It's hard not to have heard about the positive developments in Iraq lately. On Friday, the White House announced that President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had reached agreement on a "time horizon" for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last Wednesday that "security is unquestionably and remarkably better." Iraqi security forces recently took responsibility for a 10th province and expect to assume responsibility for all 18 of the country's provinces by year-end. There have been virtually no sectarian killings in 10 weeks. The Iraqi government has made important progress in political reconciliation. Regional neighbors are reestablishing embassies in Baghdad, and some of Iraq's creditors have begun to forgive the enormous debts incurred by Saddam Hussein's regime.
How have Democrats reacted to these developments? Have they reveled in the news that U.S. casualties have plummeted? Have they praised the achievements for which our troops have fought so hard? Have they congratulated the Iraqi government for progress in political reconciliation?
Charles Rangel, chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, is intent on raising $30 million for a new academic center in his New York district -- a center with his name on it. After securing an earmark and two other federal grants totaling some $2.6 million for the project, the Democratic congressman wrote letters on his congressional stationery to businesses with interests before his committee. They sought meetings to help him fulfill his "personal dream" of seeing the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service completed.
The House Ethics Committee will examine the legality of Mr. Rangel's requests, but the bigger question is why Congress hands out money to name buildings, bridges -- everything under the sun -- after its own living members. Until roughly the 1960s, people had to die before a grateful nation memorialized them in granite. The Lincoln Memorial wasn't dedicated until a full half century after the Great Emancipator's death. Ditto for Franklin Roosevelt. George Washington had to wait 89 years for his memorial.
Now it seems almost every committee chairman gets some "Monument to Me" named after himself with the tab going to the taxpayer. There's a navigation lock in Pennsylvania named after Rep. C.W. "Bill" Young, the former GOP chair of the House Appropriations Committee. He represents St. Petersburg, Fla. -- his only connection to Pennsylvania is that he happened to be born there. Nor is that Mr. Young's only monument. The C.W. Young Center for Bio-Defense and Emerging Infectious Disease was dedicated at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., last year.
LOS ANGELES — The conventional wisdom is that Hollywood has never before been so gaga over any candidate as she is now for Democratic Sen. Barack Obama. In addition to raking in Oprah-level campaign cash, Mr. Obama is making Sen. John McCain, despite the Republican's comedic turns on "Saturday Night Live" and in "The Wedding Crashers," look like an out-of-it grandfather.
While it is true that the ratio of Obama-to-McCain bumper stickers in West L.A. is about 250-to-1, there are untold closet Republicans in the entertainment industry who dare not advertise their beliefs in movie studio parking lots. (Unfortunately, car keying is a tactic wielded liberally by the self-described "tolerant.")
But in this land of superficiality and augmented assets, the inconvenient truth is that, in Hollywood, absolute conformity to the Democratic Party is a well-constructed facade. The environment is not so much unfavorable to the Grand Old Party as it is utterly totalitarian. There's simply no lifestyle choice that receives a worse response at dinner parties.
At a recent meeting of city officials in Dallas County, Texas, a small racial brouhaha broke out. County commissioners were hashing out difficulties with the way the central collections office handles traffic tickets. Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield found himself guilty of talking while white. He observed that the bureaucracy "has become a black hole" for lost paperwork.
Fellow Commissioner John Wiley Price took great offense, shouting, "Excuse me!" That office, the black commissioner explained, has become a "white hole."
Seizing on the outrage, Judge Thomas Jones demanded that Mayfield apologize for the "racially insensitive analogy," in the words of the Dallas Morning News's City Hall Blog.
1997 saw the height of the Math Wars in California. On the one side stood educrats who advocated mushy math -- or new-new math. They sought to de-emphasize math skills, such as multiplication and solving numeric equations, in favor of pushing students to write about math and how they might solve a problem. Their unofficial motto was: There is no right answer. (Even to 2 + 2.) They were clever. They knew how to make it seem as if they were pushing for more rigor, as they dumbed down curricula. For example, they said they wanted to teach children algebra starting in kindergarten, which seemed rigorous, but they had expanded the definition of algebra to the point that it was meaningless. On the other side were reformers who wanted the board to push through rigorous and specific standards that raised the bar for all California kids. Miraculously, they succeeded, and they took pride in the state Board of Education's vote for academic standards that called for all eighth-graders to learn Algebra I.
Now many of those who fought on ground zero are afraid that the current board members will vote to undermine that standard. Earlier this month, many of those educators wrote to board President Ted Mitchell, urging that the board reject a vote they believe would undermine the Algebra I standard. The board tabled the measure until later. The fight continues.
Because this is an education issue, educratese obscures the issue, so bear with me. Understand that while the board members maintain that they voted to make Algebra I the standard for eighth-graders, there isn't an explicit requirement. The official Mathematics Content Standards for California Public Schools has a chart that lists Algebra I as a math standard starting in the eighth grade, but, with a nod toward local control, it is not explicitly required for the eighth grade.
The role that Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D.-N.D.) played in greasing the skids for Sen. Chris Dodd’s multibillion mortgage bailout is being overlooked.
Both Democratic senators are being fiercely criticized after Portfolio magazine published a story stating they had received “VIP” discounts from Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo on their home loans-- which has not been refuted by either Dodd or Conrad. Although Dodd is bearing the brunt of those criticisms, both senators had major roles in crafting legislation to benefit Countrywide to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars.
Despite the obvious conflict of interest, the legislation could come up for a Senate vote as early as today.
While liberal journalists have moved on from the Christopher Dodd-Countrywide Financial scandal, questions linger about the sweetheart loans he got in 2003 from Angelo Mozilo. At the time, Mr. Mozilo was chairman and CEO of Countrywide, which would become a leading player in the subprime-mortgage crisis and would benefit greatly if Congress passes Sen. Dodd's lending-industry bailout bill.
Does anyone believe Sen. Dodd when he says he and his wife did not "anticipate any special treatment" from Countrywide and were unaware they got it? A senator get treated royally everywhere he goes. He gets his jollies from the rump kissing of Capitol Hill staffers, lobbyists, special interests and journalists, and those who won't pucker up get no favors.
As ranking member of the Banking Committee (he's now its chairman), he was keenly aware of mortgage rates in 2003. Yet he implausibly suggests Countrywide issued him and his wife two subprime loans totaling $781,000 and charged them below-market rates, waived $10,000 in fees and points, and ultimately saved them $75,000 simply because they "shopped around."
Published reports said those who got "Friends of Angelo" discounts were told Mr. Mozilo had priced their loans so they knew they were being greased. Now Sen. Dodd claims Mr. Mozilo didn't say boo before saving the Dodds $75,000?
What's the difference between accepting sweetheart mortgages and unsolicited bribes? Mr. Mozilo was trying to buy Sen. Dodd's influence, and the senator accepted payment. Was Sen. Dodd's bailout bill that would shift $300 billion in non-performing mortgages — Countrywide alone holds $6 billion — from reckless lenders to taxpayers the quid pro quo payoff?
TOWNHALL.COM
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Environmentalists Pick Up Where Communists Left Off
WASHINGTON -- I'm not a global warming believer. I'm not a global warming denier. I'm a global warming agnostic who believes instinctively that it can't be very good to pump lots of CO2 into the atmosphere, but is equally convinced that those who presume to know exactly where that leads are talking through their hats.
Predictions of catastrophe depend on models. Models depend on assumptions about complex planetary systems -- from ocean currents to cloud formation -- that no one fully understands. Which is why the models are inherently flawed and forever changing. The doomsday scenarios posit a cascade of events, each with a certain probability. The multiple improbability of their simultaneous occurrence renders all such predictions entirely speculative.
Yet on the basis of this speculation, environmental activists, attended by compliant scientists and opportunistic politicians, are advocating radical economic and social regulation. "The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity," warns Czech President Vaclav Klaus, "is no longer socialism. It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism."
May 20 marked Cuban Independence Day -- a bittersweet occasion celebrating a freedom won more than 100 years ago but no longer known to the long-suffering residents of Cuba.
John McCain went to Miami for the occasion to assure Cuban exiles that he is committed to pressuring the tyrannical regime in Havana "to release all political prisoners unconditionally, to legalize all political parties, labor unions and free media, and to schedule internationally monitored elections."
The Republican presidential nominee said the embargo "must stay in place until these basic elements of democratic society are met."
WASHINGTON -- It's been a blast, this presidential campaign. A great story, full of drama. But no one should think it's been honest. With the possible exception of Iraq -- where candidates are compelled to face real issues -- the campaign has been an exercise in mass merchandising. Candidates make alluring promises (to "fix the economy," "defeat special interests" or "achieve energy independence") and offer freebies to voters (more tax cuts, health care, college aid). Complete the sale: That's the point.
There's a vast gap between the country's problems and the candidates' agendas and rhetoric. The candidates dissemble because they believe that Americans don't want the truth. It would be too upsetting.
They're probably right. Let's imagine what a candidate inoculated with truth serum might say. This gauges the distance between what Sens. Clinton, Obama and McCain are saying and what they should be saying. Here's the abbreviated stump speech:
THE WAR AGAINST GLOBAL warming is producing collateral damage to family life. One American city may even ban the hearth--San Francisco is contemplating a prohibition on private fireplaces to reduce air pollution. But this is nothing compared to the family sacrifice of the future: babies.
A new trend among some of the world's most eco-conscious is to forgo children for the sake of the planet. In a recent interview with Britain's Daily Mail, one woman who works for an environmental charity told of aborting her baby because she felt it was "immoral to give birth to a child that . . . would only be a burden to the world." She also had herself permanently sterilized at age 27 for good measure. According to another woman, who works for Ethical Consumer magazine, sterilization was the most ethical decision because " . . . a baby would pollute the planet--and that never having a child was the most environmentally friendly thing I could do."
Whether you view these women as courageous or completely unbalanced, they certainly are self-sacrificing in relinquishing the personal joys of parenthood for the good of the earth, right? Wrong. The truth about children is that they don't make most parents happier, and they don't create a net drain on the world. According to the evidence, forgoing kids is hardly a selfless act.
THE HILL
Declining Democrats May 8, 2008
White House set to fire back at Dems over Colombia
President Bush will lash back at the Democratic-controlled Congress over its refusal to allow a vote on the Colombia free trade agreement during a speech to Latin American government officials on Wednesday.
White House sources said the president is not backing down on the proposed trade deal, and will signal his intent to keep pressure on Democrats by devoting a large portion of his speech to Colombia at the Council of the Americas. Colombia’s secretary of defense will be among those in the audience.
Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, told The Hill that the president does not view Wednesday’s effort as a new offensive, but as an ongoing attempt to pressure Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Democrats to allow a Colombia vote.
Declining Democrats May 7, 2008
THE HILL
Dan Glickman-An Honest Democrat-Supports Free Trade
Tom Hanks is a Tinseltown supporter of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) presidential campaign, while Will Smith and Jamie Foxx are among the box office draws giving to Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) White House bid. Other film and television stars routinely travel to Washington to trumpet pet causes with their Democratic and Republican friends.
Now, Hollywood’s strongest advocate in Washington, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Chairman Dan Glickman, who served 18 years in Congress as a Democrat from Kansas, wants congressional Democrats to support the Colombia free trade agreement.
Glickman said approving the trade pact would encourage leaders of other countries to improve their economies and strengthen their Democracies. The former House Intelligence Committee member said he supports the Colombia deal for national security reasons, too.
Declining Democrats April 29, 2008
ACLU and Democrats Unhappy With Supreme Ct. Decision To Prevent Voter Fraud
Elections: The Supreme Court got it right Monday in ruling 6-3 (with even liberal John Paul Stevens agreeing) that states are free to require voters to produce photo identification at the polls.
Everyone in the country should be pleased with the news. But, of course, not everyone is. It's almost as if some are disturbed that the ruling will make it harder to commit voter fraud.
The American Civil Liberties Union, for instance. It was the ACLU's suit against the state of Indiana over its requirement that voters need to produce a photo ID at the polls that led to the Supreme Court case.
Declining Democrats April 27, 2008
SACREMENTO BEE
Democratic Party line and Pelosi are bad for free trade
Californians gain more from free trade than the people of almost any state in the country. But their leading representative in Congress – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco – is trying to kill a new trade agreement with Colombia, aligning herself with a wing of the Democratic Party that has grown increasingly hostile to consensual acts of commerce.
By itself the Colombia deal is modest. But as a symbol of this country's commitment to trade it is huge. U.S. labor unions, especially the AFL-CIO, have made the agreement's defeat a major goal for 2008, even though the deal would help, not hurt, American workers. And the Democrats' two remaining presidential candidates have both opposed it.
Pelosi could have been the grown-up on this issue, drawing on her own state's experience to show that globalization, just like technology, has made our economy more dynamic and robust, and, over the long term, healthier. Instead, she is playing to the worst impulses of her party and pandering to those who believe that economic nationalism is the road to prosperity.
Declining Democrats April 21, 2008
Democrats, Union, Pelosi, Side With Hugo Chavez' Tyranny and Against American Workers
THE WEEKLY STANDARD
Why House Democrats killed the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
A war-torn country with a democratically elected government, plagued by militias, terrorists, and drugs--but one that is steadily making progress against all these evils--wants to strengthen its ties to the United States. The Bush administration acts to help this ally. What does the Democratic Congress do? It changes the rules so that the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (CFTA), negotiated in good faith between the two governments and inked in 2006, can't come to a vote.
Memo to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez: Send flowers to the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
It is Chávez who profits most from the CFTA's demise. For years now, he's been locked in a struggle with Colombian president lvaro Uribe over the future of South America. Chávez wants that future to be socialist, authoritarian, friendly to other dictators, and belligerent toward the United States. Uribe wants it to be market-oriented, democratic, and integrated into an international system friendly to freedom and organized and led by the United States. The two visions could not be more different.
Declining Democrats April 16, 2008
Paul Ibrahim Blog
Rep. Jim McGovern: I Did Not Anticipate Impact on Food Costs
I just noticed this truly astounding excerpt from the New York Times piece on the food crisis:
Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, said he had come to realize that Congress made a mistake in backing biofuels, not anticipating the impact on food costs. He said Congress needed to reconsider its policy, though he acknowledged that would be difficult.
“If there was a secret vote, there is a pretty large number of people who would like to reassess what we are doing,” he said.
Declining Democrats April 13, 2008
Vultures of the Left
Harry Reid and company welcome bad news and ignore good news.
On April 18, 2007, a series of five car bombs hit Baghdad, killing almost 200 people. Showing his customary lack of restraint and his trademark political opportunism, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, attempted to score partisan points.
Seeking out a gaggle of press microphones the next day, Reid proclaimed, "This war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week." Reid's comments, so close on the heels of a massacre, provided a tidy snapshot of how the vultures of the left operate.
Whether in the blogosphere, the mainstream media, or even the U.S. Senate, they wait for bad news from Iraq and then swoop in with abandon to derive political benefit from a tragedy.
Reid's declaration of defeat would be an especially poignant embarrassment were the left capable of embarrassment. First of all, the intemperate and ludicrously premature comments in question came not from some 20-something blogger but from the Senate majority leader.
And Reid was audaciously careless with the facts. When he declared the surge a failure in April 2007, it hadn't even fully begun. A large portion of the surge troops had yet to arrive in Iraq.
The strategic changes that General David Petraeus was implementing were still in their nascent stage. Reid doubtless knew all of this, and yet still called the surge a failure.
Washington – Today, ten Democrats had the courage to stand up to Nancy Pelosi and vote in favor of maintaining Fast Track Authority rules that would force Congress to hold an up-or-down vote on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement within 90 days of the President’s submission.
Under normal Fast Track rules, Congress would be required to hold a vote on the trade agreement within the next three months, no doubt angering the labor unions that play a role in Democratic election efforts. With the help of most Democrats and six wayward Republicans, Speaker Pelosi doubled-crossed the administration and changed Fast Track rules today to avoid a vote on the Colombia trade agreement until after the 2008 election. Because of Nancy Pelosi’s political games, American workers and businesses will sell fewer products to Colombian buyers.
Ten Democrats had the courage to put America’s economic growth ahead of the labor bosses who pull Pelosi’s strings. They are: Reps. Bean; Boren; Boyd (FL); Cooper; Cramer; Cuellar; Hill; Lampson; Mahoney (FL); and Matheson. The six Republicans who sided with Pelosi over America’s economic growth are as follows: Reps. Aderholt; Goode; Hayes; Jones (NC) Paul; and Rogers (AL).
“The ten Democrats who put their foot down today deserve to be congratulated,” said Club for Growth President Pat Toomey. “It is a sad day when American politicians put politics over the health of America’s economy. “Nearly all of the same Democrats who voted with Pelosi today against eliminating tariffs on U.S. exports to Colombia, voted to eliminate tariffs on Columbian exports to the U.S. a little less than a year ago. It is clear that this latest gambit is nothing more than electoral chicanery.”
Declining Democrats April 8, 2008
Democrat John Murtha's Earmarks Paid For By You
Since 1992, John Murtha's Earmarks have cost American taxpayers nearly $2 billion dollars.
Yes that is billion with a b.
Just since 2004, Murtha has charged you $600 million.
No matter how much Americans tell these congressmen that they want this legalized thievery stopped, they just continue the same arrogance and thumbing of their nose at you.
Declining Democrats April 2, 2008
House Speaker Pelosi Wants Pork/Earmarks To Stay-Will Not Back Republican Sponsored Ban
WASHINGTON (AP) — Get out the trough, it's feeding time. Congress has decided that an election year with recession written all over it is not the time to be giving up those job-producing "pork" projects bemoaned by both parties' presidential candidates.
As lawmakers returned Monday from a two-week spring break, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi quietly shelved the idea of a one-year moratorium on so-called earmarks, the $18 billion in pet projects that lawmakers sent to their home states this year.
The California Democrat earlier had signaled her support for the idea of including no legislative earmarks in next year's budget. She pulled back in the face of resistance by Democratic allies after the Senate turned a thumbs-down by a resounding 71-29 vote in mid-March.
It could be an item on a David Letterman Top Ten List of "How to Know Your Mayor is Headed for a Major Scandal" -- he's known as the "Hip-Hop Mayor."
That's what they call Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, now famous for text messages detailing the affair he had with his chief of staff. Kilpatrick had denied the relationship under oath in a lawsuit brought by two police officers Kilpatrick allegedly fired to cover up his personal misconduct. He has been indicted on eight felony counts including perjury and obstruction of justice.
This would just be another dreary entry in the long annals of misbehaving politicians if it weren't for the backdrop of a decaying city. Elected at age 31 in 2002, Kilpatrick was supposed to bring youthful vitality to his job, and he talked about reform. Now, he's just another tragedy to befall Detroit, a city whose decline is -- as psychologists put it -- overdetermined, but stands as a stark statement of the failure of urban liberalism.
The young prosecutor rubbed his hands with glee. For months on end, the high-profile defense lawyer had been a thorn in his side. He’d violated every rule in the book, hurled scandalous accusations, tried the case in the press despite countless admonitions from the court. But finally, the charlatan had stepped in it. Preoccupied with theatrics, he’d overlooked the basic lawyer work and blown a filing deadline.
By law, it meant his client could not appeal the detention order that had already kept him in jail for a year-and-a-half. Many months more in the slammer loomed before what promised to be a very long trial. To be sure, any appeal would likely have been rejected — the defendant was alleged to be a terrorist. Still, appellate-court review of lengthy pretrial incarceration was elementary practice. The defendant, after all, was presumed innocent.
And that’s why the prosecutor was smirking. His high-profile bête noire, having made a seemingly inexcusable error that would get a rookie fired, now had no choice but to beg the indulgence of the very judge whose admonitions he’d serially flouted. It was delicious. Deep down, whispering beneath the heat of battle, the prosecutor knew the defendant shouldn’t be penalized for the lawyer’s dereliction. But to hell with that: The law didn’t require it and this was now about comeuppance. The prosecutor insisted that default was default, case closed.
Declining Democrats March 16, 2008
Writing in Townhall.com Tom Borelli includes the following about Eliot Spitzer
"Spitzer was forced to continue the investigation, which “included 1,454 hours of depositions.” No tactic was too low for Spitzer: he attacked Grasso’s personal life, which had nothing to do with his pay. He deposed Grasso’s secretary and inquired about an affair, and, during his nine-day deposition, Grasso was asked if he had a love child.
In October 2006, New York Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos ruled from the bench, in a summary judgment, against Grasso for him to return $100 million to the stock exchange. Grasso has good grounds for appeal: “Ramos had given Grasso all the legal rights of a detainee at Guantanamo Bay.”
It’s ironic that during his now infamous trip to Washington, D.C. to testify in Congress, Spitzer was on TV blaming the bond insurance crisis on regulators that were “bowing down to the ideology of Ayn Rand." Now it turns out that Spitzer, the crusader against capitalism could not regulate his own behavior. "
The Pew Research Center is reporting increasing public optimism about Iraq in poll results released yesterday. From the report:
Public perceptions of the situation in Iraq have become significantly more positive over the past several months, even as opinions about the initial decision to use military force remain mostly negative and unchanged.
The number of Americans who say the military effort is going very or fairly well is much higher now than a year ago (48% vs. 30% in February 2007). There has been a smaller positive change in the number who believe that the U.S. will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals (now 53%, up from 47% in February 2007).
Opinion on the critical question of whether the U.S. should keep troops in Iraq is now about evenly divided, the first time this has happened since late 2006. About half of those surveyed (49%) say they favor bringing troops home as soon as possible, but most of these (33%) favor gradual withdrawal over the next year or two, rather than immediate withdrawal. Similarly, just under half (47%) say that the U.S. should keep troops in Iraq until the situation has stabilized, with most of these (30%) saying that no timetable should be set.
Where to start? There are so many angles in New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's prostitution story -- economic, regulatory, legal, political, police enforcement, corporate, personal, comedic, business, ethics, morality, stupidity, not to mention the somewhat guilty pleasure in seeing a grandstanding corporate-enforcement demagogue go down, sinking under a government operation that looked like a carbon copy of Mr. Spitzer's own modus operandi as the scourge of Wall Street.
Right off the top, though, you've got to wonder, for example, about a business where the posted price for the service runs up to $5,500 an hour.
Who's monitoring this industry? Are there no competition laws, no regulators pushing for a "say on pay" rule against prostitutes, no attorneys general making sure prices are fair and equitable? No justice anti-trust probe? Is disclosure adequate?
But that gets us too far ahead of the story. As a high-level subject for economic study, it would be interesting to know how $5,500 an hour compares with, say, the going rate for a top takeover specialist at a Wall Street law firm. Or, on a comparative value basis, why is such a service worth less than the $6,000 one of Mr. Spitzer's corporate trophies, Tyco CEO Dennis Koslowski, paid for a shower curtain? Maybe it depended on who he was showering with.
From: Club For Growth
Declining Democrats March 11, 2008
Nancy Pelosi-To Her Credit
Club for Growth Commends Pelosi on Possible Earmark Moratorium
Washington – The Club for Growth commends Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for considering a moratorium on earmarks for the Fiscal Year 2009 and encourages her to take the necessary steps to shut off the pork spigot, even if it is just for one year.
To be sure, Nancy Pelosi is motivated by less than pure intentions. It is hard to believe the former appropriator and consummate porker has suddenly become a great defender of taxpayers, but it will be taxpayers who win nonetheless. In the past fiscal year, taxpayers were forced to foot the bill for more than $18 billion in pork projects. Some of these earmarks included Kansas’ Prison Museum, California’s Mule and Packers Museum, and Maine’s Lobster Institute.
Already thirty lawmakers have taken personal moratoriums upon themselves in recognition of how out of control the earmarking process has gotten. Nancy Pelosi should follow their lead.
“It’s not often the Club for Growth has an opportunity to commend Nancy Pelosi, but we are more than happy to take advantage of the opportunity when it presents itself,” said Club for Growth Executive Director David Keating. “American taxpayers deserve an end to the wasteful pork spending whether the initiative comes from the Democrats or the Republicans. There is no reason why taxpayers should be forced to spend their hard-earned money on a hippie museum and the Bridge to Nowhere. We urge both Democrats and Republicans to step up to the plate and do the right thing.”
Declining Democrats February 22, 2008
Does Michele Obama Know What President Bush Is Doing In Africa. It's Just One Thing of Many That Americans Should Be Proud Of
An article in an editorial from Investors Business Daily on Feb. 21 had the following paragaraphs:
"On Sunday, President Bush was greeted by millions of cheering Africans after having sent $5 billion in aid to strengthen democracies and diminish threats such as AIDS and malaria.
Bush showed that the U.S. favors strengthening democracies, no matter how small or strategically insignificant. As crowds thundered approval, Bush sent the signal that America will help states that foster human development. His action shares our hope — and our pride.
Comparing that to a pride in a political campaign — of which they will be the beneficiaries — somehow diminishes the Obamas. If they aspire to real leadership, they will rise above politics and start recognizing the achievements most of us already value.
With great fanfare, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced her agenda for her first 100 hours last January. One of the seven things she promised to do was to enact all the remaining recommendations of the 9-11 Commission. One year later, with few of those items accomplished, Pelosi is gambling recklessly that terrorists will miss the opportunities given them by the House’s failure to pass essential fixes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
When the 9-11 Commission’s report came out in July 2004, its most scathing criticism of the intelligence community was for failing to “connect the dots:” to cooperate in gathering, analyzing and using the information we have on terrorists’ intentions and capabilities. The “connect the dots” mantra was the basis for legislative reorganizations of the intelligence community, including the creation of the new Director of National Intelligence to coordinate all the agencies and the role of the new Department of Homeland Security in analyzing intelligence on terrorist threats.
But before you “connect the dots” you have to gather them. The National Security Agency’s terrorist surveillance program, created in secret by presidential order, was enormously successful in intercepting cell phone calls, e-mails and other electronic communications between terrorists and their sympathizers. It resulted in the gathering of huge amounts of data and the interdiction of a number of terrorist attacks. It has also helped battlefield operations in Iraq and Afghanistan because the separation of national intelligence gathering assets and armed forces operations has -- wisely -- been almost completely eliminated.
Declining Democrats
Declining Democrats February 16 2008
Democrats Recess With Terror Bill in Limbo
Senate Bill Written Mostly By Democrat Jay Rockerfeller Ignored By Democrats
House Democrats have may be in violation of their constitutional duties, by taking another vacation/ leaving us vulnerable to terrorism.
Speaker Pelosi reportedly was in a hurry last week so she could get to her daughter's wedding as early as possible.
Ms. Pelosi led House Democrats out of town, allowing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to expire on Saturday, to give lawmakers 12 days to vacation.
This is bordering on being beyond belief.
Declining Democrats January 1, 2008
Dem Candidates Offer Energy Plans-High Taxes, Regulations & Class Warfare Galore-Will Not Increase Energy
Democratic candidates are espousing their usual feel good rhetoric which almost certainly will not solve the problem but will attack corporations, consumers and retailers. These proposals will probably fool those they usually fool. Apparently many indiviuals accept government/nanny-state, nonsense and double talk.
Collectively they call for higher taxes, increased subsidies and handouts, more regulations and mandates, and generally greater government interference in the economy will actually work?
How many failures, cost overruns and eventual non-solutions and at what soaring costs will we have to endure before admitting the failure of practically every program, before acknowledging the benefits of free-market efficiencies working these problems out to bring true solutions.
###
Declining Democrats
Some features of Hillary Clinton's Plan
- "A new cap-and-trade program that auctions 100 percent of permits ...,"
Sounds like a plan to increase revenues for government, as if government needs to spend more instead of less.
- "An aggressive comprehensive energy efficiency agenda to reduce electricity consumption 20 percent from projected levels by 2020 by changing the way utilities do business, catalyzing a green building industry, enacting strict appliance efficiency standards, and phasing out incandescent light bulbs,"
Sounds like many, many rules and regulations on business. If you like class warfare and despise profits as most socialists do, you'll love the above.
- higher taxes on oil companies to pay for a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund,
Even though energy companies have paid hundreds and hundreds of billions to state, federal and local governments in recent years, this will do a great job of thwarting investment, raising production costs, raising costs to consumers but making nanny-state advocates happy.
- a national renewable energy mandate for generating 25 percent of electricity by 2025 and a mandate that 60 billion gallons of home-grown biofuels be available for cars and trucks by 2030;
Has a glib, sweet, this should all be so easy, sound about it.
Does such a nice job of avoiding "real world" difficulties and solutions.
- "increase in fuel efficiency standards to 55 miles per gallon by 2030,"
There are already at least 30 cars available that get 40 and 50 mpg. but why pay attention to that when we can have forced government non-solutions.
- a wide array of government subsidies and expenditures.
Of Course!!! If there weren't plenty of government subsidies and expenditures, and if we couldn't expand the nanny-state, promising a free lunch, how could we earn the label proud Democrats?
Declining Democrats November 22, 2007
Joe Klein writing in Time Magazine opines that Democrats are still hurting themselves unnecessarily regarding the Iraq War.
The title of the article is The Tone-Deaf Democrats
Excerpts:
...That sort of clarity has been rare in the presidential campaign and almost totally nonexistent among the Democrats in Congress, who are being foolishly partisan on two key issues: continued funding for the war in Iraq and updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
The Iraq-funding issue is particularly difficult. Senator Carl Levin's proposal for a gradual troop withdrawal, starting now, is the right policy. Various Bush Administration officials — though none in the White House — have told me that a troop withdrawal is the best leverage we have for shoving the Iraqis into a national-reconciliation deal.
Declining Democrats
But Levin made troop withdrawal a condition for continued funding of the war, which is a kamikaze mission. The bill couldn't muster the votes necessary to overcome a filibuster, much less the inevitable Bush veto.
Indeed, with Iraq calmer for the moment, Democrats probably have fewer votes for ending the war than they did last spring. And their continued indulgence in these futile, symbolic gestures conveys a sense of weakness and incompetence.
Whatever political value these votes once had — getting Republicans on the record in favor of continuing the war — has long since dissipated and may actually work against the Democrats if the progress in Iraq continues.
The Democratic strategy on the FISA legislation in the House is equally foolish. There is broad, bipartisan agreement on how to legalize the surveillance of phone calls and emails of foreign intelligence targets.
The basic principle is this: if a suspicious pattern of calls from a terrorist suspect to a U.S. citizen is found, a FISA court warrant is necessary to monitor those communications.
But to safeguard against civil-liberty abuses, all records of clearly non-targeted Americans who receive emails or phone calls from foreign suspects would be, in effect, erased.
Unfortunately, Speaker Nancy Pelosi quashed the House Intelligence Committee's bipartisan effort and supported a Democratic bill that — Limbaugh is salivating — would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target's calls to be approved by the FISA court, an institution founded to protect the rights of U.S. citizens only.
In the lethal shorthand of political advertising, it would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans. That is well beyond stupid...
"He was invited to speak at Emory University, but leftist students packed the hall and shouted him down.
Emory officials did nothing to stop the harassment and the suppression of speech, and Horowitz was unable to deliver his talk.
It is considerably more difficult to get conservative speakers invited to most American universities -- or for them to be able to speak without being harassed -- than it is for a Holocaust-denying, genocide-advocating leader, such as Iran's Ahmadinejad at Columbia University, to deliver a speech at an American university."
Therefore most of the opposition to Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week events came from leftist student groups.
Declining Democrats October 22, 2007
Senator Harry Reid Has 51% Unfavorable Rating
From: Las Vegas Review-Journal by Sherman Frederick
Excerpts:
The political headline of last week, "Reid's popularity falls among Nevadans," wasn't all that surprising. Nevada's never been particularly wild about Harry Reid. But he's always managed to cobble enough of a constituency to ward off opponents, even if by the narrowest of margins.
The surprise was in the degree of voter disenchantment. The poll commissioned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal showed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's unfavorable rating had moved past the 50 percent mark -- 51 percent, to be precise. His favorable rating was 32 percent, 2 points lower than embattled, lame duck President George W. Bush.
NY Gov’s Driver’s License Plan Threat to Entire Nation
Family Security Matters
By Mike Cutler
Excerpts:
To read the full story see the link following the excerpts
We all know that politics have played a major role in the creation and fueling of the immigration crisis now confronting our nation. Democrats have favored the massive influx of illegal aliens because they believe that the great majority of these new immigrants will vote for Democrat candidates. Republicans, on the other hand, have seen cheap labor in their massive numbers, and they believe the fruits of that labor will help generate corporate campaign contributions.
Added to this toxic mix are the various groups that stand to benefit greatly by having millions of people enter our country. Immigration lawyers see potential clients. Advocacy groups see political leverage and money. Employers of illegals see cheap, compliant and exploitable labor. Even some homeowners see gardeners, nannies, cooks and maids.
In fact, just about everyone makes out on the deal except for one group of people. A group of people that, while large in number, is finding the government to be increasingly less willing to represent them and their best interests.
...But, the Democrats' re-do has upped the income level for a child to qualify to $83,000 - FOUR times the poverty level (at least in New York) which is an income stretching the definition of "poverty" to the point of snapping.
* Not only that, but the Democrats' bill redefines a "child" as someone up to age 25, stretching the definition of "child" to  well, you know...
Former KBG Agent Tells President Bush's Detractors-You're Hurting The American Cause.
Excerpts from the Wall Street Journal article
Propaganda Redux
By ION MIHAI PACEPA
August 7, 2007; Page A11
During last week's two-day summit, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown thanked President Bush for leading the global war on terror. Mr. Brown acknowledged "the debt the world owes to the U.S. for its leadership in this fight against international terrorism" and vowed to follow Winston Churchill's lead and make Britain's ties with America even stronger.
Mr. Brown's statements elicited anger from many of Mr. Bush's domestic detractors, who claim the president concocted the war on terror for personal gain. But as someone who escaped from communist Romania -- with two death sentences on his head -- in order to become a citizen of this great country, I have a hard time understanding why some of our top political leaders can dare in a time of war to call our commander in chief a "liar," a "deceiver" and a "fraud."[Propaganda Redux]
I spent decades scrutinizing the U.S. from Europe, and I learned that international respect for America is directly proportional to America's own respect for its president.
Author M. Zuhdi Jasser wrote the following headline about
Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota and then quoted Ellison
Congressman Ellison Carries the Islamists’ Water
During his speech, when commenting about 9-11 and the Bush Administration, he stated according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune,
“It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that… after the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it, and it put the leader [Hitler] of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted….
"I'm not saying [Sept. 11] was a [U.S.] plan, or anything like that, because, you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box — dismiss you."
Seems like it comes close to suggesting that 9-11 was done by Americans.
Is this another case of Declining Democrats.
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Declining Democrats Will Pay Homage To Trial Lawyers July 15, 2007
I guess the biggest question is who has a greater ownership of the Democratic Party. Is it George Soros. Is it the Public-School-Monopoly led by teachers' unions, is it the trial lawyers or the welfare lobby?
This week the Trial Lawyers are out front.
Declining Democrats
Trial lawyers -- who add billions to the cost of just about everything by filing medical malpractice lawsutits, personal injury and product liability lawsuits will let Democrats know what they want them to do, so that this racket can continue as it has for decades.
Among those giants of integrity attending will be:
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. Barack Obama, former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.).
More To Come...
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Declining Democrats July 11, 2007 Democratic Congress'Approval Rating Lower Than That Of President Bush
President Bush's approval rating has reportedly slipped to 29%.
The president has had the Iraq War, Katrina, $3.00 a gallon gas prices, members of his own party from the last congress sitting in jail and many other events to drag him down.
Plus six and one half years in office.
The Democrats for their part took just six months to outdo the president as they've sunk faster than a jet.
Ah this congress which promised so much.
This was going to be the most ethical congress in history?
Where have I heard that before?
Bill Clinton was going to give us the most ethical administration in history.
After the smell the Clinton's left behind, some of us are mildly suspicious.
So what has been or what have been the major achievement of this congress.
They passed the minimum wage. You knew that was going to go through.
They had vowed not to give themselves a raise until they passed a minimum wage bill. They showed great determination with that one.
Ah but they have launched 300 investigations in 100 days.
Shouldn't we be proud of such good action on behalf of the American people.
Democrats have received only 200,000 pages of documents from the 350 requests they've made.
And, guess what, some people believe this is politics above everything.
I wonder what would make anyone think that.
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Declining Democrats June 26, 2007
DEMOCRATS BLOCK REDUCED SPENDING IN THREE DIFFERENT BILLS
Declining Democrats Continue Downward
Democrats voted almost unanimously on 3 separate bills that would have reduced spending.
The first would have cut spending by 4%. That vote was 177 to cut, practically all Republicans voted to cut and practically all Democrats voted for the higher spending.
The second cut was for 1%, that vote was 168 to 252 with mostly the same pattern, but with a few more Republicans than in the first, voting for higher spending.
The third vote was for a cut of a measly 1/2 of 1%, still Democrats voted against that cut. The final tally 177-231.
Democrats have shown consistently, they are the party of voting to redistribute from those who have earned it, to those who have not.
Declining Democrats
Through my college years, 1962, practically everyone with whom I was associated, was a staunch Democrat. I was a staunch Democrat.
When I first heard it suggested that FDR was not necessarily a great president, I was amazed to hear such talk.
Most of us were electrified when JFK became the 1960 presidential nominee, especially as the opponent of Richard Nixon, who to say the least, we did not care for.
During the night of the 1960 election, I could not go to bed till the wee hours, over, the horror, that Mr. Nixon would be president, a truly unbearable thought.
JFK was responsible for one of the biggest tax cuts in the country’s history and as a result, one of the most prosperous periods.
He did not engage in today’s truly sickening and disgusting class warfare as practically all leading Democrats do. Worse, today’s class warfare is at best a horrible distortion, at worst, a damnable lie.
The Era of Declining Democrats, had not yet begun.
John F. Kennedy also stood down the Soviets with one of the most courageous, yet very dangerous stands, the country has ever taken and which put us on the verge of a possible nuclear war.
Many of we Democrats of that era, had a great admiration for Hubert Humphrey, JFK’S opponent in the 1960 primary. Hubert Horatio Humphrey, known as HHH, went on to become Lyndon Johnson’s vice presidential running mate in 1964.
In the 1964 race, LBJ and HHH won in a landslide over Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockerfeller.
Barry Goldwater was viewed as a "shoot from the hip" type individual that had much of the world, including myself and all other Democrats I knew, terrified, that he would gain the presidency, start a major war, possibly even a nuclear war.
Another popular Democrat of that time was Senator Henry Scoop Jackson. Scoop Jackson believed in a strong America and a strong economy. He got along well with and was respected by Democrats and Republicans alike.
At this point, no one I knew, was thinking of Declining Democrats.
The Johnson-Humphrey presidency might have been quite a successful one, except that LBJ, not only took us to war, but his prosecution of the war was considered a failure, costing him the confidence of the American people, which resulted in his dramatic decision and announcement, that he would not seek reelection.
Hubert Humphrey was the Democratic nominee in 1968. HHH lost a close race to Richard Nixon. By 1968, much of the Democratic base was anti war.
Declining Democrats
Along with that, Supreme Court rulings were turning off many, because of being considered too "liberal".
Morality seemed to be on the decline and discipline by teachers and parents was questioned more than it had been in the past.
This would seem to be the beginning of Declining Democrats.
These were just some of the changes taking place, in this very volatile decade, the 60's. America went through sweeping changes in this period.
Delining Democrats Continue Efforts To Micromanage The War
See Dennis Prager's Video On the Democrats ROAD TO SURRENDER
Virtuous Ted Kennedy Lectures Vice President Cheney
Arrogance That Knows No Bounds
Declining Democrats
If you have seen Senator Ted Kennedy in action, when among other things, he is questioning potential federal judges for appointments to higher courts, you would know that his style does not create an atmosphere of pleasantness.
Stated less tactfully, one might even suggest that Senator Kennedy has the most insulting, mean spirited, sore loser, style in the entire U.S. Senate.
Interestingly a fellow Democrat, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont is known for the same style, so these two make a fine New England pair.
Which of these two has made the larger contribution to Declining Democrats is arguable, but I'd vote for Ted.
In a recent article by Senator Kennedy he said
"Vice presidents are notorious for serving as an administration's chief attack dog, and time and again Dick Cheney has been unleashed to accuse anyone who is opposed to the Bush administration of aiding the terrorists.
But this time he has gone too far.
The comments he made regarding the result of the Connecticut Democratic primary - that it might encourage "the al-Qaida types" who want to "break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task" - are an attack not just on Democrats, but on democracy itself.
So said Ted.
Dick Cheney's exactly right.
We should not question the will of Connectict voters who wanted the anti-war candidate Ned Lamont, but the Vice President's statement is exactly right.
Declining Democrats do want to cut and run.
Not just because they will do anything to recapture the House and Senate, but because as prominent Democrat Ed Koch has reminded us, Democrats such as Ted Kennedy do not "have the stomach" to fight the war... the way President Bush does.
The Mayor does not use the term Declining Democrats, but he does lament how far to the left his party has been dragged.
The Senator then went on to add this ludicrous statement, "If the terrorists are indeed paying any attention to the Connecticut primary results, they must be worried."
What a sad statement from a sad Senator from a sad party.
Now that Senator Lieberman has been defeated, who remains, among Democrats, that will not reinforce the term, Declining Democrats.
