unqualified to work

Folks who have even mild disabilities barring them from military service would naturally be barred from all other work. At least, that would be the natural extension of logic, were we to take Elizabeth Edwards at her word:

My classmates went to Vietnam, he did not. He was 4F. He had a medical disability, the same medical disability that probably should have stopped him from spending a lifetime in a radio announcer’s chair; but it is true, isn’t it? If he has an inoperable position that allows him not to serve, presumably it should not allow him to sit for long periods of time the way he does.

I gather that Mrs. Edwards had never heard of doughnut cushions, or of ergonomic chairs, or of sitting funny? Try taking any of these options through boot camp, let alone into battle!

(Quit snickering, people, or drop and give me twenty.)


More to the point, Edwards (inadvertently, I hope) implies that people who are physically incapable of soldiering therefore have no right to any job, even the cushy ones where you just sit sideways and talk into a microphone.

For the record, Snopes clarifies that Limbaugh was not initially 4-F, but 1-Y (he could only be called up in case of national emergency).

My father was 4-F, for the genetic back problem which plagues two of his offspring today, and for being blind as a fruitbat without thick spectacles -- and those only eased, but didn't correct, the problem. There was no way in all the netherworld that Pop could have served in the field, or even, for that matter, survived basic training. He managed, nonetheless, to stand, several hours every day, to teach college students the basics of physics, mathematics, astronomy, and several other subjects as the need arose on campus. And, he managed to keep a pretty good eye on his teen-aged daughters, through those thick lenses. He's still contributing to society today, in his mid-to-late-70s.

Now, I know most people who are launching in on Mrs. Silky Pony are challenging her husband to put up his military service records, or both of them shut up. But his records don't matter any more than do those of Limbaugh. None of these three has a real dog in that fight.

The real issue is, does she have the right to a job in her future -- as First Lady or any position other than one involving no walking or talking -- if she keeps putting her foot in her mouth and chewing so vigorously?

HT: McQ at QandO

Why I walk funny (with gratuitous postcard)

I had figured that it was my injuries from a decade ago. Nope. I'm a conservative. I'm just too rigid.

In reviewing the notes and comments at Althouse, though, I'm inclined to think that it might not be a bad thing to be a little rigid, in my decision-making...

Schumer: "I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer"

Okay, he didn't really say it in exactly those words, but Chuck Schumer has admitted he was too stupid to take President Bush at his word when Bush promised that, when re-elected, he would appoint constitutionalists to the SCOTUS. He claims that he was "hoodwinked" into thinking Dubya would break that particular campaign promise, I guess. But now, he knows better:

“When a president says he wants to nominate justices in the mold of [Antonin] Scalia and [Clarence] Thomas,” Schumer said, “believe him.”

Of course, his response to finally realizing he's an abject idiot is to further demonstrate his moronic tendencies:

New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a powerful member of the Democratic leadership, said Friday the Senate should not confirm another U.S. Supreme Court nominee under President Bush “except in extraordinary circumstances.”

“We should reverse the presumption of confirmation,” Schumer told the American Constitution Society convention in Washington. “The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.”

It will be interesting to see him and his marauding gang of jackasses, in their grab for more power, and by trashing the separation of powers entirely, try to reverse the actual Constitution:

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

They've already been taking a massive stab at wiping out this paragraph of the Constitution, when they started attacking Dubya for not renewing the contracts of those executive political appointees in DOJ, and by trying to force the DOJ to answer to them, not the Executive Offices, on forming grand juries on said case. Now, Schumer seems to think that completely wiping out the executive powers would be a good thing all around. Has he even considered that, sometime in the none-too-distant future, a Democrat might be elected POTUS? Or, does he truly not care about the future, so long as he inconveniences Bush?

I think I have Schumer's new slogan:

Screw intelligent thought, screw the laws, screw the nation -- we want to be king!

Requiem for a lightweight leftwit (or is that redundant?)

When I've had the opportunity, I've been trying to follow the story of TNR's recent foray into Glassworks, redux.

I'm beginning to pity the poor young man, Scott Thomas Beauchamp. It can't have been easy to have grandiose dreams of being the next Jack Kerouac-cum-Phillip Caputo, but suffer from having been born an unexceptional person with unexceptional skills and one moderately exceptional personal connection.

By his own admission, he chose to enlist in the U.S. military not to serve, but to have it serve his ambitions. (It seems to me, he'd have had better luck if he'd chosen to harness a glacier to serve him a little crushed ice for his weak lemonade.) Beauchamp intended to use the United States Army as "background" for his life story, knowing full well he did not believe in the rightness or righteousness of the men and their cause.

Of course, once he was on the inside of the big bad war machine, he believed he could tell any whopper, relate any fish tale, and the gullible reader would accept it, because he presented it while wearing the uniform of the most trusted group of men and women in the world. The uniform gave him a veneer of credibility, he rightly believed, that he would otherwise have lacked. It was his hope he could libel his own brothers, and nobody would be the wiser, because, well, it sounded plausible, didn't it?

Unfortunately for him, the connection Beauchamp made was with his betrothed, and her boss runs a major media outlet.

If he'd been satisfied to write his absurd, vainglorious fictions and fantasies for a quiet little blog alone, unread by the bulk of the blogosphere (like so many of us do), he could have continued to tell his little stories to his heart's content, and that scant handful of readers might still continue to say, in awestruck gasps, "Reeeeeeeeeeeally?" and another few would snort, "what does this jerk know?"

No real harm, except to his little ego.

Unfortunately, Beauchamp got exposure. Too much, too soon, as they say.

He may eventually get a book out of this. Possibly, even a movie contract will spill forth. But it won't be Pyle or Caputo or Bierce or even Kerouac he'll be compared to, over the long haul. It'll be Stephen Glass.

And that should bring young Franklin Foer real shame, for putting this spoilt brat in the driver's seat of this vehicle of self-humiliation, and for using him in an attempt to malign the many thousands of honorable people who wear the uniform proudly. Not that I expect an editor of TNR ever to have acquired a sense of decency about this sort of thing. That would be asking too much.


Update: Dean Barnett seems to me leaning the same direction I am.
OTOH: at NRO, Jonah Goldberg has no sympathy for the little man.

More about free speech case in Finland

Baron Bodissey has posted an update or five on the Mikko Ellilä case as it comes up before the long arm of the law...

The one thing to point out is that few, so far, actually like the sort of thing that Ellilä says -- it is silly, offensive, even racist. What this is about is a person's right to speak (or blog) his mind.

How do simple statements of belief suddenly morph into a threat to the public? There is no evidence that, in his blog -- anywhere -- Ellilä did anything more than say some things which many rational people would deem impolite. There seems to be no call to rise up in violence against others, there is no finger-pointing or crying "fire" in a crowded theater.

If the decision goes against people like Mikko Ellilä, when will they start globally tracking down and arresting those who truly do incite people to violence?

As a free, educated American, I do not understand the drive of a portion of any nation -- especially those whose histories are chock-full of liberties -- to limit freedoms. Do the people who press for speech codes, who press for "hate crimes" laws, who press for special treatment for certain categories of citizens not understand that, eventually, the legislation will backfire on them? Do they not understand these laws as genuinely hypocritical, as well as, over the long run, indefensible and unenforceable?

How does plain, ordinary, brutal violence become something "special" when it comes accompanied by a racial or sexist slur? How does one gauge whether a savage "spree" killer is worse because he was motivated by racial hatred or by a perceived social slight? Don't results count for anything, these days?

And where is it written that free people have the right to be protected, by law, from having their feelings hurt by some arrogant or spiteful nonsense? I guess we're approaching the day and age when, in the freest nations, sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will get you twenty years in Marion.

Dems finally show common sense

Well, I'll be dipped in something! The Trib says Dick Durbin and Rahm Emmanuel, along with a few other Dems in Congress, have come up with a real, gen-yoo-wine compromise for the supplemental emergency funding bill... they won't put a timetable on military actions in Iraq. They've finally recognized that they don't have the votes to override a presidential veto, & so they're planning to offer something that, just maybe, a few rational, non-foaming-MoveOn-ers might agree to:

Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill, while still debating details, say they are likely to pass a bill that would tie war spending to a set of benchmarks for Iraq's progress but no deadlines for troop withdrawal, which caused Bush to veto a funding bill this week.

"Benchmarks"? Funny how this new proposal sounds an awful lot like the plan described long ago by Rumsfeld, then put forward again Petraeus, and all along by Bush....


HT: CQ

Gratuitous postcard: "The same old bull"

I'm no smoker, but even I find the new legislation approved yesterday in Springfield to be offensive. Not only does it tell businesses what they can and can't do in their own private establishments, but it does so on mediocre science, "for the safety of the public."

Sure, there are links between smoking and some forms of cancer. Unfortunately, there are also some tenuous links to second-hand smoke triggering -- not causing -- certain cancers in people who suffer from prolonged exposure. There's also a comparable risk from having sex and also from spending too much time in the sun. There's a greater risk of some cancers from eating certain foods (and from overeating most foods), from frequent exposure to certain cleaning solutions, and a number of other otherwise safe-ish activities.

Needless to say, life carries risks. Therefore, Our Heroes in Springfield have announced the IL state gummint is going to protect me from myself and my own bad choices, should I want to hang out in a bar or restaurant with any regularity. I appreciate the idea that I can go to Open Mic Night at Danny's Tap, next year, and I won't need to dope myself up in order to keep my lungs operating, but I don't much appreciate that the choice wasn't offered to the bar's owners to make the change. I know the risks. They know the risks, as well. But we are no longer allowed to decide whether or not to hang around with people who smoke, in a climate we all find welcoming. We're no longer allowed to socialize publicly with each other. The State decided for us all. For our own good. Well, isn't that nice?

What next? Are they going to tell me what to wear, when I go outside, now? Will I get a ticket if I'm out digging with a spud fork, in my garden, in my bare feet? Will they throw me in jail for not wearing a scarf and gloves in January?

I love this state. I love the land, I love the vast, vast, vast majority of the people. I'm not at all impressed, though, by the pinheads we seem to get in elected office, these days. If I weren't allergic to tobacco, I'd consider taking up smoking, just to thumb my nose at these jackasses. Is there ever going to come a time when these guys suddenly decide, "That's not really any of our business"? I'm betting that day will come -- when the Cubs win the World Series and I marry Dolph Lundgren.

sheesh.

A Funny idea of "accountability"

I've been somewhat preoccupied this past few days, so I just got around to reading Michelle Malkin's roundup of useful info on the emergency budgets. What particularly caught my eye (after Mike Pence's "salad bar at Denny's" comparison) was this gem:

"Today, we are demanding accountability," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.

This from a guy who voted for a whopping

$500 million for emergency wildfires suppression; the Forest Service currently has $831 million for this purpose;

$400 million for rural schools;

$283 million for the Milk Income Loss Contract program;

$120 million to compensate for the effects of Hurricane Katrina on the shrimp and menhaden fishing industries;

$100 million for citrus assistance;

$74 million for peanut storage costs;

$60.4 million for salmon fisheries in the Klamath River region in California and Oregon;

$50 million for asbestos mitigation at the U.S. Capitol Plant;

$48 million in salaries and expenses for the Farm Service Agency;

$35 million for NASA risk mitigation projects in Gulf Coast;

$25 million for spinach growers;

$25 million for livestock;

$20 million for Emergency Conservation Program for farmland damaged by freezing temperatures;

$16 million for security upgrades to House of Representatives office buildings;

$10 million for the International Boundary and Water Commission for the Rio Grande Flood Control System Rehabilitation project;

$6.4 million for House of Representative’s Salaries and Expenses Account for business continuity and disaster recovery expenses;

$5 million for losses suffered by aquaculture businesses including breeding, rearing, or transporting live fish as a result of viral hemorrhagic septicemia;

$4 million for the Office of Women’s Health at the Food and Drug Administration; and

A minimum wage increase, which is the subject of separate legislation.

Wasn't this emergency bill supposed to be for the funding of our troops' needs in Iraq?


Yeah, I can see how there might be an emergency requirement that we rush through $16 million for security upgrades to House of Representatives office buildings. After this stunt, they will probably need more protection. They'll have to hire mercenaries for the job, too, since they're obviously not going to get much support from honest working soldiers or their friends and families. So I'll give 'em that.

But how do the bulk of these other items relate to Iraq, again? Account for that, please, Mister Van Hollen.

WaPo "expert" demonstrates where his area of expertise lies

In receiving ass-kickings.

William W. Arkin, styled by the Washington Post as their military expert, has demonstrated precisely how well he understands both the military and the Constitution of the United States, and it's impressive... if he were a newborn.

In his blog entry, The Troops Also Need to Support The American People, he wrote this little gem:

I'm all for everyone expressing their opinion, even those who wear the uniform of the United States Army. But I also hope that military commanders took the soldiers aside after the story and explained to them why it wasn't for them to disapprove of the American people.

In other words, the troops have expressed opinions, and We are not amused. Off with their heads!

But it goes downhill from there.

You should to read the article, first, then let it sink in, but then go over to Armed Liberal at Winds of Change, Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive, Fuzzy Bear's Fuzzilicious Thinking, Ace of Spades at AoSHQ (yes, twice!), Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters, John Hinderaker at Power Line (two of his, too!), John at OpFor, and even Chris Muir's cartoon strip, Day By Day. But mostly, try to read the comments at the original article's site. Michelle Malkin has exerpted a few and put together a texty-roundup of other good sites to read, for those who don't want to sully their computers by further visiting Arkin's site .

Update: Add Rick Moran at RWNH and Dan Riehl at Riehl World View to the must-read checklist, today.

And another thing: in Arkin's now-removed "apology" piece, responding to the reactions to his original screed, he made this interesting remark:

I was dead wrong in using the word mercenary to describe the American soldier today.

These men and women are not fighting for money with little regard for the nation. The situation might be much worse than that: Evidently, far too many in uniform believe that they are the one true nation. They hide behind the constitution and the flag and then spew an anti-Democrat, anti-liberal, anti-journalism, anti-dissent, and anti-citizen message that reflects a certain contempt for the American people.

I do have to wonder what's wrong with a soldier -- or any other citizen -- having the belief that his (or hers) is the "one true nation," as Arkin puts it? Isn't that what patriotism really is?

If you don't believe that your nation is ultimately the one with the right answers, why in hell would you choose to defend it at all, in words or in body, here or in other lands? Why would you even stay in such a country you could not support, for that matter? If you lack faith in your own land and its people, shouldn't you be looking for a new address, in, say, Venezuela?

And, by indications in the last sentence, it seems to me, what we have is a clear case of projection. I could be wrong, though. I am certifiable, myself, after all. But at least I acknowledge how nuts I am. And I can usually spot the loony ... they say it takes one to know one.

Where's the money?

Rep. James Webb, in last night's "rebuttal" speech (in which he pretty much avoided rebuttal and turned to ranting against the POTUS' war policies), gave reference to the statement I've heard much bandied-about of late, about the turn of the last century's (ca. 1900, among the robber barons) CEOs having earned 20 times what the average worker earns, while today's CEO rakes in 400 times the net income of the worker.

This may or may not be true -- if enough people say it is so, why, then, it must be (kinda like the "Bush lied" meme) -- but what I'd really like to know is something an economist may be able to tell me: What are the percentages of CEOs to workers in both eras, and how many -- in flat numbers -- are there in each age?

If there are fewer CEOs per capita, and all the money is going into the hands of a dozen or so capitalist swine at the top of the hogpile, then we have a few things to consider (as IF I'm going to become a leftwit socialist!). If, on the other hand, more people are running their own businesses, and earning more as a result, and capable of employing more people (giving them starter jobs, for example), and are therefore redistributing wealth while keeping a big chunk for themselves, I might have a serious problem with the foaming, anti-Bush, novelist-turned-pseudo-politician's statements.

I'd do the homework myself, but my math skills are pretty embarrassing. Can somebody help set me straight on how the money really goes, comparatively speaking?

Saddam dead: cars, press and leftists explode

It's a natural result. Put a murderous thug to death, and some folks feel the need to go ballistic.

Saddam Hussein was hanged by the neck until dead, yesterday, and The MSM showed their undying devotion. This is what al-Reuters had to say about the event, too: Saddam hanged at dawn as bombs kill more than 60

Sure, there's a causal relationship there. If he hadn't been executed, there would never have been a car bomb, right? They never occurred anywhere in the world, or even in Iraq, until this morning. Uh huh. But it gets even more entertaining, as the article states:

A triple car bombing killed 25 in a Shi'ite district of the capital -- the sort of attacks that have pitched Iraq toward sectarian war since U.S. troops broke Saddam's iron rule.

So this violence is whose fault, again? Apparently, it's all because of one man:

President Bush, who called Saddam a threat though alleged nuclear and other weapons were never found, said:

"Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself."

Of course, the requisite reference to the "grim milestone" made its way into the article supposedly on the death of a dictator:

The deaths of five troops pushed the American death toll to just a few short of the emotive 3,000 mark. Bush already faces mounting public dismay at the war as Iraq slides toward all-out civil war between Saddam's fellow Sunnis and majority Shi'ites.

You'd think their teeth would be worn down by their constant gnawing on that stone.

So how, then, does the left react to the reports? Not well.

Pitiful.

Red Sky at Morning, newspapers take warning

Some years back, my parents brought home a novel, Red Sky at Morning -- a "coming-of-age" tale set during the years of WWII (I occasionally still confuse it, in my mind, with A Catcher in the Rye, and I may be doing it again, here, since it's been more than three decades since I read the latter), full of humor and strength and grace and wit... all of which I missed the first time I read it, since I was only a callow teen.

But the one section of the novel which stayed with me long after I reread the book and grasped the larger picture was the one particular scene in which the kids were playing a sort of game of "Dare". Across the lumpy ground of a field lay a dead horse. It had been lying there on the warming ground long enough to become badly bloated and extremely ripe. The kids' game was to get as close as they could to the corpse, then dash back away to safer ground. The protagonist decided he would run as fast as he could, then reach out to "tag" the remains before swinging around and returning, thereby upping the stakes of the game... and he stumbled badly on the last steps of the approach. If memory serves me correctly, the result impressed the other kids, but the memory and the stench remained with him for long years.

Well, that bloated horse is lying out there in the middle of the public eye. The kids dashing up to it are the moonbat left, and far too many members of the Democratic party. And they're being goaded into running faster and closer by the MSM.

Long months ago, I'd believed that bloggers like Ed Morrissey gave a proper burial to the so-called "domestic spying" stuff that the lefties complained Bush was perpetrating in violation of the Constitutional right for privacy while talking to terrorists calling from overseas (which Amendment was that, again?).

Unfortunately, the latter case has clawed its way from the dirt nap it was taking, and is looking once more for brains to consume horse's asses to play games with. Naturally, this happens because (a) the MSM thinks it can still get away with selling fiction as real news by saying "some say", and (b) Congress is getting a small change in partisan makeup, so the Democrats are feeling their oats:

Leahy and other Democrats have complained about Bush's tactics in the war on terror, particularly the Republican president's warrantless domestic spying program that Democrats and some Republicans say violates the law.

Dead horse, meet Patrick Leahy. Morrissey answered your complaint very well, 'way back in February:

the White House had kept key Democratic leaders abreast of the program since its 2001 inception. They then wanted to get the public irate over what they kept calling "domestic spying," but eventually realized that the public thought it reasonable to check on international calls from suspected al-Qaeda terrorists during a war against them.

Call me adolescent, but I can't wait to see the cool moment when Leahy repeats the action from the novel.


On the plus side, at least a few bloggers have beaten the MSM at what is supposedly the media's top game: John Hinderacker and his colleagues at Power Line have done the necessary virtual legwork to put another bit of horse-hockey to rest.

The poor lefties couldn't let a little bit of humor at the expense of one of their role models be forgotten (Swift Boat! Swift Boat! Liar liar hat's on fire!), and just couldn't MoveOn. John and some of his readers asked a few serious questions, ran a few leads back to their sources, and applied a spot of reason, andthe moonbats who believed they had an Aha! moment were shown the error of their ways... without the help of a single MSM stringer. (Who would have thought that a little blog like that could destroy all their beautiful wickedness?)

(My apologies for switching metaphors in midstream. I think the first horse was still dead.)

This nag is done.

The pride of Illinois

I just read, in BOTWT, the list of "no" votes on the proposal in Congress to formally object to the naming of a street in la Fwance after a convicted cop-killer.

It makes me so proud to see so many names from my great and law-abiding state (I have marked them in bold text so everybody can see):

Neil Abercrombie (Hawaii)
William Clay (Mo.)
Emanuel Cleaver (Mo.)
John Conyers (Mich.)
Jim Cooper (Tenn.)
Danny Davis (Ill.)
Raul Grijalva (Ariz.)
Maurice Hinchey (N.Y.)
Mike Honda (Calif.)
Jesse Jackson Jr. (Ill.)
Eddie Bernice Johnson (Texas)
Carolyn Kilpatrick (Mich.)
Barbara Lee (Calif.)
Cynthia McKinney (Ga.)
Gregory Meeks (N.Y.)
Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.)
James Oberstar (Minn.)
Major Owens (N.Y.)
Ed Pastor (Ariz.)
Donald Payne (N.J.)
Charles Rangel (N.Y.)
Bobby Rush (Ill.)
Robert Scott (Va.)
Jose Serrano (N.Y.)
Fortney Hillman Stark Jr. (Calif.)
Edolphus Towns (N.Y.)
Mark Udall (Colo.) Tom Udall (N.M.)*
Nydia Velazquez (N.Y.)
Maxine Waters (Calif.)
Anthony Weiner (N.Y.)
Lynn Woolsey (Calif.)

The "present" votes came from Sam Farr (Calif.), Al Green (Texas), Luis Gutierrez (Ill.), Sheila Jackson-Lee (Texas), John Lewis (Ga.), George Miller (Calif.), Janice Schakowsky (Ill.) and Melvin Watt (N.C.).

As James Taranto points out, there is a marked absence of Pennsylvanians among the "no" voters. Maybe their having been from the state in which it happened has caused them to lose perspective. After all, it's not as though the Fwench were promoting a murderer of an American hero as a hero himself...

oh.

wait.

I can hold my head up and say proudly that these people speak for all in Illinois who think it's the bee's knees to canonize a man for shooting a defender of the peace. Good going, guys! Now everybody can figure out where you all stand on enforcing the laws you swear to uphold.

I'll pass this news on to my buddies in blue. They'll get as much of a kick out of it as I did.



*James Taranto makes his correction in Friday's BOTWT, under "Homer Nods"

Students at CA college ban Pledge of Allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United State of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation under God, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.

I do recall being young and stupid... "SOUTHWESTERN THOROUGHBREDS",
postmarked Preemption Colo. Jul 29 1909

but I can't recall ever being this stupid. At Orange Coast College in California, the student trustees have decided that it's offensive to allow anybody at their meetings to recite the Pledge, so they've banned it.

Really good support for freedom of speech, kiddies!

Further, the excuses for banning its recitation are the most predictable, inexcusable pieces of crap -- the ones which keep coming up from the far left:

“That (‘under God’) part is sort of offensive to me,” student trustee Jason Bell, who proposed the ban, told Reuters. “I am an atheist and a socialist, and if you know your history, you know that ‘under God’ was inserted during the McCarthy era and was directly designed to destroy my ideology.”

Bell said the ban largely came about because the trustees didn’t want to publicly vow loyalty to the American government before their meetings. “Loyalty ought to be something the government earns through performance, not through reciting a pledge,” he said.

Further, they suffer from a really lame interpretation of the actual pledge. Precisely where in the Pledge of Allegiance does it say anything about fealty to the government? Oh, yeah. "And to the Republic..." Let's define that term, shall we? (definition's emphasis mine)

Republic:

1a. A political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president. b. A nation that has such a political order. 2a. A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them. b. A nation that has such a political order. 3. often Republic A specific republican government of a nation: the Fourth Republic of France. 4. An autonomous or partially autonomous political and territorial unit belonging to a sovereign federation. 5. A group of people working as equals in the same sphere or field: the republic of letters.

In the case of the United States of America, because we are a democratic republic, the "body of citizens" happens to be the voting public. In other words, by refusing to promise loyalty to the Republic, you are not merely refusing to support a government, but refusing to support your fellow Americans whose representative that government is. Duh.

The Pledge of Allegiance isn't about surrendering to the government. It's not about forcing everybody to believe in one single god in one single theological school of belief. It's about promising to uphold the American way of life. The promise is taken in the form of a salute and speech directed at the flag, a symbol of what this country and its way of life long have been. Of course, the silly little leftards were probably raised to think that the American way of life -- rule of law, fundamental freedom, human decency, and all that -- is a load of archaic crap, compared to the ever-successful socialist system that worked so well in Russia for all those years.

But let me try getting this through the thick skulls of those students and any nitwits who agree with them: YOU DON'T ACTUALLY HAVE TO RECITE THE "UNDER GOD" PART WHEN YOU RECITE THE PLEDGE. (Pardon my shouting. It just felt necessary.) I have been reciting the Pledge of Allegiance for nigh on 40 years, and for better than half of them, I've easily omitted the part where a deity is mentioned, because I have had doubts. Nevertheless, I guarantee others the opportunity to express their beliefs, at the same time. Barring another his right to speak these words is, uh, how can I put this clearly enough for these kids to understand? ... "directly designed to destroy [his] ideology."

I'm reading that Orange Coast College is a community college. That implies that it's taxpayer-funded. Hmm. If their students don't like being in our club, they don't have to receive federal money from those they have no apparent use for... try to deny your classmates the right to express their loyalty to their own countrymen, we'll yank your funding. Let the spoiled, silly leftist twits pay full tuition at a private school if they want to play against us.

Or, let them try the Russian/Cuban educational programs, if they dare.

I sigh because I am loved

And I sigh again because I am misunderstood. My lefty friend has responded to my column with these words, among others:

It hurts my sensitive Democratic heart to hear a friend so brainwashed by the Exurbian Psychosis gripping this nation. It angers me when references to 9/11 justify failed political policies that have to date killed and maimed more Americans that the original heinous act. The death toll is rapidly approaching 9/11 totals. Any doctor, psychologist, or spiritual mentor will tell you that there comes a time to end the grieving, a time to begin healing. America needs that right now.

It seems Tannish -- like so many others -- thinks we can sit down and lull ourselves to sleep once more, right now.

T, you've missed the point. This isn't about grieving. It's about survival.

The mentality which drove those men to hijack planes on 9/11/01 was not new in 2001. It was not born during Bush's term, nor in Clinton's term, nor in Reagan's, nor even in the most-inept Mister Carter's day, when he (among other things) mishandled the Shah, Arafat, and pretty much the entire Mideast. Their hatred has existed for centuries, in one form or another. It has simply metastasized, these past decades, gained focus and gained capability.

Think of both attacks on the WTC, etc., as boils rising to the surface and rupturing. They are not singular events. There is a deeper infection, a dark cancer. The President has acted as surgeon, cutting out one grossly infected tissue -- Saddam Hussein, who financed terrorism, had strong links to those who murdered Americans in acts of overt war, and who had been at war with the US since 1991. Troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan are the next phase, the chemotherapy, the antibiotics, the truly difficult part of the cure.

If you think that the healing process can be forwarded before the disease has been stopped, check with your local oncologist. Islamic terrorism and its effects are not a little boo-boo to be band-aided over and then we go back to our bike ride in the park. If you think that by simply sitting down and saying, "sorry for existing," we're going to prevent another attack on our soil, check on that fairy godmother again.

Until the disease is brought under control -- and it is slowly, gradually happening, by the most recent accounts -- the infection still has a chance to rise again. If it is allowed to regrow, like most diseases, it will be stronger, more resistant to known cures.


Update: Victor Davis Hanson has some thoughtful words toward the attitudes held by my heart-wounded friend and his single-minded leftist buddies. for example:

We also forget that Iraq, contrary to popular slander, was not “cooked up” in Texas or at a Washington, D.C., neocon think tank. Rather, it was a reaction to two events: a decade of appeasement of Middle East tyrants and terrorists, and the disaster of September 11. If one were to go back and read the most popular accounts of the first Gulf War, The Generals’ War by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor of Cobra II fame, or Rick Atkinson’s Crusade, or research the bi-partisan arguments that raged across the opinion pages in the 1990s following the defeat and survival of Saddam Hussein, certain themes reappear constantly that surely help to explain our current presence inside Iraq.

Please, read it all.

A really good Halloween scare from RWNH

Rick Moran seems to have recovered from his burnout in time to catch and study the latest scary stuff from the left, a Liberal Manifesto. Moran takes the manifesto apart piece by piece, from the usual "hateBush" mantra to the unmentioned constitutional rights, but he's at his best when he addresses their perspective on partisanship:

Now this is more like the liberalism we’ve come to know and love; irrational, incoherent, sloganeering instead of rational thought, gross exaggeration, and the inevitable contradictions – as in the authors generously “refusing to confine their criticisms to personalities” and then proceeding to do so by saying that the “Bush Administration disgraces America.”

But it is the calumnious statement that conservatives have “for decades, undermined government’s ability to act reasonably and effectively for the common good” that the authors reveal modern liberalism to be the collectivist nightmare they truly are. Any group or ideology that purports to speak for the “common good” in a country of such radically diverse interests, sects, races, creeds, and economic strata should be feared. Not only is the Manifesto saying that the American people are idiots because they have voted for conservatives consistently over the last quarter century, but that conservatives themselves are illegitimate guardians of the public trust with regards to the “common weal.”

It's nice to know where we stand.

When a majority speaks for itself, and the elite call them an obstruction to their plans for "the common good", I say, "More power to the obstructionists!" The common good should, in a democratic republic, be decided by the common man and woman, not by the sanctimonious twits who think they know are better than the rest of us. This is our society, too.