"God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism." -- Iran President Ahmadi-Nejad
The view of Russia is clear from where I am writing this, Bucharest, Romania. Month by month, President Putin of Russia has been erecting a new authoritarian model that owes more of its lineage to fascism than communism.
That model can now be named: Putinism - a Russian nationalistic authoritarian form of government that pretends to be a free market democracy.
Unlike Soviet communism, the new Russian state does not seek to direct every aspect of political and economic life. Instead, through limited, direct control and intimidation, plus strategic investments in both institutions and people, not only in Russia but other nations as well, the Kremlin seeks to ensure favorable global press and decisions beneficial to its interests from political and business leaders around the world.
Putinism is shrewd and ruthless -- but how long can it succeed?
One of India's top ranking generals assigned to liaise with the Iranian military recently returned to New Delhi from several days in Tehran - in a state of complete amazement.
"Everyone in the government and military can only talk of one thing," he reports. "No matter who I talked to, all they could do was ask me, over and over again, ‘Do you think the Americans will attack us?' ‘When will the Americans attack us?' ‘Will the Americans attack us in a joint operation with the Israelis?' How massive will the attack be?' on and on, endlessly. The Iranians are in a state of total panic."
And that was before September 6. Since then, it's panic-squared in Tehran. The mullahs are freaking out in fear. Why? Because of the silence in Syria.
On September 6, Israeli Air Force F-15 and F-16s conducted a devastating attack on targets deep inside Syria near the city of Dayr az-Zawr. Israel's military censors have muzzled the Israeli media, enforcing an extraordinary silence about the identity of the targets. Massive speculation in the world press has followed.
Most everyone has missed the real story. It is not Israel's silence that "speaks volumes", but Syria's.
FROM TANCREDO '08: THEY’RE TRYING TO BRING AMNESTY BACK……..AGAIN!
I thought we had put amnesty behind us for the rest of 2007 when we killed the Bush-Kennedy-McCain amnesty bill in the U.S. Senate back in June.
I was wrong!
This week, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) tried to steer his “Dream Act” through the Senate……and he nearly succeeded. This preposterously named measure was just one more amnesty bill, one focused narrowly on college-age illegal aliens.
What’s clear is that the Hispanic lobby and the corporate special interests, with the active support of the Bush Administration, just will not give up!
I am running for president because I believe the illegal immigration crisis is the single most important long-term threat to our nation’s survival.
And I absolutely believe that we must finally elect a solid, secure-the-borders, no-amnesty president in 2008! But we must also stop any further back-door attempts to slip an amnesty bill through in the waning months of the George W. Bush Presidency!
The pro-amnesty crowd is going to keep trying to pass narrowly tailored amnesty bills through Congress in the months ahead, usually by “attaching” them to appropriations and other less controversial measures.
In other words, the deep-pocket corporate special interests and the Hispanic lobby have embarked on a legislative program to achieve, by degrees, what they failed to do in a “comprehensive” fashion in June!
In a December 9, 2004 e-mail to supporters, MoveOn.org leaders Eli Pariser and Justin Ruben wrote, "In the last year, grassroots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the Party doesn't need corporate cash to be competitive. Now it's our Party: we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back."
The September 10 full-page MoveOn.org ad in the New York Times -- and the Dems’ reaction to it -- apparently proved the point.
Early in my career as a political speechwriter, a young but wise campaign manager explained why candidates from the same party too often tear each other to pieces in the primaries. He told me that when all the candidates of your party are shooting at the probable opponent from the other party, your frontrunner is going to get shot in the back. I thought of that analogy the other day as I read about Rudy Giuliani’s potent political attacks on Hillary Clinton.
Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democrats’ presidential nomination, stuck George Soros’ giant left foot in her mouth attempting to do the bidding of MoveOn.org. For the entire world to see, Hillary decided that a Senate committee hearing would be a good place to call a decorated war hero, Gen. David Petraeus, commander of American forces in Iraq, a liar. Parroting the same extremist nonsense that is rapidly making the folks at MoveOn the leading leftist nutters of the blogosphere, Hillary’s comments landed with a clank in most parts of America, most notably at the Giuliani for President Campaign headquarters.
When Hillary Clinton recently discarded the term liberal for the term progressive, it reminded me of the famous question of whether a leopard could change its spots? The answer, of course, is no. A leopard is genetically a leopard as a liberal is philosophically a liberal whether she is called a liberal or not.
Nonetheless, it is important to know what a progressive is since that is now the preferred term of the left. It comes from the Progressive Era. One of its intellectual and political leaders was President Woodrow Wilson. The Progressive Movement's chief aim was to centralize power by eliminating those pesky little concepts of separation of powers and checks and balances and escape the confines of a fixed constitution so that America could progress (not that it hadn't up to that point as evidenced by the abolishment of slavery and its rise as a world power).
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.) would not criticize MoveOn.org on the campaign trail for an offensive advertisement the group produced to attack Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, but she sided with the anti-war lobby in a vote on Thursday.
Motivated by the full-page advertisement MoveOn.org published in the New York Times that accused Petraeus of betrayal, the Senate passed a resolution condemning “attacks of honor and integrity” on the general and other members of the Armed Forces.
Sometimes Hillary Clinton leaves me breathless with the sheer arrogance of her assumption that the American people are like a bunch of straw-chewing rubes eager to buy her latest brand of snake oil.
She introduced her latest excursion into the field of health care in America by assuring us that under her national health care plan people will no longer be denied needed emergency medical services because they lack health insurance.
Hillary Clinton has spent years trying to erase the memory of her failed attempt to bring socialized medicine to the United States, but this week the ghost of Hillary Care was lurking in the wings again as she unveiled her new plan to overhaul the nation's health system. Touted as an "American Health Choices Plan," Sen. Clinton's proposal is short on choice but full of government mandates, including a new directive that every American purchase health insurance.
Like her Democratic rivals -- and even some Republicans running for president -- Clinton makes it sound as if we are facing a health care crisis, one that only government can solve. But what exactly is the problem?
WASHINGTON -- On Sept. 6, something important happened in northern Syria. Problem is, no one knows exactly what. Except for those few who were involved, and they're not saying.
We do know that Israel carried out an airstrike. How then do we know it was important? Because in Israel, where leaking is an art form, even the best informed don't have a clue. They tell me they have never seen a better-kept secret.
New Yorkers may be liberals, but on terrorism and state sponsors of terror, on the threat Iran poses to the world and especially Israel, and on Ahmadinejad 's Holocaust denials and his genocide incitement, they are not MoveOn.org lefties --and they were not about to allow this fanatic to desecrate the site of the 9/11 attacks.
Two leading Republican candidates for president, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, immediately blasted Ahmadinejad 's plan when it was announced: If Senator Clinton (D.-MoveOn.org) had a reaction, I could not find it on her website. (Thursday was a busy day for the senator given the effort she had to put it defending MoveOn.org's assault on the reputation and integrity f General Petraeus.)
Ahmadinejad has not run out of New York venues, though, because of the welcome extended him by Columbia University.
Why do so many people seem reluctant to condemn the act of hanging nooses from a so-called “white tree” in Jena, Louisiana? Is it because a race-baiter like Al Sharpton has joined with the thousands of protesters who have descended upon the tiny town?
Well, well, well. It took a college student to do the media's job. Jason Materra of the Young America's Foundation with a video camera to ask the tough (but simple) question:
Congressman Murtha? Jason Mattera, Young America's Foundation. Now that the murder charges against Lance Corporal Justin Sharratt and Steven Tatum have been dropped in the Haditha incident or are in the process of being dropped, would you like to issue an apology for saying that they "killed innocent civilians in cold blood"?
A pointed, but very reasonable question. Our elected officials must remain accountable for their actions. But, alas, the hardest words to say are, "I'm sorry."
Here's the rest of the exchange:
MURTHA: The trial is still going on.
MATTERA:Justin Sharratt and Steven Tatum, the two men you accused of murdering innocent civilians in cold blood --
MURTHA:The trial is still going on.
MATTERA:No. No, the charges are in the process of being dismissed.
MURTHA:I don't know what's going on.
MATTERA:They're in the process of being dismissed.
MURTHA:Out! Out!
MATTERA: Do you like besmirching our troops, sir? Do you like besmirching our troops, sir?
MURTHA:You been in the service? I enlisted in Korea, and I enlisted in Vietnam.
MATTERA:Sir, you accused them of murdering innocent civilians in cold blood. That's something that would come from Al Jazeera, not a congressman, sir.
Of course, the fact that he served in the military (during both Korea and Viet Nam, thank you Senator) has nothing to do with making irresponsible statements and accusing our men in uniform of "murdering in cold blood."
(By the way, is there any other kind? If you don't murder someone in "cold blood", what happens? But, I digress.)
This is just another example of endless examples of: 'if you can't win the argument, shut down the debate, by any means, i.e, violence, shouting down, name calling, character assassination, denigrating your opponent, etc.'
Other Candidates Still a Long Way behind These Four Leaders in the 2008 Presidential Race
After officially declaring his candidacy, U.S. Senator Fred Thompson moves ahead of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the race for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. One-third (32%) of those who say they will vote in a Republican primary or caucus will vote for Thompson while 28 percent will vote for Giuliani. Much further back is John McCain, who continues his downward slide with 11 percent saying they would vote for the Arizona Senator, and 9 percent who say they would vote for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.
On the Democratic side, Senator Hillary Clinton continues to build on her large lead. Just under half (46%) of those who would vote in a Democratic primary or caucus would vote for the former First Lady while one-quarter (25%) would vote for Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Former vice president candidate and North Carolina Senator John Edwards is further back with 14 percent saying they would vote for him. No other candidate is in double digits.
These are some of the results of a Harris Poll of 2,372 U.S. adults surveyed online by Harris Interactive® between September 6 and 14, 2007. This survey included 769 adults who expect to vote in a Democratic primary or caucus and 504 adults who expect to vote in a Republican primary or caucus. Like all polls conducted well before an election, this should not be read as a prediction. Rather, it is a snap shot of the presidential "horse race", at an early stage in the race.
French Revolution: Sarkozy takes on the welfare state.
Opinion Journal
Unveiling his domestic reform agenda in Paris Tuesday, Nicolas Sarkozy called for "a new social contract" for France. His proposed revision of French socialist tradition going back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau is nothing short of revolutionary. His ability to deliver will make or break his presidency.
True to character, Mr. Sarkozy came out swinging. The new President declared that France's generous welfare state is "unjust" and "financially untenable," "discourages work and job creation," and "fails to bring equal opportunity." The result: France's jobless rate is the euro zone's highest.
The President wants "a new social contract founded on work, merit and equal opportunity." He promised to loosen restrictions on working hours and toughen up requirements for jobless benefits, to ease hiring and firing rules and reduce incentives to retire early.
Cautious optimism is in order. Over the summer, his new government moved gingerly. An autonomy plan for universities was watered down. A law assuring minimum transport services during strikes, intended to weaken the unions, was as well. On the plus side, wealth and income taxes were cut and the inheritance tax abolished. Fine. But considering his strong mandate and dominance of parliament, Mr. Sarkozy didn't overachieve.
Just how much should we know about the religious beliefs of political candidates? Most claim a fervent and vibrant faith, but few are very forthcoming about how their faith influences their politics.
Michael Kinsley thinks this is a bad idea, and so do I. If a candidate truly holds deep beliefs, those beliefs will inevitably influence political decisions. Kinsley is a man of the Left--a liberal who wants no more examples like former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who claimed to agree with his own Roman Catholic Church that abortion is murder, but also claimed that as New York's governor he was committed to a woman's right to choose. He cannot actually believe both of these things at once. Murder cannot be left as a choice.
Religious issues are always a part of politics, and it could not be otherwise. We all hold to systems of belief, and these are part of who we are and how any of us would govern. Just tell us how, candidates.
LONDON -- Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani met with Britain's prime minister Wednesday and vowed the U.S. would take any action necessary to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
The former New York mayor is the latest GOP candidate to travel to Britain, meeting the new political guard and visiting former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, an icon for American conservatives.
Giuliani met Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his predecessor Tony Blair. He was to deliver a lecture at the Atlantic Bridge, an organization that promotes ties between British and American conservatives.
He said he discussed Iran with Brown and was "very, very much heartened by how seriously he sees it." He insisted Iran would not be allowed to become a nuclear power soon.
House Democrats are investigating the 2006 bribery conviction of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman with the belief that President Bush’s Justice Department had a hand in landing Siegelman in jail for political reasons. Karl Rove’s name has predictably popped up as the boogieman behind the whole mess because of political work he did in Alabama during the 1990s. That’s the best liberals can do at this point.
While serving as Governor, Siegelman took $500,000 from HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy in exchange for a seat on the state hospital board. The money went toward paying off a debt the Siegelman campaign owed to a state lottery. The liberal position is that Siegelman merely exchanged a favor, something that all politicians do to a certain extent. Seigelman’s actions may be common, but they were also illegal. That is why he is serving a 99-month prison sentence, not because he is a Democrat unlucky enough to be in the same state at the same time as Karl Rove.
Zogby: Congress Gets Just 11% Approval, Lowest Ever
President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress registered record-low approval ratings in a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday, and a new monthly index measuring the mood of Americans dipped slightly on deepening worries about the economy.
Only 29 percent of Americans gave Bush a positive grade for his job performance, below his worst Zogby poll mark of 30 percent in March. A paltry 11 percent rated Congress positively, beating the previous low of 14 percent in July.
The Reuters/Zogby Index, a new measure of the mood of the country, dropped from 100 to 98.8 in the last month on worries about the economy and fears of a recession, pollster John Zogby said.
"Since the last time we polled we have had the mortgage crisis, and we are hearing the recession word a whole lot more than we've heard it in the past," Zogby said.
Murtha: Post-Withdrawal Bloodbath Would Not Be Congress's Fault
By Nathan Burchfiel CNSNews.com Staff Writer
If pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq results in "a bloodbath," the guilt will rest with the Iraqi people and not with the U.S. Congress, according to Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a leading proponent of withdrawing troops.
"Many have threatened that there will be chaos, a bloodbath, when the United States redeploys from Iraq, and this in fact may be the case," Murtha said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Monday. "If they continue to choose to spill blood, it will not be on the conscience of the United States.
"Murtha said ethnic violence in Iraq would be "a continuation of decades of its own conflicts, which they and they alone can solve.
""The fact that Rep. Murtha acknowledged that leaving Iraq in chaos would lead to genocide but then says it wouldn't be our fault is striking," Kevin Smith, a spokesman for Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), told Cybercast News Service.
A more level tax playing field would encourage individuals to choose health plans with lower premiums and higher co-payments for their routine health-care purchases.
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's recent health-care reform proposals, which rely on free-market principles and federalism, will go a long way to fixing our health-care system's woes.
The centerpiece of Mr. Romney's plan is to attack the tax code's discrimination against cost-effective private insurance. He proposes to allow individuals to deduct out-of-pocket health-care expenditures from their taxable income, allow individuals who purchase health insurance premiums on their own--rather than through their employer--to deduct health insurance premiums, and to expand Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) by eliminating the requirement that a qualifying health plan contain a high deductible.
From The Balance Sheet: The return of “HillaryCare” is draped in free-market language like “choice” and “private insurance.” But don’t be fooled – there are enough tax hikes, government expansion and mandates to go around. Just don’t ask the media to find out the details.
“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
Hillery and mega $ (illegal) campaign donor,Norman Hsu.
Egads!!!! Put on the sunglasses.
From Investor's Business Daily:
“Hillary’s presidential campaign knew since at least June that there were serious questions about China-born [Norman] Hsu, her own top fundraiser now behind bars. Yet she agreed to return the $860,000 he bundled for her from mostly Asian donors only after the scandal broke in the press. Even so, she’s declined to publicly identify the 260 donors, and may ask for some of the funds back. Now as [in 1996, former deputy White House chief of staff Harold] Ickes is involved, this time as an adviser to her campaign. And the same guy who courted all the shady Asian donors in last decade’s Clinton campaigns is heading Hillary’s fundraising now. His name: Terry McAuliffe. Seems they’re up to their old tricks. Hillary claims she had no reason to vet big Asian donors to her presidential campaign, no reason to be suspicious of them. She suggests critics who think she should have been more suspect are racist... But the Ickes notes clearly show Hillary had every reason to check out Hsu, with whom she and Bill snapped photos and whom she let fete her campaign manager in all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas. Even though she was first lady at the time, Hillary was a key point person for her husband’s fundraising activities and had close ties to [Yah Lin ‘Charlie’] Trie and other shady Chinese donors. These included Johnny Chung, who delivered a $50,000 check to her in the White House—money that came from leaders of China’s military... Hsu is cut from the same cloth as the other ethnic-Chinese hustlers and bagmen with whom Hillary rubbed elbows last decade. She should have known better than to look the other way as he raised more money for her than anybody.”
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's closest adviser and architect of the New Deal, Harry Hopkins, advised, "Tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect, because the people are too damn dumb to know the difference." Professor Bryan Caplan, my colleague at George Mason University, sheds some light on Hopkins' observation in his new book, "The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies."
One basic problem with nationalized health care is that it makes medical services seem free. That pushes demand beyond supply. Governments deal with that by limiting what's available.
Conservative Blogger Reports from Front Lines in Iraq
Former Townhall.com columnist Jeff Emanuel is currently in Iraq, where he has been embedded on the front lines with the U.S. military since the end of July.
A former tactical air controller in the Air Force, Emanuel participated in major combat operations in Iraq in 2003 as a member of a special operations task force. He has returned to Iraq multiple times as an embedded journalist, and he is currently in that country reporting from “inside the surge.” He will be there until the middle of October.
Following General Petraeus’ testimony before Congress last week, Emanuel took a few moments to correspond via email with Townhall.com about what he has witnessed.The edited transcript is below.
HillaryCare's New Clothes: Different means but the same political destination.
Hillary Clinton has been blasted for months by her Democratic Presidential rivals because, until Monday, she hadn't delivered her formal campaign promises for "universal" health care. But John Edwards and Barack Obama were unfair. She beat them to the punch by at least 13 years . The former first lady's 1993-94 health-care overhaul ended disastrously. Still, it poured the philosophical and policy foundations of the current health-care debate. As she unveils HillaryCare II, Mrs. Clinton likes to joke that it's "deja vu all over again"--and it is, unfortunately. Her new plan is called "Health Choices" and mentions "choice" so many times that it sounds like a Freudian slip. And sure enough, "choice" for Mrs. Clinton means using different means that will arrive at the same end: an expensive, bureaucratic, government-run system that restricts choice.
With the announcement of a new nominee for Attorney General, retired federal judge Michael B. Mukasey, President Bush confirms again that the central mission of his administration is the successful prosecution of the war on the Islamist jihadis and the defense of the homeland.
Judge Mukasey is a brilliant and very accomplished judge with deep experience in overseeing the trials of several terrorists including the notorious "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel-Rahman. Mukasey was a leader in fighting terrorism long before 9/11 and has seen first hand how our enemies think and plot--and he will bring to the Department of Justice a clear-eyed understanding of the need for superb intelligence and constant vigilance.
There should be no posturing from Democrats about this incredibly qualified nominee and his hearing should be swiftly scheduled held and concluded with the vote occurring in October so that the Department of Justice gets the leadership it needs to continue America's fight against the Islamist menace.
Wars require sacrifice, and we have become a nation unaccustomed to adversity. Our leaders have asked most of us to give up precious little to support the war effort.
Buenos Aires - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened Monday to take over and nationalize all private schools that do not accept a new education program promoting his left-wing worldview...
The U.S. is poised to turn much of its authority on the high seas over to international arbiters by ratifying a long-controversial United Nations sea treaty. Critics say it would create a massive new U.N. bureaucracy (the International Seabed Authority); would give environmentalists a back door to greater regulation; and would hinder the U.S. military's efforts to capture terrorists on the high seas. Full Story Here.
“[A]ll Americans should reflect upon the precious heritage of liberty under law passed on to us by our Founding Fathers. This heritage finds its most comprehensive expression in our Constitution. The framing of the Constitution was an arduous task accomplished in the spirit of cooperation and with dedication to the ideals of republican self-government and unalienable God-given human rights that gave transcendent meaning and inspiration to the American Revolution... The wisdom and foresight of the architects of the Constitution are manifest in the fact that it remains a powerful governing tool to the present day. Indeed, a great British statesman has called it ‘the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.’ For 200 years, people from other lands have come to the United States to participate in the great adventure in self-government begun in Philadelphia in 1787... [A]ll citizens should reread and study this great document and rededicate themselves to the ideals it enshrines.”
“If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws—the first growing out of the last... A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.”
“Should, hereafter, those incited by the lust of power and prompted by the Supineness or venality of their Constituents, overleap the known barriers of this Constitution and violate the unalienable rights of humanity: it will only serve to shew, that no compact among men (however provident in its construction and sacred in its ratification) can be pronounced everlasting an inviolable.”
They may disagree on issues, but the one thing front-running Republican presidential hopefuls agree on is that Democrat Hillary Clinton is the main target of their campaign rhetoric.
Even before Clinton unveiled her new healthcare plan on Monday, Mitt Romney went on the attack at a New York press conference, harkening back to the Clinton administration’s failed 1993 attempt to overhaul the healthcare system: “HillaryCare continues to be bad medicine. Fundamentally, I think she takes her inspiration from European bureaucracies.”
A recent fundraising letter from the Rudi Giuliani campaign stated: "Higher taxes, socialized medicine, liberal judges writing laws from the bench, a state of denial about the terrorists' war on us … It's enough to give us nightmares."
Giuliani also took out a full-page ad in the New York Times that criticized Clinton for not condemning an antiwar ad by the liberal organization MoveOn.org that criticized Gen. David Petraeus.
John McCain has attacked Clinton for voting to approve the war in Iraq, then recently proposing to revoke the authorization.
I don't think nearly enough has been made of the despicable MoveOn.org character assassination attack ad against General David Petraeus and the Democratic leadership's striking refusal to repudiate it. If you want to see the face of the modern Democratic Party, re-read that ad.
Whether one is on the left or right, it cannot be denied that the left has had an enormous impact on the major institutions of American society -- specifically journalism, education and the judiciary.
In every poll I have seen, liberals overwhelm conservatives in academia, including the teachers' colleges, which are quite far left, and in journalism. And few deny the leftward tilt of the Supreme Court for most of the last 40 years. The question, then, is not whether the left has had such an impact, but why.
I learned a major part of the answer years ago in Idaho where I was the moderator of a ............. [Read on.]
"[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few."
-- John Adams (An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, 29 August 1763) --
Newly-introduced bill gives millions of illegal aliens amnesty.
Our beloved elected Congressmen, buckling to the massive pressure by the American people abandoned their last attempt at granting amnesty to illegal aliens ....... but are at it again.
Ira Mehlman of Fedration for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) stated, "Really what it does is it grants amnesty to just about everybody who's been in the country illegally before June 1, 2006; so that encompasses just about everybody who's in the country illegally right now."
The "STRIVE Act of 2007" (Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy), was introduced by Congressmen Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ). It is quite similar to the Senate bill put forward last year by Senators Ted Kennedy and John McCain. And in a nice vote of confidence, Teddy even had high praise for the Gutierrez-Flake bill. He went so far as to say he was optimistic a new Senate bill will follow.
How wonderful.
I tell ya' what ..... these liberals don't quit. Despite our success at halting previous amnesty attempts, the pro-amnesty crowd is at it again .... trying to bring it back.
As long as I am on the subject of immigration, illegal immigration (there is a difference you know) and amnesty, why is it that when someone speaks in favor of legal immigration and is opposed to illegal immigration, their opponents call them nativists, racists, and whatever other "ists" they can conjure up?
By the way, what does that make "Hillbillery"? Is she a racist and a hater of "brown-skinned" people too?
I ask this because in 2004 she told Manhattan’s WABC radio:
“I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants. Clearly, we have to make some tough decisions as a country, and one of them ought to be coming up with a much better entry-and-exit system so that if we're going to let people in for the work that otherwise would not be done, let's have a system that keeps track of them….People have to stop employing illegal immigrants. I mean, come up to Westchester, go to Suffolk and Nassau counties, stand on the street corners in Brooklyn or the Bronx. You're going to see loads of people waiting to get picked up to go do yard work and construction work and domestic work.”
General Petraeus’ testimony on Capitol Hill last week undermined numerous Democratic talking points about the progress of the war and the situation on the ground in Iraq. But through their own behavior before and during the hearings, the Democrats themselves were responsible for exploding one of their most cherished myths: Republicans were the partisans prone to a particularly nasty form of character assassination – that is, challenging the patriotism of those who disagree with them.
Democrats have long claimed to be victims of Republican challenges to their love of country. As early as 2003, John Kerry told the Associated Press, “Republicans have tried to make a practice of attacking anybody who speaks out strongly by questioning their patriotism.” Presidential aspirant Wesley Clark whined in 2004, “How dare this administration make the charge that if you disagree with its policies, you are somehow unpatriotic!” Senator Barack Obama has condemned “the same divisive politics that question your patriotism if you dare to question failed policies . . .” And Hillary Clinton herself famously screeched, “I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic.” More recently, in July of 2007, she told ABC News, “I deeply resent the administration’s continuing effort to impugn the patriotism of those of us who are asking hard questions.”
WASHINGTON -- Meeting reporters at breakfast last week, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson set as his tax priority a "patch" to slow the runaway Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). The former investment banker acted as though he were oblivious to plans by Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, to turn the need for such a temporary tax fix into the most radical left-wing tax revision in half a century.
When one questioner asked whether Paulson contemplated recommending a presidential veto of AMT legislation, he indicated astonishment at the very idea. His only stated concern was that Congress this year had not patched the AMT, originally intended to catch tax-evading millionaires, to prevent it from wreaking havoc on middle-income Americans. Paulson uttered not a word about what Rangel is up to.
Lying is a moral issue difficult to be absolute about. Most of us accept a little white lie to spare a person's feelings. A roguish Southern politician I know dutifully compliments every baby held out by a beaming mother, but occasionally a child is thrust at him that's so plain he can't think of a single thing to compliment. So with a big smile he exclaims: "That's some baby!" The fib is acceptable because the mother is pleased. No harm is done. We accept a lie that spares a life or a lie that defends a life, including the speaker's own. But a slander is the most grievous sin of all.
"[T]he present Constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners, bona fide must we combat our political foes - rejecting all changes but through the channel itself provides for amendments."
Recently, two really outstanding Americans made a public appearance before Congress. Senators and Representatives almost climbed over each other to compliment the better known of the two, General Petraeus, whose military skills have significantly improved the situation in Iraq. But kudos should also go to Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad. Crocker is a man of exceptional ability and intelligence. Fluent in Arabic and Persian and a former ambassador in Lebanon, Kuwait and Pakistan, he embodies the best of American State Department professionalism. In 2002 in a memo to then Secretary of State Colin Powell, he outlined some of the risks inherent in the invasion of Iraq. All his predictions came true. Americans are quick to recognize their military heroes. In Crocker's case, they should also recognize diplomatic heroism.
"In the Moslem fifth of the world, probably about a quarter of the population wishes to be in conflict with America and the West. Probably more than half do not wish such conflict but wrongly suspect that America is out to divide and suppress Islam.
Meanwhile, much of the Moslem Westernized elite (no more than 5 percent of the total Islamic population) both in Moslem countries and in America and the West rather desperately hope radical Islam and the Western response it has induced would just go away. They would prefer to live and prosper peacefully in the globalized Western political world.
Moslem governments in the Middle East and elsewhere are playing a dangerous double game - cooperating with Western intelligence and covert military efforts and jailing some of the terrorists, while at the same time giving rhetorical and sometime financial support to much of the deranged paranoia about Americans and the Jews that further inflames the radical instincts of the Moslem masses.
In fairness to those governments, most governments - West or East - live in the short term. In the long term, the Moslem regimes would be overthrown if the radicals gain power, but in the short term they would risk further inflaming the radicals if they didn't rhetorically support their madness. So the Moslem governments increasingly risk losing tomorrow for the sake of staying alive today."
Heavy-handed: inept; maladroit; clumsy; bungling; Not skillful in physical movement, especially with the hands; "could
scarcely empty a scuttle of ashes, so handless was the
poor creature" ---Mary H. Vorse
"To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last - but eat you he will."
----Ronald Reagan
"Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
----George Orwell
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." ---- Benjamin Franklin
A healthy, all natural source of protein. No preservatives, no added MSG, no nitrites, no Erythorbate, no artificial ingredients. Minimally processed.
Handmade in USDA certified smokehouse using superior quality top round beef. Seasoned with savory blend of spices. Slow smoked to perfection with real burning hickory.
With WebMax studio, you can create your own website in less than 5 minutes. Huge template library - Over 1,100 designs to choose from plus 1,700 stock photos plus much more, only $18.95 a month! Start your free 10 day trial today.
This site may contain
copyrighted material the use
of which has not always been
specifically authorized by
the copyright owner. We are
making such material
available in our efforts to
advance understanding of
political, human rights,
economic, democracy, and
social justice issues, etc.
We believe this constitutes
a 'fair use' of any such
copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107
of the US Copyright Law.
In accordance with Title 17
U.S.C. Section 107, the
material on this site is
distributed without profit
to those who have expressed
a prior interest in
receiving the included
information for research,
educational, or satirical
purposes. If you wish to
use copyrighted material
from this site for purposes
of your own that go beyond
'fair use', you must obtain
permission from the copyright
owner.
