Could This Be The Beginning Of The End Of The Bush Administration?

House Launches Probe Of Mexico -

Congress To Review Intervention In Cases Of Jailed Border Agents

The Mexican government's alleged intervention in the case of U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean will be the focus of a hearing today by a House subcommittee.

Ramos and Compean are serving 11- and 12-year prison sentences, respectively, after a jury convicted them last year of violating federal gun laws and covering up the shooting of a drug smuggler as he fled back to Mexico after driving across the border with more than 700 pounds of marijuana. The office of El Paso U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton gave the smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, immunity to serve as the government's star witness and testify against the border agents.

As WND reported, no criminal investigation of the agents began until after the Mexican consulate complained the agents violated Aldrete-Davila's civil rights by shooting him without warrant.

*WEDNESDAY UPDATE: U.S. ATTORNEY REFUSES TO SHOW UP FOR HEARINGS - WHICH PROMPTS MORE HEARINGS!*

Too Hot For Iraqi Parliament

Cheney Denies NAFTA Superhighway, While Promoting It At The Same Time!

Despite evidence to the contrary, Vice President Dick Cheney says there is no "secret plan" to create a continent-crossing superhighway to help facilitate a merger of the United States, Mexico and Canada.

"The administration is not engaged in a secret plan to create a 'NAFTA super highway,'" asserts Cheney in a recent letter to a constituent, according to a copy of the message obtained by WND.

... but the D.O.T. says; "The Department of Transportation will continue to cooperate with the State transportation departments in the I-35 corridor as they upgrade this vital interstate highway to meet 21st century needs. However, these efforts are the routine activities of a Department that cooperates with all the state transportation departments to improve the Nation's intermodal transportation network."

... the D.O.T. created a website long ago called; North America's SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc., or NASCO. Here's an image from the original front page of the site. This image has been removed since it became a public issue to them.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a GOP presidential candidate, introduced an amendment to H.R. 3074, the Transportation Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008, prohibiting the use of federal funds for participating in working groups under the Security and Prosperity Partnership, including the creation of NAFTA Superhighways. This is quite an effort for something that doesn't exist, as Cheney claims!

On July 24, Hunter's amendment passed 362 to 63, with strong bipartisan support. Later, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3074 by a margin of 268-153. The bill has been sent to the Senate with Hunter's amendment included. So far, no further action has been taken.

... while it's sensible to plan ahead for America's future trade requirements, it makes no sense to cover it up. Cheney is "technically" correct when he says there is no "secret plan", because it's been within the public view from day one! This is the base fact, so why try to hide it? The Bush administration has had so many problems with public communication it would be laughable if you weren't so busy crying! In addition to all this brouha is the realization that once this SuperCorridor is opened our government will NOT be able to control the influx of people and materials that may do us harm!

Ban Guns And We'll Reduce Murder & Suicide! - Really?

America's 1st Freedom, an NRA publication, has published an excellent article concerning the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy study on this very subject. Respected researchers Gary Mauser and Don Kates compiled statistics for the rates of murder and gun ownership for nations stretching from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic to the Pacific. Liberals and the MSM continue to publish statements such as:

- A gun kept in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a family member, friend or acquaintance, than to be used to kill someone in self-defense. (as if guns can kill!)

- Americans are more likely to be shot to death than people in the world's other 35 richest nations.

- Every day in America, 13 children are killed by guns, almost a classroom of children every two days.

What's the problem with these statements? According to the Harvard study NONE OF THEM ARE TRUE! BTW, you can download your own copy free of charge here.

Many aspects of the study are interesting. For example, in Russia, where firearms had been under state control for decades, Kates and Mauser found an exceedingly violent society. Russia had then, and continues to have, by far, the highest murder rate in the developed world.

Little Luxembourg, in 2002, had a murder rate nine times higher than neighboring Germany, where firearms are legal and widely owned.

Spain has 12 times the gun ownership rate of Poland, yet Poland's suicide rate is double that of Spain. It's illegal to own a firearm in Poland.

Now, the study also states that some countries simply have a low crime rate because of societal reasons. Norway, for instance, has a very cohesive one race-based population, and it's inherent crime rate is low and yes, you can own guns there. But, the relationship between low crime and gun ownership is not a direct connection, according to Kates and Mauser, because of Norway's stable population. Countries that have massive "non-cohesive" immigration? - Well, they have problems! Sound familiar?

It's all very interesting. If you can get your hands on the article, a subscription piece, do so, because it will open the eyes of many! Too bad the MSM won't publish this data. Huh!?!

Is The Government of Iraq About To Fall?

Iraqi Government In Deepest Crisis

US and Iraqi officials are trying to prevent complete disintegration

By Sam Dagher, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the July 27, 2007 edition

Baghdad - Iraq is in the throes of its worst political crisis since the fall of Saddam Hussein with the new democratic system, based on national consensus among its ethnic and sectarian groups, appearing dangerously close to collapsing, say several politicians and analysts.

This has brought paralysis to governmental institutions and has left parliament unable to make headway on 18 benchmarks Washington is using to measure progress in Iraq, including legislation on oil revenue sharing and reforming security forces.

And the disconnect between Baghdad and Washington over the urgency for solutions is growing. The Iraqi parliament is set for an August vacation as the Bush administration faces pressure to show progress in time for a September report to Congress.

... read the entire 3 pages; CSM did a very thorough job!

Phone Etiquite

Rules for the phone.

How ALL business phones SHOULD be answered!

GOOD MORNING, WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Press "1" for English.

Press "2" to disconnect until you learn to speak English

And remember only two defining forces have ever

Offered to die for you,

Jesus Christ

And the American Soldier.

One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.

FedEx vs. Government Bureaucracy -- Newt Gingrich

The World that Works and the World that Doesn't - funny!

Selling "U.S." Down The Road

Or, Giving Our Enemies The Keys To The Gate - FROM THE INSIDE!

... two related articles; George Bush the Senior selling out the country with Bush Junior continuing the treason; also, the NAFTA Highway expands!

Cities and states across the country are selling off billions of dollars worth of strategic infrastructure – and often they are peddling these vital American assets to foreigners.

Local governments increasingly see the selling or leasing of infrastructure such as roads, bridges, ports, and airports as a quick and easy solution to their voracious budgetary appetites.

"Roads and bridges built by U.S. taxpayers are starting to be sold off, and so far foreign-owned companies are doing the buying," USA Today reported on July 15, 2006.

Homeland Security admits that 80 percent of our 3,200 port terminals nationwide are now operated by foreign companies and countries.

... meanwhile, the HAFTA Superhighway signed off by Oklahoma City Mayor; says highway goes all the way to Canada.

The endorsement by a major city mayor of a document described as "The Declaration of North American Integration" represents a long-term effort by local governments to bypass state and federal governments and work directly with Mexico and Canada to create agreements that integrate the continent below the radar screen, charges an activist.

Adam Rott, founder of watchdog blog Oklahoma Corridor Watch, brought to light the document signed by Mayor Mick Cornett.

The document was presented at the May 2004 summit meeting of the North American International Trade Corridor Partnership, or NAITCP. According to an Internet-archived summary report of the meeting, held in Kansas City, Mo., the document was signed by 90 people.

Rott told WND he created Oklahoma Corridor Watch because, "I saw the efforts in Texas by Internet blogs such as Texas Corridor Watch and Texas Toll Party to get the word out in Texas about the Trans-Texas Corridor. I wanted to warn Oklahoma about plans to extend the Trans-Texas Corridor along Interstate 35 north into our state."

Democrats Can't Handle Good News

By David Limbaugh
Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Very good news is coming out of Iraq. Not surprisingly, this hasnt caused a change of heart among the Democratic leadership. It hasnt even given them pause. One wonders if they are capable of hearing such news anymore.

The Times Online reports that Al Qaeda is facing rebellion from within its ranks. Fed up with being part of a group that cuts off a persons face with piano wire to teach others a lesson, dozens of low-level members of Al Qaeda are daring to become informants for the U.S. military in a hostile Baghdad neighborhood.

Some of these junior Al Qaeda members are said to be repulsed by the gratuitous, barbaric violence. One said, I am sick of it and I hate them, and I am done.

The good news doesnt stop here. Al Qaeda is not only facing internal dissension, but evidence is also emerging that other ethnic forces formerly friendly to Al Qaeda are changing their tune. Iraqi locals are denying Al Qaeda the sanctuary they need to operate. Lt. Col Stephen Michael, commander of a 700-troop battalion in Doura, says, Al Qaedas days are numbered, and right now he is scrambling.

... continues

Newt Comes Out Swinging

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Dismissing the GOP presidential field as a "pathetic" bunch of "pygmies," Newt Gingrich hinted Monday he might step in to beat Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

"If, in mid-October, it's quite clear that one or more of the current candidates is strong enough to be a serious alternative to a Clinton-Obama ticket, you don't need me to run," the former House Speaker said at a breakfast sponsored by the American Spectator. "If it becomes patently obvious, as the morning paper points out, that the Democrats have raised a hundred million more than the Republicans, and at some point people decide we are going to get Hillary unless there's a radical change, then there's space for a candidate," he added. "So you'll know by mid-October one of those two futures is real."

Asked by the Examiner if he was prepared to commit to a run, Gingrich said, "I'm perfectly happy to do what I do," he said. "Whether that leads to the presidency is the country's problem, not mine."

The Pathway To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions

By Doug Bandow
FrontPageMagazine.com July 20, 2007

Christian America may soon be the death of Iraqi Christians. Although Islam long has been in the ascendancy in Iraq, the so-called Assyrians, who speak a neo-Aramaic language, predate the rise of Islam. Today, however, the Iraqi Christian community faces possible extermination.

The irony is extraordinary: America, a nation with deep Christian roots, has inadvertently loosed the vicious forces bent on destroying Iraqi Christians. Persecuted by Islamic extremists and targeted for their frequent cooperation with occupation authorities, Christians have ever less hope in a nation that has fallen into violent chaos.

The Assyrian International News Agency has released a new report titled, "Incipient Genocide: The Ethnic Cleansing of the Assyrians of Iraq," written by Peter BetBasoo. It makes for dreadful reading.

... and America is simply ignoring all of it.

It's Been Said Many Times - It Bears Repeating

From the NewsMax.com Staff
Friday, July 20, 2007

Newt Gingrich: U.S. Fighting 'Phony War Since 9/11'

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich charges that the United States has been waging a weak and "phony war since 9/11" and continues to lose ground to radical Islam.

In a speech to the annual conference of Christians United for Israel, Gingrich charged that instead of fighting to win, President Bush is now pursuing appeasement through a proposed Mideast peace conference.

Comparing that to the attempted appeasement of Nazi Germany at Munich before World War Two, Gingrich said, "We don't have a peace process. We have a surrender process."

Gingrich said the United States and Western civilization are in a global conflict with radical Islam, and must choose between victory and surrender.

The Persistence of Islamic Slavery

By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com July 20, 2007

The International Criminal Court recently issued warrants for the arrest of Ahmed Haroun, the minister for humanitarian affairs of Sudan, and Ali Kosheib, a leader of that country’s notorious janjaweed militia. The Sudanese government has refused to hand over the two for prosecution. Charges include murder, rape, torture and “imprisonment or severe deprivation of liberty.” Severe deprivation of liberty is a euphemism for slavery. Egypt’s Al-Ahram Weekly observed not long ago that in Sudan, “slavery, sanctioned by religious zealots, ravaged the southern parts of the country and much of the west as well.”

Muslim slavers in the Sudan primarily enslave non-Muslims, and chiefly Christians. According to the Coalition Against Slavery in Mauritania and Sudan (CASMAS), a human rights and abolitionist movement, “The current Khartoum government wants to bring the non-Muslim black South in line with Sharia law, laid down and interpreted by conservative Muslim clergy. The black animist and Christian South has been ravaged for many years of slave raids by Arabs from the north and east and resists Muslim religious rule and the perceived economic, cultural, and religious expansion behind it.”

... more

C.A.I.R. VS. Boortz

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said in its daily e-mail dispatch today an audio clip of the conversation – the date is not indicated – "is circulating on anti-Muslim Internet hate sites."

CAIR, which brands itself as a mainstream promoter of civil rights, has been named with two other prominent U.S. Islamic groups as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in a plot to fund the terrorist group Hamas. Jury selection is underway for the trial in Dallas.

CAIR is a spinoff of the defunct Islamic Association for Palestine, launched by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook and former university professor Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Several CAIR staffers have been convicted on terrorism-related charges, and CAIR founder Omar Ahmad allegedly told a group of Muslims they are in America not to assimilate but to help assert Islam's rule over the country.

... keep up the great work, Neal!

Radio host confronts Muslim caller

The Religion of Peace? Neal Boortz.

If The Democrats Have Their Way, You Can Be Sued For Reporting Terrorism

By Frank J Gaffney Jr.
FrontPageMagazine.com July 19, 2007

Fresh from their all-night effort to force surrender on the U.S. military in Iraq, some Democrats on Capitol Hill appear intent on using the dark-of-night (figuratively, if not literally) to another, grievous misdeed: Trying to eliminate one of the most important anti-terror provisions adopted by Congress since 9/11. This legislation is the so-called “King amendment,” which is designed to ensure that public-spirited citizens are not discouraged, let alone penalized, for doing their civic duty by informing the authorities of activities that could be associated with terrorism.

... Dems are trying to kill the "King" amendment on every occasion it's mentioned. Here's the WashTimes take on it.

Bush Standing Firm Against Withdrawal But Still Refuses To Fight The Real War

By Michael Ledeen

Big wars require big strategies, and we do not have one. Yet. I believe the country would support one if the case were made clearly and honestly. Taking the war to our enemies in Damascus and Tehran does not require troops on the ground or bombs from the air, except in the limited cases of terrorist training camps and weapons factories. It requires, above all, two things: support for the democratic forces in Syria and Iran, and the will to confront our enemies. That will can be easily expressed, but no president has had the coherence and courage to do that. Iran has been at war with us for nearly thirty years, but no president has ever said we want an end to the terror regime in Tehran.

It’s long past time to hear those words.

... Ledeen does a great job describing the WORLD WAR ON TERROR which we're not effectively fighting.

Farah Takes On Hannity & Colmes

... meanwhile, the Saudis, GW's pals, are still supplying Terrorists!

News That People Ignore - Will Israel Make The First Strike?

Israel 'Approved' to Strike Iran
from NEWSMAX

Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs said he has received approval from the U.S. and Europe for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

"If we start military operations against Iran alone, then Europe and the U.S. will support us,” Avigdor Lieberman said following a meeting with NATO and European Union officials.

Lieberman said the Western powers recognized the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel, Israel Today magazine reported. But military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are "going to prevent the leaders of countries in Europe and America from deciding on the use of force to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities,” and they are sending the message that Israel should "prevent the threat herself.”

What In The "HELL" Is Wrong With The Vatican?

Vatican Aims to Become 'World's First Carbon Neutral State'

(CNSNews.com) - The Vatican plans to create a forest in Europe that will offset all of its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for the year, according to the ecorestoration company that is working to help the Holy See achieve what it calls a "historic goal."

"The Holy See's increasingly creative environmental leadership is both insightful and profound," said Russ George, CEO of Planktos Corp. and managing director of its forest subsidiary, KlimFa, in a news release on Thursday outlining the effort to make the sovereign state located in Rome the "first carbon neutral sovereign state" in the world.

... it's time for all Catholic Diocese's to break away from the Vatican! Pope Bennie is getting nuttier by the week.

House Attempts To Shut Down Second Amendment - Again!

Access to Gun-Sales Data Blocked

Pro-gun rights Democrats teamed with House Republicans on Thursday to block local governments and law enforcement agencies from gaining routine access to gun-purchasing data.

The House Appropriations Committee defeated two attempts by gun control advocates to strip four-year-old restrictions on the use of information from Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tracing gun sales. The votes were a victory for the National Rifle Association and came despite the Democratic takeover of Congress in January.

The committee's emotional debate often focused on broader gun rights issues rather than the matter at hand, involving when the bureau can share such information.

Gun control advocates say the gun sales data is essential to uncovering dealers who sell guns that disproportionately end up in the hands of criminals.

Gun rights advocates, led by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., said mayors such as New York City's Michael Bloomberg want the data to sue out-of-state gun dealers.

Tiahrt, the key sponsor of the restrictions on sharing gun trace data, also said easing the restrictions could lead to the disclosure of police officers' identities and other details to criminals.

"What the Tiahrt amendment does is protect those who protect us," Tiahrt said.

Pro-gun advocates say the data-sharing restrictions protect gun owners' privacy. But Bloomberg and other mayors contend they hamper law enforcement authorities' ability to trace illegal guns and arrest weapons traffickers.

"This handcuffs the cops, not the criminals," said Rep. C.A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger, D-Md.

More than a dozen Democrats, most from rural districts, joined with all but two committee Republicans to defeat a bid by Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., to ease the data sharing restrictions but ensure that police officers' names would not be compromised.

Mistakes, Mistakes, Mistakes ...

Anyone who truly understands or cares anything about Iraq, knows that bringing the troops home now — or beginning some withdrawal to a regional enclave — will not end the war. It will inflame the already hot war. If the troops are withdrawn to a regional enclave and the war boils over (as it would), they would ultimately have to move back into a far hotter environment than they are already in. Military planners and strategists who have to think decades ahead, have to consider such probabilities. Politicians, who rarely think beyond the next election, don’t.

Also, if we withdraw in the face of the enemy (or set a date for withdrawal), al Qaeda will claim a huge victory — and make no mistake, our withdrawing won’t be a hollow victory for al Qaeda: It will be an enormous and very real triumph for the terrorist network.

— A former U.S. Marine infantry leader, W. Thomas Smith Jr. writes about military issues and has covered war in the Balkans, on the West Bank, and in Iraq. Smith is the author of six books, and his articles appear in a variety of publications. He blogs at The Tank.

... meanwhile, Cong. John Boehner calls GOP defectors in the Senate WIMPS. I 've got news for ya, John, they're ALL WIMPS, along with ALL those in the Whitehouse, and ALL in the House; including you.

... public discussion of withdrawal plans by anyone in government is a MISTAKE, a dreadful one! These are the kind of leaders we have now! - DREADFUL!

Will Bush Capitulate To Republican Pressure? - History Says He Will!

About the only issue where President Bush has stayed firm and resolute in his decision making is Iraq. Of course, he hasn't been effective in Iraq, he hasn't allowed our troops to be as effective as they can be, and he hasn't deployed nearly enough troops for the situation, etc - but all that is beside the point - because he may have decided to give in to Republican Senators about announcing a troop withdrawal date! Bill Kristol elaborates:

The New York Times leads today with David Sanger's story, "In White House, Debate Is Rising On Iraq Pullback; Political Considerations; Not Waiting For Sept. 15, Aides Seek to Forestall G.O.P. Defections." The piece is tendentious, as one would expect--but THE WEEKLY STANDARD has confirmed that there are real discussions going on at the White House, with advocates of what is being called "The Grand Bargain" pushing hard for the president to move soon to announce plans to pull back in Iraq. So this week will not only be a week of (mostly silly) debate on the Hill; it will also be an important moment of truth for the president, who will have to decide whether to give Gen. Petraeus and the soldiers a chance, or to accept the counsel of some of his advisers and begin to throw in the towel on Iraq.

Let me be clear: The president ordered the "surge," which only recently came to full strength and whose major operation has been going on for less than a month. If he were not to give it a chance to work, he would properly be viewed as a feckless, irresolute president, incapable of seeing his own strategy through a couple of months of controversy before abandoning it. He will have asked our soldiers to go on the offensive, assuming greater risk of casualties--and then, even though the offensive is working better than expected, will have pulled the plug on their efforts.

Indeed, the White House is living in a fool's paradise if they imagine that "compromising" now and in this way buys them anything. Even the New York Times editorial page has abandoned the pretence that its preferred strategy will lead to anything other than catastrophe in Iraq, and in the very near term. If the president gives in now, he will not be credited with a statesmanlike compromise. He will be lambasted by the left for fighting a bad war, and by the right for fighting it badly, recommitting us to the fight, and then losing it. The remainder of his term will be mired in congressional investigations as the waters fill with blood and the sharks go in for the kill. The Democrats will be emboldened to press him on every front, especially since Iraq is virtually the only position he's actually been defending. Lame duck does not even begin to describe where President Bush will be if he does this.

What's more, the president will lose any ability to mitigate the effects of the withdrawal or control it. The pullout will become a wild hell-for-leather race for the exit, and the result will be a triumph for al Qaeda and Iran, and a moral and geopolitical disaster for the United States.

The best strategy for the president is to hold firm.

... more

President Bush has a history of accepting his advisors bad advice and totally ignoring the people and military leaders. If he capitulates now, it will doom his presidency completely in the eyes of history.

A Collection - FrontPageMag On A Roll

Read And Enjoy ...

Jimmy Carter's War Against the Jews

"From the late PLO terrorist chieftain Yasir Arafat to the Saudi royals, Arab dictators and militants of every stripe could always count on Carter to spring to their defense against Israel and the West. By contrast, Israel, the Middle East's sole democracy, is in Carter's warped vision a racist "apartheid" state, as deserving of international censure as her terrorist enemies in Hamas are deserving of support."

Which Muslims are on the enemy’s side and which on ours?

"Can there be more than one kind of Islamist?"

David's Blog - Straight Talk From a C.S.M.

"Jimmy Carter, you're the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home, and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You're the runner-in-chief. "

How Right You Are, Mikhail!

MOSCOW — Sixty years after the AK-47 went into production, Mikhail Kalashnikov says he does not stay awake at night worrying about the bloodshed wrought by the world's most popular assault rifle.

"I sleep well. It's the politicians who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement and resorting to violence," Kalashnikov said Friday at a ceremony marking the birth of the rifle, whose initials stand for "Avtomat Kalashnikov."

It was before he started designing the gun that he slept badly, worried about the superior weapons that Nazi soldiers were using with grisly effectiveness against the Red Army in World War II. He saw them at close range himself, while fighting on the front lines.

While hospitalized with wounds after a Nazi shell hit his tank in the 1941 battle of Bryansk, Kalashnikov decided to design an automatic rifle combining the best features of the American M1 and the German StG44.

Photo from AP, July 6: Mikhail Kalashnikov, 87, holds his AK-47 Nr.1, a prototype of the AK-47 rifle, at a ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of the invention.

... happy 60th Anniversary, "Uncle Misha" ...

We Are In A Collective Animal Farm

By Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online

... There is much variety in the ways in which radical Muslim jihadists attack Westerners. Indeed, the collective West is like wandering Odysseus, not sure where the next hideous monster is coming from — an Islamist Calypso, Circe, Cyclops, Lotus-Eater, or Laistrygonian always around the next bend in New York, London, or Madrid.

We learn again that British Muslims, both subjects and aliens, want to blow up as many inside the U.K. as they can. Illegal aliens from Albania in the United States and visitors from Guyana and Trinidad wish to slaughter Americans on a grand scale. Sometimes an angry Iranian-American student wants to run over others on campus; sometimes a deranged Muslim immigrant murders those in shopping centers, or seeks out Jews to shoot or run down. ...

... What has been the systematic response of the West to the serial rampage of terrorists other than temporary “beefed-up” security? The new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown advises us that “the war on terror” is now politically-incorrect since there is no necessary connection between terrorism and Islam. That calm is reminiscent of prior outrage over the images of a British subject caught smoking while a hostage in Iran.

... we are ever so insidiously slouching back into a 1990s Clintonian mood of lackadaisicalness. If we get out of Iraq and 9/11 passes its sixth anniversary in quiet, we can relax and keep feeding al Qaeda a few diplomats, attaches, or soldiers in godforsaken places where they ought not be anyway.

too good not to read!

Studies Show: Felons Smarter Than Liberals

Just in time for the Fourth of July, John Lott, author of the groundbreaking 1998 book "More Guns, Less Crime," has released another amazing book: "Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't." This book provides studies and analysis proving that your every right-wing instinct is based on sound economic analysis.

To wit:

-Women shouldn't vote: "What changed ... that explains the growth of government? The answer is women's suffrage."

-Fox News Channel isn't conservative: "Even employees of Fox News, which is widely regarded as a conservative channel, donate 81 percent of their contributions to Democrats."

-Public schools are government re-education camps: "(P)ublic education was actually designed to spread government-approved values."

-Nothing good has come from abortion: "(A)bortion, in fact, increases crime."

Felons vote Democrat:"Remarkably, it looks as if virtually all felons are Democrats."

Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, speaks during a state Senate criminal justice committee meeting, April 20, 2005, in Tallahassee, Fla. Siplin can't vote in elections because he's a convicted felon. But because he can still vote in the Legislature, he is pushing a bill that would automatically restore voting rights a year after a felon's sentence is completed. Florida is among a handful of states that bars felons from voting after they finish their sentence. (AP Photo/Steve Cannon, File)

... continues; it's very good; terrific job, Ann!

Happy Independence Day From A Real American

Photo: AP-Rapid City Journal

Independence Day Messages From John Adams
By Michael Medved

On July 2, 1776, after long and wrenching debate, the Continental Congress voted to declare independence from the Mother Country and the next night John Adams went back to his rooming house in sweltering, sticky Philadelphia to write, by candlelight, two of the most famous letters in American history. Addressing his beloved wife Abigail in far-away Boston, he exulted in the birth of a new nation:

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.

You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration and support and defend these states. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means. And that posterity will triumph in that day’s transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not…

It may be the will of Heaven that America will suffer calamities still more wasting, and distress yet more dreadful. If this is to be the case, it will have this good effect at least. It will inspire us with many virtues which we have not, and correct many errors, follies and vices which threaten to disturb, dishonor and destroy us. The furnace of affliction produces refinement, in States as well as individuals...But I must submit all my hopes and fears to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the faith may be, I firmly believe.

The prophetic nature of his vision still makes the heart race and takes the breath away, some 231 years later. Predicting “illuminations” (the 18th Century term for fireworks!) to celebrate Independence Day from “one end of the continent to the other” remains almost freakishly prescient. When Adams wrote those words, the colonies occupied only a narrow, intermittent strip of settlements along the eastern seaboard; the very notion of a true continental nation looked wildly implausible, all but unimaginable.

... keep reading ...

Independence Day - NRO Does It Right!

National Review Online Has So Many Good Articles Today, It's Best To Read Them All! (July 4th only)