Freedom News

Hijacking 9/11

2009-09-12T00:52:00.001-04:00

Hijacking 9/11

Have You Forgotten?

Friday marked a sad anniversary, the anniversary of the mass murders of thousands of people eight years ago by fanatics bent on imposing a narrow, totalitarian ideology on the entire world under the cover of religion.

They flew airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in the Washington, DC area. The damage would have been worse had the brave passengers of an additional flight not taken it over from the terrorists and crashed it into a field in Pennsylvania instead of its intended target, the Capitol or White House.

These people attacked America, put off by our freedom, our prosperity, and our declining values. They also seek to restore the caliphate – with themselves in charge, of course, like the totalitarians they are.

Although most Muslims detest these people and what they stand for, the media does not want you to hear those voices. Nor does it want to show us what happened on September 11, 2001. Apparently, their political cause will suffer if we remember that the issue is our ongoing war against totalitarianism. Unfortunately, it looks like some in this country would rather score political points than do what it takes to destroy the Islamofascist menace.

But it seems our President would rather hijack 9/11 for his own narrow ideological purposes. Instead of focusing on remembering the terrible events of that day, he tried to turn it into a day of "community service" to his dreams of overweaning Big Government. He has made it into a day to serve him.

This from a man whose close friend and political sponsor tried to bomb the Pentagon, just as the 9/11 terrorists did; who for 20 years attended a church whose pastor after 9/11 announced that "America's chickens have come home to roost"; whose wife said that she had never been proud of America and that it was "a downright mean country"; who had a Cuban flag and a picture of Che Guevara in his Houston campaign headquarters during the primaries; who appointed the likes of Van Jones (a self-proclaimed Communist and a believer that the US government carried out the September 11 attack on its own as a pretext for war) and Cass Sunstein, among others; who supported the Palestinian terrorist Rashid Khalidi; who accepted an anti-American book from Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.

Although the vast majority of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, President Obama had no trouble bowing to the Saudi king.

Just as we fought to end Naziism and we brought down the Soviet Union, we must engage the Islamofascists in order to preserve our freedom. Yet now the Democrats who control Congress are talking about cutting off funding for our efforts in Afghanistan.

Just as a previous generation of Americans remembered Pearl Harbor long after the fact, we must never forget what happened to our countrymen eight years ago. Let us take our time today to honor the victims of these terrorist cowards and let us not rest until this particular incarnation of the totalitarian, anti-freedom ideology has stopped bobbing up its head.

Let us never forget.

Happy Birthday, YAF

2009-09-12T00:50:00.001-04:00

Happy Birthday, YAF

49 years ago this week (September 9-11, 1960) a group of young people gathered at an estate in Sharon, Connecticut and formed a new organization of which I am a proud alumnus: Young Americans for Freedom.

Although parts of the founding statement are specific to their time, much of it is still right on target today:

The Sharon Statement

"Adopted in Conference, at Sharon, Connecticut, on September 11, 1960."

In this time of moral and political crises, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths.

We, as young conservatives, believe:

That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual's use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force;

That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;

That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice;

That when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty;

That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power;

That the genius of the Constitution- the division of powers- is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people, in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government;

That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs;

That when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation; that when it takes from one man to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both;

That we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies;

That the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties;

That the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with, this menace; and

That American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States?

While Communism remains on the scene the imminent menace today is Islamofascism. But the principles outlined in the Sharon Statement remain the same almost five decades later.

For almost half a century now, Young Americans for Freedom has been a force for freedom, whether opening college campuses that were being shut down by the anti-American left, protesting trade with our enemies, publishing its magazine, The New Guard, or holding a rally or a convention.

Happy birthday, YAF.

2009-08-05T17:42:00.002-04:00

Are We About to Put a Racist on the Supreme Court?

Are we about to put a racist on the Supreme Court? It is virtually certain that President Obama's nominee for Justice Souter's seat, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, will be confirmed. But there are innumerable reasons why she shouldn't be. One is that she is clearly a racist.

It's not just her ridiculous statement that she could make "better decisions" because she's Hispanic. Her ruling against the New Haven firefighters is clearly based on race. While it is a good thing that the court she is poised to join overturned that unjust ruling, the fact remains that she based her ruling entirely on race and the effect that her ruling would have on racial groups. She clearly can't see beyond skin color.

Sotomayor is a member of La Raza, a group whose slogan is "For the race everything, for those not of the race nothing." She has by her continued membership supported this racist policy.

Sotomayor has made it clear that she has no regard for the U.S. Constitution. She stated that the Circuit Court, on which she presently serves, "is where policy is made." No, that would be Congress.

And Sotomayor is hailed as the person who "saved baseball" in her ruling against the use of replacement players. This was just another case where Judge Sotomayor exceeded her authority.

Oddly, she is supported by the same people who circulated a memo about Miguel Estrada saying "this nominee is especially dangerous because he is Latino." What a bunch of hypocrites! Now they are suddenly pretending to like Hispanic people.

Putting this woman on the Supreme Court is a danger to our Republic. Those Senators who vote for her confirmation should be ashamed of themselves.

Pelosi Lied About Enhanced Interrogation Knowledge

2009-05-13T17:58:00.001-04:00

Pelosi Lied About Enhanced Interrogation Knowledge

Hoyer Calls for Investigation

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has called for an investigation of Speaker Nancy Pelosi over her false statements on what she knew about waterboarding. Hoyer said that the controversy over Pelosi's statements "probably ought to be on the record."

Meanwhile, documents have emerged that show that both the CIA and a Congressional aide briefed Pelosi on enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, and she approved of those tactics. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R- Mich.) revealed the existence of these documents and they were reported in The Politico. In addition, Michael Sheehy, a top aide to Pelosi, told the Washington Post that he and Pelosi had been briefed on waterboarding and she approved of the tactic. The only Democrat who filed any objection was Rep. Jane Harman (D-Cal.)

Pelosi and Sheehan were briefed on September 4, 2002. At that time, they were told that waterboarding had been used on Abu Zubaydah and that it was producing information. The information that Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Muhammad gave under waterboarding proved vital in saving thousands of lives – perhaps hundreds of thousands, according to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Pelosi has been caught lying to you and me. She cannot be trusted. The Democrats have been trying to politicize their policy differences, calling for show trials of those who approved of enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, despite the fact that no criminal offense occurred. Now awe have confirmed that they approved of these techniques. Will they put themselves on trial? Political trials of the sort that Democrats have been calling for are bad for a free country, so it's a good thing in that regard that Pelosi has been caught lying. Perhaps it will derail the Democrats' obsession with criminalizing opposition to their narrow ideology.

I don't often agree with Hoyer, but let me take this opportunity to second his call for an investigation of the Speaker.

Obama’s Intelligence Pick Quits

2009-03-11T15:04:00.001-04:00

Obama's Intelligence Pick Quits

Freeman Would Have Been Very Dangerous to the Country

Reflection of Obama's Real Views

President Obama's nominee for chairman of the National Intelligence Council, Charles (Chas) Freeman, withdrew his nomination yesterday after his extreme, anti-American views and associations were exposed.

This is great news for the country, but the downside is that Freeman's appointment was a perfect reflection of who President Obama really is. Personnel is policy.

So who is Chas Freeman?

According to the Washington Pos, "Since 1997, he has presided over the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that is funded in part by Saudi money. In that role, Freeman has occasionally criticized the Israeli government's positions and U.S. support for those policies. In 2007, for example, he said, 'The brutal oppression of the Palestinians by the Israeli occupation shows no sign of ending,' adding, 'American identification with Israel has become total.'"

Another leftist liberal blaming the victim and revealing his anti-Semitism.

In addition to Freeman's connections to the Saudi government, a leading exporter of Islamofascist terrorism, he has business connections to the bin Laden family and their Saudi Binladen Group, a multibillion-dollar construction conglomerate founded by the father of Osama bin Laden. He served as cairman of Projects International Inc., and in that capacity, he told the Associated Press, he was still "discussing proposals with the Binladen Group—and that won't change."

Carmen bin Laden, a sister-in-law of Osama, told Der Spiegel that "bin Ladens never disowned Osama; in this family, a brother remains a brother, no matter what he has done." Yet Freeman still chose to do business with the bin Ladens.

As if this were not bad enough, Freeman justified the brutal Red Chinese atrocities at Tiannamen Square. He wrote in an email:

I find the dominant view in China about this very plausible, i.e. that the truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud, rather than -- as would have been both wise and efficacious -- to intervene with force when all other measures had failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major urban centers in China. In this optic, the Politburo's response to the mob scene at "Tian'anmen" stands as a monument to overly cautious behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash action.

I do not believe it is acceptable for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be. Such folk, whether they represent a veterans' "Bonus Army" or a "student uprising" on behalf of "the goddess of democracy" should expect to be displaced with despatch from the ground they occupy. I cannot conceive of any American government behaving with the ill-conceived restraint that the Zhao Ziyang administration did in China

Freeman's "ill-conceived restraint" consisted of sending tanks in to mass-murder the peaceful demonstrators. Troops indiscriminately fired AK-47s at the crowd. Many demonstrators were pulled out of buses and beaten with heavy sticks. Journalist Charlie Cole reported that tanks ran over numerous demonstrators, crushing them. Very restrained, don't you think? Chas Freeman does, and apparently, so does President Obama.

The Freeman nomination, now thankfully withdrawn, is of a piece with President Obama's associations with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. This is another Obama associate who will bend over backwards to justify the most brutal activities of terrorists and tyrants, provided that they are enemies of America.

That President Obama would nominate such a person as his chairman of the National Intelligence Council is very revealing. Show me who your friends are and I'll show you who you are.

2009-02-26T17:44:00.002-05:00

I Didn't Realize You Could Pile Baloney That High

I watched President Obama's non-State of the Union speech Tuesday night. What a waste of my time. The man says nothing very well.

Putting aside the constitutionality of what he proposes, where does he propose to get the money for all the things he wants to do?

He's wrong about his history -- government intervention of this nature has been proven a failure time and time again. It's not just me saying so -- it was FDR's Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau. Secretary Morgenthau testified to Congress that "We've spent more than we've ever spent before and yet unemployment is, well, by and large unchanged." from 1933 to 1940 unemployment averaged 18%. So that means the New Deal didn't work.

Basically, all President Obama had to say was let's throw money at all our problems. That has not worked. We've had the New Deal, the Great Society, Carterism, and now Obama's Raw Deal, and time after time the economy has gotten worse. Jimmy Carter tried policies like these and his major achievement was to give us double-digit unemployment, double-digit inflation, and double-digit interest rates all at the same time, something economists insisted was impossible until Carter did it. Japan tried to do this and got a decade of total stagnation. It doesn't work.

These are not new ideas. They are very old ones that have been repeatedly tried and have repeatedly failed. He just wants to do them on a grander scale.

Obama's proposals reduce the degree of freedom to direct our own lives and the degree of responsibility for our own lives. And they spend massive amounts of money to do so. The porkulus bill alone added almost a trillion dollars to our deficit. Where does he propose to get that money?

Government has no money. It can get it only by printing funny money (inflation), taxing the people (we pay very high taxes as it is), borrowing (thus drying up credit markets and driving up interest rates), or some combination of those three.

Unfortunately, nothing President Obama says is believable as far as I am concerned. He's been caught not telling the truth about the so-called "stimulus" bill, as well as other issues. In his speech Tuesday he just plain would not tell the truth about the causes of the mortgage crisis. It was caused by the Clinton administration pressuring banks (under the threat of government action) to issue mortgages that everyone knew could never be paid back. Obama is more Clintonian than the Clintons.

Obama is talking the language of "Yes we can" but practicing the politics of "No we can't." His policies promote limits and suffering and pain. The implication of both his rhetoric and his policies is that you can't -- and shouldn't -- achieve, or make many decisions for yourself without bad stuff happening to you, so he'll just take over your life and run it for you so it can be run better. That is insultingly offensive. It's also authoritarian.

It's also clear from his rhetoric and his proposals that he doesn't see you or me or other Americans -- he sees groups, never the individuals.

Furthermore, his ongoing theme of "remaking" America -- not reviving, renewing, or restoring, not even reforming, but remaking -- shows that he fundamentally does not believe in the American vision and the American dream handed to us by our Founders. You do not try to remake what you think is fundamentally well done, well built, well structured. Only if there is a systemic, fundamental flaw do you try to remake something. In other words, Barack Hussein Obama does not believe in America.

President Obama's latent anti-American attitude is showing. So are his authoritarian impulses. He is going to tell us what health care we can have, tell the banks how to operate, and tell everyone he can how to do everything. Big Brother is watching you – on a big-screen TV in the White House residence.

I find this speech and this President extremely disturbing.

2009-02-26T17:21:00.002-05:00

Barack Obama: Dishonest, Lying Hypocrite

During the campaign, I described President Obama as a "dishonest, lying hypocrite" for his insincere denunciation of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his spiritual mentor of 20 years who had said "God damn America" from the pulpit and referred to America as "the United States of White America" and "the US of KKKA." Obama had said of Rev. Wright, "I could no more disown him than I could disown the black community" – then he threw Wright under the bus. Then Wright showed up at his Inauguration.

Obama was also dishonest in claiming that he would cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans. Republicans proposed to cut taxes in a major way – FICA (the Social Security tax), income taxes, capital gains, the corporate tax, and others – as part of the stimulus bill, but the tax cutter Obama told them that their ideas were not being considered because "I won." Meanwhile, he appointed tax cheats to his Cabinet.

President Obama promised that he would give the people five days to look over any bill before signing it, yet signed the so-called "stimulus" bill on the first business day after it was passed by Congress – even though neither the President nor any member of Congress nor the American people had read that almost a billion dollar piece of garbage. Obama lied again.

He also claimed that there was "not a single earmark" in the porkulus bill or in his budget. I have to give him that one, as Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) pointed out. "There is not a single earmark. It's loaded with them." In all, there are about 900 earmarks. Another falsehood from the Liar-in-Chief. We have a fundamentally dishonest, America-hating President in our White House.

Barack Obama finally has a real achievement. He is the only person in America who could make the Clintons look honest. And that is pretty scary.

2009-01-28T16:34:00.002-05:00

Senate Committee Approves Friend of Terrorists

Holder Passes First Hurdle for Confirmation as Attorney General

Today the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the nomination of Eric Holder to be the next Attorney General with just two dissenting votes. Holder's nomination now moves to the full Senate. I would like to congratulate Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) for doing the right thing and voting against this friend of terrorists.

As Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton Administration, Holder was in charge of overseeing the pardons and clemency process. In that capacity, he was instrumental in the pardons of two members of the Weather Underground. This is the organization in which President Obama's friend Bill Ayers was a top leader. The Weather Underground declared war on America. They bombed the Pentagon (long before Al Qaeda thought of it), New York City police headquarters, and other official targets.

The Weather Underground had a bomb factory in a townhouse in New York City, from which Ayers courageously ran away when it exploded, leveling the townhouse and killing three of his comrades, where they were making bombs to blow up a dance at Fort Dix and the Detroit police headquarters.

While Holder was the official receiving and reviewing pardon applications, former President Clinton issued pardons to Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans, two members of this domestic terrorist organization. Rosenberg was involved in the notorious Brinks robbery in Nyack, New York in 1981 in which two officers were murdered. In 1984 she was caught with explosives. She admitted that she intended to supply explosives to others. She was sentenced to 58 years in jail.

Evans served time in prison for her connection to eight (8) bombings, including the U.S. Capitol bombing, as well as using false identification to buy firearms and harboring a fugitive.

One of the top bundlers for President Obama's campaign was attorney Howard Gutman, who served as Rosenberg's attorney during the pardon process.

Holder was also instrumental in the pardons of 16 members of the terrorist "Armed Forces of National Liberation" (FALN), a violent Puerto Rican independence group. Hillary Clinton, now Secretary of State, was running for Senator from New York at the time and New York has a large Puerto Rican community.

Holder instructed his staff at Justice's Office of the Pardon Attorney to effectively replace the department's original report recommending against any commutations, which had been sent to the White House in 1996, with one that favored clemency for at least half the prisoners, according to these interviews and documents.

The 16 members of the FALN and Los Macheteros had been convicted in Chicago and Hartford variously of bank robbery, possession of explosives and participating in a seditious conspiracy. Overall, the two groups had been linked by the FBI to more than 130 bombings, several armed robberies, six slayings and hundreds of injuries. Yet Holder thought they were worthy of clemency.

Then there is Marc Rich, perhaps President Clinton's most famous – and controversial – pardon. Rich didn't even qualify for a pardon under Justice Department guidelines, which specify that no pardons shall be requested until five years after a criminal sentence has been completed. Rich has never served any of his sentence, as he is a fugitive from justice.

Rich has been based in Switzerland since 1983, just before he was indicted in the United States, accused of tax evasion on more than $100 million in income, fraud and participating in illegal oil deals with the terrorist regime of Iran, the same Iranian regime that is sponsoring the insurgency in Iraq, which is killing American troops. President Clinton issued the pardon after his foundation received a large contribution from Rich's ex-wife, songwriter Denise Rich.

According to the prosecutors in the Rich case, no one consulted them before recommending a pardon for Mr. Rich. Yet Mr. Holder strongly pushed for the Rich pardon.

This friend of terrorists is President Obama's choice to be the nation's top law-enforcement official and it looks like the Senate will go along. Maybe they're afraid to oppose him because he is African-American. But he is unfit for the office. His nomination is a payoff to the enemies of America. If the Senate had any principles, they would defeat the Holder nomination and tell President Obama to find another Attorney General. That they will not shows the dangerously troubled state into which our country has fallen.

2009-01-22T20:46:00.002-05:00

The Worst Supreme Court Decision Ever

Anniversary of Roe v. Wade Reminds Us of the Need to Protect the Most Defenseless

Time to Protect the Unborn

Today, January 22, is the anniversary of the worst Supreme Court decision ever: Roe v. Wade, the decision that enshrined abortion as a so-called "Constitutional right." Even Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the Roe v. Wade decision, admitted that there was no Constitutional basis for it. He said he found a right to abortion in the "penumbras and emanations" of the Constitution.

Roe v. Wade has resulted in the slaughter of 45 million Americans because they are inconvenient to their parents. It set a dangerous precedent that it is permissible to take a human life if it's inconvenient. It has opened the door to taking human life in other ways, such as the atrocity that was the Terry Schiavo case.

Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in our country, which is why it belongs in the legislative arena, not that of the courts. Roe took away the authority of legislatures to enact laws outlawing or even severely restricting abortion.

Yet the Constitution is very clear: "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." This is precisely what abortion does: it deprives a person of life without due process. When sperm meets egg and they bond, a new entity is created which is genetically of the human species, which has everything it needs to be born as a human being, which is distinct. Brain waves have been measured as early as a few weeks. So have independent heartbeats. Yet the pro-abortion left insists on treating this as nothing more than a mass of tissue.

That is because organizations lie Planned Parenthood make big money doing abortions and for historical reasons as well. Each year, Planned Parenthood gets millions in taxpayers' money (such as $15 million in 2007) for their nefarious activities and its annual report for 2006-07 reported that it took in a billion dollars. During that year, this brutal organization aborted 289,570 of America's children, an increase of over 2,500 from the previous year.

Planned Parenthood was founded on the principle of eugenics by a eugenicist who wanted to "improve the human race" by eliminating minorities such as blacks (which would have included the ancestors of our current President.) Planned Parenthood refuses to criticize their founder, Margaret Sanger, despite her vile record.

Now President Obama has said that one of his first acts will be to sign the so-called "Freedom of Choice Act." This would be a disaster for anyone who cares about defending the most defenseless. This immoral bill would eliminate every restriction on abortion nationwide.

* FOCA will do away with state laws on parental involvement, on partial birth abortion, and on all other protections.

* FOCA will compel taxpayer funding of abortions.

* FOCA will force faith-based hospitals and healthcare facilities to perform abortions.

But whether you're pro-life or "pro-choice", there are certain things on which I think most of us can agree. One of these is that children, once born, are entitled to the legal protections of a human being and cannot and should not be killed.

Apparently, President Obama does not agree.

He was one of the driving forces in the state legislature preventing Illinois from adopting the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. This entirely reasonable law would stop hospitals and abortion mills from shelving live aborted babies to die with no medical attention. In other words, those babies who are born alive in spite of the abortionist's efforts were being left to die and the state legislature wanted to prevent this barbaric practice. Barack Obama fought to stop passage of this bill in 2001 and 2002. He was the only State Senator to speak against the act. In 2003, he was the chairman of the committee that bottled up the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, preventing its passage.

Does President Obama want more abortions? Does he have no respect for the rights of babies born alive? At what point would he allow their rights to be protected? President Obama is a father of two young girls. How can he look his young daughters in the eye, knowing that he has undermined every available protection for the children of this country? This is a shameful policy.

Is that what is meant by "change we can believe in"?

2009-01-20T01:10:00.003-05:00

The Real Bush Legacy

As President Bush leaves office, it is appropriate to ask: What will his legacy be?

As with any president, there was good and bad in the Bush Presidency. His tax cuts stimulated economic growth and that was good. Unfortunately, the government's pressure on the banks to make risky loans (along with the sheer exploitation of that by some in the financial industry), the corruption at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, excessive government spending, and other factors undid much of that prosperity (although it's still not as bad as the Carter years.)

Bush's primary achievement is keeping us safe. After 9/11 (which came just 8 months into his presidency and to which Al Qaeda didn't think the US would react so strongly), we have not been attacked again. Bush's security policies, like them or not, have been a major factor in that. Thank you for that, President Bush.

And we have just about won the war in Iraq. If President Obama will simply let Iraq ride, we will be able to leave (mostly) in about the time frame he has talked about, secure in victory and having established a capable ally in the region. That is a good thing.

However, there is much in Bush's record to criticize.

Under President Bush, the Republican Party has become the party of big government. The government has grown bigger and bigger, with more agencies, bureaucracies and enforcement programs. President Bush and Congress gave us an 8.2 percent annual increase in discretionary domestic spending (that's non-defense, non-entitlement), far greater than anything during the Clinton administration or any other administration since Richard Nixon's. The Bush Administration gave us the largest new entitlement program in almost four decades (shades of Lyndon Johnson.)

Mr. Bush refused to secure our borders. He proposed a de facto amnesty for illegal aliens. He has given us an unconstitutional campaign-finance law that prohibits corporations and unions from talking about any federal candidate 60 days before an election.

His administration gave us a massive federal education spending bill, a function not authorized by the Constitution, without even school choice or other reform provisions.

The Bush Administration gave us the Big Bank Bailout, which has done nothing for the economy but gave the government the power to decide which companies succeed and which ones fail.

Bush gave us a massive agricultural subsidy bill. Then it gave a massive insurance bailout to supplement the massive agriculture bill. It gave us steel tariffs.

Mr. Bush has said he opposes overturning Roe v. Wade. He allowed some embryonic stem-cell research. He created new programs for the government to spy on ordinary, law-abiding Americans.

Mr. Bush has sent American soldiers to serve under U.N. authority. The Bush administration apologized to China after a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese plane, instead of demanding an apology from the Chinese for this act.

This is not a conservative record. It is the record of a "me-too" liberal Republican

Not bad on security, but mostly a disaster otherwise.

2009-01-20T01:04:00.002-05:00

Bush Commutes Sentences of Ramos, Compean

Pardon Would Have Been Better – A "Coyote" Was Pardoned, But Our Border Patrol Only Get Commutations

Clear Message to Border Patrol: If You Do Your Job, You May Be Criminally Liable

President Bush commuted the sentences of Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. It looks like they will be home in March.

Well, it's something. At least they'll be able to go home to their families soon.

This is the true nature of Jorge Bush: He pardoned a "coyote" (people smuggler) named John Aregood but Ramos and Compean only get commutations. IOW, Mr. Aregood is presently legally capable of being a Federal officer but Ramos and Compean aren't.

He will rightly be known as a man who continually was nice to his enemies but abandoned his friends and loyal subordinates. This is another stain on his legacy.

But it's important for open-borders RINOs like Jorge, Juan McVain, and others of their ilk to send a clear message to Border Patrol agents and others who are responsible for stemming the flow of illegal aliens: Do your job and you will put yourself in legal jeopardy. That's how they're going to backdoor the alien influx into our country.

Remember that Congress passed a bill in 2005 requiring funding for 10,000 new border agents, but the Bush administration only sought to fund 2100, barely enough to keep up with attrition.

BTW, Jorge's pal Sutton has gone after an inordinately large number of Border Patrol and other law enforcement officers -- the vast majority of whom have Spanish surnames.

A full pardon would have been preferable. The lack of one shows that Jorge Bush has no principles and even less courage.

2008-10-18T00:03:00.003-04:00

Mighty Fraud From Little ACORN Grows

Apparently, it's dangerous to plant an ACORN. ACORN is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a Far Left rabble-rousing organization. It has been implicated in voter fraud in numerous elections and is under investigation for voter fraud this year in 15 states. In the past few weeks, at least two offices have been raided by the FBI.

In Ohio, a swing state, ACORN has been picking up homeless people, taking them from county courthouse to county courthouse, taking advantage of the state's early voting and same-day registration laws, registering them in county after county, and having them vote there immediately. Then it's back in the car and on to the next county. A man from Scarsdale, NY told the media that he is now registered in Ohio. ACORN registered at least one voter in Ohio 15 times. That's not a mistake. That's deliberate fraud. All in all, over 200,000 registrations in Ohio don't match state records, and the state's Democrat officials refuse to do anything about it.

So far, officials have found about 10,000 fraudulent registrations in Hamilton County (Cincinnati) and 8,000 in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland.) In Warren County (near Cincinnati), a group of voters filed suit against ACORN for fraudulently diluting their votes. The plaintiffs say that ACORN's actions deprive them of the right to participate in an honest and effective elections process. The suit demands that ACORN be dissolved.

Meanwhile, the Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, has been busy trying to disqualify Republican and independent absentee votes because the absentee voters forgot to check a small box on the form. By operating this way while turning a blind eye to ACORN's activities (and refusing to allow monitoring of the early voting), she is complicit in ACORN's fraud.

In six counties in Alabama where ACORN has been working, there are more registered voters than there are adults. In Marion County, Indiana (Indianapolis), there are 644,197 people eligible to be registered and 677,401 people registered. That is 105 percent registration. In Marion County, near Chicago, ACORN turned in 5,000 voter registrations. Of the first 2,100 checked, 2,100 were fraudulent. ACORN has been tied to massive voter fraud in Washington, Missouri, Florida, and other states. All in all, it has been implicated in voter fraud in 15 states – and that is just in this campaign! One thing you can't say about ACORN is that they're lazy.

In Washington, state officials characterized ACORN's activities as "an act of vandalism upon the voter rolls of King County." It's more than vandalism. It's theft of the votes of the citizens of those jurisdictions, by fraudulent dilution.

In Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, election officials report that ACORN has changed the registrations of thousands of voters to Democrat. Eight chapters in that county are under criminal investigation. In Harris County (Houston), Texas, at least 6,000 voters voted in the primary who were already dead.

In Nevada, state investigators raided the Las Vegas ACORN office in a voter-fraud investigation. Computers and records were seized. "Some of them used nonexistent names, some of them used false addresses and some of them were duplicates of previously filed applications," said a spokesman for the Nevada investigators. Now ACORN claims that its Boston office was burglarized. Conveniently, the computers were taken. What lovely timing for ACORN. I wouldn't be surprised if they burglarized themselves to cover the evidence.

ACORN admitted that it has turned in fraudulent voter cards knowingly. For many years, it has been ACORN's MO to go into key locations and register thousands of voters who either don't exist or are otherwise unqualified.

Voters in several states have reported being accosted by ACORN workers demanding that they register. Even when they say they are already registered, ACORN volunteers have insisted on registering them anyway. They have turned in voter registration cards for Frank Sinatra, Mickey Mouse, and other distinguished Americans.

Who is paying for this fraud? A good chunk of it is being paid for by the Obama campaign, which has given $800,000 to ACORN for "voter registration" efforts. That's no surprise. In 1992, Barack Obama worked as Executive Director of Project Vote, the voter registration arm of ACORN. In 1993, he joined the Chicago law firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill, and Galland, which represented ACORN in a suit to force the state of Illinois to implement "motor voter." (Governor Jim Edgar argued that doing so would invite voter fraud.) Yet Obama adamantly denies that he ever worked for ACORN – which is something like claiming that he worked for Chevrolet, not General Motors.

However, it is shameful that the U.S. government is subsidizing ACORN and its subsidiaries. That means that you are paying for this fraud. You are being taxed to have your vote stolen from you.

Concerned citizens in states where ACORN's fraud could turn the election should file civil RICO charges against this criminal organization for the theft of their votes. Sue them for every dollar they have. It's time to put this criminal entity out of business.

2008-10-17T17:11:00.003-04:00

Henry Paulson, Dictator

Makes the Banks an Offer They Can't Refuse

When the bank bailout bill was adopted recently, I said that one of the worst features was the virtually dictatorial power that was granted to the Secretary of the Treasury. He gets to make decisions about who will survive and who will fail and other broad discretionary decisions about the economy that cannot be challenged. That's virtual dictatorship over the financial markets.

A few days ago, Paulson locked the executives of nine major banks in a room and forced them to sing agreements giving the government permission to buy shares in the banks, effectively nationalizing them. The Treasury Department ordered the banks to accept this deal, even though at least one major bank didn't want to. The goal is to force the banks to make loans that the government wants them to make and to control their activities in other ways. That is exactly what got us into this mess.

Henry Paulson is a dictator and President Bush is going along with the dictatorial actions of his socialist Secretary of the Treasury. Both Senator McCain and Senator Obama voted for the bill, while leaders like Alan Keyes, among others, warned us of the dangers of this socialistic measure.

And since the bill provides that the decisions of the Secretary of the Treasury cannot be challenged, we have a socialized banking system for as long as the Big Government mob decides it wants it that way. Thankfully, according to the New York Times, there are 8,500 smaller financial institutions in this country and most of them are well capitalized.

How long before the government orders them to surrender a share of their profitable enterprises to Uncle Sam?

2008-09-17T17:19:00.003-04:00

Barack the Baby Killer

Opposed, Bottled Up Born Alive Infants Protection Act

Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in our country, but whether you're pro-life or "pro-choice", there are certain things on which I think most of us can agree. One of these is that children, once born, are entitled to the legal protections of a human being and cannot and should not be killed.

Apparently, Senator Barack Obama does not agree.

How could Barack Obama oppose such a law? He explained, "Now, the bill that was put forward was essentially a way of getting around Roe vs. Wade, which is why 21 other senators, Democrat and Republican, why the Illinois Medical Society objected to the bill. At the federal level, there was a similar bill that passed because it had an amendment saying this does not encroach on Roe vs. Wade. I would have voted for that bill."

The problem is that the Federal bill had no such amendment. In addition, no more than 10 state senators in Illinois ever opposed the bill. So Obama is being disingenuous about his opposition. Is he really just opposed to outlawing the barbaric practice of infanticide?

Even Senator Hillary Clinton supported the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, as did many other "pro-choice" people. But not Barack Obama.

Is that what Democrats mean when they talk about how they're "for the children"?

2008-09-17T17:19:00.002-04:00

The Real McCain

John McCain's Long Liberal Record Renders Him a Bad Choice for President

While I respect and admire Sen. John McCain's military career, he votes like a Democrat on all the critical issues.

"Hi, I'm John McCain. I'm not a Republican, but I play one on TV."

He opposed the Bush tax cuts, voted against them twice, not (as he now claims) because there were no spending cuts attached, but on the same class warfare grounds that the Democrats use. (The Congressional Record establishes this clearly.)

He co-wrote and co-sponsored the worst restriction on free speech in this country since the Alien and Sedition Acts.

He said publicly he would not appoint judges like Alito. (Remember, it was Republicans who gave us Stevens and Souter and earlier, Blackmun, Warren, Brennan, and the like.)

He is co-sponsoring a bogus "global warming" bill that would shut down American industry.

He co-sponsored amnesty. Even though he says he's never supported amnesty, a search of the Congressional Record shows that he was explicitly for amnesty back when it was still called amnesty.

He's for closing Guantanamo and bringing the terrorists into our country.

He is for bailouts for the big investment banks.

He flat-out lied about Romney supporting timetables. Romney said he would veto timetables.

Then, of course, there is the Keating Five. McCain is a person of low character and can't be trusted. He would destroy what's left of conservatism and of the GOP (not that I care all that much about the latter.)

2008-09-17T17:12:00.001-04:00

McCain: "I Would Not Support Repeal of Roe v. Wade"

Flips and Flops on Abortion

"I'd love to see a point where it is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary. But certainly in the short term, or even-the long-term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations."

When Republicans seek the votes of conservatives, they like to promote the idea that they will protect America against candidates with views such as the above. Yet those are the views of Republican Presidential candidate John Sidney McCain, as stated to the San Francisco Chronicle. He also told supporters that he would not appoint Supreme Court justices like Justice Samuel Alito because "that guy wears his conservatism on his sleeve."

He was the leader of the so-called "Gang of Fourteen" that made it impossible for several of President Bush's more strict constructionist judicial nominees to get a vote on their nominations.

John McCain cannot be trusted.

2008-09-17T17:11:00.003-04:00

Barack Obama's Shady Friends

My late father-in-law used to say, "Show me who your friends are and I'll show you who you are." Barack Obama has a number of shady friends.

A lot of attention has been paid to Obama's minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. This is no casual relationship.

Yet Rev. Wright is the least of Obama's problems.

Recently, it came out that Obama was intimately involved in the campaign of his cousin, Raila Odinga, for President of Kenya. Every day, Obama and Odinga were communicating by email and phone, discussing strategy and other matters. This even occurred while Senator Obama was campaigning in teh New Hampshire primary.

During his campaign, Odinga made a deal with Islamic militants to impose Sharia law if elected. He named his son (who would also be Obama's cousin) Fidel Castro Odinga. When Odinga lost, he and his supporters organized riots that got him named Prime Minister.

When American journalist Jerome Corsi went to Kenya to report on this connection, he was arrested and thrown out of the country.

Recently, African Press International reported that it received a threatening phone call from Michelle Obama after it began to investigate this connection. The Reverned Wright is another ally of Obama's, and he is a racist.

Obama claims that he didn't know about the outrageous, hateful statements of Rev. Wright, but he was a member of Trinity for almost 20 years. He and his wife were married there. He gave a $20,000 donation. Rev. Wright baptized the Obama children. Barack and Michelle Obama are active, fully participating members of the church community. Yet Obama would have us believe that he never heard any of his pastor's vicious, hateful remarks.

Rev. Wright has said things that are racist and anti-American. He said "God damn America" from the pulpit. He referred to this country as the USKKKofA and on Fox News Channel's Hannity and Colmes he called it "the United States of White America." He said from his pulpit that the government deliberately created AIDS to wipe out the black population and that it put drugs in the inner cities in order to incarcerate black men. In his sermon on the Sunday after 9/11, Wright said that "America's chickens have come home to roost." Is it any wonder that Michelle Obama said she is proud of America "for the first time in my adult life"?

Further, Trinity openly promotes "the black culture" and "the black value system", a very exclusionary viewpoint, and it gave an award to Louis Farrakhan. Suppose that there were a Presidential candidate who had for the better part of two decades attended a church that promoted "the white culture" and "the white value system" and had given an award to David Duke. What would be said of that candidate? That he (or she) is a racist? So why isn't that being said of Obama?

Senator Obama says he does not support Rev. Wright's statements, yet apparently never said anything about them until he started running for President. He disinvited Wright from his announcement press conference, however, saying "You can get a little rough in some of those sermons." And he has continued to support that church and that pastor with his time, treasure, and his presence for almost 20 years.

Obama was one of the loudest voices demanding the firing of radio personality Don Imus after Mr. Imus made a disgusting, tasteless remark about the Rutgers women's basketball team. He said that Imus "wouldn't work for me." Yet Imus has apologized for his tasteless remark, Wright never has, and Wright to this day works for Obama (as part of the church family at Trinity.)

But Rev. Wright is only one of Obama's problems.

William Ayers is the one-time bomb-maker for the 1960s radical group The Weather Underground. He was one of the leaders of the Weather Underground's bombings of the U.S. Capitol, Pentagon, New York City police headquarters, the State Department building, and other sites. In an article in the New York Times (doesn't that figure) on September 11, 2001, Ayers wrote that "I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough." Yet according to a spokesman for Obama's campaign, Ayers and Senator Obama are "friendly." They served together on the Board of The Woods Foundation.

After Ayers's September 11, 2001 interview, Obama made speeches with him.

Obama worked for Ayers at the Far Left Annenberg Challenge, an "education reform project designed to get schools to indoctrinate children with left-wing, anti-American propaganda. Do we want a President who is friendly with and sat on a foundation board with an anti-American, Communist terrorist?

One of Obama's major fundraisers is Antoin (Tony) Rezko, a Syrian-born developer and restaurateur who is currently under indictment for wire fraud for staging false transactions of his pizza stores in order to secure $10 million in loans. Rezko owned franchises of restaurant chains Panda Express and Papa John's Pizza, although he was forced to sell out of Papa John's and renamed his pizzerias in Chicago Papa Tony's. Rezko was sued by Papa John's for falling behind on his franchise fees. That led to the alleged wire fraud for which he is currently being prosecuted. He has also been convicted of extortion of businesses seeking to do business with the Illinois Teachers Retirement System Board and the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board.

In 2005, Obama purchased his house on the South Side of Chicago for $1,650,000, $300,000 below the asking price, on the same day that Rezko's wife, Rita, purchased the adjoining empty lot for the full asking price. Subsequently, Obama bought a 10-foot strip of Rezko's land, making Rezko's land less attractive for development. The two lots had originally been one property. In 1997, Obama wrote a letter to the city of Chicago supporting a Rezko-led housing development. The project received more than $14 million in taxpayer funds, including $885,000 in development fees for Rezko and his partner, Allison Davis. Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times that Rezko had raised about $25,000 for him.

Then there is Penny Pritzker, of the wealthy Pritzker family of Chicago. Ms. Pritzker is Senator Obama's campaign finance chair. She was one of the directors of a holding company that controlled the now-defunct Superior Bank, which engaged in dangerous, risky loan practices that cost the depositors hundreds of thousands of dollars. These are exactly the kind of questionable loans that have caused the present financial crunch. When regulators questioned her practices, Ms. Pritzker simply defied them and kept making bad loans. While the Pritkers paid out over $460 million in penalties, they have retained their fancy lifestyle and superrich status that they acquired at least partially by defrauding depositors and stockholders.

So some of Barack Obama's close associates are a foreign terrorist, a racist, anti-American preacher, a domestic terrorist bomber who doesn't regret it, and a convicted slumlord whose project he has supported and who has raised funds for him,and anotehr big fundariser and donor who is one of the people responsible for the bank loan crisis.

Barack Obama finally has a real achievement. He is the only person in America who could make the Clintons look honest.

Show me who your friends are and I'll show you who you are.

2008-09-17T16:34:00.002-04:00

A Forgotten Day

Constitution Day Not Well Remembered or Regarded by Liberal Establishment

"Study the Constitution. Let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislatures, and enforced in courts of justice." -- Abraham Lincoln

Today, September 17, is an important day in American history -- Constitution Day. it was on this day in 1797 that the United States Constitution was signed, establishing the finest system of government mankind has yet devised.

Yet very few people are even aware of Constitution Day. The Constitution isn't taught very much in schools, despite a mandate a few years ago that it be taught in any school receiving any kind of government funds.

But the liberals don't want you to know about the real Constitution, so they either ignore this mandate or they twist it to their own purposes.

The Founders were very clear on the meaning of the Constitution they gave us.

James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, elaborated upon this limitation in a letter to James Robertson: "With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. If the words obtained so readily a place in the "Articles of Confederation," and received so little notice in their admission into the present Constitution, and retained for so long a time a silent place in both, the fairest explanation is, that the words, in the alternative of meaning nothing or meaning everything, had the former meaning taken for granted."

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what is will be tomorrow." -- James Madison, Federalist no. 62, February 27, 1788

"If Congress can determine what constitutes the general welfare and can appropriate money for its advancement, where is the limitation to carrying into execution whatever can be effected by money?" -- South Carolina Senator William Draden 1828

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." --Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1817

"(T)he true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best . . . (for) when all government . . . shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as . . . oppressive as the government from which we separated." --Thomas Jefferson

"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power not longer susceptible of any definition." -- Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, February 15, 1791

"A wise and frugal government ... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." -- Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

"Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force." -- Thomas Jefferson, Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798.

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others." -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

"[T]he powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction." -- James Madison, Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 6, 1788, Elliot's Debates

"The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." -- James Madison, speech in the House of Representatives, January 10, 1794

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." -- Benjamin Franklin

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread." -- Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821

Not to mention the fact that early Presidents (and other officials) of this great country understood the true intent of the Constitution.

In a famous incident in 1854, President Franklin Pierce was pilloried for vetoing an extremely popular bill intended to help mentally ill. The act was championed by the renowned 19th century social reformer Dorothea Dix. In the face of heavy criticism, Pierce countered: "I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for the public charity." To approve such spending, argued Pierce, "would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded."

"I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit." -- President Grover Cleveland vetoing a bill for charity relief (18 Congressional Record 1875 [1877]

In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo to Baltimore and Philadelphia, James Madison stood on the floor of the House to object saying, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." -- James Madison, 4 Annals of Congress 179 (1794)

The vast majority of what our government does today is unconstitutional. Let's take back our country from those who would erode our constitutional liberties by setting up a government that runs every aspect of our lives. As Margaret Thatcher said, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take everything you have." And "we have a government that takes too much from us to do too much for us."

This Constitution Day, let us rededicate ourselves to liberty through limited government. To quote Thomas Jefferson, "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."

(I am indebted to Professor Walter E. Williams, whose website provided many of these quotes.)

2008-04-29T17:48:00.001-04:00

Barack Obama: Dishonest, Lying Hypocrite

Stench of Political Desperation Pervades Sudden Denunciation of Rev. Wright

So now Barack Obama is denouncing Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose church he has attended for 20 years. Today, Senator Obama said that he was outraged by the statements of his longtime pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. He said that "I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday." Obama said that "The person that I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate." This is the pastor whose church Senator Obama has attended for two decades, the person who married him and his wife. Just two days ago on "Fox News Sunday", Obama was still defending Wright, saying that what we have heard were "a few snippets of 30-second soundbites selected out of a 30-year career" that were being misinterpreted.

Sorry, Barak. We're not buying it. Are you telling the truth now, or when you said "I could no more disown him than I could disown the black community"? According to the Obamas' Federal tax return, they gave $22,500 that year in contributions to the church. Senator Obama has described Rev. Wright as his "spiritual mentor" but now he says that Wright's statements "certainly don't portray accurately my values and beliefs." Well, Senator, that is nothing but political posturing and most Americans can see right through it.

This is no casual relationship. Barack and Michelle Obama are active, fully participating members of the church community. Yet Obama would have us believe that he never heard any of his pastor's vicious, hateful remarks before this campaign started and doesn't agree with any of them. Had he left the church at some point over the last 20 years, perhaps we could believe that. In that case, Rev. Wright would not be an issue. But he continues to support Reverend Wright's church.

Saying that "Reverend Wright does not speak for me; he does not speak for the campaign" is political necessity, but it seems disingenuous. One of the oldest political tricks in the book is to throw overboard an advisor who has in some way embarrassed you while continuing to support and consult that person. The Clintons did the same thing with Bill Shaheen, the husband of former New Hampshire governor and Clinton state chairman Jeanne Shaheen, after Mr. Shaheen suggested that Obama had been a drug dealer in college. The transparent nature of this fakery makes you wonder if they really think we're that stupid.

This shows how dishonest and politically desperate Obama is.

But let's take him at his word. If he misinterpreted Rev. Wright that badly despite spending 20 years in his presence, then who else does he so deeply misunderstand, and what would that misunderstanding of people bring to our relations with other countries should Senator Obama become President? It's a frightening thought.

Barack Obama finally has a real achievement. He is the only person in America who could make the Clintons look honest.

2008-03-27T17:58:00.001-04:00

Clinton Lies Again

Falsely Claims She Came Under Fire in Bosnia

I hesitate to post this, because it's really not news the Clintons are lying again.

Hillary Rodham Clinton says she landed under sniper fire in Bosnia during her husband's Presidency. The comedian Sinbad, who was on the trip, says the hardest thing they had to cope with was where to eat next. Now CBS has found video tape of Mrs. Clinton getting off the plane and being greeted not by sniper fire, but by a little Bosnian girl who read her a poem. (I don't usually do this, but I'll give CBS plenty of credit on this one.)

A kid's poetry, sniper fire sure, those are the same thing. You could get those confused really easily.

Senator Clinton says that she just had a faulty memory and "misspoke", but how would you have a faulty memory about a subject like this? Sniper fire is something you remember.

Once again, the Clintons are lying when telling the truth would serve them better. The truth is that there had been incidents in that region and the Clinton party was warned that there might be sniper fire. So going into the area in the face of that warning should be respected, even if it was a political stunt. But as with so many other things, Clinton is embellishing her resume again, trying to give herself experience that she really doesn't have.

Mrs. Clinton has no more experience in the White House than Cynthia Rodriguez has as a major-league infielder. Should someone hire Cynthia to play third base because she's married to A-Rod? Then why hire Mrs. Clinton as President simply because she was married to one?

Billy Martin got fired as manager of the Yankees for saying of George Steinbrenner and Reggie Jackson that "one's a born liar and the other's convicted." Given that Bill Clinton was found by a Federal judge to have made "deliberately misleading statements" under oath, that quote could easily apply to the Clintons.

If Mrs. Clinton wants to be President, she needs to be honest.

2008-03-25T16:58:00.001-04:00

Barack Obama's Shady Friends

My late father-in-law used to say, "Show me who your friends are and I'll show you who you are." Barack Obama has a number of shady friends.

A lot of attention has been paid to Obama's minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. This is no casual relationship. Obama has been a member of Trinity for almost 20 years. He and his wife were married there. He gave a $20,000 donation. Rev. Wright baptized the Obama children. Barack and Michelle Obama are active, fully participating members of the church community. Yet Obama would have us believe that he never heard any of his pastor's vicious, hateful remarks.

But Rev. Wright is only one of Obama's problems.

One of Obama's major fundraisers is Antoin (Tony) Rezko, a Syrian-born developer and restaurateur who is currently under indictment for wire fraud for staging false transactions of his pizza stores in order to secure $10 million in loans. Rezko owned franchises of restaurant chains Panda Express and Papa John's Pizza, although he was forced to sell out of Papa John's and renamed his pizzerias in Chicago Papa Tony's. Rezko was sued by Papa John's for falling behind on his franchise fees. That led to the alleged wire fraud for which he is currently being prosecuted. He has also been indicted for extortion of businesses seeking to do business with the Illinois Teachers Retirement System Board and the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board.

So some of Barack Obama's close associates are a racist, anti-American preacher, a terrorist bomber who doesn't regret it, and an indicted slumlord whose project he has supported and who has raised funds for him.

Show me who your friends are and I'll show you who you are.

2008-03-12T16:38:00.002-04:00

Spitzer Resigns

New York Governor Caught in Sex Scandal

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer (D), whose political party the mainstream media has studiously avoided mentioning, resigned today. His resignation takes effect Monday.

Spitzer had been caught in an investigation of a prostitution ring that he has apparently been patronizing for at least 10 years. He was caught on wiretaps, the same kind of wiretaps he used to authorize as the state's Attorney General.

The new governor, Lieutenant Governor David Paterson, is the son of a Harlem political dynasty, the first legally blind person to be a governor, and probably even further to the left than Spitzer.

As governor, Eliot Spitzer is the chief law-enforcement officer of New York State. Yet he apparently violated not only myriad state laws, but also the Federal Mann Act, which prohibits bringing women across state lines for purposes of prostitution. He had at least one encounter in the Mayflower Hotel with a hooker he brought down by train from New York.

Spitzer was known to the service as George Fox, the name of a friend and contributor, or simply as Client 9. (As one of the TV comedians quipped, he's a governor -- who were the eight ahead of him?) (Why is the old song "Love Potion Number Nine" stuck in my head?)

Spitzer has a history of criminal activity aside from his involvement with the prostitution ring. He threatened John Whitehead, the retired head of Goldman Sachs, after Whitehead questioned a dubious prosecution Spitzer undertook against a friend of Whitehead's. His senior aides, presumably with his knowledge and consent, leaked confidential police information to the Albany Times-Union. He used state resources and state police to spy on State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, a Republican.

And he claimed that he could run the state by himself, without the legislature, just by executive order.

He also devised a crooked scheme to enable his father, Bernard Spitzer, to fund his campaign for Attorney General in 1994 in violation of the state's campaign finance limits by collateralizing several buildings and using the real estate that his father had given him to secure loans of over $8 million. He repeated the scheme in 1998. He never paid his father back.

Eliot Spitzer used his post as Attorney General to run roughshod over the law and over whomever he thought was a good target to advance his ambitions. He even went hard after prostitution rings that were competing with the one he was patronizing. He is unfit to hold any office of public trust.

I feel sympathy for Spitzer's wife and daughters, for his friends, but Spitzer, who is described even by allies as sanctimonious, ruthless, and amoral, is simply reaping what he has sown. It is time that it caught up with him.

2008-03-05T17:52:00.001-05:00

McCain: "I Would Not Support Repeal of Roe v. Wade"

Flips and Flops on Abortion

He was the leader of the so-called "Gang of Fourteen" that made it impossible for several of President Bush's more strict constructionist judicial nominees to get a vote on their nominations.

John McCain cannot be trusted.

2008-02-28T13:09:00.002-05:00

McCain Pokes Conservatives in the Eye Again

Attacks Host He Recruited for Being Tough on Obama

Bill Cunningham is perhaps the preeminent talk show host in Cincinnati, a star on the booming WLW 700. He is also nationally syndicated on the program that Matt Drudge used to host.

Recently, at the suggestion of Cincinnati's former Congressman, Rob Portman, the McCain campaign recruited Cunningham for a rally. Cunningham is no McCain fan, calling him "Juan Pablo" for his very destructive efforts to pass amnesty for those in our country illegally. However, now that McCain appears to have locked up the Republican nomination, Cunningham was supporting him as preferable to the Democrats.

The McCainiacs told Cunningham to "provide red meat" for the crowd as he opened the rally. That's what Cunningham did, and the always-so-principled McCain did the rhetorical equivalent of jumping him in a back alley for doing what he was asked to do.

What a wimp John McCain is these days!

Speaking to the crowd at McCain's Cincinnati rally, Cunningham referred to the Democratic frontrunner as "Barack Hussein Obama:" three times. (That is Senator Obama's given name.) He called Obama a "hack, Chicago-style politician," which he is. He noted Obama's ties to the Daley machine. He talked about Obama's close ties to indicted slumlord Tony Reszko, with whom Obama has toured buildings and who is an Obama fundraiser. Cunningham spoke about the circumstances involving Obama's pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who gave a lifetime achievement award to Louis Farrakhan and whose church preaches a form of black separatism, promising to do everything not for God, but for "the black family...the black community."

Excuse me, but what the heck is offensive about that? Is it a no-no to call Hillary Hillary Rodham Clinton? Or Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton? That is her name, after all, but like Obama, she doesn't use her middle name or her maiden name (except sometimes.)

So if not, why is it a "no-no" to call Obama by his full name? Is he ashamed of his name?

Is it perhaps that telling the truth about Reszko or about Obama's ties to the corrupt Daley machine might knock the sheen off the liberals' idol?

What did Cunningham say that was so wrong? That Obama is a liberal? That "when he gets through with you, all you'll have left is change"? That he's part of the Chicago Daley machine? I don't see what he said that needed to be disavowed. If the RINO McCain is going to be such a wimp, he'll lose the election badly.

Apparently, he wants to chase people away from him.

Jon Stewart of Comedy Central called Obama "Barack Hussein Obama" at the Academy Awards, pointing out that his middle name is the same as the last name of the deposed Iraqi dictator and his last name rhymes with Osama. That is much harsher than anything Cunningham said. Yet that was greeted only with laughter.

Of course, John Sidney McCain promptly denounced Cunningham for doing so. This just shows McCain for the gutless liberal that he is. McCain had no business apologizing for that. He simply gives his base one more reason to shy away from him.

Imagine this scene:

Let's suppose Obama gets elected. It's around noon on January 20, 2009. Obama steps up to the podium along with Michelle and Chief Justice Roberts.

"Repeat after me. I, Barack Hussein Obama..."

"That's unacceptable! You racist!"

Does anyone believe that this would occur? Yet that is the logic that Mc Cain, Obama, and the liberal media would have us accept here. It's ridiculous on the face of it.

I think McCain knows better, but as usual, he is succumbing to PC liberal pressure yet again, and it's one more reason why he's unfit to be President.

Just when the New York Times smear piece was beginning to rally the base to McCain, he once again goes out of his way to poke them in the eye.

That is why he is not electable. And from his conduct with relation to this, shouldn't be.

2008-02-28T12:53:00.001-05:00

Bill Buckley, RIP

Father of the Modern Conservative Movement

We received sad news Wednesday. Bill Buckley has passed away. "Chairman Bill" (as he was referred to in the title of a book of quotations from him) is perhaps the father of the modern conservative movement. Without Bill Buckley and a small coterie of others (such as the late Dr. Russell Kirk, whom it was my pleasure to know in college and for several years thereafter), there would most likely be no conservative movement as we know it. It could be argued that the seminal works that defined modern American conservatism were Bill Buckley's God and Man at Yale and Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind. Every major conservative leader from Bob Taft to Barry Goldwater to Ronald Reagan to Rush Limbaugh has been significantly influenced by Bill Buckley's work, ideas, and life.

Buckley was a fierce warrior for conservative principles, but almost always with humor and grace. As a result, he had many friends across the aisle. His friendship with the late Vice President Hubert Humphrey, for example, began when Buckley wrote Humphrey a letter commenting on an article that Humphrey had written about his love of peanut butter, a love they shared. Although they disagreed on most things, they had a warm and insightful correspondence for many years thereafter.

Fifty years ago, Buckley started National Review "to stand athwart the tide of progress crying no," as he wrote in the first issue. He didn't make money with the magazine. In fact, it lost money. I can still remember the fundraising letters asking for money to keep National Review going. And conservatives gave. National Review was and is the most important and influential conservative journal. It brought al the major conservative writers and thinkers together in one place. If you're a conservative writer and you get published in National Review, that's like playing on Broadway or winning the World Series you've "made it." It has been said that an institution is "the lengthened shadow of a man." National Review was and remains Bill Buckley's lengthened shadow.

Bill Buckley was a truly prosperous man, not just financially. Dr. Raymond Charles Barker wrote that prosperity is "being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it." Bill Buckley lived his life that way and never wasted a moment of it.

I vividly remember his campaign for Mayor of New York. (He got 13 percent of the vote running on the Conservative Party ticket.) Some of his best lines come from that campaign.

"Mr. Buckley, what's the first thing you'll do if you're elected?"
"Demand a recount."

And at the end of the campaign, questioned by the always-abrasive and professionally obnoxious Gabe Pressman:

"Mr. Buckley, do you plan to run for office again?"
"Not at the present time."
"What does that mean?"
"It means, Mr. Pressman, not unless someone of your charm and persuasiveness should talk me into it."

When he ran for mayor, my dad was one of his running mates, as the candidate for Councilman from the 4th Councilmanic District. Dad was proud of the fact that in our district, he outpolled Buckley (partly because the Democrat incumbent, Robert Low, had gotten the Republican nominee thrown off the ballot and so a number of Republicans showed up to vote against Low. Dad just happened to be the other guy.) Dad mentioned that to Buckley once. Bill chuckled.

He once wrote that "Moderate is a base-stealing word for liberal Republicans." This is true even today. The current Republican presumptive nominee demonstrates this quite amply.

Not to brag, but I also happen to do a rather good impression of Bill Buckley, who was one of my heroes growing up. (Many conservatives do.)

And I "cut my teeth" (what a funny expression!) in Young Americans for Freedom. YAF was founded at the Buckley estate. I thank him (and a few others) for that as well.

So RIP, Bill, and thank you. Sympathies to all of his friends and family and to the movement, which has lost perhaps its greatest force.

2008-02-22T14:34:00.002-05:00

New York Times Does Hit Piece on McCain

Left-Wing Propaganda Sheet Embarrasses Itself Yet Again

Paper Endorsed McCain in January

The New York Times Wednesday night broke a story claiming that aides to John McCain were concerned about an improper relationship he had with lobbyist Vicki Iseman back in 2000. Apparently, the Times had been holding the story since December, apparently feeling that it was not substantial enough, yet with no new evidence, felt compelled to drop this bomb on McCain now that he is the apparent Republican nominee.

The article's charge that McCain flew around the country in a plane with this lobbyist may not be true, but it wasn't illegal at the time. The rules are different now, but back then it was legal. (Much like DeLay's money swap in Texas.)

Anyone who reads this site knows that I dislike John McCain, find him way too liberal, and have posted about why I cannot vote for him, but this story is simply sleaze with an agenda. Fairness requires that all decent people speak out against this journalistic dishonesty.

This isn't sloppy journalism. It's malicious journalism. Just as I didn't believe the Edwards love-child story without evidence and I don't believe the guy who claims to have snorted coke and had homosexual sex with Obama unless and until I see proof, I don't believe this story either unless there is a LOT more to it than this -- especially since it was in the New York Times. The Times no longer has a shred of credibility. Anything you see in the New York Times should be presumed false until proven otherwise.

However, let's assume for a moment that all of these are true. If they were true, which would be the biggest scandal? The alleged Obama scandal would be a much bigger story, if true, than anything that McCain is alleged to have done. So why isn't the Times pursuing that story?

The Times exhibited a reckless disregard for the truth here. This is the New York Times, after all. Fairness is apparently against its principles.

The fact that they talked to McCain himself and his people in December and they gave the Times information about when he had worked against this lobbyist's interests yet the Times could not be bothered to include that tells you that there was a political agenda here.

But whose?

Was it a Clinton plant? Remember that rumors of affairs were planted against the elder Bush in the '92 campaign and against Dole in '96, neither of which had any evidence to support it. (The Dole rumor even had him paying for the mistress's abortion.)

Did Obama's people plant it to shift attention away from Obama's radical agenda? (and if so, did the Times run it when they did to get Michelle Obama's comments off page one?)

Did McCain's people plant the false story themselves, looking both to embarrass the Times and use the false story to try to get conservatives to rally around Senator McCain?

Any of them is devious enough.

But why did the Times, which Pinchy Sulzberger has told his staff is to promote a liberal-left agenda, endorse McCain if they already had this story in the works? Was it to set him up as the Republican nominee so they could drop this stink bomb on him?

Just as DNCBS damaged itself with its (in my opinion) knowingly false story about Bush and the National Guard, the Times damages itself with this story. Yet another example of blatant liberal media bias. Or is this something worse?

2008-02-20T16:21:00.002-05:00

Michelle Obama: "For the First Time in My Adult Life, I'm Proud of My Country"

"For the first time in my adult life, I'm proud of my country," Michelle Obama, wife of Democrat frontrunner Barack Obama, said at a campaign rally. The Obama campaign has tried to spin this quote, but in fact, Mrs. Obama said it at two different rallies, one in Milwaukee and one in Madison. Once, it might have been a Freudian slip. Twice, it is not any kind of an accident.

As columnist Michelle Malkin has written, "Only her husband's run for president has made her proud of America? That'sextremely narcissistic and self-centered."

Mrs. Obama wasn't proud of her country when its charitable efforts helped the people who suffered in the tsunami or when we won the Cold war and the Berlin Wall fell? She's not proud that American blood and treasure is freeing people from oppression in far-flung corners of the world? Or the fact that we lead in science and technology research? Or that she lives in a country where she and her husband were able to go to elite Ivy League colleges, get a good education, and have good, successful careers? She wasn't proud of her country until her husband started running for President? Not only is that narcissistic, as Michelle Malkin pointed out, but it's also extremely shallow.

It is also sadly revealing. Senator Obama refuses to wear an American flag pin because it's too controversial. His Houston campaign office had a Cuban flag with a photo of Che Guevara on the wall. The Obamas attend a church whose minister promotes a black supremacist agenda. Senator Obama voted against protecting infants born alive after a failed abortion. He has ties to a radical professor who was involved with the terrorist Weather Underground.

Perhaps that explains why Michelle is only proud of her country now that her radical husband is running for President. But do we want a First Lady who has never been proud of America?

2008-02-20T15:50:00.002-05:00

Liberals in Congress Leave America Unprotected

Put Interests of Trial Lawyers Ahead of National Security

The Democrat Congress under the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi left for home, leaving America unprotected.

They adjourned before passing a renewal of the Protect America Act, which updated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA.) The Protect America Act allowed for the warrantless surveillance of telephone calls coming into or out of the United States in which one or the other party is a suspected terrorist. The measure never authorized warrantless surveillance of Americans' conversations with each other, contrary to what the liberal media wants you to believe. It authorized the surveillance of suspected terrorists in connection with terrorism investigations.

The liberals are opposed to that, they are opposed to the successful aggressive tactic of waterboarding, and they seem to be opposed to the very concept of the War on Terror.

The extension of the Protect America Act was held up due to a disagreement over a provision that would have immunized telecom companies form lawsuits due to their cooperation with the government. These companies were passing information about certain numbers to the government and will be much less likely to do so now that the liberals in Congress have chosen to subject them to lawsuits.

Clearly, the liberals care more about the interests of the big trial lawyers' lobby, one of their major constituencies, than they do about national security. That is embarrassing and it is shameful.

2008-02-19T15:51:00.001-05:00

They're At It Again

Liberals in Congress Try to Bring Back Amnesty for Illegals

Apparently, liberals never learn. Perhaps they can't.

The Democratic and Republican leadership of U.S. House and Senate are trying to bring back amnesty. They have a bill in the works to provide amnesty to illegals for a period of five years, during which time they could not be removed from the country. The bill would also prohibit the government from taking any action against companies that employ illegals.

The bill, like the amnesty bill defeated last year, would require the illegals to pay a fine and pass criminal background checks. (As if illegally entering the United States is not a crime.) Never mind that the background check process is a known failure that does not work. CEOs and lobbying interests for Big Business are clamoring for more foreign workers. Apparently, they would rather hire illegals than American workers.

Although the amnesty is officially only for five years, that five-year period gives illegals plenty of time when they're immune form any action against them, in which they can apply for legal status or simply disappear into the system. It's essentially a permanent amnesty, but the liberal leaders in Congress are trying to fool us yet again.

Meanwhile, the same Congressional leaders are talking about having to extend unemployment benefits to American workers who are unemployed. Why do they want to bring in more illegal workers? Are they that cravenly beholden to the illegal lobby?

When will they finally hear what we've told them time and time again?

2008-02-13T19:23:00.003-05:00

A Marxist Image

Obama Campaign Office in Houston Caught Displaying Cuban Flag With Picture of Che Guevara

The excellent website Captain's Quarters found an interesting picture. It shows the Barack Obama campaign office in Houston with a Cuban flag bearing the likeness of Ernesto (Che) Guevara on the wall. Barack Obama refuses to wear an American flag pin in his lapel, but a Cuban flag with a terrorist's picture decorates the wall of one of his campaign offices.

Here is the picture:

Why does Senator Obama tolerate this tribute to a terrorist in his campaign office?

Che Guevara was a totalitarian and a close associate of Fidel Castro. They were strongly pro-Soviet and hated America. Che presided over Communist Cuba's first firing squads. He started Cuba's labor camps, in which the regime there would eventually lock up gays, dissidents, AIDS victims, and others who ran afoul of the regime. He was killed in 1967 trying to foment a violent revolution in Bolivia. These are just a few of Che Guevara's atrocities. Yet his image is "chic" in left-wing circles in the West.

Does Senator Obama really intend to have his campaign honor such a man? If not, he should order that flag removed at once. I'm not holding my breath.

2008-02-13T18:38:00.001-05:00

Power to the People

Organized, We Can Prevent the Big Government Forces From Implementing Their Agenda

Do you remember the Clinton healthcare plan that Hillary Clinton took the lead on in 1993? It was a cornerstone of the new Clinton Administration. Now, 15 years later, government run healthcare still a cornerstone of the Clinton program.

Despite Democratic control of Congress then, the plan was stopped by grassroots activism, spurred by the famous "Harry and Louise" television advertising campaign. Even many Democrats wound up voting against it. In other words, people power beat back the elites and their demand to "take care of us" (by increasing their own power, of course.)

The Harriet Miers nomination, the Dubai Ports deal, and the McCain-Kennedy "comprehensive" immigration amnesty bill are more recent examples of what happens when the people rise up.

When we are energized, we can defeat the political elites of both parties and their radical agenda. Do not let anyone scare you with the idea that if the "wrong" people get in power, socialized medicine, radical Supreme Court justices, open borders, and other disasters are inevitable. They will try, but we have proven we can beat them time after time.

Power to the people!

2008-02-13T18:05:00.002-05:00

Liberals and Fascists

New Book Shows Relationship Between Ideologies

Jonah Goldberg of National Review has done an outstanding public service by exposing the similarities between the ideology of liberalism and that of Fascism in his new book Liberal Fascism: From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. Liberals love to accuse their critics of being "Fascists" but the book shows that it is their ideology that bears a strong relationship to Fascist ideology. Fascism is an ideology of the left, not the right.

The title comes from a speech H.G. Wells gave to the Young Liberals in Oxford in 1932 in which he explicitly called for a cadre of "liberal Fascists."

Goldberg argues that liberal heroes like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were products of what Goldberg calls "the fascist moment" in America early in the 20th century. Indeed, Goldberg argues that Wilson was the closest we have ever had to a Fascist president. FDR's appointee to run the National Recovery Administration was an open admirer of Mussolini. Goldberg also argues that the many "alphabet soup" agencies created in the New Deal had their origins in World War I Fascism.

Goldberg points out that many of the liberals' most cherished policies, from anticapitalism to gun control, are Fascist policies. He notes that Mussolini was a socialist and earned his title, "El Duque", as a socialist leader. Mussolini had also been the editor of Italy's Communist newspaper. The Nazis, too, were socialists in the Fascist mode. Goldberg points out that "progressives" of the early 20^th century looked to Mussolini for inspiration.

When Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, for example, one of the first things he did was order the registration of all guns, a measure the Brady Campaign and other liberals call for today. It is easier to stamp out resistance to tyranny when the tyrants know where the weapons are.

The Fascists opposed free markets, as liberals do. As Thomas Sowell points out, "The Fascists were completely against individualism in general and especially against individualism in a free market economy. Their agenda included minimum wage laws, government restrictions on profit-making, progressive taxation of capital, and "rigidly secular" schools." Sowell points out that Fascist economic policy is what liberals have long called "industrial policy."

Instead, they supported state control of the means of production not state ownership, like their socialist cousins, but nominal private ownership with extensive state control. Doesn't that sound like modern liberalism? Of course it does.

Socialists like the playwright George Bernard Shaw, activists like Margaret Sanger, and others expressed admiration for the Fascist agenda. Many of Sanger's views regarding abortion and birth control bear a frightening resemblance to those of the National Socialists.

These are just a few of the ways in which modern liberalism resembles Fascism. Jonah Goldberg is to be congratulated for his thoughtful book pointing out the connection.

2008-02-12T18:04:00.000-05:00

McCain's Far Left Funding

Receiving Money From Nazi Collaborator Soros Since 2001

Guess who's been funding John McCain?

Since 2001, the year President Bush took office, Senator McCain's Reform Institute has received funding from the Far Left billionaire George Soros and his Open Society Institute. Soros once compared President Bush to the Nazis. McCain's organization has also received funding from Teresa Heinz Kerry's Tides Foundation. In 2004, McCain seriously considered becoming John Kerry's running mate.

In July 2001, the Reform Institute listed Senator McCain as the chairman of its advisory committee. Several staffers on his 2000 Presidential campaign found jobs at the Institute before rejoining McCain for his 2008 campaign. Also on the advisory committee of the Reform Institute since its birth in 2001 is the ultraliberal writer and website operator Ariana Huffington of Huffington Post.

Soros has also funded the Far Left character assassination websites MoveOn.org (which ran an ad contest for ads to oppose President Bush and posted two on its website that called the President a Nazi), Media Matters for America (also funded by a large grant from the Clintons), and other such organizations. He was a large contributor to Senator John Edwards. MoveOn.org has accused American Jews of having dual loyalties.

One of the directors of Soros's Open Society Institute is Morton Halperin, a leftist formerly associated with the Institute for Policy Studies, an organization the U.S. government officially identified as a Communist front.

Why is a Republican Senator and Presidential candidate accepting funding from a hate-mongering, anti-American smear merchant like Soros?

Soros likes to throw the charge of being a Nazi at his opponents and likes to describe himself as a Holocaust survivor. But he admitted in his book that as a 14-year-old boy he went around in occupied Hungary fingering the local Jews for the Nazi occupiers. In other words, he is by his own admission a Nazi collaborator. As David Horowitz and Richard Poe wrote in their book The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party, Soros "survived [the Holocaust] by assimilating to Nazism."

Soros was also an associate of the late Francois Genoud, who met with the Grand Mufti on direct instructions of Hitler and who was the keeper of the Nazi fortune after World War II.

If we can expel little people like John Demjanjuk from our country for their forced service in the armed forces of the Nazis, why can't we denaturalize Soros for his willing service to them and send him back where he came from?

McCain should be ashamed of this funding. Although he has severed his formal connections with the Reform Institute, he should publicly condemn Soros and formally call on the Reform Institute to return the money. It is about the most tainted money you can get.

2008-02-12T17:16:00.007-05:00

Clinton Fires Campaign Manager

Brings In Longtime Associate Involved in Vince Foster Scandal

Faced with lagging performance in the primaries, Senator Hillary Clinton has removed Patty Solis Doyle as the head of her Presidential campaign. Her replacement is Maggie Williams, Mrs. Clinton's former Chief of Staff at the White House. It was Williams who was seen carrying a box full of documents out of Vince Foster's office the day Foster died.

Those boxes may well have carried the Whitewater records, as Foster was believed to be the custodian of them. Williams is also the person who checked Foster's briefcase that day and found it empty. A few days later, White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum "found" Foster's "suicide" note in the same briefcase, torn up into 36 pieces. The thirty-seventh piece was and remains missing. It was the piece with Foster's signature.

On his many trips to the White House, Johnny Chung, a Chinese operative and large Clinton-DNC donor, would stop in Williams's office regularly.

Mrs. Solis Doyle was tied in with Norman Hsu, the disgraced Clinton fundraiser who is a convicted felon.

The switch to Maggie Williams shows the desperation of the Clinton campaign, but also its arrogance. Apparently, they believe that putting in a person at the top of the campaign who is so closely tied to two of the Clinton Administration's biggest scandals will not be noticed.

Do we really want to go through four more years of that?

2008-02-12T17:00:00.000-05:00

Chinese Spy Ring Leads to Several Arrests

The FBI announced yesterday that it had made several arrests in a Chinese spying scandal. Those arrested were charged with espionage for selling secrets to Red China.

Gregg William Bergersen, 51, of Alexandria, was arrested at his home on espionage charges. Tai Shen Kuo, a Taiwan-born U.S. citizen, 58, and Yu Xin Kang, a Chinese national, 33, both of New Orleans, were arrested in New Orleans on charges of conspiracy to provide defense secrets to China. Mr. Bergersen was apparently providing Mr. Kang with information on American arms sales around the world. He reportedly believed that Mr. Kang was working for Free China, not Red China, but in fact, Mr. Kang is an agent of the Butchers of Beijing.

I guess the Chinese couldn't wait for the Clintons to get back in power. You may remember that under the Clinton Administration, the Chinese funneled money to the campaign through surrogates such as Johnny Chung, Charlie Trie, and the Lippo Group, among others, in exchange for which President Clinton provided the Chinese with information and rocket launchers they needed to make the technology they had stolen during the Reagan and Bush Sr. Administrations work.

Chung would regularly visit the White House during the Clinton years, often visiting the office of the First Lady's Chief of Staff, Margaret Williams, now Senator Clinton's campaign manager. The person she replaced, Patty Solis Davis, is tied to Norman Hsu, the convicted felon who was a major Hillary contributor.

The Bush Administration has apologized to the Chinese after they shot down one of our military planes, allowed them to board Navy ships and watch maneuvers, allowed them to gain influence in our ports through their front company Hutchison Whampoa, and kowtowed to the Butchers of Beijing in numerous other ways.

Yet the Chinese continue to have nuclear warheads aimed at the United States. They continue to dump goods made by slave labor in our country in violation of a treaty they made with us. They continue to run one of the most repressive regimes in all the world. Yet neither party will stand up to them.

It is time to keep Chinese goods out of our country, sweep their spies out of their embassies and consulates, recognize Taiwan, perhaps boycott the Olympics. It is time to speak out for freedom. We can start by punishing these Chinese agents.

2008-02-08T17:04:00.000-05:00

Chinese Base in Iran?

Is Red China considering a military base in Iran? Are the Mullahs contemplating allowing it? The two governments have become very close recently.

Asia Times reported recently that

Iran

's security calculations are almost at the point of allowing a Red Chinese base near one of its ports or on one of its islands.

China

depends heavily on energy imports from

Iran

and other countries in the region.

China

is the mullahocracy's number one trading partner. Already, Chinese arms sales to

Iran

have included such hot items as ballistic-missile technology and air-defense radars.

This would be a step forward in the ongoing cooperation between the Islamofascist world and the Communist world. Anti-Americanism trumps all, and it was the Muslim world, after all, that gave us "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

This cooperation poses a significant threat to America and her allies. We would have the strong Chinese military protecting Iran's nuclear development, trying to serve as a deterrent to any kind of tough action against Iran not that any major-party Presidential candidate is likely to undertake such action. After all, we mustn't offend our enemies.

China

also recently concluded a nuclear cooperation agreement with India. In 1999, the then-Indian Defense Minister invited representatives of China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Libya, and Serbia to discuss a security alliance "to stop the

U.S.

" (Why weren't the North Koreans invited?)

Why is our government standing idly by and allowing this dangerous collusion to threaten our security?

2008-02-08T01:53:00.000-05:00

Barack the Baby Killer

Opposed, Bottled Up Born Alive Infants Protection Act

Apparently, Senator Barack Obama does not agree.

Even Senator Hillary Clinton supported the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, as did many other "pro-choice" people. But not Barack Obama.

Is that what Democrats mean when they talk about how they're "for the children"?

2008-02-07T12:18:00.000-05:00

The Real McCain

John McCain's Long Liberal Record Renders Him a Bad Choice for President

While I respect and admire Sen. John McCain's military career, I wouldn't vote for him if voting were mandatory and his name were the only one on the ballot.

He votes like a Democrat on all the critical issues.

"Hi, I'm John McCain. I'm not a Republican, but I play one on TV."

He co-wrote and co-sponsored the worst restriction on free speech in this country since the Alien and Sedition Acts.

He said publicly he would not appoint judges like Alito. (Remember, it was Republicans who gave us Stevens and Souter and earlier, Blackmun, Warren, Brennan, and the like.)

He is co-sponsoring a bogus "global warming" bill that would shut down American industry.

He co-sponsored amnesty. Even though he says he's never supported amnesty, a search of the Congressional Record shows that he was explicitly for amnesty back when it was still called amnesty.

He's for closing Guantanamo and bringing the terrorists into our country.

He flat-out lied about Romney supporting timetables. Romney said he would veto timetables.

Then, of course, there is the Keating Five. McCain is a person of low character and can't be trusted. Why would anyone support him?

He's unacceptable and would destroy what's left of conservatism and of the GOP (not that I care all that much about the latter.)

2008-02-06T17:12:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday, President Reagan

Today is the birthday of the greatest American President of my lifetime (by far), the great Ronald Reagan, dubbed "Ronaldus Magnus" by talk-show host Rush Limbaugh. He would be 97 if he were still alive, but he passed away in 2004.

President Reagan has been much talked about during this year's presidential campaign, but no one is living up to his legacy. During his eight years in the White House, he staunchly opposed communism and promoted a "peace through strength" policy that many credit with leading to the end of the Cold War.

Even though there are many things at which he disappointed, such as not abolishing the Departments of Energy and Education, President Reagan's tax cuts set off a 20-year wave of prosperity and doubled revenues to the government in a decade. (Unfortunately, for every new dollar brought in, $1.83 was spent.)

His policy towards the Soviet Union -- peace through strength, trust but verify -- brought down the Berlin Wall and the Evil Empire. His determination to create a nuclear shield (which is still being worked on) would make the world a less dangerous place.

And he inspired Americans to hope and to recognize the greatness that is America. We can be that shining city on the hill again, but none of the current candidates seems to know how. He was reelected in 1984, carrying 49 states in one of the biggest landslides in American political history.

Happy birthday, Mr. President. We miss you.

2008-02-06T16:31:00.001-05:00

CAIR Admits Their Plea for Donations for 9/11 Victims Linked to the Terrorist Group Hamas

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) poses as a civil rights group, defending the rights of Muslims in America. But it was founded by Hamas as a front for Hamas's terrorist activities.

Ghassan Elashi, who was the head of CAIR's Texas chapter, and another CAIR founder, Omar Ahmad, attended a key meeting in Philadelphia in 1993. An FBI memo characterizes this meeting as a planning session for Hamas, Holy Land Foundation, and Islamic Association of Palestine. Out of this meeting CAIR was born.

In December 2004, a federal judge in Chicago ruled the Islamic Association of Palestine (along with the Holy Land Foundation and Mohammad Salah, a Hamas operative) partially liable for the murder of American David Boim. This cost IAP $156 in damages. IAP, as noted, is one of the organizations that gave birth to CAIR.

Recently, CAIR took a piece of Michael Savage's radio program and used it to pressure his sponsors to stop sponsoring his show. Savage has the third-highest rated program in talk radio, according to Talkers Magazine. Savage sued CAIR for copyright infringement, later adding RICO charges. In its response to Savage's suit, CAIR's lawyers wrote the following:

"CAIR-National had a picture of the World Trade Center on its website and asked readers to donate to help the survivors of the disaster. They offered a link to websites for Muslim and non-Muslim organizations collecting donations for 9/11 survivors, including the Holy Land Foundation's website."

In other words, CAIR's request for donations linked directly to the website of a terrorist organization that is an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorist case brought by the U.S. government. The Holy Land Foundation was a front for Hamas.

Now CAIR has admitted in its response to the Savage lawsuit that what Front Page Magazine reported on May 11, 2005 is true:

"(J)ust after the Islamic terrorist attacks of 9/11, the CAIR website contained a section entitled, "What you can do for the victims of the WTC and Pentagon attacks," which solicited contributions to the "NY/DC Emergency Relief Fund." The only problem was, this so-called "Relief Fund" never existed. The link provided by CAIR led the would-be contributor directly to the Holy Land Foundation website. The Holy Land Foundation, a government-designated terrorist front group, was also shut down by the U.S. government for funding terrorism overseas."

The head of the Holy Land Foundation was Ghassan Elashi, who was also the head of CAIR's Texas chapter. Elashi was convicted of laundering money for Islamic terrorist organizations. CAIR cannot deny its direct tie to terrorism.

In the Holy Land Foundation trial last year, documents introduced into evidence showed that both the Holy Land Foundation and CAIR were created by the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organization. Five HLF officers are accused of illegally steering more than $12 million to Hamas-controlled charities in the West Bank and Gaza. CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in that case.

Randall Royer, who was CAIR's communications director, is in jail today on a terrorism conviction. Is anyone detecting a pattern here?

RICO charges should be the least of CAIR's problems.

2008-02-06T14:42:00.000-05:00

Jihadist Mole In State Department?

Just Who Is Hesham Islam?

Just who is Hesham Islam? Is he a Jihadist mole in the State Department?

Hesham Islam is a special assistant for international affairs to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. He is a retired US Navy officer, born in Egypt, who served in the Iranian navy. Does he still have ties to Egypt and/or Iran? Hesham Islam works closely with the Muslim-American community. WorldNetDaily reports that Mr. Islam is affiliated with the Islamic Society of North America, which U.S. prosecutors last year named as a member of the U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terror-funding case. He has persuaded his boss, Mr. England, to do outreach to ISNA. ISNA is an Egyptian-based Jihadist movement. He certainly seems eager to carry their water.

Founded in Egypt in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood is a global Islamist movement with a stated long-range objective of a global Islamic state with Shariah law "the basis controlling the affairs of state and society." As stated by Hasan al-Banna, the Brotherhood's founder, "It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet." Note how similar this ideology is to that of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Yet a member of one of its front groups has the ear of a high-ranking State Department official. Where have I heard this story before?

In addition, according to WorldNetDaily, Mr. England personally promoted Navy chaplain Abuhena Mohammed Saifulislama, a Wahhabi-trained Muslim chaplain who catered to Al Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo and fought to establish the first mosque in Marine Corps history. (The Wahhabis, of course, are the violent sect of Islam, based in Saudi Arabia, to which most of the 9/11 hijackers belonged.)

The President of ISNA, Ingrid Mattson (there's an Islamic name for you!), advocates decoupling the word "Islamic" from the word "terrorism" for discussions of Islamic terrorism. ISNA has been identified as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. Mr. England's outreach to ISNA brings the Jihadists into a close relationship with the U.S. State Department, just as Communists were infesting the State Department half a century ago. When will someone speak out against this?

Hesham Islam's advice led Mr. England to meet with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to journalist Steven Emerson. Emerson reports that in 2005, England met with Farid Abboud, a Lebanese ambassador to the United States who is considered a proxy for the Syrian regime. That is one of the regimes identified as sponsoring terrorism.

As I note in my previous article, Hesham Islam was responsible for the firing of analyst Steven Coughlin after Coughlin prepared for the U.S. military a warning that major U.S. Muslim groups were fronting for the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihadist movement based in Egypt.

Is Hesham Islam a mole for the Muslim Brotherhood and what does our government plan to do about it? If we are serious about national security, we must clean subversives out of our government. Mr. Islam looks like a good person with whom to start this process.

2008-02-05T18:13:00.000-05:00

New Book Shows McCarthy Was Right

Perhaps the most reviled figure in American history is Senator Joseph McCarthy. "McCarthyism" has become the term of choice for false, destructive accusations. Yet a new book shows that Senator McCarthy was right in his allegations.

Blacklisted By History: The Untold Story of Senator Joseph McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies by M. Stanton Evans, chairman of the Education and Research Institute, shows that McCarthy was right about there being significant communist infiltration in government, his investigative methods were careful, thorough and of the highest standard, and his adversaries were the ones who practiced so-called "McCarthyism." It is McCarthy, not his targets, who got smeared.

(Full disclosure: I once was an intern at the National Journalism Center, which Mr. Evans heads.)

Evans spent more than a decade researching his book. He relies on primary source documents buried in the archives of the United States government. This evidence strongly supports Senator McCarthy's charges. He also reveals how the media, liberal historians, and politicians have all joined to spread these myths about Senator McCarthy.

Evans makes a persuasive case that no innocent liberals were smeared or driven out of government. No innocent people were accused of treason. By meticulous research, Evens, much like William F. Buckley and L. Brent Bozell in their treatise McCarthy and His Enemies, shows that McCarthy made very specific allegations and that none of them was false.

Indeed, it is now an open secret, thanks to the Venona transcripts translations of intercepted Soviet messages to their operatives in this country that the U.S. government in the 1940s and 1950s was riddled with Communists such as Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, and many others and the Roosevelt and Truman administrations had simply tried to ignore this massive penetration away. (The Eisenhower Administration didn't do much more about the problem. In fact, it renewed President Truman's order suppressing the evidence against many of McCarthy's targets.) Indeed, every U.S. signer of the United Nations Compact except Secretary of State Acheson was a Communist. Someone had to come forward and start the process of cleaning out the government. Joe McCarthy was that man.

This is relevant to today's world because the Islamofascists have learned well the Communist tactics of subversion. Where is the new McCarthy who will take on this new threat?

The liberals of this world owe Joe McCarthy an apology. But they'll never admit it. Facts just confuse them and disturb their narrow worldview.

2008-02-05T17:32:00.000-05:00

Media Buries WMD Report

Saddam Admitted He Was Working on WMDs

The liberal media will bury a good story that doesn't fit their narrow-minded ideology, even if it came from the liberal media in the first place. Here is another piece of evidence that they're more interested in ideology than in the truth.

George Piro is the CIA agent who debriefed Saddam Hussein after Saddam was captured. Piro was interviewed by the reliably liberal Scott Pelley of the reliably liberal 60 Minutes. Piro was born in Lebanon and speaks Arabic.

The Wall Street Journal reports that among the information that Piro got from Saddam was important information on weapons of mass destruction. Saddam told him that the people he needed to reconstitute his WMD program were in place and he intended to do so. He intended to rebuild his stocks of chemical, biological, even nuclear weapons. "He wanted to pursue all of WMD," Piro said. "So he wanted to reconstitute his entire WMD program."

Saddam admitted to Piro that as long as he remained in power, the Iraqi WMD program remained a threat. He also admits to giving the order personally for the gassing of thousands of Kurds.

This news will upset liberals who insist that the war had nothing to do with WMDs, so other than the interview itself, the liberal media is suppressing the story. They do not want you to know about it because it might support the Bush Administration's claims about the war. That must not be allowed.

Once again, you just can't believe the "mainstream" media.

2008-02-04T14:40:00.000-05:00

The Stimulus Package Is Bad Economics

With the economy slowing, the politicians have decided that they need to enact a stimulus package. The salient feature is a series of "rebate" checks sending anywhere form $300 to $1200 to households making under $125,000 per year.

This is terrible economics that will likely do more harm than good. Even to the extent that people pump the money back into the economy by spending it, it will be a short-term "sugar rush" which quickly dissipates. Many people will either save the money (which the same people who complain about our low savings rate are trying to discourage) or use it to pay bills, which provides little stimulus.

How are we going to pay for this? There are only three ways: raise taxes, accrue more debt, or inflate the value out of our currency by inflating it some more. All three are bad for the economy. Borrowing the market dries up the credit market and further raises interest rates, while further driving up interest rates. Raising taxes puts a greater burden on the very people we're presumably trying to help. And simply printing it reduces the purchasing power of the money people receive. It's a no-win situation.

The irony is that this even has deleterious short-term economic effects. When people know there is a stimulus coming, they tend to wait for it before committing to new spending, which slows down the economy even more in the short term.

For good longterm effects, of course, we need to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. In fact, we should make even deeper cuts. But that is a long-term policy that has little, if any, short-term effect. Cutting the gasoline tax, and therefore the price at the pump, could have a noticeable effect on the economy quickly, however. While the oil companies make about 9 cents per gallon and the service station owners make about 3 cents per gallon, the Federal and state governments make an average (varying from state to state) of about 43 cents per gallon. If they would cut the tax in half, it would stimulate the economy much more than these silly rebate checks and it would be beneficial for the long term also.

2008-02-04T13:52:00.000-05:00

Huckabee Lies About Media Opposition

Swallows Left-Wing Kool Aid

On Saturday, Governor Mike Huckabee was asked why conservatives and conservative talk-show hosts are going for Governor Mitt Romney, not for him or for McCain.

He explained it by saying that Bain Capital Partners, the company that Romney co-founded, "owns Clear Channel and Sean [Hannity]'s show." Well, that is a conspiracy theory picked up from the left-wing hate sites. But it's not true.

First of all, Romney is no longer a part of Bain Capital. Second, they don't own Clear Channel, the big radio company. They are offering to buy it, but they don't own it yet. Their offer needs stockholder approval and needs to clear other hurdles. And Clear Channel doesn't syndicate Hannity's program; ABC does. Some of its stations carry the program, but that is the only connection.

Huckafeller has been caught repeating left-wing lies again. He's really got to stop drinking the Far Left's Kool Aid.

2008-02-04T12:23:00.000-05:00

Huckabee Supports "Touchback" Amnesty

Illegals May as Well Stay

Reject This Irresponsible Assault on National Security

Huckafeller is at it again! He must get dizzy from all that spinning.

Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican Presidential candidate, is trying to deny that he supports a "touchback" amnesty plan, whereby illegal aliens would go back to their countries only briefly, then be eligible to return to the United States on a path to citizenship.

He has even managed to fool people like Minutemen co-founder Jim Gilchrist and former rival Rep. Duncan Hunter, the author of the border fence.

Yet despite his denials, Huckabee did say in a December interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News that illegals who left the US could possibly return relatively quickly. While his written policy says that all illegals need to leave in 120 days, what it does not say in writing but he has said in his words is that they will be allowed to return in somewhere between 1 day and 3 weeks. He said that if a credit card company could process an application that fast than so could the Immigration Service.

That is a touchback amnesty, no matter how The Huckster decides to spin it. As rival candidate Rep. Ron Paul asked, why bother sending them back to their countries at all?

Furthermore, Huckafeller took a pro-amnesty position while he was governor of Arkansas. He supported scholarships for illegal aliens in Arkansas. He called those who oppose illegal immigration racists. He supported the McCain-Kennedy provision that if illegals admit their guilt and pay a fine, they should get to stay in our country. He supported allowing illegals in if they're "professionals." The Huckster supported amnesty before. He supports amnesty now. His record is clear and his rhetoric is dishonest. (As usual.)

This isn't the Huckster's first lie, nor do I expect it will be his last.

2008-02-04T11:01:00.000-05:00

Death of an Icon: Karen Carpenter

25 Years Ago Today

I can't believe it's been a quarter of a century.

Twenty-five years ago today, February 4, 1983, we were jolted by very sad news: Karen Carpenter, one of the great voices of a generation, had died at 32. She had anorexia, perhaps stemming in part from a review of a performance of The Carpenters, the band she and her brother Richard led, at the Hollywood Bowl in which she was described as "the chubby little sister."

Karen Carpenter touched many lives with her haunting vocals. Her voice has been compared to some of the great singers. Those who have never heard her owe it to themselves to find some Carpenters music and listen. Her passing was like a punch in the stomach to those of us who were her fans. All these years later, I still don't think I'm over it.

What a loss this was, and at such a young age! (Even today, she would only be 57.) How much more beautiful, brilliant music could Karen have given us had she only stuck around? She had, in the words of one of The Carpenters' hits, "only just begun." And then it was over, so tragically and suddenly.

Richard and Karen were born in Connecticut, but really flourished when the family moved to Downey, California. They won the Battle of the Bands at the Hollywood Bowl, landed at Herb Alpert's A&M Records, and had a hit with "Close to You" and they were off and running. For slightly over a decade, The Carpenters continued to produce hit after hit and they were one of the most popular bands around, in part on Richard's arrangements and in large part on Karen's magnificent voice. The Carpenters had 23 hit singles including "Top of the World", and "We've Only Just Begun", and sold over 80 million albums. Younger readers may not realize just what a phenomenon they were.

And then it all ended. Karen spent the night of February 3, 1983 at her parents' house in Downey, in her old bedroom. Sometime the next morning, Karen got up and put on a red jogging suit with a vial of Ativan in the pocket. Around 8:45, She went down to the. At 8:50, her mother entered the kitchen, where she found Karen lying unconscious on the floor. Her family called the paramedics, who took her in an ambulance, tried CPR and other techniques, and got her to the Downey Community Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 9:51 am Pacific Time of cardiac arrest. She was only 32 years old and weighed just 108 pounds.

Karen was one of the last great voices who could do standards, ballads, pop rock, and make them all sound good to the rock-and-roll generation. It is reported that when John Lennon heard The Carpenters' ballad version of "Ticket to Ride" he said, "Now, why didn't we think of that?" It has also been reported that Karen was out one day with one of her friends and they were singing along with all the songs on the radio. Her friend commented on Karen's great upper range and asked why she never heard it on any of The Carpenters' records. "The money's in the basement," Karen reportedly replied.

The TV movie of her life, "The Karen Carpenter Story", depicts Karen singing "End of the World" on the trip from Connecticut to California to the point that Richard complains, "Make her stop." She stopped 25 years ago today, a great voice stilled forever, and in many ways it was the end of the world for a lot of us.

We still miss you, Karen.

2008-02-04T10:26:00.000-05:00

A Giant Victory

Underdog New York Giants Win Super Bowl LXII; Major Upset Concludes Dramatic Run

Congratulations to the New York Giants on their upset victory (which a few of us predicted) in Super Bowl XLII, beating the heavily-favored New England Patriots 17-14. The Giants' dramatic victory finally establishes Eli Manning as one of the franchise's great quarterbacks, in the pantheon with Charlie Conerly, Y.A. Tittle, and Phil Simms.

The Giants are a testimony to what the power of belief and the will to win can do. Aside from the Giants and a few of their fans, nobody seemed to believe that they could pull off this victory against the 18-0, destiny-bound Patriots. But just as they couldn't beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Dallas Cowboys, and the Green Bay Packers until they did so, they went out and did what they had to do to beat the Patriots.

Eli Manning turning a busted play and breaking three tackles to hit David Tyree, who made an incredible catch, was the gamebreaker. Defensive end Michael Strahan was saying in his postgame press conference that when the Patriots took a 14-10 lead late in the fourth quarter, he was walking up and down the Giants' sideline saying "17-14" (referring to what he believed the final score would be.) He was telling his teammates to repeat it back to him "like you believe it." Apparently, they believed.

If the Giants were confident, the Patriots seemed cocky.

I thought it was a very classy touch on the Giants' part to have punter Jeff Feagles, who had waited 20 years to go to a Super Bowl, call the coin toss. He called tails. It came up tails. The Giants' good fortune was just beginning.

I should disclose that when I was 7, I got a blue and red football helmet for Christmas, in the style of the Giants. I grew up a Giants fan and have followed them all this time.

"We are the champions."

Now where is my Queen album?