Archive for December, 2006
by Jeff Lukens
Elections have consequences. And for our recent election, the consequences have been a major setback in the war on terror and a greater threat to terrorist attack at home. This is so because a public with an attention deficit disorder has elected a liberal congress that wants pull the plug on Iraq at the first face-saving chance they get.
Many people draw comparisons between the war in Iraq and the war in Vietnam. Since the election I've had the nagging feeling we are in about the 1973 phase of the Vietnam War. That year the power shift in Washington away from a conservative president toward a liberal congress doomed the war effort and in effect condemned millions of our Vietnamese allies to death and reeducation camps. A similar scenario may now be unfolding regarding Iraq.
The effort to preserve our interests in the region just got a lot more difficult as antiwar Democrats take over Congress backed by a sympathetic press. Together they have convinced the public that Iraq is a costly misstep, and Republicans have failed to convince them otherwise.
Much of President Bush's strategy has been based on Natan Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy. In it, Sharansky stresses that freedom abroad and security at home are linked, and that there can be no peace without democracy. His book has become the basis of the post-9/11 strategic thinking.
By Sharon Hughes
I’ve been chewing on whether to write about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s letter to us ‘Noble Americans,’ and have decided I can’t just let it pass.
It’s unbelievable that the dictator could be so presumptuous as to think the American people would listen to him after all the anti-American rhetoric and calls for ‘death to America,’ but then we’ve already had examples of his thinking and manner, as demonstrated in his interview with Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes, and his speech at the UN last September, so we shouldn’t be surprised.
But, let me raise just a few questions about what he wrote…
1. First of all, who is Ahmadinejad, the self-appointed ‘John the Baptist’, talking about in the opening of his letter to Americans leading into the Christmas season? Not Jesus.
“O, Almighty God, bestow upon humanity the perfect human being promised to all by You, and make us among his followers.”
By Alan Caruba
When America hit the 300 million mark in October the U.S. Census Bureau held a press conference and their electronic display was on the evening news shows ticking off the numbers of new citizens until it showed…what?
It showed there are just way too many people in America if you worry about things like the provision of sufficient energy, dependency on unfriendly nations for our oil imports, overcrowding of cities, uncontrolled immigration, unfunded entitlements, and a whole list of other problems.
Hard core ecologists—environmentalists is another name for them—if you get a few drinks in them will tell you we will just have to get rid of a couple of million people every month or so if the Earth is to sustain the six billion taking up space, expecting to be fed every day, driving around in cars or on motorcycles, and making more people.
Mark Steyn has written one of the most important books published this year. It’s America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It (27.95, Regnery Publishing). Steyn deals with demographics, a topic most people in that particular field of scholarly endeavor manage to make so dull you just want to run screaming from the room. It is the study of human population trends. Steyn, however, is a talented writer and therefore knows how to turn statistics into a lively discourse.
By Alan Caruba
The midterm elections were held on November 7th and by November 10th the Associated Press reported that California Senator Barbara Boxer was promising “major policy shifts on global warming, air quality and toxic-waste cleanup as she prepares to lead the U.S. Senate’s environmental committee.”
“Time is running out,” said Sen. Boxer about global warming “and we need to move forward on this,” during a conference call with reporters. Noticeably missing from her Chicken Little pronouncement was any scientific evidence that (1) there actually is a global warming threat and (2) why any of the draconian proposals to deal with it would have the slightest effect.
“Boxer said she intends to introduce legislation to curb greenhouse gases, strengthen environmental laws regarding public health and hold oversight hearings on federal plans to clean up Superfund hazardous waste sites across the country.”
I call this the “Californication” of the economy because Sen. Boxer would model federal legislation on a new California law that imposed the first statewide limit on greenhouse gases, seeking to cut that State’s emissions by 25 percent in an effort to return them to 1990 levels by 2020.
The National Center for Public Policy Research recently noted that, “Despite ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union is on track to miss its Kyoto emissions reduction target of 8% below 1990 levels by 2012. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the CO2 emissions for the l5 original member nations of the EU increased an average of 9% between 2000 and 2004.” Industrialized societies that require economic growth should never place a meaningless obstacle like “greenhouse gas emissions” in the way, but that’s exactly what the United Nations Kyoto Protocol does.
I am reading Ann Coulter's, "How To Talk To Liberal If You Must" and I found her statements on how the liberal press usually present their liberal one-sided views quite startling. Especially when I see the obvious evidence of such reporting in today's news.
In today's Huntsville Times, at least they are presenting the non-liberal view in defense of Judge Roy Moore and the liberal-media attack against him by associating him to a convicted child killer.
Roy Moore, the ousted state chief justice, doesn't like his name being linked with accused child killer Kevin Andre Towles.
Instead of questioning Moore why he gave Towles probation on 1996 charges of cocaine and marijuana possession, the former Etowah County circuit judge said Thursday that the media should ask why more recent judges didn't send the 31-year-old Towles to prison when they had the chance.
by Jim Kouri, CPP
The latest paramour of the denizens of the mainstream media is obviously Senator Barack Hussein Obama, Illinois Democrat. With their superficial sensibilities, the entire big media — including Fox News Channel — appear to want to give Sen. Obama a collective lap-dance. Like lovesick school girls they get absolutely giddy at the sound of his name.
This media blast of passion and adulation has created a news household name. In fact, a friend who's a true progressive told me she loved Obama. When I pressed her for more information, it turned out she didn't even know what he looked like or what he stood for; her love for him was based on — you guessed it — media coverage.
Imagine the surprise when these partisan cheerleaders got wind of a poll that showed Democrats favored Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama 33% to 12%. In fact, Obama beats Gore by one measly little point. Okay, so that was a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll.
For my friends on the left who distrust Fox, Obama didn't do much better in a CNN poll:
by Sher Zieve
Pushing the envelope in order to continue to check Americans’ political correctness and acceptance of terrorists’ "rights" has now become the order of the day for Islamists—that is for Muslims intent upon using American "tolerance" against us. Muslim cab drivers at Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) airport have decided they will no longer accept passengers who are ‘transporting alcohol’. Over 50% of the taxi drivers at MSP airport are now Muslims.
On 6 June 2006 the Islamic drivers issued a formal "Fatwa" to the Metropolitan Airports Commission, advising it that allowing passengers who carry alcoholic products is now prohibited; as it would involve "cooperating in sin according to Islam". Thus far, I have neither read nor heard of any response to the Muslim demands. Instead, MSP airport is considering the installation of a "Muslim prayer room"—at the request of Muslims—largely in response to the "flying imams" who recently overtly tested US Airways security and the flying public’s reactions to the imams’ terroristic-type behaviors. With respect to Muslim prayer rooms, airport in Nashville, TN, Columbus, OH and Fort Lauderdale, FL already advertise them! Of course, airports have not offered to install Christian prayer rooms—that would be "discrimination".
"Global Warming" Debate Should Be Resolved by Congress, not the Supreme Court
WASHINGTON–On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Massachusetts v. EPA. Filed by a group of states and environmental groups, the case asks the justices to decide whether the Environmental Protection Agency must regulate American car makers' contributions to "global warming."
Cato scholars have filed two amicus briefs on the EPA's behalf, one addressing the scientific claims of global warming alarmists and the other addressing the legal questions in the case. The first, science-oriented brief, authored by Cato senior fellow Patrick J. Michaels and filed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, questions the notion that global warming will exert a net negative impact on human health and welfare.
by Carey Roberts
It was one of those claims that only a feminist could dream up: "A 2005 U.N. Population Fund report found that 70% of married women in India were victims of beatings or rape." Despite the lack of credibility of anything that comes from the United Nations, this straight-faced claim actually made its way into a front-page article last week in the Washington Times.
That, despite the fact that the research shows Indian women are the gender more likely to abuse. Plus, no one could track down the UN report that supposedly made the claim. [www.mediaradar.org/alert20061113.php]
The Washington Times is certainly no feminist rag. So what’s going on here?
In the wake of the November 7 electoral debacle, conservatives are doing a lot of soul-searching. Maybe it’s time to assess whether the feminist ideology has been allowed to invidiously dilute the conservative message.
There was a time, of course, when the women’s movement held the moral high ground. Susan B. Anthony not only championed women’s right to vote, but also took a principled stand against abortion.
by Erik Rush
"What's the point? They're all crooks."
- My father, on voting.
As the U.S. Capitol custodial staff scrubs bloody chunks of the Republicans' former majority from chamber walls, the more informed among us are left to our (hopefully more informed) conjecture. Have we moved into another dark age of far-Left preeminence, or will the Democrat leadership crash and burn, engendering even more disgust and disappointment in voters than existed two weeks ago, thus turning the tables yet again?
Should the latter occur anytime within the next, oh, two to four years, it is evident that Americans will no longer tolerate Republican politicians who transmogrify into Democrats as soon as they attain a majority; the midterm election was all the proof we need of that.
Q: How do you turn a Republican into a Democrat?
A: Get them elected.
Not any more. And well it should be. "Death to the RINOs! [Republicans In Name Only]" is a call I've been hearing a lot over the last week or so in varying forms.