Steve's America

Don Ho, Don's Hos, Hos and Pimps

2007-04-15T20:00:00.000-05:00

Say it ain't so! Don Ho, legendary Hawaiian musician and entertainer, died April 14 of a chronic heart condition. He was 76. From its opening in 1965, The Don Ho Show entertained millions of people who flocked to see him in clubs from Honolulu to New York. Ho, of mixed Chinese, Hawaiian, Portugese, Dutch and German descent, is perhaps best known for his easy-listening pop classic "Tiny Bubbles."... It was only a matter of time for Don Imus, the cranky bigot and disc jockey who committed career suicide this week after years of being rewarded for bad taste and even worse judgment. Mr. Imus' career was 41. Reportedly (as this can only be confirmed by the few people who heard Imus in the Morning on CBS Radio or the even smaller number who watched him on cable dwarf MSNBC), the shock jock referred to a predominantly-black team of female athletes as "nappy headed hos." The callous quip was classic Imus: neither funny nor thoughtful. But when he got caught straddling the race and sex rails, the mean-spirited motormouth could only watch as he was hit head-on by the train of race-baiting, self-promoting power pimps rushing to Hymietown to create a crisis and pander for some prime press time. It's good that Imus is gone. He was free to say stupid things and he paid the price for his irresponsible remarks. You say you're sorry, Don? Talk to the hand. There will be no redemption for you. That's reserved for the likes of the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton; for their mistakes and for the mistakes of those these holy men see fit to forgive... Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty a ho in Durham, North Carolina will not be charged for falsely accusing three Duke lacrosse players of raping her at a party a little more than a year ago. Despite her lies, the state's attorney general has given stripper Crystal Gail Mangum a pass. She will continue to dance for dough around Durham even though she has criminally-abused the legal system, took three strangers to the brink of ruin and recklessly raised racial tensions on a national scale. How do we know the stripper lied? Her story of the alleged attack changed every time she told it. And though her DNA test swab read like a Ho's Who's Who of the Durham democrat voter base, it didn't identify one member of the Duke lacrosse team. In fact, there was a lot of exculpatory evidence that should have closed this case within days of when it started. But it was ignored. Which brings us to the man pimping Ms. Mangum and her baseless charges from the beginning, suspended (and soon-to-be former) local DA Mike Nifong. Nifong's political ambitions drove him to abuse his prosecutorial power and file false and serious charges against three innocent college students. Why? Because this saga was framed from the beginning by the liberal media to be the perfect storm; a poor, single, black mother brutally raped by rich, white boys while working hard to put milk on the table for her hungry babies. Every camera in the country was trained on Durham. As soon as they were all plugged in and rolling, Jesse, Al and a lot of the usual stir-it-up types did their standard class warfare drive-by. Nifong saw an opportunity to score some easy points with black voters during his primary election. He ratcheted up the rhetoric; calling the Duke students "hooligans" and worse. About that time, Duke President Richard Broadhead was getting heavy lefty pressure in the community and on campus. He folded like a cheap suitcase, rolling over on his students and the lacrosse program. Emboldened by Broadhead's cowardice, 88 liberal faculty members (I know, that's redundant) lobbied loudly for a lynching. The smell of blood was enough for Nifong. He filed charges against three random players without any proof a crime had occurred. He charged them with committing rape and other vicious acts. Why did Nifong let politics interfere with the pursuit of truth? Pick a reason. She's a black stripper and they're white guys who hire strippers; they were students at Duke and she goes to a much lesser school; they take drug tests, she takes drugs; she has kids she can't afford and they come from (gasp) "prosperous" families. In short, these three players represent everything the liberal elite fear and loathe; those whose lives would never make Sweeps Week on Springer. Last week, after more than a year of local non-investigation and obfuscation, the State of North Carolina dropped all charges against the innocent players, saying in the strongest terms that the the idiot prosecutor had run amok with the case. And while much will happen before this drama is done, let's write the Steve's America ending you'll never see in The New York Times (especially if it really happens). Mike Nifong will be disgraced, disbarred, then imprisoned for his criminal conduct. It will only be after many years in prison (and much personal experience) that he will come to understand the true brutality of rape and sodomy. While there is no compensation for the tears, trauma and reputational damage they have endured, the Duke players and their families will end up with huge monetary settlements from both the taxpayers of Durham and from Duke University that will more than compensate them for their legal expenses. The boys will be left with enough money for a lifetime of better parties with better entertainment. They should even have enough left to raise some privileged middies or attackmen of their own who will go on to play for Syracuse. Dick Broadhead will be dusted by Duke as a condition of the financial settlement between the university and the three students. He will be named president of North Carolina Central University where he will hire the 88 by-then-unemployed Duke faculty members who publicly, wrongfully and shamelessly convicted their own students. NCCU is where Crystal Gail Mangum goes to school on a Jesse-Jackson-paid scholarship. Given her busy schedule and many extra-curricular activities, she ought to be a sophomore by the time this all comes down in a couple of years. There just seems to be kind of a sweet symmetry to all of that. Oh, and one more thing... An even-happier ending will be written the day Americans of all colors shun celebrity victimologists like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. These are not leaders in the mold of Martin or Malcolm. They are pimps of fear, bigotry and resentment; political opportunists and extortionists always willing to dance for the man who will pay them the most. Their selective moral outrage has become tiresome and predictable to the point of parody. We all know that whenever bad stuff happens, we can count on these "men of the cloth" to show up in shiny suits and hang around until the last race card has been played and the shakedown check has been written. They're not even good pimps. A good pimp (I'm told) will ensure some level of customer satisfaction for the price he extracts.

The Friend of My Enemy is My Enemy

2006-07-09T20:00:00.000-05:00

I can't bear to watch, so I don't. And, according to a recent Rasmussen poll, 94% of Americans feel the same way as I do. But it seems a lot of people somewhere feel differently. And that's okay. But today, I heard through a second-hand source who heard it somewhere from someone, our friends (the Italians) defeated our enemies (the French) in a major kickball game played in Durkadurkastan or Europe or somewhere. Apparently this is kind of a big deal because the final game came at the end of a tournament that is like 11 months long. Kickball, as everyone knows, is a hybrid bastardization of American baseball and dodgeball (with elements of amateur theatre added) that our soldiers taught the natives as we invaded and occupied their countries around the world. Over the years, it has become almost as popular as socialism in some regions. The top teams have uniforms and websites and sponsors and everything... and some players are even treated like rock stars. Kickball is typically played by those who are afraid of (or have no access to) sticks, who prefer to fight with their feet or who just plain haven't got the athleticism for a real sport. But it's long been fine exercise for smallish, frail or uncoordinated people because it's good for them to get outdoors in the fresh air, run around a bit and play. And in kickball, just like in our own public schools, the scores are always low so everyone can feel extra good about themselves when it's all over. We should encourage those who play the game, even if we don't care to watch them play it. Anyway, they have this kickball tournament every 3 or 4 years (kind of like the Special Olympics) and a lot of people probably went to the park to watch the final game if the weather was nice wherever it was. I'm pretty sure if it was broadcast it would be on ESPN 8 or on XM channel 900, but it will most likely be a delayed broadcast to air sometime between a "Girls Gone Wild" infomercial and a Neil Cavuto re-play early in the morning. Most of America won't watch it, of course, but a few will. Whatever. That's okay. It's good to promote understanding of foreigners. And it's always nice to report yet another French loss and to congratulate our friends the Italians for anything. Even if it's something as silly as a kickball game. But if you want any details like the score, you'll have to check the "paper of record"... Everyone knows who they're rooting for. At any other time in our history we'd be hanging the boy publisher Sulzberger by his neck in Times Square (kind of poetic, don't you think?) or strapping him into Ol' Sparky. But today the best we can do is use The New York Times to help us identify our most dangerous foes and our best friends. It's easy once you know their code; they are always on the same page with the people and ideas that are bad for our freedom and security. The Times likes liberal democrats, Hollywood, the ACLU, Osama bin Laden, Cindy Sheehan, communism and the UN. At the same time, the paper is unbridled in its loathing of George W. Bush, the American military, the NRA, Clarence Thomas, capitalism and all of the states between New York and California. In its own twisted way, The New York Times is providing a valuable service for those of us who like to know who our enemies are and what they are doing. It's almost too bad that their circulation and stock value are going down like a laser-guided bomb on an al Qaeda safe house. It will be good to read The Times' obituary in The New York Post, but we already know what the tombstone will say: "Here Lies." Period... This just in! The price of oil still hovers at nearly $75 a barrel. We all know what that means for prices at the pump and, correspondingly, for the President's approval ratings. According to an anonymous Capitol Hill source close to the DNC, Republican puppetmaster Karl Rove has a diabolical plan in motion to turn things around before the mid-term elections in November. According to the lefty leaker, "The White House has been stymied by the price of oil. They can't seem to do anything positive with Iran, and they haven't been able to get any traction to drill ANWR or in The Gulf of Mexico. So look for Rove to take the focus off of oil and put it elsewhere... on the cost of bourbon." The whistleblower continues,"People may be paying over $3 for a gallon of gas, but Rove and Cheney intend to beat the drum about the $112 per gallon they're paying for Maker's Mark. Sometime in early October you can expect a military invasion of Loretto, Kentucky and the occupation of the distillery. It's brilliant, really. I only wish Howard Dean was that smart. Don't tell my friends at The Times that I said that.".... Do you know who your friends are? Joe Liebermann is finding out the hard way. Only six years ago, he and alGore were shoulder-to-shoulder, trying to steal the presidential election on the thin premise that old people in Florida were too stupid to poke a piece of paper responsibly. As the then-vice presidential candidate, Joe was a mere couple of thousand fraudulent votes and a heartbeat from the Oval Office. He was an icon of the democrat party and a friend of socialists everywhere. So why, today, is he running for his political life from a rich Connecticut cableguy? Because, even with a lifetime American Conservative Union score of 8 that should endear him to our enemies everywhere, he's on America's side in the war on terror. And because he cares about the security of our country, he has fewer friends in the democrat party than Tom Delay. Among those who have turned their backs on Joe: thirty-year "friend" Hillary Rodman and the man who invented the internet, the world's weatherman... alGore. This is only going to get better as we get closer to 2008.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

2006-05-28T21:58:00.000-05:00

The list of "jobs Americans won't do" is long and includes crucial sectors of our economy like construction, food service, agriculture and professional baseball. The demand for people to fill those jobs that slacker Americans supposedly won't do is the reason we're given for over 12 million illegal aliens, mostly from Mexico and points south, living here now (with millions more pouring through our unenforced borders every year). They come on foot, by boat, through tunnels and over the road, often stacked like cordwood in the trunks of beat-up, smoke-belching Buicks with bald tires. They are stealing social security numbers, driving without insurance on counterfeit credentials and they are slowing our nation's fast food drive-thrus to a crawl because they don't have any inclination to learn our language. The illegals are committing crimes every day they are here (some much more serious than identity theft). They've been getting increasingly strident about living "in the shadows," brazenly laying claim to undefined "rights" because they've successfully broken our laws without consequence for so long. Plus they're breeding like Britney Spears, putting enormous strain on our healthcare, education and welfare systems. It's an uncontested invasion that has led us to the brink of lost sovereignty, financial chaos and even more dire possibilities in a post-9/11 world. Some think we should forgive them their trespasses and let them stay. "Give them amnesty and make them citizens," say the politically-correct. But it's always a bad idea to condone crime and it's not fair to the good people who play by the rules; those standing in line to come to America the right way. Others think we should build a border wall and patrol it with troops to keep the bad critters out. Better, but costly. And not the best use of our military. Plus we already have stiff immigration laws on the books that our leaders and protectors have no stomach to enforce. Why should we believe that another law will be the first they would uphold? No. There's an obvious and better way.... The answer is not amnesty, it's annexation! The sad and simple truth in this important debate is that Mexico is a toilet. That's right: unos servicios! Over hundreds of years, they've never even mastered the concept of clean tap water. It's never been a nation of substance that could provide any real opportunity for its citizens or make any meaningful contribution to culture or civilization (with the notable exception of Salma Hayek). That's why the most motivated millions of them move north. Good Mexicans don't want to be Mexicans. They want to be Americans! Any thinking person can understand that. But there are a couple of things we have to get done in order to make that happen... First, we have to tweak that "Manifest Destiny" thing. Thirty minutes and a little paperwork and we've got the moral high ground. Then we'll need a couple thousand National Guardsmen (no reason for the six thousand George Bush has asked for) and a couple of bags of cash to spread around Mexico City on our way to build and protect a wall on the southern border at Guatemala and Belize. That's right. Forget the Rio Grande. Let's just move our border to the south end of Mexico! This can all be done by Independence Day. Think about it. We can bribe the Mexican army to roll over (saving lots of time and ammo) and the border wall will cost peanuts to build as it will only be a fraction of the length of a wall from Texas to California. Not to mention the fact that we won't have to import cheap labor to build it. And with public schools that don't educate, an economy with no jobs, plenty of landfill space, lots of offshore oil and already-corrupt officials at every level of government, Mexico is a natural as our newest state... But how will we fit another star on Old Glory? We won't have to. In fact, the annexation of Mexico will provide benefits that will be felt all across our country. We'll use it as an opportunity to dissolve Massachusetts and divvy up the land between Vermont and New Hampshire. With that one simple stroke of the pen we will not only preserve the design of our great flag, but we will eliminate two especially corrosive senators, making the union that much stronger and safer. But in the end, what does all this really do besides move Arkansas out of last place in virtually every possible ranking of the states? Just imagine the possibilities... Jose, can you see a southbound tsunami of gringo investors, lawyers, English teachers and opportunity? Thanks to The Supreme Court (and "Kelo v. New London"), we have The New York Times' blessing to go about the serious business of liberating/snatching land from owners who aren't using it like they should. With a long coastline on the Gulf of Ameri... I mean, Mexico, as well as on the Pacific Ocean, our newest state will be a developer's dream. In no time at all, our new underclass will have millions of beautiful new homes in gated communities to build and clean. World-class hotels with lots of bedding to change and meals to serve. Soccer stadiums will have to be converted for football. Magnificent casinos, plenty of high-end retail development and endless acres of beautiful lush golf courses... all providing jobs close to home for our newest Americans in their now-native state, Newer Mexico! In a scant few years, the Gulf will have hundreds, if not thousands of stately oil rigs sweeping in a graceful off-shore arc from Texas south to our new border with Belize. The jobs at Halliburton's Yucatan branch alone will feed millions as America becomes oil-independent. And as norteamericanos swarm south to correct centuries of neglect, our new citizens won't have to buy fake IDs or commute hundreds (or even thousands) of miles to work. They'll be able to walk in the sunlight, hold their noses as they vote for bad candidates, bitch about their taxes, look down upon the French and stand in line at the BMV. Just like real Americans.... Statesmen Wanted. Good pay and benefits. No experience preferred. The "jobs Americans won't do" apparently include some important ones in Washington D.C. (And I'm not talking about the Capitol Police allowing yet another drunk Kennedy to endanger the public with his car.) Among those are the jobs of over 60 US Senators who have chosen politics and pandering over their duty to lead and serve the interests of their constituents. They have conspired and compromised to put together over 700 pages of dreadful drivel they say will address the problem of illegal immigration and make us safer at the same time. The more we look at their work, the more it's obvious it will do neither. While the idea of annexing Mexico may be a little crazy, it's not as dangerous as the notion of continuing to ignore our borders during a terror war, as stupid as granting amnesty and citizenship to millions of lawbreakers or as expensive as forcing the rest of us to chin the costs of the special benefits and services the senators hope will buy them the voters-to-be they're courting from south of the border. The only case Bill Frist, Harry Reid and the rest of the "comprehensive immigration reform" crowd have made in this debate is the one for term limits.

The Not-So Funny Pages

2006-02-19T13:40:00.000-05:00

That's Allah Folks! More than five months after they were first published in Denmark, a dozen or so not-all-that-artful editorial cartoons continue to inflame the sensibilities of the "religion of peace" around the world. By the tens of thousands (as if they ever show up any other way), Muslims are taking to the streets of Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East killing innocent people, burning embassies and demanding the respect for their faith they're unwilling to give to others. In the process, they're leaving little doubt about the not-so-happy ending they've written for their looniest of 'toons. They're intent on being Bluto in order to cow the Wimpy's of the world, take all the burgers and strap suicide bombs on Sweet Pea until every-Olive-Oyl-everywhere is wearing a burka. Meanwhile, Popeye lies in chains on the ocean floor, his spinach just out of reach... The End? Maybe not. Perhaps our European ancestors have had a bellyful of carbecues on their streets. Maybe they don't like being pushed around by rude cleric-cabbies and cleric-clerks. Or maybe they're having a five hundred year flashback and finally recognizing a real and recurring threat to their future: Muslim extremists don't assimilate into free societies. And the nutty haters are breeding little bombers like bunnies, to boot. At this point, the leaders of Europe are publicly clucking about the impropriety of hurtful cartoons in their newspapers. But at the same time, in typically disingenuous Euro-style, officials are quietly coming to grips with the repercussions of multi-culturalism, stupid guest-worker programs and lax immigration policies. They're starting to realize that there's no possibility for peaceful co-existence between secular Europe and Muslim fundamentalism because they have no common ground beyond bad hygiene. The Europeans love pork, wine, women, fast cars and freedom (even if they're not always willing to do the heavy-lifting for the latter). They love life, they appreciate the finer things and they celebrate creativity. Too many Muslims are simply killing time (and people) in this world so they can have their reward in the next. According to Lawrence Solomon of The National Post, Interior and Cultural Ministries of France, Germany and Denmark are now tightening laws and creating new ones that will permit mass deportations of wacky imans and their sinister followers. Sending them back to the sandbox is a good place to start. And it's a lot more than we're doing right now in America... You'll have to find another use for your New York Times if you're looking for the cartoons of you-know-who that raised all the stink. The same goes for most of the other politically-correct, agenda-driven and increasingly irrelevant national mainstream news outlets. That's right, the same papers and magazines that breathlessly brought you pictures and articles of "Piss Christ," the Blessed Virgin in feces and weeks of Lynndie England's "Guards Gone Wild at Abu Ghraib" thought its Muslim readership would be inflamed or hurt unnecessarily if they reproduced those cartoons of he-who-should-not-be-drawn. Was it respect-for-faith that drove the editorial decisions? That didn't seem to cut it for the Christian and Catholic faithful offended by the "art" exhibits-gone-by. Does the press really care about offending Muslims? Not really. Plenty of Muslims (and a bunch of others) were offended by the prison photos. That really leaves editors only two reasons not to publish the offensive cartoons. One: the Wimpy-press is afraid... very afraid... of medieval street justice. Or two: they must have had an even bigger story to cover than a global shooting war replete with religious-based terror, treason, genocidal intentions and increasingly credible threats of nuclear annhilation. You know, like the story of Dick Cheney's hunting accident... With a turn of the cheek unknown in the Muslim world, Harry Wittington, the 78-year-old-rich-white-Republican-Texan-lawyer-and-therefore-most-likely-evil friend of Vice President Dick Cheney met with the press and let the veep off the hook for shooting him while hunting last week. According to Mr. Wittington's account: "Stop callin' it an accident. We do this every year... hunt each other with live ammo, I mean. It's a whole lot of fun. Been doin' it since Dick was down here runnin' Haliburton. And, just for the record, it ain't a 'quail' hunt... it's a 'Quayle' hunt. Named it after that young fella who used to be George's Daddy's vice president. That boy left here with so much birdshot in him one year, he can't get though an airport today." Mr. Wittington went on to chide Mr. Cheney for "only nickin' me" and said that if he (Wittington) was five years younger and "could hold my whiskey like I used to, ol' Cheney would be pickin' BBs out of his butt for a month. Just wait'll next year." Mr. Wittington cheerfully sent his best regards to the Cheney family and thanked the doctors and nurses of the Corpus Christi Hospital for their "excellent care" and "for gettin' me outta here before the ACLU could file suit to have my IV's removed." Look for Newsweak and Time to demonstrate glacier-like agility (and bad news instincts) with next editions featuring incomplete details of the shooting. ABC is said to have a film account of Harry's life in production for sweeps week. FOX is planning a reality series, "Crazy Old Bastards with Guns."

What's Your Legacy?

2006-01-24T22:29:00.000-05:00

It was 'Morning in America' twenty-five years ago as Ronald Reagan was inaugurated the 40th President of the United States. Within minutes, the mad mullahs of Iran simultaneously soiled their sacred sheets and had 52 American hostages in a plane eating peanuts and guzzling Cokes on their way home after 14 months of captivity in Tehran. Why? The mullahs understood a new day had dawned in Washington D.C. and they wouldn't be wrangling with the likes of Jimmy Carter anymore. For the next eight years and beyond, America only got better every day. Taxes went down; government became less intrusive. And as people kept more of what was theirs, federal revenues went up. Inflation went away. The government got a little smaller and the military got a lot bigger and stronger. Democracy flourished around the world, communism died and (despite the best efforts of the American Left) the good guys won The Cold War. Over his two terms, liberal pundits assailed Reagan alternately as "a dumb actor," a "senile old fool," and a "maniac" whose lack of nuance would lead to economic and/or nuclear catastrophe. They claimed spiraling budget deficits from military spending would bankrupt the country. Undeterred, President Reagan led America and the world with optimism, good humor, vision and unshakeable faith in the goodness of our people and our system. He communicated with the American people and he connected, advancing his agenda and winning two landslide elections. History has proven Reagan was right and the pundits were wrong as the world became more peaceful and the economic policies of his presidency set the stage for decades of prosperity and growth. He left the greatest legacy of any president of the 20th century not because he sought one, but because he had the courage to do difficult things that were fundamentally good. We still miss him today... It's late afternoon for the Bush legacy as Dubya delivers his State of the Union speech this week. The early betting is that, despite empty threats of a filibuster, new Associate Justice Sam Alito will don his best black dress for a primetime front row seat at the speech where he will be recognized as the newest justice. Any way you look at it, two SCOTUS appointments within one year... in the current political environment... is an extraordinary achievement. While Ronald Reagan was blessed with a loyal opposition party he could work with (Remember the likes of O'Neill and Moynihan?), George Bush has been blessed with one so rabidly partisan, shrill and intellectually dishonest that he pulls out the occasional win in spite of himself (Remember Harriet Miers?). The early indications are that Alito will help tilt the court to the right. Roberts, too. We'll see. Proving he was human, Reagan thought the same thing about the now-departing O'Connor. Unless we can win the War on Terror, kill Osama on live TV, close the borders, indict and convict a Senator or two for treason or slash runaway spending within the next thirty months, Bush's legacy is likely to be the future performance of his high court picks. We'll just have to wait and see... My, oh my...that's a nasty cough, Justice Ginsburg. Sounds like it could be something serious. At your age, that's nothing to trifle with. You don't look good. You should take better care of yourself. You're working too hard. Get some rest. Perhaps it's time for you to consider retirement... write a couple of books... give a few speeches at Columbia... move to France. We appreciate your many years of service. You've taught us America can endure decades of the worst kind of wrong-headed liberal thinking on our highest court. You've given us faith in the resilience of our system of government. And don't worry about us. We've got a wonderful judge who can take your seat on the bench. Her name is Janice Rogers Brown. She's young, healthy and experienced. She'll be around for a generation or so! Just like Roberts and Alito. Except she writes and speaks more like Scalia. And that's nothing to sneeze at. Oh, gesundheit. You really should get that checked out. Now, go... please, Ruth. And take that incontinent commie Stevens with you....

Fowl Politics

2005-11-20T23:31:00.000-05:00

Off with his head! The turkey, as many older public school graduates know, is uniquely indigenous to the New World and well-worth some consideration at this time of any year... but perhaps this year more than most. Turkeys have fan-shaped tails and wattled necks. They also have something called a "snood," a flap of skin that hangs from their beak. Hunting turkey has been a popular sport dating back to our earliest settlers. And although long-deemed foolish and easily confused, the turkey is known as a game bird of considerable cunning. The male turkey provides no parental care for his family and the female provides very little; both prefer, instead, to allow their young to run in "broods" (often numbering in the hundreds) along with the offspring of other negligent turkey-parents. Over time, domesticated varieties have lost their ability to breed (they must be artificially inseminated) and have lost much of their ability to forage for food or escape predators. They have devolved to be generally repulsive, foolish, untrustworthy, irresponsible, lazy and dependent. In short, they are Democrats. They deserve everything they get this week and beyond. And while we cut into their numbers every November, it's important to remember the rest of us will always be safer and happier when Democrats, like turkeys, are kept mostly in confined spaces behind adequate fencing where they can't hurt themselves or others. Especially this year, as we consider their potential to foment pandemic death, we should strive to keep their numbers low and never forget: when any contact is made with a turkey or a Democrat, it's always smart to wash your hands.... C-SPAN changed its name to C-SPANK Friday night as the American people (or at least those with nothing better to do on a Friday night) had a chance to watch a special live broadcast of democracy in action from the nation's capital. The plot? Weeks and months of slanderous accusations and irresponsible rhetoric from Democrat leaders (and the presstitutes who carry their water) reached critical mass last week when Congresscritter John Murtha (D-Mosul) called for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. To the surprise of everyone, some Republican had eaten enough Enzyte to stand up and say, "O.K. If you think we ought to cut and run... let's say we vote on it. Let's do it Friday night." And they did. The feathers flew and the snoods were shakin' through a couple of hours of sorry mini-speeches from Democrats trying to convince everyone that "we're loyal Americans" but "the President is a liar," "we support the troops" but "the war is a mistake" and yada, yada, yada. In a remarkable simulation of principled patriotism (and, hopefully, closure) from the entire roomful of assclowns, the final vote was 403-3 to stay the course in Iraq until the job is done. Does their vote on-the-record make a difference to a person who lies for a living and likes it? Probably not, but the vote was a great message to send to our troops, the Iraqi people and (maybe most important) our enemies in the Middle East.... Madonna sent us all a message this week while plugging her new album in an interview with ROLLING STONE. The 47-year-old former virgin, failed actress and now-resident-of-England-not-Detroit demonstrated her grasp of the issues (and sounded a lot like Howard Dean) in stating with some disappointment, "9/11 was just too ambiguous. You couldn't prove how the government was somehow in on the deal." She allowed as how she "was just friggin' devastated on election day" when George Bush was re-elected and that "I'm a lot of fun on morphine. At least I think I am." The '80's diva, publicity hound and Democrat said that those who criticize her or Tom Cruise for the bizarre beliefs or behavior they flaunt for profit and self-promotion should "shut the f--- up." She's right. We should never speak of her again. Pluck 'er!

Oh, non. Pas de nouveau!

2005-11-13T23:00:00.000-05:00

L'Amérique nous sauvera! It's likely no other country would or could save them... and we probably shouldn't (given the gratitude we haven't seen in return)... but history shows that whenever the French are deep in the fryer, the American soldier pays the terrible price to buy them some freedom to take for granted for another generation or two. The American Battle Monument Commission was established by Congress after World War I to operate and maintain American military cemeteries and monuments in faraway places around the world. These cemeteries now serve as the foreign-soil resting place for 124,917 American fighting men and women who gave all they had to give liberating France and the rest of Europe twice. (Total U.S. military casualties for WWI and WWII exceed 500,000.) Of the 24 cemeteries maintained by the ABMC worldwide, 11 of them are in France and hold the remains of over 60,000 Americans who died on French battlefields. Those 11 cemeteries also serve as memorials to another 7,063 Americans who are listed as missing, buried in unmarked graves or whose remains could not be identified. There are an additional 26 non-American cemeteries in the Normandy region alone holding the remains of tens of thousands of British, Belgian, Polish and even German soldiers who died in the D-Day invasion. There is one French military cemetery among them. It is at a place called Ecouves (les Gateys) and holds the remains of the 19 French soldiers who died in the invasion to liberate their homeland.... Oh, merde! Ma voiture est sur le feu. That's right, Jacques. While you were sharing your cheese with Saddam and stonewalling the U.S. at the U.N., the "religion of peace" was invading your 'burbs and biding their time. And the other night, while you were watching the Jerry Lewis retrospective on A&E (instead of cleaning your Glock), they attacked. A bunch of angry muslim yoots torched the family Citroen (and thousands like it) and for close to three weeks now they've been lighting up the towns around France like Detroit on Devil's Night. Meanwhile, French authorities have been wringing their hands, clucking about inadequate welfare programs and trying to apprehend the Bic-flicking burka-babies so they would know who to appease. Seriously, what other choice does France have but to surrender at this point? Apparently, there were less than twenty brave men in the whole country... and all of them died in 1944....America is now 22% French/Democrat! According to a Rasmussen Reports survey conducted on Veterans Day 2005, 10% of Americans have "an unfavorable opinion of the United States military forces" and 12% are "undecided." What are the odds that 22% of the survey's respondents would come from Hollywood, the DNC and The Today Show? As stunning and unsettling as it is to think about that many stupid or sinister people in a population of nearly 300 million, Johnny Depp probably won't be moving home from France anytime soon. Fully 78% of the thinking-among-us surveyed by Rasmussen have a "favorable opinion" of our military and 48% of us "consider Veterans Day one of the nation's most important holidays".... Bad News for Bad News. As if reputational hits for shoddy and biased reporting were not bad enough problems for "The Bird Cage-Liner of Record," The New York Times will be cutting 45 newsroom jobs on the heels of the parent company's announcement that profits have dropped by more than half for the third quarter. And it's not just The Slimes taking a dive. The Philadelphia Inquirer just lost 15% of its editorial staff, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch lost 12%. The Boston Globe is dismantling its national staff. The Baltimore Sun has closed two of five foreign bureaus and is shrinking others. And Knight-Ridder's largest shareholder just called for the sale of the company. According to Howie Kurtz of The Washington ComPost, all media stock (print and electronic) "seems to be in a gradual decline-- jounalistically, financially and psychologically." What can we say but, "Schadenfreude." Look it up. It's German. I'm tired of the French.

Matters of Life and Death

2005-10-30T14:30:00.000-05:00

You know that sketchy guy working at the local c-store? The nervous one with the shifty eyes and the strange accent who showed up out of nowhere a couple of weeks ago? The one who works his prayer beads like an abacus to make change for your gas and lottery tickets? You may want to keep a close eye on him (just in case), but according to the latest hysterics, we don't have to worry about him or his friends killing us any more. Why? Because it looks like a great big bunch of us are going down at the hands of some combination of Colonel Sanders, Frank Perdue or my sister, Susan (at Thanksgiving dinner). That's right! Hundreds of millions of us are going to die in a pandemic of something called "Bird Flu." I know exactly what you're thinking: "We spent the better part of four centuries and hundreds of dollars to kill and displace countless savage squatters so we could "Kelo" their land, build malls and refineries, and celebrate it all by spending one good day out of the whole year with our liberal brother-in-law watching over-hyped football games and chowing down on some great turkey with all the trimmings. For what? So we can all be incurably and fatally-sick before we even have our first piece of pie? And all because somebody's pig yakked on a Korean poultry farmer who never washes his hands?" If that's the way it shakes out, so be it, but "Bird Flu" is not high on the list of things that should keep any of us awake tonight (or even the night before Thanksgiving). In life's great dead pool, it's a safe bet that other, more clear and present, dangers will take us out in a more spectacular fashion and in larger numbers.... The signs are there for anyone to read: the Democrats, their many friends in the liberal mainstream media and the United Nations are three good reasons we should all sleep with one eye open. All three have placed their own pursuits of political power and influence over the rest of us above any pretense of principled concern for any American interests anywhere. This week the leadership of the minority (for many good reasons) party joined with the New York Times and the other dimming lights of the left to celebrate the death of our 2,000th American soldier in Iraq. With morbid headlines, historic distortions and outright lies about the conflict, they trivialized the loss of that soldier-hero as "a milestone" in their never-ending debate with the administration about our policy and purpose. Unconvicted murderer and famous drunk Ted Kennedy (D-Dewar's) described the soldier's death as "an auspicious occasion." And when they weren't marginalizing the sacrifice and significant success of our military, they were clucking about Dick Cheney's scooter, openly campaigning for the indictment of Karl Rove and trying to tell the President who and what they want him to install on the Supreme Court. Did these people miss the last election? They lost. The war is on. We've no choice but to win it. And the guy in the White House gets to nominate judges. None of their screams or deceits make a constructive contribution to any debate but it all added up to enough noise this week to drown out the release of the Volcker Commission Report on the UN oil-for-food program. The final report details the top-down corruption of the United Nations (as well as that of many foreign government officials) that kept the UN from doing its duty in the war on terror, most specifically in Iraq. The report provides a stunning, specific and comprehensive case that the United Nations is so rife with corruption that it can't be fixed. We should all be grateful to Paul Volcker for wading around in the East Side cess-pool long enough to get us the information we need to turn the whole toxic dump over to the EPA. As bad as this report might be for many deserving Eurotrash and third-world-all-stars, we're sure that once "Kofis Kash 'n Karry" is padlocked, we'll see a good number of those former UN bag boys working for Howard Dean at the DNC or on the editorial mastheads of The New York Times and Newsweak.... "The King is dead. Long live the King!" Whether we die by downing that tainted drumstick or we die by the bunches for any number of reasons after Hillary's inauguration, we know there's hope for a rich afterlife on the other side. Especially if you're a popular artist. According to the latest rankings released by FORBES, Elvis Presley earned $45 million in 2005, making the late King of Rock 'n Roll the leading moneymaker among dead celebrities for the year. Presley was tagged and bagged in Memphis on August 16, 1977 shortly after his king-sized body was found wedged between a toilet bowl and a wall inside a Graceland mansion bathroom. Did Elvis die of drug abuse, as has long been believed... or did he die-in-distress in the bathroom because he had pounded down a party-pack of poisonous poultry from Popeye's Chicken? It's been 38 years so we may never know, but it doesn't really matter. Thanks to Elvis we know that if you dare and do great things (and do them all with style and flair), dying isn't the end of the world.... Requiem for a Lightweight. The Supreme Court nomination of White House Counsel and longtime personal attorney to the President, Harriet Miers, passed away on October 24 following a four week illness. The official cause of death was listed as "inadequate credentials" with complications from "incomprehensible and unrealistic aspirations." A quiet memorial service for Ms. Miers' ambition was attended by all of her friends and supporters in a very small room at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. Miers is survived by Janice Rogers Brown, 56, of Sacramento, California, Michael Luttig, 51, of Richmond, Virginia and Samuel "Scalito" Alito, 55, of Philadelphia....

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied

2005-10-05T19:40:00.000-05:00

What was the President thinking when he decided to hand his unknown and unremarkable 60-year-old personal lawyer, Harriet Miers, a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court? We do know that, in one sneaky stroke of political stealth, the President avoided a showdown with the intellectually-bankrupt left and denied the country a long-overdue and constructive debate of ideas; about the Constitution, the role of the Supreme Court and about many of the most important issues of our times. And he did it by picking a nobody he claims is the most qualified somebody anybody never knew. But we have seen too much of this White House and Senate (and are only too-aware of the stakes involved in Supreme Court picks) to accept Miers' nomination on its face without knowing more about her. So far, the reasons the White House has given us to like Harriet are pretty thin... "She went to public schools and then worked her way through a good, but not great, university" Well, so did I and so did most of my friends, but none of them are qualified to be a Justice on the Supreme Court, and I've already got a job.... "Harriet is good to her mother." Whew, it's a relief to know she's not Lizzie Borden, but we're not sure that's a great credential for the High Court. ..."She's a regular church-goer." So are Jimmy Carter, Pat Robertson and Osama bin Laden, but none of them has ever demonstrated a particularly deep understanding of, or high regard for, our Constitution.... "She's a woman." Then we can do better than Harriet. That's the same old saw that gave us affirmative-action-hire-for-life Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In Ruth's case, it was also used to obfuscate her well-known record as an ACLU acolyte of Karl Marx. But as bad as that record may have always been, at least it was a record. We knew what we were getting with Ruth, we just couldn't stop it. This time, if you really want to name a woman for the sake of naming a woman, then name a woman who's really a woman. Give us Jessica Simpson. Even (and more likely, especially) Ted Kennedy will support the pick. She's younger, a more accomplished professional in her field, and obviously a finer woman by any reasonable definition of the word. She doesn't come with any anti-American baggage. And she's from Texas!.... "I know her heart." Didn't you say that about Vladimir Putin while he was helping Iran build nukes?.... "I ran her by senators from both parties." She's got Harry Reid's endorsement? Well, hey, why didn't you say so? We were worried for a minute there.... "You can trust me." Why should we have to?.... This isn't brain surgery. A majority of people put George W. Bush in the White House twice... and gave him Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate to boot... largely because these critical judicial appointments were too important to be left to moonbats like Al Gore and John Kerry. And we've quietly swallowed a lot along the way. Spiraling spending, sieve-like borders during a terror war, unnecessary compromise with the left and the waffling and treachery of too-clever-by-half, linguine-spined Republican Senators and Congressmen; the list goes on. There are too many good reasons a lot of us who voted for Bush aren't ready to jump on the Harriet Miers bandwagon without knowing more. Trust? We trusted your Dad and we got David Souter. This time we're going to do it the way Ronald Reagan said to do it, especially when the stakes are high: "Trust... but verify." The long arm of the law reached out and grabbed Michael Moore's favorite mom-in-mourning, Cindy al Sheehan, as she and her pals partied and protested recently in the nation's capital. Despite being blown off the front page by killer hurricanes, and now largely-ignored by an increasingly astute and weary public, Cindy was tickled to be pinched. "I haven't been passed around like that since I dropped acid with Crosby, Stills, Janis Joplin and four of Arlo Guthrie's roadies under the stage at Woodstock. The first Woodstock," she giggled. At least one of the unnamed arresting officers was later treated for a nasty rash. The other lost a glove and a watch. Both deny returning Cindy's repeated calls.... Justice remains to be served for acquitted murderer O J Simpson, but he's still looking for it. October 3 marked the tenth anniversary of the day when the football legend walked out of Judge Lance Ito's courtroom a free man pledging to find the murderer of his ex-wife, Nicole, and a waiter named Ron Goldman. Demonstrating the same drive and determination that won him a Heisman Trophy, Simpson has spent countless hours searching the golf courses of South Florida for clues leading to the killer. Sometimes frustrated, but never giving up, "The Juice" has apparently also spent some time staking out the Krispy Kreme hoping to get the drop on the real killer of his children's mother. A rotund Simpson returned to Los Angeles this week to commemorate the past decade by autographing sports memorabilia for a fee at a Tinsel Town horror movie convention. When asked about the progress of his search for Nicole's killer, O J said, "I ain't payin' Fred Goldman a dime and if I ever find the guy who killed Nicole, I'm goin' to cut him deep and bleed him out. And this time, there ain't goin' to be any blood and stuff in my car and house when I'm done." The late Johnny Cochran was unavailable for comment but would, no doubt, have marked the occasion with a glib soundbite.... And in a world that needs far more "Justice" than "Juice" we're all more than a little diminished by the passing of legendary Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal at age 96. In 1945, the Polish-born Jew emerged from four years in twelve Nazi concentration camps (five were death camps), upright at nearly six-feet and weighing just under one-hundred pounds. Simon and his wife, Cyla (also a survivor), lost a total of 89 relatives in the Holocaust. With a promise to his fallen family (and six million other brutally-murdered Jews) that he would "never forget," Wiesenthal embarked upon what would become a life-long and worldwide quest to uncover, capture and convict those who killed his people. Along the way, his efforts delivered the sword to the likes of Adolf Eichmann (the engineer of "the final solution"), Karl Silberbauer (the Gestapo officer responsible for the arrest of Anne Frank) and 1,100 other of the most rotten of war criminals ever. Men like Wiesenthal are rare, and I suppose that's probably a good thing if considered in a certain light. But at the same time, his tenacity and hunger for justice... and his sense of duty to real victims... are inspirations for all of us.

Good Help is Hard to Find

2005-09-15T21:30:00.000-05:00

"Hello. This is FEMA Director Mike Brown. Thank you for calling the federal government's disaster hotline. I'm sorry I'm not available at this time, but your call is very important to me. Please make a selection from the following menu and your call will be forwarded to the next available bureaucrat. If you are the incompetent mayor of a city unprepared for a hurricane or flood, and you can't read your city's evacuation plan, please press '1'... If you are the addle-brained governor of a state experiencing a total breakdown of the social order and you don't know how to activate the National Guard troops under your command, please press '2'... If you are a U.S. senator seeking political cover, a scapegoat, a pile of money or a symbolic public apology for a natural disaster, please press '3'... If you are an ordinary citizen experiencing starvation, thirst, violent assault or any imminent catastrophe associated with an ongoing or recent disaster, you're shit-outta-luck. If I were you, I'd head to the nearest Wal-Mart. Thank you, and have a nice day.".... Remember the good old days? Before global warming? When wacky weather never killed people? When we had a President who cared about black people and there was no poverty? Remember when the government was full of competent professionals who took care of us and FEMA ran like a fine Swiss watch? It wasn't that long ago. Let's go back to Jesse Jackson's Chicago in July of 1995. In a span of five sizzling days, 738 mostly-black, mostly-elderly, mostly-poor citizens of Chicago's worst neighborhoods died of heat-related causes because they couldn't afford air-conditioning, couldn't afford the electricity to run their air-conditioners or because they were afraid to open their windows and doors at night for fear of crime. Chicago's Democratic crime machine lost hundreds of supporters (many were buried in mass graves but continue to vote regularly to this day) because 1. they couldn't or wouldn't take responsibility for their own safety; 2. Mayor Daley's plantation is a dangerous place even in mild weather; and 3. the man known as "The First Black President of the United States" was too busy playing hide-the-Cohiba with a portly intern to bother providing some air-conditioners and electricity for the people who put him in the office with the girl under the desk.... Where did Karl Rove hide 9,210 bodies? Howard Dean thinks Karl is harvesting organs for sale on the black market. Why? The death toll from all of Katrina is 790 at this writing... not the 10,000 victims originally-projected for New Orleans alone. And for that we're glad. It could have been much worse, but probably not much better. At the end of the day, we got some surprising help from other countries. But on the ground, it was America's military, private businesses, citizen volunteers and many religious groups that have been the silver lining on this cloud. Not the nanny-state at any level. And that's something you won't read about in The New York Times.... Packing Heat in New Orleans. Actor and Saddam Hussein apologist Sean Penn was so moved by the images of suffering and destruction in Katrina's wake that he immediately flew to New Orleans with a publicist and a photographer in order to be seen doing something even more positive than beating ex-wife Madonna and forcing her head into an oven. (Has anyone checked in on Robin Wright lately?) Penn, featured in The New York Post patrolling the puddles of New Orleans armed with a pump action shotgun, recovered one bloated body that turned out to be fellow filmmaker Michael Moore. Moore was in town working on his latest documentary Bush Killed Everyone Again. The pair had a good laugh and made plans for lunch at The Ivy in Beverly Hills next week. The death toll from Penn's visit has not been released.... In a league of his own on many levels, current Miami Heat and former Louisiana State University basketball star, Shaquille O'Neal was moved by the same images that Sean saw. His roots in the region compelled him to view the damage up close with his own eyes... so he went to New Orleans, too. After two days, he called neither the government nor Penn's photographer. Instead Shaq returned to Miami intent upon doing more for the victims than simply writing a check. Within a week, he and his wife had leased a fleet of 18-wheelers and rallied the Miami community to fill a huge warehouse with donations of everything from refrigerators and furniture to diapers, clothes and 10,000 cases of water. He and his family worked shoulder-to-shoulder in the hot sun with other volunteers to manually load every item into the trailers for shipment to the affected areas. And he's writing checks, too. In addition to the trucks, Shaq has pre-paid the rent on 400 apartments in Dallas for displaced families and is in the process of furnishing them. Why, Shaq? "Because I was raised that way." Big man, indeed....Check out those boobs that we hire and re-hire every election day (some for generations) and you have most of the answer to why "the government" doesn't work in the event of an emergency. Media hysterics and politics aside, the federal response to Katrina was about as timely and as flawed as anyone should expect from a fat, big, dumb and slow bureaucracy overseen by career politicians and populated with civil servants and other slackers who can't be canned for doing a lousy job. We have the government we deserve. We hired 'em and they could and should be a lot better at many things. But "first response" is not one of them. Unless you need to call in an airstrike on a local Wahabbi mosque, the federal government will never be your best first call in any emergency.

"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you."

2005-09-05T21:38:00.000-05:00

Not since Huey Long caught a .32 with his kidney in 1935 has America paid as much attention to the corruption, incompetence and potential for danger in the cajun-crayfish-boil of Louisiana politics as we are right now. A Democrat presidential candidate, political grifter and world-class class-warrior, "The Kingfish" built a career, made a fortune and set-the- tone-in-the-state by preaching the political poison of victimology, resentment, social dependence and lack of personal responsibility. His success inspired generations of cynical successors in local and state government and it warped the world-view of citizens yet-to-be-born. Former corrupt Louisiana Congressman (and current corrupt lobbyist) Billy Tauzin is reported to have once joked, "Half of Louisiana is under water, the other half is under indictment." Tauzin's joke ceased to be funny this week as the sorry state of the sorry state's politics, and its power over a dependent-by-design citizenry, killed a yet-to-be-known number of people who just plain never knew not to trust the government with their lives.... Who's in charge here? Despite warnings from the Feds, the National Hurricane Center and scientists from the state's universities, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin chose NOT to follow his city's own published evacuation plan that told him to utilize the hundreds of city and school buses to move the citizens who couldn't or wouldn't move themselves. And because neither the Mayor nor anyone else told them what to do when the city flooded last week... and because they didn't feel personally responsible for their own lives... some combination of hundreds or thousands of citizens of New Orleans died of stupidity, dependence and/or helplessness. Back to the buses: One erstwhile blogger counted 255 buses in an aerial photo of just one city parking lot. At 66 seats per bus, a single run would have safely transported 16,830 people the ninety miles to Baton Rouge in a couple of hours. So, why didn't Mayor Nagin fire up his fleet instead of his crack-pipe? Those buses weren't good enough. Taking a page from the Marion Berry playbook, he called the media, played the race card and demanded President Bush send to New Orleans Greyhound's entire fleet of luxury coaches, currently scattered across the country. He said they would be more fitting transportation for his displaced constituents than the big yellow buses sitting in rising water within two miles of the Superdome. Apparently, Nagin was never taught to seek high ground in a flood. And every time he opened his mouth this week, it all got a little deeper for everyone. The no-good Mayor told at least one reporter the CIA is out to get him for criticizing the President. When last heard, the unhinged city executive was busy rotating his overworked police force to well-deserved week-long family vacations in Las Vegas and Atlanta... to rest at taxpayer expense. Seems his cops are tired, stressed and running out of ammo "protecting and serving" the citizens of New Orleans. No one in city government has yet explained how the police department of a major city can run out of ammo in six days. Run out of ammo? Not even the poor city of Mogadishu runs out of ammo. And if you think the N.O. Mayor is a bad joke, don't bother turning to the Governor of the state for leadership. She's M.I.A. Mrs. Blanco was last seen crying like George Voinovich on the Larry King Show.... Gibson for Mayor... and Governor! Wednesday morning, while the Governor blubbered and the Mayor was unbundling his undies, 20-year old Jabbar Gibson calmly walked into a bus garage, took a set of keys to a school bus and made his way out of the city. Along the way he stopped to pick up "about 70 passengers" before hitting the road for the 13-hour trip to Houston. The passengers kicked in for gas and Jabbar's bus arrived at the Houston Astrodome even before the price of unleaded jumped seventy cents a gallon on news of Katrina. They pulled in to the stadium at 10 p.m., just about the time Mayor Nagin's now-famous Greyhound Emancipation Proclamation was first aired on CNN. I'm thinking this Jabbar kid is an Independent and a difference-maker. And he is at least one good reason to believe New Orleans is worth rebuilding.... Forget the levee, plug that pie-hole! While people are still drowning and dying, Hillary Clinton announced that she has written the President requesting a 9/11-like "Katrina Commission." She got wind that someone stole a school bus in New Orleans and she wants to make some political hay by investigating the crime and making a public example of the thief. But nobody except the politicians really seemed to care what Hillary said. Thinking people are more concerned with what real people are really facing right now in the Big Easy. I'm guessing if you're reading this, you've already sent a donation, or you're going to. You've got it and they need it. Send a check to the Red Cross or The Salvation Army. They'll make a difference with your money. But be careful. There are a lot of sketchy charities that crop up in times of trouble. Don't be duped into a donation to the "Michael Jackson Neverland Shelter for Flood Boys" or the "Ted Kennedy Mardi Gras Memorial".... R.I.P., Chief Justice Rehnquist. His death came as no surprise, given his long, public fight with cancer, but it's always a bad day when you lose a great leader. Rehnquist made a positive difference in our history during his tenure on the bench. We should appreciate him for many things. But mostly because it was his court that had the wisdom and courage to stop Al Gore from stealing an election. It's not that we're always so glad to have George Bush; he's certainly not perfect. But we should thank William Rehnquist and his court every day that we won't ever have Al Gore driving the peoples' bus. To Houston or anywhere else.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2005-08-27T09:00:00.000-05:00

President George Bush: "We like to take a month or so down here to the ranch in Crawford. It sure is a beautiful place and it beats the daylights out of Washin'ton. But when you're President, ya don't really have a vacation, if ya know what I mean. The world keeps turnin' and ya gotta keep up with it in meetin's and on the phone. But the ranch is a good place to mix business with pleasure. Like the other day when Lance Armstrong came by for some bikin'. That Lance is a good ol' Texas boy... Did y'all know he won that French bike deal eight or nine times?... Anyway, I was out back with Rumsfeld when ol' Lance came around the house and saw us. 'Am I interruptin' anything?' he asked. I looked at him and said, 'We're plannin' World War III.' Lance's eyes got all big and he asked,'World War III? What're we gonna do?' I shot him a look and said,'We're gonna kill a hundred forty million Muslims... and one blonde with big hooters.' He got this confused look and asked, 'Why are we gonna kill a blonde with big hooters?' I looked over at Rummy and said, 'See? I told ya no one would care about a hundred forty million Muslims.' ...hee-hee... We laughed on that one all afternoon. Hey, on your way out, ya'll oughta keep a lookout for Joan Baez. Someone tol' me she's givin' a free concert down by my mailbox. Gotta go.. I'm on a beer run for the chairman of Halliburton. ... hee-hee... Jus' kiddin'. See y'all back in D.C." .... Grief-Diva Cindy Sheehan: "Don't you watch TV? I'm Cindy Sheehan. Everybody knows what I've been doing this summer. I'm a great story... all day and every day! It's hard to believe this whole thing started about a month ago as a simple reunion of some of my unemployed friends from the '60's. We thought we'd kill a month camping in a pasture in the middle of Nowhere County, Texas, reminisce about Woodstock, undermine the war effort and just generally try to piss off the President. Anyway, we were hitting the bong in the car on the way over from Vacaville listening to Air America when I...I mean, someone had this big idea! What with the White House press corps living right up the road in the Waco Econo-Lodge... and none of us having anything better to do all day long... we figured I... me, Cindy... could get their attention... and I could get lots of TV time... as the mother of a dead war hero. I... I mean, we... also figured, since the press doesn't like America any more than we do, I could make all kinds of outrageous and stupid statements unchallenged... especially if I was crying. Well, it worked out better than I... er, we... ever imagined! Thanks to a five-dollar bushel of onions and the freedom fighters who killed my son, I've been on the air more than Regis Philbin, and everybody knows who I am. I should have my book and movie deals signed in the next couple of days. And it looks like the 'Pity-Cindy-Palooza Tour' is a 'go' in September! The only downside so far is that most of the people who like me are in Syria, my family thinks I'm crazy, my husband just divorced me and Karl Rove gave my mother a stroke (Howard Dean told me so, and he's a doctor). Anyway, my 'fifteen minutes' are just about up, so I've got to hurry. My handlers tell me the President is heading to the Crawford Brew-Thru, and I need to get over there. I've still got to get into make-up and the van is running, so I can't talk now. But if you haven't had your fill of Cindy, you can find me all over the cable news shows all weekend... or just catch my act Monday on the Today Show. Katie loves me!".... The American Marine in Iraq: "How the hell do you think I spent my summer? Not that I'd expect you to find out from the New York Times or that AP reporter hiding under his bed at the Baghdad Hilton, but we've been pretty damn busy... and it hasn't exactly been a vacation. Between killing the sand-rats pouring in from Syria and trying to avoid the Iranian bombs planted in the roads, we're building schools and hospitals, training Iraqi soldiers, digging wells for people who never had fresh water and pretty much just buying these people some time to stand on their own two feet. It would all go a lot smoother if the only people taking shots at us were over here and not on CNN. At least here we can return fire. I'm not complaining, though. Everyone here volunteered for the job and we're doing good things. And I'm grateful my mother would never make an ass of herself all over the TV back home. But, man, now that you mention it... I sure could use some cold beers and a couple days off."....

A New Broom Sweeps Clean

2005-08-09T21:10:00.000-05:00

Kofi Annan was not happy when John Bolton arrived at the United Nations last week. And the Secretary General's not alone. Gangsters and thugs from Crapistan and Imakruk to Kiikbaak and France know why President Bush sent Bolton to sit in America's chair inside Kofi's Fun House. And they're sweatin' bullets and spittin' up snakes about the sunshine that would expose their sweet scam. Bolton's a smart, tough guy. He's got his orders, he's had all of his shots, he's got the right attitude. And you can bet he has a plan. He would have been in New York months ago but for the pantywaists in the Senate who never would allow a vote on his nomination. But better late than never.... Now it's time to roll up the sleeves and probe the rot that killed the United Nations. And there is a lot of it. The UN is nearly as old as the bombing of Hiroshima, but hasn't been nearly as effective. The first Secretary General of the UN was Alger Hiss, then-soon-to-be a convicted felon who would spend 44 months in prison back when dirty, highly-connected public officials went to prison. Over a span of sixty years, the United Nations has failed in its mission as a peacekeeper and as a positive driver of democracy. In fact, the UN serves only as a thin veneer of legitimacy and as an enabler for the worst people on the planet. The UN's most notable achievement was realized in their work with the terror group Hezbollah to successfully kidnap Israeli citizens. Yet despite such cleverness, they can't figure out how to deliver food to starving people. The UN sends "rape counters" to Sudan in order to keep score for those back home and then sends their own paid rapists to the Congo. The UN Human Rights Commission is a bad joke that includes the representatives of oppressive regimes in Libya, Cuba and Sudan. The UN expects the US to bear 22% of the organization's costs, but they can't pull themselves together enough to put some heat on the likes of Saddam Hussein, enforce their own resolutions and help us avoid a war. Why? Because many of these "friends-of-ours" have been on the Iraqi dictator's payroll for years, happily slicing their own personal-piece-of-cheese off of the "Oil-for-Food" program. The United Nations' sixty year record of astounding failure, unconscionable treachery and waste makes one wonder if the place needs a reformer like John Bolton, a Special Ops surprise party or a tactical nuclear strike.... But already there's some good news. Less than a week after Ambassador Bolton (now, there's a two word combination that will make Senator Voinovich cry) arrived, a Russian UN official named Alexander Yakovlev was doing the "frog walk." Alex-in-ankle-irons has been stripped of his diplomatic immunity and will plead guilty to charges of wire fraud and money-laundering as a result of the ongoing probe into the "Oil-for-Food" scandal. Yakovlev, the procurement officer for the dicey deal, pocketed over $900,000 in kickbacks from contractors, making him one of the richest Russians on Riker's Island. Next up will be Cypriot Benon Sevan, the director of Saddam's global bribery scheme (and the Secretary General's longtime friend), even though he only pocketed a paltry $147,000. When caught, he claimed the money was a gift from his dead aunt. Benon has already indicated he'll be a stand-up guy and spill his guts by "naming names." Look for this loaf to eventually lie steaming on Kofi's carpet. These are colorful times at the United Nations. It's going to be fun to watch the "reform process" unfold and it should give us a lot to learn from. And maybe, just maybe, when we put enough of these twisted bastards away, we can shut it down, write it off as a bad idea of epic proportions and start associating with a better class of people.... Of note: Peter Jennings, the last of the big three network news anchors, died at home Sunday evening. The cause of death was lung cancer. Dan Rather blamed Karl Rove. Over the course of his 40-year career and his tens of thousands of stories around the world on ABC, Peter Jennings taught us only that we shouldn't smoke.

Only the Good Die Young

2005-07-31T06:59:00.000-05:00

"You might have heard I run with a dangerous crowd... We ain't too pretty we ain't too proud..." Senator Robert C. "Clorox" Byrd (D- Burning Cross, West Virginia), at 87 the oldest and whitest member of the U.S. Congress, this week won passage of a bill that would provide $10 million toward a memorial to slain civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King. "So what?" you ask. King was a good enough guy, the feds take our money for stuff like that all the time and everyone knows Byrd produces more pricey pork every year than Jimmy Dean. So, really, $10 million is chump change in the grand scheme of things. The better question to ask is, "Are you kidding me?" Aided by a complicit press, Byrd has spent a public lifetime covering up his private one as a "Kleagle" (paid recruiter) and "Exalted Cyclops" (Keeper of the Silver Zippo and the Gas-Soaked Kross in the Garage) for his Ku Klux Klan chapter back home. He admits to joining the Klan in 1941 "for about a year" because it was a good way to fight communism. Byrd says he left because he lost interest in the organization, he wasn't crazy about the pointed hats and he kept forgetting the secret handshake. But a paper trail and years of bloviating bigotry on the public record (if not in The Washington Post) belie his cover. Over a so-far-47-year self-serving Senate career, Byrd has defended the Klan against blame for its part in generations of racial violence across the South. While many were marching in Selma, Byrd did his part for freedom with a 14-hour filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And he has demonstrated his discrimination is indiscriminate by making bad history as the single senator opposing the nominations of both the liberal Thurgood Marshall AND the conservative Clarence Thomas... the only two black Justices ever to ride the big bench. So why, after all these years, is this hateful old gasbag now wrapping his arms around the memory of Martin? Is Byrd simply an old bigot making amends for a rotten record before he meets his maker? Or is he filling his Depends with worry that the voters of West Virginia are finally ready to swap him out for a senator they can respect? We may never know. We do know that the King family has yet to comment on this week's news. Maybe it's because a Robert Byrd-sponsored MLK monument makes about as much sense as a Yasser Arafat Synagogue.... "They say there's a heaven for those who will wait... Some say it's better but I say it ain't..." Especially if it means an eternity listening to the prattling and preaching of Jimmy Carter. The historically least of our presidents was dispatched overwhelmingly by voters after one ruinous term that ended in 1980. Under his lack-of-leadership, the country experienced double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, double digit interest rates and the disrespect of friends and foes around the world. Jimmy himself invented something called "The Misery Index" so we could all measure the suffering of the country on his watch. We the people always hoped and assumed he would head back to rural Georgia after losing to Ronald Reagan, humbled-but-wiser for his failure, and perhaps quietly fill his remaining days doing something that wouldn't hurt him or us. But as president, Jimmy Carter embraced dictators, made bad decisions and advanced anti-American interests whenever he could. Those are the things he always did best. And even today, this 81-year-old crank gets pain-in-the-ass-pity-press whenever he takes his everything-everywhere-is-holier-than-anything-in-America show on the road. Like the other day in Birmingham, England when the former president did the wrong thing once more in criticizing an ongoing war effort while standing on foreign soil. He whined about the wisdom of the Iraq war and said that it gives terrorists an excuse to attack the United States. Among his uninformed observations was this whopper: "What has happened at Guantanamo Bay... does not represent the will of the American people" and "the camp is an embarrassment." Wrong once again, Jimbo. According to a June 25 Rasmussen Report survey, only 20% of Americans (mostly members of the ACLU, some traitors in Congress and the reporters at Newsweak) believe prisoners at Gitmo have been treated unfairly. Seven-out-of-ten adults believe the prisoners are being treated "better than they deserve" (36%) or "about right" (34%). The Rasmussen Report did not ask respondents if Jimmy Carter embarrassed them. However, 58% of those surveyed think the former president is brain-damaged because he has been "using his forehead to pound nails into wood" (37%) or because he "fell off a ladder onto his head" (21%) while building houses for the needy. 12% of those surveyed said, "Jimmy who?"....

Under the Big Top

2005-07-26T20:19:00.000-05:00

Casting Call for Candidates. Four hundred Springer-Americans representing the Democrat Leadership Council gathered in Columbus, Ohio this week to frighten the locals, stiff waitresses and anoint Hillary Rodham as the best candidate they can come up with to lead the circus back to the White House in 2008. But they also acknowledge even their best can't do it without duping enough dummies into believing their party represents "the mainstream" of America. The DLC spent two days telling each other their Alpo-of-ideas will taste like an ice cream sundae to plenty of stupid voters if it is just packaged a little differently. For her part, Rodham is running as fast as she can to the middle. But so far, it looks like those thick ankles are slowing her down. Both liberals and conservatives agree that Bill's enabler is clearly the former. The American Conservative Union gave her a score of 0 (zero... zip... nada out of 100) for her 2004 voting record. Her "Progressive (read liberal) Punch" score of 91.63% ranked her as the 11th most liberal of 100 Senators....Labor Pains for Her Heinous? Don't worry, Hillary's not spawning again. (Insert your favorite Web-Hubbell-is-Chelsea's-real-father joke here.) The excitement swirling around Hillary's ascension to leadership of the "centrist" DLC was greeted with a snort and a "See ya!" from the Teamsters as well as the Service Employees International Union when both bolted from the AFL-CIO on Monday. Other unions are rumored to be following soon. These defections of shrinking-but-still-important traditional Democrat labor allies portend potential problems for the party's future. Why did they leave? According to Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., "Hey, we've got a strong stomach for extortion, lies, bribery and physical intimidation... we'll even wack somebody now and then. That's business. But even we have limits to corruption. This lockstep alliance with the AFL-CIO and the Democrat Party is ruining our good name. Besides, our people work for a living. What do we have in common with people like John Kerry or Hillary Clinton?".... "Who loves ya, Baby?" In the case of Chelsea Clinton-Rodman, it's a love-struck African government official. News sources tell us this week that Godwin Kipkimoi Chepkurgor of Kenya has offered the disgraced, impeached president (D.I.P.) Bill Rodman 40 goats and 20 cows for his daughter's hand in marriage. At last report, the negotiations continue with the DIP holding firm to his demand for the barnyard animals plus a new Callaway driver and sixteen replacement tires for his Presidential Library.... Happy birthday, Mary Jo Kopechne, you would have been 65-years old this week and eligible for the many benefits your killer is peddling in today's Senate. For those of you under 40 and hamstrung by an irrational reliance on information from the lamestream media, former Kennedy-staffer Mary Jo suffocated slowly in the trunk of Democrat Ted Kennedy's Oldsmobile in 1969 as the "Lion of the Left" swam-like-Spitz to save his own political viability. The entire unseemly event cost Uncle Ted more than the 40 goats and 20 cows Mr. Chepkurgor offered for the Klintons' kid. It cost the family a Camelot-redux and whatever they had to pay the surviving Kopechnes to klam up....

"If I was the President..."

2005-07-16T23:14:00.000-05:00

"...things would sure be different around here." C'mon, tell me you haven't thought about it. At least a little bit. Maybe there are even some of us who think about it a little too much. Be that as it may, let's play a game of pretend. The premise is simple: You wake up tomorrow as the President of the United States. Your party controls both the Senate and the House. Your allies in both of those bodies are selfless, loyal patriots and courageous leaders (I told you we were pretending). You have political capital and the support of the public. The New York Times circulation is below 12,000 (and CNN viewership is even lower). You're surrounded by smart people and you don't have to worry about being re-elected; you can get your laws passed and your ideas enacted. What would you do? Here's a to-do list of legacy-builders for the first week of my administration.... Establish a foreign policy that will comfort our friends and soften some stools in Syria. We will engage, aid and enter treaties only with peaceful democracies. And we won't use Jimmy Carter's definition of "democracy," either. We'll be out of the nation-building business. Instead, we'll employ a global policy of decapitation. Leaders of governments that foment or export terror, WMDs and/or drugs will think twice about those things when they know they are apt to catch a Tomahawk or two in their hot tub tonight (see Moammar al-Qadhafi). And we're not going to replace the hot tub. The U.S. Air Force will play whack-a-mole with any rogue nation's bad leaders until a good one pops up. It goes without saying, this foreign policy will require us to pull out of the UN by Monday afternoon. A reasonable 90-day eviction period will have those terrorists, freaks and criminals out of Manhattan and in a new-but-not-air-conditioned, Halliburton-built pole-building headquarters in Darfur by Halloween. The closest those people will get to America again will be Gitmo.... Produce a two-page Tax Code a public school student could read. We'll have a one-rate national sales tax on all goods and services except food, medicine and essential health care. You'll pay your tax as you spend your money. No more social-engineering through tax breaks and deductions that divide Americans and enable gaming of the system. You want to run a church? Fine. Do it with your own dough and pay taxes like everyone else. The rest of us aren't going to pay for it. No breaks if you buy a house or get married or have kids or abort kids. No breaks if you run a "not-for-profit" business or a business that makes a profit (or not). The IRS will be a phone bank of ten terse old ladies answering toll-free calls for the most-stupid-among-us until they can finally figure it out. "Gee, it sounds like I'll have more control of what I earn," you say, "But even rich guys like George Soros and Michael Moore will be able to keep and control a lot more of their money, too." Sure... but that's alright. We'll take care of them with the new and improved House Un-American Activities Committee.... Produce public school students who can read a two-page Tax Code. The successful American school child is a more endangered species than the snail darter or the spotted owl. The conspicuous failure of our schools is more than a mere disgrace. It's a threat to the future of the republic. Lip-service to student non-achievement and empty promises to pour more dollars-that-don't-exist into long-failed schools aren't working. I will issue an Executive Order nationalizing the lower-performing half of all school districts. The national teachers' union, too. When they squeal and strike, I'll fire them... just like Dutch did to the Air Traffic Controllers in 1981. Competent teachers could apply for high-paid merit-based teaching positions and keep their jobs as long as they produce successful students. Discipline will return to the classroom and teaching will be easier as we deal with behavior problems. Corporal punishment will be back. And consistently-disruptive kids will be placed under "house arrest," chained to at least one parent or guardian inside the nearest Chuck E. Cheese until attitudes change. Then they can go back to class. A high degree of emphasis will be placed upon English (particularly reading comprehension and writing), History (American and World) and Math. Dodge ball will be a requirement at every grade level. As they experience success in school, more kids will want to learn more. And we won't let money get in their way. Every academically-qualified student will be automatically eligible for a no-interest loan to cover the cost of higher education. This program will be funded by eliminating federal spending on PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts and less than half the pork Robert "KKK" Byrd sends home to West Virginia every year.... Well, there you have the highlights of my first week in Washington. The heavy lifting ought to be done by late Thursday afternoon. I might have the Polish Ambassador over for dinner that night. Friday, I'll take Marine One up to Camp David for a photo op of me walking, deep-in-thought, on a wooded trail with a golden retriever. Then I'll probably shoot some sporting clays with Scalia, sign an order to drill for oil on Barbra Streisand's estate and review some preliminary sketches of something I call "Mt. Rushmore done right." Saturday, I'll skip the radio address to the nation. No one ever listens to it anyway. Instead, I'm having Condi, the Cheneys and the Joint Chiefs up for steaks and whiskey. We'll smoke some cigars, tell French military jokes and figure out how to tighten up our borders without steaming the Mexicans or honkin'-off the Hosers. Sunday, I'll do a little light reading, maybe work on the old memoirs and lay out the schedule for "Week Two." There's still a lot to be done....

Holy shit.

2005-07-09T21:20:00.000-05:00

The religion of peace kills again. Muslims in England (and many citizens of Hollywood, Boston and Dearborn) are concerned about bigotry and backlash this week in the aftermath of their brethren bombing innocent Brits for the unholy crime of commuting to their jobs on Thursday morning. Bodies are still buried in London's Underground as liberals and other terror supporters in blue states and around the world blame the blasts on everything from American SUVs and Halliburton to Gitmo and global warming. But for reasonable people, at least two things are apparent in the aftermath of this cold-blooded attack on our most loyal ally. First, the muslims picked the wrong target. The British people aren't the spineless Spanish or the Vichy French. They've endured and overcome Irish bomb-throwers and the Nazi blitzkrieg. While they may not be able to raise an edible cow, the English are made of stiff stuff and they won't be bowing to Mecca anytime soon. And second, it's time to have an honest conversation about the nature of our enemy in the War on Terror. And I'm not talking about the newsroom of The New York Times. I mean radical Islam... All Praise to Google. A product of public schools well-before 9/11 (and even before Al Gore invented the internet), I grew up thinking Muhammad was a heavyweight boxer with a quick jab and a quicker tongue and that Medina was a nice little town south of Cleveland. I did know enough about the Middle East to be armed with some keywords to feed the browser. Starting with "low-aspiration civilizations comprised of bitter, unaccomplished and unattractive people" I found quite a few links to helpful information about the Columbia University faculty as well as a few sources for some straight poop on the perpetually pissed-off Palestinians and other dyspeptic desert-dwellers. And I found some stuff about Islam. Apparently, the number two guy in Islam (Allah is their god and ranks #1) is a prophet named Muhammad who was born c. 570 in Mecca and died 63 years later in an Arab Peninsula oasis called Medina (which, it seems, is nowhere near Cleveland). Muhammad, like our own John Kerry, made his fortune by marrying a rich, old widow. But while Kerry has been content to preach class warfare from a plush perch of political privilege, Muhammad made his place in history the holy way. As a 40-year-old merchant sitting in a cave, he claimed to have "visions" that made him special. He became a preacher, recruited a wacky cult of followers and began robbing caravans, building a legion of believers and waging war on his neighbors in the region. Along the way, he found time to marry a nine-year-old girl (as well as another nine or ten women) and even serve as the subject of an important book. It documents Muhammad's "visions" and lays out the rules for the old world order. It is called The Qur'an.... Read it and weep. You don't have to spend a lot of time reading the revelations and rules in the Qur'an to see it includes toxic themes providing the gameplan and playbook of global terror for those inclined toward evil. Spend a little time with it, and you'll see how the blind believers think, the nature of their agenda and what they really want to do to you, me and our way of life. Here's one of my personal favorites: (Qur'an 8:59) "The infidels should not think that they can get away from us. Prepare against them whatever arms and weaponry you can muster so that you may terrorize them. They are your enemy and Allah's enemy.".... Here's a question for all you "infidels".... When does a "legitimate" religion become a "hate group" ? Or at least a violent criminal enterprise? We're not talking about a TV evangelist scamming an old lady out of a pension check to pay for his new Cadillac. We're talking about millions of radical zealots exporting global violence and oppression because they don't approve of the way we live. They resent our freedom and they're not content to live among 'non-believers' while they aspire to greater things through education and hard work. They say they will kill us or make us like them, however long that takes. We don't have to wait for the now-over-burdened Scotland Yard to crack this case. Whether or not all muslims are terrorists, all terrorists in this war have been muslims. If we're going to save our freedom and our skins we had better start profiling the real problems, paying attention to our borders (and our neighbors), protecting ourselves (and our friends) by taking off the gloves and praying to anyone but Allah that we can stop these crazies before they can kill us by the millions.... and a question for you "true believers." Where are the powerful clerics, Islamic community leaders and mainstream muslims who should be condemning all this senseless killing? If muslims are indeed peaceful people seeking a positive, productive role in a diverse modern world, someone had better speak up pretty soon. Because with terrorists screaming louder and louder for more blood in the name of Islam, it's getting harder and harder to hear the belly-aching about "bigotry and backlash." Clean your house.

Advice and Consent

2005-07-02T19:48:00.000-05:00

Ted Kennedy weighs in this week with some unsolicited advice for the President as the country awaits the pick that will replace the retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor: "The-uh-President had-uh bettah float his nominee past the-uh minority pahty... the-uh Democrahts, and not just drive... I-uh, I mean dive... in to the-uh shallow but tricky waters of the cahnfirmation process with a uh-conservative young waitress, for exahmple, who very well might-uh be unacceptable and-uh find herself trahpped in the flooded Oldsmobile of senate gridlock while the uh-President is-uh forced to swim away to save himself. Has-uh anybody seen... where is my-uh drink?" With his usual eloquence, the most corpulent Kennedy has thrown down the gauntlet like it was three fingers of scotch.... From Sots to Sows. While Uncle Ted headed to happy hour in Hyannisport, 800 nags from NOW were gettin' nasty at their annual meeting in Nashville. The news of an imminent Bush nominee had the ugly-mean-or-otherwise-unpopular-girls-from-your-high-school snorting and stomping their hooves in pre-emptive disapproval of any SCOTUS-nominee they deem politically to the right of Rosie O'Donnell.... WARNING: The following question is graphic. What strange phenomena has a band of female-like gender-champions sharing a bed with Ted Kennedy? After all, the guy's a killer of at least one woman and a serial abuser of many more. But what's a little misogyny among friends? They all have common cause and a greater purpose. Abortion. It's all about abortion, all the time. While many reasonable people view "Roe v. Wade" as the ultimate example of judges legislating from the bench, over-reaching and enabling infanticide, other reasonable people make a case for the privacy, health and personal freedom of the mother. Regardless of your stance on the most divisive issue in America, this much is clear: Abortion... free, frequent, at any age, anyplace and in-your-face... has become the glue that binds the Democrats' Felini-cast of a coalition. Abortion has become the 'rats litmus test for all people in power, especially Supreme Court judges. Not competence, ideas, integrity or intellectual honesty. Abortion. And it's the single-biggest reason their lights are dimming. Because at the end of the day, if your party has no higher purpose than to protect an indecisive someone's "right" to drive a spike into a baby's skull when he's old enough to grab a pacifier, your party is over.... Some Advice for the Right. Abortion was around before Roe v. Wade and repeal ain't going to make it go away. It will only make it more dangerous. The best we can all hope for is to make it a small, sad-but-safe business.... Some advice for both ends. We don't want a Court to make stupid laws, drive political or moral agendas or grow the role of the government. That's the work of the arrogant pinheads "we the people" send to Washington. We want a Court full of people smart enough to read the Constitution, understand the words as written and keep the pinheads from taking our stuff and running our lives.

The Greatest American

2005-06-27T05:53:00.000-05:00

Was the Gipper the Greatest? An interesting and highly-publicized (but unscientific) Discovery Channel poll-of-everyone says so. The voting finished with Ronald Reagan on top, followed in order by Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. While I've got no quarrel with the Top 5 finishers, I do have a different order and my own Top 10.... 1. George Washington "First in war, first in peace..." You should know the rest. He started it all and I blame the public schools for his fourth place finish in the Discovery Channel poll....2. Abraham Lincoln Abe saved the Union.... 3. Martin Luther King, Jr. I think it was George Will who rightly said, " He (MLK) saved our soul"....4. Ronald Reagan Dutch was nearly number three. He saved the world and liberated hundreds of millions from a horrible scourge. And, no, I'm not referring to Jimmy Carter....5. Ben Franklin He's got to be up there somewhere. This seems to be as good a place as any....6. Thomas Edison As an individual (and as a symbol) Edison embodies the best of American creative genius....7. My Mom She could have ranked higher on the list, but she was a lifelong Democrat.... 8. Samuel Adams A leader in the mold and manner of Franklin and Jefferson, Adams personally threw tea in Boston Harbor. And he made good beer.... 9. Alvin York The gold standard war hero and sharpshooter. Led seven men against a German position in the Argonne Forest; killed 25, captured 132 in one day, mostly by himself, with a handgun and an old rifle he brought with him from Tennessee.... 10. Woody Hayes For a lot of good reasons, but mostly because it's my list. Do your own.

"For this I Froze at Valley Forge?"

2005-06-25T18:29:00.000-05:00

If George Washington was alive today, we're not sure exactly what he'd say about the Supreme Court decision that came down this week. We do know he wouldn't tell a lie. But based upon the way he felt about Mount Vernon ("I had rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world.") and the warnings he gave us ("Occupants of public offices love power and are prone to abuse it."), we're pretty sure he'd be on Fox News giving us some basic civics lessons. On June 23 the liberal wing of the Supreme Court traded their black robes for cheesy gold blazers and pounded a "For Sale" sign into every lawn in America. In a stunningly stupid decision (Kelo et al v. City of New London, 04-108), the Supremes gave local governments broad power to seize private property in order to generate more tax revenue. The 5-4 squeaker was carried by the usual cast of "living Constitution" dimbulbs: Souter, Stevens, Breyer and Ginsburg. They were joined by Ronald Reagan's second bad seed, Anthony Kennedy (the first was Ron Jr.). Thanks to these geriatric judicial jackasses, a developer can dupe or bribe a city council member (now, there's a tough putt) into holding a couple of sham hearings where he can state a case for bulldozing Grandma's house, making way for the best 7-11 ever. If the developer "promises" to sell enough Slurpees, smokes and super-unleaded (and hire enough unmotivated people) to generate more taxes for the city, ol' Grandma will soon be sleeping in your basement, bitching about your food and tying up your best TV with her game shows...."Hard cheese for you and Grandma." It may not have been the headline, but it was certainly the message. While the decision in Kelo v. New London outraged editors of papers and other thoughtful people across the nation, across party lines and of many political positions, here's what THE NEW YORK TIMES ("the paper of record") put on-the-record in a June 24 editorial: "The Supreme Court's ruling yesterday that the economically troubled city of New London, Conn., can use its power of eminent domain to spur development was a welcome vindication of cities' ability to act in the public interest." Let's put the Gucci on the other foot for these people. TIMES heir-chairman-publisher (but mostly heir) "Pinch" Sulzberger no doubt has a retreat in The Hamptons with all the other beautiful elite. I believe that a beachfront "Cabela's" outdoor superstore would do very well in The Hamptons. I can make a case that a "Cabela's" will raise many more tax dollars for the community than are paid by the putz publisher. More taxes "serves the public interest" according to the high court. Unfortunately, we will have to raze Pinch's place in order to make room for the store. Pinch will just have to live in one of his other houses (perhaps in New London). We can only hope there's room left for Grandma to live in a small trailer on the beach behind the store.... Smart People Say Smart Things. No, I'm not talking about Karl Rove (though he's pretty smart and it was fun to watch the whacky among us wiggle and whine when Rove drew attention to their own words and actions). I'm talking about founding father Thomas Jefferson, our 3rd President (and a "liberal" long before the term became a label for the mentally ill). Jefferson left us sage advice as we keep our eyes on the Supreme Court, the White House, Senate, House of Representatives and now, unfortunately, every city council member in fifty states: "When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." Does anyone think Jefferson would have quietly moved into a condo while the Charlottesville City Council put a WalMart on top of Monticello?

What's in a Name?

2005-06-19T15:05:00.000-05:00

"Beat it." Despite professing a decades-long affinity for sleeping with young children, a wealthy 46-year-old California man was acquitted this week of ten charges including felony conspiracy, gross sexual abuse and several counts of serving alcohol to minors. Neither a well-documented history of paying millions of dollars for victims' silence nor widely-circulated photographs of the eccentric millionaire dangling a baby from a hotel balcony could influence the citizens of Santa Maria or anyone else to decide this freak is a threat to children. The jurors said they didn't like the young accuser's mother so they found the defendant not guilty of all charges. The perverted perp is fortunate his name is Michael Jackson. Even so, it wasn't too long ago that the only way he could have gotten away with stuff like this would have been if his name was Michael Kennedy.... So, that's why they don't call him Richard. A long time ago, when Mrs. Durbin looked at her newborn son, she presciently called him "Dick." The boy, now Senator Dick Durbin (D-Tehran), went on-the-record, over-the-top and beyond-the-pale in the Senate well this week when he likened American service men and women to Hitler's Nazis, murderer-of-millions Pol Pot and Joe Stalin's henchmen who ran the Gulags. Why? Durbin (rhymes with 'turban') thought he could abandon any sense of proportion and score some cheap political points by jumping on the bandwagon of bedwetters crying about the conditions at the Guantanamo Bay terrorist prison camp. Seems somebody told the senator we're keeping the terrorists in small rooms that are sometimes real hot and sometimes real cold where there's loud, irritating music playing at all hours. Didn't this guy ever live in a college dorm? Or spend a night in a Motel 6? Put aside the point that the illegal combatants being held in Cuba have no protections according to the Geneva Conventions (we could shoot every one of them at any time according to the letter of the law). And set aside the fact that our soldiers in Baghdad went to work today wrapped in body armor under sunny skies with a high temperature of 111. Dick Durbin's despicable demagoguery is inflaming and enabling those who will blast our men and women with something much worse than rap music. Durbin is at-best an idiot and he may be a traitor. In either case, he's a danger to the rest of us and he's gotta go.... Happy Anniversary, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg! Nope. Not their wedding anniversary. Today is the day we celebrate the electrocution of the commie couple convicted of "conspiring to commit espionage during wartime." By passing American nuclear secrets on to the Soviet Union, they helped Stalin become a nuclear warrior by 1949. Despite some spirited hand-wringing by the NY TIMES and their fellow travelers, the reprehensible Rosenbergs took a deep seat on Ol' Sparky at Sing Sing Prison on June 19, 1953. (On a humorous note, Julius went down like a sack of spuds with one jolt, but it took three to send Ethel to hell.) In 1995, the contents of something called the Venona Project were released by the NSA, including extensive records of Soviet intelligence activities through its heyday. Among the matters made public was confirmation of the Rosenbergs' treachery. So today we celebrate justice well-served in the case of the vile Rosenbergs and, unlike in the cases of Michael Jackson and (so far) Dick Durbin, the guilty will never hurt anyone again.

Broadcasters and People with Barrels Full of Ink

2005-06-05T19:14:00.000-05:00

This Sunday's Prayer. "Dear Lord, please keep and protect your moonbat Howard Dean from the forces that would mute him or attempt to cure his mental illness. Make his voice loud and his stage large. Deliver unto him the broadest audience with the most frequency until the first Wednesday of November, 2008. Amen".... Lefty Moves Up to the Bigs. The Al Jazeera IslamoFascists of the IBHL (International Broadcasters of Hate League) have signed journeyman Riz Khan to host "an interactive interview show." Most recently the international anchor for Al Jazeera's minor league affiliate CNN, Riz will miss his old team, but is excited about joining the lineup at the parent club. "I owe CNN a lot. I pretty much learned to lie from Mr. Turner and I'm going to miss my teammates in Atlanta. But the opportunity to plan, broadcast and rationalize beheadings and bombings on the air while openly promoting an anti-American, pro-terror and extermination-of-Israel agenda is, well, a personal and professional dream-come-true. At CNN we were sometimes held back by the slightest pretense of objectivity. Now I can forget about the change-up and just throw the high hard one. All praise to Allah.".... Coughing Up a Hairball. The networks were a-twitter this week with the announcement that Bob Woodward's "Deep Throat" is alive and being sold by his kids before he can die quietly from regressive dementia in his daughter's basement. For those of you too-young or too-busy to hash through the minutiae of a 30-year-old burglary, the now 91-year old Mark Felt was the number two guy at the FBI who confirmed enough of the essentials of Woodward's reporting to serve as spine-starch for The Washington Post. And so they ran with the story that would bring down the President. But despite what we've been told this week by the usual suspects in the lamestream press, Mark Felt was not a good guy. He was simply steamed that he didn't get the top job in the Bureau. So he violated his sworn oath and took a dump on Richard Nixon by spilling classified information to a reporter. Felt, in fact, is a convicted (later pardoned) felon; tried and found guilty of illegally wire-tapping the conversations of a "subversive" group. When he ratted out the Dickster, Felt made Woodward an instant rock star, lionized by the liberal elite for running off a popular Republican president who ended a dirty war he inherited from the Democrats. The intrepid Post reporter has been drinking (and serving others) his own bathwater ever since. If you ask me, Nixon should possibly have been drummed out of office for establishing the EPA, hampering business and bloating the bureaucracy. But that's never been any kind of punishable offense in Washington D.C. In the end, nothing good whatsoever came out of Watergate. We have the whole sordid affair and all its players to thank for the national navel-gazing and self-loathing that led to four years of Jimmy Carter, the most feckless and corrosive president in our history.... The Clock is Ticking, Kofi. According to Sen. Joe Biden (D-Hair Club for Men and weekly contributor to any slanted Sunday morning talk show that will have him), we can expect to see John Bolton confirmed as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations as early as this week. The surrender monkeys in the U.S. Senate have counted the votes and, like it or not, their pals at the UN are going to see a reformer sitting in America's chair at the big table. I have two important questions to put to Ambassador Bolton as he hops on the bus to the Big Apple: "Should we associate with and fund an immoral, historically ineffective, bloated organization comprised of terrorists, dictators, rapists and thieves?" And: "Why shouldn't we resign from the UN, revoke diplomatic credentials and deport the criminals in a move that will strengthen national security, re-purpose valuable real estate, eliminate parking problems in Manhattan and liberate many tables in New York's finest restaurants?"..... This Could Be Fun. While Mr. Bolton heads to New York, that state's junior senator may be heading to the mattresses. The June 8 issue of Vanity Fair will print an excerpt from a "well-researched" book highlighting the bad behavior of Her Heinous Hillary Clinton. The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President is being rushed for an earlier-than-planned release later this summer. Expect the Clinton attack pack to pull out all their time-tested tricks in defense of the Hildebeast. So what's going to be fun about even more stories of Mrs. Rodham's unscrupulous conduct? Simple. This book is nobody's idea of a hit piece by the "vast right wing conspiracy." Author Ed Klein has impeccable credentials as a mainstream media bootlick for the left. The Senator's defenders are going to have to eat one of their own to cover up her mess this time. So pop some corn, pour a frosty, put your feet up and let the games begin. This book just might turn out to be some great TV. Maybe next week we'll lead off with a prayer for Ed Klein. We wouldn't want to see him contract a case of "Vince Foster's Disease."

Be the Hammer or Be the Nail

2005-05-28T20:50:00.000-05:00

You've got to hand it to the unprincipled and shameless Democrats. And that's exactly what the unprincipled and rudderless Senate Republicans did this week. Ignoring the simple arithmetic of their party's majority, seven dwarves from the Party of Lincoln & Reagan whistled while they worked with a like number of pygmies from the Party of Marx & Springer to hand "we, the people" a senseless defeat in the fight against judicial activism. Who are these Chirac Republicans and why should we remember their treachery? Led by narcissist John McCain, the pack of poodles includes limp Lindsey Graham, Lincoln Chafee (the senator from a state the size of Akron), the senile John Warner, some guy with thick glasses named DeWine and the two chowderheads from New England, Olympia Snow and Susan Collins. Remember their names the next time you see any of them on a ballot or the next time you receive a call for a political contribution. They betrayed the hard work, hard-earned money and most of America's voters who handed the Republicans the keys to the kingdom. They traded that trust for some fleeting facetime with the perky Katie Couric and a quick chorus of Kumbaya around the campfire with the liars on the left. It's taken only a few days for the empty promise of their conspiracy to be exposed. The dumb deal is already coming unglued and the only thing they have to show for it is the answer to Democrat icon Rodney King's question: "Can't we all just get along?" Quite simply: no, we can't. But then, most of us knew that a long time ago..... The last seven nails in the doctor's coffin. This week's Senate stupidity brought an end to Senate Majority Eunuch Bill Frist's presidential fantasy. The patrician poof from Tennessee may have the brains to repair a human heart, but America has seen he doesn't have the stomach or the stones to go bareknuckle with even the lamest of lightweights like Mike DeWine and Susan Collins. Does anyone really think Frist is the guy we need in the ring going toe-to-toe with Kim Jong Il in a post-9/11 world?.... Prozac or Viagra? George Voinovich may need Dr. Frist to prescribe bunches of both. As if we needed any more proof that Ohio elects bad senators, the candyass from Cleveland came unhinged at the John Bolton confirmation hearings this week. Voinovich blubbered shamelessly that the US needs to send a more civil sissy to represent us at the UN so his grandchildren will be safer. Huh? It's probably good that George was busy bawling at the Bolton hearings or he would likely have been in McCain's office waving his white flag at the odious Harry Reid instead of at the already-marginalized UN crime boss Kofi Annan..... Cockroaches in the House? Who better to fight them than a trained and experienced professional? Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, House Majority Leader and professional pest exterminator from Houston, is driving the loony left to distraction with his swagger, his straight talk and his core conservative principles. On the issues, he's right more often than he's wrong.... but that's not why the Deaniacs despise DeLay. The libs really hate (and fear) him because he's an effective leader. They want DeLay gone, but the more they scream for his scalp, the more popular he gets back home and across the country. While Senator Frist was attending prestigious universities learning to heal the sick, Rep. DeLay was preparing himself for the real work in Washington D.C. He came to town knowing how to identify and eliminate all manner of pest problems. Once he's handled the cockroaches in the House, maybe the good people of Texas will send him over to the Senate.

Some Stuff Just Won't Flush

2005-05-16T21:32:00.000-05:00

I prefer my news on single-ply, scented rolls. NEWSWEAK "regrets" that 17 people were killed and scores injured as a result of a fiction reported by the ragazine's Michael Isikoff and John Barry. We all remember Isikoff as the guy who spiked the true story of Monica Lewinsky's flute solo in the Oval Office (Matt Drudge eventually broke that one). Yet he couldn't wait to spill ink and blood with a poorly-sourced and unsubstantiated story of a Muslim holy book being flushed down a toilet by guards at the Guantanomo Bay detention facility. The story was incredible on its face. Flush a bible down a toilet? Anyone who has ever tried to properly dispose of a Michael Isikoff story can tell you that an even-heftier Quran would just clog the can and make a mess of the bathroom floor. The only undisputed, though largely ignored, truth of the story is that captured terrorists at Gitmo enjoy amenities such as modern plumbing they didn't have at home in the cave. The article was so far off (and its consequences so serious) that it's difficult to dismiss as simply shoddy reporting. Now is a good time to examine the agendas of writers who abuse the power of the press. What would drive journalists to incite anti-American fervor and undermine our national interests? Why would they endanger even more of our soldiers and jeopardize the billions we've invested in Middle East freedom?.... We have a winner! If you guessed that Isikoff and Barry are motivated Bush-haters willing to trash U.S. foreign policy and security in order to damage Dubya, you have The University of Connecticut Department of Public Policy to thank for some proof. They found that journalists surveyed picked Democrat John Kerry over George Bush in the 2004 election by a margin of over two to one (my own guess would have been 5 or 6 to 1). Among the UConn poll's conclusions: 70 percent of journalists say the media does a good or excellent job when it comes to accuracy, while just 40 percent of the public agrees. Significantly, 60 percent of the public believes the media is biased in reporting the news. Of the broadcast and print journalists surveyed, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by three to one. There's more, but you get the idea.... No apologies necessary (or legal action possible). The smartest woman in America, (no, not Hillary Clinton) Condoleeza Rice, responded to the Isikof-induced Muslim hysteria with a hollow promise to punish the perps who qlogged the qommode with the Quran. Good luck, Madame Secretary. Thanks to the ACLU and an activist liberal judiciary, anyone in America is free to flame a flag, crap on a crucifix or just plain slime the symbols and sensibilities of anyone they choose without consequence. You couldnt touch 'em even if it did happen, Condi. I'm not saying it's right... I'm just saying that's the way it is. And if you Muslims out there don't believe me, you should call a lawyer and a plumber. They'll both cost about the same. The lawyer will tell you I'm right. The plumber will help you find your book.

You Can't Fool Me

2005-05-11T21:31:00.000-05:00

Now, it seems he was neither "Home" nor "Alone" Michael Jackson's high-priced legal team put 90's incorrigible-but-cute kid Macaulay Culkin on the stand this week to testify that, despite sleeping together on any number of occasions, the boy Culkin was never buggered, boned, bopped or in any way boinked by the then-33-year-old King of Pop. Macaulay's testimony was revealing on several levels. First, it's obvious Michael's best legal defense is that the Gloved One didn't "check the oil" of EVERY boy he slept with at Neverland. Second, we now know that the 24-year-old Culkin doesn't want his flat-lined career unplugged by the admission that he was not only punked by a weirdo when he was ten... but that his folks kept sending him back for more. Let's face it, reporting on this trial must be like spending six months inside a Bob Evans sausage plant. Watching the process is enough to make you sick. But you also know that, regardless of the stink and the mess, there are always going to be people out there eager to gobble your product by the linear foot. Michael Jackson should be imprisoned for the things he's done to kids and for the threat he represents to others. But, at this point, I'd almost be satisfied if he would just move to France where he can do no more harm.... Religion of Peace Alert!!! According to the AP, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is concerned that internet traffic and radio broadcasts are fueling an atmosphere of hate and increased discrimination aimed at Muslims in America. CAIR claims that "whenever there is a beheading or act of terrorism that involves Muslims" (have there been any other kind?), there is a relative rise in crime against Muslims in America. Essentially, CAIR says my Dell and Dad's Bose are responsible for Muslim hardship. Think about it. That's like blaming the fork because Rosie O'Donnell is fat. Muslim leaders would better serve their people by condemning-not-condoning murder, mopping their bloody mosques and learning how to live in the 21st century.... Happy 60th VE Day, Europe (but not you, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia). This week, head Soviet apologist Vladimir Putin put on his old KGB hat and claimed the Red Army was singularly responsible for the defeat of Hitler's Germany and the liberation of Europe in May of 1945. One can only imagine the appreciation and joy felt by 25,000 "liberated" Poles as they were slaughtered and buried in the Katyn Forest by Joe Stalin's army. President Bush, meanwhile, rightly reminded the rest of the world of something ten countries will never forget: At Yalta, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill condemned millions of people to generations of communist bondage by cutting a cowardly deal with the treacherous Stalin. The lesson we should take from the Yalta blunder? Instead of fueling the ambitions of a mass murderer, we should have given George Patton more gas, more ammo... and a map to Moscow.

Knowledge is Good

2005-05-03T05:41:00.000-05:00

If you can read this, thank a teacher. May 3 is National Teacher Day. But that's only in 2005. Actually, the official day is the Tuesday of the first full week of May. (Leave it to the NEA to complicate it.) Be that as it may, it's as good a time as any to remember and appreciate the great teachers in your life. Everybody's had at least a few; and the fortunate have had many more. Excellent teachers leave legacies that outlive them by generations. They quietly work long hours and often dig deep into their own pockets to make lessons richer for their students. Our best should be recognized and rewarded well-beyond current levels. And the bad ones should be thrown under a big yellow bus to make way for another good one (but that's an essay for another day). For now, let's appreciate the best we've had for all the qualities that made them rise above the rest. For me, it was a tough call, but what the heck. Thank you, Mrs. Shutler, wherever you are.... If you can read this and it's in English, thank a soldier. This past weekend I had the privilege of meeting a young man who was home from his third tour of Afghanistan as a special ops soldier. He is a 26 year old college graduate capable of killing anyone anywhere in a dark room without making a sound or leaving a mark. Talk about some good teachers! He is focused, capable, articulate and extremely positive about the dangerous work over there. In fact, the only fear this soldier expressed in a long conversation about Afghanistan and the Taliban was at the mere thought of a Hillary Clinton presidency in '08. Tom Brokaw can carp all he wants about the greatness of previous generations. I sleep like a baby knowing we have many thousands of young people like the one above who serve by choice with such a high level of professionalism. C'mon, Osama, take a little peek out of that cave.... If you didn't go to Kent State, thank your guidance counselor. With the 35th anniversary of the Kent State shootings tomorrow, we can all look forward to an ample dose of sappy nostalgia and wheezing rage from the never-left-the-sixties crowd. Actually (and fortunately for many of us) some of them never left the Kent State campus. They are comfortably suckling the public teat as tenured professors and university administrators, and they remain, even today, intoxicated by those heady days of the anti-war movement. These flannel-wrapped fossils lament the lack of student activism on today's campus and whine that few students are eager to pay tuition dollars to study the glory days of the counter-culture . They are as angry as old people can get, and with every passing year they lose relevance at the same rate as the Kent State tragedy itself. The final chapter of their sad saga is all but written. After whole careers spent fanning embers that have long gone cold... there are few students anywhere that will list them as teachers-to-appreciate today or ever.

Enemies... Foreign and Domestic

2005-04-26T22:03:00.000-05:00

Time to sell that '58 Chevy Bel Air on eBayCubano. Jimmy Carter's favorite Carribean crackpot, Fidel Castro, this week generously acceeded to the needs of his people by more-than-doubling the minimum wage in Cuba from 100 pesos ($4.50) to 225 pesos ($10) per month. That's right... per month. Effective May 1, plumbers, carpenters, undertakers and heart surgeons in Cuba will be able to buy that 50's era Norge refrigerator in half the time it would have taken before the raise. And if they can just hang in there a couple more years, the 78-year-old communist dictator has promised they will be able to buy some electricity to make the thing run some of the time. One can only imagine the dreams of young Elian Gonzalez tonight. A scant few years ago he was rescued at gunpoint by the Butcher of Waco, Janet Reno, and spared a life of unspeakable horror in Miami. When she returned him to the peoples' paradise of Cuba, the androgynous Attorney General guaranteed young Elian a crystal-clear future, unclouded by his own aspirations and expectations. Tonight, thanks to Fidel Castro and the actions of a political hack, Elian will curl up in a bed of soiled rags, gaze through the hole in the roof of Dad's tar-paper shack and wish upon the same stars that shine over "what-could-have-been" only ninety miles away.... "Barbarella's Life, so far." Communist sycophant and aging aerobics instructor Jane Fonda left a recent book-signing in Texas sporting a squirt of Skoal, compliments of an unimpressed Vietnam veteran. While the unexpected expectoration could be construed by some as a provocative review of the author's work, it begs an interesting question. Does a 35 year belly full of boiling bile justify launching a loogie at the traitor who aided and abetted your enemy while you and your brothers were fighting and dying on battlefields and in prison camps? Let's just say that Hanoi Jane should be grateful to be wearing a gooey brown necklace instead of a noose... OK, I lost ten zlotys on the Pope bet. Based on today's exchange rate, I'm down $3.04. The new Pope is a German... not an Italian. Fine. But is anyone out there as amused as I am that the media is bemoaning the fact that the guy's a Catholic? You've got to know that, if their liberal bleats gain traction, the next Commissioner of Major League Baseball will be called upon to eliminate strikes, outs, overhand pitching, umpires and scoreboards.... Et tu, George? According to TIME magazine Ann Coulter once said, "There are a lot of bad Republicans; there are no good Democrats." This week's too-long list of bad pubbies is headed by Senator George Voinovich (R-Mars). It seems the President has nominated a flame-thrower named John Bolton to be our ambassador to Kofi Annan's freak show on the East River. The President and Mr. Bolton think the corrupt UN needs some fixin'. Yet, despite taking the time to miss all of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on the nominee, Senator Voinovich couldn't support him. The reason? He was concerned about Mr. Bolton's "interpersonal skills." Hello? An "interpersonal skills" litmus test for a nominee we're throwing into a third world sewer? Give him a tetanus shot and turn him loose. Apparently, and mostly due to some radio advertising back home ratting out his stupidity, George is now straining to sprout a small pair. He's being forced to choose between a cozy seat at a Christopher Dodd dinner party and the national security interests of his constituents. As we post, the senator from Cleveland is leaning toward supporting Bolton's confirmation. No doubt his vote will be cast more for personal political survival than for any high-minded concern for our sovreignty and safety. But at this point, we just want the right vote. And we're watching you, George.

An Armed Society is a Polite Society

2005-04-19T20:14:00.000-05:00

Everyone knows about the "Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." Here's the part of the story they don't like to teach in public school. There's a reason Mr. Revere didn't ride his horse through the countryside shouting, "The Irish are drunk and fighting again!" And the reason is simple. While the Irish may have been annoying, they weren't a threat. It was the British, under the leadership of General Thomas Gage, who had embarked on a campaign to disarm the colonists by enforcing something called the "Boston Port Act." Paul Revere and his pals, The Sons of Liberty, liked their guns so they pushed back. They stalked the general and his red-clad minions, establishing a system for warning their fellow colonists whenever the Brits were on the prowl. It was on this date, April 19, in 1775 that General Gage overplayed his hand by trying to disarm the wrong guys. His actions triggered... literally and figuratively... the Battle of Lexington. And so began the American War of Independence. Hopefully, your history teacher told you who won the war, because I bet he or she didn't spend a lot of time on the British strategy to disarm the colonists, the many important reasons our founders fought or the significance of the Second Amendment.... "Hillary is coming. Hillary is coming." We don't have Paul Revere anymore... but the important work of the Sons of Liberty continues. The NATIONAL JOURNAL has named the National Rifle Association the most effective lobbying organization on Capitol Hill. Second in the survey of 73 lawmakers representing both parties was the "Club for Growth." The NRA lists 4 million well-armed members. Most of them are eligible, registered and passionate voters. And almost every one of them would rather miss a headshot on a home intruder than an opportunity to cast a vote against a gun-grabber.

It Had to Start Somewhere

2005-04-14T21:55:00.000-05:00

Many thanks to the late Ray Kroc, who opened his first McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois fifty years ago this week. Just today, Mr. Kroc's American dream fed 50 million people in 31,000 restaurants across 119 countries. Over the past half century, McDonald's has created more jobs, more opportunities and more wealth here and around the world than we can count. And they've done it while giving generously to the communities they serve and providing inspiration to other entrepreneurs and dreamers. The world is better because of Ray Kroc's company... and it's no accident that the best restaurant with the cleanest bathrooms in Moscow was born in the USA. Happy Birthday, McDonald's, and God bless Ray Kroc....Well, we buried THE Pope this week and it was hard not to notice the numbers of lefty presstitutes who couldn't find reason to give this great man any unqualified praise. It was eerily reminiscent of the Reagan funeral of last summer. CNN, The NY TIMES and their ilk never fail to stand on the wrong side of history in their evaluation of facts, events and world leadership. John Paul will be missed. (Ten zlotys say the Vatican goes back to the Italians for another four hundred years.)...Heads up, Joan, here comes the feeding tube. Seems the years have turned Joan Kennedy into (literally) a falldown drunk. Joan is the ex-wife of Senator Ted "The Swimmer" Kennedy (D-Chivas Regal). Before he was known as a bad lawmaker, Ted was famous as the skipper who swam from the USS Oldsmobile when it capsized in the shallow waters of Chappaquiddick over 35 years ago, killing Mary Jo Kopechne. Now it looks like Joan's kids want to take control of her affairs so she won't do something stupid or embarrassing. You know, like drown someone, ski headfirst into a tree, beat somebody to death with a golf club, sell the beach house or otherwise bring shame to the clan. Joan had better be careful. The last family member deemed a liability was Ted's sister, Rosemary. The Kennedys had her lobotomized and put into an asylum until she died.... Tax Tip: It won't save you any money, but it might help your digestion on April 15 to delude yourself into believing that every cent of your '04 taxes bought kevlar, ammo and other necessities for our great military. I like to think all my taxes went to our troops and that Michael Moore is paying for a couple of buildings in West Virginia named after Robert Byrd.