Climate ethics on Capitol Hill By Paul Driessen

"Sarbanes-Oxley and the 2006 elections supposedly inaugurated a new congressional commitment to ethics, transparency, accountability and consumer protection. Something has been lost in translation.

The “energy” bill now wending its way through the legislative labyrinth dedicates $6 billion to goodies like more energy-efficient snowmobiles for ski resorts, outlaws “price gouging” at the gas pump, and sets new mileage standards that will likely make cars and light trucks less safe and cost more lives. It also provides subsidies and mandates for politically correct “alternative” energy projects that probably wouldn’t survive without such aid."

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Imam Bush strikes again By Diana West

"If anyone wants to know why Muslims the world over tell pollsters the United States is at war with Islam, just read President Bush's speech at the Islamic Center of Washington, especially the part about American-style religious freedom -- in the president's words, 'what we wish for the world.'

He began this way: 'For those who seek a true understanding of our country, they need to look no farther than here.' "

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Different Kinds of Ship of State :: A Few Shiny Pebbles

In 2004, historian, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., wrote in the Los Angeles Times about presidential vision in times of crisis. He quoted FDR: “All our great presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified."

I believe that this is one of those times. We are going to elect a new president in 2008, and that means we are going to elect a specific future for America and for the world. This coming election and its aftermath will be studied for generations to come with the intensity that the decade before World War II and the war itself commands. Just as with the 1930s and 1940s, our future promises to get a great deal worse before it gets better. How much worse, and for how long, will be determined by our votes. It would help if we tried to get it right.



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Dem Hopefuls Upset With SCOTUS :: Cigar Intelligence Agency

"Like that’s news, right? But, with the widely reported ruling on forced desegregation (or, “racism is racism regardless of skin color”), the Dems, especially the presidential candidates, are ALL up in arms.

Democratic White House Hopefuls Chide Supreme Court on School Desegration in Diversity Debate

OK, let’s ignore the fact that FoxNews can’t spell “desegregation” and focus, people. The Court ruled that, well, racism in any form is, uh, illegal. Personally, I’m still trying to get my hands around how saying something so obvious is newsworthy, but that’s for another time. And, of course, shortly after the announcement, the frothing moonbats of the left flew out of their caves."

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LIBERTY... The final cost of being complacent :: NIN

"It was then that I realized; if hearing loud Arabic propaganda resound through a neighborhood in America isn’t a wake up call to all of us... our fate may already be sealed. Like weeds in a garden, the final enemy of mankind has begun springing up all around us."

The following article was sent by a man who lives and works in Western New York and has listened to my frequent guest appearances on Buffalo's own The Tom Bauerle Show on WBEN-930 AM. In the fading shadows of the all but forgotten "Lackawanna Six," he writes an interesting editorial about complacency in America and all Western countries to the threat of radical Islam. --Douglas J. Hagmann, Director, Northeast Intelligence Network

As I was taking groceries out of my trunk today, I heard an unusual sound echoing through the neighborhood. At first, I thought it was a radio, but the sound was too loud. It occurred to me that it could be children yelling from the park, or an ice cream truck, but there was no music, and the pitch never changed.

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The worst tragedy of the Bush presidency By Chuck Baldwin

It gives me no pleasure to say that the George W. Bush presidency has been an absolute and dismal failure! In fact, the Bush II regime is worse than those of Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and even Bill Clinton. The only potential bright spot to his legacy might be a slight swing to the right to life by his two Supreme Court appointments. However, the verdict is still out on that. Take away Bush's Supreme Court picks, and there is nothing left but failure, frustration, fatigue, and futility.

On the domestic front, the Bush presidency leaves us with gargantuan growth of federal spending and meddling. Bush's obsession with spying on American citizens eclipses anything Nixon did or Clinton dreamed of doing. His Patriot Act is taken right out of the Nazi handbook, and his arrogance regarding constitutional accountability is unknown in America since at least the days of Abraham Lincoln.

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The fallout from the immigration fiasco spells trouble for the GOP by Rick Moran

From the “As If They Didn’t Have Enough Problems Already” Department, the Republican Party just spilled toxic waste all over its nice, clean shirt by inexplicably pushing an immigration bill guaranteed to send most of their conservative base screaming for the exits. Thankfully, the bill went down to ignominious defeat due to the arrogance of its backers and the anger generated against it by the measure’s opponents. But one wonders if many on the right will find their way back in time to save the party from disaster in 2008.

One would think that the purpose of a political party is to grow larger so that when election time comes, they would get more votes than the other fellow. Not so the GOP. In what has to be considered a revolutionary approach to party building, the Republicans believe in first shrinking the party so that only little old ladies who think that Wendell Wilke is nifty and young hip-hoppers who took a wrong turn on their way to the MTV Video Awards show up at the next caucus.

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Socializing the Free Market of Ideas by John Bambenek

In response to the Center for American Progress's hit piece on talk radio imbalance, various Senators have expressed support for resurrecting the Cold War era "Fairness doctrine" which requires equal airtime for opposing points of view. Senator Feinstein (D-CA) specifically rejects she said they wanted a legislative fix for conservative talk radio, but still suspiciously supports the fairness doctrine as does Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). Senator Kerry (D-MA) has also expressed his support.

The underlying notion is that somehow conservative talk show hosts and conservative radio owners have colluded to produce an effective monopoly on talk radio. Instead of bringing anti-trust charges, they've decided to try to regulate it. They conveniently forget the frequent attempts (and failures) of left-wing radio to get and stay on the air. The fact that there have been so many left-wing radio shows that make it on the air (but eventually fail) shows that market entrance is not difficult.

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MilitaryConnection.Com Continues to Support Our Troops

MilitaryConnection.com takes great pride in providing a multitude of resources for our nation’s military audience. The web site, launched just over one year ago, offers one of the most comprehensive directories of military resources and information on the web, featuring over 10,000 pages with thousands of valuable resources, databases and links. We receive over 250,000 daily hits. Military Connection specializes in connecting members of the military community with top government and civilian employers. All of the numerous resources and services are free to users.

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Before You Go

From sea to shining sea, we continue to remember, honor and praise all of our American veterans from “The Greatest Generation.” We owe our liberty to them. As our national Fourth of July birthday arrives, take a few minutes to view this moving tribute to our WW II heroes. To see “Before You Go,”

May we hope, pray and trust that our current gallant young American military will prove to be yet another very great generation dedicated to securing the safety and freedom of the USA

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Double Standard For Christians and Jews Versus Muslim Students? By Louis P. Sheldon

In April, incidents in New Jersey and California involving Christians and Muslims makes me wonder if there’s not a double standard for how these two groups are treated in our public schools. In both cases, Muslims came out the winners.

The first case involves the Burlington Township High School in New Jersey. School officials decided they would conduct a mock “hostage situation” drill at their school involving terrorists. Who were these terrorists? Why, they were described as a “right-wing fundamentalist group called the ‘New Crusaders,’ who don’t believe in the separation of church and state.” The alleged Christian terrorists went to the school and took hostages over one of their children being expelled for praying before class.

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Melanie Phillips on "Liberalism versus Islamism" by Lawrence Auster

In the past I have criticized British columnist Melanie Phillips because of her failure to think her way out of the liberalism that is the ultimate source of the Islamization that she decries. In a recent talk delivered in Sweden, she comes closer to identifying liberalism as the source of the problem, and she also points in the direction of the non-liberal values that are needed to limit liberalism and its inherent destructiveness. But because she remains unable or unwilling to articulate and affirm non-liberal principles as non-liberal principles, she remains trapped in her own liberalism.

I have interspersed bracketed and bolded comments in her talk. My remarks are not highly polished and may be unavoidably repetitive at times but are reasonably coherent. Early on, I am fairly tough on her. Later, as she starts to move toward an answer, I acknowledge that. But in the end, she ends up where she has always been: anguishing over Britain's inability to resist the ongoing jihad campaign of Muslims in Britain against Britain, but unable herself to break decisively with the liberalism that has allowed this to happen, and thus unable to offer any real solution.

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China's utterly distorted economy is a train wreck waiting to happen :: World Tribune

For the nonafficionado, Peking opera is “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” to quote a famous dramatist from another culture. [Cantonese opera even more so; for as snobbish Mandarin-speakers have sometimes quipped, not even Guandong natives ever really master the six, sometimes considered eight, tones of their language, so they just keep shouting louder and louder.]

There is certainly plenty of noise now with the media and interested parties promoting the Chinese economy. Straight line projections of future gross national product growth [and projections for imported raw materials sales] may be the way we get to Mars before the astronauts. Most of those writing and talking about the China scene at the moment seem never to have heard of “the problem of the unanticipated consequences of purposive action”.

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Condemning divisiveness by being divisive By Joseph Farah

You've got to hand it to Barack Obama.

He used his presidential campaign speech to a church to call for separation of church and state and then divided himself from the "religious right" by labeling the movement "divisive."

Not every rhetorician could get away with that kind of sleight of mouth.

First off, the very presence of Obama speaking before the United Church of Christ's 50th anniversary national General Synod is somewhat remarkable.

He's running for president. And this is the congregation of Barry Lynn, the founder of American United for Separation of Church and State, who runs a personal jihad against church involvement in politics.

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Nightmare at Independence Hall By John Andrews

The "Titanic" exhibit got me ready for time travel, and the big burrito did the rest. A chair at poolside, a snooze in the sun, and suddenly I was back at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. All eyes were on John Adams as he addressed the Continental Congress:

"Fellow delegates, today our drafting committee submits the proposed Declaration of Independence. You have Mr. Jefferson’s text on your parchment laptops. Upon the motion of Lady Clinton from New York and Delegate Obama from the Illinois country, the draft underwent a political correctness audit by Bishop Bill Moyers of PBS Cathedral. Serious concerns arose.

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Where Are the Real Men? By Ashley Herzog

The murder-suicide of professional wrestler Chris Benoit and his wife and child rightly provoked an outpouring of sympathy for the surviving members of Benoit’s family. A few days after Benoit strangled his wife, smothered his 7-year-old son, and hung himself, the World Wrestling Entertainment described the crime as “a terrible tragedy and an unbearable loss.”

But the tragedy is not limited to Benoit’s relatives. The best-case scenario would have been that the murder-suicide was an isolated incident, shielded from the public eye. Unfortunately, as a professional wrestler, Benoit had an audience of millions – many of them young men who watch WWE for a warped lesson in masculinity.

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Sparks Fly at the Supreme Court By Mona Charen

When Crystal Meredith moved to Louisville, Ky., in August 2002, she attempted to enroll her son in the public kindergarten about a mile from her home. The local school was full. Officials assigned the boy to a school 10 miles distant. When Meredith asked whether her son could attend a different elementary school that was also 1 mile away and had space, she was informed that her son's assignment to that school would upset the "desegregation compliance" of the school. In other words, he was the wrong color.

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First artificial life 'within months'

Scientists could create the first new form of artificial life within months after a landmark breakthrough in which they turned one bacterium into another.

In a development that has triggered unease and excitement in equal measure, scientists in the US took the whole genetic makeup - or genome - of a bacterial cell and transplanted it into a closely related species.

This then began to grow and multiply in the lab, turning into the first species in the process.

The team that carried out the first “species transplant” says it plans within months to do the same thing with a synthetic genome made from scratch in the laboratory.

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.357—Don’t Leave Home Without It By Allison Aldrich

"I never doubted the value of my little bottle of pepper spray.
As a Washington, D.C., intern last summer, I spent countless hours on the public subway system and walked to my car at the station late at night many times. I was aware it was a station where five attempted sexual assaults had previously occurred.

Each time I made that walk, I would discreetly grasp my pepper spray—a present from my parents—and hope that I wouldn’t be making the trek to the parking garage with any of the degenerates I’d seen on the train. I didn’t realize the worthlessness of that bottle until I thought I might actually have to use it. A suspicious-acting man driving an old, beat-up car followed me through the empty parking lot until I reached my own car. It was then that I realized my complete vulnerability, a feeling that was solidified for me after attending my first year at Virginia Tech.

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Manmade Global Warming: The Real Assault on Reason By Marc Sheppard

"In the opening chapter of The Assault on Reason, its seldom reasonable author accuses the Bush administration of exploiting people's fears 'to short-circuit debate and drive the public agenda without regard to the evidence, the facts, or the public interest.'

Shamelessly abusing lingering September 11th and nascent Iraq anxieties, he argues that the roles of 'reason, logic and truth' have been eroded from the American decision-making process. This lack of focus and clarity, charges Al Gore, is personified by an administration that ignores expert advice, circumvents analysis and debate, and suppresses evidence to promote predetermined, agenda driven policies. "

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Praise Music Flunks By Lawrence Henry

"My sister came for a quick visit this last weekend to attend a going-away party for our older son, who is off to prep school. On Sunday, my wife took the gang to church for 9:00 a.m. Sunday school. My sister and I dawdled behind, aiming to be late for the worship service at 10:00. Why? We were both agreed: We hate praise music.

Praise music, for those who don't know, has sprung up in the last couple of decades as a replacement for traditional hymns in 'Bible' or 'Gospel' churches. In its tunes, it resembles modern pop, soft rock, or country music. It is generally played by combos -- in church! -- that include guitar, bass, drums and piano. There are generally a handful of singers, usually including unschooled sopranos."

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How we become American. By Peggy Noonan

"Happy Fourth of July. To mark this Wednesday's holiday, I share a small moment that happened a year ago in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I was at a wake for an old family friend named Anthony Coppola, a retired security guard who'd been my uncle Johnny's best friend from childhood. All the old neighborhood people were there from Clinton Avenue and from other streets in Brooklyn, and Anthony's sisters Tessie and Angie and Gloria invited a priest in to say some prayers. About a hundred of us sat in chairs in a little side chapel in the funeral home. "

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The Declaration of Independence, 2007 by Michael M. Bates

"Many times I think of just how fortunate I am to have been born in the United States. What a blessing!

There are so many places on this earth where mere existence is a daily struggle. Adversity and privation are the rule rather than the exception.

Our destiny was largely shaped by the remarkable men who founded this country. Calvin Coolidge observed that the Declaration of Independence unleashed not only a revolution against Britain, but also a revolution in human affairs. Even today, a belief in government by consent isn’t universally accepted.

The Founding Fathers weren’t, as they’re occasionally portrayed, radicals. If anything, they were reluctant revolutionaries, slow to terminate America’s relationship with England.

Democracy wasn’t what they sought. They were too familiar with democracy’s failings. As John Adams wrote:"

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Why We Went to War in Iraq by David Horowitz

"When he was in office and responsible for protecting us, Al Gore was absent from the war on terror. As Vice President, he was part of an administration that failed to respond to the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993; that cut and ran when al-Qaeda ambushed US Army Rangers in Mogadishu; that called for regime change in Iraq when Saddam expelled the UN weapons inspectors but then failed to remove Saddam or to get him to allow the UN inspectors back in; that failed to respond to the murder of US troops in Saudi Arabia or the attack on an American warship in Yemen; that reacted to the blowing up two US embassies in Africa by firing missiles at an aspirin factory in the Sudan and empty tents in Afghanistan; that refused to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden when it had a dozen chances to do so; and that did not put in place simple airport security measures, its own task force recommended, that would have prevented 9/11. "

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AMERICANS ABANDONED By: Alan Stang

I had thought that by now – after all these years – it would be over, that, although the pain would never leave, it would persist as nothing more than a dull ache. I was wrong, of course. The book that inspires these comments brought it all back as bad as before, worse, because the book contains much I hadn’t known. I could only read a few pages at a time. Then I had to wait until the rage and guilt subsided, guilt because despite my puny efforts, the best that I could do, the subjects of the book are still abandoned; rage because of the reason that is true.
This is a book about treason, not a single act of treason, but treason that continues for many years, for decades, treason perpetrated by the highest officials in our government through Republican and Democrat administrations, breathtaking treason on every page, treason that makes Benedict Arnold look like George Washington; that makes Aldrich Ames look like Audie Murphy.

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William J. Bennett on American History

"Tens of millions of Americans are about to celebrate our nation’s Founding. The worrisome question is, will future generations take to this celebration the way we have for the past 231 years if they do not know the first, second, or third thing about their country?

Two years ago, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough told the U.S. Senate that American History was our nation’s worst subject in school. The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (a.k.a., “our Nation’s Report Card”), released last month, bears that out again. Our children do worse in American history than they do in reading or math. McCullough testified we were facing the prospect of national amnesia, saying, “Amnesia of society is just as detrimental as amnesia for the individual. We are running a terrible risk. Our very freedom depends on education, and we are failing our children in not providing that education.” "

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The Growing Dangers of the China Trade By JYOTI THOTTAM

"On a warm Friday afternoon in June, about 50,000 boxes of toothpaste got their last squeeze inside an industrial trash compactor in Homestead, Fla. They were yanked from the shelves of discount stores and bathroom cabinets after a nationwide recall warned that the toothpaste contained a chemical, diethylene glycol, that could lead to kidney failure. Francisco Botta, who distributed the toothpaste for his family's wholesale business in Miami, stocked his warehouse bathroom with the stuff. 'I used it every day,' he says. 'I told everybody to stop.'"

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A Techno-Populist Victory on Immigration By Rich Lowry

"Beware of an aroused citizenry. It's an admonition that should be ingrained in the brain of any run-of-the-mill politician, let alone someone who has ascended to the United States Senate.

But from the Olympian heights of the world's greatest deliberative body, it is often forgotten. So senators got a reminder in the humiliating defeat of a 'comprehensive' immigration bill that had the support of the president of the United States, a bipartisan group of senators with the blessing of the leaders of their caucuses, and the support of the editorial boards of the country's most important newspapers."

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Self defense against 'smuggers' :: Vanishing American

Over at Conservative Heritage Times, 'Harrison Bergeron' has posted
Some Words to Punch Out Smuggers
If you don't know what a smugger is, read on. 'Harrison Bergeron' writes this introduction to a piece by John Vinson:

John Vinson has put together a “self-defense manual” for immigration-control activists and conservatives. It’s clever, deadly accurate, and more useful than a Swiss army knife. ( I forsee such gems as “ethno-masochist” and “tolerance taliban” quickly entering the general vocabulary.) Read, enjoy, and once you’ve memorized these handly phrases, lock and load and fire at will. MCT
[...]

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I have lost what little faith I had left in George W. :: Foehammer's Anvil

I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it. I didn’t want to blog about the President’s speech in a mosque yesterday; it simply makes me too furious. But I couldn’t just let the event go completely without comment.

For the record, I have lost all faith in President George W. Bush. I’ve tried very hard for several years now to believe that the President was just sly, that he really understands the threat and the ’score’, but not after yesterday.

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Gates of Vienna: Our Moral High Horses

"I’ve been blogging for almost three years now, so I’ve gotten used to writing every day. The engine stays warm and the gears are all greased up, so that I can crank out the rhetoric whenever I need it. I find a topic, churn out a rant, and then go back to my real job.

But it never fails to amaze me how some of our commenters, people who keep no blogs of their own, can write concisely and elegantly on a topic and get to the heart of an issue much effectively than I can. It’s even more remarkable when some of the most eloquent writers do not have English as their native language.

Our Danish commenter Phanarath is one such writer. The essay below was taken from an exchange of opinion between him and another commenter on Monday’s post."

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The Fairness Doctrine :: Conservatism With Heart

"The Fairness Doctrine is affirmative action for liberalism."--Newt Gingrich

I haven't bothered to post on the weak attempt by liberals to revive the Fairness Doctrine up until now because I knew it didn't have a chance in he** of passing!! Yet the more it is brought up the more concerned I get about the future. Right now we have enough Republicans to stop it in its tracks and a President that would veto it. Yet, God forbid we end up with a Democrat president and enough Democrat congressmen this could actually become law sometime in the future if we don't speak up.
If you look at this rationally it is beyond absurd. The liberals control 95% of the Drive By Media outlets, they control all the cable news channels except for Fox, they control 95% of the print media but they have panic attacks about the fact that via capitalism Conservatives dominate talk radio.

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American by Choice by Peter W. Schramm

"THIS WEEK, I am being honored by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services as an 'Outstanding American by Choice.' This strikes me as an interesting name for an award. It is meant, of course, to recognize selected citizens who were not born in America. But the idea of being an American by choice points to an important, and perhaps unintended truth: being American is not simply reducible to the happy accident of birth. Americans, both natural and naturalized, must be trained--they must be made--and much of my time these days is devoted to making Americans out of people who just happened to have been born here.

Over fifty years ago, when I was just shy of my tenth birthday, my family fled Hungary during the failed revolution against the Russian Communists. Our family's story was like so many of the refugees from communism, complete with relatives arrested, property seized, and a nighttime dash to freedom. The decision to escape was an easy one to make (although not so easy to execute), but the question I had--the one I distinctly recall asking my father--was 'where are we going.' We could have stayed in Europe--and indeed, the Germans would have welcomed us as Volk deutsche because of our German surname--but this was not my father's plan. 'We are going to America,' he said. 'Why America?' I prodded. 'Because, son. We were born Americans, but in the wrong place.' "

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That was no lady – that was my husband By Ann Coulter

"The Edwards campaign is apparently still running low on donations, so this week they went back to their top fundraiser: me.
I doubled the ratings of the lowest-rated cable news show on Tuesday by agreeing to go on for a full hour to promote my new paperback version of 'Godless' – a mistake I won't make again. As I was walking to the set, minutes before airtime, it was casually mentioned to me that Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, might call in.

For the first time in recorded history, the show's host did not interrupt a guest, but let Elizabeth Edwards ramble on and on, allowing her to browbeat me for being mean to her husband. "

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Dunkirk in the desert :: CFP

"It has become fashionable for politicians of both parties — mostly Democrats, but a few Republicans, as well — to promise the rapid removal of U.S. forces from Iraq. In fact, a sort of bidding war has broken out with would-be presidential candidates outdoing each other to come up with ever-shorter timelines for the abandonment of our positions there. A few examples:
Democratic presidential candidate and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson: ' I would withdraw all of our forces, without any residual troops, by the end of this calendar year.'

Democratic presidential candidate and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards: ' I would continue to draw combat troops out of Iraq over the course of about the next 10 months.'
Democratic presidential candidate and New York Senator Hillary Clinton, speaking on the recently defeated Iraq withdrawal bill: ' I support the underlying bill [to cut off funding after March 2008]...This is consistent with what I've been saying for several years.'
Republican presidential candidate and Texas Congressman Ron Paul: ' I'd come home. I'd just get out of there.'"

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A New Balance Between Rome and Jerusalem By Fjordman :: The Brussels Journal

"My post about the impact of Christianity on Western culture generated some interesting comments. Several readers stated that Christianity is flexible, unlike Islam, and that the United States, perhaps still the most devoutly Christian of Western nations, also has the most dynamic military forces. And it was the Americans who dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which hardly indicates that Christians have to be soft.

The blogger Vanishing American says she can’t count the number of Internet discussions she has seen blaming the “Camp of the Saints” invasion of the West on the feminizing impact of Christianity. She should note that The Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail does indeed describe how Christian leaders and bishops are at the forefront of surrendering Europe in the name of compassion, and this really is happening. Moreover, she says that “I cannot see how Christianity has been capable of instilling guilt in Europeans long after they have stopped believing in Christianity.”"

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Is Your Bible A "Blue Sky" Translation? by Bill Gray

"Now seems a good time to debunk a false interpretation of the Bible. I realize that there are people who truly want to love and follow Jesus --- and still live an active homosexual lifestyle. And, there are gay people wearing the mantle of clergy who, besides trying to justify their own barren positions --- want to convince their followers that the Bible really does not say --- what the Bible does say.

Yesterday, I published the article 'What About The Gay Man Or Woman?' responding to a sincere question asking if, besides welcoming people of all colors, races, and ethnic cultures into our Christian churches, do we also welcome the gay man or gay woman?
The response below is to that article What About The Gay Man Or Woman?: "

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GERMAN CARDINAL CONDEMNS UNCRITICAL TOLERANCE TOWARD ALL RELIGION--CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM ARE NOT EQUALS :: Real Clear Religion

"The chokehold of relativism on our society has led us to a point where Islam and Christianity are seen as equal by Western governments, despite the fact that our civilization was founded upon Christianity.

German Cardinal Karl Lehmann, head of the German conference of bishops, recently expressed concern about all faiths being treated equally regardless of the size of their flock and their history.

'The neutrality of the state regarding individual religions must not be confused with indifference and uncritical tolerance toward the impact of religions on society'.

There are those that agreed with Cardinal Lehmann's arguments:

'Ronald Pofalla, the general secretary of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union party, said Lehmann was right to say Islam could not be afforded the same legal standing in Germany as Christianity. "

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Dedication of Memorial to Victims of Communism All But Ignored - Warner Todd Huston

"Did you know that a monument to the many millions of victims who died during the Cold War as a result of communist oppression was dedicated in Washington DC on June 12th? You would be excused if you didn't know anything about it if the coverage of the event by the MSM is any measure because they all but ignored the unveiling of this moving monument.

The dedication was attended by many notables with President Bush saying a few appropriate words during the ceremony and the monument seems an appropriate design for a change, unlike so many of our other so-called monuments of late. As described by Helle Dale on FOX News:"

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Women Under Islam (Part One of Four) By Adrian Morgan

"Back in the 1980s, few young Western Muslim women wore the Muslim headscarf, or hijab. In fact it was banned in some Muslim countries for teachers and those employed by the state. Turkey was the first country to campaign against its use. In 1981, Tunisia banned the hijab from public offices and schools, under law number 108. This was ratified by the late President Habib Bourguiba (1956 - 1987). In September 2006 Tunisian authorities mounted a campaign against the Muslim 'Barbie' doll called Fulla, who wears a hijab, as it was thought to encourage use of the scarf. A month later, Morocco enforced a ban on images of the hijab in schoolbooks, even though the item can be worn legally. In predominantly Muslim Tajikistan in central Asia, the headscarf was banned from schools in October, 2005. "

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Frank Salvato: We Blame the Politicians But We Put Them There

"With the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (S1639) now stalled – permanently, we hope – at the debate stage in the US Senate, we can come away with one lesson learned from this course of events, an unsettling number of politicians in Washington DC ignored the “baggage” that is their constituency. In light of this undeniable truth, it is understandable that outraged Americans would be looking to the section of the Declaration of Independence that talked about dissolving government. But when one takes a break from pointing fingers – and perhaps raising some toward their elected officials – it would be wise to remember who allowed this to happen."

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Christopher G. Adamo: Fred Thompson's Greatest Challenge

"Former Senator Fred Thompson, as yet a non-declared candidate for President, has just surpassed Rudy Giuliani in the Rasmussen poll. Grassroots conservatives, though jubilant, are not surprised. He consistently shows himself to be of the stuff America wants, and which more importantly, it needs.

But as predictable as is Thompson's success, given his approach to presidential campaigning, so is the growing profusion of 'conventional wisdom' being offered to him from those supposed allies whose efforts have not been nearly as successful.
Thus far, he has not spent an exorbitant amount of money on his presidential bid. Rather, he continues to bring to this otherwise predictable campaign a refreshing element of directness not seen within the GOP in many years. "

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Attack on Talk Radio By Jack Ward

"Liberals control academia, the print media, and the visual media, and are upset that they do not control the audio media. The bottom line is that the radical liberals don’t want opposing thought expressed on campuses or in any media and have taken steps to eliminate conservative thought.

In an attempt to accomplish that, there has been an endless parade of liberal hosts that have tried to derail conservative talk radio--and they failed. Air America was created as a liberal radio network for the express purpose of derailing conservative talk radio. It failed. Air America failed because radical liberal rants did not attract listeners or sponsors. But rather than admit their failures, liberals blamed the listeners, sponsors, and station owners."

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Good Bad News from Iran By Max Boot

"Good news from Iran. The Associated Press reports that “Iranians smashed shop windows and set fire to a dozen gas stations in the capital Wednesday, angered by the sudden start of a fuel rationing system that threatens to further increase the unpopularity of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.” Why is this good news? Because it reveals the unpopularity of the theocratic dictatorship in Tehran, and its vulnerability to pressure.
As the AP article goes on to note: “The rationing is part of a government attempt to reduce the $10 billion it spends each year to import fuel that is then sold to Iranian drivers at less than cost, to keep prices low. Iran is one of the world’s biggest oil producers, but it doesn’t have enough refineries, so it must import more than 50 percent of the gasoline its people use.”"

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The Evils of Lesser Evil Voting by Joel S. Hirschhorn

"Condemn American progressives for voting enthusiastically for Democrats and the inevitable response is something like 'just imagine how much worse voting for Republicans would be.' Similarly, many true conservatives and Libertarians see voting for Republicans as a necessary evil. With many progressives regretting giving Democrats a majority in Congress and many conservatives regretting putting George W. Bush in the White House, it is timely to refute lesser evil logic."

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IT'S GLOBAL COOLING... AND IT'S DEADLY By Phil Brennan

"Unless you've been living in an igloo in some desolate arctic region bereft of any form of communication with the outside world it should become obvious that the world has been undergoing some pretty violent episodes of extreme weather, destruction by fire of vast forest areas, and incredible amounts of rainfall resulting in floods of an unprecedented magnitude from Texas to England and just about everyplace else.

If you've been following my series on global cooling starting in 1997, none of this will come as a surprise. These are all symptoms of an approaching ice age - symptoms, the record shows, present prior to the onset of all previous ice ages.

Before I get further into this, let me make it clear that I am not predicting the sudden appearance of great sheets of ice descending on the northern U.S. And Europe and burying New York under a few miles of ice in the near future - that's 30,000 years away and doesn't concern us - at least those of us who don't plan to be around then.

What concerns me, and should concern you, is the period that precedes the onset of glaciation. As I wrote back in 1997* and have harped on ever since, is the fact that the historical records show that the period between the switch from interglacial interludes and the return of glaciation is about 20 short years. "

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CHRONIC PAIN SUFFERERS...THE FEDS' VICTIMS IN FAKE "WAR ON DRUGS" By Dorothy Anne Seese

"The United States' 'drug czar' has quite an extensive web site online, all of it sounding as if the feds really have a handle on reducing drug usage by minors, illegal use by everyone else. It's nicely organized, written by a pro at making the work of this control-arm of our 'gubbamint' seem acceptable, even successful.

The problem is that the accomplishments are overstated (if you have a phone and know people who have teens in school you can find out just how available various mind-bending drugs are to those who can pay for them). But that isn't the whole story, just part of it. When our government wants to get any legislation passed, or foist more government control nets over Americans who think they live in a free country, the first line of attack is to state 'it's for the children.' Bah, baloney and bull."

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The War on the War on Terrorism by Gabriel Schoenfeld

"The Senate Judiciary Committee has issued subpoenas for documents concerning the legal basis of the Bush administration’s terrorist-surveillance program. The New York Times calls it “the most aggressive move yet by lawmakers to investigate the wiretapping program since the Democrats gained control of Congress this year.”

The program enabled the National Security Agency to monitor telephone calls and emails of persons in the United States, including U.S. citizens, whom the agency believed were linked to al Qaeda. The interception of such calls is the very core of counterterrorism. If our intelligence agencies are to connect the dots that will prevent another 9/11, these calls and emails constitute the critical dots.

The program was already damaged, if not completely compromised, when its existence was disclosed by the New York Times in December 2005. Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and other allies of the Times on Capitol Hill are now coming in for the kill."

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Iraqi Orphanage Rescued by American and Iraqi Soldiers :: Maggie's Notebook

This post accompanies a previous piece, originally posted by The Tanker Brothers: Where is the Outrage? which Spree at Wake Up America cross-posted here. This post attempts to answer that question, where is the outrage? and I do indeed think I stumbled upon it.

This video is as difficult to watch, as is reading Where is the Outrage?. When I asked how to identify The Tanker Brothers to my readers, Spree's answer was: 'Brat from Tanker Brothers is a Canadian that shows more American spirit than half of our own countrymen.'

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Where is the outrage? :: Maggie's Notebook

Remember this?

One week ago today, I woke to these pictures, just as the rest of us did. As always when I witness any kind of cruelty to children, my broken heart shattered into even more tiny pieces.
One week! One week - and CBS reported on this horrific scene that our troops almost missed. Almost missed, but didn't; I can only guess that was by the grace of God that they did NOT walk by unknowing what horrors lurked behind the wall.

On a daytime patrol in central Baghdad just over than a week ago, a U.S. military advisory team and Iraqi soldiers happened to look over a wall and found something horrific...."They saw multiple bodies laying on the floor of the facility," Staff Sgt. Mitchell Gibson of the 82nd Airborne Division told CBS News ... "They thought they were all dead, so they threw a basketball (to) try and get some attention, and actually one of the kids lifted up their head, tilted it over and just looked and then went back down. And they said, 'oh, they're alive' and so they went into the building." [source]

One week ago, msm like CBS gave this story front page status. One week on? Nothing. Zip. Zero. NADA. You might be forgiven if you think it was all a bad dream, now that the media has gone on to the next big 'scoop'. They might have moved on, but I will not - and I will not allow self-righteous, self-serving politicians of the world to move on.

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Issues and Action in Education by EdWatch

Immigration politics have Washington in political upheaval. Public confidence in Congress is down to the lowest ever recorded--14%--as an angry and frustrated public watches top leaders of both political parties continue to move forward on an immigration bill overwhelmingly opposed by everyday Americans. The political elites, including the President, are seemingly oblivious to the concerns of the public, responding instead to big business demands for low wage workers and Democrat interests for new Democrat constituents. Only three percent on the most recent Zogby poll were satisfied with the way Congress was handling the immigration issue. This may well be the biggest disconnect ever between what the public desires versus what Washington is doing!

But immigration is only more visible than the disconnect on a wide range of issues. A Republican strategist and pollster, Tony Fabrizio, said it is "symbolic of what a lot of Republicans have had to swallow, including No Child Left Behind." Some are finally charting an independent path. Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R–MI), for example, introduced ";Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success (A-PLUS) Act" (S. 893), which reverses federal control tied to federal education funding. A-PLUS has 60 co-sponsors in the House.

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Marine officer under fire gets support on 2 fronts :: WorldNetDaily

A Marine officer on trial for failing to investigate alleged war crimes in Haditha is getting support on two fronts.

Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani did, in fact, brief his higher-ups on the pitched battle that pitted U.S. Marines against terrorists in the Iraqi village Nov. 19, 2005, said Maj. Gen. Richard Huck in a military version of a preliminary hearing in the case.

Chessani was brought up on military charges after Time magazine accused Marines of "massacring" civilians in the firefight in Haditha. Later, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., publicly accused Marine officers of a "cover-up."

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Americans Unready to Revolt, Despite Revolting Conditions by Joel S. Hirschhorn

The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal national poll results vividly show a population incredibly dissatisfied with their nation’s political system. In other countries in other times, such a depressing level of confidence in government would send a signal to those running the government that a major upheaval is imminent. But not here in the USA. Why?
First, here are the highlights of the poll that surveyed 1,008 adults from June 8-11, with a margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points.
A whopping 68 percent think the country is on the wrong track. Just 19 percent believe the country is headed in the right direction - the lowest number on that question in nearly 15 years. And most of those with the positive view are probably in the Upper Class.

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Amnesty Bill Blues

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New report of radical, anti-U.S. Islamic centers confirms our 2004-05 findings by Douglas J. Hagmann

On 27 May 2005, the Northeast Intelligence Network published an investigative report titled ”Islamic Jihad Training in America?” that summarized the findings of our extensive investigation and covert surveillance of mosques and Islamic centers inside the U.S. that are purportedly teaching Islamic “jihad” in the form of ideological teachings and paramilitary style training to members of such Islamic centers. The report is available here for download in PDF format.

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Ready To Fall? :: IBD

Assassinations, gas station burnings and rock throwing — these are the signs of a populace unhappy with its ruling regime. Could the country be on the brink of a much-needed government upheaval?

Iran, which sits on a small ocean of crude, instituted gasoline rationing Wednesday morning. Despite its vast oil wealth, the nation has scant refining capacity, and its infrastructure is crumbling. Even as the world's fourth-largest exporter of oil, it must import four of every 10 gallons of the gasoline it consumes.

Iranians had two hours from the 10 p.m. Tuesday announcement to digest the news before the rationing — a limit of 26.4 gallons a month — was put into effect.

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The Clintons Lulled Us Into War :: IBD

Rudy Giuliani makes it clear that if he and Hillary Clinton are the nominees in 2008, she will have to answer why co-president Bill didn't treat the 1993 WTC bombing as al-Qaida's Pearl Harbor.

When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, Hillary told an American Bar Association luncheon: "If you vote for my husband, you get me. It's a two-for-one, blue plate special." So presumably, if she's the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee, the opposite will be true: If you vote for Hillary, you get Bill.

One of Hillary's campaign themes, in addition to the general conduct of the war on terror, will no doubt be a variation of the "Bush lied us into war" theme pushed by her party's hard-left base and the likes of George Soros and the good folks at MoveOn.org.

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An Account of How The West Was Lost By Col. Kenneth Allard (US Army, Ret.)

respectfully greet the Supreme Council of the Grand Ayatollahs, gratefully acknowledging their request that I, the Revolutionary Guards Chief of Staff, recount how we in Iran gloriously won the First Cyber War of 2007 against the Great Satan. The Almighty grants victory in such things: but we had much help from the stupidity and arrogance of the Americans themselves.

That is why our guerrilla forces over the last month have triumphed from Iraq to Lebanon, why the Zionist entity has been reduced to a shivering enclave now awaiting its next Masada. Most of all: why the proud American military has been mercilessly exposed as a humbled, hamstrung giant – like a fable from one of their children’s books.

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Globalization - Liberalism's Disastrous Consequences by Sam Vaknin

From Venezuela to Thailand, democratic regimes are being toppled by authoritarian substitutes: the military, charismatic left-wingers, or mere populists. Even in the USA, the bastion of constitutional rule, civil and human rights are being alarmingly eroded (though not without precedent in wartime).
The prominent ideologues of liberal democracy have committed a grave error by linking themselves inextricably with the doctrine of the free market and the emerging new order of globalization. As Thomas Friedman correctly observes in "The Lexus and the Olive Tree", both strains of thought are strongly identified with the United States of America (USA).

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Jail Nifong - And Fire Duke's President by Chris Freind

Another chapter has closed in the Duke lacrosse debacle, but several more need to be written in order for true justice to be served.

The nefarious district attorney, Michael Nifong, was just disbarred for "intentional prosecutorial misconduct" and apparently will not appeal the decision. This is a man who, facing an upcoming election, made the conscious decision to freely play with and omit key facts, facts that if brought to light would have closed the case immediately. Facts that would have prevented the students from being charged in the first place. (One episode that was particularly galling was when Nifong lied to lawyers and court officials, telling them that he had turned over all the DNA test results to the defense when in fact he hadn't). Instead, he thought it more prudent to bolster his re-election chances by pandering to the Black community. So he played the race card, inflamed racial tensions nationwide and depicted innocent people as monsters.

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The Big Lie About The Great Depression by Ben Shapiro

In her vital and fascinating new book, "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression," Amity Shlaes tells a story about national icon President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Shortly after FDR took office, Shlaes explains, he began arbitrarily tinkering with the price of gold. "One day he would move the price up several cents; another, a few more," writes Shlaes.

One particular morning, Shlaes relates, FDR informed his "brain trust" that he was considering raising the price of gold by 21 cents. His advisers asked why 21 cents was the appropriate figure. "It's a lucky number," stated Roosevelt, "because it's three times seven." Henry Morgenthau, a member of the "brain trust," later wrote: "If anybody knew how we really set the gold price through a combination of lucky numbers, etc., I think they would be frightened."

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Don't go there, Mr. President :: CSP

This morning, President George Bush will visit the Washington Islamic Center to mark its fiftieth anniversary – an important moment in Saudi Arabia's effort to promote dawa in America: the inculcation of Islam in this country and the domination of the Muslim faith by the Saudis' totalitarian Wahhabi cult.  The President's visit is but the latest example of his Administration's cluelessness with respect to the nature of the enemy we are confronting in this War for the Free World, and its repeated legitimation of that enemy's organizational infrastructure and agents of influence here and abroad.

The Saudis in America

Today's visit will mark a return for Mr. Bush to the Saudi-financed Islamic Center on Massachusetts Avenue.  The first occurred on September 17, 2001, within a week of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  On that occasion, the President met with a number of those who, thanks largely to funding and other help from Saudi Arabia, have become self-appointed "leaders" of the Muslim community in America.  

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Independence Day: George Washington vs. Current Washington By Marvin Olasky

When the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the Bush administration did not act unconstitutionally by sponsoring conferences largely designed to teach faith-based groups about federal grant applications, hard-core secularists were aghast: Here comes theocracy! And yet, the Supreme Court -- led by its two George W. Bush appointees -- was merely taking one small step toward returning Washington to the principles enunciated by George Washington.

That earlier George had two bedrock principles regarding religion and public policy, and as we head toward the Fourth of July, they are especially worth remembering. First, as Washington wrote in 1789, "Every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience." Second, if Americans stopped believing in God, the nation was in big trouble.

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The Impending Food Fight By Victor Davis Hanson

While we worry about gas prices, the costs of milk, meat and fresh produce silently skyrockets. So like the end of cheap energy, is the era of cheap food also finally over?

Since the farm depression of the early 1980s - remember the first Farm Aid concert in 1985 - farmers have gone broke in droves from cheap commodity prices. The public shrugged, happy enough to get inexpensive food. Globalization saw increased world acreage planted and farmed under Western methods of efficient production. And that brought into the United States even more plentiful imported food.

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Conservative NextGen By Christopher Chantrill

To understand the basic problem of the conservative movement you have only to read the Washington Times piece by Ralph Z. Hollow on the recent "third force" conservative summit summoned by conservative activist Paul M .Weyrich.

"'We want to rebuild a conservative movement independent of the Republican Party and of George W. Bush - and to emphasize that it is a third force, not a third party,' said Phyllis Schlafly, 82."

"'The Democrats own the liberals, and the Republicans own the conservatives,' said Paul M. Weyrich, 64."

"'The modern conservative movement has always been a fusion of economic, national defense and religious conservatives...' said David A. Keene, 62."

Could there be a problem here?  Might it have something to do with the age of the activists?

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Amnesty would be foreign to founders By James P. Pinkerton

Remember, back in the '90s, when then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was peddling the "politics of meaning"? Well, government-provided therapy is back in the White House once again, this time brought to you by President George W. Bush.
But there is a difference. When Clinton, guided by Rabbi Michael Lerner, spoke of "the politics of meaning," she was hooted off the national stage. But when Bush offers his vision of soulcraft, a majority of the Senate seems eager to go along with a plan to alter radically the population and character of America.

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The Great Divide By Brian Cherry

America is a divided nation. This is an indisputable fact. We are split on the war, split on abortion, split on the unions, split on what the Constitution really means and split on the role of religion in this nation. If you really want to see how angrily split people can be on an issue that divides us, try throwing a quarter into one of the public Muslim footbaths and making a wish.

We have often heard long winded folks with really good hair talk about how we need to heal the nation and get rid of all these pesky divides. Of course the people who are usually saying this sort of thing preach at us from liberal news shows and explain how the best remedy for the gaping split in this country is to shut down talk radio and let abortion clinics offer the same sort of two-for-one deals that are usually associated with the purchase of a pizza. Oops, another divide.

With all this talk about healing the divide in our nation, isn’t it ironic that when conservative and liberal citizens find an issue that we agree on, it is our elected officials who have chosen to divide themselves from the people and give us the finger from what they believe is a safe distance.

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Let's Cut to the Chase on Amnesty By JB Williams

Tuesday, despite a historic volume of dissenting voter phone calls, emails and snail mails, which caused most members of the U.S. Senate to shut down their systems in order to completely ignore their constituents and proceed to move forward on illegal amnesty, the senate voted 64-35 to proceed against the vast will of the American people.

This means that 64 senators chose to ignore their "legal" constituents entirely, in pursuit of potential "illegal" voters they hope to pick up at some point in the near future.

In case you are still trying to figure out who really supports the legalization of illegal immigration and amnesty for invaders, 40 of the 64 are Democrats and the other 24 are Republicrats.

Note that four Democrat traitors and three Republicrat traitors hope to be elected President in 2008…

Here is a list of those 64 senators, in all their glory!

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Immigration and the Future of America By Joseph Puder

The Associated Press reported on June 25, 2007 that “Months of tumultuous negotiations with the White House and GOP allies have brought the Senate's liberal lion, Edward M. Kennedy, to the brink of passing a bill to legalize up to 12 million unlawful immigrants.”

For a super-power that spends nearly half-a-trillion dollars on defense, the U.S. borders remain more porous than most Third World countries. The defenseless American borders have naturally invited an invasion of Third World people onto American shores. With ever-cheaper air travel and large cargo ships, used by lucrative smuggler operations that bring poor, uneducated, and unwelcome invaders from Asia and Central and South America, the U.S. may be overrun in 40-50 years.

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Senator Embarrassment By Ben Johnson

During his appearance yesterday on The Sean Hannity Show, Sen. George Voinovich displayed a rare public trifecta of vices: he was ill-mannered, ill-informed, and condescending. In other words, he was the perfect image of those who oppose securing our borders, winning in Iraq, and keeping our economy out of recession.

In the most elegant and dignified talk show appearance since Lester Maddox walked off The Dick Cavett Show, Voinovich demonstrated profound ignorance, indicted an entire communications medium, and told his constituents not to trouble their political masters. (You can listen to the audio here.)

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SPARKS OF REVOLUTION

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Pajamas Media: Tehran Burns

"PJM’s Ardeshir Arian, who has been following developments closely by phone and on the Internet, reports that unrest sparked by government gas rationing continued all night. The rioting, mainly in Tehran, but also in other cities, spread beyond the gas stations to government banks and government-run supermarkets, which were ransacked by ordinary people. It took hours for security forces to gain control and some forces fled the scene to safety.

UPDATE: The Baztab news site claims that reporters with cameras in hand covering the unrest were attacked. This took place out of fear that security forces were photographing protesters in order to identify and arrest them."

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For G.I.’s in Iraq, a Harrowing Day Facing a Trap By MICHAEL R. GORDON

BAQUBA, Iraq, June 25 — The enemy was a phantom who never showed his face but transformed a neighborhood into a network of houses rigged to explode. "

And the soldiers from Comanche Company’s First Platoon confronted this elaborate and deadly trap.

The platoon’s push began shortly after 4 a.m. on Saturday, as American forces continued their effort to wrest the western section of this city north of Baghdad from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Tracer rounds zipped through the air as the soldiers fired antitank weapons, mortar shells and machine guns at the abandoned houses they planned to inspect across the street.

They calculated that the firepower would blow up any bombs the insurgents might have planted in the houses, while providing cover so the first squads could move south across the thoroughfare.

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06.26.07 - Pete King (R-NY) on Border Security :: Lou Dobbs

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WorldNetDaily: Servicemen victimized by child support system By Jeffery M. Leving and Glenn Sacks

"Congressional Republicans have taken enormous criticism from Democrats, feminists and the mainstream media for making modest reductions in federal subsidies to state child support enforcement efforts. Because these enforcement programs are popular on the left, child support enforcement agencies have long been able to operate with few questions asked. A highly publicized new California court ruling demonstrates why it's time to bring restraint and oversight to this area of government.

Taron James of Torrance, Calif., a decorated Navy veteran, carried out hazardous reconnaissance missions behind Iraqi lines in the aftermath of the first Persian Gulf War. While overseas, James was notified that a woman he knew back home was demanding that he pay child support for her newborn son. Los Angeles County entered a default paternity judgment against James, in part because James' military commitments made it difficult for him to defend himself. "

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Amnesty Eight :: NRO

The Senate Tuesday voted to revive its misbegotten immigration bill, with the help of a handful of senators who claim to oppose amnesty but voted to proceed. They are now getting what they voted for, as H. L. Mencken put it, good and hard — with a 370-page “clay pigeon” amendment that is supposed to be digested and voted on by the end of the week. If the bill had been defeated yesterday, it would have been gone for at least two years and probably longer. Instead, it is a little closer to passage. But first it has to overcome another cloture vote scheduled for tomorrow. Again, the bill needs 60 votes to survive.

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Banned By PBS - Muslims Against Jihad (PART 1 of 8)

View Parts 2 - 8 here.

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America needs another Ronald Reagan By Slater Bakhtavar

The closer we approach the 2008 elections, the more I realize America needs another Ronald Reagan. Someone everyone knows, someone everyone likes, someone who is conservative and someone who can both win the election and manage to hold the Presidency for eight years. The next President should be very expressive and persuasive in front of the camera. He should emanate confidence, and appeal to women voters. He should be someone in the public eye and yet he should not be involved in the Washington mess. Fortunately, a candidate who exemplifies those profound qualities has emerged- Republican candidate Fred D. Thompson. Thompson has not officially joined the electoral race but he is already ruffling the GOP presidential field.

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Human Rights Are a Weapon Used against the People :: The Brussels Journal

The most frightening proposal [in the forthcoming EU Treaty] is the one least appreciated: to create a European “charter of fundamental rights” that will accomplish the precise opposite of what it claims. It will swing the iron claw of “progressive thought” through the soft flesh of human variety, enterprise, and freedom, on an unprecedented scale.

It is time people realized that “human rights codes” are a weapon employed by the state to suppress disapproved behaviour by the individual.

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Sovereignty or submission? By Alan Keyes

Many Americans are deeply outraged about the federal government's failure to secure our southern border and enforce our immigration laws.

Thanks to this outrage, efforts to pass a so-called immigration reform bill through the U.S. Congress have thus far stalled — despite the fact that leaders in both parties are determined to force the issue.

The rank and file politicos in Congress fear for their political lives if they cast a vote that is perceived as supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants, or continued acceptance of the government's dereliction of duty with respect to border security.

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Duplicating Disaster By Fred Thompson

We're hearing those phrases again; national health care, universal health care, socialized medicine. We're being told that government bureaucrats can take over our entire medical industry -- which by the way is the best and most complex in the world -- and make it better.

It used to be a lot easier to make the case for nationalizing health care before we actually started looking at the countries that have it. A lot of people don't seem to have noticed but, in recent years, the grand experiments in bureaucratic medicine are coming apart at the seams.

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The Dangers of Government-Sponsored Art By David Yerushalmi

This is a tale of the danger of government sponsored art. Arguably, it is even worse than that. It is the nefariousness of government sponsored political art and it is the criminal convergence of the agenda of the PC Elite with that of the Islamic Jihadists who would murder Americans, all Americans including those patriotic American Muslims brave enough to speak out, together as infidels.

As the attorney who represented ABG Films, Inc., in its contractual battles with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the danger and nefariousness I will describe here is why government should never be given leave to do more than is minimally necessary especially because we know it doesn't do minimally well that which we all agree it must do at a minimum.

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The American Left's Headache in the Horizon By Gabriel Garnica

The American Left’s protection and favoritism of the Muslim faith over Christianity has been as obvious and blatant as to not warrant further discussion. We have seen how American public schools allow and even promote Muslim events, activities, prayers and holy days while outlawing anything that even hints at Christianity. Likewise, we have seen how American public television has censored programs which even hint at painting Islam in a negative light while bubbling with enthusiasm in promoting and presenting programs that depict Christianity as some misguided, bloodthirsty, intolerant and hypocritical fanaticism.

We have also seen how the American Left loves to portray itself as the grand champion of women’s rights, the crusader for social justice and the pioneer of greater tolerance.

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Barack Denouces America for Jesus By Mark D. Tooley

Two hundred fifty years ago, Congregationalist pastor Jonathan Edwards, America’s premier theological mind of the 18^th century, helped ignite the Great Awakening. That revival, winning thousands of converts, profoundly transformed America in the wake of the American Revolution.

Rev. Edwards’ spiritual descendants founded the 1 million member United Church of Christ (UCC), though few share his faith. Today, UCC leftists are trying to kick off a new American revival, with help from Senator Barak Obama, PBS commentator Bill Moyers, Congressman Barney Frank, the Children’s Defense Fund’s Marian Wright Edelman, and recovering former Republican analyst Kevin Phillips.

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Hiding the Cost of Amnesty By Robert Rector

Last week, the White House Council of Economic Advisers issued a report entitled "Immigration's Economic Impact" which defended the President's promotion of the Senate's "comprehensive" immigration legislation (S.1348).[1] On June 25, the White House issued a follow-up editorial elaborating on the points made in the CEA report.[2] These publications criticized Heritage Foundation research on the fiscal costs of low skill immigration and amnesty.

The Heritage research criticized by the White House made the following basic points about immigration and its costs:

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Hate Crimes and Special Victims: An Un-American Story By Kathleen Parker

The fallacy of hate crime laws -- the prosecution of which requires a degree of mind-reading not yet available to most Earthlings -- has been cast into stark relief the past few weeks following an interracial rape-murder that has bestirred white supremacists and led to death threats against an African-American columnist.

The spark that caused the firestorm was the brutal rape-murder of a young white couple, Channon Christian and Chris Newsom, who were carjacked last January in Knoxville, Tenn. Five blacks -- four men and a woman -- have been charged in connection with the slayings.

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Spinning the Real Costs of Illegals By Robert Rector

Monday's column from the Administration's Karl Zinsmeister and Edward Lazear ("Lead Weight or Gold Mine: What are the True Costs of Immigration?" June 25, RCP) is a study in misdirection and misstatement. Since they devote much of their piece to attacking my research, I'd like to set the record straight.

Let's start with a brief review of what my research into the fiscal cost of low-skill households has actually found:

* Low-skill individuals (i.e., those without a high school degree) receive far more in benefits and services than they pay in taxes.

* The net fiscal cost of the families headed by low-skill immigrants is not markedly different from the cost of families headed by low-skill non-immigrants.

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'Radio Imbalance' is in the Talent By Rich Lowry

"Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk-radio pioneer, has been called many nasty things before, but never a “structural imbalance.” That’s the fancy term a liberal think tank uses to characterize his success — and to dress up its proposal for counteracting that success through new government regulation.

The report of the Center for American Progress on “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio” marks the latest phase in liberaldom’s grappling with conservative talk radio. First came the attempts to create a liberal Limbaugh — Mario Cuomo, Jim Hightower, et al. — that fell flat. Then an entire left-wing network, Air America, was founded, and foundered. So there’s only one option left — if you can’t beat them, and you won’t join them, you can agitate for government to regulate them."

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Cultural Heritages by Thomas Sowell

Among the interesting people encountered by my wife and me, during some recent vacation travel, were a small group of adolescent boys from a Navajo reservation. They were being led on a bicycle tour by a couple of white men, one of whom was apparently their teacher on the reservation.

The Navajo youngsters were bright and cheerful lads, so I was surprised when someone asked them in what state Pittsburgh was located and none of them knew. Then they were offered a clue that it was in the same state as Philadelphia but they didn't know where Philadelphia was either.

These Navajo boys seemed too bright not to have learned such things if they had been taught the basics. They also seemed too positive to be the kinds of kids who refused to learn.

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Afghan Boy Bomber

A 6 year old Afghan boy is being treated as a hero after surviving an attempt by the Taliban to trick him into becoming a suicide bomber.

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Attorney: NY Times and Washington Post Legally Complicit in Terror :: HonestRepoting

In November 2005, Al Qaida spokesman Ayman al-Zawahiri said "We are in a battle and more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media." Like Al Qaida, Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by the US State Department. Even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently described Hamas as "murderous terrorists".

American newspapers would not give Osama bin Laden op-ed space. So why would they give the oxygen of publicity to a Hamas terrorist whose organization is responsible for the murder of US citizens in Israel and whose charter calls for Israel's destruction and is filled with unadulterated anti-Semitism? This is the question being asked following the appearance of op-eds by Ahmed Yousef, advisor to former Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh, on the same day in both the New York Times and Washington Post.

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Should Big Chill Be A Bigger Worry? :: IBD

Climate Change: Reputable scientists now say the long-term threat to climate is severe cooling, not rising temperatures. In fact, our carbon emissions may just have prevented the next ice age.

Chicken Little may have to be measured for a winter coat, if the observations of R. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre of Canada's Carleton University, are accurate. Writing in Toronto's National Post, Patterson reported on his research that involved analysis of core samples of more than 5,000 years of mud recovered from the bottom of Western Canada's fjords.

 

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Part II: Is there a viable military strategy for disarming Iran? By Colonel Thomas Snodgrass (USAF retired)

In this part II, Colonel Snodgrass continues the analysis he began in Part I which was the application of the now well-known and well-respected Snodgrass strategic critique of Limited War in an affirmative manner to address the problem of Iran. Part II applies the lessons of air superiority learned in past theatres to the Iranian threat. We repeat what we said of Part I: While this essay is meant as a starting place for a serious discussion, it is light years beyond anything available and will quickly become the text against which others will be judged.

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The faces of suicide bombers By Douglas J. Hagmann

25 June 2007: Last Friday, the Blotter on ABCNews.com posted the full one-hour-plus "Taliban graduation video" of the Taliban graduation ceremony that took place in Pakistan on June 9, 2007. That video was posted in the wake of news that teams of suicide bombers may have already left Pakistan in an attempt to reach targets in the United States, Great Britain, Germany and Canada.

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Laura Ingraham on the Immigartion Bill

Link: sevenload.com

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Gates of Vienna: Who the Bleep Are These Cretins?

A commenter, Steve, left a message on a previous post about the North American Union project, which has been shuffling along under the table during the last three administrations. Steve is right to be concerned, considering that he lives at the hub — the Kansas City Smart Port:

Steve said…

I live in Kansas City, and they want to put a point of entry here and make it sovereign territory of Mexico. There would be no inspections of cargo until it got here.

That’s going over real well here, and of course it’s being denied.

Would you like a nuke with your Nikes?

Who the bleep are these cretins? Let’s make the world a nicer, happier place by pi**ing off our citizens. Perhaps people need to reread the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights, paying attention to the first couple of amendments.

Unfortunately, those founding documents are honored more in the breach by those in power. Bush would be booed off the stage now were he to attempt to deliver a speech on individuals and liberty. On several fronts he’s busy selling our sovereignty.

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Sen. Trent Lott - WHY??

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TIME and Haditha Lies By Michael Kraft

"It is interesting to note just how erroneous the media’s reporting on that incident was as exemplified by Washington Post reporter Ellen Knickmeyer who six months later took the word of a so-called “Iraqi witness” from Haditha and reported that the men in the cab “happened upon the scene inadvertently” while riding in the cab.

Nat Helms is author of a new book, “My Men Are My Heroes” which provides an account of the incredible bravery of Sgt. Brad Kasal in the second battle of Fallujah.
He stated that Knickmeyer wrote about a witness who said that the taxi driver turned onto the street and saw the wrecked Humvee and the Marines, and then the cab driver tried to back away at full speed. The Marines opened fire from about 30 yards away, killing all the men inside the taxi. Dela Cruz reportedly pumped his 30-round M-16 magazine into the car when they tried to run.

Even worse, later media reports said the cab carrying four known insurgents was occupied by four “college students,” along with the cab driver, who were on their way to school. "

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Trent Lott -- Bad For America!

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A vote for cloture is a vote for amnesty

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Casting Terrorists as Defenders of the Constitution By J.R. Dunn

The American legal system is the latest of our institutions to collapse in the face of terrorism. Cherished pillars of our society and polity have dropped, one after the other. In most cases, it was only to be expected. The media lasted a matter of days, the academy not even that long. The Democrats slid early, through a combination of cynicism, opportunism, and ideology. The Republicans are tottering, never having actually grasped what it meant to act as a "war party". The CIA, the State Department, and much of the federal bureaucracy have, as always, proven themselves masterly at looking out for their own interests.

But there was always some hope for the law. The legal system, with its deep sense of tradition,  its intellectual resources, its clear concept of mission, and its simple, stolid inertia (sometimes as much as virtue as a failing), its refusal to be hurried concerning matters of import, had plenty of anchors to keep it from slipping the same way that more ephemeral sectors had.

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Scoring The War By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

One way the media distort Americans' view of the ongoing war against terrorists is by focusing on just one side in the conflict: ours. Whether it's the daily body count or alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo, the public could be forgiven for thinking the U.S. is not only losing the war, but behaving badly in doing so.

But neither is true. This year, for instance, the U.S. has killed roughly 650 terrorists a month, according to published reports and Defense Department estimates. That compares with about 37 U.S. combat deaths per month, through May.

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The West is Losing World War IV By Newt Gingrich

The Hamas victory in Gaza is a warning that World War IV (as Norman Podhoretz has called it) is going to be long and hard. It is also a warning that the West is currently losing that war.

These defeats are not a function of the courage and will of the American people. In a June poll sponsored by American Solutions, 85 percent of the American people said it was important to defend America and its allies. Only 10 percent were opposed. On an even stronger question, 75 percent said it was important to defeat America's enemies. Only 16 percent disagreed.

So the hard left in America is only 16 percent. It is outnumbered almost 5-1 by those who would defeat our enemies.

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Honor killings: Another Brutal Face of Islam by Vasko Kohlmayer

A spate of grisly murders across Britain has recently drawn attention to another of Islam’s disturbing traditions. The institution of honor killings has not received the level of exposure accorded to some other distinctively Islamic practices such terrorism and beheadings, but it’s certainly worth learning about as it offers invaluable insights into the mindset of this resurgent religion.
By way of definition, an honor killing – a time-honored Muslim custom – is the murder of a female by members of her own family for sexually-related misconduct. The kind of behavior which qualifies as such ranges from adultery through wearing ‘inappropriate’ clothes to wanting to marry someone outside one’s own tribal group.

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Immigration and the Washington Power Structure: Time to Tell Washington Who Is in Charge by Newt Gingrich

Like Jason in Friday the 13th movies who returns again and again, the Bush-Kennedy-McCain immigration bill refuses to die. It's back this week for a vote in the Senate tomorrow. More on this important fight in a moment, but first I just had to share with you some great news.

BREAKING NEWS -- SUPREME COURT RULES IN FAVOR OF WISCOSIN RIGHT TO LIFE AND AGAINST MCCAIN-FEINGOLD GAG ORDER LAW

In a substantial and important victory for democracy and free speech, the Supreme Court just hours ago announced that the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law cannot completely stifle the free speech of citizens and groups such as Wisconsin Right to Life, which brought the challenge to the McCain-Feingold law's assault on liberty.

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Raping a Man's Name By Dennis Prager

The rape of a name can be as vicious a crime and as destructive an act as the rape of a body. Sometimes the rape of a body is worse, sometimes the rape of a name is worse. But they are both rapes. And morally likening the two is in no way meant to lessen the horror of rape; it is meant only to heighten awareness of the horror of intentionally destroying the name of an innocent person.

These words are written in the aftermath of the destruction of three young men's names by a lying woman whose name is still hidden by the New York Times and other major newspapers, whose commitment to truth is not as strong as their commitment to political correctness.

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Horror Under The Head Scarf By Stephen Brown

She struggled desperately to cling to the fifth-floor balcony railing her Turkish father had just thrown her over, a precious 16-year-old life hanging, literally, in the balance. Observing the helpless young female form dangling high in the air, horrified onlookers could not believe what happened next. An unidentified member of the woman’s family, ignoring the terrified eyes appealing upwards for help, pitilessly loosened the defenseless teenager’s hands, causing her to plunge to what was supposed to be her death.

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J. Grant Swank, Jr.: GERMANS SHOULD NIX MEGA MOSQUE

Next to a famous Christian landmark Muslims intend to construct their huge mosque, one of the largest in Europe.

The Germans should nix this project now.

Per the London Daily Telegraph from Cologne, “the construction of one of Europe's biggest mosques near a globally famous Christian landmark has sparked a furious dispute in Germany.”

There sits the Cologne Cathedral. Now the 2,000-seat mosque is to be towering via twin minarets skyscraping 170 feet upward.

'’Muslims have been here for 40 years, yet people are praying in back rooms,’ said Seyda Can, an Islamic theologian at the Turkish Islamic Union in Cologne. ‘There are 120,000 Muslims in Cologne, that's 12 percent of the population. We should not hide.’'

Hide?

They are hiding every day of their lives. How? By remaining mute as zealot Muslims lay low both Muslims and non-Muslims. Why are not the 120,000 Cologne Muslims at the forefront in outrage over their religionists blowing up innocent citizens, canceling out a democracy plant in Iraq and Afghanistan, and threatening the planet with destruction?"

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The Cultural Illiteracy of the Easy Atheists By Mary Grabar

"Best-selling atheist authors are capitalizing on a wave of ignorance and stupidity. The latest offering, God Is Not Great, comes from a bon vivant with a British accent.

To be sure, Christian fundamentalists and literalists have given Christopher Hitchens much to work with. For example, Memorial Day saw the opening of the Creation Museum in Kentucky, where Genesis comes alive with Adam and Eve alongside animatronic dinosaurs 6,000 years ago. More of God's country in Tennessee is slated for despoliation with a theme park to be called Bible Park USA.

While the theme park and museum builders have sincere intentions, I wish they'd read some books. And I'm talking about more than the Bible.

Consider the great works of literature written by Christian authors. Though I saw these authors mocked in graduate school, the force of their ideas prevails. Their wisdom and humanity contrasted sharply with the nonsensical nihilism put out by trendy authors.

Reading Milton led me back to the Bible. Shakespeare revealed the evil of atheism through characters like Iago. Dostoyevsky exposed the evils of pride and self-devised 'justice.'

How odd, then, for Hitchens to invoke literature as he does: "

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Poll: Immigration Bill Flopping With Only 22% Support :: onublog.com

"It isn’t R.I.P. for the stalled immigration reform bill.

Yet.

It’s on life support.

But barely.

That’s the only conclusion that can be drawn from a new Rasmussen Reports poll that suggests the bill has irked conservatives is getting two thumbs down (or a middle finger up) from liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, independents and moderates.
If this keeps up, it’ll soon match Vice President Dick Cheney’s popularity numbers…
Even worse: the poll finds that all the lobby by the White House has done very little to budge most Americans who seem to have concluded that the bipartisan deal smells:"

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On Forgetting The Obvious By Robert D. Kaplin

"Some truths are so obvious that to mention them in polite company seems either pointless or rude. What is left unstated, however, can with time be forgotten. Both of these observations apply today to the American way of war. It is obvious that a military can only fight well on behalf of a society in which it believes, and that a society which believes little is worth fighting for cannot, in the end, field an effective military. Obvious as this is, we seem to have forgotten it.

Remembering will help us in several ways. First, it will show us that the greatest asymmetry in our struggle with radical Islam is not one of arms or organization or even of ideology in any simple sense, but one of morale in the deepest sense. Second, it will provide an insight into the state of civil-military relations in our own country, which is a growing problem many of us refuse to acknowledge. And third, it will show us why some kinds of wars—“in-between” wars, I call them—have become inherently difficult for the United States to fight and win. "

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Mosque ignites German hostility - Nation/Politics - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

[The relentless islamification of Europe marches on :: USAP]

"COLOGNE, Germany — The construction of one of Europe's biggest mosques near a globally famous Christian landmark has sparked a furious dispute in Germany.

Immigration and integration are extremely sensitive issues in Germany, which is home to a Turkish community of several million.

But almost within the shadow of Cologne Cathedral, political correctness was replaced by bitter confrontation, as the city's Muslims began building a 2,000-capacity mosque whose twin minarets will reach 170 feet.

'Muslims have been here for 40 years, yet people are praying in back rooms,' said Seyda Can, an Islamic theologian at the Turkish Islamic Union in Cologne. 'There are 120,000 Muslims in Cologne, that's 12 percent of the population. We should not hide.'"

Mosque ignites German hostility - Nation/Politics - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper:

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