Elitist Snobbery Quote of the Week

“I’ve had people at my back calling because of programs like yours saying, ‘If you vote for this bill, then it’s the end of your political career.’ And I just want you to know, and I want everyone else to know: You. Do. Not. Intimidate. George Voinovich. This is my 40th year in this business.”

—Sen. George Voinovich, talking to Sean Hannity.

Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie,
Stood on the Senate floor and couldn't help but cry.
When the debate about Bolton came that day,
Georgie Porgie cried and cried to get his way.**

(**The man who was crying on the Senate floor because he did not want John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.)

Yea, I think the quote in pink font is appropriate.

Oh, this gem of a quote too from Georgie Porgie Voinovich while talking to Sean Hannity:
“I’m all for the Fairness Doctrine, whatever that is.”

Way to be in tune ..... in touch ...... with the people .... and fully engaged and informed on these important matters.

Ohioans, are you listening?

“It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect.”

-- James Madison --

Brown v. Board of Education has not been overturned.

On Letting Go: How we become American.

"We are a nation of still-startling social fluidity. Anyone can become 'American,' but they have to want to first."

Socialized Medicine Showdown

It's time for some GOP spine on health care.
By Kimberly Stassel

U.S. Senate panel OKs aid to foreign abortion groups
White House threatens veto. And let's hope he does. This is insane.

Explosives-Packed Car Defused in London

Supreme Court to Review Guantanamo Cases

Very Little Peace in Lebanon
By David Aikman
Townhall.com

After U.N. peacekeeping troops came to Lebanon to police the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah last year, many people thought that Lebanon was finally at peace. But it wasn't. In northern Lebanon, the Lebanese army became involved in a bitter struggle against an Islamic Palestinian group allied to al Qaeda. On June 24th, six U.N. troops in southern Lebanon were killed when a car bomb blew up against their vehicle. More worryingly, rockets have recently been fired into Israel from areas that the U.N. forces are supposed to control.

Hezbollah says it plans to continue fighting Israel, and will never give up. Behind Hezbollah stands Iran which also backed the recent takeover of Gaza by Hamas. Iran also says it wants to destroy Israel.

But make no mistake: if Israel falls, they'll come after us. That's why Israel matters.

NOW'S THE TIME TO GET SERIOUS, MR. PRESIDENT

Thankfully, this immigration reform bill was shot down. I don't know how long it will stay down. My crystal ball is not that good. This is an example of politics at its best ... or should I say at its worst?

It was instructive, indeed.

It was bad legislation; something the public (78%) did not want. Something written by and promoted by Ted Kennedy who has been wrong on the immigration issue for over 40 years.

A number of senators were vacillating back and forth, many waiting to see which amendments would be added to the bill. This is okay on the face of it, presuming you have a decent bill to start with. This was not the case here. You cannot take a bad bill and make it good by adding amendments. You cannot build a 28,000 square foot mansion (confer with John Edwards if you must) on a foundation made of sticks and make the house mansion better by increasing its 'living space' with more additions, or by building a second story upon the foundation comprised of sticks.

The people spoke loud and clear, yet the Senate was reluctant to listen, and President Bush was pushing hard.

The Democrats were holding most of the cards. They would have been overjoyed had this piece of crap bill passed. Nonetheless, they framed it as President Bush's bill and can use its failure as another example of "Bush's weak leadership and his inability to accomplish."

What he needs to do is listen to the people ... the 78%... and ENFORCE CURRENT LAW. Do what the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Act was intended to do.... put the screws to businesses violating federal law.... and then deliver on the promise HE MADE when he signed last years legislation. Quit dragging his feet and build the damn fence. Step up the addition of border guards and procure all the "nifty" electronic gadgetry they say we need. Stop the hemorrhaging.

Check out this comparison:
Fool Me Once Shame on You; Fool Me Twice Shame on Me.

100 YEARS LATER...... STILL THE RIGHT MESSAGE

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt, 1907

Aspartame found to cause breast cancer, leukemia and lymphomas in latest animals experiments

LIBERTY

“Arms are the only true badges of liberty. The possession of arms is the distinction of a free man from a slave.”
--Andrew Fletcher Break--

“Pick up a rifle and you change instantly from a subject to a citizen.”
--Jeff Cooper--

ALL ABOUT FAIRNESS

By Jack Kelly

PBS is the beau ideal of many liberals when it comes to free speech. Their point of view is subsidized by the taxpayers. Other points of view are suppressed.

Now in yet another triumph for the liberal view of free speech (free for me but not for thee), the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled city officials may override the First Amendment if the exercise of free speech by some city employees offends the delicate sensibilities of liberals.

Liberal intolerance of other than liberal opinions is behind efforts to reinstate the inaptly named "Fairness Doctrine" in radio.

I see this every day at the very liberal newspaper where I work. Conservatives often write angry letters to the editor, criticizing the arguments made in an editorial, or what they perceive as the slant in a news story. Liberals unhappy with my columns often demand that I be fired. They object not just to my point of view, but to the fact that it was expressed.

COLOMBIAN BLOOD AND DRUGS ON DEMOCRATS’ HANDS
By Richard Rahn


If you were a member of the U.S. Congress and you wanted to hand a victory to Fidel Castro, his buddy Hugo Chavez, and the international drug gangs, you could do so by voting to reject the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement.

And that is precisely what the Democrat leaders of Congress threaten to do.

After the truly heroic achievements of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe in weakening drug lords and corrupt officials, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and some of her colleagues were downright rude to him during his trip to Washington last month, with their demands for more. Yet Mr. Uribe and his colleagues are under constant death threats for their efforts (Mr. Uribe's own father was assassinated by the left-wing terrorists).

How many of Mrs. Pelosi's tribe do you think would have taken the physical risks and have been as effective as Mr. Uribe? Regarding corruption in Mr. Uribe's own ranks, as far as I know, no Colombian member of parliament has been caught with $90,000 of someone else's money in his freezer.**

**Referring to "Cold-Cash" Jefferson, DFL, Louisianna, of course. (Bold emphasis added. -HH)

Breaking it down. Making it simple - easy to understand. But the left still won't get it.

The Myth of the Income Gap
—Michael Medved
Townhall.com

The New York Times Magazine recently ran a special issue on "the income gap" and its alleged dangers for the nation. It quoted former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers declaring that since 1979, the wealthiest 1 percent increased their percentage of the nation's total income by 7 percent while the percentage earned by the bottom 80 percent declined by 7 percent.

The magazine suggested that this was the equivalent of ordinary citizens sending a "$7,000 yearly check to the richest Americans." This insipid analogy defies all rules of logic: when rich people earn more, it doesn't mean that poor people earn less. In fact, the increase in the Gross Domestic Product since 1979 has been an inflation-adjusted 516 percent!

In other words, it hardly matters that some people get a slightly smaller slice of the pie--since the pie itself is more than five times bigger than it was. The creation of more wealth--baking a bigger pie--benefits everyone in the country, rich and poor alike.

FORT SNELLING

I have a grandfather, two uncles, and one aunt buried at the Fort Snelling National Cementary; my father, a WWII vet, chose to be buried in his hometown cemetary next to other family members.

One cannot help but be struck and in awe of all the white headstones representing those who served our country and helped make it the great country that it is today.

Sadly, at times I feel that it is slipping through our fingertips. Have their efforts been in vain?

TODAYS EVENTS

I went to Fort Snelling National Cementary today for a burial service and then spent the day with family after the services.

The weather was beautiful today here in Minneapolis. I am glad the service was today and not yesterday. It was sweltering yesterday with a temperature of 93% and a humidity of 78%. Luckily, the humidity was way down from what it was yesterday. The temperature was lower as well. Gorgeous day.

Postings will resume tomorrow.

HillBillery, 1994: "Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you," Sen. Clinton said. "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."



Thoseshirts.com

No to McCain-Kennedy, Yes to Border Security

This post will appear at the top for awhile. Scroll down for other postings.

Palestine is a failure with a thousand fathers.

BY BRET STEPHENS

How to protect the borders while welcoming the immigrants America needs.

BY PETE DU PONT

Proposals to treat Guantanamo detainees as criminal defendants make a mockery of international humanitarian law.

BY JAMES TARANTO

“It’s either an unprecedented low in partisan discourse or political surrealism worthy of Andre Breton: on Tuesday, former president Jimmy Carter, speaking on foreign soil, denounced the policies of his successor as ‘criminal’ because they fail to subsidize a genocidal Islamic terrorist organization that has killed Americans. Then, he blamed internecine Palestinian warfare on Americans and Israelis. ...Carter said the Bush administration had sinned against heaven and earth in its decision to withhold direct aid to Hamas once that group came to power in the Palestinian Authority. ‘That action was criminal,’ he said. The Palestinian people had elected Hamas fair-and-square in elections his Center described as ‘orderly and fair.’ (Carter said the same of Hugo Chavez’s election.) He deemed Hamas ‘shrewd in selecting candidates.’ The world’s most famous Sunday School teacher further praised the genocidal terrorist organization, at a human rights conference, by citing its penchant for bloodshed. Hamas, Carter doddered, was more orderly than the rival Fatah organization, which Hamas demonstrated in military clashes that showed its ‘superior skills and discipline.’ (The Jerusalem Post reported his argument thus: ‘Carter said Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian government, had proven itself to be far more organized in its political and military showdowns with the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.’) One can only imagine how impressed he would have been by the ‘efficiency’ of the SS.”

—Ben Johnson

Appeasement

“[E]very lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum. And what then?”

—Ronald Reagan

“Nobody ever said being a parent is easy. But do politicians have to make it harder? Here I’ve been all these years, teaching my three children that you can’t get something for nothing. If you want something, you have to work for it. Now along comes the Senate to debate an immigration bill that would undermine that very principle. It’s a simple question of mathematics. The Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector—probably the most widely quoted expert in the country on immigration—has crunched the numbers and figured out the average illegal immigrant family receives about $30,000 annually in government benefits. But that same family pays only $9,000 in taxes. You don’t need a calculator to see that leaves a shortfall of $21,000. As Rector puts it, that’s like having the taxpayers buy every illegal immigrant family a brand-new Mustang convertible every year! And by taxpayers, of course, I mean you and me. And your neighbors. And your friends. I’m talking about everybody who clings to the notion of fair play and hard work—who thinks the American Dream is something you strive to earn, not something you passively accept, as if it were a government handout.”

—Rebecca Hagelin

“The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.”
— Samuel Adams

Experts Differ Over Wisdom of Joining Sea Treaty
With President Bush having renewed calls for the Senate to ratify a controversial United Nations convention dealing with the sea and seabed, policy experts in Washington to discuss whether the treaty would be in the best interests of the United States but found little common ground...

Planned Parenthood Blamed for Woman’s Death
A California woman has filed a medical malpractice and wrongful death lawsuit against Planned Parenthood, alleging that the abortion provider contributed to her daughter’s death...

BY JOSHUA MURAVCHIK
Iran is making a mistake that may lead the Middle East into war.

Israel's Military Intelligence Chief Warns of War Soon

Ted Kennedy Predicts Immigration Bill Victory

Thoseshirts.com

ITIS (It's The Ideology - Stupid)

"The Quiet Campaign against al Qaeda's Local Nodes
By Fred Burton
Stratfor.com

"Indonesian authorities announced June 15 they had arrested Zarkasih, the acting head of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an al Qaeda-linked militant group that has conducted several major attacks in Indonesia. Zarkasih, who succeeded Abu Bakar Bashir and Abu Rusdan as JI leader, was captured June 9 in the same operation that netted another top JI leader, Abu Dujana, an operative trained by al Qaeda in Afghanistan who headed the group's military wing.

The capture of these two major figures alone would be a significant blow to JI. However, when they are combined with the steady stream of other JI leaders who have been killed or captured since JI carried out its most devastating attack -- the October 2002 bombings in Bali that killed more than 200 people -- the impact becomes even more significant. In other words, few of the leaders remain who directed JI up to and including the 2002 attacks.

The Indonesian government's campaign against JI, part of the global "war on terrorism," has been bolstered by assistance from the United States, Australia and other Western nations. Moreover, the fight against JI is not confined to Indonesia itself, but is a regional effort involving other governments in Southeast Asia. These efforts have kept JI off balance and unable to launch a major attack since the October 2005 suicide bombings in Bali. The Indonesian government also has been able to seize large quantities of weapons and explosives -- ordnance that no longer can be used in terrorist attacks.

The success against JI underscores one important fact: Although much of the world's attention regarding the war on terrorism -- which really is a war against jihadists -- has been focused on Iraq and to a lesser extent Afghanistan, a quiet and quite successful campaign is being waged against the local nodes, those regional or national militant groups supporting al Qaeda in places like Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and North Africa. The war on jihadism, however, is at its heart an ideological war; and as long as the ideology of jihadism survives, these regional nodes -- and al Qaeda itself -- cannot be eradicated."

Good News about CAIR

I've talked before about the Council on American-Islamic Relations -- most recently because it filed that lawsuit against Americans who reported suspicious behavior by Muslims on a U.S. Airways flight. Read on.

By Fred Thompson

Bush and Rove squandered the Reagan/Gingrich Majority
The "Center Right" Republican majority forged by Reagan and Gingrich has been squandered by Rove's realignment pipe dream that was based on the premise of big government for the sake of power.

“Fundamentally I believe that American patriotism is different from other patriotisms. It’s not a blood-and-soil nationalism.... We are a nation based not on race or deep roots in a particular landscape, but on a proposition, on certain political and philosophical ideals.”

— Jonathan Foreman, journalist and historian

“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” -- George Washington