Official Taliban Websites Hosted in US :: The JAWA Report

Several official websites belonging to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the group better known as theTaliban, are back up once again and operating on US soil. The websites are named the "Voice of Jihad".

Again the Taliban webmaster, Adil Watanmal (aka Murchal), has opted to use a Yahoo! Geocities (California) and Freewebtown (Georgia) accounts. All those millions from heroin sales and you can't afford to pay for a website Adil?

The websites include contact e-mails for the Taliban as well as working phone numbers for Taliban spokesmen Qari Muhammad Yussuf (Ahmadi) & Zabihullah Mujahid, often quoted by the MSM.

Both free webhosting companies have been very responsive to complaints in the past. I'm sure once they are notified the sites will come down. But, as always, the number of complaints seems directly correlated to how quickly the websites come down.

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Democrats Want CHANGE? Not in California! By John W. Lillpop

Because the Democrat party has no real issues on which to run in 2008, party leaders have adopted CHANGE as the liberal mantra for this election cycle.

What they really mean, however, is change that will bring more power and cash to Democrats. The status quo is perfectly acceptable in instances where Democrats already hold power.

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PC to the nth power by Lawrence Auster

There are things that are so sick that a human mind should not have to deal with them, not have to think about them. But they are there and we have no choice. Britain's Home Secretary, who has the confidence-producing name Jacqui Smith, is now officially describing Islamic terrorism as "anti-Islamic activity." The Daily Mail reports:

In her first major speech on radicalisation, Miss Smith repeatedly used the phrase "anti-Islamic."

In one passage she said: "As so many Muslims in the UK and across the world have pointed out, there is nothing Islamic about the wish to terrorise, nothing Islamic about plotting murder, pain and grief.

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Report From Occupied America: Mexifornian Pols, Schwarzenegger, Bankrupt California By Brenda Walker

Here on the Left Coast, we have seen the Mexifornia future and it doesn't work. An economy built on the "cheap" labor of millions of illegal aliens who are kept afloat by billions of tax dollars in welfare is not a viable system. California's deepening budget hole from berserk spending simply cannot be papered over any longer. The massive costs of supporting a massive unskilled foreign population now threaten basic services.

The long-expected budget crisis has formed up in detail over the last while in the capital of Mexifornia. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has tapdanced his way to the end of the fantasy budget road. He managed to sidestep a lot of potholes, but his luck ran out: the subprime mortgage meltdown punctured the housing bubble and revealed the disastrous extent of California's shaky finances and a history of irresponsible choices.

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The Feminists and the Jews By Abraham H. Miller

Of the three women pictured here, one is the President of the Supreme Court, the second the Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, and the third is the Speaker of the Parliament.  Women in positions of real power, and all are members of a Middle East government.

Any magazine committed to feminism, the empowerment of women, and the evolution of women's rights in the Middle East would hunger for such a photo, or so you would think.

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Stopping Iran: Why the Case for Military Action Still Stands By Norman Podhoretz

Up until a fairly short time ago, scarcely anyone dissented from the assessment offered with “high confidence” by the National Intelligence Estimate [NIE] of 2005 that Iran was “determined to develop nuclear weapons.” Correlatively, no one believed the protestations of the mullahs ruling Iran that their nuclear program was designed strictly for peaceful uses.

The reason for this near-universal consensus was that Iran, with its vast reserves of oil and natural gas, had no need for nuclear energy, and that in any case, the very nature of its program contradicted the protestations.

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The Anti Soundbite Candidate By Rick Moran

Fred Thompson is not the most inspiring speaker in the GOP race for President. Nor is he the best looking or the smoothest talking among the candidates running. He doesn't have Mitt Romney's hair or Mike Huckabee's glibness. He isn't as aggressively positive as Rudy Giuliani. And while his personal story is compelling, it can't compete with John McCain's inspirational journey from POW to the gates of the White House.

But Fred Thompson is perhaps the most substantative candidate to run for President in many years. He has taken the time to think about what should be the relationship between the government and the governed. He has framed his thoughts within the context of a set of bedrock conservative principles that animates his thinking and generates sound ideas about where America should be headed.

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The Perils of Identity Politics By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Let us give hearty thanks and credit to Rudy Giuliani, who has never by word or gesture implied that we would fracture any kind of "ceiling" if we elected as chief executive a man whose surname ends in a vowel.

Yet actually, it would be unprecedented if someone of Italian descent became the president of the United States and there was a time -- not long ago at that -- when the very idea would have aroused considerable passion. Now that it doesn't, is it not possible to think that that very indifference is the real "change"?

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Trying to Kill the Immigration Card By Selwyn Duke

With the victories of Mike Huckabee and John McCain in the first two primary contests and Mitt Romney’s failures prior to Michigan, a fiction is being bandied about: The anti-amnesty position isn’t playing well in Peoria.

A good example is this San Diego Union-Tribune piece didactically titled “Lesson Learned?” (read: Take the blue pill or your fantasy will become a nightmare in November). It’s dishonest pablum, with more spin than a whirling dervish on speed.

The editors begin with a convenient characterization, stating that amnesty proponents Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Huckabee and McCain are prevailing while opponents are faltering; Romney is losing the race and Tom Tancredo has left it. A few slippery paragraphs down the rabbit hole, a triumphant proclamation follows:

“Voters have obviously had their fill of divisive rhetoric, catchy slogans and shameless demagoguery passed off as solutions to the immigration problem. And they’re letting the candidates know it.”

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Thompson Can Unify Republicans by Jed Babbin

Faced with either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama as their national opponent, Republicans cannot risk disunity in the fall campaign.  Whoever is the Republicans nominate must be able to both unify and energize the core constituencies of their party.  When South Carolinians go to the polls tomorrow, their choice is between several men who cannot unify the party and one who probably can.

Fred Thompson’s ability to unify conservatives around their core principles should be much on South Carolinians’ minds.  As should the record of the other contenders. 

Throughout his career, Sen. John McCain has been a divisive force in Republican politics.  His most famous victories and defeats were on measures in which he had allied himself with liberal Democrats.  The awful campaign finance legislation was McCain-Feingold, not McCain-Sessions or McCain-Cornyn. 

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Byron Dorgan: Theocrat? By Mark D. Tooley

The Religious Left is claiming to have killed – at least momentarily - the proposed Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW), a program that would update the aging U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Having organized a letter from 50 left-leaning clerics in North Dakota, the Religious Left is claiming credit for having persuaded Senator Byron Dorgan, who chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, to omit funding for RRW in 2008.

“Two dozen North Dakota United Methodist Church (UMC) clergy, including Bishop Deborah Kiesey, helped lead the effort to block the Bush administration’s plan to build a new generation of nuclear weapons,” boasted a release from the United Methodist lobby office in Washington, D.C. “Ending this nuclear warhead program is a major victory for disarmament advocates across the world.”

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Terrorizing Free Speech By Joe Kaufman

The freedoms in our country are what set us apart from the rest of the world. But those same freedoms can become endangered by those that have suspect intentions. I know, because I experienced that recently, when, during a protest I led against a group I know to have ties to terrorism, I was served with a lawsuit and a restraining order. At the beginning of next month, at a symposium sponsored by America’s Truth Forum, I will give my first public speech on the matter. The event will be held in the Dallas area, the same place that this unfortunate situation began. In speaking out, I hope to raise awareness at the fragility of our Constitution and hope to move people to strengthen it.

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The First Affirmative Action Candidate By Joseph Puder

Shelby Steele, an African-American research fellow at Stanford University Hoover Institute and author of White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era pointed out that, “By the mid-sixties White Guilt was eliciting an entirely new kind of Black leadership, not selfless men like Martin Luther King who appealed to the nation’s moral character but smaller men, bargainers, bluffers, and haranguers - not moralists but specialists in moral indignation - who would set up a trade with White Guilt.”

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Saving Major Coughlin By Andrew G. Bostom

It may not be too late to save the career of a Pentagon analyst of jihad threats whose frank and honest work has gotten him into trouble. Bill Gertz in his weekly “Inside the Ring” column (1/11/08) reported that “Pentagon and military leaders, along with lots of working-level officials, are quietly rallying” in support of Major Stephen Coughlin (USAR), whose plight I have discussed, earlier here. Gertz also makes clear in no uncertain terms, dismissing some rumor mongering, that Coughlin was being accused “falsely” of talking “out of school to the press.” As is his wont, Gertz gets to the heart of the matter:

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Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions – The Threat Explained By Tim Wilson

“Divide and Conquer” is an ancient, well-known and accurate military aphorism. Throughout its history, the United States has successfully applied this principle to win the War of Independence, the Mexican War, World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. This history of success has been marred recently when the enemy effectively applied it to us on our home front – to some extent in Korea and most notably in Vietnam. The same tactic has been applied with some success by the Islamists, led most notably by al Qaeda, with regard to Iraq.

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Our Deadly Tango with Iran :: Professor Daniel M. Zucker

In the convoluted world of Middle East politics and diplomacy, the American relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) remains one of the most difficult to fathom. However, of late, the dense fog that emanates from the Persian Gulf and also swirls so frequently along the shores of the Potomac that the area is known locally as “Foggy Bottom”—that veil of fog has lifted, and for once a relatively clear view is possible for those willing to look. Islamic Iran’s policies on the ground, particularly in Iraq, are directly related to our own forcefulness or timidity towards the mullah regime. It has been noted that the Iranian supply of the EFPs (Explosively Formed Penetrators) that have been so deadly for our troops (and have been the single largest cause of fatalities for Coalition troops) dropped in the final several months of 2007.1 However, General David H. Petraeus reports that during the first two weeks of 2008, the trend has reversed and Iranian supply of EFPs is definitely once again significantly on the rise.2

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I don’t believe Mike Huckabee By Michelle Malkin

He’s an open borders drag queen, and he’s piling on the make-up and jewels again to disguise his pro-illegal immigration record in time for the South Carolina primary. The Washington Times reports that he has signed a NumbersUSA pledge to oppose any new shamnesty measures and reduce illegal immigration through attrition. I don’t believe Mike Huckabee:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee yesterday continued to move to the right on immigration during this year’s presidential campaign, signing a pledge to enforce immigration laws and to make all illegal aliens go home.

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Death of the Bush Doctrine By Jeff Jacoby

The Bush Doctrine — born on Sept. 20, 2001, when President Bush bluntly warned the sponsors of violent jihad: "You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists" — is dead. Its demise was announced by Condoleezza Rice last Friday.

The secretary of state was speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route with the president to Kuwait from Israel. She was explaining why the administration had abandoned the most fundamental condition of its support for Palestinian statehood - namely, an end to Palestinian terror. Rice's explanation, recounted here by The Washington Times, was as striking for its candor as for its moral blindness:

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The Spirit of the Oxford Union: How the West will be lost? By Clifford D. May

Seventy-five years ago next month, the Oxford Union debated the following resolution: "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country." The motion passed 275 votes to 153.
Winston Churchill called that a “disgusting symptom” that would breed “contempt”– not least in Germany where Hitler was already making plans to wipe various European nations off the map. The Manchester Guardian disagreed, noting the mistakes British politicians had made in wars past, and the hypocrisy they exhibited in the present.

The spirit of the Oxford Union lives on, not least on America’s campuses. Professor Ward Churchill’s characterization of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 atrocity as “little Eichmanns” is only the most infamous example.

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The ACLU's World By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

The latest in the endless series of outrages from the ACLU is its claim that anonymous sex in public bathrooms enjoys constitutional protection. What we need protection from are cunning ACLU lawyers.

Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig has an unlikely new friend in his fight against charges of lewd conduct in a Minneapolis Airport men's room last summer. The American Civil Liberties Union came to his defense this week, arguing that "the Minnesota law under which he was arrested is unconstitutionally broad."

The organization characterizes solicitation for sex as "constitutionally protected free speech" and cites court rulings concluding that "a closed bathroom stall is a private location."

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New Terror Threat By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Terrorists are increasingly looking to Europe as both a target and a staging ground for U.S. attacks. Their ticket may be the Visa Waiver Program, a major security loophole.

"One of the things we've become concerned about lately is the possibility of Europe becoming a platform for a threat against the United States," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff warned.

Most Europeans can come to the U.S. without visas — or background checks — under the waiver program.

"That means the first time we encounter them is when they arrive in the United States," Chertoff said, "and that creates a very small window of opportunity to check them out."

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Government renames Islamic terrorism as 'anti-Islamic activity' to woo Muslims By JAMES SLACK

Ministers have adopted a new language for declarations on Islamic terrorism.

In future, fanatics will be referred to as pursuing "anti-Islamic activity".

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said that extremists were behaving contrary to their faith, rather than acting in the name of Islam.

Security officials believe that directly linking terrorism to Islam is inflammatory, and risks alienating mainstream Muslim opinion.

In her first major speech on radicalisation, Miss Smith repeatedly used the phrase "anti-Islamic".

In one passage she said: "As so many Muslims in the UK and across the world have pointed out, there is nothing Islamic about the wish to terrorise, nothing Islamic about plotting murder, pain and grief.

"Indeed, if anything, these actions are anti-Islamic'.

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No Muslims here – just us chickens By Donald Hank

On Jan. 1, the world learned from major news sources that some churches and their occupants were burned in Kenya by Kenyans who didn't like the outcome of a recent election. Were these perhaps Methodists burning Baptist churches? Catholics burning Episcopalian churches? Incredibly, the accounts of online news sources didn't say, suggesting that religion played little or no role.

I checked out the first five search results on Google using the search terms: Kenya church burning. These turned out to be the sites of the International Herald Tribune, USA Today, MSNBC, BBC and Los Angeles Times. I found no hint as to who these church incendiaries were. Were they sectarians? Atheists? What were the issues?

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Slouching towards dhimmocracy By Melanie Phillips

According to Phil Johnston in the Telegraph:

Ministers have dropped the term ‘war on terror’ and will now refer to jihadis as 'criminals' in an attempt to stop glorifying acts of terrorism. ‘As you disrupt radicalisation you must be aware of how you describe it and must not do so in a way that is inadvertently inflammatory,’ said a Whitehall source.

Yes, the phrase ‘war on terror’ is conceptually incoherent; but the government’s intention is not to describe what we are facing more precisely. On the contrary, its intention is to make it impossible to describe the situation truthfully. We are being subjected to an onslaught from Islamic jihadi terrorism. First the government decided to ban the use of the word ‘Islamic’ in relation to terrorism; now it is banning the word ‘terrorism’ itself.

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The Tripartite Threat of Radical Islam to Europe By Lorenzo Vidino

After the 2004 Madrid bombings, the 2005 London attacks, and the myriad terrorist plots thwarted over the last few years, commentators and policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic have come to the realization that Europe faces an enormous challenge from terrorism of Islamist inspiration. Yet terrorism is only the tip of the iceberg, the most visible manifestation of a larger problem. Europe faces today a tripartite threat from radical Islam, of which the terrorist is only the most immediate and evident, but not necessarily the most dangerous one.

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The Terror Apologist in the Edwards Camp By Steven Emerson

He's an underdog candidate for President who needs all the help he can get against bigger-named, better-financed rivals. For former U.S. Sen. John Edwards (D-North Carolina), that has meant embracing the leader of a the American Muslim Council (AMC), an organization with a history of defending Palestinian terrorists and whose founder is in prison after pleading guilty to violating anti-terror legislation.

M. Ali Khan, a Chicago investment banker, has been the AMC's national director since 2003. Khan has helped organize at least two fundraisers for Edwards and, in a series of internet postings, described how he has reached the inner sanctum of the former senator's campaign advisors.

He spent most of December in Iowa, where Edwards finished second in the January 3rd caucus.

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The New York Times Hits Veterans Yet Again by Bob Owens

The media is at it again, using questionable statistics and broad strokes to paint the U.S. military as a band of unstable brutes. Case in point: the January 13 New York Times story “Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles,” which collates deaths at the hands of veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A total of nine Times reporters were involved in the one-page story, co-authored by Deborah Sontag and Lizette Alvarez, which is the first in a series of articles encapsulated under the title “War Torn: A series of articles and multimedia about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have committed killings, or been charged with them, after coming home.”

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Choreographing the Synchronicity of Mutually-Reinforcing Couplings By Noah Pollak

That, my friends, is what Robert Malley and Hussein Agha would like us to understand is the key to peace in the Middle East. In an op-ed in today’s Washington Post, they start with a somewhat reasonable premise:

Nervous about being left out, all three parties are laboring mightily to avert an understanding between the other two. . . . The end result is collective checkmate, a political standstill that hurts all and serves none.

But then the analysis gets buried in so much vague diplomatic twaddle that all of the realities of the conflict become helpfully obscured — which seems to be the point. “Fatah and Hamas will need to reach a new political arrangement, this time not one vigorously opposed by Israel.” Oh, that will be nice. So it was Israel that caused all of that unpleasantness in Gaza over the summer? “Hamas and Israel will need to achieve a cease-fire and prisoner exchange, albeit mediated by Abbas.” Why hasn’t anyone thought of this before?

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No Energy, Please By Alan Caruba

In mid-December, while thousands of people in the Midwest prayed that their power would be restored in order to survive the freezing weather and an ice storm descended on the northeast, it took less than 24 hours for the environmentalists of New Jersey to raise their voices against a proposed offshore natural gas terminal.

The Newark, NJ-based Star-Ledger, largest daily in the State, put the story on the front page of its December 12 edition. Exxon Mobil announced it was prepared to invest a billion dollars to provide a new source of fuel to a region, according to the newspaper, «where rising demand and scare supplies have led to spikes in heating and electric bills.»

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False Gods Create False Hope By Joel Hirschhorn

The good news is the huge pent up public demand for political change. The bad news is that presidential candidates have made a mockery of the concept of change while ignoring true political reforms. Missing are details about fixing the corrupt, dysfunctional political system and restoring balance among the three branches of government and between the states and the federal government.

So what kind of change do people want? The Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey last month of both Democrats and Republicans found 24 percent of voters favor "small adjustments" in America, 29 percent want "moderate corrections," but 46 percent thankfully seek "major reforms" and a "brand-new" approach.

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Liberal Populist Pastor Merely Wants To Be President By Marie Jon'

Whether secular Democrats like it or not, Evangelicals have much to say about politicians and their politics. Many prefer that the political talk stay outside of the sanctuaries of our churches. However, populist Pastor Mike Huckabee chose last Saturday to pitch his brand of politics to one of the largest Baptist churches in Lynchburg, South Carolina.

On Sunday evening, while preaching at the Apostolic Church in Michigan, Huckabee more than touched on politics. The preacher man will talk to you deaf, dumb and blind on any given day of the week. Did he hear a political clarion call from On High? It is safe to say that Huckabee wears his faith on his sleeve, while believing he should be president?

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Is The UN The Root Cause Of Global Terrorism? :: greenj :: BC Politics

How did terrorism, which has been around for centuries, go from a sporadic, often localized, atrocity to a global threat in the 21st Century? Are terrorists recruiting more vigorously? Do terrorist have more reasons to hate? Or have terrorists gotten more support than ever before?

A close look at some events in recent years seems to indicate it's the latter. What's most disturbing, though, is that the greatest motivational support has come not from internal sources or Arab countries, but from a somewhat unexpected source — the United Nations.

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Reflections on America's Past and Future By Christopher Adamo

Perhaps it is overly limiting to discuss the present state of our nation, and thus its prospects for the future, without broadening the topic to include all of Western civilization. Nevertheless, for at least the past century as well as a goodly portion of the century before that, America provided the primary defining force of Western culture. So it is no overstatement to assert that life in the free world will live or die based on the direction America takes in the upcoming years.

Corrosive forces are hard at work to ensure that the former power with which this nation moved the rest of the world is diluted and eventually neutralized. Worst of all, many who express outward belief in the worthiness of the American experiment are nonetheless helping to eradicate its founding philosophies, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they too will fall if it falls.

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The media war against U.S. foreign policy By Sol Sanders

It has been a long time – eons given the fickleness of American fads – since The New York Times dictated the American news agenda. Before the digital revolution, it was the seven or eight stories on the front page of The New York Times [not The Times, whose hoary reputation the TNYT for decades has tried to surreptitiously appropriate] which dictated the menu of the three TV networks. Vietnam was the apotheosis of how that monopoly tortured a bumbling Washington strategy and tactics into a monstrous figment of conspiracy and helped bring on a U.S. defeat that still wounds the American psyche and dominates some strategic thinking.

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Give Hillary her wish By Joseph Farah

Hillary Rodham Clinton compares life in the White House to life in prison.

Asked by political scientist Tyra Banks this week if she ever got lonely during her eight years as first lady, Hillary responded: "I don't feel lonely. But I do feel isolated. Because when you are in these positions that I have been in, it can be very isolating. It is one of the reasons I put on the dark glasses and the baseball cap and go out of the White House. President Harry Truman once said that the White House was like the crown jewel of the American penal system because you feel so confined."

Nevertheless, Hillary is working furiously to break back in.

I have a suggestion. Let's grant her wish.

No, I don't mean elect her to the presidency. I mean let's incarcerate her – for a long, long time.

I admit it: I'd love to see her frog marched right into the penitentiary.

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The Pentagon Mantra: PC Trumps Security? By Diana West

The year is 1942. The place, the Pentagon. A Berlin-born aide to the U.S. deputy secretary of Defense has learned that a military intelligence officer has not only read Hitler's "Mein Kampf," but is lecturing senior officers about Hitler's heretofore unexamined goals of world domination.

This schweinhunt must go. At least, that's what the German-born staffer thinks. Did I mention he's fluent in German? That's partly why the deputy secretary of Defense relies so heavily on his aide's judgment on all things German, particularly when it comes to the War on Nazism's German outreach program. This program brings Nazi apologists into the inner sanctum of the American war machine ...

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Hillary's Choice: Political Power and Alinsky By Andrew Walden

Hillary Clinton's praise for LBJ over Dr. King as a deliverer of civil rights reflects her own decision more than three decades ago to forgo a career as a Saul Alinsky organizer.  Criticism from the camp of fellow Alinksy disciple Barack Obama may contain hints of irony, given his subsequent choices.

Speaking to FOX News correspondent Major Garrett, Clinton said

"I would point to the fact that that Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the President before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality; the power of that dream became a real in people's lives because we had a president who said we are going to do it, and actually got it accomplished."

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Obama, Hillary and Alinsky's Tactics By Kyle-Anne Shiver

The emergence of a racial tinge to the Democratic Party nomination fight was all but inevitable, given both Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's training as disciples of Saul Alinsky. Hardball tactics right out of Rules for Radicals provide perspective for understanding the unfolding battle.

Saul Alinsky, the hero of bloodless socialist revolution in America, was a master at explaining how to patiently use whatever weapons one has to bring about the transfer of power from the Haves to the Have Nots.  Alinsky's definition of the Haves was broad and rather ill-defined; he simply called the Haves the "establishment."  He included all those whom he believed stood in the way of his re-ordered vision.  People with money.  People with status.  People in government.  People in the corporate board rooms.  Unsympathetic people in the media.  The lawyers. The doctors. The merchants.  Non-unionized workers.  And on and on. 

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Kafka's Canada By David Warren

At the moment, a number of "interesting" cases are coming before Canada's inaptly-named "human rights commissions." I have mentioned in this space before the case being brought against Maclean's magazine, for publishing an excerpt from a book by Mark Steyn, by the Canadian Islamic Congress.

Ezra Levant has just gone on "trial" before an Alberta "human rights" tribunal, for what he had published in the (now defunct) Western Standard newsmagazine two years ago. He ran examples of the Danish cartoons on the Prophet Mohammed -- to show readers that the fuss over them was overblown. His right to publish is being contested.

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The Use and Abuse of Reagan By Victor Davis Hanson

Ronald Reagan's presidency was a great success. He rebuilt a chaotic U.S. military and helped end the Cold War. Reagan's radical tax cuts in 1981 spurred economic growth and redefined the relationship between U.S. citizens and their government. And he appointed conservative federal judges and bureaucrats who tried to roll back the half-century trend of expanded governmental control over our lives.

Reagan's nice-guy charm made it difficult for even his critics to stay angry with him for long. But he was no mere smiling dunce, as liberal intellectuals used to snicker. His private papers and diaries instead reveal that he was widely informed, read voraciously, drew on a powerful intellect and was an effective writer.

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Liberal Hatemongers By ARTHUR C. BROOKS

A politically progressive friend of mine always seemed to root against baseball teams from the South. The Braves, the Rangers, the Astros -- he hated them all. I asked him why, to which he replied, "Southerners are prejudiced."

The same logic is evident in the complaint the American political left has with conservative voters. According to the political analysis of filmmaker Michael Moore, whose perception of irony apparently does not extend to his own words, "The right wing, that is not where America's at . . . It's just a small minority of people who hate. They hate. They exist in the politics of hate . . . They are hate-triots."

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Voter-Fraud Rethink By JOHN FUND

Both Democrats and Republicans are good at practicing hypocrisy when they need to. But it's still breathtaking to see how some Democrats ignore that it was only last week they argued before the Supreme Court that an Indiana law requiring voters show ID at the polls would reduce voter turnout and disenfranchise minorities. Nevada allies of Hillary Clinton have just sued to shut down several caucus sites inside casinos along the Las Vegas Strip, potentially disenfranchising thousands of Hispanic or black shift workers who couldn't otherwise attend the 11:30 a.m. caucus this coming Saturday.

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Hillary's Selective View of History By Gabriel Garnica

For all of their political muscle and legions of adoring robots, the Clintons consistently remind us of one of their most glaring weaknesses: actual reality. Another example of this audacity regarding the truth recently occurred as Hillary inferred that Lyndon Johnson enabled the civil rights movement to become a reality without mentioning Martin Luther King and Bill mocked Barack Obama’s claim to have been against the present war as being a “fairy tale”.

Hillary Has a Dream Too

The Reverend Martin Luther King may have had a dream, but he was not alone. While the iconic civil rights leader may have dreamed about racial unity, equality and cooperation, Hillary Clinton has been dreaming that her party was the major mover behind the civil rights legislation and measures of the 1960s. As usual with Hillabeans, there are three possible reasons behind her faulty description of history.

One possibility is that she is completely ignorant of historical facts and actually thinks that the Democrats were the primary reason these measures were enacted.

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Supreme Court Wisdom Prevails in Stoneridge Case by Andrew C. McCarthy

These are challenging days for American business. Overreaction to the Enron scandal resulted in crushing regulation that has sent corporations scampering for friendlier foreign climes. Worse, a litigation system driven by class-action lawyers in pursuit of mega-paydays has made the cost of defending against frivolous claims so prohibitive that the extortion of million-dollar settlements is attractive compared to its alternative: the extinction portended by runaway juries and billion-dollar verdicts.

On Tuesday, however, business got a reprieve. The trial lawyers seemed poised to push it over a cliff, and with it the integrated global economy -- the engine of unprecedented growth that produces jobs, alleviates suffering, and cements international alliances.
Thankfully, the Supreme Court said no.

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Standing Up for Academic Freedom By Phil Orenstein

This is the story about an embattled student who stood up to challenge his incompetent radical professor and the dramatic outcome that ensued. Aaron Haberer is a student from Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), who received a failing grade for disputing his professor’s virulent anti-America, anti-religious demagoguery in the classroom. Aaron’s story is an example of the type of flagrant abuses of student academic rights that increasingly typifies much of the college experience today. This testimony is meant to show that the more students have the courage to complain, the better the chances that some action will be taken. Yet there are many such cases that never hit the radar. In most cases, school officials have failed to step in or come to the aid of a beleaguered student as they did in Aaron’s case, but though they may fear repercussions in their grades or careers, if enough students and faculty are bold enough to speak out when they experience professors infringing on their academic rights or using the classroom for indoctrination, then there is a greater likelihood that college administrators, trustees and faculty of good sense will step in to remove the bad apples before they infect the rest of the barrel.

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A Congressman for Jihad By Robert Spencer

Former U.S. Congressman Mark Deli Siljander (R-MI) was indicted Wednesday for money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice, in connection with charges that a Muslim charity, the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA), was involved in efforts to finance the Afghan jihad terrorist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The IARA was named a specially designated global terrorist organization by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2004.

John F. Wood, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, declared: “An organization right here in the American heartland allegedly sent funds to Pakistan for the benefit of a specially designated global terrorist with ties to al-Qaeda and the Taliban…. The indictment also alleges that a former congressman engaged in money laundering and obstruction of a federal investigation in an effort to disguise IARA’s misuse of taxpayer money that the government had provided for humanitarian purposes.”

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Vote Keep America Alive By Amil Imani

America is a nation and an ideal, birthed by a group of visionaries that gave it the Constitution to nurture it and protect it. What makes America, America the Beautiful, more than just a blessed land is our legacy, the Constitution. Sadly, the Constitution also makes for America the Vulnerable by enshrining freedom that enables the malevolent to subvert and destroy America from within. You, the voter, are the guardian of the Constitution. Your vote determines the health and survival of America.

America is defined by the last phrase of our national anthem: The land of the free and the home of the brave. Freedom, in all its forms, is our greatest legacy, which this nation has bravely fought many wars on many fronts to preserve against the unceasing assaults of totalitarianism of all stripes. Time and again, the flowers of our nation bravely sacrificed their lives to protect freedom and liberty.

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God Is Not Great And Neither Are Atheists By Daniel Muniz

Militant atheists and belligerent secularists have always been rather confrontational with their belief that religion, namely Christianity, has poisoned the very fabric of society and that it will continue to contaminate the future of our civilization as along as people practice a religious faith. In fact, they seem to preach this Gospel with a missionary zeal that almost parallels that of a televangelist asking for donations.

And for ordinary people, there have been countless experiences in which friends, co-workers, and acquaintances have brought up the mantra that more wars have been fought over religion than for anything else. There are even quite a number of believers who subscribe to this false argument although it is not surprising since this idea has been repeated so many times by previous generations and pounded into our psyche.

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The Democratic Plan to Disenfranchise America by Dave Nalle

With the presidential election coming up this November, a movement is underway, instigated by the Democratic Party, to circumvent Constitutional protections and implement the wholesale disenfranchisement of voters on a nationwide basis.

Out of lingering resentment over the disparity between Al Gore's majority in the popular vote and the Electoral College win, which gave the presidency to George Bush in 2000, the Democrats have found a way to end-run the Constitution and make the results of the election more closely resemble the popular vote. The problem is that they do this by disenfranchising voters on a state-by-state basis.

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How Monica Helped Bring Down the Mainstream Media by Steve Boriss

The Monica Lewinsky affair is a root cause of the recent, dramatic losses in Old Media audiences, and a key reason they may never reemerge as leading New Media brands. A look at history shows us why.

News defines communities: News outlets throughout history have provided us with a sense of community and shared values, according to NYU’s Mitchell Stephens. News of legal violations reinforces our understanding of acceptable behaviors. News of the out-of-the-ordinary strengthens our consensus on what qualifies as ordinary. What is considered “newsworthy” tells us what is important and valued. “Each shared perception [and] each shared reaction… reawakens a sense of shared destiny and shared purpose,” Stephens wrote.

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Judge Dreadful By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

The Nevada judge who told MSNBC to include no-hoper Dennis Kucinich in this week's Democratic presidential debate or he'd bar the telecast reminds us of how the buttinskies of the bench have to be stopped.

"Judge Dredd" is the comic book superhero, played by Sylvester Stallone in the mid-'90s on the silver screen, who in a violent city of the future dealt out instant justice to criminals, acting as on-the-spot cop, judge, jury and executioner all in one.

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An Empty Pantsuit By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

If Hillary Clinton is proud of her experience and record of change, why are 2 million pages of her White House files locked up? Watching your husband is not experience.

The last time Sen. Clinton was a genuine agent of change was when she led the secretive Health Care Task Force in 1993-94 that labored mightily to propose a Godzilla-size bureaucracy that would have nationalized one-seventh of the nation's economy. To receive medical care you would have gone to the equivalent of the Department of Motor Vehicles.

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Happy 201st Birthday Robert E. Lee By: Calvin E. Johnson, Jr.

Do your children know who Robert E. Lee was? His birthday falls during the same week of January as Martin Luther King. Both these men have, today, become American and International Heroes.

Some people call it a contradiction to remember the birthday of Robert E. Lee during the birthday week of Martin Luther King. But, Dr. Edward C. Smith, a respected African-American Professor of History at American University in Washington, D.C., has spoken in honor of both men. He said, in a 1995 Robert E. Lee birthday speech in Atlanta, Georgia, that «King and Lee were individuals worthy of emulation because they understood history.» 

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Allah, Jihad and Martyrdom by Emir Reza

As a very quiet child I seldom harmed myself seriously in playground. Being an only child, my childhood at home was uneventful. My mother used to cook and sometimes do some needle works while I played in my own room. The worst I suffered was a fracture in my arm. This incident happened when I was engaged in my favorite sport of climbing on top of a cabinet. This unused cabinet, to my eyes then quite huge, was placed temporarily under the staircase in a position not quite suitable for practicing mountaineering. After a successful climb, I had to crouch under the staircase and survey from that great height the terra firma beneath. In one of my otherwise successful climbs to the summit, I felt giddy, lost my balance and fell down. I cannot remember now exactly what age I was at the time but I could not have been more than four years old. The experience was my first encounter with the Devil.

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“Honor Killing” is Absolutely Islamic! by Syed Kamran Mirza

Honor killings, which occur with shocking regularity in certain parts of the Middle East and South Asia, target women whose actions – actual or suspected – violate the honor of their family, an honor which is thought to depend on the sexual purity of its female members. Victims are always being killed/slaughtered mercilessly by her own family members. Honor killing is a manifestation of global phenomenon in general and Muslim nations in particular. Since this terrible inhumane practice does exists only among the Muslims of the world—very often civilized people do blame Islam as the precursor of this dreadful act. Most others do not agree with this notion at all; and they try to put the blame on the tribal/cultural practice, and do not consider Islam is anyway responsible for it. In this essay I shall analyze the real issues, cause and origin, and pattern of this heinous act amongst the Muslims of the world to postulate if there is any link, or incitements that originates from the very core of Islam.

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Textbook: Islamic 'jihad' means doing good works By Bob Unruh

An Islamic "jihad" is an effort by Muslims to convince "others to take up worthy causes, such as funding medical research," according to a middle school textbook used in California and other states.

And even at its most violent, "jihad" simply is Muslims fighting "to protect themselves from those who would do them harm," says the "History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond" book published by Teachers' Curriculum Institute.

But a parent whose child has been handed the text in a Sacramento district is accusing the publisher of a pro-Muslim bias to the point that Islamic theology has been incorporated into the public school teachings.

"It makes an attempt to seem like an egalitarian world history book, but on closer inspection you find that seven (not all are titled so) of the chapters deal with Islam or Muslim subjects," wrote the parent, whose name was being withheld, in a letter to WND.

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Fitzgerald: History and Jahiliyya :: Dhimmi Watch

Iran is planning on submerging the tomb of King Cyrus (Coresh), the Persian King known for authorizing the Jewish exiles to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Holy Temple….

The Iranian ayatollahs are planning on destroying the tomb as part of a general campaign to sever the Persian people from their non-Islamic heritage; Cyrus was thought to be a Zoroastrian and was one of the first rulers to enforce a policy of religious tolerance on his huge kingdom. Journalist Ran Porat quoted a young Iranian who said that the measures being taken by the Islamic Republic’s regime include the destruction of archaeological sites significant to this heritage. -- from this article

This is merely Islam as Islam has always been: at best indifferent to, at worst actively hostile to, all that is pre-Islamic or non-Islamic in the history or traditions or civilizations of lands now dominated by Islam and ruled by Muslims. And this indifference, or this hostility, is shown in the deliberate destruction of monuments and religious sites.

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Carnegie Hall sinks to Jerry Springer's level By William Donohue

On January 29 and 30, "Jerry Springer--The Opera" will be performed at Carnegie Hall. The first act is a parody of the Jerry Springer Show; the second act depicts the television personality in Hell attempting to bridge a resolution between Jesus and Satan.

When this opera debuted in London , it was the subject of a libel suit for defaming Christians. When the BBC picked it up, it drew more than 60,000 complaints for its anti-Christian theme. Not bad for a non-Christian country. The London Times described the concert as a 'cocktail of biblical characters, filthy arias and tap dancing Ku Klux Klansman.' After watching a DVD version, I would say that's an understatement. In a Nexis search, linking 'blasphemous' with the show provides 745 hits; there are 112 articles that use the word 'filth' to describe the concert.

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The Elephant in the Room by Ann Coulter

Unluckily for McCain, snowstorms in Michigan suppressed the turnout among Democratic "Independents" who planned to screw up the Republican primary by voting for our worst candidate. Democrats are notoriously unreliable voters in bad weather. Instead of putting on galoshes and going to the polls, they sit on their porches waiting for FEMA to rescue them.
In contrast to Michigan's foul weather, New Hampshire was balmy on primary day, allowing McCain's base -- Democrats -- to come out and vote for him.

Assuming any actual Republicans are voting for McCain -- or for liberals' new favorite candidate for us, Mike Huckabee -- this column is for you.

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Baghdad Christians Celebrate Sunday Mass By SAMEER N. YACOUB

BAGHDAD - The worshippers were searched at the door and snipers stood guard on the roof, but Sunday's Mass was a joyful one for more than 200 Iraqis who packed a church in eastern Baghdad to see the first Iraqi cardinal.

Under heavy guard and broadcast live on Iraqi state television, the service was capped by a handshake from a visiting Shiite imam - a symbolic show of unity between Iraq's majority Muslim sect and its tiny Christian community.

Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, leader of the ancient Chaldean Church, celebrated the two-hour Mass three weeks after Pope Benedict XVI elevated him to the top ranks of the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

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Doing The Mideast Peace Shuffle

by Erik Rush

Geopolitics is such a complicated subject, you see, far beyond the comprehension of the average American. Those whom destiny has ordained to ameliorate the world's geopolitical woes are far more insightful and inherently capable that you or I could ever hope to be.

I'm being facetious, of course. Without going into the promotion of that belief by politicians over the years due to spineless vacillation or their quest to keep Americans ignorant and uninvolved in the political process, I'd be interested in hearing how the Founding Fathers of this nation would have viewed the above concept, those who took on the most powerful empire on the planet and declaring that they were prepared to fight, kill and die to throw off the yoke of tyranny.

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Sensitive Urban Areas: Has France Become a Narco State? By Paul Belien

Last November, 15-year old Mouhsin and 16-year old Lakamy were killed in Villiers-le-Bel, an immigrant suburb of Paris. The boys, joyriding on a stolen motorbike. collided at high speed with a police vehicle which happened to be passing in a neighborhood where the police normally do not venture.

Though Moushin and Lakamy were French-born and of French nationality, their families had them buried in Morocco and Senegal – the countries of their ethnic origin. The self-imposed segregation extends even beyond death. Muslims, who claim that France does not have enough separate Islamic cemeteries, do not want to be buried near Christians or Jews.

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7-year plan aligns U.S. with Europe's economy By Jerome R. Corsi

Six U.S. senators and 49 House members are advisers for a group working toward a Transatlantic Common Market between the U.S. and the European Union by 2015.

The Transatlantic Policy Network – a non-governmental organization headquartered in Washington and Brussels – is advised by the bi-partisan congressional TPN policy group, chaired by Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah.

The plan – currently being implemented by the Bush administration with the formation of the Transatlantic Economic Council in April 2007 – appears to be following a plan written in 1939 by a world-government advocate who sought to create a Transatlantic Union as an international governing body.

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Hating Free Enterprise By John Stossel

Markets provide miracles that we take for granted. Clean, well-lighted supermarkets sell 30,000 products. Starvation has largely vanished from countries where private property and economic freedom are permitted. Free markets have rescued more people from poverty than government ever has.

And yet, when innovators propose extending this benign power, people shriek in fear.

This was clear reading The Wall Street Journal not long ago.

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Barack Obama: Just a Passing Fad? By Paul R. Hollrah

Holy bumper stickers, Batman! We’ve had yo-yos, hula hoops, pet rocks, frizbees, cabbage patch kids, and now we have...Barak Hussein Obama? The leftwing nutcases of Iowa and New Hampshire...who apparently see the American presidency as just another “fun thing” to do...have come close to giving a totally inexperienced politician, armed with nothing more than an abundance of personal charm and boundless ambition, a one-way ticket to the White House.

Of course, Iowa voters are known for a strong touch of insanity. They have, after all, elected Tom “Dung Heap” Harkin to the United States Senate for four consecutives terms. What could be more insane than that? Either they’ve been sniffing too much undiluted hog manure or they’ve learned long ago that cooking and fermenting corn produces a clear distilled liquid that can be used for something other than gasoline additives.

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Another Peace Process Bites the Dust by Jack Langer

In the final year of his presidency, Bill Clinton set his sights on solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is the equivalent of setting out to develop a cure for cancer in the thirty seconds you get to answer “Final Jeopardy.”  But Clinton invested countless hours and untold energy in coaxing a peace deal out of the two sides. He cajoled, pleaded, and sweet-talked Israeli and Palestinian leaders. He made a peace agreement the central focus of his foreign policy, investing the immense prestige of his office in the enterprise.

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Billionaires for Big Government By Matthew Vadum and James Dellinger

The Democracy Alliance (DA) is maturing. After several years of internal strife, management squabbles, a few political purges and frustrating electoral setbacks, the group whose mission is to tilt American politics leftward has found its footing. The DA is becoming what leftist blogger Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos fame called for in 2005: “A vast, Vast Left Wing Conspiracy to rival” the conservative movement. It relies less on traditional Democratic Party “machine” politics, which typically draws upon fat cats, institutions (the party itself, labor unions) and single-issue advocacy groups (pro-abortion rights groups, the National Education Association and other teacher unions). Although it is officially nonpartisan, the DA has cultivated deep and extensive ties to the Democratic Party establishment.

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Seeking True Diversity in Middle East Studies By Franck Salameh

The Middle East Studies Association has finally met its match. In a move long overdue, the doyen of Middle East Studies—Bernard Lewis—and its laureate poet—Fouad Ajami—have just joined forces to launch the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa.

One hopes that this new professional association will rejuvenate and mop clean a field that has long since shirked its obligation to academic objectivity to transform Middle Eastern studies into platforms for agitprop and partisanship. The complex and richly textured Middle East deserves far more than the bromides and reductionist commentary that have of late become the hallmark of some of our day’s most influential scholars in the field. ASMEA promises to provide such critically needed diversity of perspective.

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Global Warming's Communist Underpinnings And the MSM's Active Participation in Same By Warner Todd Huston

If you need any more proof that the concept of Global Warming is less "science" and is more just a replacement for the kind of failed concepts of communism and socialism that is increasingly being rejected by the world, two recent stories helps clarify the point. These same stories also highlight how the media facilitate the lies that is globaloney.

The first is a recent article by one Kellie Hastings, a writer who claims that her "research is thorough" and her "articles are written with style and intellect." In a piece titled "Deadly Ozone From Drive-Thru Mania," our Miss Hastings pours out her considerable "intellect" into the theory that drive thru windows are destroying the planet and making us a bunch of fatties.

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Democrats and Conspiracy Theories By Marc Sheppard

Anyone surprised by the rumors of New Hampshire Primary election-fixing flowing through the leftie blogosphere since last week doesn't fully appreciate the Moveon.org/Daily Kos mindset.  But when Bill Maher suggested on Friday night's Real Time that Republicans had somehow hacked the voting machines in order to assure a Hillary win, I must admit to being quite shocked.  Unleashing such an obvious smokescreen in an effort to obscure the recent backlash to Democrat-fueled "identity politics" seemed quite the desperate act, even for a notoriously partisan bore.

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Barack Obama and Israel By Ed Lasky

The ascent of Barack Obama from state senator in Illinois to a leading contender for the Presidential nomination in the span of just a few years is remarkable. Especially in light of a noticeably unremarkable record -- a near-blank slate of few accomplishments and numerous missed votes.

However, in one area of foreign policy that concerns millions of Americans, he does have a record and it is a particularly troubling one. For all supporters of the America-Israel relationship there is enough information beyond the glare of the klieg lights to give one pause.  In contrast to his canned speeches filled with "poetry" and uplifting aphorisms and delivered in a commanding way, behind the campaign façade lies a disquieting pattern of behavior.

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Tyranny Update By Walter E. Williams

Last December, President Bush signed an energy bill that will ban the sale of Edison's incandescent bulb, starting with the 100-watt bulb in 2012 and ending with the 40-watt bulb by 2014. You say, "Hey, Williams, what's wrong with saving energy, reducing our carbon footprint and stopping global warming?" Before you get too enthused over governmental energy-saving efforts, you might ponder what's down the road.

The California Energy Commission has recently proposed amendments to its standards for energy efficiency (www.energy.ca.gov/2007publications/CEC-400-2007-017/CEC-400-2007-017-45DAY.PDF). These standards include a requirement that any new or modified heating or air conditioning system must include a programmable communicating thermostat (PCT) whose settings can be remotely controlled by government authorities. A thermostat czar, sitting in Sacramento, would be empowered to remotely reduce the heating or cooling of your house during what he deems as an "emergency event."

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Flashman, Ron Paul, James Kirchick—And Liberty By John Derbyshire

An elderly character in one of Barbara Pym's novels grumbles, in the presence of some youngsters, about the awfulness of the pop music they are listening to. One of the youngsters turns on her rather nastily: "Of course you don't like it. It's not for you. Nothing's for you any more."

This came to mind while I was reading the "last testament" of the writer George MacDonald Fraser, who died January 2. Fraser was 82 when he died, and quite out of tune with the Britain where he had been born and spent most of his life. Fraser wrote a great many books, both fiction and nonfiction, but he is best remembered for the Flashman series of comic-historical novels.

The "testament"—you can read it here—is in fact a curmudgeon's rant, sputtering angrily against political correctness, Dianafication (that's the British word for "Oprahfication"), the collapse of standards, "the stifling tyranny of a liberal establishment, determined to impose its views", and political parties ("inventions of the devil") etc.

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Media Matters for America Treasurer among Who’s Who on George Soros Democracy Alliancele By Judi McLeod

With David Brock getting the lion’s share of the attention as the benighted “King of Switcheroo” over at Media Matters for America, who pays any attention to members of his board of directors?

Guess that’s how most folk missed that Media Matter’s Treasurer, Rachel Pritzker Hunter is among the Who’s Who in the George Soros $100 million clearing house known as the Democracy Alliance (DA).

“Rachel Pritzker Hunter of the Hyatt Hotel Pritzkers was a DA board member after the group was created.” (Matthew Vadum James Dellinger, Capital Research Center, Canada Free Press, Jan. 10, 2008).

Missing Rachel’s membership in Democracy Alliance, which funds groups like Media Matters is a natural with hatchet man David Brock going after anything right of center out on the hustings.

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No Culture Can Stand Still 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.

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Martin Luther King's struggle was against Democrats :: Grand Old Partisan

On this day in 1901, the Alabama Democratic Party called for a convention to write a new state constitution that would prohibit African-Americans from voting.  Despite vocal opposition from Booker T. Washington and other Republican civil rights activists, the Democrat scam succeeded.

Democrats dominated Alabama's 1901 constitutional convention, and its chairman was a Democrat.  In his opening address, he said:

"If we would have white supremacy, we must establish it by law -- not by force or fraud... The negro is descended from a race lowest in intelligence and moral precepts of all the races of men."

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Strange Bedfellows on the Campaign Trail By Steven Emerson

The primary season is in full swing, with both parties seeing different winners in the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary. For the first time in more than a generation, both the Democrat and Republican Party nominations are wide open. So it seems a good time to point out that what the eventual nominees say and do now in appealing to their respective bases can come back to bite them in November.

That's why it's curious to see some of the Democrat candidates courting support from Islamist organizations with a record of support for those who actively seek to thwart American interests in the Middle East.

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Phony Economics By Thomas E. Brewton

Liberals implicitly acknowledge that the so-called budget-balancing of the Clinton era was based on subterfuge and outright lie.

The Wall Street Journal editorial page notes the passing of one aspect of the sanctimonious liberal-progressive blather about fiscal prudence during the Clinton administrations (see Rubinomics R.I.P.)

I disagree strongly with the Journal's insouciance about Federal deficits. Those deficits inescapably lead to inflation. The only question is how high inflation will be in any given year.

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Political Change and Correctness Can Destroy America By Lee Ellis

The current political mantra seems to be the cry for “Change.” But what does this mean? Change to what? We voters need to be sure we know what is being promised before we step through the looking glass as Alice did.

Investor’s Business Daily asks “Is it a change from victory in Iraq to defeat, from low taxes to high and from prosperity to dependency?” Conservative Republicans like Romney, Thompson and Guiliani suggest “change” is getting rid of the Washington insiders who have been running the nation for years with much talk and little change. Yet, in New Hampshire, the voters selected McCain and Clinton, hardly any change there from the past. Sounds like our news anchors and newspaper reporters should be asking more questions instead of just reporting what the politicians say as the reporters dutifully record it or write it down! We voters need to insist on clear definitions of words before we capitulate to one side or the other.

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THE BOTTOM LINE ANGST OF LIBERALISM By J. Grant Swank, Jr.

When are liberals going to discover conscience? Don’t they get it?

A levelheaded individual has convictions that are reasonably down-to-earth. Fuzz won’t cut it. Nor does braggadocio nor money-alone nor egocentricity nor strut-and-sway nor prance-and-preen. Nor does being-on-Hollywood’s-side. Nor does ad infinitum weeping and wailing at how dumb conservatives are.

So liberals are losing big time in an era of logical-practicality-is-a-must.

The same goes, not only for politics, but religion. Theological liberals have one main line: “We’re not conservatives.”

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The Collective Punishment Model By Brian T. Schwartz

Remember how in grade school, the teacher would punish the whole class for the actions of just a few disruptive students? This is an early lesson in collective punishment, which is usually practiced during wartime or under martial law.

Collective punishment has now arrived with compulsory medical insurance. Known as an "individual mandate," politicians of both major parties have supported it. Compulsory politically-defined insurance is law in Massachusetts, is up for consideration in California and Colorado, and Democratic presidential candidates endorse it nationally.

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Ahmadinejad's Academic Pilgrims By Robert Spencer

When Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia University, Columbia’s President Lee Bollinger offered to travel to Iran himself, in the interests of promoting freedom of speech there: “Let me,” he implored Ahmadinejad, “lead a delegation of students and faculty from Columbia to address your university about free speech, with the same freedom we afford you today. Will you do that?”

Now, a delegation from Columbia is indeed planning to go to Tehran – but it isn’t quite the delegation that Bollinger had in mind. Tehran’s Mehr News Agency recently reported that a group of Columbia University professors, including faculty deans, are preparing a trip to Iran, but not to promote free speech. Instead, they’re going to present an official apology to Iran’s President, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, for the way he was treated by Columbia President Lee Bollinger when he visited the university last September.

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The California Cold Rush By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Big Brother may soon be doing more than watching us. Regulators in the Golden State want to control the temperature inside your house. Now take your hands off that thermostat and back away slowly.

The 1960s sci-fi series "Outer Limits" began with a "control voice" solemnly intoning: "There is nothing wrong with your television set. . . . Do not attempt to adjust the picture."

Well, there's nothing wrong with our thermostats either. Yet the state of California proposes taking control of them to save energy and the Earth.

The California Energy Commission has proposed requiring the use of what is called a Programmable Communicating Thermostat (PCT) that would allow government to control the temperature of homes and businesses in the event of high energy prices or shortages.

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Obama's Church By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Since we first drew attention to Barack Obama's Afrocentric church a full 12 months ago, other media have weighed in. And additional disturbing information has come to light.

At the core of the Democratic front-runner's faith — whether lapsed Muslim, new Christian or some mixture of the two — is African nativism, which raises political issues of its own.

The Rev. Wright in the pulpit at Trinity: "True to the mother continent."

In 1991, when Obama joined the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, he pledged allegiance to something called the Black Value System, which is a code of non-Biblical ethics written by blacks, for blacks.

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Teaching Islam to Children is Child Abuse by Larry Houle

What people in the West do not understand is the very grave danger Islam presents to democracy and freedom.

There is absolutely no moral equivalence between Christianity/Judaism and Islam. We must oppose the establishment of Islamic schools in the West. In any campaign against Islamic schools you will no doubt challenged by the assertion that Jews and Catholics have their own schools so why can’t Muslims.

Christianity and Judaism are religions that truly preach peace and love with democracy, freedom and human rights as central to their belief system. Islam is not a religion but a totalitarian ideology invented by an evil criminal – Muhammad. Islam is an ideology as evil as Nazism and Communism. Teaching Islam to children in school is CHILD ABUSE.

Nobody cares if Islam is a religion in which people pray 5 times a day, wash their feet, fast for one month, do not use alcohol etc. That would be wonderful. BUT IT IS NOT.

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United Kingdom: Country Report on Islamization, 2007 by Gerard Batten

As far as anyone knows there are at least 60.3 million people in Britain. The official figure is that about 1.7 million of these are Muslims. Unofficial estimates put the real figure at anything between 2.5 to 3 million. That is between 2.8% and 5% of the total population.

Muslims have much higher birth rates that non-Muslims and their number proportionate to the population will, if current demographic trends continue, increase dramatically over the next few decades. That will have profound effects on British society.

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U.S. intel alerted to threat of 'Forest Fire Jihad' :: Jihad Watch

We have heard this before. And it may just be another attempt to claim credit for something that jihadists actually have nothing to do with, the way Al-Qaeda claimed credit for the East Coast blackout a few years ago, in order to "strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah" (Qur'an 8:60). Or it may not be.

Also, don't miss this from Abu Musab Al-Suri: "Jihad is an art just like poetry, music, and the fine arts. There are people that draw and there are others that are jihadists. They both act upon inspiration.”

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Forest Fire Jihad Being Threatened On Terrorist Websites :: NTA

U.S. officials monitoring terrorist web sites have discovered a call for using forest fires as weapons against “crusader” nations, in what may explain some recent wildfires in places like southern California and Greece.

A terrorist website was discovered recently that carried a posting that called for “Forest Jihad.” The posting was listed on the Internet on Nov. 26 and reported in U.S. intelligence channels last week.

The statement, in Arabic, said that “summer has begun so do not forget the Forest Jihad.”
The writer called on all Muslims in the United States, Europe, Russia and Australia to “start forest fires.”

The posting quoted imprisoned Al Qaida terrorist Abu Musab Al-Suri, as saying “Jihad is an art just like poetry, music, and the fine arts. There are people that draw and there are others that are jihadists. They both act upon inspiration.”

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Do the Democrats Really Believe in Democratic Capitalism? By Ron Lipsman

By democratic capitalism I mean the socioeconomic system described vividly in Walter Russell Mead's penetrating new book, God and Gold: Britain, America and the Making of the Modern World. It is the system pioneered in some of the Italian City States nearly five hundred years ago, picked up in the Low Countries thereafter, but adopted and developed with the greatest success by Great Britain and the United States over the last three hundred years. It has many attributes, but for the purposes of this article, let us define it as a society in which the economy is characterized by free markets, private ownership of property and means of production, and respect for the profit motive and the pricing mechanism, all operating under the rule of law guaranteed by a government that intervenes very little in the economic and social life of the people. The people are completely free to decide what to produce, what to charge, where to sell it, and to whom. Contracts are freely entered into and their legal sanctity is enforced by the government. Such an economy can exist only in a democratic society, that is, one in which the people are free to choose their political leaders and means of organization. The overarching structure could be a republic (like the US), a constitutional monarchy (like the UK), or a pure parliamentary democracy (like Estonia), but democracy is a sine qua non.

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Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again By W. James Antle III

Republicans found the 2006 midterm elections unwinnable for three basic reasons. The Democratic base was energized, the Republican base was dispirited, and independents swung heavily toward the Democrats. If all three of these things remain true this year, 2008 won't look much better. But what if you can't solve the third problem by fixing the second?

Conservatives initially argued that the Republicans lost their majorities because President Bush and other GOP elected officials failed to act like conservatives. As Republican frontrunner-of-the-week John McCain likes to put it, "We went to Washington to change Washington, but it changed us." There's more than a kernel of truth in such observations. But other conservatives noticed that Republican red meat wasn't resonating with swing voters as it once did and began to contemplate a more frightening possibility: that they had run out of things to say that the persuadable portion of the electorate wanted to hear.

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Republican Candidates Understand Jihad Better by Robert Spencer

Among the biggest differences between the Republican and the Democratic presidential candidates is their judgments of what began on September 11, 2001, and why. In last Saturday’s ABC News debates, according to Investor’s Business Daily, the Republican candidates “referred to terrorists and terrorism as ‘Islamic,’ while also citing radical ‘Islam’ as the problem, no less than 22 times.”

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Hillary's Tin Ear on Illegal Aliens

By John Lillpop

During the October 30 Democratic debate, moderator Tim Russert asked Hillary Clinton, "Do you the New York Senator, Hillary Clinton, support the New York Governor's Plan to give illegal immigrants driver's licenses?"

The Queen of Mean answered with several flip-flops between "Yes" and "No."

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Minnesota's angry humorist strikes again :: Power Line

One can learn (or relearn) a few things of interest about Old Scout Garrison Keillor through the detailed Star Tribune story on his lawsuit seeking to enjoin the house addition of his next door neighbors Lori Anderson and fiancé Paul Olson in St. Paul. The first thing one can learn (or relearn) is that this is one very angry humorist:

Olson said he and Anderson were on vacation in New Zealand when they received "an angry e-mail" from Keillor on Nov. 29. The e-mail accused Anderson and Olson of building "a carriage house" and said, "If we had known, we would have been horrified. ... Neighbors do not deal with neighbors the way you dealt with us."

Anderson and Olson cut short their vacation and returned home, hoping to talk to Keillor and Nilsson.

"We wrote them a very conciliatory e-mail to say we'll do anything we can to work it out," Anderson said. "They refused to talk to us."

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A Southerner, Decorated War Veteran, Looks At John McCain By Mike Scruggs

"The Confederate flag is offensive in many, many ways, as we all know.  It is a symbol of racism and slavery."—John McCain, January 9, 2000, South Carolina

I have several things in common with John McCain. We are both combat veterans of the Vietnam War; we both have ancestors who served in the Confederate Army; and we are both long-term Republicans.

But I am a Southerner. I love my people, and I am justly proud of our heritage. Senator McCain has demonstrated time and time again that he has little appreciation for the South, its people, or their heritage. He has also demonstrated that he is either ignorant of the causes of the so-called "Civil War" or that he is a slave to political correctness and especially to political expedience.

I suspect there are large measures of both historical ignorance and political expedience reflected in John McCain’s statements about the South and the Southern Cross—the Confederate Battle Flag.

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Marxist Restorative Justice is anarchy. by Mark W. Lowry

Decline of United States Justice and respect for rule of law is exemplified by what happens in a typical sanctuary city or state run by communist elected officials. Sanctuary City Lexington, Kentucky is a microcosm of what is happening to the United States. Demise of American Jurisprudence and all inherent associated problems can be traced back to the Marxist revolutions of the 1960’s in the United States. A general disrespect for the rule of law was translated into numerous communist humanist laws that distorted the concept of American Jurisprudence so much as to make it unrecognizable.

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Bible, Science, and The Origin of Races by Babu Ranganathan

Young people, and even adults, often wonder how all the varieties or "races" of people could come from the same original human ancestors. Well, in principle, that's no different than asking how children with different color hair ( i.e., blond, brunette, brown, red ) can come from the same parents who both have black hair.

Just as some individuals today carry genes to produce descendants with different color hair and eyes, humanity's first parents, Adam and Eve, possessed genes to produce all the variety and races of men. You and I today may not carry the genes to produce every variety or race of humans, but humanity's first parents did possess such genes.

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Saving Major Coughlin By Andrew G. Bostom

It may not be too late to save the career of a Pentagon analyst of jihad threats whose frank and honest work has gotten him into trouble. Bill Gertz in his weekly Washington Times "Inside the Ring" column (1/11/08) reported that "Pentagon and military leaders, along with lots of working-level officials, are quietly rallying" in support of Major Stephen Coughlin (USAR), whose plight I have discussed, earlier here. Gertz also makes clear in no uncertain terms, dismissing some rumor mongering, that Coughlin was being accused "falsely" of talking "out of school to the press." As is his wont, Gertz gets to the heart of the matter:

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MSM Trying to Kill the Immigration Card By Selwyn Duke

With the victories of Mike Huckabee and John McCain in the first two primary contests and Mitt Romney's recently falling star, a fiction is being bandied about: The anti-amnesty position wasn't playing well in Peoria. 

A good example is this San Diego Union-Tribune piece didactically titled "Lesson Learned?" (read: Take the blue pill or your fantasy will become a nightmare in November).  It's dishonest pablum, with more spin than a whirling dervish on speed. 

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Barack Obama's Race Problem: White Liberals By Charles J. Sykes

Barack Obama has a racial problem, but it's not what the media thinks -- it's not rednecks, older voters, or even women offended by attacks on Hillary Clinton. Obama's racial problem is white liberals.

"I'm OK, You're Not."

A central tenet of modern liberalism, after all, is the unshakeable conviction that white American is deeply and irredeemably racist. For three decades, America's white liberals have invested in the belief that American is so incapable of racial fairness that society needs a panoply of laws, preferences, quotas, set-asides, and remedial programs to ensure that black people are treated fairly.

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McCain vs. Madison By John Samples

Suddenly, John McCain has become the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. His support in national polls among Republican voters has risen 16 points since December. He may turn out to be the only person standing between Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama and the presidency.

Since McCain is thought to be on the right, the choice might appear easy for conservative voters. After all, both Clinton and Obama are famously Progressive in politics and much else. However, the choice this fall for conservatives may not turn out to be much of a choice at all.

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Mark Steyn Is Not Alone By Brooke M. Goldstein

Award-winning author Mark Steyn has been summoned to appear before two Canadian Human Rights Commissions on vague allegations of "subject[ing] Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt" and being "flagrantly Islamophobic" after Maclean's magazine published an excerpt from his book, America Alone.

The public inquisition of Steyn has triggered outrage among Canadians and Americans who value free speech, but it should not come as a surprise. Steyn's predicament is just the latest salvo in a campaign of legal actions designed to punish and silence the voices of anyone who speaks out against Islamism, Islamic terrorism, or its sources of financing.

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An Ironic Thing Happened on the Way to the Coronation By A.J. DiCintio

Whether you describe it with the sophistication of “karma” or the down-home quality of “chickens coming home to roost,” it’s a fact that Irony has finally decided to turn his attention to the Clintons. And let’s be clear: Only The Ancient One (he was born the moment Adam and Eve ruined the perfection of the Garden) could have created Barack Obama as the perfect headache for Hillary and Bill.

Following are some details in support of that assertion. However, before they are listed, we should remind ourselves that Irony rarely causes anything to happen simply to be ironic but almost always to teach us a lesson — a truth great creative spirits have known since antiquity.

So, with that thought in mind consider the following:

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Fred On Fire in South Carolina by Martha Zoller

In a debate format that usually sets the stage for Gov. Mike Huckabee to deliver the biggest laugh line, Fred Thompson was funny and feisty and edgy last Friday. But his answer was honest, and honestly funny.

Thompson was fighting the polls even before he got in the race for president. First, he was the unannounced winner that we breathlessly waited to get into the race. He is a real conservative on every front and a commanding presence. After much too much waiting, Fred Thompson got into the race. He immediately began falling short of media-created expectations, and the sharks began to circle.

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Soros Underwrites Osama’s Talking Points By Ben Johnson

On Sunday, news outlets reported that far-Left billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Institute provided roughly half the funding of a study that accused the United States and its allies of killing 650,000 Iraqis over the last three years. When the report first surfaced shortly before the 2006 midterm elections, tens of thousands of news organizations – including CNN, NPR, The London Telegraph, and Al-Jazeera – accorded it front page coverage. It also provided a welcome undergirding for Osama bin Laden’s anti-American propaganda.

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American Muslims vs. the U.S. Military By Joe Kaufman

Are American Muslims allowed to fight for the United States in a time of war? According to many Muslims within the Islamic world, the answer is emphatically “No.” While one can easily understand how this rhetoric can originate from our enemies overseas, it may come as a surprise to some that this line of thinking is found, as well, right here in America.

It is common knowledge that Muslim extremists use the religion of Islam to justify the unjustifiable. One of the ways they do this is through the use of what they call fatwas or legal rulings declared by Muslim “religious scholars.” These scholars dictate what Muslims are allowed to wear and how they are supposed to act, what they are permitted to look at and where they are allowed to go. No issue is off limits.

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