Montag's World

Taxes

2010-04-19T02:20:00.004-05:00

There are some simple truths to the matter of taxes:

1. Fewer people are paying an ever greater share of the tax burden collected by the federal government. More and more are getting "services" or income from those fewer people without being directly taxed on income themselves.

2. The progressive tax scheme came straight out of the Communist Manifesto. That, and other teachings of Karl Marx, led to mass slaughter and squalor in the 20th Century.

3. You have more rights if you are suspected of serial murder and hiding the bodies under your flower beds in your backyard, than if you are suspected of tax evasion by the IRS.

4. Even if you are among the 47% who pay no federal income tax, you are still taxed through the gills through such means as taxes on the company you buy your food from, sales taxes, fuel and energy taxes, and anon. Rich or poor, we are all being robbed.

5. Yes, taxation and wealth redistribution are theft! If you're walking down the street and you had a beggar a $5 bill, you're virtuous. If, however, I hold a gun at your head, take your wallet, and hand it to that very same beggar you are NOT virtuous. You are a victim of armed robbery. This is exactly what the IRS is all about, since you will be faced with armed officers trying to arrest you (violence against you as an individual) should you disagree with any of the government's plans for your property -- that is, your money.

6. Capital gains taxes are punishments for success. The investments that result in capital gains create jobs and more wealth. Taxing such gains only discourages investment and job creation, impoverishing us all.

7. Your money, from whatever source, is the symbol of your labor. As such, it is your property. Neither I nor the government have any right to any of your money beyond what the Constitution allows the federal government to do. Were the Tenth Amendment to be enforced, fully 80% of the federal budget (probably much more nowadays) would be illegal and have to be returned to the people from whom it was confiscated.

8. A low, flat tax, with payments due from every taxpayer every month like a phone bill, would solve any number of ills facing America today: folks would see right away just how much the government was taking and start voting for lower tax rates, resources spent on accounting will go to more productive uses, the economy would flourish and jobs created, and the federal government would have far less power than it has today. All of these things would be better than what we have today.

9. The tax code, as it has become since FDR, is not to raise money, but to engineer society. This flies in the face of American ideals of Liberty. It is an attempt to control the very lives, thoughts and choices of every American who should otherwise be free.

10. Tax cheats aren't all bad! I mean, the Left loves Tim Geitner, Charley Rangel, David Dinkins, etc. Of course, for Republicans, it would be career ender. But for Democrats? Just like sex scandals, cheating on your taxes can be a resume enhancer.

Copyright April 19th, 2010

Constitution? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Constitution!

2009-12-24T00:58:00.004-05:00

First of all, let me wish all of you a very Merry Christmas! I don't do the "Happy Holidays" nonsense, since the message of Christmas is "peace on earth, good will toward men". Therefore, it is a message for everyone, Christian or otherwise. So, again, Merry Christmas, everyone!

Do you remember all those civil liberties we lost to the tyrannical Bush Administration, thanks to the fear of terrorism and the Patriot Act? Remember all those people who had their library records ransacked by the FBI? The law abiding citizens whose phone calls were monitored by the Terrorist Surveillance Program?

Neither do I. Probably, because the accusations of "shredding the Constitution" were just the political posturings of a Left that was still deranged over their failed attempt to steal the 2000 election.

Normally, I don't get too exercised about government actions. Oh, sure! Each time a law is passed, that's just a little more of our precious Liberty dying on the vine. But it's one thing when it is done by our elected legislators and it involves our own institutions and bureaucracies. At least then we still had some representation in the matter. It's still wrong, but we were complicit.

But what if a foreign law enforcement agency were given a more free hand to operate in the United States than our own domestic police agencies? What if that foreign law enforcement agency answered to a foreign court that America has yet to recognize? What if said agency were immune to any attempt to seize its property or examine its archives? And what if this were done, not by a vote of our elected representatives, but through an executive order by the President?

This is precisely what The Messiah, President Barack H. Obama did on Dec. 17th, 2009 with Executive Order Number 13524. Apparently, this wasn't newsworthy, as News Busters found no mention of this travesty anywhere in the New York Times or the AP. You can read for yourselves the facts here and here.

First, let me give you a little history.

The US belongs to the International Criminal Police Organization, or INTERPOL. Back in 1983, President Ronald Reagan issued Executive Order 12425. This granted INTERPOL many of the privileges and and courtesies afforded diplomats and certain international organizations, as covered by the International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288). However, recognizing that INTERPOL is a police agency, Reagan wisely made certain exceptions to the immunities and privileges granted to the international police.

Firstly, IINTERPOL was not granted to immunity from seizure of property. This would enable an American, wrongly accused by INTERPOL, to get satisfaction through legal suits. This is the sort of check and balance that helps keep our own domestic police from becoming oppressive.

Secondly, unlike other international organizations and diplomats, INTERPOL was made subject to the Freedom of Information Act, yet another check and balance against abuse of power by police.

What these two exceptions do, in essence, is subjugate INTERPOL to the same Constitutional restrictions that domestic police agencies have to work within. You, as an American, had the very same rights when under the investigation of INTERPOL, as you would have by the FBI or a local sheriff. And, should those rights be violated, you would have the legal right to investigate any possible wrong-doing and to seek redress.

It was bad enough when the priapic President Bill Clinton issued EO 12971. That gem amended EO 12425 to allow INTERPOL to be exempt from "the portions of Section 2(d) and Section 3 relating to customs duties and federal internal-revenue importation taxes". Only the government's revenue stream was hurt there. Besides, I'm in favor of tax cuts, even the elimination of taxes, on everyone. So, if INTERPOL got a tax break, more power to them!

Saint Barack, however, violated his oath to protect and defend the Constitution with his EO 13524. But more on that later.

Recall what was written in Dopenhagen a couple of days ago. The original goal of the Copenhagen climate summit was a treaty that would establish a world government with the power to tax and to enforce its decisions, thereby destroying capitalism as we know it, all without the benefit of elected officials. Saint Barack was all about signing that treaty. He flew into a blizzard (See the Gore Effect ) to try to bring this New World Order Obamanation about.

Thankfully, negotiations went down in flames and all The Messiah was left with was an "accord" that was non-binding and had no teeth, but still promises billions to the governments of Third World nations to keep their people living in squalor.

Ah! But the Statists never quit and they never tire. Now, The Messiah, Saint Barack, has elevated INTERPOL, a foreign police agency, above the FBI. Indeed, INTERPOL has risen above even the Constitution itself!

You read that right, Folks! If INTERPOL comes knocking on your door, you have no right to demand a warrant. If wrongly accused, you have no right to seek redress, or even investigate their files for evidence that you were wronged. Nor are domestic police agencies any guarantee that INTERPOL plays by the rules. If you lived any amount of time in New York, you know how diplomats are above the law.

Some of you, mainly those on the Left, will say, "What's the big deal? He's the President and he has the right to issue executive orders! Every president does it! Besides, they give out diplomatic immunity, why not for INTERPOL?"

All of that may be true, except diplomats and most other international organizations are not police agencies. Diplomats can't search your premises, can't arrest you, can't bring charges against you to the International Criminal Court. The United States has not joined the ICC, by the way, since many of its provisions violate American sovereignty.

Did you know that INTERPOL has its American offices headquartered in the Justice Department in Washington, DC? Does this now mean that the Justice Department now has an inviolable stash to hide documents from the American people, immune to FOIA requests?

Be aware, ladies and gentlemen! The Left is committed to destroying the United States as a representative republic. It has been working toward this end since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. We see this in the constant violations of the Constitution in such things as domestic spending, gun control, progressive taxes, the expanded powers of bureaucracy, climate treaties, even such simple semantic mechanisms such as substituting the word "republic" with "democracy".

The ultimate goal is the destruction of capitalism and the American way of life and the subjugation of the American people under a world government run by the very same Third World bureaucrats who brought you the Oil-for-Food scam and brothels and rape run by the "UN Peacekeepers" in Africa. All of this to be run by a few, well-connected elites like Maurice Strong and Al Gore, the Grand Prelate of the Church of Gore.

The time has come, my Friends, to look at just what was meant by "Yes We Can".

We had better before it's too late.

Copyright Dec. 24th, 2009

Obamacare Gives Me Agita!

2009-12-22T00:58:00.009-05:00

Only government employees can come up with a product that will cost more, that practically no one likes, and requires two or three thousand pages to describe, which no one of them has read. Oh, and it all has to be done by Christmas or the nasty bits of the Book of Revelations might come about a little early.

I'm talking healthcare reform here, Folks! What was the undoing of the Clinton Administration with Hillarycare now stands a good chance of passing the Senate in the next couple of days -- "a Christmas present for the people", the all-but-embalmed Nancy Pelosi calls it.

Thanks, Nan! But I'll take coal, thank you very much!

Not one Republican senator will vote for this monstrosity. Hey, they even have to buy the votes of Democrats! No one really wants this, except, of course, for the Cloward-Piven elitists of academia, The Messiah Obama, and folks who just don't understand economics.

But we're going full speed ahead with this nightmare, all so Saint Barrak can cross healthcare off his list of promises. Folks! We are so screwed!

First, let's look at the stuff the Left doesn't like about the proposals as they currently stand:

It doesn't quite cover all the people that it promises. I know! The 55 million quote of people uninsured is a complete fabrication (subtract illegal aliens; folks who are just between jobs and soon to be covered again; people who choose not to buy insurance and the total is just a couple of million) but we were promised that all those millions of "uninsured" would get coverage. Saint Obama is falling a bit short here.
It looks like there will be restrictions on taxpayer funded abortions. Abortion, you see, is not just a right. It's an entitlement, you male chauvinist, sexist pig! What good is the right to abortion if you can't get the taxpayer to pay for it? This sentiment is best illustrated by Montag's Immutable Law of Nature Number Eight.
It seems that, among the horse trading needed to get all the Democrats on board, someone left out the public option. Ah, but you Progressives won't have to worry about that for long. Just wait for the conference. That's when all your favorite stuff will be put back in under the cover of night.
It doesn't punish the insurance companies enough. After all, how can we have Universal Healthcare if there are still private companies providing insurance?

Yes We Can! Er... kinda'... sort of... well, almost. Hey Lefties! Buyer's remorse setting in yet?

Oh, yes! The Left is quite bitter about this Marxist attempt to conquer one sixth of the nation's economy. You can tell when, even though it's their own senators holding up the "reforms", they still attack the Republicans, whom they had already decided not to include in their machinations. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), had this to say about the GOP:

"Voting 'no' and hiding from the vote are the same result. Those of us on the floor see it. It was clear the three of them who did not cast their yes votes until all 60 Senate votes had been tallied and it was clear that the result was a foregone conclusion. And why? Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? All to break the momentum of our new young president.

They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one."

Can anyone recall the Democrats being courteous and non-destructive during the previous administration? As I recall, they even blamed George Bush for the No Child Left Behind Act, and that was written by Ted Kennedy (who, by the way, has just reached about five months sober!)

Sure, there is disquiet on The Messiah's Left flank, but there is an awful lot to dislike from the perspective of a Conservative:

Taxes, taxes, and, oh yeah! More taxes! These all start in the very first year of enactment, while the actual programs don't begin until 2014. There are also cuts in Medicare funding, which will make coverage for the elderly more expensive. And the added expense for business, particularly small business, is just what we need with unemployment surpassing 10% in a recession. We might have healthcare, but we won't have jobs!
While the words "death panels" might not actually appear in either the House or the Senate versions of the bill, we're still looking at unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats deciding such things as what insurance we must buy, what treatments will or will not be available, and which patients will be able to actually access such treatments. Many times, these decisions will be based upon the age of the patient, his "lifestyle" (Want to bet that smokers will get the same treatment as, say, promiscuous gays?), previous health conditions, likely number of "meaningful" years of life (to be decided by said bureaucrats) and so on and so forth.
Despite the fact that, at least so far, the public option doesn't seem to be in play, let's not forget the fact every social program we have today was supposed to be far more limited than they actually became. The current healthcare reform plans are merely the point of the wedge that will drive all private healthcare providers and insurers out of business and supplant them with top/down, command-and-control, full tilt Marxist hegemony over yet another big part of America's withering private sector.

OK! Enough about what the Left and I are against. What am I for? What do I propose to solve our healthcare woes?

Well, considering that almost every poll shows that 80% or more of Americans are actually quite satisfied with their healthcare coverage, perhaps we are trying to solve a "problem" that doesn't quite exist. I wouldn't be the first time. Just consider "Dopenhagen". Sometimes, our political class just needs the courage and the wisdom to simply do nothing.

But, if we really think we need to meddle, let's take a page from the Cato Institute:

Let individuals control their health care dollars, and free them to choose from a wide variety of health plans and providers.
Move away from a health care system dominated by employer-provided health insurance. Health insurance should be personal and portable, controlled by individuals themselves rather than government or an employer. Employment-based insurance hides much of the true cost of health care to consumers, thereby encouraging over-consumption. It also limits consumer choice, since employers get final say over what type of insurance a worker will receive. It means people who don’t receive insurance through work are put at a significant and costly disadvantage. And, of course, it means that if you lose your job, you are likely to end up uninsured as well.
Changing from employer to individual insurance requires changing the tax treatment of health insurance. The current system excludes the value of employer-provided insurance from a worker’s taxable income. However, a worker purchasing health insurance on their own must do so with after-tax dollars. This provides a significant tilt towards employer-provided insurance, which should be reversed.Workers should receive a standard deduction, a tax credit, or, better still, large Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) for the purchase of health insurance, regardless of whether they receive it through their job or purchase it on their own.
We need to increase competition among both insurers and health providers. People should be allowed to purchase health insurance across state lines. One study estimated that that adjustment alone could cover 17 million uninsured Americans without costing taxpayers a dime.
We also need to rethink medical licensing laws to encourage greater competition among providers. Nurse practitioners, physician assistants, midwives, and other non-physician practitioners should have far greater ability to treat patients. Doctors and other health professionals should be able to take their licenses from state to state. We should also be encouraging innovations in delivery such as medical clinics in retail outlets.
Congress should give Medicare enrollees a voucher, let them choose any health plan on the market, and let them keep the savings if they choose an economical plan. Medicare could even give larger vouchers to the poor and sick to ensure they could afford coverage.
The expansion of “health status insurance” would protect many of those with preexisting conditions. States may also wish to experiment with high risk pools to ensure coverage for those with high cost medical conditions.

We don't really need a government run healthcare system. They never worked well where they were tried. Of course, should you want government to fund healthcare, there is a way that is also quite free market. This was proposed 15 years ago, again by the Cato Institute:

Take all the money we spend on Medicare/Medicaid right now and give each adult American citizen (I know! How exclusionary of me! ) a voucher that can only be deposited in special accounts for this purpose. These accounts will accrue interest, but disbursements can only be made to insurance providers or medical providers. Smaller vouchers will be given to parents for each child, so family coverage becomes available.
Require every recipient of said vouchers to purchase catastrophic health insurance with high deductibles. Such policies will be for major illnesses and such and should have quite low premiums for the vast majority of people.
Each American then pays for routine healthcare expenses from the amount in his healthcare savings account. Again, the checks drawn from this account can only go to insurance or medical providers.
Each year, whatever is left over in the account rolls over to the next year, giving the recipient more each year, provided he spends it wisely.
At the end of ten years, the recipient can choose to keep the excess money in the account or pocket it for his own uses.

The beauty of this idea is that it gets the government out of the medical coverage business

( Medicare/Medicaid ) while putting the consumer in charge of the actual expenditures. At the same time, medical providers are forced to compete for customers as they never had to under our current system or under Obamacare. This will keep prices much lower and encourage innovation. Meanwhile, the consumer has incentive to avoid unnecessary medical procedures and to keep an eye on possible fraud -- fraud to which Medicare/Medicaid and, ultimately Obamacare, are all too susceptible.

Ah! The free market! It works every time it's tried!

It's just a shame that our governing class just can't seem to let go of all that power.

Copyright Dec. 22, 2009

DOPENHAGEN

2009-12-19T19:50:00.000-05:00

Yup! You read that right, my Friends!

"Dopenhagen" is the only way to spell that fiasco! The only folks who have anything to cheer about are those of us on the Right. The Left are almost apoplectic about the abysmal failure of the United Nations to achieve the stated goals of the the grand conclave in Denmark.

And what were those goals? Lord Christopher Monckton of Brenchley has already said it best. But, in a nutshell, allow me to state those goals in my own words:

The establishment of a world government with no provisions for elections, legislatures, or any other form of representative governance.
The transfer of vast sums of money and property from the developed world ( read that as "the United States") to the Third World in order to satisfy our "climate debt". Ostensibly, these are a form of reparations for the "destruction of the environment" due to our profligate burning of fossil fuels.
Enforcement of these nefarious provisions, without any sort of popular representation or ballots, thereby condemning the Western World to poverty and squalor through the ruining of our economy. Incidentally, this will also condemn the Third World to abject poverty, since it will, in effect, be turned into a massive and expensive welfare client. Students of history should be aware of the failure of welfare states to improve anyone's state in life.

Thankfully, the Copenhagen Conference failed to achieve those stated goals. They accomplished neither a binding treaty nor even an agreement. What they came up with was merely an "Accord". Totally non-binding, it is nothing more than a further statement of desired goals, with none of the Marxist trappings the UN was hoping for.

This silver lining isn't without its cloud, however. It still provides for vast sums of money and property to be spent on the Third World. The Copenhagen Accord is still a failure, albeit a very expensive failure.

Now, lest anyone doubt that the goals of the Copenhagen Conference were, indeed, Marxist and totalitarian, please take note of three very well-received speakers at the festivities: Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, and Robert Mugabe. Jonah Goldberg, in today's New York Post, can give you all the details. One national-socialist dictator after another blamed capitalism in general, and the US in particular, for all the ills of the world -- real and imagined.

Mr. Goldberg even mentioned this delicious irony from the redoubtable Hugo Chavez:

In a typical stemwinder, he belched: "Capitalism is a destructive model that is eradicating life, that threatens to put a definitive end to the human species."

I don't know how to say "chutzpah" in Spanish, but you've got to hand it to the leader of the world's No. 5 supplier of oil for bemoaning the system that keeps his regime afloat by buying his product.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/wackos_pollute_the_eco_debate_bfMN07qTS6UVqTQUapwnoM#ixzz0aBKhYbQh

And just how well-received were these tin pot dictators? Warm applause and exuberant standing ovations. This, according Lord Monckton, from even members of the developed world, industrial nations who should know better than to sway towards socialism. And we have far too many of them.

The Messiah, President Barrak Obama, braving a blizzard of snow -- uh, I mean Global Warming, flew in to Copenhagen toward the end to try to salvage the negotiations. With much media fanfare, he angrily exhorted China, India, Brazil and South Africa to drop their intransigent demands that they be allowed to burn as much fossil fuel as they want.

Claiming victory in his negotiations (some of which he had to crash, as he wasn't even invited) Saint Barrak promised billions of aid to the Third World and folded to the Group of Four in their demands that they be allowed to burn fossil fuel.

Immediately following this stellar example of diplomacy, The Messiah flew back to Washington, DC, to avoid the worst of today's blizzard that is blanketing the East Coast.

Let's ignore, for today, the delicious irony of The Gore Effect. What we need to focus on is the reaction of the Left. It is most instructive:

The UK Guardian reports on the almost universal reaction that the summit was an abject failure, quoting almost exclusively Left leaning NGO's and environmental groups.
The EuroNews web site reports that the Sudan is far from happy, quoting the African delegate, Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping:

“[The Accord] asks Africa to sign a suicide pact. It is a solution based on the values which, in our opinion, channelled six million people in Europe to the (Nazi) furnaces.”

The UK Telegraph reports the talks resulted in "a meltdown".
SFGate's Thin Green Line blog said the accord was a " 'sham' and a 'greenwash' at best".
GMANews.TV tells of Green protests at the summit against the Accord, quoting Bill McKibben, of 350.org: "I don't know why we bothered to go and elect Obama." At YouTube, you can see a video of these protests, complete with chants of "Yes We Can! No They Won't!"

These are but a few of the reactions from the Left. On the Right, however, that breeze you feel is a collective sigh of relief that global government and the enforced and totalitarian impoverishment of all the world has, for now at least, been averted.

But don't ever think that these crypto-Marxists are going to go away. They'll be back and we'll have to be ready for them!

Copyright December 19th, 2009

Climategate and The Church of Gore

2009-12-02T01:32:00.005-05:00

I've been too long, not writing... I know! But I've been busy with my music and acting careers. However, I have been keeping up with current events.

The most interesting, in my mind, has been the eruption of Climategate. It seems that either a hacker or an insider whistleblower released thousands of emails and documents from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. The various documents (you can read them here) show the most important proponents of Manmade Global Warming (also known as the Dogma of the Church of Gore) to be obsessed with showing manmade warming regardless of the data, denying skeptics of The Dogma peer review or inclusion in the IPCC reports, trying to prevent their data from being disseminated through the Freedom of Information Act, and other unseemly and unscientific behavior.

Now, I'm not a believer in conspiracy theories, as these newly liberated documents seem to demonstrate. It is precisely because there was a leak that leads me to discount most, if not all, conspiracy theories. After all, someone will eventually screw the whole thing up and blow the secrecy of the conspiracy apart.

That said, I'd like to offer a second hypothesis to explain why so many scientists, politicians and bureaucrats seem to be true devotes of The Church of Gore. I wrote the following in Scientific American, in response to an article entitled Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense. Among other points, the author whitewashed the Climategate scandal as much ado about nothing and relegated the skeptics to the fever swamps of conspiracy theories. It is with that weak attempt at shoring up the crumbling edifice of The Church of Gore in mind that I wrote the following explanation of how we can have what appears to be a conspiracy, and yet have no conspiracy at all:

Well, it took SciA long enough to get to the Climategate story!

Unfortunately, it only resulted in a child plugging his ears and yelling, "La, La, La! I can't hear you!"

I won't claim there has been a Warmist conspiracy. However, one can't deny that there has been, shall we say, a confluence of agendae. It works like this:

Scientists, by and large, depend on government financing.
Governments, by their very nature, strive to increase their power over the people that they govern.
Bureaucrats are the primary mechanism of government. Generally they are immune to the checks and balances that elected officals are face with. Even dictators are hemmed in by "the will of the people" at some point. Bureaucrats, too, have an insatiable appetite for power. And they are the ones holding he purse strings.
Government, by its very nature, will be more predisposed to funding research that will further its ambitions to power than research that does not.
Scientists, therefore, have a financail stake in the sort of research they pursue. Dissent is quietly "defunded" and a "consensus" appears.

If there is any doubt of my observations, one needs merely to consider the proposed "solutions" to the "problem" of AGW/ACC:

Strict control over the people regarding their energy usage, the types of cars they drive, mass transit plans, etc.
Carbon taxes, which will ensure that economic activity will be sharply curtailed.
A "world government", which makes interaction between the government and the governed even more tenuous than it is today.
"Wealth redistribution", not only from the developed world to the Third World, but from industry to the new, burgeoning class of "Carbon Billionaires", like Al Gore. This will also have the undesirable effect of turning the Third World into backwards welfare clients, with no hope of joining modernity and freedom.

Sorry, Mr. Rennie. Your claims that there is no "cospiracy" do nothing to address the fact that there are agendae which dovetail together quite nicely. Further, the emails make clear that this problem is worldwide, not limited to the Hadley/CRU. Indeed, it goes right up to the UN and its hopes of becoming the government of the world.

Time to face facts, my Friend! Your appeals to authority are nothing short of totalitarian.

The Fascists of the Left

2009-07-10T23:40:00.005-05:00

So, what does Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg think about Roe v. Wade? In her own words:

"Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of."

Yes, Folks! You read that right. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg once believed that abortion on demand was legalized to rid ourselves of undesirable people. In an interview to be published in the Sunday New York Times Magazine she, in fact, expands upon this theme:

"...Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the Court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.”

This is absolutely stunning! A veritable demi-goddess of the American Left has actually come out and stated unequivocally that the original intent for Roe v. Wade was to actually pay poor and other undesirable women to kill their babies, thereby reducing the populations of those "that we don’t want to have too many of."

Of course, anyone familiar with Montag's World would know that this was the original intention of Planned Parenthood, as evidenced by the writings of its founder, Margaret Sanger. For the full details, please see Real Racism and its Lethal Consequences. Reading the writings of Ms. Sanger and her compatriot, Lothrop Stoddard, one cannot escape the conclusion that Justice Ginsberg really wasn't all that far from the mark.

There really are no two ways about it: Planned Parenthood and Justice Ginsberg are all about ridding the world of the minderwertig -- German for "shoddy" or "inferior" or those "that we don't want to have too many of."

And what was the McRae decision that Justice Ginsberg lamented? This decision upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid funding for abortion. So, what she has a problem with is that folks who have fundamental moral and ethical difficulties with abortion don't have to pay for the abortions for poor women -- women among those "that we don't want to have too many of".

Yes, you see, those morally priggish Pro-Lifers who don't want to be a party to wholesale slaughter have made abortion available only to the wealthy! Basically, what Justice Ginsberg is saying is that, despite your moral or ethical qualms about abortion, you should still have to pay for it.

The modern Left is all about choice, you know. So long as that choice is the death of innocents. They don't believe in choice when it comes to smoking, guns, driving your car, managing your own land, what "charity" you want your taxes to go to, what radio show to listen to, how much carbon you consume, etc.

It is even getting to the point where if you merely disagree with a Liberal you are engaging in "hate speech"

Global warming skeptics are called "deniers", as if disagreeing with a questionable prediction was tantamount to defending the Reiche.
The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, an example of misleading advertising, would make the sermons of conservative preachers criminal, while offering protection to all types of sexual deviancies listed by the American Psychiatric Association. Democrats in Congress flatly refused to omit pedophiles from the protections of the bill. Indeed, Attorney General Eric Holder testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that ministers, priests, soldiers and most other Americans would get no such protections. What is being legislated is speech and thought.
Although there is no formal effort to reinstate the much maligned Fairness Doctrine in its original form, there is a big push to empower local activist groups, almost exclusively on the Left, to implement "community standards" and encourage "diversity in ownership". In true Orwellian fashion, these innocuous sounding policies would force radio stations to give up their most profitable and popular programming: Conservative talk radio. In short, we have censorship without ever using the word.

What is truly ironic about all of this is that it is the Left that keeps accusing Conservatives of fascism. Truth be told, their policy ideas are far more in tune with fascism than anything from the Right. And can you imagine the breathless outrage and gnashing of the teeth were Justice Ginsberg a Conservative? I can just imagine Keith Olberman's head exploding!

Apparently, though, even Eugenics is part of their agenda! Could the American Left be indulging in projection?

copyright July 11, 2009 by Gregory Indelicato

Promises, Promises!

2009-07-09T21:46:00.005-05:00

Remember, back in the 2008 presidential campaign? Back when the AP "fact checked" GOP predictions that Saint Obama would raise taxes? Of course, the Saintly One was promising to raise taxes on only the wealthiest of Americans, promising that 95% of taxpayers will see either a decline in taxes or that they will remain the same.

Naturally, one month after inauguration, President Obama kept that promise by signing into law a 62-cent-a-pack cigarette tax. Now, my math may not be all that good, but surely more than 5% of the American population are smokers impacted by that tax hike. In fact, I went and checked for myself. According to Web MD, smokers account for just under 20% of America's population.

Apparently, my pocket calculator is defective, because I just subtracted 20% from 100% and I didn't come up with 95%. Maybe the Justice Department should look into this matter!

But it's not just the taxes on cigarettes that gives one pause. Let's look at some other policy matters that the Blessed Barack is pursuing:

The Stimulus Packages:

Now, I know many folks will say that these didn't involve tax hikes. Perhaps not directly. However, with "Obamanomics" needing to print money in amounts that would deforest major land masses, the devaluation of the dollar and the unnatural tightening of the money supply as cash goes into favored industries and institutions will put a major hurt on the average taxpayer. We're talking about job creation, economic displacements caused by government intrusion into the market place, and recessions and depressions.

Any economist worth his salt will tell you, for instance, that FDR's policies (which President Obama has doubled down on with a vengence) prolonged rather than cured the Great Depression. Indeed, we were told that passage of his monstrous stimulus package was needed to hold unemployment at 8%. Now that we're closing in on 10% and higher, his people are out telling us we need another stimulus.

Can we get off the ride now?

Health Care:

President Obama is promising health care coverage to every American, citing the "travesty" of 43 to 47 million people with no coverage. Forget that this touted figure is bogus --subtract illegal aliens, folks who got coverage within a year of losing it, folks who choose not to buy insurance, and factor in the fact that it is a matter of law that all folks who seek medical attention get it. You just have to ask the obvious question: How does he expect to pay for it? The fact is, you and I, rich or poor, small business or large -- all of us are on the hook for the tab. Sure, Saint Barak has promised the average family would save $2,500 a year in insurance costs.

But is that likely, or even plausible? Last month, the Washington Post reported that "Obama conveyed his concern over early pronouncements by the Congressional Budget Office that a bill drafted by the Senate health committee would cover just 16 million additional people at a cost of $1 trillion". That's a lot more than the $60 to $65 billion a year promised during the campaign. And what about the 24 to 28 million who don't get covered?

Take a look at what the intent, if not the actual claims by proponents, of the various schemes that are bandied about. The Heritage Foundation noted: "Less than 24 hours after Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner questioned the veracity of President Obama’s persistent claim that, under his health care proposals, “if you like your insurance package you can keep it”, the White House has begun to walk the President’s claim back." Basically, government-run health care will inevitably drive the private sector out of the insurance business.

So, what do people think about their present coverage? According to Fox News, a Kaiser Foundation survey found that "89 percent of Americans were satisfied with their own personal medical care". If that's the case, then why do we need to nationalize yet another industry?

Then there's the question of rationing. I hate to break this to you Leftists out there, but the only way to contain costs to even unrealistic levels is to ration your health care. Sure, I know! Insurance companies deny coverage for one reason or another, thus a form of rationing. But then, you can ply your business with another insurance company or pay for the denied treatment out of your own pocket. But where do you turn when it is the federal government that is the insurance company, and your private company was driven out of the business?

So what would getting a needed procedure that is banned by the up and coming health care czars be worth to you? Isn't the denial by bureaucrats of certain medical procedures a sort of tax?

The Climate Change Bill:

If you know my stuff, you know I don't buy into the whole Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) nonsense. Besides, this essay is about taxes. Which brings us to our next topic: the Climate Change Bill.

Essentially, in what is euphemistically called "Cap And Trade", the government would set limits on how much CO2 a given business can release into the atmosphere. If said business exceeds this arbitrary amount, it will be fined. However, should another business actually admit less CO2 than the first, that first business can buy "carbon credits" from the second, allowing the first to emit more CO2. Every few years, the government will reduce the permissible levels of CO2 emissions until we reach a Green Nirvana of no AGW.

This bureaucratic nightmare is touted by the Left as a "free market solution". But it is nothing of the sort. Once again, the free market is distorted by government meddling to solve a problem that exists only in the fevered imaginations of the Eco-Marxists. All that would be created is yet another bloated bureaucracy strangling the host (see Montag's First Immutable Law of Nature) and solving nothing. Meanwhile, idiots like Algore get rich trading in carbon credits while wandering the globe in their private jets and massive motorcades.

But we were talking taxes, weren't we? You see, buying these carbon credits and paying the fines for violating the limits are all taxes. Oh, not directly on you, the taxpayer, but on the companies you buy goods and services from, on the companies you work for. These added costs will ultimately be passed to the consumer. Employees will find fewer job opportunities among affected businesses. The only job growth will be in the government, in the bureaucracy that will be created to police this monstrosity.

Should this become law, you can expect a doubling or tripling of energy costs. You'll find that, even though GM and Chrysler got a bailout, you still can't afford to drive. We'll see Jimmy Carter's idea of energy independence, as we all turn down the thermostat and button up our sweaters. And, naturally, as the old joke goes: "the poor, women and minorities will be hardest hit."

Yep! We were promised that 95% of us wouldn't see a tax hike at all under President Obama. So let me ask you, Obamaniacs: How's that working out for you?

Copyright July 10th, 2009 by Gregory Indelicato

If War Is Not the Answer, What Was the Question?

2009-07-09T21:08:00.006-05:00

This essay was written to the Comments section of New Scientist Magazine at this link: "Winning The Ultimate Battle"

War is not the answer? Well, doesn't that depend on the question?

No one really wants war, yet sometimes it is necessary. How else can someone like Hitler be contained?

In fact, I maintain that the modern peace movement has probably killed millions of people more than all the wars of the 20th Century. Consider the 100 million or more killed under Communist regimes like the Soviet Union, China under Mao, Cambodia under Pol Pot, or Cuba under the Castros. The peace movement effectively disarmed truly enlightened societies and prevented them from removing these murderous governments.

Furthermore, America has been drawn into wars almost every time it has been perceived to be weak. World War II is a classic example. The combined pressures of the Depression and FDR's military cuts left us vulnerable to both Nazi and Japanese aggression. A large, well-trained and equipped military is the single best guarantor against aggression and, thus, war.

A world government might actually be worse than a world with war. As things stand now, many people can actually "vote with their feet" and leave nations that are not conducive to a free and peaceful life. True, many dictatorships make that extremely difficult, but alternatives still exist. Were we to have a world government, where would dissidents go? Everywhere would be under the jurisdiction of that government. Without the competition of other forms of government, that world government would stagnate and become even more corrupt than the individual governments we now have.

Just because our present ways of doing things aren't perfect, doesn't mean that we can improve things with wholesale change. One must always keep in mind that old maxim:

Be careful what you wish for -- you might just get it!

UN HUMAN WRONGS COUCIL

2008-04-10T22:06:00.008-05:00

It might come as no surprise that, here at Montag's World, we take a dim view of the United Nations. Despite the glowing and benign intentions expressed by the founders of this institution, the best that can be said about it is that it has become a debating forum for corrupt, third-rate, anti-Semitic, Third World bureaucrats.

Worse, it is totally incapable of seeing how corrupt, inept and ineffective it is. Despite, for instance, the absolute corruption of the UN Oil For Food program, Secretary General Koffi Annan was allowed to continue in his post. The UN is incapable of stopping any war or human rights violations, nor can it even recognize genocide, as exhibited by their fecklessness toward the Sudan and Darfur.

While siding with America's enemies at every turn, they insist upon destroying our own sovereignty. Yet they rely on our largess for their anti-American, anti- Liberty programs.

Perhaps the best solution to the problem I've heard involved moving the UN, approximately 500 feet to the East. Of course, that's mere humor and satire, since that would put the UN smack in the middle of the East River. But it does illustrate the frustration and anger that this world body engenders in many Americans.

Many Americans, that is, that are not members of the Left.

This may be something of a continuation of a theme from yesterday's column. For what we will examine today is the new UN Human Rights Council and its official in charged with investigating Israel, Prof. Richard Falk, of Princeton University.

It is perhaps laughable, if it weren't so despicable, that the United Nations has formed this council (see the story at NPR) to review all 192 member states of the UN regarding their human rights records. However, the first nation they plan on investigating is Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians. If that weren't bad enough, they unanimously chose Prof. Falk to lead the investigation.

So, who is Prof. Richard Falk? Why is he such a wrong choice for a study of the Israeli-Palestinian situation?

Prof. Richard Falk is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice, Emeritus at Princeton University, Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a member of the World Federalist Institute, an organization dedicated to forming a world government and abolishing nation states.

In short, Prof. Falk is an extreme Leftist.

That the UN Human Rights Council selected him to a six year term investigating Israeli behavior vis a vis the Palestinians is curious, to say the least. According to the BBC, he is on record "drawing the comparison between the treatment of Palestinians with the Nazi record of collective atrocity, because of what he described as the massive Israeli punishment directed at the entire population of Gaza."

Hello! Israel is under daily attack by Muslims, and they are guilty of atrocities? Is this at all a point of concern to the Left? Probably not.

Nor is Prof. Falk backing down from his comments. The BBC further elucidates with another quote:

"If this kind of situation had existed for instance in the manner in which China was dealing with Tibet or the Sudanese government was dealing with Darfur, I think there would be no reluctance to make that comparison."

Apparently, Prof. Falk wasn't paying attention to the UN and its failure to condemn China and the Sudan.

To say that Prof. Falk is anti-Israel would be to vastly understate the case. The man has no willingness to at all consider the simple fact that Israel was the first free nation in the Middle East, that Palestinians in Israel have more freedom and Liberty than in any other Arab nation.

But then, Prof. Falk seems to be incapable of understanding that Islamo-fascists are really out to kill Americans and bring the Global Caliphate to fruition. The New York Sun reports that he is also calling for a UN investigation into the role of American neo-cons in the 9/11 attacks.

That's right, folks! Richard Falk is also one of those 911Truth.org maniacs. These are those poor, deluded souls who think that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were really inside jobs, perpetrated by the Bush administration at the urging of the neo-cons, for the express purpose of invading Afghanistan and Iraq.

Please note that Liberals always use the word "neo-cons" as a euphemism for "Jews". Just as they engage in projection when claiming Conservatives are bigots (see Real Racism and its Lethal Consequences in yesterday's Montag's World) the tag, "neo-cons" is a code word. In this way, they can deflect any accusations of anti-Semitism.

Not only did Prof. Falk write the forward for David Ray Griffin's 2004 conspiracy theory book, The New Pearl Harbor, he actively sought to find a publisher for the book.

On March 24th, 2008, Prof. Falk, in an interview with radio host Kevin Barrett, said the following:

"It is possibly true that especially the neoconservatives thought there was a situation in the country and in the world where something had to happen to wake up the American people. Whether they are innocent about the contention that they made that something happen or not, I don't think we can answer definitively at this point. All we can say is there is a lot of grounds for suspicion, there should be an official inves-igation of the sort the 9/11 commission did not engage in and that the failure to do these things is cheating the American people and in some sense the people of the world of a greater confidence in what really happened than they presently possess."

He doesn't think he can answer the question of whether Americans made 9/11 happen? This, my Friends, is nothing short of wading in the fever swamps of paranoia. Why is this man allowed to walk about among us without adult supervision?

Kevin Barrett isn't much better, by the way. He is the co-founder of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth. Naturally, he speaks well of the demented professor saying, "I would put him on a list of scholars who are sympathetic to the 9/11 truth movement."

As can be seen from this YouTube clip, Mr. Barrett honestly believes that Islamo-fascists had nothing to do with 9/11, and that there is no reason to believe that other terrorist attacks around the world were by Muslims.

Of course, from my personal experience of graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I'm not really surprised. This is the most extreme of the most extreme Left in America. If Mr. Barrett was a professor there, and he was, that would go a long way to explain my radically Liberal friends who graduated from that school.

Getting back to the subject, though, here we have a man, who is obviously opposed to Israel and its right to defend itself from aggression, who has long been involved in anti-American causes, who actually contributes to the mental miasma known as 911Truth. And the United Nations appoints him to study Israeli violations of human rights?

Folks, the facts are clear. The United States has no business being in the United Nations. If they want to meet in New York, then let them pay the rent that the real estate actually deserves. While those Third World bureaucrats are at it, maybe they can also pay their parking tickets.

The UN has, without a doubt, long ago passed its use-by date. Time for America to get out and start leading the Free World!

Copyright April 10th, 2008

REAL RACISM AND ITS LETHAL CONSEQUENCES

2008-04-09T21:24:00.009-05:00

"The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."
--Margaret Sanger

With the arrival of the first post-racial candidate, Saint Obama, America seems to have embarked upon yet another "conversation" about race. Of course, the Sainted One wasn't talking about that until we found out what a racist loon his pastor and his grandmother, at least by Obama's reckoning, are.

Still, the call is out to bring Americans together and to try to bury this ugly spectre from our sordid past. Or, at least, that's what the Left is claiming. Truth be told, they would never voluntarily let go of racsim and the power it bestows.

It's remarkable how little attention is paid to the intimate connections between the Left and the Democrats and things like eugenics, segregation, Jim Crow, and slavery. Trent Lott says some nice things about a nonagenarian who once was a segregationist, and he finds himself pilloried. Meanwhile, no one says boo about Robert Byrd, a grand wizard from the Ku Klux Klan, who never renounced his allegiance to that sorry organization.

But this isn't about the pernicious double standards of the day. This about institutional racism and the attempt to breed away black Americans. This campaign was spearheaded by that champion of progressive ideals, the feminists' uber feminist, that stalwart pioneer of women's reproductive rights, Margaret Sanger.

Recent discoveries, thanks to an undercover investigation, have shown shown that, as recently as 2006, Planned Parenthood offices in several states, were eager to accept donations from actors who portrayed themselves as bigots. They said that they wanted their donations to go to only aborting black babies. The worst criticism of these remarks came from an administrator at Planned Parenthood, Lisa Hutton, who smirked and said, "Whatever!" Other officials were even less upset. You can see the video made about this investigation here.

In 2004, World Net Daily reported that several black male employees of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles had filed racial and gender discrimination suits against the organization. It seems that white women were harassing and firing the black men. An attorney for two of the claimants said it's "unfortunate to find out that PPLA, as a chief promoter of 'tolerance and diversity' is engaging in what appears to be a most primitive form of hate against its own employees."

Is it surprising? Well, if you really believe that Planned Parenthood is all about "tolerance and diversity", I find that not only surprising, but disturbing as well.

Planned Parenthood is America's largest provider of abortions. That they also provide for other women's health needs is beside the point. It is a statistical fact that most Planned Parenthood clinics are located in minority and urban neighborhoods.

It is probably not surprising that the Almanac of Policy Issues finds that "The abortion ratio for black women (503 per 1,000 live births) was 3.0 times the ratio for white women (167 per 1,000 live births)." That is a stunning figure, given that the Infoplease.com almanac puts the total percentage of the American black population at 12.7% as of 2002.

For an organization as involved with "tolerance and diversity", this is especially telling. Of course, if anyone was at all familiar with the history of Planned Parenthood, its parent (for lack of a better word) organization (The American Birth Control League) and its founder, Margaret Sanger, there would be no surprise at all.

Margaret Sanger was one of eleven children, born of a devout Roman Catholic mother and a socialist activist father. After an unhappy marriage, she began working on birth control issues, ultimately founding the American Birth Control League in New York City with Lothrop Stoddard and C.C. Little. While Little's career seems to be benign, the same cannot be said for Sanger and Stoddard, both of whom were outspoken proponents of eugenics, the process of improving the human race by weeding out the "lesser" breeds.

Sanger often spoke out against the unbridled reproduction of the poor, the mentally and physically deficient and the insane. Of course, she was also including blacks and Jews in that list of deficient gene donors. Of blacks she said: "...human weeds,' 'reckless breeders,' 'spawning... human beings who never should have been born." Of birth control, she said its purpose was "to create a race of thoroughbreds."

Sounds rather Klan-ish, doesn't it? Of course, throughout her career, Margaret Sanger was a speaker much in demand at chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, although she herself thought they were rather dullards. Still, they supported her plans to "purify" the race.

In 1939, Sanger founded the Negro Project, garnering support from many of the black churches of the day, despite the sub rosa element of eugenics and the elimination the blacks. Said Sanger about getting black doctors and clergymen on board with the Negro Project:

"I note that you doubt it worthwhile to employ a full-time Negro physician. It seems to me from my experience ... that, while the colored Negroes have great respect for white doctors, they can get closer to their own members and more or less lay their cards on the table, which means their ignorance, superstitions and doubts. They do not do this with white people and if we can train the Negro doctor at the clinic, he can go among them with enthusiasm and ... knowledge, which ... will have far-reaching results among the colored people

"The minister's work is also important and he should be trained, perhaps by the Federation as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."

Lovely sentiments, no? If you think dear Margaret was beyond the pale, you should get a load of Lothrop Stoddard. This guy's writings were avidly read (and tragically implemented) by Adolph Hitler. Eventually, they became the basis for the philosophy of Pan-Aryanism, which has since been embraced by the White Supremacist movement.

These are the philosophical underpinnings of Planned Parenthood: racism, ethnic purity, white supremacy, forced sterilizations, sneaking their murderous schemes under the noses of the very same black intellectuals that they used as their cover.

And their efforts continue to this day, as evidenced by the opening of this essay. It's hardly surprising that the eugenicists were closely allied with the socialists, the conservationists, indeed, every group that, today, would be called Left wing.

Consider issues beyond birth control and abortion. Al Gore and his Global Warmists would deny modernization to the Third World "to avoid the catastrophe" that industrialization would bring to the world, thereby oppressing blacks and other minorities to squalor, starvation, disease and death. Consider that America's drug laws were largely supported with such racist headlines as "Nine out of Ten Rapes Against White Women in the South are the Direct Result of the Coke Crazed Negro Mind". Consider that, the minimum wage was originally touted as a way "to keep the brown and the Chinese people out of our jobs". Look at affirmative action, which tells minorities that they can't possibly make it in this world without white Liberals to give them extra perks.

Yes, the list just goes on and on. But that's just point. When Liberals call Republicans in general, and Conservatives in particular, racist, they are engaging in the most base projection. They are looking at us, seeing themselves, and blaming it on us.

Yup! The Democratic Party and the Left! The Once, Present, and Future Home of Racism in America!

Copyright April 9th, 2008

CAN'T TAKE THE LEFT SERIOUSLY ON NATIONAL SECURITY

2008-04-08T21:37:00.003-05:00

Well, we once again have General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker testifying to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Although the Democrats have toned down their rhetoric somewhat -- telling MoveOn.org not to run any "General Betray-us" ads and not stating outright that they think the good General is a liar -- they left little doubt on this, the first day of hearings, that the Left simply cannot be taken seriously on matters of national security.

The New York Times piece on the matter provides the quotes from the various Democratic contenders for the presidential nomination. Clearly, neither of them is ready for prime time.

Hillary, the lovely and talented wife of the priapic Bill, cited what The Times calls "sluggish political progress and a questionable recent Iraqi military campaign in Basra" to make the dubious point that the surge, ably led by Gen. Petraeus, wasn't working. Said the would-be Madame President, “It might well be irresponsible to continue the policy that has not produced the results that have been promised time and time again."

Right! We aren't getting any results. Check your sources, Hillary. Violence all over Iraq has gone down. The Iraqi government has come up with oil revenue sharing plans. Sunnis, once given the cold shoulder in the Shiite majority government, are now taking their places in the government and the military with outstanding results. Oh, and that mission in Basra? Much has been made about the 1000 Iraqi deserters, but no mention of the 96% or more who stayed and fought bravely.

Just a little historical reminder: the Iraqis are trying to do what our Founding Fathers did when they formed our government. They are doing it under fire from outsiders (al Qaeda, Iran, and Syria) and they are doing it in a part of the world that hasn't seen anything like representative government in its entire history, until the founding of Israel in 1948. More importantly, they are doing it faster than our Founding Fathers. If this is failure, than we need far more of it in the world.

Speaking of Iran, none of the Democrats on the Armed Services Committee seemed at all interested in Gen. Petraeus' account of Iranian interference in Iraq, principally among the Shiite militias, but also through their puppet, Syria, which is arming and aiding al Qaeda and other Sunni fighters. It's not as if Iran doesn't have a dog in this fight. If the Democrats get their way, Iran will be left in control of Iraq, whether the Sunnis or the Shiites win out. Either way, they'll be dancing to Tehran's tune.

Which, of course, brings us to the Saintly One, Barak Obama, who spent his time in the limelight on the Committee to restate his view that the Iraq war was a “massive strategic blunder.” OK, so what do we do now, other than turn tail and run?

Elsewhere, Saint Obama has called for direct talks, a "diplomatic surge" he called it, with Iran, saying that "I do not believe we are going to be able to stabilize the situation without that." He also wants to put pressure on the Iraqis to step up to self governance by pulling American troops out. Said His Holiness: "I think that increased pressure in a measured way, in my mind, and this is where we disagree, includes a timetable for withdrawal. Nobody is asking for a precipitous withdrawal."

Did someone say, "Neville Chamberlain"? Saint Obama seems to think that if we just sit down with the mullah-tocracy of Iran and send our troops home from Iraq, all will be suddenly right in the world! Doesn't anyone read history anymore? We are talking about Islamo-fascists. Iran has made countless deals with the West. They've gotten concession after concession. And every one of those deals they have violated. So Saint Obama wants to talk some more? Let me know how that one works out!

While Saint Obama is making his pitch for a "diplomatic surge", it seems that Iran has been honoring past agreements about their nuclear program by announcing the completion of 6,000 new centrifuges to make even more fuel for a power program and, more likely, weapons use. This thanks to the outstanding (well, maybe not) efforts of the UN and the European Community, which has been trying to get Iran to stop.

Clearly, Saint Obama is not at all mature enough, nor knowledgeable enough, to take the helm of this great nation. Negotiating with Islamo-fascists is every bit as futile as negotiating with Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich. It's worse than futile. It lets our leaders slap themselves on the back for a job well done, while the real enemy laughs at our naivete and goes about the business of fascists everywhere: total global domination.

Which, by the way, is also the ultimate goal of Islam itself. On this matter, I don't think that the Republicans are much better than the Democrats. It annoys me to no end when President Bush says that the Islamic terrorists have hijacked a "great religion of peace". Even a casual perusal of the Qu'ran will show you how uninformed that is.

That being said, at least the Bush administration has taken this fight back to the enemy in their lands, rather than here in the United States. Whatever their weaknesses, the Republicans, especially the Conservatives, are far and beyond superior to the Democrats and the Left when it comes to national security.

Let's not forget that, until 9/11/2001, we were getting hit by Islamo-fascists at least once every other year. The Clinton years are especially illustrative. The absolute most that the Clintonistas did against al Qaeda was to fire a few cruise missiles. Even then, they tipped them off by warning Pakistan. Worse, they picked the day the priapic Bill Clinton was waiting to see if he had truly suborned Monica Lewinski's perjury before the grand jury. Other than those less than useless pinpricks, he did nothing!

On the other hand, the case can be made, based upon the afore mentioned statistics, that the Bush policies have actually made Americans safer. After all, how many attacks have we experienced since we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq?

Let me count... Oh! We haven't had any! Yet the Democrats still insist that President Bush has made us less safe than we were in the 1990's.

This is why the Left and the Democrats cannot be taken seriously on national security.

They really don't get it!

Copyright April 8th, 2008

HOW CAN YOU TELL WHEN A CLINTON IS LYING?

2008-04-07T21:50:00.008-05:00

Of course, everyone knows the punchline: "When her lips are moving."

Hillary has the very same aversion to honesty as her priapic husband, Bill. The only difference is she just can't pull it off with the aplomb, the elan, of the former Co-conspirator in Chief.

And now, with the Legacy Media all agog with Saint Obama, even the Clintonistas' propaganda organ can't keep a lid on the lies. Let's review, shall we?

Remember the cattle futures?

Back in 1994, the Washington Post reported that, in 1978, Hillary was allowed to make a $12,000 investment in cattle futures, although she had only $1000 in her account. Within ten months, she somehow leveraged that under capitalized "investment" into a $100,000 profit, a 10,000% rate of return. Of course, when questioned about these things, Hillary claimed that she learned how to do that by reading the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ, for its part, questioned this stunning windfall, asking if, perhaps, this was some sort of bribe filtered through the futures market.

The bottom line is, no one who is at all experienced in such financial dealings believes that Hillary benefited from nothing more than good advice and a little luck. There is something rotten there, and although the Legacy Media didn't want to look to deeply into it, the smell lingers on.

Anyone remember when Hillary claimed she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary?

It didn't take long for that whopper to be found out! It turns out that Hillary (the mendacious politician) was born five years before Sir Hillary and Tonzig Norgay climbed Mount Everest. This one still stinks, since snopes.com even references the matter and thoroughly debunks this myth as an utterly false urban legend. Still, the Legacy Media does little promote the truth of this fairy tale. Katie Couric, on CBS News, reported on Sir Edmund's death this past January with fluffy comments about our very own prevaricator, Hillary. No mention in the piece, by the way, of the false story that Hillary started.

Rose Law Firm billing records, anyone?

They were subject to subpoena for two years, in relation to congressional investigations Clintonista scandals, but the Clinton White House denied they had them. Suddenly, the New York Times reported, just twenty four hours after another "miraculous discovery", as Sen. Alphonse Damato (R, NY) quipped, they turned up in the First Lady's book room in the White House residence. Further, when subjected to forensic examination, they were found to have only Hillary's fingerprints all over them. No serious explanation was ever forthcoming, and the matter seemed to disappear. But is does make one wonder...

Oh, and the other "miraculous discovery"? That was an internal White House memo detailing Hillary's involvement in the firing of the White House Travel Office employees (otherwise known as "Travelgate") which Hillary was also denying any knowledge of.

If you are tempted to defend Hillary by saying this was merely the result of being closely identified with her known perjurer, the priapic Bill, let's also recall that she worked for the House Judiciary Committee back in 1974. World Net Daily has the story. Her boss, Jerry Zeifman, no member of the vast right-wing conspiracy, had to ultimately fire her without a letter of recommendation. What Hillary and her partner, Bernard Nussbaum of Clintonista scandal fame, tried to do was to deny President Richard Nixon the right to counsel in the Watergate investigation, on the grounds that there was no precedent, despite the then recent impeachment case of William O. Douglas. So how did Hillary support her arguments? World Net Daily reports: "Zeifman claims Clinton bolstered her fraudulent brief by removing all of the Douglas files from public access and storing them at her office, enabling her to argue as if the case never existed." The article further quotes Mr. Zeifman as saying that Hillary was a "liar" and "an unethical, dishonest lawyer." This from a lifelong Democrat.

We could go on and on with the many versions of Hillary's reality, but let's just skip ahead, shall we? Let's look at some of the more recent adventures in the Land of Hillary.

Hillary was an opponent of the Iraq war before Saint Obama:

Jake Tapper, of ABC News, makes mincemeat of that bit of theater. Even, as Hillary has tried to say, if you only consider the question from the year 2005, when Saint Obama entered the Senate. And if you don't use the Hillary measuring stick (the January, 2005 starting date) she still doesn't explain her vote for the Iraq invasion in the first place. Nor her sometimes pro, sometimes con stances regarding our troops in Iraq.

Hillary knows what it's like to be under fire:

Everyone has heard about this one -- that Hillary and Chelsea landed in Bosnia under heavy sniper fire -- by now, so there is little point in going over the matter in detail. Suffice it to say that even CBS News, purveyor of the phony documents story, couldn't let that one slide. Although, I have to admit that I have questions after viewing Barely Political's revealing video on YouTube. Actually, no, I thought it was a brilliant bit of political satire.

Young woman dies after being denied medical care:

The NowPublic.com web site reports Hillary's anecdote thusly:

Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton shared a touching story while on the campaign trail the last few weeks. If we had health care for everyone, things like this wouldn't happen.

Clinton shared, “I remember listening to a story about a young woman in a small town along the Ohio River, in Meigs County, who worked in a pizza parlor,” “She got pregnant, she started having problems. There’s no hospital left in Meigs County, so she had to go to a neighboring county.”

“She showed up, and the hospital said, ‘You know, you’ve got to give
us one hundred dollars before we can see you.’ She didn’t have a hundred dollars.”

“So the young woman went back home. The next time she went back,
she was in an ambulance. It turned out she lost the baby. She was airlifted to Columbus. And after heroic efforts at the medical center, she died.”

Folks should be angry that this happened in America. Angry about the woman who died? No, The Story, it is inaccurate.

Even the New York Times, long standing Clinton defenders that they are, had to cover this contatempt. It seems that both the hospital and the family of the young lady deny the veracity of the story. The only thing Hillary got right was that the mother and baby both died. But they did have health insurance and they were not denied treatment. But that doesn't stop Hillary from repeating the apocryphal tale on the stump. Hey! Why let facts get in the way of a good speech? Says Hillary, " “It hurts me that in our country, as rich and good of a country as we are, this young woman and her baby died because she couldn’t come up with $100 to see the doctor.”

Again, I could go on and on with these tid bits. But the point of the matter is, how much more mendacity do Americans have to take from the Clintons? Weren't the 1990's bad enough?

And if -- God forbid! -- Hillary wins the election in November, why would anyone in the world believe anything coming from her administration?

Ah, yes! The Clintons! They are a gold mine for folks who write about the political scene. Still, America will be much better off when they finally leave that scene.

Copyright April 7th, 2008

BIG OIL VERSUS BIG GOVERNMENT

2008-04-01T16:54:00.006-05:00

Much to do has been made over the profits of Big Oil -- a phrase that is spoken in a way to highlight the apparent Eeeevilll inherent in the engine of our prosperity and our Liberty.

You see, to Liberals, Big Oil (or Big Medical, Big Pharmaceutical, or Big Food) is, without a doubt, the truly besetting Evil of the Modern World. Ossama bin Ladin and Hugo Chavez may be pesky, but it is the world of Big Business (again spoken in ominous tones) that is truly the threat to Life, Liberty, Truth, and the American Way -- provided you define "American Way" as Liberalism run amok.

This week sees executives of the the largest oil producing corporations being interrogated by people in Congress. These Congressmen, given the current majority of the Democrats, have no real knowledge of business nor of the oil industry.

Ah! But they look at the current oil prices, the fact that, as Rep. Eward Markey (D. Ma) says "With gas prices at $3.29 per gallon, the poorest 20 percent of American households are spending nearly 10 percent of their income just on gasoline.'' He also belabors the record profits of Big Oil and the relative little they invest in "alternative energy sources": "Your companies and the Bush administration must support, not oppose, legislation that will unleash the renewable revolution we need to become energy independent and cut global-warming emissions.''

So what is the reality? Gas prices are very high. Oil profits are correspondingly high. Liberals are calling for a "windfall profits tax" to punish oil companies for being successful. It all sounds good, doesn't it?

Reality check: no business, whether a multinational oil company or a Mom-n-Pop corner grocery, pays taxes. I know, I know! They have to fill out all sorts of tax forms, they have to hire all sorts of tax accountants and attorneys to satisfy the bloodless, demented gods of the IRS bureaucracies, and they have to send in checks, amounting to billions of dollars to the government.

But the fact remains: these businesses aren't paying the taxes at all. You, the consumer of the goods and services provided by these businesses, are paying those taxes.

How can that be? Consider what the price of a product includes: the cost of producing it, the cost of materials, the cost of transportation, the cost of labor, and the cost of the taxes levied upon the business that produced that product.

You can't get around it, folks! If you call for a "windfall profits tax", all you're going to get is even higher prices at the pump.

So, then, why don't we forbid Big Oil from passing along the costs of those higher taxes? This way, we'll cut those profits and we won't have to pay the tax!

Sure, we can do that. But can we force any business to remain open if they don't get as much profit as they'd hope for? What if we confiscate all of Big Oil's profits? Where would we get the oil and fuel for our cars, our homes, our economy?

Fine, you might say. Well what about alternative, renewable resources? Why aren't we demanding that Big Oil do something about that?

Let's see... Big Oil is in the business of selling oil. Let's get Big Oil to fund the research that, if successful (which is highly questionable. See It's the Energy, Stupid!) would remove the very reason Big Oil is in business for in the first place.

I'm sorry, but does that really make sense to anyone who isn't an all-out Marxist?

Like it or not, the energy we need to continue as an economic powerhouse is oil. Of course, we could look to some alternatives, but the ones that make the most sense (wind and nuclear, for instance) are fought tooth and nail by the Left. Nuclear power has been libeled by the Left for decades, to the point that we'll build nuclear plants in North Korea (thanks, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Madeleine Albright!) but no new plants have been built in America since the 1970's.

And don't get me started on Ted "Chappaquiddick" Kennedy and his opposition to wind farms off the coast of Nantucket, where they would make the most sense.

Also, we have the Liberals' steadfast opposition to searching for and acquiring our own oil reserves here in the United States. Unless, of course, we're talking about Occidental Oil, founded by infamous Stalinist and Friend of Al Gore, Armand Hammar. As long as Al Gore still gets his cut of new oil sources and profits that only Occidental can extract on American soil, he'll be free to make sure we all live in a 19th Century lifestyle to prevent Global Warming.

The fact is, we are sitting on untold oil reserves here in the United States. The only reason we need to import foreign oil is the Democratic Party and its ideological masters in the radical environmental movement. As a result, only Occidental can drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. China, in partnership with Cuba and Venezuela, can drill off the coast of Florida, while we can't. And it's been more than three decades since a new refinery has been built in the United States.

And the Democrats, who created these problems in the first place, want to blame Big Oil?

There are two reasons why the price of gasoline and heating oil have risen so high. Neither of them have anything to do with the War in Iraq or Big Oil.

The first reason is simply supply and demand. In the last decade, we suddenly have two extremely populous nations -- India and China -- that are modernizing. They are coming out of their (relatively speaking) primitive stages and are becoming fully industrialized nations, with all the energy demands that inevitably ensue.

Meanwhile, here in the US, we are always demanding more energy, both for transportation and for our infrastructure. This is as it should be, for if we do not expand our energy sources and our consumption, we will descend into squalor.

Or, as Al Gore would prefer to phrase it, we will have achieved a sustainable economy.

In any economic system, increase demand must be met with increased prices. Couple that with the Left's refusal to back sensible alternatives -- wind and nuclear -- or to expand our own domestic supplies of oil, we naturally get hit at the pump.

But then, there's the other reason, the most pernicious reason, for our massively high gasoline prices. We hear daily harangues about Big Oil and their "obscene" profits. But almost no one mentions an organization that reaps far more profit, about twice as much as Big Oil. And this organization drills for no oil, buys and sells no oil, refines no oil. And it makes about twice as much on a gallon of gasoline as Big Oil.

This organization is none other than Big Government. According to The TaxProf Blog we find the following datum:

"[F]ederal and state taxes on gasoline production and imports have been climbing steadily since the late 1970s and now total roughly $58.4 billion. Due in part to substantial hikes in the federal gasoline excise tax in 1983, 1990, and 1993, annual tax revenues have continued to grow. Since 1977, governments
collected more than $1.34 trillion, after adjusting for inflation, in gasoline tax revenues—more than twice the amount of domestic profits earned by major U.S. oil companies during the same period."

Let’s try a little thought experiment. Let’s say you ran a lemon ice stand. But I, whether through legitimate taxation or strong arm tactics (but I repeat myself!) force you to give me twice as much of the money generated by sales than you get to keep in profit. Wouldn’t you be a bit upset? Wouldn’t you be forced to pass that added cost of my larceny onto your customers? Why is this any different than taxing Big Oil at confiscatory rates?

Only Liberal can find a way around these simple facts. And his “solutions” would only make matters far worse than they already are. The demand for oil and energy is at historic levels. Never before have so many people wanted so much energy, which translates into higher prices due to the demand.

But even worse, Big Government (please note the ominous tones as I write those words) – which produces absolutely no oil, which refines absolutely no oil products, which transports absolutely no oil, which sells absolutely no oil, which impedes and prevents the development of domestic oil supplies – extracts twice the “profit” from a gallon of gasoline as all of Big Oil combined!

Friends, regardless of what the Legacy Media and the Democratic Party tell you, Big Oil is not the enemy. They are truly our friends and they are being slandered by our leaders for the sake of political advantage and economic power.

The real enemy, the 500-pound gorilla in the living room, is Big Government!

Copyright April 1st, 2008

LIBERAL VERSUS CONSERVATIVE.

2008-03-31T22:56:00.005-05:00

Recently, my e-mail address was added on to some sort of mailing list for Liberals. Each day, would bring me the latest Leftist screeds. Occasionally, I'd ask these people, who were they and how did they get my e-mail address? But they'd just ignore my queries.

But then, I did something that they could not just let stand. I responded to their harangues and their polemics. None of them actually rebutted my points. No, that would not be playing by the rules of the Angry Left. What I got back were accusations, obscenities, vitriol, invective, and virulent denunciation.

In short, they responded the way a monkey in the zoo would to provocation: they hurled their own feces at me.

One of these Liberals thought to ask me what I thought a Liberal was. I'm sure she was trying to make some point about my ignorance or something, but I took the challenge and made a list of some twenty five points describing a Liberal.

This was promptly followed by a challenge to define a Conservative, with the smug suggestion that I would be unable to do so. Within a few minutes, I fired off twenty five points describing a Conservative.

I now await the monkeys and their hurled feces. Good thing I've got a good rain coat!

At any rate, I'd thought my readers might enjoy a glimpse into the workings of my thoughts. Therefore, listed below, are the twenty-five definitions of a Liberal and of a Conservative, with my thanks to Jeff Foxworthy, since I sort of borrowed his style. Enjoy!

You might be a Liberal if:

You believe that woman's right to choose trumps a baby's right to live.
You believe that the only choice to allow an individual is to kill an unborn child or to choose a sexually deviant lifestyle.
You do not believe in the right to choose to keep and bear arms.
You do not believe in the right for an individual to keep the money he earns without it being confiscated through the tax system and redistributed through the welfare system.
You believe that government is the answer to all mankind's problems, not the source of most of them.
You believe that Marxism has gotten a bad rap.
You believe that the only reason Islamo-fascists hate us is because we support Israel.
You believe that Islam is a "religion of peace" but Christians are murderous cretins.
You believe that Democrats never lose elections, they have them stolen from them.
You believe that the only rational response to someone who disagrees with you is to curse him out, question his motives, or call him a fascist.
You think that limited government equals fascism.
You believe that government should stay out of the bedroom, except to mandate what light bulbs and what toilets we can use.
You believe that there is no difference between an animal and a human being.
You believe that your ideology automatically makes you a better person.
You believe that guns and poverty cause crime, rather than immorality, criminal coddling courts and unarmed citizens.
You believe it is charitable to confiscate property and wealth from those who've earned it and who own it in order to give it to those who have done neither.
You believe that it is morally superior to clone aborted babies for their stem cells rather than to use adult stem cells, even though the only cures discovered thus far came from adult stem cells with no dead babies.
You believe it is more proper to send our troops into places that have no national interests at stake than to actually defend American interests. Oil, by the way is the engine of our prosperity and, therefore, a national interest.
You think that the ideal population of the world should be about 1/5th what it is, and that the rest should die, leaving enlightened Liberals to live as they think they should.
You think that the Pope and Evangelical Christians are more of a threat than the Islamo-fascists who want to bring us back to the 6th or 7th Century through rape murder and intimidation, all with the approval of the Qu'ran.
.
You think that Muslim terrorists are freedom fighters on a par with George Washington, even though they reject every aspect of freedom.
You actually believe that John Kerry was a war hero, and that Ted Kennedy has the moral authority to condemn waterboarding. Here's a little joke for you: What's the difference between John Kerry and Ted Kennedy? Ted Kennedy has a confirmed kill!
You think that No Child Left Behind was a Conservative scam, even though it was largely written by Ted Kennedy.
You think that Bill Clinton was railroaded, but Larry Craig should be hung.
You think that the Constitution really doesn't mean what it says, that we can make it say whatever we (by "we" I mean Liberals) want it to say. This is otherwise known as "The Living Constitution". Try playing a game of Monopoly, for instance, if the rule book is suddenly "living". You won't get very far, would you?

Now then, what does it mean to be a Conservative?

You might be a Conservative if:

You read the Constitution in the plain English it was written in, rather than the legalese preferred by folks like Souter, Breyer, Kennedy, and Ginsberg.
You think that government is far too big and intrusive, and mostly in violation of the Tenth Amendment.
You believe charity is only virtuous when it is with your own money and voluntary, rather than someone else's confiscated through the tax code.
You look at America, recognize its faults and the errors of its ways, and still believe that America is the best damn country to have ever appeared on this good Earth.
You believe that the only proper gun control law is the one that repeals all gun control laws.
You believe that keeping the government out of the bedroom doesn't mean we have to give equal time to deviant sexual behavior.
You believe that health care is a product, not a right, and that the free market is the only way to bring down health care costs.
You look to real scientists (Robert Felix, Roy Spencer and Tim Ball come to mind) for information about climate change, rather than the bitter loser of a very close election who tried to use the courts to steal the White House.
You understand exactly why the Constitution provides for the Electoral College, and you approve.
You know the difference between amending the Constitution and violating it through creative readings by the Supreme Court.
You look at a tax rate (anyone's, at any income level) and think it's just too high.
You understand that bureaucrats serve the same role in society that parasites do in Nature. The suck of the life essence of the host and return nothing -- NOTHING -- of value.
You hear Chuck Schumer talk about his "passion to legislate" and all you hear are your Liberties going down the tubes.
You know that the things Liberals think are torture are only things that many people derive deviant sexual pleasure from, and you don't understand why one is torture and the other is merely a "lifestyle choice".
You believe that an unborn child has more claim to the right to life than a condemned murderer.
You recognize that there is, indeed, a difference between "killing" and "murdering", and that one is immoral and the other is sometimes necessary.
You look at America's meat industry, and marvel that it is able to feed so many millions of people for so little expense.
You know that mankind is just not big enough to impact the Earth in any serious fashion, and, even if we can, we're not doing anything different than any other species that evolved on Earth: change the environment, wipe out some species, make new homes for other newer species.
You know that, if you want to save an endangered species, advertise that it tastes good. (See "America's meat industry")
You truly believe in choice: choice of what light bulb to use, choice of what to eat, where to live, what to drive, how much energy you use, what to own and use to defend yourself, what to do with your own property, where to send your kids to school, what your schools teach your kids, what charities you want to give to, what to listen to on the radio, what to read, etc.
You believe that Freedom also means you have to put up with things you don't like -- Liberals, for instance. Liberals, on the other hand, think that disagreeing with them is hate speech and should be made illegal.
You know that racism is both wrong and stupid, and that's why you oppose affirmative action.
You know that "separation of church and state" really isn't in the Constitution and that the Establishment Clause was meant to protect religion from government, rather than to protect government from religion.
You don't confuse the Boy Scouts with a right wing paramilitary group with tendencies toward fascism.
You can actually have a debate with a Liberal without once cursing him out, questioning his motives, or calling him a fascist.

Well, that's it for tonight, folks! Who knows what tomorrow will bring. As you know, we here at Montag's World pride ourselves at goring more sacred cows than a drunken cab driver in Mumbai!

Copyright March 31st, 2008

WAKE UP CALL!

2008-03-30T22:56:00.007-05:00

This just in from Reuters: Muslims are now more numerous than Roman Catholics. Until 2006, the Roman Catholic faith was the single largest denomination in the world, at about 1.13 billion people. Islam is now estimated to hold the allegiance of 1.3 billion.

This is not to say that Catholicism is losing membership. The article points out that, as a percentage of the world's population, Roman Catholics still account for about 17.4%, as they have for years. What accounts for the difference is a much higher birth rate for Muslims.

Christianity as a whole, still counts for 33% of the population, or about 2 billion people. Islam, however, is growing fast.

All things being equal, this news shouldn't cause too much alarm. We here at Montag's World are all about religious tolerance. Hey, you can believe in anything (or nothing) you want, so long as you don't try to force your beliefs on me or mine.

Which is where the problem with Islam comes in. Tolerance is not exactly one of the virtues of Islam. Nor do the fundamentalists among them have any love for such niceties as "separation of mosque and state", religious freedom, representative government, gay rights, women's rights, or just about anything else we in America take for granted.

In short, all things are not equal. We are looking at a faith whose mindset dates back almost 1,500 years and which is bent upon world domination, or The Global Caliphate.

If you doubt me on these points, then read the works of Mark A. Gabriel. Personally, if I were to take any one's word on the subject of Islam, it would be Prof. Gabriel's. The man was once a scholar of the Qu'ran in Egypt, until he had a crisis of faith involving matters of Jihad and terrorism. When he converted to Christianity, he had to flee Egypt and take his current name, both for his own protection and that of his family back home. He details how the Qu'ran commands the faithful, in no uncertain terms, to "slay the infidel" (that would be you and me, folks!) or make them "submit" (which is the actual translation of the word "Islam") to Islam through either conversion or a tax so steep that it is only just short of death.

Then again, you can read Craig Winn's excellent book, Prophet of Doom, online. Winn insightfully blends four or five different translations of the Qu'ran, the Hadith, and the Sunnah, or the recorded history of Mohammad and his "religion" written by Bukhari, Mulim, Ishaq, and Tabari. These aren't rabid bigots, or "virulent" Zionists casting false accusations against Islam. These are the earliest and the most trusted sources of the faith.

Let's put aside Political Correctness and get honest here. Islam has been at war with the world (indeed, even with Muslims themselves) ever since Mohammad came down from his mountain. As Mr. Winn writes:

Islam is a caustic blend of regurgitated paganism and twisted Bible stories. Muhammad, its lone prophet, conceived his religion solely to satiate his lust for power, sex, and money. He was a terrorist. And if you think these conclusions are shocking, wait until you see the evidence.

The critics of this work will claim that Prophet of Doom is offensive, racist, hatemongering, intolerant, and unnecessarily violent. I agree - but I didn't write those parts. They came directly from Islam's scriptures. If you don't like what Muhammad and Allah said, don't blame me. I'm just the messenger.

That's right, folks! This is the Qu'ran and Islam's oldest, "holiest" writings saying these things.

Being that the Qu'ran calls Jihad the most important work of the faithful (and no, Allah isn't talking about "the spiritual fight of the inner soul", as many apologists speciously claim) it is absolutely reasonable that this heightened birth rate can be construed as "Jihad by other means". In other words, where they can't slay us outright, they merely breed faster than we can. Either way can further Islam and bring about the Global Caliphate.

I don't pretend to know the answer. After all, how can you fight 1.3 billion people? Is the rest of the Western World even aware of the danger that this burgeoning "religion" represent? Will we in America have the stomach to face this peril?

There is one thing, though, that we can -- indeed, we must -- do. We must recognize the truth of the enemy. Saying things like "Islam is the religion of peace", like we were some kind of Miss America contestant, is merely hiding our collective head in the sand. What "religion of peace" kills victims of rape because they dishonored their families? What "religion of peace" stages violent protests against mere cartoons?

Ann Coulter once famously said, "Muslims are the only group who kill because they're angry people have called them violent."

That woman is so right in so many ways!

Copyright March 30th, 2008

WAR IN PERSPECTIVE

2008-03-25T22:06:00.005-05:00

The Legacy Media -- by which, I mean, ABC, NBC, CBS, the NY Times, the Washington Post, etc. -- have been waiting for more than a year for this week's big story. Now they are pounding us over the head with it.

We are told that we have achieved "a grim milestone", according to ABC News. Voice Of America tells us that both Bush and Congress "Respond With Grim Messages to US Military Death Toll In Iraq". MSNBC, meanwhile, tells us that President Bush remains resolute, while Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi frets that “Americans also understand that the cost of the war to our national security, military readiness and our reputation around the world is immense and that the threat to our economy — as the war in Iraq continues to take us deeper into debt — is unacceptable."

All of these "news" stories are told in a way that purposely slants the message to the Left, toward the anti-war, toward the un-American and the unpatriotic. They are told in a way that is designed to make us believe that none of this is worth our time, money or blood. But is that an accurate picture?

Let's try to put things like war and peace into perspective. Let's look at what America represents and what we have done for the world. And let's examine how our Liberal friends denigrate our towering achievements.

First, by way of disclaimer, I am not, nor have I ever been a member of the United States Armed Services. I was just too young to be drafted for Viet Nam. When I was young and irresponsible, I led a young and irresponsible life. With the coming of the Gulf War I was too old to serve.

However, despite claims to the contrary from the Left, I am capable of forming an opinion on the matter and I see no reason not to share it with you, the reader. After all, most folks have no experience with being a murderer, yet they have opinions on the subject of murder. Half of all people will probably not get pregnant, but they have opinions on abortion. Most folks don't take drugs, but they have opinions about drug laws. Therefore, I will offer my opinions on war and peace.

No one who is sane actually wants a war. Wars should only be fought when our American interests are involved, either directly or through threats. At the same time, America cannot afford to back down from a fight, especially in these times of Islamo-fascism and international terrorism.

We will not debate here the justification for going to war in Iraq. I know the old shibboleth "Bush Lied People Died", and the constant refrain "So Where's the WMD's?" I won't belabor the point made by the 9/11 Commission Report's twenty three paragraphs detailing Iraq's cooperation with al Qaeda. Nor will we look at Kenneth Timmerman's excellent investigative reporting about Iraq's WMD's in his book, Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender . Nor will we consider George Sada, whose book, Saddam's Secrets: How an Iraqi General Defied & Survived Saddam detailed how Saddam hid those WMD's, with the help of Russia and Syria.

No, what we will look at is the Iraq War in the context of past American wars. The principal question asked will be "Why is the Iraq War death toll considered so important?"

It's easy enough to search the Internet and find out just how many Americans died in past wars. Wikipedia alone has a detailed accounting, from the Founding to today:

The Revolutionary War: ~25,ooo
The War of 1812: ~20,000
World War I: 116,615
World War II: 405,399

But the number that really jumps out a grabs you is that for the Civil War. That war, which only lasted four years, killed approximately 625,000 Americans. This is a stunning death toll, especially considering that the Union, which ultimately won that war, lost far more than the Confederacy.

Contrast that, if you will, with the Iraq War. We had just past the five-year mark of hostilities in Iraq and we have just reached the death toll of 4,000. How can anyone be other than thankful that our death toll is so low?

To be sure, no one wants dead American soldiers. The fact that the death toll is so low should not be used to minimize the sacrifice of those fallen soldiers. What we need to remember though, is that we are winning a war while keeping the risk to our soldiers at an absolute minimum.

Meanwhile, our friends on the Left are bemoaning the high number of wounded in Iraq. This sounds suspiciously like the new reports about air bags in cars, reducing the death rate from accidents, but increasing the injury rate. Obviously, given advances in modern medical treatments and advances in rapid transportation of the wounded, the ratio between the dead and the wounded will be much different than in past wars.

Let us also remember that this time around, as opposed to almost every war in our past, our military is completely volunteer. These men and women, on their own accord and with full knowledge of what they are getting into, put themselves in harms way. They do this for America, for American interests, and also for the betterment of their fellow Man, regardless of his nationality.

For despite the official reasons given for going into Iraq, there is also an ancillary benefit that has appeared. Iraq, and also Afghanistan, have, for the first time in their long and bloody history, elected governments. As a result of President George W. Bush and his efforts to defend our nation, and especially thanks to our brave men and women in our Armed Services, fully 55 million people actually had a say in their governance. And those people went to the polls to participate in spite of the threats from the Islamo-fascists that made the invasion of their nations so necessary.

The American Left may belittle these brave warriors. They may try to claim that they were stupid, or they were duped. They may try to make the case that they were so poor that they had no choice. The Left may claim that President Bush got us into the wars under false pretenses or, even worse, staged the attacks on 9/11 to justify the invasions.

These lies, however, will never besmirch the honor of the American soldier and his commitment to Liberty, both here in America and abroad.

So, although one death in combat may be too many, in the context of what America represents to the world -- Liberty -- 4,000 war dead really isn't that much, considering that not only America remains free, but that 55 million other human beings now have a chance for that very same precious, God-given commodity.

We, here at Montag's World, are proud to be Americans!

Copyright March 25th, 2008

CHAOS IN LIBERAL LA LA LAND

2008-03-21T22:31:00.008-05:00

You know, it's almost too good to be true! The more the Left looks silly, the sillier they get. I couldn't make this stuff up on my best days!

What I am talking about is the pure chaos that has befallen the Democratic Party. They are in complete disarray and they are beginning to eat their own.

First off, Hillary Clinton didn't get the coronation that the "smart" money said was hers. Her running in the primary was a mere formality back in the Fall. But along came Saint Obama and his message of hope and change. It didn't matter that there's not a dime's worth of difference between the two, policy-wise. Obama was the Rorschach candidate, a tabula rosa upon which the Liberal elites could pin their hopes and dreams.

That Saint Obama was a phenomenal public speaker and had little track record to be torn apart by his competitors only fed the mystique. Compared to the trailer trash aura of the Clintonistas, the scandal upon scandal, Obama was a breath of fresh air.

Of course, Hillary won't let some upstart get in her way on the road to the White House. Dirty tricks are bread and butter to the Clintonistas, which is yet another reason why her welcome in the Democratic Party has worn a bit thin. Look to Hillary trying to bully the DNC into seating the delegates from Florida and Michigan, despite the fact that she agreed to cutting the two states out of the primaries as punishment for voting too early. And who knows what she'll do to get the super delegates to vote for her?

Dirty tricks aside, look at the conundrum the Liberal voter must face: "Am I a sexist if I vote for the man, or am I a racist if I vote for the white woman?" What's a Liberal to do? Either way, he's open to charges of bigotry of one stripe or another.

Speaking of bigotry, there is still more fallout from the affair of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. First, Geraldine Ferraro (who's questionable comment was, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.") is now taking umbrage to being lumped in with the good Reverend as a racist. Never mind that what she said could very easily be construed as racist to begin with!

Saint Obama, not knowing when to leave well enough alone, went on the talk radio circuit to elaborate on his big race speech. Said the Saintly One:

"The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical white person, who, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know, you know, there's a reaction that's been bred in our experiences that don't go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way, and that's just the nature of race in our society."

Just asking, but how far would I get if I called Obama a "typical" black person? Wouldn't I be considered racist? To be fair, an Obama spokesman parsed the Senator's words, saying that he meant to say "a person of her generation.".

Yet, what he really said was that white folks are afraid of blacks, think they are criminals and that they're dangerous. Regardless of what Saint Obama meant to say, what he actually said was an invidious stereotype of white people.

In short, what he said was racist.

But, it seems, that Hillary has a bit of a Rev. Wright problem herself! The New York Times, in their Caucus blog, published a photo of Rev. Wright shaking hands with the priapic Bill Clinton in 1998. The photo was provided to the Times reporters by none other than the Obama campaign.

And what was Rev. Wright doing with old Priapic Bill? Why it was none other than the prayer breakfast he held on the cusp of Ken Starr's reporting on his investigations. Yup! The Horn Dog in Chief met with the Racist Reverend to atone for Monica Lewinski!

Meanwhile, Hillary's lackey, Bill Richardson, who performed so admirably as her screen during the early days of the primaries, has jumped ship and endorsed Saint Obama. Richardson, who polls extremely well among Hispanics, being an Hispanic himself, probably didn't get enough goodies promised from the Clintonistas. So he's taking his ball (and a good chunk of the Hispanic vote that Hillary really needs right about now) and ran to the Saintly One, saying, "Este es un hombre que nos entiende y que nos va a respetar!" (This is a man who understands us and who will respect us!)

I told you I couldn't make this stuff up!

If this sort of thing keeps up, I might have to reassess my predictions for the November elections. While Hillary and Saint Obama keep hammering at each other, spending money better spent on the actual elections rather than the primaries, John McCain looks more and more like the grown up!

Here's another cloud on the horizon of the Leftist La La Land: the Franklin and Marsh College Poll reports that one in five Democrat voters will vote for John McCain if their candidate doesn't get the nomination. That is a significant, if not fatal, weakness in the base, don't you think?

Personally, I'm having more fun this election cycle than anyone should be allowed! Despite their arrogant confidence that the nation has turned Left, the Democrats just can't seem to get their act together.

But will John McCain take advantage of this chaos? So far, it seems not. As written here at Montag's World, in McCain on the Warpath, he disavowed the help and endorsement of Conservative talk host, Billy Cunningham, for his use of Saint Obama's middle name. Then, he fired a campaign aid who e-mailed a link to a video that made Obama seem un-American, when juxtaposed with the sermons of Rev. Wright.

Hey! John! Wake up! This is a presidential campaign, not a student body election! If you can't play rough, then get out of the sandbox!

With the Chaos In Liberal La La Land, this could be John McCain's election to lose. Let's just see if he gets on the ball.

Copyright March 21st, 2008

THE AUDACITY OF ROPE-A-DOPE

2008-03-19T21:27:00.006-05:00

Saint Obama made his "big speech" about race in America, yesterday, entitled A More Perfect Union. As he usually does, he made a wonderful speech. There are few better public speakers than Barak Obama. And, on the surface at least, he seemed to "transcend" the racial divide in America, while trying to put paid to the hateful rhetoric of his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

That was the style, anyway. But what about the substance? Yes, let's look at the substance of his wonderful speech.

He starts out, pretty accurately, looking at our Founding, and how slavery was one issue that was deferred for "at least twenty years". That much was true.

Unfortunately, he left out the genius of the Founding Fathers and how they minimalized the power of the slave states with the infamous "three-fifths rule", wherein blacks in the slave states, who were already forbidden to vote, would count as three-fifths of a vote when apportioning seats in the House of Representatives. No, the Founding Fathers didn't actually believe that blacks were less than whites. But the Southern states, the slave states, were left with fewer votes in the House, thereby hastening the eventual abolition of slavery in the newly minted United States.

Still, Obama was quite accurate when he described America as a nation that seeks "a more perfect union", that seeks always to improve itself. It's just his ideas of improvement and perfection that I find problematic.

After this brief, if not misleading, history, we are regaled with Obama's personal history. This is the sort of story that proves the lie of the Modern Civil Rights Industry, Inc. With all the strikes against him (bi-racial parents, single mother, raised by his grandparents, etc.) there should be no possibility of him reaching for the White House. That is, if we were to believe the various Professional Victims of the MCRI, Inc.

Yet, here is Obama. He's at, or very nearly so, the pinnacle of American politics. He's highly educated, he's rather wealthy, despite his sweetheart deals with Tony Rezco. His wife sits on some very powerful corporate boards, which she advises her listeners not to aspire to.

I still believe that Obama will win the election in November against John McCain, provided Hillary doesn't steal the nomination. But should he lose, it will not be racism. It will be the rejection of his Liberal agenda.

At this point in the speech, Saint Obama seems to make a few oblique references to the vile and hateful teachings of his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright:

...we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary
language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial
divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our
nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views?
Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors,
priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

Fine enough. But I don't recall any sermons from my church experience that accused America of inventing AIDS, or wantonly incinerating thousands, or purposely selling drugs to imprison minorities.

Obama goes on to cite the good that Rev. Wright has done:

The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me
to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one
another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his
country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest
universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a
church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing
the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and
scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from
HIV/AIDS.

Forgive me, but isn't this a little like saying Hitler wasn't all that bad? After all, look at the Volkswagen or the fact that the trains ran on time. Louis Farrakhan told his followers to get educated, take care of the children you father, and follow Islam. That didn't change the fact that he was a bigot, and anti-Semite, and un-American. What we have here is the minimization of Rev. Wright's horrible beliefs, with the over exaggeration of his virtues.

Obama, though, stays loyal to his pastor, but less so to his grandmother:

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

There goes grandma, right under the bus. Grandma, you see, was also a racist. Basically, she is racist because she said the same things about passing black men that Jesse Jackson so famously once said. What's worse, he took the private comments by an old woman (who, God help her, is alive to see her grandson publicly humiliate her) and equated them with, as James Taranto observed, was a "systematized black liberation theology." Simply put, the man is shameless.

Charliein wrote to Montag's World, that "...he can't disown his blood relative, but he never had to embrace his pastor by naming him to his campaign." Truer words have never been uttered.

Suddenly, Obama goes off the rails entirely, trying to "me-too" the debate:

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most
working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been
particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

Uhh... where to begin on this one? First, the Reagan Coalition was forged from more than affirmative action and Political Correctness, although they were a part. Let's not forget the near despair Americans viewed their nation after Nixon and Carter, after the idiocy of the welfare state, the crushing taxation and over-regulation that it entailed. Of course, were Saint Obama to actually mention any of those things, he would have to find some other way to sell his social utopian visions for America's future.

Which, he is quick to add, are just what we Americans need to overcome the "divisiveness" (he used this word a lot in this speech) of racial issues today.

So, in a nut shell:

Rev. Wright's speech is a result of past racism in America, an expression of black bitterness.
White antipathy to Liberal solutions (affirmative action, welfare, bussing, etc.) are the result of their misunderstanding of the real issues.
Both blacks and whites need to cool their rhetoric while voting for Saint Obama who is going to bring "change" by supporting the same old policies that caused all that white angst.
Grandma just has to understand the "bigger picture" and not be upset that her grandson just humiliated her on national television.

Yup! This is what Saint Obama is all about. This is the Audacity of Rope-a-Dope. Disavow vaguely "controversial" comments, tear grandma a new one, blame white America, change the subject.

And, of course, offer himself, messiah-like, as the solution.

Are you buying any of this?

Copyright March 19th, 2008

DUELING ENDORSEMENTS

2008-03-18T21:56:00.006-05:00

So, Anonymous wrote, asking what I thought about John Hagee and Tim LaHaye, considering their endorsements of John McCain and their sometimes controversial views. Apparently, he was trying to make some sort of equivalence between them and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

OK, Anonymous, here are my thoughts.

Both Rev. Hagee and Dr. LaHaye have made many comments regarding the Catholic Church. It is these that we shall examine first, keeping in mind that I, myself, am a Roman Catholic.

Christianity, as a whole, has never been a monolithic whole. From the very beginning, there were divisions and schisms. The earliest was between the followers of the Apostle John and the followers of the Apostle Paul, regarding the necessity of first becoming Jewish in order to become a Christian. This schism was ultimately settled by the Roman Empire in 70AD with the sacking of Jerusalem and the Diaspora, leaving only the followers of St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, to carry the Gospels to the rest of the world.

That being said, there has long been a simmering tension between Roman Catholics and the Protestant Reformists. Among many of the bones of contention was the selling and awarding of indulgences, certified notes and trinkets that bestowed absolution, regardless of confession or the forgiveness of the Church.

The Protestant Reformists have long denied the powers of the Pope, and have rejected many of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. To their minds, the Reformists were returning the Faith back to the roots of the Gospels. As such, the Roman Catholics were apostates, having deviated from the Truths taught by Jesus in the Gospels.

The Rev.'s Hagee and LaHaye are merely products of the long-standing traditions of fundamentalist Protestant teachings. Of course they would consider the Roman Catholic Church apostate, or, in the words of Rev. Hagee, "The Great Whore". This is nothing new, at these sort of ideas have been around a lot longer than the United States.

Personally, it is my belief that, at the time of the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church was in the wrong. It was using absolution as a fund raising tool. It was also virulently anti-Semitic, which is yet another criticism leveled by Rev. Hagee. But that was then. Nowadays, the Catholic Church is trying, at least, to rid itself of that old baggage, to varying degrees of success. That some in the other Christian schisms aren't ready yet to let those bygones be bygones is hardly surprising and is a measure of how far all Christians have to go.

But this is far removed from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his slanderous and racist accusations leveled at America, whites, and Christians. Whereas, Hagee and LaHaye are rooted in historical theological thought, Wright spews hate and bile for the country that made his ministry possible. Worse, he has to lie about America. Hagee and LaHaye are merely on a different point of view from the Roman Catholic Church.

Rev. Hagee is also tagged with his devotion to the State of Israel. Of course, to the Left, Israel represents all that is wrong with the Mideast and with American policy in the region. What do you think Liberals mean when they complain about "neo-cons"? The word is nothing short of code speak for "Jew". They look to Israel as the only reason for bloodshed in the Mideast. In any fight between Israel and the Arab world, you can count on the Left siding with the Arabs. Anybody recall Jimmy Carter?

But what really gets the Left all in a twist is Rev. Hagee's comparison of Islam with Christianity. The sermon wherein he makes this examination can be viewed on YouTube. He uses quotes from both the Bible and the Qu'ran to make his points. And, I have to admit, he's absolutely correct in saying that Islam is a false religion.

Am I going too far? Well, consider the writings of Dr. Mark A. Gabriel. Here is a man who was raised in Egypt as a devote Muslim, becoming a scholar of Qu'rannic studies. But when he had a crisis of faith and embraced Christianity, he was forced to flee his native land, lest his father carry out the dictates of the Qu'ran and kill him. If anyone would know about Islam and Christianity, it would be him.

Dr. Gabriel (this isn't his real name, which he has to keep secret to prevent retribution aimed at his family still in Egypt) definitely supports Rev. Hagee's arguments. Just wander the Internet, and you can find myriad other scholars who have come to the very same conclusion. There is a definite difference between bigotry and actual study of a religion's beliefs and scriptures. Having read the Qu'ran, I am forced to acknowledge that Rev. Hagee is doing nothing but reporting the truth about Islam, regardless of what you might think of Christianity or his particular brand of Christianity.

But, even if Hagee and LaHaye were every bit the bigots that the Left claims them to be, the problem of their endorsement of John McCain is miniscule. After all, McCain was never a member of their congregations, nor had he a twenty year association with them. Nor has McCain used any of their sermons as a springboard for a book.

Saint Obama, on the other hand, does have that and more on the record. Rev. Wright was Obama's pastor. He married the Obama's and baptized their children. The title of one of his books, The Audacity of Hope, was lifted directly from one of Wright's sermons. Indeed, Obama prayed with Wright on the eve of his announcement of his candidacy. And it was only this week that Rev. Wright stepped down from his role in the Obama campaign.

As near as I can tell, John McCain has absolutely none of this baggage regarding Hagee and LaHaye, other than the endorsements.

Tomorrow, we'll look at Saint Obama's big race speech, and the Audacity of Rope-a-dope.

Copyright March 18th, 2008

LOOKS LIKE HIS HALO IS SLIPPING!

2008-03-14T21:18:00.009-05:00

When one is bestowed with mythical, near messianic, status, one had better make sure he's got all his ducks in a row. Such is the case for Barak Hussein Obama, the new Saint of our age.

Since his speech in the 2004 Democratic National Convention, he has garnered a reputation with his fine oratorical skills, his mouthing of pious platitudes, and his squeaky clean good looks. Just Google the words Obama messiah. You'll come up with 274,000 hits. We are told daily how he will unite our fractured nation, how he will transcend race and political party, how he will restore hope to our troubled masses.

Then, reality strikes. We start examining his proposals (just the same old neo-socialist Liberal agenda, hidden beneath the flowery rhetoric of "hope" and "change") and we start to learn about the folks around him, the folks who have shaped and molded his philosophies, and with whom he seems to agree.

Previously, in It's An Obama-nation! we examined such luminaries of Saint Obama's life as Frank Marshall Davis, Abongo "Roy" Obama, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, and his pastor and spiritual advisor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I think it's incumbent on us to look a little closer at these and other characters.

Bill Ayers serves on the board of the Woods Fund, as did Saint Obama. This charitable foundation, as you'd probably imagine, tends to donate to Left of Center causes. During Saint Obama's tenure with the foundation, funding was granted to an organization called the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN.

Fox Business.com, sourcing the story to Aaron Kline, reports thusly:

The board of a nonprofit organization on which Sen. Barack Obama served as
a paid director alongside a confessed domestic terrorist granted funding to a
controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a
"catastrophe" and supports intense immigration reform, including providing
drivers licenses and education to illegal aliens, according to Aaron Klein,
Middle East correspondent for WND.com.

The co-founder of the Arab group in question, Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, also has held a fundraiser for Obama. Khalidi is a harsh critic of Israel, has made statements supportive of Palestinian terror and reportedly has worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was involved in anti-Western
terrorism and was labeled by the State Department as a terror group.

OK, then! Not only did Saint Obama serve on a board with a confessed terrorist bomber, he arranged for funding for Prof. Rashid Khalidi, who supports and has worked with terrorists. And he even accepted donations raised by this unapologetic anti-semitic Islamist!

No matter how you cut it, this is more than guilt by association, as many on the Left have been trying to claim. It is apparent, from the exchanges of funding, that both Prof. Khalidi and Saint Obama are at least reading from the same chapter, if not the same page.

And they have a history that goes back some years besides. Khalidi, before being bestowed the Edward Said Chair of Arab Studies at Columbia University, taught at the University of Chicago, where he met Saint Obama. We are not talking here about casual acquaintances.

It took long enough, but at long last, the Legacy Media has caught up to the story of Saint Obama's spiritual leader, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Only now, four years after Saint Obama became a household name, do we learn that the Rev. Wright said this, the Sunday following 9/11:

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki and we nuked far more than the
thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have
supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and the black South Africans,
and now we are indignant. Because the stuff we have done overseas has now been
brought back into our own front yard. America's chickens are coming home to
roost."

Now I know many on the Left actually believe this bilge, but I sincerely doubt that most Americans do. To say such nonsense about America, the single most important force for good in the world, is, to my mind, unconscionable. Worse, he has damned America in God's name, as can be seen in this video clip.

Finally, Saint Obama has decided to disavow the racist, anti-semitic, and anti-American preachings of Rev. Wright:

"Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the
statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically
denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us
from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.

"Let me repeat what I've said earlier. All of the statements that have been the subject of controversy are ones that I vehemently condemn. They in no way reflect my attitudes and directly contradict my profound love for this country."

Well that's just wonderful! But Saint Obama had been a member of the Rev. Wright's congregation for twenty years. Yet he makes the ludicrous claim that he had only become aware of his despicable preachings last year:

"I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments," Obama
said. "But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because
of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife
and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to
leave the church."

Well, that's wonderful! But what did Saint Obama really have to say about his pastor? Something to the effect that he was like a beloved, albeit eccentric, uncle who was prone, now and then, to spouting out things that were a bit outrageous.

Outrageous? A bit? Geez! I'd hate to see the Rev. Wright on a really bad day!

Thanks to the New Media (talk radio and the Internet) these things have been
brought to the fore of our national awareness. Otherwise, we'd only find out
years later, when the damage is already done.

Hopefully, the Legacy Media will get its collective butt in gear and start asking some real questions of the presidential candidates. The electorate deserves to know just who is in each candidate's Rolodex.

Hopefully, too, enough Americans will pay attention to those Men Behind the Curtain.

Copyright March 14th, 2008

SALVADOR DALI, PLEASE CALL YOUR OFFICE!

2008-03-12T21:28:00.001-05:00

There's an old joke: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? A fish.

Whenever you think that politics has gotten as weird as it can possibly be, things just get weirder. The Democratic Party and its sycophants are a perfect case in point.

For starters, consider how Democrats and Leftists in general immediately head for the grassy knoll whenever things don't go the way they wanted:

Al Gore's loss in 2000: Well, even though it was Gore's attorneys who started all the litigation and even though the Supreme Court came to the right decision (albeit with the wrong Constitutional citations) The GOP just had to have stolen the election. After all, it's impossible for a Democrat to lose!

The folks who think that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job, or otherwise somehow staged by the government are almost all Liberal. They are also the kooks who think there was someone on a certain grassy knoll 45 years ago.

They think that the elections of 2004 were stolen from them as well, citing irregularities in Ohio. Of course, we are not to consider how dead people become Democrats immediately upon assuming room temperature, especially in Chicago

That's right, folks! There's a conspiracy out there for everything. Everything, that is, except the occasional Democratic electoral victory. Doesn't it seem odd that the Democrats, who had majorities at the federal and local levels for decades before 1994, never got around to setting up the nefarious networks the Republicans managed in only six years? Please! Don't try telling me it's because the Democrats are better people, 'cos dat dog don't hunt!

Now we have a new conspiracy out there. It seems that, despite his rather disgusting appetites, former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer was targeted for political assassination by the Bush Administration. That, at least, seems to be the implicit, if not explicit, gist of Scott Horton's piece in Harper's Magazine:

So here are the rather amazing facts that surface in the Spitzer case:
(1) The prosecutors handling the case came from the Public Integrity Section.
(2) The prosecution is opened under the White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910. You read
that correctly. The statute itself is highly disreputable, and most of the high-profile cases brought under it were politically motivated and grossly abusive. Here are a few... [I'll leave out the history lesson.]
(3) The resources dedicated to the case in terms of prosecutors and
investigators are extraordinary.
(4) How the investigation got started. The Justice Department has yet to give a full account of why they were looking into Spitzer’s payments, and indeed the suggestion in the ABC account is that it didn’t have anything to do with a prostitution ring. The suggestion that this was driven by an IRS inquiry and involved a bank might heighten, rather than allay, concerns of a politically motivated prosecution.

Well then! It's obvious! I'm sorry, I just can't take these conspiracy theorists seriously. What Scott Harper is trying to do is defend the indefensible by casting doubt on the motives of the investigators. What he is leaving out is that pesky little fact that Elliot Spitzer has been patronizing the oldest profession for a decade, spending to the tune of $80,000, and concealing his activities from the New York voters, all the while crusading against, among other nefarious no-good-niks, prostitution rings.

What ever the motivations of the investigators, the fact remains that Elliot Spitzer was caught red handed by the very same laws he used to prosecute Wall Street executives and high class pimps.

By that same logic, wouldn't it be fair to ask Client Number Nine what his motivations were when he prosecuted those Wall Street firms? Or when he threatened them with prosecution? Wouldn't it be fair to ask if he had any financial incentive? Oh, I don't mean personally! I mean, the revenue generated by the state government would be quite a feather in the cap for the up and coming politician, wouldn't it?

Meanwhile, back in the fever swamps, we have Geraldine Ferraro making news again. This morning, she tendered her resignation to the Hillary campaign, saying, "The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you." Of course, she is denying that she had anything as gauche or racist as we little people might think. She was actually paying Saint Barak Obama a compliment!

I'll let you decide what this comment is supposed to mean:

"I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very
secondary place to Obama's campaign - to a kind of campaign that it would be
hard for anyone to run against. For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It's been a very sexist media. Some just don't like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

Now, from my understanding of basic English, she was clearly saying that only Hillary can be a white woman who can be nominated, and that Obama is only getting attention because he was a black man. After all, the only possible reason anyone could dislike Hillary is because she is a woman. This is demeaning to all voters, since it assumes their inate misogyny and racism.

On Good Morning America, Ms. Ferraro made an impassioned defense of her comments, telling Diane Sawyer to "Hold it for a minute..." repeatedly as she rudely overran the interview. You can see a video of the encounter here.

And what was Ms. Ferraro trying to say? ABC News reports: "Ferraro said she was saying that "the black community came out with ... pride in [Obama's] candidacy. You would think he would say 'thank you' for doing that. Instead, I'm charged with being a racist."

There is no truth to the rumor that Saint Obama replied, "Uh... Thanks!... uh, I think."

This, of course, is just par for the course with Liberals and Democrats. They aren't guilty of anything they might do. It is those Evil Republicans, who can't help but trip over the Left's intranigence, that are to blame for even noticing their peccadilloes. Remember Hillary's "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy"? That's another one for the books!

At any rate, that's enough slogging through the Liberal Fever Swamps. I think I'll take a long, hot shower, disinfect my keyboard, and start a course of antibiotics.

I sure hope I don't catch whatever the Kook Fringe has!

Copyright March 12th, 2008

LOOKS LIKE WE NEED A NEW SHERRIFF!

2008-03-11T22:16:00.004-05:00

As this is written, it appears that New York Governor Elliot Spitzer, long famed as "The Sherriff of Wall Street", is preparing to resign from his office. Although there are many, including Gov. Spitzer himself, who are trying to portray this scandal as "a private matter", the fact remains that he has abused the public's trust and must resign immediately.

Of course, just like the good Democrat he is, he is trying to cut whatever deal he can to avoid any real penalty for his misdeed. Hopefully, Republicans in New York won't allow him to stay in office, the way the Senate Republicans did with the priapic Bill Clinton.

Let's examine briefly the life and times of one Elliot Spitzer. Fred Dickers column in the New York Post, Bully Gets His Comeuppance, is most illuminating:

A disgraced Gov. Spitzer has been publicly and privately described for more than a year by New York's top political figures as a ruth less, sanctimonious, amoral man whose righteous public persona was regularly contradicted by the realities of how he
conducted his political life.

We are talking about a man who was raised in the tony environs of wealthy suburbs and Ivy League schools, who preposterously claimed to have been raised in the Bronx. He affected an accent and used Brobdingnagian words to burnish his image. Yet his thuggish behavior, as a district attorney, as state attorney general, and as governor was legend.

Although he was caught red handed, in 1994, violating election laws with improper loans from his wealthy father, he eventually went on to being elected New York State Attorney General. The press was oddly silent about his past campaign misdeeds, even letting his repeated lies about the matter stand. He was helped along by his opponent, Dennis Vacco, who had foolishly rejected the endorsement of the Right to Life Party, thereby denying himself thousands of votes and ensuring Spitzer's win in 1998.

Spitzer then went on something of a rampage, prosecuting or threatening prosecution of various Wall Street firms, which may have endeared him to the Liberal elites by raising millions in fines and penalties, but did little to help New York's problematic job market, since firms simply up and left the state for more congenial climes.

And it wasn't just Wall Street executives who were threatened. Sean Hannity has a recording of then Attorney General Spitzer, threatening to use his office to destroy the talk show host for some rough questioning he'd endured on Hannity's national radio program. Can you say "abuse of office"? Sure you can!

From the very first, Gov. Spitzer has been in trouble. Right from the start, he tried using state troopers and the State IRS to discredit state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. When word of these abuses of power went public, Spitzer pulled a Nixon, throwing his lead Dirty Trickster, Darren Dopp, under the bus in an effort to deflect the dubious operation away from himself. The spurious nature of these attacks was underscored by the finding of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, ostensibly a "friend" of Spitzer, that exonerated the Senator. Afterwards, Sen. Bruno had this to say:

"There's something wrong with Spitzer, something wrong in his head. He's a
liar, he's a hypocrite and he cannot ever been trusted,"

It's, to be sure, a delicious irony, that Spitzer's Dirty Tricks squad was trying to pin Bruno to the misuse of the very same state-owned aircraft that the Governor most likely used in his trysts with call girls over the past ten years.

Yes, as a district attorney and as Attorney General, Elliot Spitzer styled himself as a sort of White Knight, defeating Wall Street "crooks" (although John Whitehead's op ed piece in the Wall Street Journal raised some doubts) and escort services alike. And guess what? He was tripped up by the very same laws that he used against his targets of prosecution.

The AP's Samantha Gross and Devlin Barrett describe how Spitzer's illicit activities came to the attention of federal investigators. Banks, it seems, are required by law to report any activities that appear to attempts to conceal (or "smurf" as it is termed) transactions that might be violations of the law. Spitzer's hurried effort to get his hands on $4,000 in cash, coupled with previous instances of similar behavior, set off red flags to investigators.

Spitzer's phones were then tapped and his perfidy was uncovered. It turns out that he'd probably spent upwards of $80,000 on sex with prostitutes, according to the New York Post.

Now, also according to The Post, it seems that he "is likely" to resign tomorrow, depending on if he can get a deal that avoids his prosecution. Of course, earlier in the day, his aides suggested that he'd like to finish off the remaining three years of his term. But GOP legislators gave him a deadline: resign immediately or impeachment begins in forty eight hours.

Now this all may seem to be a local New York State matter, but it can have repercussions on the presidential race. After all, Elliot Spitzer, so long as he's governor, is one of those Democratic Party superdelegates we've been hearing so much about. In fact, he's already pledged to one of the two candidates: Hillary Clinton, the wife of well known philanderer, the priapic Peroni Bill.

God! Don't you just love the irony? What's Hillary to do? Stand by yet another man?

Just a couple of last thoughts on the matter. Is it just me, or is there something really creepy about Democrats who get caught in sex scandals who trot their wives out for the press conference? Jim McGreevy in New Jersey, now Elliot Spitzer. What is most frightening about these spousal appearances is that they seem, well... drugged... for lack of a better word. It's not bad enough that their husbands are cheating (McGreevy with another man, for Pete's sake!) but that the humiliation has to be so public. No wonder they appear over medicated. Either it's the shock alone, or the shock that made the medication so very necessary.

But what goes on in the minds of these women? Why would they even think of appearing in public with these pigs when the news gets out? And how is it that they are the last to hear about these troubles?

My most profound sympathies go to Spitzer's children. These are the real victims of his calumny. The pain they must be going through is unthinkable. And the humiliation to come will be even worse. For that alone, Spitzer should resign.

Elliot Spitzer has finally met his judgement, whether he resigns or not. He has finally been brought down, which given his sordid and vicious career, is only right.

See, Liberals? There really is a God!

Copyright March 11tn, 2008

PC THOUGHT CONTROL

2008-03-09T20:53:00.008-05:00

Many of our friends on the Left decry the alleged Conservative takeover of the United States. These are the same folks who claim that every Democratic electoral loss was actually stolen by the GOP, that President Bush actually blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, that our efforts to fight the War on Terror are rounding up Liberals wholesale and having them waterboarded. To listen to these delusional folks, you'd think it was Adolph Hitler himself who is running this country.

Actually, many of them make that claim, calling the President "Chimpy W. Bush-itler" and other such nonsense. They really believe that the government is run by the corporations, while simultaneously advocating for more and more government control over our lives. And they see no contradictions in these mutually exclusive views. It's quite stunning, don't you think?

But what is the truth? Who is it that is really trying to reign in our Liberties? Let's look at five different examples. Let's see who it is that is really declaring war on Freedom.

THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE:

In 1949, the Federal Communications Commission issued guidelines to the holders of broadcast licenses. While there was no outright ban on controversial speech, the license holders had to balance each opinion aired on their stations. The logic for such controls was that there were only a limited few broadcast wavelengths available with the technology of the time, hence there were only a few choices available to the news/information consumer. Therefore, some effort had to be made to make even unpopular viewpoints available.

This policy was in effect until 1985. The Supreme Court had previously ruled, in the 1969 Red Lion Broadcasting Co, Inc. v. The FCC, that the Fairness Doctrine was a necessary regulation, but many journalists became troubled by the apparent violation of their First Amendment rights to free speech and a free press. Many were concerned that a "forced fairness" by the FCC was the exact antithesis of free speech. What happened was, instead of trying to find "contrasting viewpoints" to make a story "fair", journalists simply avoided covering any issue that was controversial. In other words, all discussion of controversial issues was ended. While this can, perhaps, be contrued as "fair", it certainly doesn't amount to informative broadcasting.

By the early 1980's, things began to change dramatically. First of all, the scarcity argument (there are only a very few frequencies available, therefore we have to enforce "fairness") became moot with the proliferation of cable television, more and more radio stations, and the gradual rise of the Internet, although the Internet didn't become truly influential until the 1990's. The second major change was political. The nation as a whole had been moving away from the idea of government as a regulatory body. The 1980's was the Age of Deregulation.

The FCC, in a 1985 document entitled The Fairness Report, found that the Doctrine "chilled" debate of controversial issues, rather than made the discussion more balanced. The Supreme Court in 1987 revisited the matter in Merideth Corp. v. The FCC, and found that, since the Fairness Doctrine was not a legislation of Congress, the FCC did not, in fact, have to enforce it. That year, the FCC dropped the Fairness Doctrine.

Today, with many hundreds of radio stations, with satellite radio, cable, and the Internet, there is even less need for the Fairness Doctrine. Yet, our friends on the Left demand its return. Why? The simple truth of the matter is that Liberal talk radio and Liberal news outlets are failing at a stunning rate. If you can't get Air America in your market, that is simply because the network doesn't make enough money to justify its existence. I mean, these are the same folks who'll tell you that we need the National Endowment for the Arts because no one will buy a photo of a crucifix in a jar of urine. Why should we let them force their Liberal bilge onto the airwaves?

What they really object to is the overwhelming popularity of such talk radio luminaries as Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Levin, Grant, and Ingraham. There is, in fact, no comparable market available for the likes of Randi Rhodes, Thom Harmann, or Rachel Maddow. There was one evening host on Air America that was actually giving advertising away in a contest for select Liberal businesses.

That's right, folks! They are so hard up for advertisers, due to low listenership, that they have to give advertising time away with contests!

Essentially, since they can't seem to compete in the marketplace of ideas, they have to force stations to air their programming. This, by definition, is the exact antithesis of Free Speech.

HOMESCHOOLING:

Let's say you don't like the way your public schools teach. Or you don't like the values that they try to inculcate in your children. Let's say that you can't afford send your kids to a private school that is more appropriate for your kids. Looks like you're stuck with the public schools, right?

For many parents, the only real option is homeschooling.

The United States has, for almost all its history, recognized the rights of parents to educate their children in the manner they see fit. Public education was, until recently, a matter of local jurisdiction, allowing the parents a greater control over the content and quality of the educational product they were consumers of. Since Jimmy Carter and the elevation of education to a Cabinet post, things have become more and more centralized.

They have also become more and more Liberal and secular. California, for instance, has made it a matter of law that homosexuality be taught in the schools as just another way of living. No disparaging remarks may be uttered. In fact, children wearing T-shirts with the relevant Bible verses are suspended and remanded to "sensitivity" training.

Teachers in schools all across America are discouraged, at best, often times punished, for uttering such "hateful" phrases as "Merry Christmas". On the other hand, in New York City, there is a public school that has been turned into a madrassa, an Islamic school following the teachings of the Wahabi sect, the very same sect that Ossama bin Ladin belongs to.

Many parents have turned to homeschooling their children to escape such PC thuggery. They make sure that their kids are learning their school work. Indeed, homeschoolers often out-perform public schoolers by wide margins in standardized testing. The local school boards all monitor the education of these kids, and they are all enrolled in many extracurricular activities to allow them to socialize. The school districts still collect the taxes that would otherwise be spent on educating these children, but they don't have to actually educate them.

Sounds like a win-win situation all around, doesn't it? The schools get more money per pupil, the parents get freedom from PC oppression, and kids still get a decent education. Everyone's a winner, right?

Well, in a word... no. For one thing, the school district gets federal money, separate from the local school taxes, for each pupil enrolled in public school. So, even though they aren't spending all the money they take in for education, the districts aren't getting as much as they would with the homeschooler enrolled in public school.

The economics of the situation alone should be enough for school districts to be unhappy, but it is the education establishment itself that has the real beef. You see, these are the very same Liberals who foist their PC agenda on our children. If you, as a parent, remove your child from their embrace, well... We can't have that, now. Can we?

To our Liberal Elites, homeschooling is a monstrous threat. For it liberates far too many children from the Liberal indoctrination mills that our public schools have become. Therefore, some way must be found to get these kids back in their clutches.

Fortunately (for the Liberal Elites, not for us normal folks) there are the Courts. In California, a family who had been homeschooling their kids for years were suddenly brought up on child welfare charges. Local school officials had managed to cajole some child advocate to gin up charges of neglect, since the kids weren't enrolled in a public school nor being taught by a government approved facility. They then proceeded to find a judge that would go along with this travesty.

World Net Daily reports:

The decision from the 2nd Appellate Court in Los Angeles granted a special
petition brought by lawyers appointed to represent the two youngest children
after the family's homeschooling was brought to the attention of child
advocates. The lawyers appointed by the state were unhappy with a lower court's
ruling that allowed the family to continue homeschooling and challenged it on
appeal.

Justice H. Walt Croskey, whose opinion was joined by two other judges, then
ordered: "Parents who fail to [comply with school enrollment laws] may be
subject to a criminal complaint against them, found guilty of an infraction and
subject to imposition of fines or an order to complete a parent education and
counseling program."

The court, of course, totally ignored the state's practice of allowing homeschooling, and the fact that the kids were enrolled in an accredited private homeschooling program. What mattered most was to get those kids into the indoctrination program ASAP. Failure to comply might result in the parents getting "re-educated".

Of course, this has struck fear into the hearts of the parents of 166,000 children in the state of California who are homeschooled today. Attorneys for the parents and for the homeschooling program vow to fight right up to the Supreme Court.

But isn't it sad that Americans have to fight their own government over the education of their children?

HATE SPEECH?

A woman in Rochester, Mn, is facing trial for felony harassment and disorderly conduct. And what did she actually do? She tried to preach Christianity to a Muslim woman. By her own admission, she said that she tried to "plant a small little seed" in the woman, telling her to Just Say No to Islam.

The Muslim woman claimed that the accused, Patricia Stockwell, threatened and menaced her. She claimed that Ms. Stockwell yelled and said she wanted to kill her. No one else witnessed the exchange, but why should we let a little matter like evidence get in the way of a good hate crime?

Obviously, the court in this matter is taking the side of the Muslim woman. So let's see what the Quran has to say about these matters:

In Surah 2:282 we find this lovely bit of misogyny: And let two men from among you bear witness to all such documents [contracts of loans without interest]. But if two men be not available, there should be one man and two women to bear witness so that if one of the women forgets (anything), the other may remind her. (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 205). The Hadiths clarify the Surah with this observation from the Prophet himself: The Prophet said, "Isn’t the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?" The women said, "Yes." He said, "This is because of the deficiency of a woman’s mind."

Therefore, according the Quran, we shouldn't believe either of the two women and the case is moot.

Abdullah al Araby, writing for the Islam Review, notes that, while the Quran in general forbids deceit and dishonesty, it is perfectly hunky dory to lie to infidels and other non-believers. Therefore, why should we believe this young Muslim woman?

Look, I don't want to take sides in the this particular issue, but don't you think it's a bit overboard to side with the Muslim woman over the Christian? In America? After all, most observers would agree that the case is much ado about nothing.

However, Political Correctness mandates that the majority, simply by being the majority, is automatically suspect. Therefore, in the PC worldview, the Christian woman must have been in the wrong.

So what happened to the Christian woman's right to preach? In PC, she has no right to preach!

THE PREACHER AND THE POLICE:

In Salem, Mass, a Christian preacher was arrested for preaching the Gospels on Halloween Night in 2007. Salem, you might recall, has made witchcraft something of a cottage industry, thanks to its infamy in the Salem Witch Trials. To be sure, the police didn't actually put "preaching the Gospels" on the paperwork, but that was all Michael Marcavage was doing, as shown by this video. Apparently, preaching to would-be witches and other non-Christians has now become "disorderly conduct".

But, in this brave new PC world, that is only right. Christianity is intolerant, not witchcraft. And besides, the witches were persecuted, so it's only that preacher's just desserts.

More PC thought control? You betcha'!

PICTURES OF GUN CONTROL:

This last case really takes the cake! Young Donald Miller III, 14, wore a T-shirt last December emblazoned with a picture of a gun, with the words "Volunteer Homeland Security" on the front and the legend "Special issue — Resident — Lifetime License — United States Terrorist Hunting Permit — Permit No. 91101 Gun Owner — No Bag Limit." on the back. He said he wore this shirt in support of his uncle, who is fighting for our freedoms in Iraq.

Well, his school, Penn Manor in Lancaster, Pa, took the view that the shirt was a threat. Said Kevin French, the school district's attorney, the policy of the schools is to foster a safe environment, where no one would feel threatened. Even a picture of a gun violates that policy.

So, this poor kid gets detention for a patriotic shirt in a time of war. He expresses his support of the Second Amendment and the defense of America, and he is threatening? Precisely whom is he threatening? An Islamo-fascist terrorist? Are there any in Penn Manor? Why aren't they in violation of school policy?

Ray Bradbury wrote the cautionary tale, Fahrenheit 451. Presciently, he predicted just the sort of dystopian thought control we are witnessing in America today. How long before our firemen start pumping kerosene?

Copyright March 9th, 2008

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

2008-03-06T23:23:00.002-05:00

One group of folks are never asked, by the Legacy Media at least, which American political parties they prefer. Yet, you can look between the lines of the Legacy Media and see a few signs.

Take the bombing of the New York City Army recruiting station in Times Square this morning. Who would do such a thing? Personally, I find it telling that eight Democrats from New York received letters ranting about America and including a photo of the station. Why would they send them to Democrats?

Then again, there's this story from South America. It seems that, when Colombian forces took out that FARC camp in Ecuador, they found a bit of intel. One of the terrorists killed in the attack had a laptop computer, which gave up all sorts of evidence that Hugo Chavez, the diminutive dictator of Venezuela, has been helping them along for the last ten years.

This laptop contained correspondence between Raul Reyes, the lead terrorist killed who also served as the "public face" of FARC; Manuel Marulanda, the legendary supreme leader of the Marxist group; and Ivan Marquez, FARC's man in Venezuela. The upshot of the documents on the seized laptop is that Venezuela is working with FARC to overthrow the government of Colombia, which is an American ally.

Also, little remarked upon in the Legacy Media, is this little datum: it seems that FARC and Chavez are rooting for Saint Obama in the US presidential race. Reports World Net Daily:

Writing two days before his death, Reyes tells his secretariat comrades that "the gringos," working through Ecuador's government, are interested "in talking to us on various issues."
"They say the new president of their country will be (Barack) Obama," noting that Obama rejects both the Bush administration's free trade agreement with Colombia and the current military aid program.
Reyes said the response he relayed is that the U.S. would have to publicly express that desire.

So, apparently, someone in Saint Obama's camp is working with Marxist narco-terrorist, who fund their operations with the poison sold to our people, who murder, bomb and kidnap, and who seek the violent overthrow of a government friendly to the United States. Where have we seen this before?

Looking at past behavior, one can be certain that the Democrats in Congress, as well as those vying for the Presidency, will not be entirely friendly with the Colombian government. After all, Charlie Rangel (D-NY) feted Fidel Castro, another friend of FARC, when he last visited New York. And more recently, he had a trip to Cuba partly funded by the Castro government.

We all remember, also, the hapless Jimmy Carter, who allowed one ally of the United States after another to fall to Marxist and Islamo-fascist forces. And the Democrats who sided with Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas, while President Reagan, whose power it was as President, was trying to unseat the Marxists and let the people of Nicaragua have a chance at electing their own government.

Well, Ortega got elected el Presidente of Nicaragua last year, and he's been pretty chummy with Chavez and the Castro boys. Now, he's dabbling in American politics. The International Herald Tribune reports Saint Obama has received the endorsement of formet Soviet lackey and Marxist thug Daniel Ortega.

It just gets more and more surreal, folks! Not only does Saint Obama have a rather sordid and Marxist past (see It's An Obama-Nation!) he is now garnering the support of noted, if not in all cases still breathing, Marxists from South America.

Is he walking and quacking enough like a duck yet?

Aaron Kline, the Israeli journalist and author of Schmoozing With Terrorists, has documented exhaustively the preference of Jihadists and other Islamo-fascists for Democrats and Liberals in American politics. Take any video or audio tape by Osamma bin Ladin, for instance. Every point he raises comes straight out of the Democrats talking points memos.

The Democrats, I've often pointed out, cannot be trusted to define, let alone defend America's national interests. Historically, they have been on the wrong side, every time:

The sided with the Confederacy

They promulgated Jim Crowe and fought the Civil Rights Act of 1964

The started (with a lie) the Viet Nam War and then tried to hang Nixon with it, in the end causing us to quit, rather than to achieve victory.

They opposed the liberation of Kuwait.

They opposed Reagan's efforts to win the Cold War.

And now they oppose America actually winning another, more dangerous, war, the War on Terror.

With a track record like this, is it any wonder that America's enemies are rooting for Saint Obama?

Copyright March 6th, 2008

THERE WILL BE BLOOD!

2008-03-05T23:00:00.006-05:00

So what is the political landscape after Tuesday's voting in states all across the nation? Actually, pretty much the same as last week.

First off, John McCain is now the official and legitimate nominee for the Republican Party. Having won enough delegates to clinch said nomination, he also received the endorsement of President George "Dubya" Bush. I now await Senator McCain's rebuke for having used the president's middle initial, as he has done to Billy Cunningham. For the remainder of the Spring and Summer, McCain has to knit his support into a cohesive force, although how he hopes to do that while attacking his base, I have no idea.

But there is a ray of sunshine here, and it comes from the Democratic Party.

Hillary Clinton has made something of a comeback. We know this because the Legacy Media keeps telling us. My friend, Vox Day on his blog Vox Popoli, points out that this is the exact same narrative that they force fed the audience in the 1992 election cycle, albeit about Bill, not Hillary. Regardless of who the Legacy Media is talking about, the story line is getting a bit tired.

But this can be good news for McCain, since the Democrats are in for a long and bloody campaign. While he is shoring up his base (allegedly, that is) the Democrats will be tearing new orifices in each other.

In other words, Hillary will live to fight on, attacking and discrediting Saint Obama, something to which both the McCain campaign and the RNC say they will not stoop. They need Hillary in the race because the Republican leadership just doesn't have the stomach to go after the sacrosanct Saint Obama.

The political landscape remains unchanged, since Saint Obama ended Tuesday with the same delegate lead over Hillary as he began. All that Hillary succeeded in doing was to keep in the race a few more weeks.

But, as I already said, this is a good thing. The Clintonistas are masters of the scorched earth style of politics. They've already said they were going to throw the kitchen sink at the Annointed One. For example, does anyone really doubt that it was Hillary's people who disseminated that photo of Saint Obama looking like Gunga Din?

While that bad photo won't make or break Obama, at least not in my book, it is all part of a piece with the Clintonistas. Recall how they smeared Ken Starr, the Travel Office employees, the abused women, etc. The Clintonistas will stop at nothing -- NOTHING! -- in the pursuit of power. How much do you want to bet that the Clintonistas were doing some rather snarky push polls in southern Ohio, emphasizing Obama's melanin surfeit?

On more substantive matters, it was to the Clintonistas that an unnamed Canadian official leaked a memo, describing Saint Obama's anti-NAFTA rhetoric as just campaign pap. Despite claims to the contrary, the memo does exist and Canada is investigating possible criminal charges in the matter.

Hillary's weekend appearances on national TV, most notably Saturday Night Live, probably helped her showing on Tuesday, as it spurred the Legacy Media to look a little more sharply at Saint Obama. On Monday, Obama was left sputtering as he was peppered with questions of his long time pal, Antoin "Tony" Rezco. (Ooops! I want to apologize to Sen. McCain for referring to Mr. Rezco's middle name. I'll try not to do it again!) Rezco, you might recall, has begun his trial for illegal campaign solicitations and kickbacks, to little Legacy Media attention. An example of Obama's aversion to questioning regarding Rezco can be seen here.

But what, do you think, was the biggest reason for Hillary's surprise uptick in the primaries? The Los Angeles Times got a hint of the reason Sunday. Exit polls show that one in ten voters in Texas for the Democratic primary were Republican. This is merely just desserts, since McCain won his primaries with mainly Democrat and Independent voters in open primaries. Hey, if the Democrats can pick our candidate, why can't we pick theirs?

The bottom line is that McCain can now coast into the convention in August. The Democrats, meanwhile, are in for a bruising and bloody war. Make no mistake about it. Hillary will stop at nothing to secure her nomination. If, in the process, she destroys the Democratic Party, then so be it!

As I have frequently remarked, I love when Political Correctness runs into itself. We are now faced with the spectacle of two radical Leftists, each playing on his/her own Politically Correct identity group. Whoever actually gets the nomination will alienate some, if not most, of the natural constituency, the identity group, of the other.

Obama is from the streets of Chicago. He is a Daly machine politician. For them, politics is hardball and they don't give up easily. Hillary, on the other hand, views power as her sole reason for life itself. No pesky rules, customs, niceties, or etiquette for her, not when her power is at stake! Liberal women are upset that Oprah has endorsed Obama. Black activists are worried that Hillary will try to steal the nomination from a black man. The enmity is palpable and the knives are being sharpened as we speak.

The only hope for McCain in November is if the scenarios I described in Let's Get Dirty! come to pass. That is when the real fun begins!

Yes, my friends! There will be blood!

Copyright March 5th, 2008

DON'T BELIEVE IN ELF'S!

2008-03-03T22:49:00.006-05:00

What with the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11, the War on Terror, bombing raids in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, as well as various covert operations around the world, it would be quite easy to forget that, here in America, we have our own homegrown terrorists.

Some of them are radicalized Muslims. Tim McVeigh is often blamed on the Right, although not even the militia movement would have him. And Liberals and other Pro-Choicers love to point to the two or three cases where a Pro-Lifer shot an abortion doctor or planted a bomb in an attempt to prove it is the Right that is violent.

These cases, however, pale before another loosely affiliated group. This group is estimated by the FBI to be responsible for more than 1,200 "criminal incidents (vandalism, terrorism, theft, destruction, etc.) with damage estimates into the tens of millions of dollars. Indeed, this group is regarded by law enforcement and Homeland Security officials to be the leading domestic terror organization in the country. In fact, just this morning, they made the headlines once again with the destruction of five luxury homes in Woodinville, northeast of Seattle, Wa.

This group is none other than the Earth Liberation Front., or ELF. I really don't know why, but when you Google ELF you have to follow a link for Viagra. So please ignore the ad at the top of their site.

Begun in England as an offshoot of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), the terrorist organization quickly spread throughout Europe, eventually arising in North America. The organization is very loose, with individuals or cells working independently and rarely seeking public attention. This is to avoid scrutiny and surveillance by the authorities.

Although there has yet to be a fatality attributed to ELF, that is merely a matter of pure luck. They are known to drive spikes into trees meant for harvest as lumber, jeopardizing the life and limb of the poor lumberjack who hits said spike with his chainsaw.

Arson and explosives are also a favorite weapon of these "eco-terrorists", as they have become known. Car dealerships that offer SUV's, ski lodges, fur farms, laboratories, almost anything that they can claim is injurious to the Earth and its inhabitants, can be a target. The term they use for their vandalism and violence is "monkeywrenching".

Early acts were rather small: gluing the locks on a neighborhood McDonald's while defacing the property with their mottoes. Spiking trees soon followed, as did actually living in the trees to prevent their harvest. Laboratories were trashed as their animals were "rescued", setting back years of medical research. In one case, dozens of minks were released into the wild, the Elves, as they call themselves, not realizing that the minks would turn on each other resulting in painful death for most of the animals they "saved".

The began to set their sights on bigger targets as time went by. Car dealerships are destroyed on a regular basis. In 1998, they burned down a ski resort in Vail, Co.

They tageted a 200-plus unit condominium in San Diego, Ca., leaving behind posters saying "If you build it, we will burn it" and "The ELF's are mad". This act caused some $20 million of damage and required the heroic efforts of more than 100 firefighters. As noted before, it was only a matter of luck that no one was injured or killed.

The blaze today northeast of Seattle, Wa, comes as Briana Waters' trial for eco-terrorism begins for her role in the destruction of the Center for Urban Horticulture, at the University of Washington's Tacoma campus. Not only are these enviro-weenies dangerous, they aren't too terribly bright. Apparently, they were under the mistaken assumption that the lab they destroyed was engaging in genetic modification of trees for an urban environment. They mistook breeding for gene modification.

The Woodinville homes were showcases of luxury homes that are actually friendly to the environment. They were "Built Green", as the practice is called, using technologies such as water permeable sidewalks, extra insulation, and recycled materials. Unfortunately for the Northwest division of Centex Homes, the builder of the destroyed homes, that wasn't good enough for ELF, which left behind a banner reading ""Built green? Nope black! McMansions in RCD's [an acronym for "rural cluster developments"] r not green. ELF"[sic]

Not only are the ELF's environmentally conscious, they are also only semi-literate.

One thing that should be noted is that firefighters were kept away from the burning homes for fear of booby traps. Again, it is only a matter of luck that no one has been hurt yet by these vicious idiots.

It should come as no surprise that these eco-terrorists are Leftist anarchists, closely related to ideologically to the sort of Marxist bombers represented by Bill Ayers, a friend of Saint Obama (see It's An Obama-nation!) Indeed, their goals are almost identical: the destruction of American economic power, the radical redistribution of wealth, and the institution of socialist Utopian ideals.

Nor should it be news to anyone that their acts of arson and violence are usually more destructive of the environment than their targets themselves. After all, how much worse is a raging inferno, pollution wise, than a McMansion or an SUV left unmolested?

Years ago, Rush Limbaugh coined the term "watermelons" to describe the modern environmentalist movement. For, you see, just like the favorite summer snack, the modern environmentalist is green on the outside, but red on the inside.

Truer words have never been said!

Copyright March 3rd, 2008

MORE CHILLY WINDS FROM SOUTH AMERICA

2008-03-02T23:48:00.003-05:00

More news about the ever-brewing Cold War. One theater of this looming threat is in South America, where Hugo Chavez has brought unapologetic Stalinism back to the region that Ronald Reagan liberated from tyranny. Consider this to be an expansion of Cold War? I Blame Global Warming!

Unfortunately, that liberation occurred two decades ago. The Clinton administration, with the usual Democrat/Liberal liking for Marxist dictators, allowed Chavez to ascend to power in Venezuela. Matters were made worse due to the War on Terror, which took American attention off the threat to our South. Soon, the assets of American corporations were nationalized, media outlets critical of this pint-sized thug were closed, sometimes violently.

Chavez has succeeded in getting the Kennedy clan, in the person of Joseph Kennedy, to gain popular support in the US, using oil from the state owned Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., or PDVSA. With smarmy adds, Joe Kennedy uses that tried and true Liberal vision of soup kitchen America, and gives away heating oil to "the poor", all thanks to the "people of Venezuela".

Of course, "the poor" here in America are far better off than the middle class in almost every other nation in the world, but why let mere facts get in the way of a good shibboleth? And does anyone think that giving oil away in America does the actual people of Venezuela any good? Let's go further, are the people any better off if the government sells the oil, let alone gives it away?

From my observations of Marxist "paradises" of the past, I think not!

Venezuela has deepening ties with such lovely nations as Communist China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba. Indeed, Venezuela has teamed up with China and Cuba to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, a rich oil field that our Democrat friends, along with John McCain, have placed off limits for American oil companies.

To give you an idea of just how out of touch with reality our Friends on the Left are, let's look at their alleged "Energy" Bill, which recently passed the House of Representatives. Michelle Malkin points out that this travesty of legislation would produce no new energy, yet would raise taxes on American oil companies and give breaks and subsidies to PDVSA. In other words, we would make hamstring the development of domestic oil supplies even further than the enviro-weenies have done already, while giving a competitive advantage to a state-owned Communist front company.

But that's not the really bad news yet. Let's look to Venezuela's neighbor, Columbia.

Colombia has had a hard time of it in the past. They are the world's leading source of cocaine and other drugs. Despite their best efforts, and the help of the United States, they have had little success weaning their peasants from the relatively lucrative crop of coca, in favor of more conventional crops. To make matters worse, they have their own Marxist insurgency, an insurgency that has taken over much of the cocaine production from the cartels and is funding its revolution against the Colombian government with profits from the sale of the drug. They supplement their income and their revolution with kidnappings and murder.

These murderous little darlings call themselves the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, or FARC, and have been supported by the Soviet Union, the Chinese, the Cubans and other Stalinist states for over four decades. Now, they are supported by Venezuela.

On March 1st, 2008, Colombian forces staged a raid against a FARC camp just over the border in Ecuador. Killed in the attack was FARC leader, Raul Reyes and sixteen other of his terrorist "soldiers". This did not sit very well with neither Mr. Chavez nor Ecuador.

Chavez is now amassing troops and armor on the Colombian border, as is Ecuador, another relatively Marxist state. They are now threatening one of our allies in South America. Outright war has become a distinct possibility in South America. This would be the sort of entree that Russia and China would love to exploit. And Chavez, with his decidedly anti-American worldview, would absolutely welcome their support.

What is needed now is to revisit the policies of Ronald Reagan, which had rolled back the Marxist threat in South America, giving nations like El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras a chance to be free. Currently, the trend in the region is toward Stalinism, which must be stopped with great alacrity.

John McCain might be a good president for these uncertain times. However, as I have exhaustively outlined in Montag's World, he just ain't gonna win the election.

So how would Hillary or Saint Obama fair? Think Carter. Think Soviet expansionism. Think of Iran. If they play to type, we will see a Marxist Columbia, with all efforts to curb the growing and exporting of cocaine ended.

Why would I say that? Let's consider each of the leading Democratic candidates.

Hillary's signature campaign issue is nationalized health care. Her biggest supporters have long sung the praises of Cuba's health care system. Michael Moore, for instance, made a movie extolling the benefits of Castro's top-down, government run system. And I guarantee that, when the vote comes up in the Senate, Hillary will vote to give Citgo the breaks that will be denied to American oil companies. The Democrats, especially the modern Liberal Democrats, are historically incapable of defining, let alone defending, America's interests. Hillary will be just another in a long line of Democratic appeasers.

But what about Saint Obama? After all, hasn't he promised to get tough with Pakistan? Yes, he has. But Pakistan is an American ally, and he's already promised to surrender in Iraq and meet with all our enemies for unconditional talks. This will do ... what? How will diplomatic talks keep Columbia from succumbing to a Marxist assault both from within and from their neighbors?

Again, the policies of the Reagan era are what's needed today. We need to confront these Marxist thugs diplomatically, as well as covertly from within. We need to identify groups whose interests correspond with ours and give them all the aide they need to bring their nations back into the democratic mold. Neither Hillary nor Saint Obama are capable, or even willing, to do what is necessary to stop this cancer from spreading.

That being said, let us also remember what old Jimmy Carter made possible: a quarter of a century of Conservative leadership in America. A Democratic win in November will unite and energize Conservatives, while the Democrats will self-destruct, just like Carter. The damage done by the Left to America and her interests will almost guarantee such a Conservative Renaissance.

This is not at all the future that I would prefer, but we got stuck with Juan Pablo McCain, as Billy Cunningham has taken to calling him. Therefore, we Conservatives are left with the Conservatives-in-the-wilderness gambit.

I am always an optimist. For all the trouble I have with McCain, the glass is still half full!

Copyright March 2nd, 2008

IT'S AN OBAMA-NATION!

2008-02-29T18:08:00.006-05:00

Many years ago, Dennis Prager said something to the effect (and I paraphrase here) "You don't vote for the candidate so much as you vote for his Rolodex." This truism is still valid today.

It is almost inevitable that Barak Hussein Obama will become the Democratic nominee for the presidency of the United States. His record is thin, at best, and his rhetoric is strong on charisma, but short on substance. We've already explored some of his ideas and their extreme Leftist philosophical underpinnings.

But what of Obama's Rolodex? Who are the folks who've most influenced him? Who would he be likely to call on for advice? Let us explore just three of his primary influences.

Frank Marshall Davis:

In his book, Dreams From My Father, Barak Obama describes a man, identified only as "Frank" who became something of a mentor to the young Obama growing up in Hawaii. Now, Obama has admitted to attending "socialist conferences", even having contact with Marxist Literature. But he poo-poohed any suggestion that he was a hardcore Marxist, as had been suggested by Alan Keyes in his Illinois senate race.

"Frank" was an old man the youth had befriended who wrote poetry and gave career advice. So just who was this "Frank"?

Cliff Kincaid, in an essay on Accuracy In Media, identifies "Frank" as one Frank Marshall Davis. For the most part, Mr. Davis was famous for his poetry and for his journalism. He'd written many books of poetry and had been an editor and reporter for many publications around the country. However, in 1951, he was identified as a member of the Communist Party USA, which was nothing but a front group for Stalin and the Soviet Union. This was from a report from the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii, so let's not bring in McCarthy here.

Obama writes glowingly of "Frank", who brought "hard earned knowledge" and advice. He also claimed to be a contemporary of other noted Communists, Richard Wright and Lanston Hughes.

Admittedly, "Frank" has been dead for twenty years. But is this the kind of influence we want in a President? Does America really need someone who belonged to a group funded and influenced by the Kremlin under Stalin?

Just asking, is all!

The Reverend Jerimiah Wright:

There have been attempts to stick Obama with being a Muslim. Both his natural and his step fathers were Muslims and he spent his early childhood in Indonesia. Indeed, his older brother, Abongo "Roy" Obama, is an Islamic Marxist in Kenya. However, it is apparent that Obama is a Christian. Although, precisely what kind of Christian we must explore.

Barak Obama belongs to the Trinity United Church of Christ, a Chicago church headed by Rev. Jerimiah Wright. If that were the whole story, there would be no essay here. However, that is far from the whole truth.

A visit to the Trinity United Church's web site offers a rather disturbing glimpse into the radical "liberation" theology that has plagued the Americas for the last half a century. Rather than focus of Christ's teachings, they use those teachings to foster a black separatist message, laced with Marxist tendencies toward wealth redistribution and "economic justice".

Once again, we have an unabashedly Marxist mentor to the would-be President of the United States. Worse, he is a separatist as well, pitting Americans against one another on the basis of skin color. And he tries to conceal this harmful worldview under the rubric of Christianity.

Tell me what's so Christian about statements such as these, all by the Rev. Wright:

The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for almost 40 years now. It took a divestment campaign to wake the business community up concerning the South Africa issue. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community up and to wake Americans up concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.

"In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01," "White America and the western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just `disappeared' as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns."

"Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!...We [in the U.S.] believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God."

So, it should come as no surprise that the Trinity United Church, through its Trumpet Newsmagazine, gave noted racist and antisemite Louis Farrakhan an award. The Rev. Wright had this to say about Farrakhan:

"He is one of the 20th and. 21st century giants of the African American religious experience. When Minister Farrakhan speaks, black America listens. His depth on analysis when it comes to the racial ills of this nation is astounding and eye-opening. He brings a perspective that is helpful and honest. His love for Africa and African-American people has made him an unforgettable force, a catalyst for change, and a religious leader who is sincere about his faith and his purpose."

It should also come as no surprise that the Rev. Wright and Louis Farrakhan made a pilgrimage, of sorts, to Libya for a visit with Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi. Upon their return, Col. Gaddafi make a video presentation to the Nation of Islam's Saviour's Day Convention in which he pledged to provide weapons for a black army to destroy white America.

Quite the Christians, aren't they?

Obama has rebuked Farrakhan for his antisemitic rhetoric. He has also tried to distance himself from the Rev. Wright, according to whom Obama said: "'You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we've decided is that it's best for you not to be out there in public.'"

Yet, Obama is still a member of his church for more than twenty years. And he has had the Rev. Wright in his circle, behind the scenes, at least.

Oh, and lest we forget, the title of Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, was lifted right out of one of the good reverend's sermons.

Are we concerned yet?

William Ayers:

William Ayers was a violent revolutionary, a member of the Weather Underground. He has never recanted his violent militism. Nor has he paid any sort of debt to society. All charges against him were dropped, thanks to the ineptitude of the federal authorities who were searching for him throughout the 1970's.

In National Review, Jonah Goldberg notes that this quote: "Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon.” appeared in the New York Times as they published a paeon to the counter cultural guerrilla. What made that even more poignant was that this was on the morning of Sept. 11th, 2001. The New York Times also quoted Mr. Ayers about his days as a mad bomber: "''I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough.''

Today, Mr. Ayers is, beyond all reasonable expectations, a distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. This, presumably, might explain many of the problems in American schools today.

It turns out that both Ayers and Obama served on the board of the Woods Fund, a charitable organization that purports to help the disadvantaged, where they served together for a number of years.

Look back to 1995. Ben Smith, of the Politico, reported that Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer had a sort of "coming out"party for her chosen successor to her seat in the state legislature. That successor was a young Barak Obama. The party was held at the home of one William C. Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, also a member of the Weather Underground.

A question for all those concerned with America's security: Doesn't a clear association with an unrepentant terrorist raise any flags of warning? Is this the sort of person we want to have access to the President of the United States?

I still believe that, at this moment anyway, Barak Obama will beat John McCain in November. However, before we elect this unreconstructed socialist and radical, we ought examine his Rolodex. So far, we've found a liberation theology pastor, an avowed Communist mentor, a Marxist Islamist brother, and a violent terrorist.

These are not the sort of folks we need running around the White House or influencing the President.

Copyright Feb. 29th, 2008

MAYBE HE SHOULD ASK FOR CLEMENS-Y?

2008-02-28T23:15:00.002-05:00

Have we in America lost our collective mind? Why is Congress, tellingly controlled by the Democrats, wasting our time and money (I know! That's what they do!) investigating steroid use in Major League Baseball? More to the point, why are we Americans standing for this happy nonsense?

Of course, baseball is America's Sport. Baseball players are supposed to be clean cut, true blue avatars of what a good American citizen is supposed to be. But let's get a reality check here. Using steroids isn't what I would call a pressing, urgent matter for our elected officials to investigate.

On the one hand, it seems to be a gross misuse of their power to drag baseball players, their trainers and their officials -- all of them private citizens, not government employees -- and grill them endlessly, hoping for that one gotcha moment.

But then, at least they aren't planning the next round of tax hikes, over regulation, and other insults to our Liberties. There may be silver lining to all this, but I still don't like sacrificing one element of the private sector to deflect attention from my own.

Now, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell has his "big fish". He has enlisted the FBI to investigate possible perjury and obstruction of justice charges against Roger Clemens, one of the most famous players in baseball. All of this stems from Mitchell's twenty month investigation into steroid use among professional ball players.

This is the most pressing problem facing America today? Forgive me, but I don't see how this should be a federal matter, let alone a matter for government at any level.

The FBI case arose from hearings several weeks ago, in which Clemens, Andy Pettitte, and trainer Brian McNamee all testified. Congressmen, mostly Democrats, chided all the witnesses, saying that they didn't know what to believe.

Now we have an ongoing investigation into matters that add up to less than a molehill.

Look, I don't advocate the use of steroids or human growth hormones (HGH) but what's the big deal? Baseball, as big an industry as it is, is not a make or break thing for the American economy. It's not a matter of national security. Baseball is merely part of the circuses that keep Americans happily distracted from things like the presidential race, terrorism, the return of the Cold War, and the fact that Saint Obama isn't really the Second Coming.

Tell me, someone, what is the difference between using steroids and HGH and better training and exercise to improve performance? Why should Congress even think about looking into these matters? I've just paged through my copy of the Constitution, and it doesn't have anything to say about baseball and Congressional oversight.

Of course, the Constitution does have the Tenth Amendment, which reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Now, I'm not a lawyer, but to me, in layman's terms, this says: "If it ain't in the Constitution, Congress can't do it!"

Anyone who has known me or has read my posts here at Montag's World or elsewhere on the Internet know that I'm a strong advocate for repealing any and all of America's drug laws. The Tenth Amendment is one principal reason, as is the lesson of Prohibition. You might recall that Prohibition did nothing to curtail alcohol consumption, but it did empower organized crime and vast, abusive governmental bureaucracies which survived the repeal of Prohibition, and which trample on our Liberties today.

The use of steroids and HGH in professional sports, in my mind, falls into the same sort of category. Whatever protocol of detection and enforcement the bureaucrats come up with, there will always be someone who finds a way around it. The effort to avoid these work arounds will inevitably reduce your Liberty. There really is nothing but our own will to hold the line between a just government and tyranny.

Some folks will, undoubtedly, claim that I am too concerned with millionaire sports figures, who earn seven and eight figure salaries for "playing a game", and not concerned enough for the "little guy". Well, I am concerned with every one's Liberties, regardless of wealth, color, creed, social status, gender or career path.

It is a truism that, when one person's Liberties are violated, all our Liberties are violated. Steroids and HGH aren't matters important enough for Congress to get involved in. Nor is Congress permitted by the Constitution to oversee the chemical purity of America's Pastime.

Little by little, even baseball has fallen under the boot of Liberal authoritarianism!

Copyright Feb. 28th, 2008

McCAIN ON THE WARPATH

2008-02-26T23:35:00.006-05:00

Well, it finally happened. John McCain showed a bit of his famous temper yesterday. The trouble is, it wasn't against his prospective opponents among the Democrats. Once again, John McCain has demonstrated why he shouldn't even be in the Republican Party, let alone the putative nominee for the presidency.

What got McCain all in a twist were the comments of Billy Cunningham, a Conservative talk radio host who was doing the warm-up for a McCain rally in Cincinnati, Oh. Apparently, Mr. Cunningham's remarks were so beyond the pale that Senator McCain made a special point to repudiate those remarks. He then went on to apologize that they were made at his rally. USA Today quotes the GOP front runner:

"I take responsibility and I repudiate what he said. I will not tolerate
anything in this campaign that denigrates either Sen. Obama or Sen.
(Hillary) Clinton."

This is all fine and dandy. It shows McCain's genteel side. It's just a shame that he can't show the same fire and outrage about the Democratic contenders that he shows for his Republican supporters. There was the famous exchange last year wherein McCain dropped the F-bomb on fellow Republican Senator John Cornyn during official Senate business. CNN's Jack Cafferty wrote an extended piece on his temper. Let's not forget that he implied that Conservative opponents to his amnesty bill for illegal aliens were racist nativists.

But enough about McCain, at least for the moment. What did Billy Cunningham say that deserved such ire? What did he do at that rally that so embarrassed John McCain?

Well, he made several pointed comments regarding the front runner for the Democratic nomination: Barak Hussein Obama and the coverage of his campaign in the Legacy Media. From the USA Today story:

[sooner or later, the media would begin covering Obama's] "sweetheart deals in Chicago and the illegal loans he got in Chicago."

He also called Obama a "hack Chicago-style Daley politican"

He described an Obama administration as "the great prophet from Chicago takes the stand and the world leaders who want to kill us will simply be singing Kumbaya together around the table with Barack Obama."

What was even worse he called Barak Hussein Obama-- not once, but twice...TWICE, I say! -- "Barak Hussein Obama".

These would be very serious matters in the fantasy world that the Legacy Media and John McCain live in. But here in the Real, we know that everything Billy Cunningham has said is absolutely true!

Saint Obama has yet to explain his cozy financial arrangements with the indicted Tony Rezco, other than to say it was a mistake. But just what was the mistake? What did he do to make it right? We don't know, because Obama won't say and Rezco is now lawyered up. But it is apparent that Obama received some loans from Rezco, and that Rezco didn't have that kind of money. So where did it come from?

Here's a trick question for you: Name one politician from Chicago who wasn't a "hack Chicago- style Daley politician"? Let's be real here, folks! We're talking about a town where everyone who dies is immediately registered as and votes for Democrats. The Daley's have run this town for decades, and there is little chance that this state of affairs will change in the near -- or even the distant -- future. Only New Jersey and New Orleans can come close to the corruption of Chicago. These aren't attacks on Saint Obama. These are merely statements of fact.

Oh, so why do I write "Saint" Obama? It's his supporters who claim his near divinity. Right here on BlogSpot, there's a site that asks the question "Is Barack Obama the Messiah?" Timothy Noah posts, on Slate.com a periodic item entitled "Obama Messiah Watch" which explores the possibility that Obama is the Son of God. And then, Louis Farrakan had this to say about Obama:

"This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be
made better. This young man is capturing audiences of black and brown and red
and yellow. If you look at Barack Obama's audiences and look at the effect of
his words, those people are being transformed. A black man with a white
mother became a savior to us," he told the crowd of mostly followers. A
black man with a white mother could turn out to be one who can lift America from
her fall."

Which now brings us to Billy Cunninghams next point about the "great prophet from Chicago etc..." What is a messiah but a "great prophet"? Isn't that what Obama's supporters are saying?

And what of Obama's foreign policy statements? He's already signed on to the idea of diplomacy, first, last, and only. He's already pledged to meet with our enemies unconditionally. And he's threatened to invade one of our allies, Pakistan.

And John McCain says "I will not tolerate anything in this campaign that denigrates either Sen. Obama or Sen. (Hillary) Clinton"? What did Billy Cunningham say that wasn't true?

Could it be that he used Barak Hussein Obama's full name, as has been done for many past presidents and presidential candidates? William Jefferson Clinton, Ronald Wilson Reagan, Richard Milhaus Nixon, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Hillary Rodham Clinton? Since when is using a candidates real middle name a faux pas?

But you have to give Billy Cunningham credit. When he found out how McCain threw him under the bus he said '"I've had it with McCain. I'm going to throw my support to Hillary Rodham Clinton."

This story is precisely the reason that John McCain won't win the election in November. He has no fire in his belly when it comes to the Democrats he is running against. He has nothing but disdain for his fellow Republicans and, when speaking of the differences between him and the Democratic contenders, he mumbles his remarks in a passionless monotone.

John McCain, in short, would have been a far better candidate for the Democrats.

Copyright Feb. 26th, 2008

IT'S THE ENERGY, STUPID!

2008-02-25T23:02:00.006-05:00

Without a doubt, there are a few troubling signs for the American economy, although we have yet to have one quarter of decline, rather than the three consecutive quarters required to qualify as a recession.

At the top of the list of troubles is the price of energy. Oil now goes for $90 to $100 a barrel. The cost of electricity and natural gas is climbing. Gasoline prices are hovering at over $3 a gallon.

Naturally, this puts an upward pressure on the prices of just about everything else, since we need that more expensive energy to either make, transport or preserve that everything else.

Meanwhile, the money we are forking over for imported oil funds such delightful folks as Hugo Chavez and the Saudi royal family. In other words, we are funding the enemies of the United States.

Most Liberals like to blame Republicans for the imbroglio. After all, the Bushes are an oil family. Vice President Dick Cheney was an executive for the much-maligned Halliburton. And everyone on the Left is spouting that happy nonsense that we went to war for oil.

Of course, if you talk to a Liberal long enough, he'll get around to talking about over population, Global Warmism, the greed of Big Oil, the gluttony of the American people, etc. Basically, what these Leftists want is for the masses, unlike their favorite elitists like Al Gore, to have a reduced standard of living with fewer and fewer children, and fewer and fewer Liberties.

So what do the Leftists suggest as solutions? Well, they are quite fond of energy taxes, renewable energy, solar and wind power and the like. So let's look at a few of these.

Energy Taxes:

During the 1990's many Liberals were looking to Europe as an example of "sensible" energy policies. They gleefully pointed out that our then $2 a gallon gas was "spoiling" us, whereas Europe's $5 a gallon prices made sure that there was enough to go around and that we wouldn't pollute as much.

There are any number of problems with that, however. For one thing, it strictly limited the ability of Europeans to travel, one of the Liberties we Americans enjoy. Another issue is the kinds of cars they drive. For the most part, they are little more than glorified go-karts.

And then, there is the European economy.

France, Germany, Britain, all have inordinately large percentages of the populations on the dole. Germany, for instance, in recent years has been posting unemployment rates of 12-13%. In France the rate was 9.8%. Which might explain one of the ostensible reasons for such high rates of taxation: it's awfully expensive to support such a large fraction of your population when they are out of work.

In recent years, Liberals have taken to denigrating Big Oil for their "obscene"profits, conveniently ignoring that pesky fact that government (which produces no gasoline or energy for that matter) gets a bigger slice of the price of a gallon of gas than Big Oil takes in profits. If the politicians, of every stripe, were as serious about reducing the cost of energy as they claim to be, they'd cut those taxes. Of course, then they'd have to find another way to cut our production of carbon dioxide, since that would limit carbon taxes.

As the history of the last forty years in America has shown, cutting taxes will increase economic activity, thereby reducing unemployment. But Liberals pathologically refuse to see this simple fact. Besides, that would reduce their power over the American people. Remember Montag's Immutable Law of Nature # 7: "Liberalism is nothing short of an insatiable appetite for power".

Nuclear Power:

On the other hand, Europe is a lot more sensible when it comes to producing electricity. Most of their power is generated by nuclear power. Nuclear power is clean, non-polluting, and highly efficient. The trouble is, here in America, we've successfully miseducated our people into fearing nuclear power. Lacking a sane tort situation has also tied the hands of power companies, who can't even propose a new nuclear plant for fear of the endless litigation. Court challenges end up actually costing more than the plant itself.

Ethanol and bio-fuels:

What about so-called bio-fuels? Again, here we have absolute evidence of a national psychosis. What are these renewable fuels made of? Mostly corn. We are now burning our food! With this reduction of supply, naturally, the price of our food goes up. And this is true of all our foods.

And bio-fuels aren't all that environmentally friendly either. The fact of the matter is, ethanol production involves the use of diesel and other oil products to drive the various chemical reactions needed to produce it. Then, it has to be shipped by truck to where the markets are, since it cannot be transported in a pipeline, like gasoline and natural gas. Furthermore, it can easily be ruined, made useless, if water gets into it.

In short, ethanol costs more to produce than fossil fuels, uses more fossil fuels to produce than it replaces, and requires even more fossil fuels to transport.

And we're still burning out food!

Solar power:

Well, there's solar power, isn't there? Sure, if you can afford to coat your house with solar panels, and if you don't get much cloudy weather. Seattle, for all its Liberalism, doesn't have much use for solar power. Even then, we're talking about 15 to 25% efficiency here. Even if you could afford all the technology, you'd have to cut back your energy use dramatically. In other words, while you're being taxed into the ground and forced to burn your food, you'd have to have a lower standard of living.

A while ago, I saw an article about an experimental solar power plant that used computer-controlled "smart" mirrors to focus sunlight on a fluid which was used to power a generator. This is marginally better, but it still requires covering vast areas with mirrors, and it's still not as efficient as nuclear or fossil fuel fed power generation.

The fact is, if solar power were all it's claimed to be, we'd have it today. We don't and that's because it costs more than it's worth.

Wind power:

This isn't all that bad an idea. It's not the most efficient source of energy, but it does have the advantage that it doesn't need fuel. Once again, however, you need vast areas dotted with these giant, high tech windmills. This becomes a problem for environmentalists, since birds often collide with the spinning blades with catastrophic results. Then you have to get past the very elitist Liberals who want to shut all us little people down. The Kennedy's, for instance, recently squelched a wind farm off Nantucket, claiming that the windmills built out in the ocean (an otherwise ideal spot, since it is near the users of the energy and the wind is unimpeded over the ocean) would be an eyesore and a navigational hazard. The Kennedy's, you see, are both avid yachtsmen and avid drinkers!

Hydrogen:

This would be an almost ideal fuel. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the Universe. It burns completely at a very high temperature. And its ash is nothing but water. It can either be burned directly (like natural gas) or used in a fuel cell to produce electricity chemically.

The problem is, since hydrogen is so highly reactive, it can't be found outside of molecules such as water. Currently, the only way to produce hydrogen is to "crack" water, releasing the oxygen and the hydrogen into separate containers. This requires huge amounts of electricity, which, like ethanol, requires fossil fuels or nuclear power. There may be ways to harness genetically engineered bacteria or algae to produce hydrogen, but this has yet to be achieved in a commercially viable manner.

Another problem with hydrogen is that we don't have the infrastructure to transport, store and sell it. For it to be practical our entire gasoline distribution system would have to be supplanted. And that can't happen unless there's a market. This is a classic Catch 22.

Hybrid vehicles:

Nothing annoys me more than to see a Prius at a Citco gas pump! First, owning a Prius is a way for some pointy headed elitist to flaunt his superiority over us mere mortals, proclaiming his greater concern for the environment. Citco, of course, is owned by that little tinpot dictator, Hugo Chavez.

Hybrid vehicles may use a little less gasoline than standard autos in their day to day operation. But it's in the details that we have a problem.

The batteries are made of nickle and cadmium, both highly poisonous and polluting. This is mined in Canada, in a region made to resemble the Moon due to the heavy metal poisoning of the land. These poisonous materials have to be shipped to Europe for some of their transformation into batteries, then shipped to the US for the rest. Once manufactured, the batteries are then shipped to Japan to be installed in the Prius, which, in turn, is shipped to the US to be purchased by those very same pointy headed elitists.

In short, from beginning to end, buying a Prius actually burns more fossil fuels than if you'd just bought a Hummer right from the beginning and drove it as long as you drove your Prius.

And what do you do with the battery when it finally goes bad, as all batteries do? More heavy metal for the landfills? Or do you have to pay for its proper disposal?

Compact Florescent light bulbs:

Congress, in its abysmal stupidity, has banned the manufacture and sale of the old incandescent light bulb, mandating a total conversion to compact florescent bulbs. This is actually less than useless. It's actually worse than excess carbon dioxide.

First, while they use slightly less energy than incandescent bulbs, they also emit less light. This means you'd have to use more florescent bulbs to get the same amount of light and, therefore, more electricity.

And if you are unfortunate enough to break one of these newfangled bulbs, you are now at risk of mercury poisoning. In fact, you have to go through all sorts of expensive mercury abatements before you can use the room in which the bulb broke. Replacement is also problematic, since recycling these little abominations is also expensive.

So here is where we are today. We have politicians who decry our dependence on foreign supplies of oil, as well as the vastly exaggerated maladies of pollution. Meanwhile, we can't touch our own proven reserves, since that would upset the Sierra Club and the radical environmentalists. That doesn't stop China, Venezuela, Mexico and Cuba tapping our reserves off the coast of Florida, though. To add further insult to these injuries, we can't build nuclear power plants, new refineries, or wind farms.

But we are forced to burn our food, use all that fossil fuel to transport and create the ethanol, and poison our homes with nickle-cadmium batteries and compact florescent bulbs.

If we don't get our heads straight about our energy problems, America will be in a state of decline. Conservation isn't the answer, since it precludes growth.

To all the politicians who are strangling our economy with their idiotic policies and their punitive taxes: A POX ON ALL YOUR HOUSES!

REALITY CHECK

2008-02-22T21:52:00.005-05:00

Many of my friends on the Left believe (rather, they claim to believe) that every single recommendation of the 9/11 Report should have immediately become law and/or official United States policy. Had President Bush, immediately upon entering the White House, presciently knew what those recommendations would be and enacted them in the first months of his presidency, 9/11 would never have happened.

Perhaps. But then, had Bill Clinton not had Jamie Gorelick build that wall between the CIA and the FBI, perhaps something could have been done earlier. Or, as demonstrated by Robert "Buzz" Patterson in his book Dereliction of Duty, if Bill actually took time out from Monica Lewinsky to take Osama bin Ladin down, perhaps this column might not be necessary.

Be that as it may, there are problems looming for the United States, problems that none of the current Big Three candidates for president seem likely to address. These problems all stem from one major issue: illegal immigration.

By way of disclaimer, let it be known that my position on illegal immigration has evolved somewhat. Now, being a radical free market social Conservative with major Libertarian tendencies, and all things being equal, I am generally an open borders kind of guy. Put the government back into its Constitutional bottle (end all social spending, cut taxes as low as possible, radically simplify the tax code, make English the official language, etc.) and no one would really care how many people came from what countries to make a life as an American. Should our economy have a downturn and we aren't able to absorb all those immigrants, well, the market would settle that: news of hard times would get back to the homeland and the flow of immigrants will slow, perhaps even stop.

Nowadays, however, all things are not equal at all. We were attacked on 9/11. Most of the nineteen hijackers were not only in the country illegally, they had multiple drivers' licenses and identities. It has become painfully obvious that open border policies have failed to prevent this act of war.

And what do our leaders, of both political parties, have to offer for solutions? Sadly, only more open borders.

Today's immigration mess didn't just appear out of thin air. The problem goes back at least forty years. Ted Kennedy, back then, decided that our old system of immigration wasn't fair enough. Twenty years later, immigrants from Europe, who by and large share our values, were discouraged in favor of Latin Americans. Not only that, enforcement of our borders was given short shrift.

Of course, twenty years later, there was a public outcry about the burgeoning illegal immigration problem. Ronald Reagan, facing a Democratically controlled Congress, made a deal. The idea was that the border would be closed but, in the meantime, illegal aliens already here were granted a one time amnesty. So what happened?

Well, the Democrats got their amnesty, but blocked all attempts to close our borders, despite their solemn promise. News of the amnesty went South, and still more desperate people went North. Today, we are given estimates of between twelve and twenty-two million illegal immigrants in America.

First of all, there is no way to enforce a serious legal code, not if almost anyone can enter the country at will. And then, how do they get around pesky identifications and taxes and such? No problema! That's what they have identity theft for!

Of course, absent the terrorist threat and absent a government actually following the Constitution, this situation is untenable. Consider how the federal government, either through acts of Congress or the courts, has mandated that these illegal aliens are eligible to all the rights and protections that citizens or legal immigrants are entitled. Consider also, the poor folks whose identities have been stolen for the illegals' benefit. You see, of course, that one broken law begets another, and another...

Now, let's throw in Islamo-fascism and the terrorist threat. The way our borders are currently enforced, does anyone really doubt that terrorists can easily get into the country through Mexico? Does anyone doubt that the "coyotes", those who engage in human smuggling, are taking offers from al Qaeda and the like?

If you doubt me on this, consider the 9/11 Report:

According to the Report, al Qaeda owns, of all things, a travel agency in Mexico!

The Report notes that the hijackers committed various irregularities regarding their visas, passports and other documents. Some entered the country illegally, some overstayed their visas, most had fraudulent drivers' licenses. All of this to gain access to American airliners to be used as guided missiles.

Members of the panel asked many questions about the failures of our Immigration and Naturalization Service, as well as failures on the part of the FBI and the CIA

There is no doubt that, had our border enforcement been better, the 9/11 hijackers would not have had as easy a job to do.

Now, we have several recent stories, which I've culled from World Net Daily:

Mexico has just arrested two Iraqis with false Bulgarian passports. They suspect that they are being purchased by jihadists for $10,000 from Mexicans in Greece.

Quoting WND: "In addition, earlier this month, Norwegian authorities reported that Iraqis affiliated with al-Qaeda and former Baath Party members may have slipped into Kuwait after obtaining $15,000 Norwegian passports. Authorities in Kuwait say they are on the lookout for any Iraqi citizen bearing a Norwegian passport."

Let's not forget that dozens of Iraqis were arrested entering Monterrey, Mexico, illegally, heading for the United States.

Joseph Farrah, the editor of WND reported in 2003: "While President Bush considers a broad-based amnesty plan for millions of illegal aliens in the U.S., there is growing evidence the Mexican border continues to be used as a covert entry point for the smuggling of Arabs into the country."

We are facing a very serious threat, my Friends. While Chuck Schumer might holler for stricter security in our ports, he has little positive to say about securing our borders.

President George W. Bush has been strong on the War on Terror (God bless him!) but when it comes to securing the border? Chuck Schumer might as well have been the president, for all the differences (or lack thereof) in their positions regarding "comprehensive immigration reform".

John McCain likes to "reach across the aisle" to the Democrats. In this case, we just dodged a bullet with the McCain-Kennedy Bill, also supported by President Bush, which would totally fail to close our borders, while simultaneously granting amnesty to all those illegal aliens who've broken our laws. Been there, done that in 1986. In this time of war, do we need to repeat the mistake of Ronald Reagan?

Yes, McCain has promised on the campaign trail that he "gets it". He's learned his lesson and that he will shut down our borders but good the first thing when he gets to the White House. Yup! And I can sell you a slightly used bridge in Brooklyn for a measly couple of grand. With McCain in the White House and the Democrats in charge of the Congress, we'll have almost all of Mexico, along with whatever al Qaeda operatives there are, in the US and voting Democrat within ten years.

Hillary and Obama aren't any different either. Both want our borders open. Both favor granting illegals drivers' licenses. Neither of them, in last night's debate in Texas, wantto take a stance on making English our official language. In short, both like the influx of unskilled, under educated, illegal immigrants who have no interest in actually becoming Americans. Of course, that would, presumably, not be an obstacle when registering them as Democrats!

Now don't think that I am anti-immigrant. On the contrary, I love immigrants. I'm the grandson of immigrants. But I want immigrants who come here to become Americans. These are not the sort who become illegal aliens.

Read my opening comments about open borders, all things being equal. The mess we're in today is because my ideas about government and immigration were never implemented. We opened our borders without putting the government back into it's Constitutional bottle.

Then again, when I was an open borders guy, we weren't at war. As many folks have noted, 9/11 changes things. What we found out in the aftermath is that we are far too vulnerable thanks to illegal immigration.

My fear is that too many of our political elites, on both sides of the political divide, just don't see it.

LET'S GET DIRTY!

2008-02-20T22:34:00.007-05:00

You just know it was going to happen. Lots of people have been predicting it. Now it has come to pass.

Facing a punishing defeat for the Democratic nomination, the Clintonistas are getting down and dirty. Barak Obama is in for a nasty couple of months.

Bill and Hillary are inveterate political street fighters. They'll fight fair and clean, just so long as they are winning. And even then, the opportunity for a cheap shot can be just too tempting. It's not just to win, they want to destroy anyone with the temerity to oppose them.

Barak Obama, it seems, has become just the sort of insolent upstart that Hillary's hobnailed boots were made for.

Should there be any doubt, let's not forget the 900 or so raw FBI files that were found in the Clintonistas' possession in the White House. These were the sort of files that didn't make it into official FBI reports, since they included every accusation and rumor about their targets. Only careful vetting and sifting of such information could complete the official reports. However, these were the sort of files that can be used to blackmail, punish, or destroy anyone who fell into the Clintonistas' disfavor. For the record, Google comes up with 1,400,000 hits when you search for "Hillary Clinton; FBI Files"

Is that too speculative for you? Well what about the scorched earth policy aimed at Bill's famous "Bimbo Eruptions"? First of all, the affairs and the philandering are a part of public record. Second, it was Bill's own Arkansas chief of staff, Betsy Wright, who coined the term. Among the 135,000 Google hits for the words "bimbo eruption", was the Wikipedia entry that documents her role in minimizing the damage from all those women coming forward to tell of their affairs with Bill. The books by Carl Bernstien ( A Woman in Charge) and Jeff Gerth and Don van Natta ( Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton) clearly document the lengths that she would go to pillory anyone who would sully either Clinton's character by telling the truth.

Here's some names, a sort of Blast From the Past: Gennifer Flowers, Juanita Broderick, Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones, Marilyn Jo Jenkins, to name just a few. All of them have been ravaged by the Clinton attack machine for daring to disclose Bill's peccadilloes.

Then there was the White House Travel Office, and the way they weren't just fired, they were libeled and slandered, brought up on false charges, bankrupted, audited by the IRS, and, in general, had their day ruined. And why? Just so a Clinton cousin and a couple of Hillary's Hollywood friends could take over the position.

Ken Starr received extra special attention. Until he was brought into the sights of the Clintonistas, his reputation was impeccable. Lanny Davis and the boys, however, leaked all the grand jury testimony and blamed Starr for the leaks.

I could go on and on about the '90's, but this column today is about the 2008 campaign. Let's not doubt that the Clintons' attack machine is being wound up and aimed right at Barak Obama.

Whatever my differences with Obama politically, I have to admit he is running a pretty classy campaign. Although his rhetoric is vacuous, he at least tries to appeal to our better human natures. Specifically, he has not made the elections about race. Which, considering the Democrats' wont, is something of a breath of fresh air.

So what is the Clintonista response? The Iowa county chair Hillary volunteer sent out an e-mail, detailing the various connections between Obama and Islam, saying the following:

“Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major
public office in the United States , Barack Hussein Obama has joined the
United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background.”

Of course, Media Matters, that Hillary front group, tries to make the case that it was right wing talk radio that was responsible for forwarding "the accusation made by a website controlled by Rev. Sun Myung Moon...", but we've seen this tactic before, haven't we?

Then we have Bill Shaheen, a big time Democrat from New Hampshire and a Hillary supporter. In an interview, he said this:

"The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight ... and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use. It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?' There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."

The beauty of this bit of misdirection is that you get the story (Barak Obama is a junkie and a dealer) out there while leaving the blame on your ultimate opponents, the Republican Party. Never mind that the Republicans didn't really care about Bill's "I tried marijuana, but I didn't inhale." In the mind of a Democrat (which is where Shaheen's comments were aimed) the Republican will stoop to nothing to achieve their goals. When the uproar began, rightfully so, Bill Shaheen, like the good Clintonista he is, fell on his sword and resigned from her campaign. But you know either he or his wife, also an up and coming Democratic politician, will get some consideration for their troubles.

I've already catalogued "Fast Eddie" Rendell's indictment of "racist America" in my column And Now, Back To The Front Runner. Now we have the spectre of alleged homophobia looming out of the back pages.

World Net Daily reports that one Larry Sinclair has come forward with the claim that, in 1999, when Obama was a state legislator in Illinois, he had shared cocaine and oral sex with Obama. Failing to get any notice, he posted his claims on YouTube and is offering to take a polygraph test to back up his story. Regardless of whether he is telling the truth or not, does anyone want to bet that the Clintonistas didn't have at least something to do with this story getting out?

Then there was the kerfuffle of Obama's alleged plagiarism. Despite Hillary's claim that it was the media that made the connections between an Obama speech and one by Deval Patrick, the Associated Press shows the lie, telling of Clintonista Howard Wolfson's conference call to reporters hammering home the plagiarism angle.

Learning the lessons from Al Gore and his attempt to steal the 2000 elections, the Clintonistas are gearing up to battle the DNC for the nominations, even if Hillary loses the primaries. It's not enought that the fix is in at the DNC's Credentials Committee where, as UPI reports, all three of the chairs are held by close Clintonista pals. The Credentials Committee is the group that decides which delegates are seated at the Democratic Convention. Having some pull with the chairs of that committee gives a huge advatage to Hillary, regardless of the vote in the primaries.

Then again, there are also the delegates from Florida and Michigan. These delegates, as per DNC rules, were not to be seated, nor were the Democratic candidates supposed to campaign there, since those states had moved their primaries too far up. Anyone want to bet against me that Hillary doesn't try a lawsuit to get those delegates seated, since she didn't bother to adhere to the rules and won the primaries in Florida and Michigan? Better read the International Herald Tribune first. Al Sharpton is already threatening a march on Washington DC (That's like so '60's!) if Hillary tries that.

You know, I kind of feel sorry for Barak Obama. He's going to be dragged over the coals by Hillary. If he wins the primaries, there will be legal blood spilled before the convention is over and done. Hillary just might tear the Democratic Party apart.

John McCain, however, still has to make the case that he's a better choice for president. I haven't seen any sign of evidence to this effect yet.

But that's another column for another day! In the meanwhile: Here's mud in your eye!

COLD WAR? I BLAME GLOBAL WARMING!

2008-02-19T16:44:00.007-05:00

No, this isn't about the climate change nonsense. Although, I must point out that NewsMax reports that the Arctic has regained almost all the ice lost over the past year and the Antarctica has a third more ice than in the past. Then again, the Drudge Report notes heavy snow in Greece and Jerusalem, so maybe we can work out the Global Warmism angle after all.

It is, however, becoming apparent that the announcement of The End of The Cold War was a bit premature. The signs are ominous as they are almost omnipresent.

Kosovo has just declared its independence, prompting Russia to try and block said independence in the UN, with an emergency closed-door meeting of the Security Council.

Russia's premier, Vladimir Putin has been quietly ratcheting up his belicose rhetoric while simultaneously clamping down on the rights of the Russian people.

China has been playing chicken with American fleets, at one time surfacing a submarine in the middle of a US carrier fleet. Russia has recently taken to buzzing our operations with their aircraft.

China has been launching large numbers of missions into space, including the planned destruction, last year, of one of their own satellites. Clearly, they are planning for a potential war in space.

The American announcement that we will shoot down one of our own satellites has been met with concern from both China and Russia, who, after China's demonstration of this capability, now want the US to ban all research into militarizing space.

Russia has been aiding and abetting Iran's nuclear development, as well as selling large amounts of conventional weaponry to both Iran and Syria. Meanwhile, both Russia and China are blocking all attempts to isolate Iran for their intransigence.

These are just a few data points, but the trend is clear: both China and Russia are gearing up to blunt American influence in the world. China and Russia, despite the efforts of Richard Nixon, are teaming up again. Both are looking to increase their sphere's of influence. And both have taken stances in opposition to the United States.

Many of my Friends on the Left would say that this is a good thing. Many of them actually believe either a) that we deserved to be attacked on 9/11 or b) the attacks were an inside job by a president who never really won the election.

But those of us in the Real World know that the world is a dangerous place. There really are folks who would do us harm, just because our system of governance, our national interests, and our cultures are different from theirs. We, in the Real World, also understand that if America doesn't stand up for herself and for our allies, there really isn't anyone else who will.

Of course, our Friends on the Left will say that we can't be the policeman of the world, that we have no right, that it will only fan the flames of hatred for America.

That, put plainly and simply, is utter nonsense. The surest way to open America up to attack and retreat is to adopt the defeatist attitudes of the Left. Do you need Real World examples? Well then, here are two, both within the lifetimes of many of us:

With the wholesale retreat from Viet Nam and the collapse of the Republican Party following Watergate, the US adopted the retreat and appease policies of Jimmy Carter. Simultaneously, we had the radicalization of Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Only the latter was corrected (by Ronald Reagan) and we are still paying the price of Carter's fecklessness in Iran today.

Bill Clinton's pitiful performance vis a vis Osama bin Ladin and al Qaeda. First, he sent the message, by retreating from Somalia, that we will cut and run when things get tough. Then, despite repeated al Qaeda attacks, he refused to actually treat bin Ladin's actions as the acts of war that they were. Indeed, he refused several opportunities to take bin Ladin into custody and, somehow, he was always unavailable to give the go-ahead to our operatives to assassinate him.

I'd give more examples by -- THANK GOD! -- the Left hasn't had so many opportunities to undermine our nation. Of course, should the election in November go the way I suspect it will, we'll see a repeat of these glorious days of Liberalism run amok.

And just how do we know that these things will come to pass? Consider Michelle Obama who said yesterday, “Hope is making a comeback and, let me tell you, for the first time in my adult life [ italics are mine], I am proud of my country." Does this mean that she and, by extension, Barak have been ashamed of America until now? And how can we expect a president who isn't proud of America and all we've done for the world, to defend us, since we, ostensibly, don't deserve to be defended?

Yes, Friends! The world is indeed a very dangerous place. And there is only one nation that folks can turn to for Liberty, wealth, and defense with no strings attached. That nation is the United States. No, we never asked to become the "policeman of the world". But we did have that responsibility thrust upon us. We dare not turn our backs on that responsibility.

I do not, honestly, know enough about military and diplomatic matters to formulate a cogent opinion as to solutions to the conundrum we face. But I do know that we retreat at our own peril.
Almost 2000 years ago, the Roman Empire turned its back on much of the world, allowing much of civilization at the time to collapse, all in an attempt to keep the last sparks of Empire alive. Well, the barbarians came anyway, and first Rome then Byzantium were destroyed.

The barbarians will come for us as well, should we turn our backs to the world. Do we dare repeat the insanity that was Rome?

In the 1980's there were three people who stood tall against Communism: Ronald Reagan, Pope John-Paul II, and Margaret Thatcher. Mrs. Thatcher once famously said to Reagan, "Don't go wobbly on us, Ronnie!"

Timely advise for us to remember in the 21st Century.

MONTAG HASN'T GONE ANYWHERE

2008-02-18T15:13:00.002-05:00

I know that I haven't written anything since last week. I would like to offer my humble aplogies to my faithful readers. The problem was with my phone and Internet service, which has been plagues, of late, with technical problems.

I am, however, assured that these have been resolved and I will be back to posting my views on the news, culture, politics etc.

Look for my next full essay this evening, here at Montag's World.

A further note: Due to the idiosincracies of Blogspot, my latest column can be accessed by clicking on Older Posts, or by the link here. Sorry about the confusion!

Copyright Feb. 18th, 2008

THROUGH RACE COLORED GLASSES 2/18/08

2008-02-15T22:50:00.017-05:00

A gentleman posted a series of comments on to my column of last week -- "And Now, Back to the Frontrunner". True to form, anonymous didn't waste any time claiming that the GOP and Conservatives (by extension, I would assume, he would also include me) are the home of racism today.

He started out by taking issue with the Democratic Party's historical relationship with various racist policies in America's past, to wit: slavery, Jim Crowe, the Klan, segregation, etc. His comments seemed to have exposed a bit of racism on his part however: "...see, when they [the Democrats, I think] moved away from that [racist policies, maybe?], all the honkies went GOPiggy."

In later posts, he referred to Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice as "Toms". So, apparently, his racist views aren't just aimed at whites, but also to blacks who don't stay on the Democratic plantation regarding "proper" Liberal ideology.

I thought that today, I would expand upon my claim that it is really the Democratic Party, with its irrational addiction to identity politics, which is the racist party, as opposed to the color blind Conservatives, who look at people as individuals, regardless of the color of their skin.

How can the Democrats be racist? I mean, more that 90% of the black vote goes to the Democrats every time. What is it about them that would make me think the Party is racist?

First, a bit of history:

The Klan was started by the Democratic Party to undo or minimize the efforts of Reconstruction.

Jim Crowe laws were promulgated by Democrats.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, during the 1950's, spent most of his congressional career obstructing the Civil Rights Act, a bill that was supported, by the way, by Dwight Eisenhower.

It was Eisenhower who sent the troops into the South to enforce desegragation.

John F. Kennedy had his brother, Bobby who was then the head of the Justice Department, spy on Martin Luther King in an effort to discredit this Civil Rights pioneer.

Democrats resisted the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Al Gore's Dad led that obstruction. Had it not been for Republican support, it would never have passed.

More recently, we have Sen. Robert Byrd, who has never renounced his membership and leadership in the Klan. Strom Thurmond, on the other hand, not only quit the Klan very publicly, he switched parties to distance himself from them.

Other, superior minds than my own, have catalogued the specific policies which, while ostensibly claimed to be helpful to minorities, actually did them more harm than good. I suggest the writings of Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, and Charles Murray for a more indepth look at Liberal calumny diguised as "compassion".

And to the specious claims that it is the Conservative end of the political spectrum that is the new home of racism in America? Let's look at a few examples:

Opposition to affirmative action? That's merely discrimination against other folks, rather than traditional discrimination. (More on this later)

Failure to embrace identity politics? I thought that was what Martin Luther King was talking about: "...judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character..." What's racist about that?
Tax cuts? Despite the claims of Rep. Charlie Rangel (D.NY) -- "It's not 'spic' or 'nigger' anymore. They say, 'Let's cut taxes.'" -- tax cuts have absolutely no racial or ethnic component. In fact, tax cuts are good for minorities in that they spur the economy and create more jobs, while allowing wage earners to actually keep more of their money.
And what is so racist about appointing the first and second black Secretaries of State, not to mention the first black female National Security Advisor? Not even Bill Clinton, dubbed by Toni Morrison as "America's first black President" can make that claim.

No, anonymous doesn't recognize any of these things as being color blind. Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice are nothing but Uncle Toms, in anonymous' exalted opinion. You see, they have strayed from the Liberal Plantation of Thought Control to actually embrace individual effort and an escape from identity politics.

Now, for more on affirmative action. This is nothing short of tit-for-tat, "You-hit-me-I-hit-you" childishness. Worse, it doesn't even strike at the actual perpetrators of the crimes committed against American blacks in our past. It is merely striking out at anyone who who looks like the real criminals, most of whom are, thankfully, dead.

Consider it this way: Let's say that my great-great grandfather robbed banks. This information was widely known and documented but, for whatever reason, he was never prosecuted or imprisoned for his misdeeds. Now, 100 or more years later, we are finally going to do something to set this terrible injustice right. So, we are going to put you in jail, since my ancestor is beyond the ken of our justice system.

Wouldn't that, in an of itself, also be an injustice? After all, neither you nor your ancestors robbed any banks. Why should you have to pay for the crimes of someone else's ancestors?

Well, the same argument can be made about affirmative action. While I am white, my ancestors weren't even in America during the days of slavery, nor were they involved in any of the Jim Crowe laws. I have never engaged in bigotry and, to the best of my knowledge, neither have any of my ancestors. So why should I have the deck stacked against me to right some wrong that had nothing to do with me or my ancestors?

And what does affirmative action say about the folks it purports to help? "You're too stupid and too incapable to deal with life on life's terms, so we enlightened Liberals are going to help you." Wow! That's uplifing, isn't it? No wonder Thomas Sowell often expresses gratitude that he was educated before it became cool to like black people!

Someone (I forget who, but it wasn't me) once said that affirmative action is the ultimate in masochism, since it forces someone who thinks you're a turkey to hire you anyway. How true that is!

Look, racism is not only bad, it's stupid. I don't want to see any kind of racism, whether we're talking about the Bad Old Days of Jim Crowe or the supposedly enlightened days of affirmative action.

Furthermore, I have decided to limit anonymous and his postings to avoid giving a forum to his bigotted and scatological screeds. If he wants wants to make a point or an argument and can control his demons, then, by all means, he will be heard.

If not, I reserve the right to silence him on my blog. Let's just hope he can act like an adult.

Copyright Feb. 18th, 2008

AND NOW, BACK TO THE FRONTRUNNER

2008-02-13T22:59:00.008-05:00

Today, I'd like to examine Barak Hussein Obama a little more closely than I had in Obama Where Art Thou.

Having already outlined his biography, let's examine the man as a candidate. He is young, energetic, and articulate. I won't go so far as Joe Biden, who said Obama was "clean". I doubt that he was talking about personal hygiene. Although, with Biden's track record for unfortunate comments, maybe he was.

Obama is a stunning speaker. He has, as the Irish like to say, "The Gift of Gab". His speeches seem to move people in a way that neither McCain nor Hillary can. He is a welcome change, in a rhetorical sense, from the linguistic manglings of President Bush or the holier-than-thou intonations of John Kerry. And he is (Thank God!) not at all shrill like Hillary.

His technique of speaking is reminicent of Martin Luther King, Jr. His youth and his energy calls to mind John F. Kennedy, as do his looks. Compare this to Hillary. It's been said that a man could listen to Hillary promise him a million dollars, and all he'd hear is his ex-wife yelling "Have you put out the garbage yet?"

That is only the style, however. What of the substance? Well, that is a question, isn't it?

Obama speaks of "Change We Can Believe In." He believes in "The Future" and "All Americans Uniting." His supporters echo his slogan, "Yes We Can."

"Change"? What kind of "change"? What does he see in our "future", of which he is wont to tell us he looks toward?

What are his policy proposals? There, he's a little bit vague. During the primaries, he, Hillary and Edwards vied for who would raise taxes the most and fastest. They argued about who's Universal Healthcare plan would have the most mandates. And all three want to punish Big Oil, Big Pharmaceutical, and Big Insurance -- everything, in fact, but Big Government. And for a while, it seemed, they were in a race to see who would get out of Iraq first, although only Edwards would suggest a date for that withdrawal. In short, if you heard Edwards or Hillary, you've heard Obama's proposals. They are all interchangeable.

What Barak Obama does is use his soaring rhetoric to hide his extremely Liberal (face it, he's a Stalinist) ideology. He doesn't speak about his policies in detail because then everyone would know he isn't the "Agent of Change" he portrays himself to be. His policies are nothing but warmed over Socialism.

One need only to read his speech today in Janesville, Wi.:

Universal Healthcare, whether Hillary's or Obama's, would be a Marxist nationalization of one of the largest parts of our economy.

He describes the current mortgage troubles as if they were President Bush's fault, rather than the result of government forcing lending institutions to write bad loans, lest they be accused of "red lining".

He is a master of the rhetoric of class warfare, pitting us against the rich and the corporations, never mind that they provide the investments and the infrastructure of our economy.

He wants to subsidize what he calls "working families" with tax credits and federally funded daycare, all while punishing the achievers who actually made the jobs held by "working families".

He proposes to "reform bankruptcy laws" to protect "victims of predatory lending".

Obama wants a "National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank" spending billions, and payed for by surrender in Iraq.

Friends, this is all boilerplate Liberalism, the kind that Democrats have been spewing since George McGovern. The only difference is that Barak Obama looks and sounds better than McGovern.

But, really! All he offers are platitudes. He is like the Miss America constestant that says "All I really want is world peace."

Barak Obama is an empty suit, nothing more. He offers loads of style, mounds of soundbites, and inspires much enthusiasm. But he says nothing new.

Last December, the Boston Globe asked Obama a series of questions regarding the Constitution, the Congress and the powers of the presidency. His answers were stunning, not only in their Liberal naivete, but in their total ignorance of just what the Constitution says and what the Supreme Court has to say on these issues.

Let us not ignore the question of race. Obama has been quite successful running as an American, avoiding the issue of race as much as the Clintonistas will allow. It is noteworthy that, among the Republican candidates, no one has so much as mentioned his race. Although Mike Huchabee was reprehensible when he maligned Mitt Romney's Mormon faith.

But among the Democrats? Pennsylvania's Gov. Eddie "Don't Call Me Fast Eddie" Rendell had the temerity to say "...I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate." This is stunning, aside from the obviously libelous and inflamatory denouncement of white America, when one considers that he is talking about the frontrunner of the Democratic field. I've already cataloged other instances of this sort of Liberal racism in previous columns, so I'll just leave it at that.

My friend, Evan Sayet, wrote today: "Whites WILL vote for a black man so long as he's not running as a black man." He's correct. Previous black Democratic candidates (Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, for instance) ran on the idea that America is racist and they were rightfully rejected. Obama, as Liberal as he is, doesn't, and that gives him traction outside the black electorate.

What Barak Obama proves, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is that America is no longer the racist nation portrayed by Civil Rights, Inc. A truly racist country would never have a black candidate do so well. This is especially true given his success in a Party that has its roots in the Confederacy and the Klan.

Of course, Obama is still wrong in so many ways and with so many issues. He is, before his blackness or lack thereof, still a Liberal. And his administration would be catastrophic for our country, despite all his talk of hope and change. If he is defeated in his quest for the White House it won't be because of racism, at least not from the Right. It will be because the electorate looked at his ideas and found them wanting.

Given the almost certain nomination of John McCain as the Republican presidential candidate, I am still certain that either Obama or Hillary will become our next president. McCain is too distrusted by the Republican base to beat Hillary, and Obama is far too shiny and new compared to McCain.

Of course, as noted yesterday in Through Race Colored Glasses 2/12/08, Hillary just might tear the Democratic Party apart along the fault lines of race and gender.

As I said yesterday: "Ah! Life is good!"

THROUGH RACE COLORED GLASSES 2/12/08

2008-02-12T19:01:00.000-05:00

One of the many joys in my life is to watch Political Correctness run, head on, into itself. This year's presidential election is perhaps the most extreme case I've seen in my life.

Political Correctness (or "PC" for the remainder of this column) is strictly in the province of the Left. In simplest terms, it is a form of thought and speech control, wherein any deviation from the precepts of PC are to be met with howls of "Racist, Homophobe, Misogynist, Zenophobe!" Or, in other words, anyone who disagrees with a Liberal.

For instance, if we were to point to the serious troubles in the black family, we are told that we are "blaming the victim". Similarly, if you took the trouble to examine the actual statistice that undermine the theory of the Glass Ceiling for women, you are obviously lying, since the oversimplified statistics show just a ceiling.

Another way of looking at PC is that it is completely given over to identity politics, or the issues of people as part of ethnic groups or some other such artificial division, rather than as individuals.

In New York City, we have the very Liberal Mayor Mike Bloomberg going on a very PC war on tobacco, banning tobacco from almost every enclosed public space. Yet, in Astoria, Queens, he is unable, or unwilling as a leading proponent of PC, to confront the proliferation of Arab coffee houses that feature hookahs, or waterpipes, for the tobacco enjoyment of their patrons. This has become a bone of contention for restaraunts and bars in the area that aren't Arab-centric. Neighborhood bar? Outside with your cigarettes! A hookah? Sure, no problem! Go ahead and light up!

But the most amazing collision of PC with itself has been in the Democratic primaries of this presidential election season. On the one hand, we have Hillary Clinton, formerly the annointed candidate of the Democrats and her identity group of women and feminists. On the other, we have Barak Hussein Obama with all the hopes and dreams of Liberal blacks and other minorities. Suddenly, we find the Democratic Party and the Left in collision with themselves, all thanks to looking at life and politics "Through Race Colored Glasses".

Hillary Clinton, by past record, shouldn't have any troubles like this. After all, Toni Morrison, in 1998, had already crowned her husband, Bill as America's First Black President, citing his upbringing in a single-parent family and his serial adultery as credentials. (Personall, if I were black, I'd be insulted by this.) Hillary, Bill, and even that tree, Al Gore, have all spoken before black audiences, often, embarrassingly, adopting the speaking style of black preachers.

Now, though, Toni Morrison is endorsing Barak Hussein Obama. What's Hillary to do? Oh, sure! She can get Andrew Young, that icon of the Civil Rights Movement and former ambassador to the United Nations, to point out, simultaneously, Obama's youth and Bill's "blackness" saying: "Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He's probably gone with more black women than Barack." But this just doesn't seem to be enough.

Obama, meanwhile, has identity politics troubles of his own, albeit minor troubles. His leading star-power endorsment is Oprah Winfrey. Now, Oprah, while herself black, isn't perceived necessarily as black. She is the uber fem, the avatar of WOMAN. This makes her something of a feminist icon, since she is also the richest woman in America. The British Times Online, however, reported last month on the backlash from women and feminists (these are not necessarily the same folks, although most feminists are women) calling Oprah "a traitor to her gender", by not supporting the female candidate.

So here we have the Establishment Civil Rights guys (Jackson, Rangel, Young etc.) lining up behind Hillary along with the Feminist intelligentsia. Meanwhile, the younger Turks are ginning up for Obama, notably the Hollywood set. Throw in the Kennedy's for a little Establishment gravitas, if you will, and we have the Democratic Party in extreme meltdown mode.

Today is the Potomac Primary and it looks like Hillary is about to get her clock cleaned. Obama is running away, apparently, with the Democratic votes. But don't you dare think that Hillary is going to go off and lick her wounds. Rush Limbaugh, today, made the prediction that, whoever wins in the primaries, Hillary will be sure to get the nomination.

And if she does, what happens in the Democratic Party?

Let's imagine, for a moment, that Obama wins the majority of delegates to the Democratic Convention. Florida and Michigan, punished by the DNC won't have their delegates seated at the convention, based upon rules agreed to by all the Democrat candidates. Does anyone seriously believe that Hillary won't demand that those delegates be seated and counted as hers? After all, they were won by Hillary since she "just didn't have time" to remove her name from the ballots in accordance to the DNC's decision. And just who runs the DNC? Why it's the Clintons, since Bill was their most recent president.

Now let's imagine the response by black Democrats to the usurping of the primaries by the white candidate. Hmmm... Not pretty would be my guess!

Of course, if anyone in the Democratic Party had any sense at all, not only would they be Republicans, they would see this sort of happy nonsense coming a mile away. These are the logical results of identity politics and PC. This is the direct result of looking at people as groups, rather than individuals. These are the fruits of looking at life "Through Race Colored Glasses".

Ah! Life is good! I love watching the Left crash on the rocks of their own irrationality!

WE'RE WINNING! WE'RE LOSING! I'M SO CONFUSED!

2008-02-11T22:49:00.000-05:00

If you're confused also, you're not alone. Trolling through the Internet for newsworthy items to comment upon, I found two headlines on The Drudge Report right next to each other. The first, from The Politico said "Pelosi calls Iraq a 'failure' ". The second, from the British Times Online said just the opposite: "Al-Qaeda leaders admit: 'We are in crisis. There is panic and fear'".

So which is the truth and which is the lie? Well, according to Montag's Immutable Law of Nature No. 6 ("What's good for America is bad for the Democrats and vice versa") it would have to be Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat Speaker of the House.

Oh, to be sure, Ms. Pelosi made a point of praising out troops in Iraq. “The troops have succeeded, God bless them.” After all, the Democrats' canards have always included "But we support the troops!"

So, if the troops have succeeded, where is the failure? The Politico tells us that Ms. Pelosi explains: “The purpose of the surge was to create a secure time for the government of Iraq to make the political change to bring reconciliation to Iraq. They have not done that.”

Don't worry, folks! I'm as confused as you are! The troops have succeeded, but they have failed? That's sort of like John Kerry: "I actually voted for the $87 billion -- before I voted against it." Will the Legacy Media rush to Pelosi's defense and say that she, like Kerry, are too nuanced and intelligent for us mere mortals to understand?

The simple fact is, today's Democratic Party is owned -- lock, stock and barrel -- by the Kook Fringe. These are the lunatics who are still fighting over the 2000 election and how it was "stolen" from Al Gore. Many of them even think the 2004 election was stolen from Kerry. These are the guys who tell us it was all a war for oil, while the price keeps shooting through the roof. They are also those freaks who frequent web sites like 9/11 Truth and such. And if a Democrat dares to be sane? Well, look what happened to Joe Leiberman. The Kook Fringe Base will try to destroy him.

Pelosi goes on at length, denigrating the achievements we have made in Iraq. When asked by Wolf Blitzer (the report was about a CNN interview) if she wasn't worried about losing any ground gained by the surge, she replied:

“There haven't been gains, Wolf. The gains have not produced the desired effect, which is the reconciliation of Iraq. This is a failure. This is a failure. The troops have succeeded, God bless them. We owe them the greatest debt of gratitude for their sacrifice, their patriotism, and for their courage and to their families as well."

People, you can't make this stuff up! The troops have succeeded, but Iraq hasn't had the reconcilliation that Ms. Pelosi wants. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Constitution has no provision for the Speaker of the House to handle foreign policy, right? I mean, that's an Executive Branch responsibility, isn't it? I thought so.

And hasn't General David Petraeus reported, in an interview with Reuters, that the influx of foreign jihadists entering Iraq is down some 50%? And this is a failure how?

Could Iraq be doing better in the political sphere? I'm sure they could. But they just elected their own government, and they've got an awful lot on their plate. After all, the Founding Fathers didn't just conjur up a government immediately after the Revolutionary War. It takes time to build the institutions that make up a government.

And wasn't it only a couple of years ago that the Left was accusing the United States of creating a puppet government in Iraq? If it's a puppet government, then why can't the President just order the reconcilliation expected by Nancy Pelosi?

No, the Iraqis are governing themselves, and any reconcilliation or political reforms will be on their terms, not Nancy Pelosi's. But then when haven't the Democrats want things both ways?

Meanwhile, we have to go to Britain's Time Online to find out that captured documents and letters from Al Qaeda in Iraq show that the terrorist organization is crumbling and in disarray, thanks to the surge in American troops and the wholesale defection of Sunni tribal leaders who have decided to join the Americans and the Iraqi government in fighting the insurgents.

Correct me once again, but, if the Sunni tribal leaders are joining the Iraqi government, isn't that reconcilliation? What in the world is Nancy Pelosi talking about?

Well, don't expect Ms. Pelosi or Hillary or Barak to get any tough questions about American successes in Iraq. After all, we had to go to a British paper to find out about them. Haven't you noticed how Iraq has dropped from the Legay Media's coverage of the news? Sure! I know that "if it bleeds it leads" and all that. But let's not forget the political ripples good news such as this can create.

The Legacy Media is -- let's face it -- in the tank with the Democratic Party. L. Brent Bozzell and others have long ago documented their Liberal bias. It is an established fact. And since the Legacy Media is in bed with the Democrats, then you just know that any news that's good for America will be buried and/or ignored. So you can guarantee that the leaders of the Democratic Party won't get any serious questions about out successes in Iraq.

But then, that's what the New Media is all about. I'm talking about talk radio, places like the Drudge Report and Montag's World, the little blog that could!

Don't think that we'll let this happy nonsense slide by unremarked!

A Review of "The Irrational Atheist"

2008-02-10T16:00:00.000-05:00

Normally, I steer clear of theological issues, except as to the Quran and its scriptural basis for modern terrorism. However, a book by Vox Day, "The Irrational Atheist", is a prime subject for this forum.

Vox Day is a columnist for World Net Daily as well as a computer game designer and a musician. Right there, I have to say I like the guy, since I have been known to play a few computer games, I play in a rock and roll band, and you are reading this column. If that weren't enough, he describes himself as "Christian Libertarian and Forensic Atheologist". Anyone who knows me knows that Libertarian philosophies are very close to my heart.

What Mr. Day has succeeded in doing, in writing "The Irrational Atheist", is totally demolish the arguments for atheism by such luminaries as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Michel Onfray. What is even better, he does it without relying on Scripture to back his arguments, although he does quote the Bible towards the end. Still, if he left out the Bible quotes, his refutation of atheism, in all its forms, would stand.

Mr. Day begins with cataloging the many instances of mass murder carried out by atheists and their governments compared to the relative nonviolence of religions everywhere. He then proceeds to note the almost autistic way in which modern atheists have to confront and attack theists, even agnostics, at every opportunity, noting that many atheists score relatively high in tests for Asbergers Syndrome. He offers the following hypothetical exchange to illustrate his point:

Agnostic: I don't believe there is a God. Because I haven't seen
the evidence.
Atheist: There is no God. Because I'm an asshole.

Yes, this a serious discussion of atheism and theism, but, being that we are concerned with human beliefs, there is more than enough room for humor.

Mr. Day draws on innumerable sources, from history to sociology even to science fiction, to bolster his arguments. In particular, I like his references to "Accelerando" by Charles Stross, since I am also a fan of science fiction.

One of the best illustrations that Mr. Day makes is when he answers the paradoxes of God's omniscience and omnipotence vis a vis humanity's free will. How can an omnipotent -- and, hence, omniscient God -- exist where there is free will?

He looks back on his career as a computer game designer, specifically the experience of a friend, nicknamed Big Chilly, who finds himself surprised and shocked at the actions of his own AI creations in a computer game he had designed. In the context of this game, Big Chilly was, for all intents and purposes "god" to the various characters protrayed by his various AI's. He was capable of "knowing" everything they could possibly do. And yet, his AI's managed to almost outwit him, sneaking around behind him in this First Person Shooter game.

The points of similarity between the game scenario and Man's relation to God are obvious, yet Mr. Day's genius is to bring them into such clarity with a real world example.

Smart, funny, irreverant, devastating -- all are words to describe "The Irrational Atheist". In case I haven't made myself clear, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone -- atheist, agnostic, theist, or what have you.

One minor quibble, however, must be adressed. Mr. Day does a wonderful job demonstrating that religion, on the whole, is not the cause of war and violence in the world. However, he gave short shrift, in my opinion, to an examination of Islam and its scriptural basis for Jihad. The following e-mail exchange should illustrate the most satisfactory resolution of this question:

Montag:

Hello, Mr. Day.

I have been reading your book, The Irrational Atheist, and I must say that I find very little that I can disagree with. However, I have one question.

On page 230, you wrote that religion "...can only be used as a scapegoat, because it does not provide the primary motivation or the means for crime, for war, or for repression and massacre." Not to question your knowledge in these matters, but Mark A. Gabriel make a rather compelling case that the Quran actually demands that the faithful wage war, not only on non-Muslims, but on those Muslims who do not adhere to the strictest interpretations of the teachings of Allah and his prophet, Muhammed. I was wondering if you could spare a few moments and share your thoughts on this matter.

For myself, while I do recognize the military, political and governmental aspects of Jihad, I can't seem to overlook the scriptural basis for such warfare.

Thank you for your time. I'd appreciate if you could get back to me on that. And if I haven't already made it clear, The Irrational Atheist is one great book! Keep up the good work and I hope to talk to you soon, my Friend!

Vox Day:

Hi Gregory, I'm perfectly willing to grant Islam being an exception to
the rule for the very reason you provide. I hint at this when I point
out that one historically recent religion has caused more than half of all
religious wars in recorded history despite only being around for one-third
of that history. But that's a particular quirk of Islam alone, it's not inherent
to it being a religion, and even that aspect of Islam has been resisted for a
good part of Islamic history.

All in all, "The Irrational Atheist" is a compelling and entertaining read, well worth the time for anyone -- theist, atheist, agnostic or whatever.

NO COUNTRY FOR CONSERVATIVES?

2008-02-08T21:50:00.000-05:00

This is going to be one difficult column to write, since I tend to be rather optimistic. Unfortunately, I try to be honest, and this election cycle's prospects don't look too good.

With the nomination of John McCain all but a done deal, Conservatives are left with a serious dilemma. What are we to do, now that our input into the primary process was ignored yet our support for the obviously flawed McCain is demanded?

Time and again, it seems, Conservatives are told by the Republican establishment "Shut up and vote for our candidate". It's bad enough when we are given inferior choices. George W. Bush might not have been our ideal, but he was still a better choice than McCain. This time, we were denied, by the Party bosses, the superior candidate, Mitt Romney, with the collusion of an also- ran, Mike Huckabee.

We've seen this script before. Goldwater was shut out -- too Conservative. Reagan had to be shunted aside in favor of blueblood pick, Gerald Ford. Bush the Elder had to be the guy, because he'd been Vice President. How many times must we Conservatives hold our noses and choose "the lesser of two evils"?

This time around, I am not all that convinced that McCain is "the lesser of two evils", for the reasons I listed yesterday in No Comparison. When you really examine the issues, we are faced with the choice between full-steam-ahead Socialism or Let's-take-our-time Socialism.

There is one school of thought that says we have to support McCain, since failure to do so would result in a Hillary or Obama victory. Given the current Democrat majority in Congress, they would be up to no end of mishief. Even a flawed RINO in the White House would put the brakes on the worst abuses.

But how can we know? After all, McCain has sided with the Democrats on so many issues. Indeed, he even flirted with leaving the Republicans to become John Kerry's running mate in 2004. What would keep him from showing his true Liberal colors once in office.

At this point, the Establishment types would say "Oh! But the Republicans in Congress would work to minimize that sort of collusion." Really? The way they stopped President Bush from foisting a massive new entitlement on us? The way the Republican leadership stopped the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill? Or the way that, despite their opposition, the McCain-Feingold Bill became law?

The fact of the matter is, members of Congress are beholden to the White House when it is held by a member of their own party. This is why so many Republicans went along with President Bush's Liberal apostacies. Failure to support the Party's President is often met with the punishment of witheld Pary support. With John McCain in the White House, siding with the Democrats on so many issues, they would perforce support his ideas. Conservatism, that ideological bedrock upon which the Republican successes of the last thirty years were built, will be all but abandoned.

So! Do we Conservatives, as Ann Coulter suggested, vote for the Democratic candidate? That is unsatisfactory since it would prove to the Establishment RINO's that there really isn't such a great divide between the Right and the Left. It would also be an exercise in hypocrisy (no offense, Ann!) that I, at least, would prefer not to commit.

Of course, we Conservatives could, in good conscience, sit the election out. This would, of course, guarantee a Democrat victory, but we can at least claim noncooperation. Many Conservatives will probably do just that, as we have seen time and again in the past. Even the RINO's know that they can't win elections without Conservative support. Witness McCain's speech yesterday pleading with the members of C-PAK that he really is a Conservative, despite his abysmal track record. Many Conservatives will simply withold their votes, with the result of a Democrat victory.

Here we have the problem that we aren't driving our agenda forward, letting the Left have full control, once again, of our government. Any gains we have seen regarding the make up of the courts will be undone all at once. The eldest, and the coincidentally the most Liberal, members of the Supreme Court, for instance, are holding on to their seats only in hopes of a Democrat victory in November. Once either Hillary or Obama are in the White House, they are going to retire and we get clones of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer.

Perhaps we Conservatives should bolt from the Republican Party all together forming a new Conservative Party and letting the RINO's join the Democrats for real. This would be very satisfying on a personal level, but would leave the Democrats uncontested for a period of years while we build up our party strength. Would the Democrats still allow the New Media its freedom, which we Conservatives have enjoyed for twenty years? That is doubtful, since the Left has been trying to shut down the New Media, calling for a return of the Fairness Doctrine. That could blow up in the Democrats' collective face, since it might fire up an otherwise disheartened Conservative mainstream.

For myself, I am going to change my party registration to the New York State Conservative Party, not that it has always been a good fit for my own philosophies. It's just that the New York Republicans have left me, becoming "me too" Democrats in the mistaken belief that Liberalism Lite works better than Conservatism. By changing my party affiliation, I intend to send the message that I am not OK with the Leftward tilt of the Republicans.

But what of November? What should I do with my own precious vote. While anything can happen between now and then, and in politics anything usually does, I think I might actually vote for John McCain, as much as it pains me to say it. I doubt that he can win in the general election. After all, "Given a choice between a Democrat and a Democrat, the Democrat always wins." My apologies to the shade of Harry Truman!

However, I still believe in miracles, even if the one I'd hoped for wasn't meant to be. McCain might pull it off. And if he pulls it off, he might even govern as a Conservative. I won't hold my breath on either of these possibilities, though.

If McCain were to succumb to his worst tendencies, perhaps the Conservative faithful could hold his feet to the fire, so to speak, and bring him back around. That's also a longshot, but we're talking about miracles, so please forgive me.

Doubts about McCain's orthodoxy aside, he is still going to be marginally better on judicial picks, although don't expect McCain-Feingold to be overturned in the near future. And he is slightly better on the War on Terror. Just don't pay too close attention to the courts handling the Guantanamo detainees.

All in all, there isn't much to like about the picks for the presidency. But I'm still going to vote and I'm still going to change my party affiliation.

Electile Dysfunction, anyone?