No Dem Field of Dreams

In between answering the doorbell to young ghouls, read this. Scott at Powerline with "Impressions of the Democratic Field". He finds it "truly alarming that one of them may well be the next president of the United States", gives his reasons, and has some great lines, especially on Obama. Read it all for a good laugh.

Related post: The Alien Vote

They Finally Report

Bloggers had to fix their chart, but CNN grudgingly reports violence down in Iraq. Via HotAir.
CNN chart:Corrected for proportion:Maybe they were shamed by that media bias report that came out. Nah.

Happy Halloween!

Day by Day

Media Bias Confirmed

Harvard study confirms liberal MSM bias. Newsbusters:

According to a new study, those news organizations that hold themselves up as the most neutral and professional — big newspapers, the broadcast networks and taxpayer-subsidized National Public Radio — are actually producing campaign stories that are the most tilted in favor of Democrats, while online news and talk radio have actually been the most balanced.

The study, released Monday from the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) and Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, found newspapers and broadcast TV outlets devoted far more time to covering the Democratic candidates than the Republicans and that the tone of those stories was much more favorable to the Democrats, mirroring the results of a Media Research Center study released in August.

And here's the bit on newspapers, which are even more biased:

Newspapers: The researchers examined the front pages of 13 daily newspapers, checking the New York Times every day and a dozen other papers every other day. “Democrats got much more positive coverage in the daily papers examined than they did elsewhere. Fully 59% of all stories about Democrats had a clear, positive message vs. 11% that carried a negative tone. That is roughly double the percentage of positive stories that we found in the media generally....For the top tier Democrats, the positive tilt was even more the case than for Democrats in general.”

That's one of the reasons I started blogging and will keep on blogging.

P.S. Can we finally get rid of paying for NPR? (I think the money would be better spent on children in Darfur.)

Capitalism Saves the Children

As cute trick or treaters stream by your door, some perhaps with UNICEF boxes, (see Tricked by UNICEF for yet another UN entity's unsavory activities---you'd be better off giving to a charity of your choice.) think about what really impacts the future of children around the world. Bjorn Lomborg:

The number of hungry people depends much less on climate than on demographics and income. Extremely expensive cuts in carbon emissions could mean more malnourished people. If our goal is to fight malnutrition, policies like getting nutrients to those who need them are 5,000 times more effective at saving lives than spending billions of dollars cutting carbon emissions.

Likewise, global warming will probably slightly increase malaria, but CO2 reductions will be far less effective at fighting this disease than mosquito nets and medication, which can cheaply save 850,000 lives every year. By contrast, the expensive Kyoto Protocol will prevent just 1,400 deaths from malaria each year.

And this from Rich Lowry:

Such growth in developing countries is the result of, according to the World Bank, "further integration into world markets, better functioning internal markets and rising demand for many commodities." In short: globalization and capitalism. When a goateed anarcho-syndicalist commits an act of vandalism at an anti-globalization protest, he might think that he's striking a blow against The Man, but he's really rallying against the chance some desperately poor little boy or girl has to live a healthier life.

So put a smile on a kid's face with candy or a donation, and pause for a minute to remember what might make a kid smile on the other side of the Earth.

Leftists: Ad Hominem, Ad Nauseum

Dennis Prager, via RCP with a thoughtful piece on Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. He was one of the speakers:

Students at most universities are almost brainwashed into being leftist -- and the way they are taught to disagree with their political opponents is by using ad hominem attacks. Conservatives are described over and over as mean-spirited, war-loving, greedy, bigoted, racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, homophobic, sexist, intolerant and oblivious to human suffering.

Such ad hominem labels are the left's primary rhetorical weapons. So when leftist students are actually confronted with even one articulate conservative, many enter a world of cognitive dissonance. That is one reason why universities rarely invite conservatives to speak: they might change some students' minds.

Regarding the term "Islamo-Fascism," most students heard the arguments I presented for the legitimacy of the term for the first time in their lives.

Ad hominem, ad nauseum attacks from the Left.

Conservatives--educating students at our liberal universities. Someone's gotta do it.

Previous posts: Nonie Darwish & Free Speech, Islamo-Fascism Awareness

The Alien Vote

Lord, I fell asleep watching before this happened. Kucinich confirms he has seen a UFO. (having questioned Bush's mental health.) Obama declines to go after the alien vote. (Or anyone else's apparently.) New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson claims the government hasn't come clean on Roswell. And Hillary bombs the debate. (Not literally, though she probably would have liked to.)

You can't make this stuff up.

It's the right wing alien conspiracy, no doubt.

And Hillary, the most brilliant woman in the world, who flunked spectacularly last night, sends out her flunkies to blame the moderator. RCP Blog. She can't handle Russert---what a commander in chief wannabe.

Maybe you should go after the alien vote Hillary. (like your NY Gov. Spector, uh Spitzer.) UPDATE: More highlights at the RCP Vlog.

UPDATE: Matt Continetti, Campaign Standard:

The most important moment of last night's Democratic debate was Senator Clinton's

equivocation on issuing driving licenses to illegal immigrants.

Why is this important? Because, you may recall, former California governor (and Democrat) Gray Davis's plan to do exactly this in 2003 fueled the successful movement to recall him from office. Gov. Schwarzenegger campaigned on an explicit promise not to issue licenses to illegal immigrants, and he beat Davis ally Cruz Bustamante by 17 points.

Which is to say: There are plenty of Democrats, believe it or not, who have qualms about issuing licenses to illegal immigrants.

Related posts: GOP Women for Hillary?, Make or Break for Barack

The Mother of All Tax Hikes

Charlie Rangel and liberal Dem leaders want to raise your taxes, as Pete du Pont says in the WSJ "even if it means lower tax revenues"!!! The Democrats are witless and punitive and will drive the economy of this country into the ground.

A little dark humor. Your Halloween special from the NRCC, The Mother of All Tax Hikes. Video:

A Tale of Two Parties

Given Illinois' intense disgust with our current governor,and the preceding one, it is instructive to look at the alternative embraced by the heavily Democrat (and corrupt) state of Louisiana, which just elected a brilliant Republican reformer as its governor. Dan Proft, A Tale of Two Parties: Jindal and the Illinois GOP. Click here to listen to Proft's WLS commentary.

Romney Rally in Chicagoland

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney rallied supporters in Chicagoland yesterday on a brief visit, making his case for strengthening our military, our economy and our families.

Very upbeat, Mitt said he looked forward to debating Hillary face to face---she would take the country on a big left turn, which could only mean higher taxes. Romney emphasized he would make the Bush tax cuts permanent to keep the economy on course, and said Americans will in the end ask:

Who will make me safe?

Who will make me prosperous?

He took a few questions, the first from a local government official on immigration and the Hispanic community. Romney referred to his Hispanic American task force and said we need to stop illegal immigration by securing our borders, protect the opportunity for legal and skilled immigration, and those who are already here illegally need to get in line, without a favored track to citizenship.

A school board member asked about NCLB. Mitt agreed we needed to continue testing, but favored giving states some flexibility. Massachusetts had already high testing standards. During his tenure as Massachusetts governor he instituted English immersion. Fourth and eighth graders scored number one in both math and science on the NAEP. (Quite an accomplishment.) Romney favors school choice.

The final question was on HillaryCare vs. the Romney health care plan: In a nutshell, government vs. private insurers even for the uninsured, $110 billion more for HillaryCare vs. utilizing existing budget resources, increased taxes vs. no tax increase, and one big plan vs. every state with its own, based on a free market approach. The objective was met to get everyone in the system.

I found Governor Romney very likable, with some good self-deprecating humor and a manner that inspired confidence. Right now he leads in both Iowa and New Hampshire, and has a good chance of winning Illinois on Feb. 5th.People were snapping pictures right and left, and I caught this one with Antoine Members, a Romney supporter and candidate for Congress in Illinois' First Congressional district, running against former radical Black Panther Bobby Rush. I went over and spoke with him. Antoine Members is a Cook County Deputy Sheriff and married father of two. Raised by a single mom, Members is a Republican for these reasons---family values and recognition that what the African American community needs is the support to make their own choices. He told me he was concerned about the accelerating crime rate among women that he's observed in the course of his job.
Related posts: Mitt the Porkbuster, Courting Conservatives, Romney: The Right Course

UPDATE: AP:

He called Clinton's policies "Hillary's house of horrors," accusing her of wanting a government takeover of health care and touting ideas she can't pay for. Clinton has proposed a universal health care plan.

A businessman, Romney also said the New York senator lacks experience running anything. Clinton is a former first lady.

From the FoxNews interview:

But I fundamentally think the people will not vote based upon someone’s gender or their race, or their religion, for that matter. I think they’re going to look at what their vision is for the future of the country, where they would take it, and whether they had the experience and skills to actually lead a nation of our scale in such a critical time.

And I think the greatest drawback beyond the direction she’d take us is that she’s never run anything. She’s never had the occasion of being in the private sector, running a business, or, for that matter, running a state or a city. She hasn’t run anything, and the government of the United States is not a place for a president to be an intern. You need to have experience actually leading and running things.

ABC7 Chicago: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says he'll lobby to get Chicago the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Romney says if he's elected he'll also work to ensure there is ample federal support to provide security and transportation during the games.

Romney is credited with rescuing the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. He talked about bringing the Olympics back to the U.S. before a fundraiser this afternoon in suburban Chicago.

Romney says he'll reach out to those he knows in the Olympic movement and attend key events with IOC members to show government support for the games.

Romney compared it to how former British Prime Minister Tony Blair backed London's successful bid for the 2012 Summer Games.

UPDATE: New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg endorses Romney. RCP Blog.Video.

Can't Fight City Hall

Diane at ResPublica with this gem and comments. (Yes, you may well wonder where's she's talking about):

Last week City Hall welcomed the return of two federal vote fraud felons: Sheila Thomas and Jesse Lewis. City manger Hermon Betts said they'd paid their debt to society and were chosen because of their familiarity with city operations.

GOP Women for Hillary?

Buzz about Hillary's pollster suggesting 24% of GOP women would vote for Hillary, a number which seems totally unbelievable to me and my right wing conspiratorial women friends. WaPo:

If 24 percent of Republican women were to vote for Clinton in Nov. 2008, she would significantly outperform any Democratic candidate since 1972 among this group of voters. In exit polls 1972-2004, an average of 9 percent of GOP women voted for Democratic candidates. (Average is 8 percent among Republican men.) High was in 1996, when 15 percent of Republican women voted to re-elect Bill Clinton; the low was last time, when 7 percent supported Kerry.

(Oh, and Penn puts the "don't knows" in Hillary's column. But Obama presumably sees an opportunity. Sorry Barack, GOP women are not among your clueless constituency. OK, there are always a few.) The WaPo goes on to look at more numbers, one indicator her more favorable numbers among women in New York. Now there's a place whose results are typical of the rest of the country! Yup, extrapolate that!

Oh yeah, she thinks we should vote for her just because she's a woman, which is one of the most demeaning things anyone could say about women. (But what do you expect from Democrats, and of Democrats.) Charlotte Hays, IWF:

He's right about one thing: There are those for whom Ms. Clinton's gender is the all-important, all-inspiring reason to vote for her-these people believe that gender politics are important. They are the ones who bring their daughters to rallies and who wonder if we troglodytes are "ready" for a woman president. When Penn said, at the same breakfast, that there is "an emotional element here of having the first women president," he was referring to those voters. There are lots of them, but most of them are Democrats.

Like most conservatives, I couldn't care less about the candidate's gender. I admire Lady Thatcher-but not because she's a woman.

Most GOP women are issue-oriented, they actually think about the issues. And do things to help. Kyle-Anne Shiver, The American Thinker:

Most of the women I know have spent a great portion of their lives -- in addition to raising fine American citizens -- doing volunteer work in our communities trying to put band aids on the myriad of social problems that have become epidemic in the wake of Democrat social policies. Unwed motherhood. Broken families. Absent mothers and fathers. Broken government schools. Sex education that teaches nothing but how to do a great imitation of an alley cat in heat.

Nor do we think kindly of her for capitalizing on her husband's coattails her entire career. GOP Women for Hillary as an electoral force? I think not.

And Democrats might think twice about a President Hillary. The Clintons nearly destroyed the Democrat party. Even during Bill's heyday, his coattails didn't sweep Democrats into office.

Related posts: Hillary Uncensored, Happiness in America, Winning Women in 2008

Make or Break for Barack

It's make or break time for Barack Obama. Dem debate tonight, and has Obama shaded the truth on his New York resume, just as he did in Chicago? NY Times:

Some say he has taken some literary license in the telling of his story. Dan Armstrong, who worked with Mr. Obama at Business International Corporation in New York in 1984 and has deconstructed Mr. Obama’s account of the job on his blog, analyzethis.net, wrote: “All of Barack’s embellishment serves a larger narrative purpose: to retell the story of the Christ’s temptation. The young, idealistic, would-be community organizer gets a nice suit, joins a consulting house, starts hanging out with investment bankers, and barely escapes moving into the big mansion with the white folks.”

In an interview, Mr. Armstrong added: “There may be some truth to that. But in order to make it a good story, it required a bit of exaggeration.”

Employees at the small firm called it "high school with ashtrays".

RCP Blog on what's at stake in the Dem debate tonight, and latest polling in Iowa, which is the make or break state for Obama.

Related posts: The Happiness Gap, Obama between rock and hard place

Vegans Rule At NU

Vegans score big at Northwestern. But their taste buds are a bit suspect--mystery meat? Tribune:

Marsha Dawkins, executive chef at Allison Hall, one of Northwestern's six cafeterias, has learned how to massage seitan, a wheat gluten, to look like chicken nuggets or chicken strips for fajitas. "We cut it into thin strips and saute it to make it crispy," she said. "Some kids think it's meat."

Pumpkin pie will still be on the menu, though:

Berry, the sophomore eating pasta on Monday, said she does hear negative comments about the food. "A lot of people are complaining there are too many vegan options," she said. To that, Northwestern officials promise there will be a regular pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving as well, complete with eggs and milk.

A little balance in the diet. I thought eggs were nature's most nearly perfect food.

The truth, though, about PETA: PETA kills animals. More info at the Center for Consumer Freedom.

PETA, an unappetizing group.

Don't Donate to HLF Yet

In case you missed this, update on the Holy Land Foundation trial from The American Thinker:

A major development last week, along with the Department of Justice's vow to press forward with retrying the case, does not bode well for the defendants.

Last week, the Palestinian Authority closed down all of the zakat committees because of their ties to HAMAS. The decision, announced last Thursday by Jamal Bawattna, PA Minister of Religious Endowments, strikes at the key contention of the defense in the Holy Land case - that the zakat committees who received funds from the Holy Land Foundation had no known ties to HAMAS. While this angle hasn't been reported in the Western press, the English-language jihadist forums have been abuzz with the news (CAUTION: link is to the HAMAS al-Qassam website). The cash value of this decision is that now all sides, including the Palestinian Authority (who closed the zakat committees to rid them of their HAMAS control) and HAMAS itself (who publicly decry the PA's decision because they admit that the committees were under their control), immediately contradict the cardinal claim of the HLF's defense.

Also this:

But the prosecution of former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian ended with his guilty plea to providing goods and services to a designated terrorist group. Al-Arian acknowledged what he long denied, that he was part of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He is a convicted felon and is still in prison, his term lengthened because of his refusal to testify in front of a grand jury investigation of a Muslim Brotherhood-linked think tank in Northern Virginia. In Chicago, Mohammed Salah was cleared of Hamas-support charges but convicted of lying in a Hamas-related civil case and sentenced to nearly 2 years in prison, which he will begin serving later this year. Salah's co-defendant, Abdulhaleem al-Ashqar, was convicted of obstruction of justice, and is expected to be sentenced next month. .

"We didn't get Gotti the first time we tried," noted one veteran prosecutor. "We had to go at him again and again."

One Muslim-American who opposes Islamist political efforts said a second trial is important to stem the ability of people to deceive well intentioned donors by routing funds to a terrorist organization.

UPDATE: And this stunner. Is it PBS? No, it's the BBC. (Might as well be.) LGF:

On June 12, 2005, before the 7/7 London bombings, but after the September 11 attacks, the BBC aired this documentary titled “Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic” — a stunning whitewash of radical Islam in Britain. This amazing documentary features the five Muslim “paintballers” currently on trial for setting up terror training camps.

It shows how the BBC helped keep the British public fast asleep, a few weeks before the bombs went off in London subways and buses. (From the mysterious Kasper. Video.

UPDATE: Terrorist expert Stephen Emerson sums up the HLF trial. Evil Exposed.

Previous posts: Muslim Brotherhood Terror Takeover, Homegrown Terror

The Happiness Gap

Non-liberal NY Times columnist David Brooks offers some advice to political candidates in The Happiness Gap, (a nod to Arthur Brooks, who's been examining Happiness in America) just in time for the Democrat debate tonight, and Republicans will find sense in it as well:

Researchers from Pew found that 65 percent of Americans are satisfied over all with their own lives — one of the highest rates of personal satisfaction in the world today.

On the other hand, Americans are overwhelmingly pessimistic about their public institutions. That same Pew survey found that only 25 percent of Americans are satisfied with the state of their nation. That 40-point gap between private and public happiness is the fourth-largest gap in the world — behind only Israel, Mexico and Brazil.

Americans are disillusioned with the president and Congress. Eighty percent of Americans think this Congress has accomplished nothing.

Looking at Brooks' advice to the candidates, right now Obama loses out, given his approach. Voters want can-do decisiveness on a few key, major issues. Well, obviously I'm a Republican, so I think this gives us an advantage--but I think the point is well-taken. For years Democrats have preferred to demagogue issues for votes, rather than solve problems, Social Security being the most glaring example.

No nanny state, no isolationist abdication, Brooks calls the kind of government voters want a gimlet-eyed federalism.

I would call it focusing on the few things the federal government can tackle that no one else can--terrorism, entitlement debt, and immigration. I leave out energy and health care, which he also cited, because in those cases I think the government needs to get out of the way and let the market work--which means letting people make choices for themselves.

Republicans for a Reason

"It is time for us to realize that we are too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams." President Ronald Wilson Reagan, January 20, 1981. (video) Republicans for a Reason. Freedom.

Immigration Forum in Wheeling

The Women's Republican Club of the 10th Congressional District is
hosting a forum on immigration policy in Wheeling on Monday,
Nov. 5th. Guest speakers include businessman and GOP political
leader Jim Oberweis, State Sen. Bill Brady (R-Bloomington), attorney
and Cook County reform leader Tony Peraica, and agriculture
industry leader David Bender.

Up for discussion are the implications, consequences, and political
ramifications of the immigration issue. There will be a Q & A.
The event is free and open to the public.

Monday, Nov. 5

Doors open at 7 p.m. Forum begins at 7:30

Chevy Chase Country Club, 1000 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Wheeling

Expected adjournment before 9 p.m.

Governor Get Him Out

Readers overwhelmingly responded to the Tribune's Sunday editorial advocating recall for Governor No Lincoln. Today's editorial here.

People were pretty disgusted with Governor Pretty Boy and many wanted to toss Stroger too.

My favorite letter, though, is from one reader who emphatically disagreed (in the print edition, didn't make it online):

The idiotic editorial 'Removing a governor" is ghastly Halloween hyperbole on par with some of Ann Coulter's craziest anti-liberal tirades.

It completely overlooks the fact that Rod Blagojevich is the best and most popular governor in Illinois history, and a prime prospect to run for vice president with whoever wins the 2008 presidential primary. [sorry Mr. Epstein, I don't think he makes the short list for the GOP. Maybe Hillary will improve her election prospects in Illinois and take him off our hands.]

Such a blatantly pretentious attempt at character assassination is as far off as when John Wilkes Booth called Abraham Lincoln a tyrant.

Anyone with any sense would know better than to believe such loony right-wing rhetoric.

As a trial balloon, the editorial obviously does not float.

Kenneth J. Epstein, Chicago

Whatever floats your boat. Though I usually think Ann Coulter is way over the top in a bid to sell more books, I think this time she may have something in her latest one---If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans.

UPDATE: Illinois GOP statement:

Where do Illinois Democrats stand
on recall provision?

In light of yesterday’s Chicago Tribune editorial, the Illinois Republican Party is calling on state leaders Mike Madigan, Emil Jones, Senator Barack Obama and Senator Dick Durbin to take a stand on the Tribune’s question as to whether Illinoisans should have the right to recall their statewide elected officials.

The Chicago Tribune made strong and accurate statements regarding Rod Blagojevich’s failed administration. Further, they posed the question of adding a provision giving Illinois voters the power to remove state officials from office.

“As Rod Blagojevich and his minions run Illinois into the ground, other Democrats throughout Illinois remain curiously quiet about Rod Blagojevich’s inability to govern and the possibility of a recall provision being placed on the November 2008 ballot,” said ILGOP Spokesperson Lance Trover.

While Illinoisans are coming off the longest legislative session in Illinois history, years of corruption, unprecedented borrowing, failure to pass a capital plan, and a transit system facing certain doom due to lack of state funding, Illinois Democrats including Senators Barack Obama and Dick Durbin choose to sit on the sidelines and ignore the problems facing this state.

“It would also be informative to hear from Speaker Madigan and President Jones as to whether they would support the necessary actions of the General Assembly to bring a recall provision to fruition,” added Trover.

Hyde, Becker Freedom Medalists

Freedom's champions in Chicago win recognition, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian award. Tribune:

In naming Hyde, a lion of the Republican Party who served in Congress for 32 years and retired at the end of his term in 2006, the president is honoring a political leader widely known for his fight against abortion, including limits on federal funding. That had placed Hyde foursquare with the platform of his party. Hyde served on the House Judiciary Committee, heading it from 1995 to 2001, and managed President Bill Clinton's impeachment in the House. Bush said he is honoring Hyde as "a powerful defender of life and a leading advocate for a strong national defense and for freedom around the world."

And the University of Chicago again contributes once again:

In naming Becker, a 1992 winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, the president said the professor has "broadened the spectrum of economics and social sciences through his analysis of the interaction between economics ... education, demography and family organization." Becker's work, Bush said, "has helped improve the standard of living for people around the world." Becker, a Princeton graduate with master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago, has taught at the U. of C. since 1970 as an economics professor and also became a sociology professor in 1983. He started teaching at the Graduate School of Business in 2001. His research has covered price theory, human capital and the family, and the application of economic analysis, as well as areas outside the traditional discipline. His books include "The Economics of Discrimination," "A Treatise on the Family" and "The Economics of Life." "It's a very different type of honor than the Nobel Prize," Becker said. "This might be as a recognition for my work in a more general way. I'm very pleased that I've got it. Very few economists have. ... It's really an elite group to be in."

His web page is here, and the good professor also blogs at Becker-Posner Blog--latest entry, "Rising Food Prices and What That Means". (Hint, government actions are often counterproductive. Posner--ethanol part of the problem, on global warming as well.)

And in one final note, I was especially pleased at Harper Lee receiving the award for "To Kill a Mockingbird", one of the finest books I read growing up. (And this time of year, for its enduring character, Boo Radley and his spooky house. If children didn't have a spooky house, they would invent one.)

Dowd: Depths of Ditziness

Maureen Dowd, (via RCP) that aging schoolgirl who writes for the NY Times, defends terrorist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, a man who has repeatedly and openly threatened Israel with nuclear destruction, defied UN calls for Iran to stop its production of nuclear weapons, and as we heard in Chicago recently, tortures students.

She refers to him playfully as "I'm a Dinner Jacket" and a "bogyman" and conveniently forgets his 30 year track record as terrorist, beginning with taking hostages in the US embassy in Tehran under the Carter administration. And Iran brutally murders its own citizens, including stoning women and sentencing children to death. Their chief nuclear negotiator has just resigned, signaling Iran's intent to continue developing nukes, with this unstable dictator in charge and threatening. Dowd:

Hit with sticks, the bogyman responded with sticks. He said that Iran will not negotiate with anyone about its right to nuclear technology.

He's a "victim" to liberals, you see, claiming "rights". And Dowd defends anti-Semite and isolationist Pat Buchanan (no longer a Republican and on the fringe, comfortable with the Left):

As Pat Buchanan noted on “Hardball,” “Cheney and Bush are laying down markers for themselves which they’re going to have to meet. I don’t see how ... Bush and Cheney can avoid attacking Iran and retaining their credibility going out of office.”

The US has just taken tough diplomatic sanctions against Iran, the surest way to stave off any military action. This of course depends on our "allies" in Europe supporting the sanctions. In this, at least, we have France's Sarkozy on our side. His father left Hungary for freedom in France. Presumably Dowd finds this laughable as well.

No doubt Dowd also forgets Cheney's recent visit to Pakistan resulted in the capture of a high level Taliban terrorist and al Qaeda ally.

And on the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, the president who called an evil empire by its name, and brought down the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, the Iranians released our hostages.

Maureen Dowd, the prima donna of the NY Times, defending terrorists and bigots. Plumbing the depths of ditziness.

D'Souza at Northwestern 11/7

The Northwestern University College Republicans celebrate Freedom Week Wednesday, Nov. 7th with guest speaker and prominent conservative intellectual, public policy maker, and author Dinesh D'Souza. D'Souza's latest book is What's So Great About Christianity, (arising in part from his debate with Christopher Hitchens), his previous book, which came out this last January, is The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11.

Details:

Wednesday, November 7, 2007, 7 p.m. Harris Building (Home of Medill School of Journalism) Room 107 This takes place in the southeast corner of campus (just south of Oak Street Beach). You can park for free in the garage to the right of the southeast campus entrance, then walk west on the Sheridan Road sidewalk to Harris Hall.

Here's the map. See you there!

A Stark Contrast

Apparently Americans don't believe the Democrats' phony and manipulative messages any more. Angst among Pelosi's partisans. The Hill:

Democrats are losing the battle for voters’ hearts because the party’s message lacks emotional appeal, according to a widely circulated critique of House Democratic communications strategy.
“Our message sounds like an audit report on defense logistics,” wrote Dave Helfert, a former Appropriations spokesman who now works for Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii).

(Abercrombie is a hippie transplant from New York.) Helfert went on to say:

“Almost every Republican message contains a simple and direct moral imperative, a stark contrast between good and evil, right and wrong, common sense and fuzzy liberal thinking.”

Precisely.

Related post: The Stupid Party

Governor Recall

Do the long-suffering citizens of Illinois have some recourse for relief? Will it be Governor Recall? Tribune:

Share your opinion by e-mailing us by 2 p.m. Monday at ctc-response@tribune.com with "recall" in the subject line. Include your name, hometown and contact information. Responses will be published online and in Tuesday's Tribune.

Should Rod Blagojevich remain as governor of Illinois?

He shows no inclination to resign from office. And while the state constitution does allow for his impeachment by the Illinois House and trial by the Senate, it's doubtful legislators could bring themselves to such drastic action. So the realistic question becomes this: Given the multiple ineptitudes of Rod Blagojevich -- his reckless financial stewardship, his dictatorial antics, his penchant for creating political enemies -- should citizens create a new way to terminate a chief executive who won't, or can't, do his job?

That is, should Illinois join the 18 states that give voters -- as opposed to lawmakers -- the ballot power to remove state officials from office?

The Blagojevich experience suggests that the answer is yes, Illinois should write a recall mechanism into its constitution.

Our declaration of independence from entrenched incompetence.

Previous posts: Governor Sink Like A Stone, Governor No Knowledge, Governor No Lincoln

Miscarriage of Justice in Iowa

John Kass--when "self-defence is, inexplicably, no self-defense" on the story of Mike Mette, until recently a Chicago police officer:

But five years in state prison for one punch in self-defense?

The other guy was not charged at all. Wonder what the story is behind the story:

The drunk is fine now, golfing, having attended college in Dubuque. The last time I checked he was adding to his resume with a DUI.

And Mette?

Donate to the Mike Mette Defense Fund.

Chicago Folklore Prize

A personal note. My big brother is a co-winner of the 2007 Chicago Folklore Prize for his book, Polkabilly:How the Goose Island Ramblers Redefined American Folk Music (Oxford University Press, 2006) which I wrote about last year. Here's the lowdown on the prize:

First awarded in 1928, the Chicago Folklore Prize, awarded to the author(s) of the best book-length work of folklore scholarship for the year, is the oldest international award recognizing excellence in folklore scholarship. Occasionally, a joint recipient or a second-place recipient are also selected. The prize is offered jointly by the American Folklore Society and the University of Chicago.

From its inception, the administrators and judges for the prize have interpreted “folklore” in a broad and inclusive sense, and winners have traditionally come from the fields of folklore study, cultural studies, ethnomusicology, literary study, anthropology, sociology, cultural geography, and dance ethnology.

The high quality of submissions has forced the Chicago Folklore Prize Committee to award a double prize this year. Both of the winning titles show outstanding technique in research, analysis, and scholarship. Both are gracefully written, and evince deep conviction. Both will be of lasting value to our field, and both are works that we can proudly share with scholars in other disciplines. [snip]

Second (alphabetically) is James P. Leary’s Polkabilly: How the Goose Island Ramblers Redefined American Folk Music (Oxford University Press, 2006). This work, representing decades of labor and love, brings together meticulous historical research, extensive fieldwork in individual and group biography, and a deep understanding of the history and historiography of American folk music. Through study of the Goose Island Ramblers, an ensemble working in a vibrant and profoundly eclectic tradition, Leary helps us better understand American folk music as freewheeling process rather than as a mosaic of canons. Where better to launch this agent for epistemological change than from the cultural cauldron of the Upper Midwest, which can now, deservedly, take an even more prominent place in American musical and cultural life?

Who knew we were a cultural cauldron? Congrats, Jim.

Witch Way the Wind

Happiness in America

The academic who documented that conservatives are more generous, (much to his own surprise) now finds that giving makes you rich, confounding clutch-fisted liberals yet again. (Yes, you have to give away your own money.) AEI.

And Brooks in the WSJ on Happiness and Inequality:

But if one believes that "happiness inequality" is irrelevant, why is income inequality so different? If greater income inequality is our end goal, bringing the top down is as useful as bringing the bottom up. This is about as sensible as depressing the happy for the sake of the sad -- which reminds us of the old proverb, "The misfortune of the many is the consolation of fools." It does precious little for the living standards of poor people simply to confiscate the resources of those at the top. On the contrary, it lowers the incentives of successful people to produce, and thus to create jobs and generate tax revenues which benefit the poor.

Sensible observers know liberals are angry and unhappy and think everyone else should suffer too--it's part of their make-up.

Recently the Sun Times had an article on the happiness gap among women which illustrated the cheerless, rigid liberal feminazi approach. And the media and Democrats share some responsibility for this. Michelle Bernard, IWF cites some examples "of how the feminists continue to see women's cup as half empty" and goes on:

The facts tell a different story. It's a story of women's progress. Women in the United States are excelling in our educational system and playing increasingly prominent roles in our workforce and government. Women are enjoying a higher standard of living and living longer and healthier than their mothers and grandmothers. Of course, we expect continued improvements and more groundbreaking achievements from our daughters' generation, but women's progress to date deserves celebration.

She's written a book: Women's Progress: How Women Are Wealthier, Healthier, and More Independent than Ever Before.

Yes, Virginia, there is happiness in America.

Related post: Winning Women in 2008

The Goracle Flunks the Test

A few home truths for the Goracle. (Remember, he flunked out of law school and divinity school. His faith-based eco-zealotry earned him the Nobel appeasement prize, not a Nobel science award.)

An update from Britain's ruling that Gore's movie should not be shown in schools without balancing material:

SPPI has revealed 35 errors in Al Gore’s climate movie An Inconvenient Truth:

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, an expert witness in the UK legal case condemning the movie, compiled the science-based list in response to recent inaccurate public comments by Gore’s environment advisor relative to the High Court’s findings.

Said Monckton, “Each of Gore’s 35 errors distorts or exaggerates in one direction only – toward unjustifiable alarmism. The likelihood that all 35 would fall one way by inadvertence is less than 1 in 34 billion. Gore’s movie is not only inaccurate but prejudiced. The movie is unsuitable for children. It should not be shown in schools.”

The nine discrepancies between scientists and Gore listed by the Judge include:

Scientists: Greenland and Antarctica may add 2.5in to sea-level rise in 100 years. Gore: 20ft. Scientists: Pacific sea level has hardly changed. Gore: whole populations have been evacuated. Scientists: the thermohaline circulation may slow. Gore: it will stop. Scientists: in past climate, temperature rose before CO₂. Gore: CO₂ changed first. Scientists: long-term climate shifts and deforestation are melting the snows of Kilimanjaro. Gore: “global warming” is at fault. Scientists: over-extraction of water and new farming methods dried Lake Chad. Gore: “global warming”. Scientists: one-off events like Katrina cannot be attributed to “global warming”. Gore: “global warming”; Scientists: high winds killed four polar bears where sea ice is growing. Gore: they died swimming to find ice. Scientists: an exceptional El Nino bleached corals in 1998. Gore: “global warming” did.

Go here for the full text from SPPI.

Renowned MIT Professor of Atmospheric Sciences Richard Lindzen was in Chicago recently and had a bit to say on global warming. As my friend emailed, an alum who heard Lindzen's talk, "His PhD is in mathematics, not meteorology. After he got his math PhD from Harvard, the first way he was able to use it was doing mathematical modeling of weather. That's how he got into meteorology. Ergo, he's prolly MUCH more rigorous than a lot of "climatologists" out there."

(Requests for a pdf of his slides may be made to rlindzen at mit.edu.) Here are a few key points from the professor's presentation, from one introductory slide:

With respect to global warming, the last two years have been characterized by the following:
1. A great increase in alarmist propaganda, characterized by Gore's Inconvenient Truth.

2. An IPCC report with a meaningless iconic statement attributing recent warming mostly to man without noting that the warming was too small (compared to model projections) even if man accounted for all of it. This is commonly spun to make it sound like support for item 1.

3. A considerable number of independent papers in the scientific literature showing a very low climate sensitivity to increasing CO2.

4. The realization that there has been no discernible global warming for about a decade.

These items have generally been ignored by the media.

Al Gore, you flunk the test. And so does the MSM.

Related posts: In League with Liberals, Cool It

Governor Sink Like A Stone

Blago bites the dust in the polls. Capitol Fax "New poll shows horrific numbers for Dem governor even though state has liberal electorate":

2. Would you say that you generally approve or generally disapprove of the way that Rod Blagojevich is handling his job as governor of Illinois?

23% approve
60% disapprove
18% Other/undecided/NR

Rasmussen gives him lower numbers than Bush. ("sinking like a stone" per Rich Miller)

Buyer's remorse from the Dem electorate? Any implications for 2008? Anything more to say, Bill Daley ? Will Blago be a millstone around the Dems' necks?

Previous posts: Governor No Knowledge, Governor Hellhole, Governor No Lincoln

Nonie Darwish & Free Speech

Free speech under assault at our universities as Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week continues. (My experience was students at DePaul were respectful, except for the Leftists at the Q &A, but this is the exception). Email from a friend:

At UC Berkeley Arab American writer and public speaker Nonie Darwish confronted a hostile audience, including members of the radical Revolutionary Communist Party who had threatened to disrupt the event. Darwish described violence against Muslim women and talked about efforts on campus to intimidate and silence Arab Americans who speak out against terrorism.

I heard Nonie Darwish speak at the University of Chicago earlier this year. An eloquent and brave woman. Incorrect U with more on Nonie and an update with footage from hippie haven of yore, UW Madison.

UPDATE: On tape, the spokesman for the UW socialists, apparently a BMOC, defends Norm Finkelstein . Former (thanks for small favors), but still hanging around UW English professor reveals himself as a loony conspiracy theorist bigot--the neocons blew up the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Murder for IDs

Taking advantage of people to take advantage of others. A murderous identity theft ring busted. Tribune front page story, with this toward the end:

Some of the action detailed in the transcript takes place inside the Nuevo Munoz Foto shop, owned by Elias Munoz, father of Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd). The elder Munoz has pleaded not guilty to felony fraud charges.

In between are pages of orders for stolen Social Security card numbers and phony driver's licenses by "salesmen" using cell phones registered to people as far away as California and driving cars traced to unwitting suburbanites in Illinois, Wisconsin and other states.

Recall the reaction to the initial spring sweep. Criminals in a community prey on it, and endanger everyone.

Related post: Durbin's Flawed Bill Defeated, Durbin Betrays Us

Obama between rock and hard place

Barack Obama between a rock and a hard place. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Maybe he'll learn something. Donnie McClurkin, video:UPDATE: Sweet with more.

UPDATE: Obama has gone after 17 year olds in Iowa, now he's reaching even younger voters. WaPo, Donors in Diapers, taking his appeal to the naive and inexperienced to a new level:

Elrick Williams's toddler niece Carlyn may be one of the youngest contributors to this year's presidential campaign. The 2-year-old gave $2,300 to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

So did her sister and brother, Imara, 13, and Ishmael, 9, and her cousins Chan and Alexis, both 13. Altogether, according to newly released campaign finance reports, the extended family of Williams, a wealthy Chicago financier, handed over nearly a dozen checks in March for the maximum allowed under federal law to Obama.

Such campaign donations from young children would almost certainly run afoul of campaign finance regulations, several campaign lawyers said.

Apparently their occupation is listed as "student". And The Hill says Obama is not resonating. (maybe he should try to sing at his upcoming campaign events.) Via RCP.

Code Pinkos Attack Condi

What a disgrace in the House hearing room.

Democrats anti-war darlings, these unhinged women.

Security slow to react.

As Gateway Pundit says, this was an attack, not a protest. More at Michelle Malkin.

They are staging a demonstration in Chicago this Saturday. Counter protests are in the works.

UPDATE: Dana Perino, White House Press Secretary:

MS. PERINO: I'm not -- I didn't have a chance to see her testimony because I was in the Cabinet Room, so we'll have to get back to you. And I would also note -- I saw a picture from that hearing where a lady in Code Pink with red painted on her hands disrupted the hearing. And I think it's despicable. And unfortunately, it seems that increasingly Congress is being run by Code Pink. We do thank Chairman Lantos for trying to restore order to that hearing.

(Gee and why the upset from Dems about the rendition of a detainee to Syria? Nancy was all smiles when she went there.)

P.S. I think the Code Pinkos should wear headscarves.

Mitt the Porkbuster

Mitt goes after fiscal conservatives. Especially in key South Carolina. HT HotAir. Video:

Obama Not Over?

Jay Cost, HorseRace Blog, RCP, thinks Obama has a chance. He goes through the numbers.

Previous post: Obama's Own Vision Blurred

McCain Scores Big

McCain turns his great debate taunt into an ad. He scores big with this one, which will haunt Hillary for some time. Related post: Hillary Uncensored

Durbin's Flawed Bill Defeated

Immigration reform is a work-in-progress, but this does not sound like we are at a good solution yet, and the bill pushed by Sen. Dick Durbin was defeated today. Washington Times:

When various benefits of the Dream Act are added up, the rules give illegals a faster path to citizenship than lawfully present aliens.

More thinking here outlined in the LA Times:

Republicans objected both to the timing of the bill and to its substance. Some complained that the Senate had several spending bills to process and should not be debating a controversial immigration measure.

"We've yet to send a single appropriations bill," said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Noting that the Internet tax moratorium expired in "exactly one week" and that 50 million taxpayers could become ensnared in a confusing tangle if Congress did not address the average minimum tax, McConnell said, "We have an enormous amount of work and we're running out of time."

Others, like Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), said the bill was flawed, citing the fact that Dream Act beneficiaries would not be required to graduate college with a degree.

Some who had been supportive of the measure when Durbin brought it up on previous occasions were unenthusiastic. "Even though there's merit in the goal of the Dream Act, I feel this should be part of a comprehensive approach," said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.).

We need comprehensive immigration reform with broad consensus, not demagoguery and name-calling from Dick Durbin. It's too important an issue to deal with piecemeal.

And we need that internet tax moratorium extended and the onerous AMT addressed.

Stop wasting our time, Senator.

Previous posts: Durbin for Pork over Pregnant Women, Sauerberg: Durbin & Dems Tax Hikes, Durbin Slips on SCHIP

Counter the Code-Pinkos Chicago

Got an email from an involved reader who is organizing a gathering of patriots from a number of groups for this Saturday. Counter the commies and code-pinkos:

Downtown Chicago counter-demonstration event 1:00 PM Saturday 10/27 at Federal Plaza (SE corner Dearborn and Adams). We're asking people to come out, bring flags, homemade signs, bullhorns, and lotsa patriotic pro-troop zeal. Our goal is to outnumber the moonbat lefties (codepink, etc) that are planning an anti-war demonstration at 2:00 or so).

Our chance to defend our troops on the home front.

Great Expectations

(I am a new columnist for the online Chicago news alternative, the Chicago Daily Observer. This is my first column, crossposted here.)

I'm thinking windmills in the backyard, bees behind the garage, goats in front. Hey, I'm making an "investment in the future", so why should laws apply to me? I'm an authority of one.

Ah yes, a majority of the Wilmette village board voted to approve a homeowner's solar panels. They had built an addition to their home and added a solar superstructure on the roof that exceeded the limits set down in the village ordinance.

The board approved this after the fact.

I'm thinking goats on a sod roof, very eco-friendly insulation and circle of life-style. (You know, like that cute restaurant in Door County.) I'm thinking maybe a solar-powered neon sign up there: "Give Peace a Chance", or "Kyoto Now". Or maybe "Fait Accompli". Flashing.

So the village board is now working on an ordinance to presumably expand the size of solar panels allowed. And I would hope they would think my ideas worthy as well. I have expectations now. Maybe even Great Expectations.

The majority of the village board espouses a light footprint for this spot on planet Earth--except when they don't.

Let's see...

If you trim your parkway tree yourself, you get in trouble. If the village cuts down healthy trees (they're below average, you see) that's OK. This spring the Emerald Ash Borer was confirmed in Wilmette. The first response was a plan to cut down all Wilmette's ash trees. To date, 116 have been chopped up. Let's hope in future the village decides to use a systemic insecticide rather than cut down the rest.

You need a village permit for everything...except when you don't.

And permits come with a price, a little invited bribery... well, guess they backed off from that. One resident's remarks before the vote on the soviet-style "voluntary" contribution for "affordable" housing:

"The fact that there's no legal requirement for the petitioner to make this contribution and the only way they can get their permit is to negotiate their contribution -- I cannot see that is not an abuse of your power," she said.

"If it's the policy to accumulate money in a fund, then I think all of the residents should pay their way into it. I don't think an elderly woman should have to pay money put of her pocket nor the people she's selling her houses to."

She said room additions and kitchen remodeling all make houses more valuable, "so tax everybody who's making their housing less affordable.

"Why hit real estate with more taxation when the housing market is ailing?"

I guess that's one way to achieve "affordable" housing, knock down housing values even more.

Though affluent, at least for now, Wilmette has some unpaved alleys and aging roads and sewers, (and we could use a better back-up generator for our stormwater pumping station) so some of our brilliant village board members voted to engage in a little foreign policy, open our wallets and adopt the Kyoto Treaty.

Kind of like a work of art with a nearly blank canvas and one "inspired" squiggle that could cost millions.

It's a beautiful thing. (But is it worth it?) (But is it art?) (But is it really beautiful?) But it makes us feel better. Doesn't it? We are making a difference. Aren't we?

We on the North Shore are paying a stiff price not only for our real estate but for our keeping-up-with-the-Joneses' moral superiority.

One of my friends was harassed by a neighbor who told her it was very déclassé for her to mow her own lawn, she was bringing down the neighborhood.

But best to leave it to the professionals. We are paying more for more regulation to harass us more. We have an award-winning budget layout, but not an award-winning budget.

Taxes are up. Employee health insurance costs alone are up--- from $1 mm in 2000 to $2.5 mm in 2007. We are so fortunate to have a "diversified revenue base", new user based-fees! In 2002 we got the monthly refuse fee and ambulance fee (a little unfortunate in the choice of words but there you are.) In 2003 the E-911 surcharge (a fee added to a fee apparently). In 2005 the .25% home rule sales tax. In 2007 the gas tax, pavement degradation fee and vehicle sticker fee increase. (The village board decreed family cars had to pay more than those who could afford pricey, tinny little supposed Smart cars.)

We are now paying for employees (and presumably a GIS system, at $100,000 plus per annum in the budget) to track our tree canopy. None of this low-tech and sporadic stuff, no more pictures from circling helicopters. No, the village is so worried about citizen tree-abuse they have to officially monitor it. The laissez-faire level was 50%, but we needed an ordinance set at 35%. Even one of its proponents said it amounted to a tree in the front yard, a tree in the back yard, but it took 8 pages to say so. The tree police are out in force.

Next: shoe police? One recent board skirmish involved the proposed downtown underground parking, overhead plaza, hideously expensive, but with decorative pavers. An objection was raised that it would be treacherous for women wearing heels--the response from one board member---women shouldn't wear heels.

As for policing criminals, no need. After all, Wilmette has banned hand guns. No problem, right? But now the village has to ban air rifles that are displayed or discharged. But still, no worries, right? Just ban the activity and it ceases. So how can this be? Wilmette's police chief:

"If a thief comes back because he found a row of unlocked cars the first time, we're not doing what we can to deter theft. And it's affecting the overall quality of the neighborhood as well."

Wilmette put out a welcome mat for thieves with the gun ban, but it's our fault. People aren't locking their cars. Well, what do you expect with official encouragement of such a hippie happy nanny state attitude. It's up to the government to handle everything, right? (Note to self: another idea for sign on roof "Lock your cars" or maybe "Nothing here worth stealing".) Just in case that twice-burglar comes back again. Oh, he already has.

Then there are all those commissions. Admirable in intent, I wonder whether so many make sense. Here are just a few: The Appearance Review Commission, Historic Preservation Commission, Housing Commission, the Community Relations Commission. They seem to evolve into agenda-driven ploys for more government spending on their cause, at times have conflicting goals, and burn up village staff time at a horrendous rate. I have sympathy for most village employees, I really do. Until they show up as consultants hired by the village, advocating "affordable" housing for village employees and broaching the subject of eminent domain. Or the former village manager resurfaces as president of the League of Liberal Women Voters, which has never seen a tax increase it didn't like.

Of course, it's always someone else who's supposed to pay the taxes. Those new people who buy houses here so their children can go to our wonderful schools. Our schools are wonderful, so wonderful they don't actually have to teach our children everything they need to know. We have to have enrichment activities, like spelling out words with your finger in the air, watching movies or writing math journals---how to doodle your way to Einstein's theory of relativity. So creative! Just better budget, parents, for those K-12 tutors. You know, the ones you find in the library after school, those familiar faces---their teachers, getting a little private-sector enrichment.

But better not bring up anything like this at a school board meeting. I recall a candidate for District 39 school board concluded a rare debate on whether our good schools could be improved with a lovely poem called, "Pretty Good". This winning candidate was a high-powered lawyer and this is what he advocated for the children of Wilmette:

There once was a pretty good student
Who sat in a pretty good class
And was taught by a pretty good teacher
Who always let pretty good pass.
He wasn’t terrific at reading,
He wasn’t a whiz-bang at math,
But for him, education was leading
Straight down a pretty good path.

He stopped there. Trust me, he said this in all seriousness. I don't know if he didn't read the rest of the poem, (maybe one of his handlers sent it to him) or didn't think anyone else would, but my jaw actually dropped. Not since then.

Occasionally some good sense cuts through, but implementation of real improvement is always an open question. And many parents are often the worst cheerleaders for mediocrity---they don't want to know whether their child is actually learning anything as long as his/her grades look good. Standardized tests? Let's just look at how we compare to the rest of the state, or the national average. If we don't show much improvement, no problem, go along with the administrators and switch to a different testing regimen, so there will be no pesky comparisons over time. If they're desperate, "lose" the scores. And never, never ask for clear comparisons with similar lighthouse districts across the country.

It continues to amaze me that people paying to live in some of the most expensive real estate in the country aren't more demanding about the real quality of life in the village, or the true quality of their kids' schooling.

The North Shore---paying through the nose for inflated results.

Laura Bush in Middle East

Laura Bush helping raise breast cancer awareness in Saudi Arabia. Yahoo News:

First lady Laura Bush helped launch a screening facility in Saudi Arabia Tuesday as part of a U.S.-Saudi initiative to raise breast cancer awareness in the kingdom where doctors struggle to break long-held taboos about the disease.

She met with one doctor, a mother, who had suffered from breast cancer:

Al-Amoudi, a gynecologist, said about 70 percent of breast cancer cases in Saudi Arabia will not be reported until they are at a very late stage, compared with 30 percent or less in the U.S. She also said 30 percent of Saudi patients are under 40 years old.

Al-Amoudi said many of the hurdles in Saudi Arabia are not medical. For instance, until recently, it was widely considered socially improper to refer to the disease by name in the kingdom, she said.

Nearly 20% of women with cancer in Saudi Arabia have breast cancer.The woman pictured with her is a doctor. Imagine having to work all day in an outfit like that.

Women still can not vote or drive in Saudi Arabia. The First Lady is on to Kuwait next where she will meet with "women democrat reformers, legal advocates, and business leaders". Women were allowed to vote last year for the first time in the constitutional emirate and make up 60% of the electorate, which has yet to translate into political power. In related news, in Pakistan, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto narrowly escaped an assassination attempt as she returned from exile to run for office again. Bhutto was educated at Harvard and Oxford and is a proponent of democracy and women's full participation is society.

Stroger No Show

The Toddler is a no show, and the rainy day fund is soon to be in the red. Sun Times.

Previous post: $$$$$$$$$888 Million

Who's the Scariest Democrat?

Cast your vote for the scariest Democrat.

UPDATE: Democrats hurting. The Real Blog:

In just 10 short months, Democrats in Washington have resorted to hitting the panic button. With their approval rating in the tank, Democrats are pleading with staffers and strategists to help them out and are offering pizza as an incentive to sit down with them. As Democrats go into full crisis communications mode, it appears that they could use a few suggestions on how to rid themselves of their image of incompetence.

Read on for 10 suggestions for Nancy Pelosi's next pizza party.

Hillary Uncensored

Hillary Uncensored. Video: Previous posts: Clinton Transparency, Calculating Hillary

UPDATE: A Chicago connection. NY Sun:

A Chicago businessman and former strip club owner who said he was asked to monitor the Hollywood gala for Mr. Clinton, James Levin, pleaded guilty last year in connection with a minority contracting fraud scheme involving the Chicago Public Schools. He was sentenced in May to three years probation.

And respected Chicago attorney David Schippers (who initially made his name going after the mob) on tape questioning the handling of the case.

Illinois Trial Lawyers, Inc.

While citizens of Illinois are groaning under a crushing burden of taxation, driving jobs out of state, the trial lawyers are busy in Springfield pushing for laws to drive more doctors out of state. Their latest ploy is to profit from "grief and sorrow", driving up health care costs for everyone. Edward Murnane, president of the Illinois Civil Justice League, in the Tribune:

For instance, among the bills introduced was House Bill 1798, sponsored by Rep. John Fritchey (D-Chicago), which allows compensation to be paid to beneficiaries of decedents in wrongful death cases for "grief and sorrow." Not just for actual loss, which can be calculated, but for grief and sorrow, which cannot be calculated. And, of course, personal-injury lawyers will get their cut of the grief and sorrow.

Realizing this misguided legislation would be a dagger through the heart of popular medical liability-reform legislation passed two years ago, the Illinois State Medical Society noted that this bill would "expand the damages allowed in wrongful-death lawsuits and medical-liability litigation." Signed into law by Gov. Rod Blagojevich, this bill has created a new source of profits for the Illinois trial lawyer industry, now allowing these lawyers to cash in on grief and sorrow. Can you feel their grief and sorrow?

Check out your legislator's scorecard at the ICJL site.

At this rate, who will be left for them to prey on? The number of "deep pockets" they can pick are shrinking fast.

The deepest pockets seem to be theirs. At our expense. So call your legislators! (or work to vote 'em out!)

Trial lawyers are vultures, and they are the core of the Democrat party in Illinois. More info at Trial Lawyers Inc. Illinois.

Islamo-Fascism Awareness

In search of Peace, not Prejudice during Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week at universities around the country, the DePaul Conservative Alliance sponsored a forum last night with speakers Amir Abbas Fakhravar and Robert Spencer. A former Iranian student leader who advocated peaceful demonstrations, Fakhravar escaped from Iran after enduring 5 years of torture and deprivation in prison. (Video of an earlier interview here.)

Many of his student friends had been thrown out windows to their deaths. Hundreds are executed in Iran every year. Fakhraver said Iran is deadly serious about developing nuclear weapons. The terrorist Revolutionary Guards hold all high offices and make up 2/3 of the parliament. Recently, Iran dismissed one of the few prominent "moderates" it conveniently kept on, its top nuclear negotiator, (a setback for diplomatic efforts even the MSM can not ignore). This is yet another unmistakable signal of Iran's serious nuclear intent. Fakhravar said Iran is already at war with us, as it purposely attacks our troops in Iraq with weapons and trained forces.

Robert Spencer is the author of numerous books on the threat of Islamo-Fascism and the need to engage it. Spencer points out there are now 8 women waiting to be stoned to death, having been convicted of adultery in Iran, the latest a young mother. Muslim males who wish to leave their religion are deserving of death under Sharia law according to the Koran, which is practiced in Iran. Iran executes minors.

Spencer recalls the death of Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker brutally murdered for making a provocative film showing battered women with Koranic verses written on their bodies. Van Gogh was shot as he rode his bike in the streets of Amsterdam, and as his throat was being slit asked, can't we talk about this. The murderer, Mohammed Bouyeri stabbed into his chest a note threatening Hirsi Ali next. At his trial, he said he was solely motivated by his faith, not his ethnicity, (nor any other excuse under liberal victimology).

Calling for new thinking, Spencer referred to Pope Benedicts's letter as an attempt to open a dialogue on faith and reason, which was answered by riots in the Islamic World and death threats to the Pope. He spoke of the hope that moderate Muslims would engage with us in this crucial dialogue, but said we are still waiting. Spencer supports efforts to aid proponents of democracy in Iran, pointing out the overall youth of the population, chafing at the brutal terror state it has grown up under, where attempts at free speech are met with torture or death.

Spencer concluded with the plea for us all to come to grips with this ideology of hate. His latest book is Religion of Peace: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't. I left when a questioner with a Red Star on his chest starting shouting at the mike. (Spencer sums that up here in an article today.)

UPDATE: Freedom Folks with more pix and video. (They lingered outside and got pix of the Lefties. I went in and got a seat, it was raining:)

UPDATE:Christopher Hitchens defends the term 'Islamofascism'. Via LGF. More comments at RCP.

UPDATE: Little Green Footballs links to this post, and has more here.

UPDATE: Related piece, "How to Understand Islam" by Malise Ruthven, via RCP.

Clinton Transparency

Get an idea of transparency taking a hit under another Clinton administration---slimy Bruce Lindsay is back, overseeing a lockdown of the Clinton library. Newsweek:

"Nearly three years after the Clinton Library opened--and more than 21 months after its trove of records became subject to the Freedom of Information Act--barely one half of 1 percent of the 78 million pages of documents and 20 million e-mail messages at the federally funded facility are public, according to the National Archives."

The Clintons have been blaming the Bush administration for the backlog, but Bruce is on the spot, and while Hill and Bill have publicly claimed the library will be an open book, privately is another story. HT, full details and other sources at the RNC Blog. Added to my blogroll.

Previous post: Calculating Hillary

Poor Kids First Please

Steve Huntley's always worth reading. A collection of observations, one that Obama might run for governor if his presidential bid fails, and this on SCHIP, recently vetoed by the President for good reason:

Today a third or more of the SCHIP enrollees in six states are adults. In Wisconsin, two-thirds of the people in SCHIP are adults, and in Minnesota that figure is 87 percent. Yes, Bush administration bureaucrats granted waivers to these states to do that, which is one reason why Republicans took a drubbing in last year's elections. As many as half a million already eligible low-income children still have not been signed up for SCHIP.

Illinois GOP Rep. Judy Biggert summed up the issue perfectly to the New York Times: "We need to make sure that poor kids are covered before adults. If Democrats really care about kids, they will have to negotiate."

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-10th) cast a vote for the vetoed bill, he says as an improvement of an earlier version. We trust he will side with the GOP in this next phase to be sure poor kids are covered first.

Related posts: The Lemon, Durbin Slips on SCHIP, Dem Headache in the 10th

Dem Headache in the 10th

In case you missed it yesterday, I enjoy bringing this to you. Liberal columnist Carol Marin, Sun Times "Splitting Headache for N. Shore Dems. And Shifty Jeff Schoenberg is upset:

State Sen. Jeffrey Schoenberg, a prominent Illinois Democrat and Jewish leader, is not thrilled with the development.

Gee, why can't they all get along?

Previous post: Kirk Strengthened in the 10th

Jindal Wins Big in Louisiana

The decisive, no-runoff election of conservative reformer and "wunderkind" Bobby Jindal as the new Republican governor of Louisiana is a huge victory for Republicans, and blunts Katrina as an issue in 2008. (WaPo story, AP photo and they try to figure out what it means here.)

Louisiana voters made their statement on who was responsible for Katrina, as the current criminally incompetent Democrat Governor Kathleen Blanco slinks off into the sunset.

The good old Dem boys and girls choke-hold on Louisiana has been broken, as voters there elected their first non-white governor since Republican Reconstruction. (Watch out Sen. Mary Landrieu.)

Jindal, the son of immigrants from India, is a brilliant, charismatic and hard-working man, a rising star for Republicans in the country. He is also a Catholic, which can't hurt for the future.

Captain's Quarters with more.

UPDATE: Journal editorial, and John Fund, WSJ, Bayou Boy Wonder:

One reason Mr. Jindal was able to win votes across ethnic and demographic lines is that while he treats his Indian background as an overall plus, he won't trade on it. He has in the past left the space for "race" on government documents blank. "I'm against all quotas, all set-asides," he says. "America is the greatest. We got ahead by hard work. We shouldn't respond to every problem with a government program. Here, anyone can succeed."

Mr. Jindal is full of ideas for how to improve government. He plans to use his health-care expertise to help the uninsured obtain health insurance. The way to do that, he says, is to work with the three-fourths of the uninsured who have jobs. He proposes insurance pools in which small businesses can join together to get lower-cost premiums and giving the private sector a greater role in provision of health care for the poor.

P.S. Do we need a natural disaster to snap Illinois out of its crushing taxes and corruption? It's getting lonely in the cellar of worst states.

Previous post: Support Bobby Jindal

Women's Voices Illinois

(Press release from Women's Voices Illinois)

Representatives to embark on three-day, seven-county Northern Illinois tour

CHICAGO – Twelve female State Representatives on Friday announced an unprecedented outreach effort aimed at engaging in an open dialogue with women throughout the state, and ultimately adding to the number of “voices” participating in the democratic process.

Women’s Voices Illinois will kick-off next week when the elected leaders travel together throughout Northern Illinois to talk to women wherever they are – from the financial exchanges of downtown Chicago to the classrooms of suburban high schools and colleges. While the Representatives behind the effort are Republican, the outreach is intended to be anything but partisan.

“Through talking amongst ourselves, we grew a greater appreciation for the life experiences and challenges that have shaped each of our views and brought us to this place,” said State Rep. Ruth Munson, of Elgin. “We recognized that we each have a valuable story to tell and perspective to share – and committed to having similar conversations with women across our state.”

Through those discussions, the Representatives aim to increase female involvement in all levels of government and leadership. The effort is based in the principle that the challenges facing our communities and state can most effectively be addressed by adding to the number of “voices” discussing solutions.

The three-day tour will kick-off in downtown Chicago Monday morning and conclude Wednesday in Springfield. Each stop will include an open dialogue where women in attendance will have the opportunity to ask questions and share their opinions and concerns. The tour is the start of what will become an on-going conversation with women in the coming weeks, months and years.

Ultimately, Women’s Voices Illinois aims to strengthen our communities – one woman at a time. More information about the initiative is available at www.womensvoicesillinois.com.

“Illinois women and communities face real challenges, and the status quo is not working,” said State Rep. Rosemary Mulligan, of Des Plaines. “As women elected leaders, we believe it is essential to spend less time talking, and more time listening – and we need to broaden that conversation beyond the usual players.”

Women’s Voices Illinois is a collaborative effort of State Representatives: Suzie Bassi, Patti Bellock, Sandy Cole, Elizabeth Coulson, Renee Kosel, Carolyn Krause, Patricia Lindner, Rosemary Mulligan, Ruth Munson, JoAnn Osmond, Sandra Pihos and Jil Tracy.

UPDATE: Here's the schedule.

Durbin for Pork over Pregnant Women

(From the Sauerberg for Senate campaign. As a family physician, husband, and a father, Dr. Sauerberg is very sensitive to this issue.)

Yes to Burning Up Taxpayer Dollars for a Museum celebrating Woodstock - No to Pregnant Women, Mothers, and Infants

Steve Sauerberg, M.D. - "Once again we see just how far out-of-touch Dick Durbin is with Illinois values. Instead of voting to prioritize spending to aid pregnant women, mothers, and infants, Dick Durbin voted to protect Hillary Clinton's wasteful pork-barrel project."

(Western Springs, IL) - Yesterday, the U.S. Senate voted to eliminate a Hillary Clinton-sponsored $1,000,000 earmark for a museum celebrating the legacy of Woodstock. By a vote of 52 to 42, the Senate wisely chose to instead move that money to programs benefiting pregnant women, mothers, and infants. Dick Durbin voted against this legislation. "Once again we see just how far out-of-touch Dick Durbin is with Illinois values," said Steve Sauerberg, M.D., a Republican candidate for the United States Senate. "Instead of voting to prioritize spending to aid pregnant women, mothers, and infants, Dick Durbin voted to protect Hillary Clinton's wasteful pork-barrel project."

"Dick Durbin has totally abdicated his responsibility to Illinois taxpayers. This should be an easy vote, common sense says that women and children take priority over wasteful pork barrel spending and favors for your buddies in the Senate," continued Sauerberg.

The museum celebrating Woodstock was a pet project of New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. The museum, located in Bethel, New York on the site of the 1969 music festival was created by billionaire Alan Gerry who has been a major donor to Hillary's campaigns.

A recent study showed that on average, Illinoisans paid $9,336 in federal taxes and got $6,328 back. That boils down to 68 cents back for every dollar in federal taxes, which places Illinois fifth worst among the 50 states and District of Columbia. "Illinois taxpayers only get back 68 cents on the dollar in taxes sent to Washington," said Sauerberg. "This appalling statistic isn't surprising when you see Durbin voting to waste Illinois taxpayer dollars on pork-barrel projects in New York. Dick Durbin is to blame for turning Illinois into the America's ATM."

"The people of Illinois deserve a Senator who will prioritize spending in Washington. When I am representing the people of Illinois in the U.S. Senate, I will never put pork-barrel projects before the needs of pregnant women, mothers, and infants," concluded Sauerberg. "When I am elected Senator, the people of this state will know that they have leadership in Washington that will reflect their common sense values."

Courting Conservatives

(Composite pix by The Politico)

I watched it last night. (My spouse watched the playoffs. We checked in with each other for developments.) FoxNews moderated the best Republican debate so far--passionate and substantive. The Politico on the "four-way fireworks".

Fred Thompson came out swinging, getting in some good jabs at Giuliani, comparing him to Hillary on a number of issues. I liked Giuliani best when he spoke in support of school choice as a civil rights issue, stating the problem with NCLB--the enforcers should not be bureaucrats, but parents. Romney hit Hillary on health care, and emphasized his private-sector approach and management experience. And McCain spoke seriously about the war and his porkbusting record, combining the two in a humorous and devastating critique of Hillary:

Finding a way to marry a soft Clinton jab with his fiscal conservative credentials and Vietnam war record, McCain pointed out that the New Yorker had sought to include an earmark for a Woodstock museum.

“Now, my friends, I wasn't there. I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was tied up at the time.”

The last line brought about a torrent of applause and a rarely-seen-at-a-debate standing ovation from the entire crowd.

Interestingly, FoxNews mentioned their poll that showed McCain the closest Republican in a race against Hillary.

Sen. Brownback has dropped out, so Gov. Huckabee is vying for the social conservative mantle, decisively winning the Family Research Council vote this weekend. Huckabee talked Republican unity last night, but he is a protectionist on trade, and in the most important measure of a Republican domestically, he has arguably the worst record on taxes of any of the candidates. (McCain is close) Club for Growth:

"Governor Huckabee says he is a fiscal conservative," Club for Growth President Pat Toomey said, "but his ten-year economic-policy record as the governor of Arkansas is mixed, at best. His history includes numerous tax hikes, ballooning government spending, and increased regulation. To be sure, Governor Huckabee's record displays an occasional deference to a pro-growth philosophy, but that is only a small slice of a much bigger picture.

I am a social conservative, but no way will I vote for this guy. He would set back the conservative cause disastrously.

RCP debate analysis, video highlights.

UPDATE: State Sen. Bill Brady officially chairman of Sen. Fred Thompson's campaign in Illinois:

McLean, VA - Senator Fred Thompson's campaign today announced its top leadership for its operation in the State of Illinois. State Senator Bill Brady of Bloomington will serve as the Chairman of the campaign's state organization and Congressman Don Manzullo will serve as its Vice-Chairman.

"The groundswell of support that we're seeing among Illinois Republicans makes me very excited to be a part of this organization," Senator Brady said. "Senator Thompson's consistently conservative record and his willingness to take on America's most pressing challenges uniquely prepares him to not only lead our party, but also win a general election, ensuring that our nation's military will remain strong, our families safe, and our taxes low."

"I'm honored to serve as Vice Chairman of Fred Thompson's Illinois operation. Fred Thompson has the clear vision and common sense conservative principles that we need in Washington to address the modern challenges facing our nation," said Congressman Manzullo.

Calculating Hillary

A coldly calculating Hillary is making nice with Drudge to undermine her rivals. But all her press is not good these last few days.

More unlikely donors to Hillary's campaign, in New York's Chinatown. Not the New York Times, even though it should be their beat, but the LA Times broke the story, with more coverage by the Washington Times. Newsbusters follows up:

Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have a history of fund-raising from shadowy Asian donors. Bill was connected with such donors in a scandal that was never fully investigated due to most of the targets fleeing to their native countries. Now the Los Angeles Times is reporting that Hillary also is gaining money from Asian sources that would seem to merit some investigation. [snip]

The Times examined the cases of more than 150 donors who provided checks to Clinton after fundraising events geared to the Chinese community. One-third of those donors could not be found using property, telephone or business records. Most have not registered to vote, according to public records.

And several dozen were described in financial reports as holding jobs -- including dishwasher, server or chef -- that would normally make it difficult to donate amounts ranging from $500 to the legal maximum of $2,300 per election.

The long knives are coming out from Hillary's rivals for the Dem nomination, finally bringing up the sordid Clinton past, and questioning her electability. Tribune:

"I think there's no doubt that she carries some significant baggage," said David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, adding that her high negative ratings would only get worse in a general election. "I guess water sometimes runs upstream, but the history of presidential politics is not that people go in and reduce their unfavorables. That's not the way it works."

Maureen Dowd is back in fine Clinton-hating form (the only time she's worth reading)--hey, we'll take it:

In her acid flashback of a new book, “For Love of Politics,” Sally Bedell Smith describes how First Lady Hillary routinely unmanned Bill and his aides, and engaged in sharp spurts of temper that sparked his temper.

“Hillary’s anger was bound up in the intricacies of her marital bargain, which engendered rivalry and resentment along with mutual dependence,” Ms. Smith writes. Political power was her reward for his marital infidelity.

When Bill explains why Hillary should be president, his subtext is clear: We owe it to her for all she put up with from me.

Bossy Hillary started her campaign by wearing pink and pearls to soften that power pantsuit. Now she's talking some Mom talk. Peggy Noonan:

She is trying every day to change her image, and I suspect it's working. One senses not that she has become more authentic, but that she has gone beyond her own discomfort at her lack of authenticity. I am not saying she has learned to be herself. I think after a year on the trail she's learned how to not be herself, how to comfortably adopt a skin and play a part.

Her real self is a person who wants to run things, to assert authority, to create systems and have people conform to them.

Taking lessons from Bill. For him, it was natural to be a total phony. (If elected, would the robotic Hillary really be the first woman president?)

The question, actually, is not whether America is "ready" for a woman. It's whether it's ready for Hillary. And surely as savvy a campaign vet as Mrs. Clinton knows this.

Who, of all the powerful women in American politics right now, has inspired the unease, dismay and frank dislike that she has?

Will women go for her latest persona? Maybe, maybe not. It's those independent, swing voter women she needs to go after, and her career is not a sterling example of independence, it's been built on Bill's.

UPDATE: A snippet from the Republican debate, going after Hillary:

"In case you missed it, a few days ago, Sen. Clinton tried to spend $1 million on the Woodstock Concert Museum," said McCain.

"Now, my friends, I wasn't there. I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was tied up at the time," added McCain, noting his time as a prisoner of war.

UPDATE: In case you missed this. Should she be on "Cat Fancy's most wanted list?":

Once the presidency was over, there was no room for Socks anymore. After years of loyal service at the White House, the black and white cat was dumped on Betty Currie, Bill Clinton’s personal secretary, who also had an embarrassing clean-up role in the saga of his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky.

Some believe the abandoned pet could now come between Hillary Clinton and her ambition to return to the White House as America’s first female president.

Clinton has been boosting her prospects in the past week with some homespun references to her gender as part of a series of events with the theme Women Changing America, during which she chatted girlfriend-to-girlfriend and mom-to-mom with female voters.

P.S. Welcome back Chris Muir. More on Socks (with a smile)

UPDATE: Wilmette blog on Dick Morris' local appearance and remarks on Hillary.

Related posts: Snicker Scenario on President Hillary, Hillary Wants YOU, Clintons in the News, HillaryCare: Death by Fiat, Winning Women in 2008

The Stupid Party

It used to be the Republicans. Now it's the Democrats--the Stupid Party.

Today's Democratic mainstream is no more willing or able to stand up to the party's present leftist insurgency than the older mainstream was to stand up to the New Left. The tenor of the current left is best captured by something Lionel Trilling said in 1949 about conservatives: They do not "express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas." Even this description may be overly generous.

Recall In The Left's Own Words. And this:

The allies of the wealthy, the bloggers, are the coalition's hit men. Almost all are males in their thirties. The two most prominent, "Markos and Jerome" (Markos Moulitsas Zúniga of the Daily Kos and Jerome Armstrong of MyDD), gained their fame and won their political clout by latching onto Howard Dean's candidacy in 2003 and using the Internet to help create the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party." Their websites not only constantly abuse thought, but show contempt for intellectuals, even while gaining influence among them. The language is often violent and vulgar. The moving spirit of the Daily Kos is one of anger and resentment, which, when not directed at Democrats who dare to stray from the wing line, is directed at the president, the vice president, and the Iraq war.

The foul-mouthed, self absorbed, adoloscent Left, leading the Democrat party. Mostly angry white males heading the Stupid Party. (Think we'll see a lead MSM story on that?)

And their major allies are MoveOn and the vote-fraud promoter, ACORN.

Color Canopy

Sauerberg: Durbin & Dems Tax Hikes

(press release from Sauerberg for Senate)

Stroger and Durbin - Tax Hiking Birds of a Feather

Steve Sauerberg, M.D. - "Todd Stroger is taking a page out of his good friend Dick Durbin's tax-hiking playbook, and it's going to cost Cook County taxpayers big time."

(Western Springs, IL) - Steve Sauerberg, M.D., candidate for U.S. Senate, offered this statement in response to Cook County Board President Todd Stroger's announcement of a plan to dramatically raise taxes on Cook County residents. "Todd Stroger is taking a page out of his good friend Dick Durbin's tax-hiking playbook, and it's going to cost Cook County taxpayers big time. Todd Stroger today unveiled a plan to raise property taxes, raise gas taxes, raise parking taxes and raise the sales tax.

Instead of looking for ways to eliminate waste and inefficiency, Todd Stroger is doing exactly what Dick Durbin and the professional politicians in Washington do all the time - pass the buck on to taxpayers. We need leadership from our elected officials in Washington - why hasn't Dick Durbin spoken up for Cook County taxpayers and spoken out against this dangerous proposal? When I am representing Illinois in the U.S. Senate I will set an example for our local and state officials by fighting to keep taxes low and working to rein in wasteful and inefficient government spending. I will never ask Illinois taxpayers to pay for the mistakes of the politicians in Washington."

A Massachusetts Gov. Supports Rudy

Former Republican Gov. Paul Cellucci of Massachusetts explains why he supports Rudy Giuliani. Interviewed recently in Michigan by my friend Jason Bonham. Video:

Conservative Kids Campaign

The Conservative Kids---give Harry Reid a piece of your mind. Send back this letter with comments or your own: Stop Censoring Free Speech

The Rush auction of Reid's letter is up to $117,000 plus. One day left to bid on the letter for scholarships for kids of those in our military who gave their lives for us. To donate directly:
The Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation.

A Bright Line

Jonah Goldberg on abortion:

Every day, the government restricts what you can do with your body, from the drugs you can take to the surgeries you can subject yourself to. In other words, the line of personal autonomy is often blurry and narrow. The line between life and death is supposed to be bright and wide.

A humble and persuasive case.

$$$$$$$$$888 MILLION

An $888 million tax hike with a $3.2 billion budget. TRIPLE the sales tax. DOUBLE gas and parking taxes. And a 2.8% increase in the PROPERTY TAX levy.

Ah yes, the refuge of criminally incompetent tax and spending Democrat jerks---there's a "structural deficit".

And he has added some new people to make some offices more "efficient". There is an inverse relationship between adding bureaucrats and efficiency. Tribune:

As officials combed through the budget, numerous errors that the finance office said it would fix later only compounded the confusion. For example, one part of the budget shows Stroger recommending 1,660 jobs for the state's attorney's office while in another portion the figure is 1,586.

Administration officials said they were adding more than 600 jobs to the health services bureau but the budget shows an increase of only 420 jobs. When asked about the discrepancy, the budget department presented a breakdown of new positions that showed yet another figure.

The Sun Times jeers at Stroger's, "Trust Me" on its front page:

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger admits he wants more of your tax dollars than he really needs to operate his government every year.

But, he argues, it's more fiscally responsible to ask for more now, so as not to have to keep coming back to ask you for more year after year.

He doesn't want to be bothered with "patchwork taxes" every year. (Gee, why even bother with elections. Why indeed.) Does the Toddler think we should trust him to spend our money wisely?

It will all go to his many close, personal friends and family. Count on it.

UPDATE: Tribune editorial "Stroger Goggles":

Board member Michael Quigley put it succinctly after Stroger spoke: "The price of patronage, of corruption, of inefficiency, has come due, and Cook County can't ask taxpayers to pay that bill. This government has never evolved, never streamlined. Until that happens, the public is right to be upset."

Stroger says he's not hearing from upset people. Apparently he can't see them through his Stroger Goggles. If you're not happy with his $890 million a year tax grab, let him know. His phone number is 312-603-6400.

Previous post: Dangerously Dysfunctional

Support Human Rights in Iran

Via Powerline, the Journal of Democracy. The story of the brave ones who were murdered by Iran's terrorist regime, and their young successors today. A brave woman herself, Ladan Boroumand:

The women's rights movement is the most interesting and innovative wing of the push for civil rights in Iran today. At first, those who aspired to improve the dire lot of Iranian women became lawyers and journalists and started magazines. But as the proregime reformists failed to deliver, women's advocates followed much the same paths as students, setting up NGO's dedicated to helping individual women with their troubles, giving them legal aid, and promoting awareness of their problems. Faced with heightened repression, and barred from holding meetings and demonstrations, they devised a new grassroots movement against gender discrimination known as the One Million Signatures Campaign.

Since 54 activists launched this drive in August 2006, it has become one of the regime's toughest challenges---in part because its demands appeal to female members of the ruling elite.

Apparently some of the glitterati is on board, hey, we'll take it. The women's website is we-change.org but sadly and predictably it has been blocked by the Iranian authorities.

The Voice of America has stepped into the gap:

On Thursday, September 27, VOA's Persian News Network (PNN) launches Today's Woman, a one-hour daily television discussion program featuring influential women from around the world. The inaugural program will focus on the "One Million Signatures" campaign in Iran, a peaceful and civil effort to influence the country's Parliament to reform laws discriminating against women.

They campaign against stoning, and the execution of children. Such is the state of human rights in Iran, when its more vulnerable citizens are treated this way. We know it is worse for many there. Some Iranians have converted to Christianity, a substantial rise, some of them have been assassinated. And the regime imprisoned dual citizens visiting family to discredit them and force propaganda "confessions" as spies, Iranian-Americans among them.

This was the backdrop for Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia, and that is why it was such a disgrace to allow him any kind of a forum at one of our institutions.

This coming week across the country many will gather on college campuses to call for Peace, not Prejudice. Monday night at DePaul.

OK, got very serious. Let's go now to Charles, LGF, who reports (with his own dramatic reading, also Laurence Olivier style) on the Kos Kidz view of Iran--it's Bush who's violent and crazy. Kos, the mainstream of the Democrat party.

Previous post: Iran's democrats

"Stigmatized " Youths Riot

More rioting "youths". LGF:

Moroccan-Dutch youths rioted in Amsterdam overnight Tuesday.

A group of dozens of youths in the Slotervaart neighbourhood in western Amsterdam set cars on fire, damaged several other cars and threw stones through the windows of a police station.

The riots followed the death of 22-year old Dutch-born Bilal Bajaka, of Moroccan descent.

On Sunday, Bajaka entered the police station of Slotervaart, stabbing two police officers with a knife. Although having sustained serious injuries, one of the officers, a policewoman, shot and killed her alleged attacker on the spot.

The two police officers were later brought to the hospital where their condition was described as “serious but stable.”

The police and Amsterdam municipality officials announced at a press conference Monday that a national investigation had been launched into the incident. The police also added that Bajaka had a criminal record.

From the age of 13 up to his death on Sunday, the police said, Bajaka had been involved in several major criminal incidents, including armed robberies and a series of violent incidents. He was allegedly part of a criminal gang.

In addition, police said he was personally acquainted with Mohammed Bouyeri, the convicted killer of the late film director Theo van Gogh, as well as with other Moroccan-Dutch terrorist suspects.

Moroccan-Dutch residents of Slotervaart complained to reporters they were “sick and tired” of continuous “negative news reports” about fellow Moroccan-Dutch, adding they felt increasingly stigmatized. [And what better way to counter those negative news reports than to riot and burn stuff? – ed.]

Several television reporters who came to report on the fatal incident at the police station were threatened by Moroccan-Dutch youths.

Why do they hate us? Of course---police brutality!

UPDATE: Hirsi Ali has decided to stay in the US after the Dutch government cut off funding her protection. To help pay for her security go here. AEI is setting up funds. More information should be forthcoming.

The Lemon

UK father delivers child. No room at the inn, uh government hospital.

And in other health care news...no fuel gauge, just a dipstick. Government monopoly car, single payer healthcare. The Lemon, a story from Canada. Video:Related post: Durbin Slips on SCHIP

Wasting Water on Big Ethanol

Right now both Wilmette and the City of Chicago are bellyaching about a drop in water consumption (as an excuse to raise taxes, and fees on bottled water, in the case of Chicago). Wilmette also sells Lake Michigan water to landlocked, neighboring suburbs. (Do you think if we residents use more they'll give us a price break?)

But the price of water may go up anyway, as ethanol slurps up more than its share, especially in the Midwest. The Dem led Senate is pushing an energy bill for Big Ethanol, that big energy phony, that will cost us bigtime. In addition, the Chicago area already has among the highest gas prices in the country (taxes loom large here too, as well as another wrongheaded Congressional mandate for boutique gas). WSJ:

Heavily subsidized and absurdly inefficient, corn-based ethanol has already driven up food prices. But the Senate's plan to increase production to 36 billion gallons by 2022, from less than seven billion today, will place even greater pressure on farm-belt aquifers.

Ethanol plants consume roughly four gallons of water to produce each gallon of fuel, but that's only a fraction of ethanol's total water habit. Cornell ecology professor David Pimentel says that when you count the water needed to grow the corn, one gallon of ethanol requires a staggering 1,700 gallons of H2O. Backers of the Senate bill say that less-thirsty technologies are just around the corner, which is what we've been hearing for years.

Granted, our water supply around here is more plentiful than much of the rest of the Midwest, but we will be subsidizing this usage with our tax dollars, then paying more for our own water--a double whammy.

Water is a scarce resource and shouldn't be wasted to play politics.

Nancy Loses it Again

Desperate to claim any kind of credit for the Do-Nothing Democrat Congress, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is frothing at the mouth, touting her House and badmouthing the Dem led Senate. In March she bragged about "the winds of change" Democrats brought to the Capitol, but all they have to show for it is a lot of windy speechifying. The Hill:

When pressed on the slow progress of spending bills during ABC’s Sunday morning talk show “This Week,” Pelosi passed the buck to the Senate, saying, “In the House we’ve passed every one of our bills.”

Recall this is Clintonoid George Stephanopoulos' show, you'd think he'd give her a softball. Democrats are also whining it's all the Republicans' fault:

“Let me get this straight: When they were in the minority, it was the majority’s fault when their agenda failed,” said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “And now that they’re in the majority, it’s the minority’s fault? Seriously?"

Democrats lie and lie to get power, and not surprisingly then they don't know how to govern, because they never advocate anything that will actually work. (Illinois a case in point.)

The public is losing patience with both Dem-led houses of Congress. (And the world.)

Nancy Loses it Again.

Times Tanks

Gray Lady blanches, Times tanks. Bloomberg:

Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest shareholder in New York Times Co., sold its entire stake today, according to a person briefed on the transaction, sending the stock to its lowest in more than 10 years.

They may have to go private. Come on liberals, step up. Sorry, you can't use other people's money. No grounds for a government bailout here. Most of us can easily live without the liberal old Gray Lady.

(But who will tell us what to think?!)

Obama's Own Vision Blurred

We've all heard the speech. But this could be Barack's defining moment, his line in the sand, so to speak. (Oh, no, when is diversity, well...um...too diverse?)

It could be his Sister Souljah moment.

(Gee, how come he didn't embrace Cheney and Bush when the Sun Times piece came out a month or so ago, hmm?)

How open-minded really is Obama? Will he be a "common-sense unifier" on this one? You know, E pluribus unum and all that.

And after all, he is his own vision.

Previous posts: Obambi Meets Giuliani, Obama on the Ropes

Durbin Slips on SCHIP

Yesterday Sen. Dick Durbin spoke as the "Voice of the People" in the Trib on SCHIP. Well, here's what the people really think. They don't want to throw the babies out with the bathwater. Washington Times:

In the latest Gallup poll, more than half of respondents (52 percent) favor reserving most SCHIP benefits for families earning less than 200 percent of the poverty line, or $41,000. This is President Bush's position. Only 40 percent support Democratic proposals to extend benefits to families earning $62,000.

That would be the commonsensical view: SCHIP should benefit the truly needy, not middle-class families. It should benefit poor children, not middle-class adults. Gallup didn't poll respondents on whether families earning as much as $80,000 should partake — of which, indeed, under the Democratic proposal, at least some could. "Would you like a platinum-plated stroller with your SCHIP benefits?" it might well ask.

The new poll also shows public worry over the impact on existing private health plans. Fifty-five percent worry that some currently enrolled in private plans will opt for SCHIP, which would affect premiums for everyone else were it come to pass.

The same holds for the Democrat approach in Illinois--creating an expensive new entitlement for all when the state can't pay its current bills. (And maybe Sen. Durbin should at least pick up the phone and get schooled.)

Related post: GOP Laboratory of Ideas

Obambi Meets Giuliani

Breitbart:

Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday ridiculed Democratic rival Barack Obama for saying he would meet, without precondition, with leaders of renegade nations.

The Obama campaign answered back, arguing that Giuliani may not want to engage in diplomacy with outlaw leaders but he's been willing to take their money.

Addressing the Republican Jewish Coalition, Giuliani described Obama's offer, during a presidential debate in July, to meet as president with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea.

"Then he went on to explain that Ronald Reagan negotiated with the communists," Giuliani said, pausing and sighing. "I say this most respectfully: You're not Ronald Reagan, you know?"

Obambi meets Giuliani.

Related posts: Obama Worships New god, Obama on the Ropes, Rudy Ready for Anything:)

Hollywood's Buried Legacy

J.R. Dunn, The American Thinker tells us about a number of movies that aren't around any more. Is there a pattern here? The Buried Legacy of Hollywood Anti-Communism. There were a lot of films made slamming the Nazis, but very few anti-Communist ones. How about this one:

Night People (1954) deals with Soviet espionage in Berlin. An Army intelligence officer must handle a crisis involving the kidnapping of a GI amid ever-multiplying complications. The real pleasure of this one is that the officer is played (with considerable conviction, too) by liberal icon Gregory Peck. At one point, Peck cusses out the New York Times for misreporting an incident. Not something you see every day in film.

One of my favorites is Ninotchka, which you can see from time to time, no doubt because it's a softened version of Communist reality, set in Paris, and Greta Garbo stars. I've never seen any of those Dunn mentions. His idea to bring them out again is a good one.

Iraqi Granny Takes on AQ

The tide is turning, mopping up the foreign fighters and the local delinquents. Concerned citizens fight the bad guys in Iraq. Via Instapundit, The Captain's Journal: :

“Al Qaeda operates under a veil of secrecy. No one knows who al Qaeda is,” Adgie said. “Well that’s no longer possible when the guy you went to high school with is a concerned citizen, and he can look you in the eye and say: ‘You’re al Qaeda.’"

And AQ, watch out for the women of Iraq:

In a well-lit meeting room in a government building in the Iraqi capital, 20 Iraqi women were sitting in a circle, intently watching the demonstration in the center of the room. They were dressed modestly but with some flair: bright pink and blue headscarves mixed in among the black chadors, chunky, designer purses resting on the floor beneath their seats.

Granny and the Iraqi neighborhood watch. (You go, girl!)

Dem Ugly Americans

Their whirlwind PR!--

3 Weeks- 3 Countries Protest US Congress... How Do They Do It?

The US Congress is working on a new motto:
"We're not just unpopular here at home."

Gateway Pundit has the scoop!

That Dem Congress--Ugly Americans par excellence.

Not in our name!!!

(The Dalai Lama is no problem tho--what're the Chinese going to do? Pull out of their own Olympics?)

UPDATE: Oil prices rise over Democrat posturing---pain at the pump for America directly due to Dems.

Related post: Dem Stab in the Back

UPDATE: Reflections from Uncle Jimbo, Blackfive:)

Snicker Scenario on Pres. Hillary

Required reading for Dems. Revenge by Republicans. Snicker. Jeffrey Lord, The American Spectator, via RCP.

Kirk Strengthened in the 10th

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-10th) continues to pull in contributions from constituents, outraising his would-be Dem rivals:

In the north suburban 10th District race, Kirk, a Highland Park resident seeking his fifth term in Congress, raised more than $525,000 over the last three months, more than either of his potential Democratic challengers, marketing consultant Dan Seals of Wilmette and former White House adviser Jay Footlik of Vernon Hills.

Kirk had more than $1.5 million in his campaign kitty at the end of the reporting period, reports showed.

As the surge shows undeniable progress in Iraq, even by the lights of the MSM, his position has strengthened. (Of course, now he needs to motivate his base.)

Kirk's approach to Iran, tougher sanctions and squeezing off funds first, has been confirmed in a bi-partisan manner by the Congress. And he continues to be a staunch and knowledegable supporter of Israel, blunting any attack from the Dems there.

UPDATE: Related piece on Iran's al Qaeda, Bret Stephens, WSJ, "If the Revolutionary Guards aren't terrorists, who is?:

On the morning of July 18, 1994, a suicide bomber drove a van into the seven-story Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, murdering 85 people and seriously injuring 151 others. Last November, Argentine Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral issued international arrest warrants for eight men -- seven Iranians and one Lebanese -- wanted in connection to the bombing. Among them are former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, and three other men with one important point in common: All were, or are, senior officers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.[snip]

Then there is Ahmad Vahidi, who helped oversee the operation from Tehran. According to Iran analyst Alireza Jafarzadeh, Mr. Vahidi founded the IRGC's "Lebanon Corps" in the 1980s, meaning he is responsible for the attack on the U.S. Marine barracks that left 241 American servicemen dead. He was later appointed the first commander of the IRGC's Qods (Jerusalem) Force, with oversight of "extraterritorial operations," including in Europe and South America. In 2003, the Washington Post reported that "Bin Laden's second-in-command, Ayman Zawahiri, used his decade-old relationship with Mr. Vahidi, then commander of the Jerusalem Force, to negotiate a safe harbor for some of al Qaeda's leaders who were trapped in the mountains of Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in 2001, according to a European intelligence official."

Today, Mr. Vahidi is Iran's deputy defense minister.

Related post on Iran here.

Dueling Nobels

The Tribune pays homage to our local laureate and explicates further:

The theory has broad applications in the real world. It helps to answer, for example, questions of how to devise health insurance policies that will provide the best coverage without providing incentives for misuse. Or how best to fund projects that benefit the public good by providing, for example, uncongested roads.

Great letter to the editor in the Trib. As we know, the Goracle did not win a prize in the sciences:

On Wednesday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry to German scientist Gerhard Ertl, in part because of his research explaining "how toxic carbon monoxide is converted into harmless carbon dioxide" ("Coronation in science' comes on 71st birthday," News, Oct. 11).

On Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its Peace Prize to former Vice President Al Gore, who claims the world faces cataclysmic global warming due to man's carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. Is carbon dioxide harmless, or a pollutant? On matters of science, we should trust not the politician, but the scientist—and indeed the scores of scientists whose research invalidates Gore's alarmist theory.

Diane Carol Bast

Governor No Knowledge

Joe Nobody from Nowhere. Never happened. Nothin' wrong. Nothin' done that is. Tribune:

A state Medicaid fraud probe into a major fundraiser for Gov. Rod Blagojevich was fraught with complaints from career investigators that they were hindered by political interference during their three-year case, a Tribune investigation has found.

The first investigator on the case reported that he got a call from his boss, the state's top pharmacy regulator, asking him to do a favor for the fundraiser, a Joliet drugstore owner who helped get the regulator his job.

Sigh.

The Tribune investigation, based on dozens of interviews, raises new questions about the inner workings of the Blagojevich administration, already beset by allegations that key supporters gained extensive influence over government decisions ranging from state hiring to contracts worth millions of dollars.

Bhatt, 57, who described himself as "Joe nobody from Joliet," denied that he exerted any political influence and said he was ultimately cleared of wrongdoing because the probe was error-ridden and without foundation.

A spokesman for the governor said he had no knowledge of the investigation.

UPDATE: Tribune timeline of investigations of the governor. (scroll down to bottom, p. 3)

Previous post: Governor No Credibility

Dangerously Dysfunctional

Dangerously dysfunctional. Are we talking about the city, the state or the county? This time it's the County of Cook, and what are we getting from our "public servant" at the helm (as one of my friends said recently, we don't even know if his father is still alive). Tribune:

As the Cook County Board mulls a tax increase to plug a $300 million budget hole and shore up its clinics and hospitals, a growing number of critics are saying it's time for someone else to run the county's struggling health system.

The $810 million system -- the medical safety net for hundreds of thousands of people -- is currently operated by the County Board under the direction of the president's office. Critics say the arrangement invites political meddling and has become dangerously dysfunctional.

Political meddling in Cook County?! Nah.

Deep cuts in services and yet they are still not even billing for millions of dollars. Critics are pushing for the establishment of an independent board. The Tribune cites examples from around the country where the spin-off has worked, but skeptics remain:

"We've had an independent commission once before, and where did it get us?" asked Commissioner Jerry Butler, who chairs the county's Health and Hospitals Committee.

"If we're not going to do juvenile detention and now you're saying we're not going to do the hospitals, then what is the board going to do?" he said. "If they keep taking pieces out of the job, pretty soon you won't need commissioners either."

Now there's an idea! (Better yet, privatize everything.)

New data from the county show notable declines in the number of patients seeking care at its facilities. Overall, as the county closed 12 community clinics, outpatient visits dropped 17 percent in the year ended July 30 compared with the prior year. It's not clear whether patients are getting care elsewhere or forgoing it.

Clearly people are voting with their feet. Most likely they are ending up in expensive emergency rooms when they can't cope any more.

Is government good for anything around here?

Let's have some good government and get healthcare out of the hands of Todd Stroger and his corrupt cronies.

P.S. Maybe Wal-Mart will open some health clinics around here.

P. P.S. In case you missed Dennis Byrne:

Isn't there some way for fed-up citizens of Illinois, Cook County and Chicago to force their governments into receivership?

After all, when a corporation is as stunningly incompetent as are Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, legislative leaders, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and his toady City Council, creditors can force it into bankruptcy in which a court-appointed trustee straightens out the mess or, if necessary, shuts it down to preserve the remains.

If the city, county or state were corporations, their creditors long ago would have forced their operations out of the hands of the bunglers and turned it over to a court-appointed executive.

(Also, great cartoon in the print edition today. Can't find it online.)

UPDATE: Sun Times, "Stroger's tax bite: He wants to hike property, gas, parking fees"

Related posts: Call Your Commissioners!, Governor No Credibility, Empire Building on our Backs

Rudy Ready for Anything:)

Video via LiveLeak:UPDATE: Giuliani announces Illinois delegate slate.

Iran's democrats

Akbar Atri on Iran's democrats. WSJ:

Here in America, where I have been living since 2005 as an exiled activist, a controversy has emerged over the Bush administration's pledge to provide $75 million in democracy and human-rights assistance to Iranians.[snip] Those so righteously opposed to funding might have us believe that if it were not for American support, Iranian activists would not be facing intimidation, imprisonment and torture. But since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Iranian regime has been systematically imprisoning, killing and otherwise silencing civic actors--particularly secular, liberal democrats--under bogus charges of espionage and collusion with foreign agents. Just this year, Iranian authorities have executed without due process over 100 people, yet none were said to be connected to U.S. democracy funds. There is not much new in the Iranian government's strategy of repression, but what is promising and hopeful to Iran's democrats--and threatening to the Iranian leadership--is that there is finally real support from the outside.

The funds support VOA and Radio Farda ("Tomorrow"), connecting the Iranian people to the outside world. American private sector civic groups are also helping, much as we did during the Cold War. Iran has a very young and educated populace, who have lived under the terror regime for 30 years. Brave university students protested against Ahmadinejad recently. How can we turn our backs on them?

Local Nobel

Wilmette resident and University of Chicago professor Roger B. Myerson shares a win of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Heartfelt congratulations.

Liberals' Law

Jan Schakowsky's husband just wrote a book on how to win in progressive politics. Here's my description in a word---cheat. HT RCP Blog in the PM Line.

Progressive check kiting 101. Liberals: the law doesn't apply to us.

Obama Worships New god

It's official. If you can't beat the Messiah, join him. Obama has gone over to the Al Gore school of theology (say, didn't Al flunk out of divinity school? and law school, for the record).

Another loser to laureate story?

Previous post: Obama on the Ropes

Bravo Denmark!!!

Brave little Denmark steps up:

Brian Mikkelsen, the Danish culture minister, has indicated the government would be willing to allow outspoken Dutch-Somali author Ayaan Hirsi Ali to live in Denmark under its protection from fanatical Muslims seeking to kill her.

Via HotAir.

Previous post: America Must Stand Behind Hirsi Ali

Rush Auctions off Reid's Letter

Rush auctions off Harry Reid's letter. Story here. Bid here. Video:

Why Rudy for Churchgoers?

Novak, Sun Times, RCP puzzles on Rudy's appeal to churchgoers, despite his fallen-away Catholic status and still liberal social views, though he has moved toward the center on judges and parental notification. This makes sense:

How anybody that liberal can be the apparent choice of the religious right is attributed by Republican pollster Frank Luntz to Giuliani's reputation for fighting terrorism. "He has turned security into a social issue," Luntz told me.

He is also in favor of school choice, which particularly impacts Catholics and has stated 2nd amendment issues should be decided by the states. And this, from a NY Times story today on the challenge he faced, and overcame, in NYC when he became mayor:

“We accepted pornography, prostitution as just commonplace,” he said to a conservative audience in Washington last spring. “We accepted street-level drug dealing as something we couldn’t do anything about.”

And this in South Carolina, as heads bobbed up and down across the room. “There was a tremendous amount of crime. It was the crime capital of America. It was a devastated city in many ways. It was a depressed city.”

So that's the appeal--tough on crime, tough on terror, and a pitch for personal responsibility, rather than big government solutions.

In League with Liberals

(RedSkirt also here. BlueSkirt response.) I received an email from a friend some time ago, commenting on this story about an upcoming League of Women Voters event, and I quote:

"Bankoff was quick to point out that while the League of Women Voters never promotes or endorses particular candidates in races on either the national or local stage, the organization does develop policy statements on specific issues.

Nationally, the League of Women Voters has made climate change a priority issue."

Incredible. So, if the LO(Liberal)WV makes every plank in the Democratic Party's platform "issues" for which they "develop policy statements" that concur with the plank, that's not endorsing the Democratic party.....I challenge the LOWV to find even one issue that they support that is only a Republican issue....

Also, why wouldn't the LOWV invite at least ONE speaker who would challenge global warming???

I challenge the League to at least add this film to their festival, since in the Winnetka Talk they pay lip service to the concept of debate. To add insult to injury, for a special treat they offer a slide show recap of Al's movie, that ignorant, pompous Goracle of a hypocrite.

And I challenge the League to invite a global warming skeptic to appear on just one panel. Note the exclusively pro-greenie lineup. At least read this post please, liberal League ladies.

The non-partisan nature of the League of Women Voters is a TOTAL fraud. Around here the League leadership is virtually indistinguishable from the Democrat party apparachiks. They are the Democrat election judges, the poll watchers, the campaign workers.

Debate, what debate? The local League-sponsored debates are a farce. They usually put their members, who just happen to be candidates, front and center and lob them softball questions, which reflect their priorities--perhaps about their community service, or what's special about Wilmette. In the round of questions, when it's anyone else's turn (who dares to run without their imprimatur) they hit them first with divisive or bizarre questions. Typically gun control comes up, and at one village board debate an election cycle ago a candidate was asked about health, housing, you name it benefits for gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans-gendered residents of Wilmette. In the school board debates it might be taxes or school prayer.

And they may employ the neutral facade of enlisting moderators from neighboring towns, but it's an incestuous Dem bunch around here. Similar tactics are employed in other locales-- a less than even-handed approach. More here. Typically the League allies itself with the "local" newspaper, which is no guarantor of impartiality either. (That's one reason I started this blog. I know about too many letters to the editor that never saw the light of day at election time, and then there are always the stories never written.)

Nationally the League is just as transparently liberal. The League says they are for voting reform, yet oppose photo IDs. And of course they support provisional ballots, which are an invitation to fraud by political machines, overwhelmingly Dem and urban.

The League says they are for lobbying reform, but hailed the toothless Dem bill as a success.

The League says they are concerned about civil liberties, but our life and liberty at risk from terrorists are not their concern. They whine about imaginary abuses, and are silent while terrorists coldly target us.

These useful idiots for terror don't advocate for women when it counts. No, they view global warming as the greater threat. This has LIBERAL written all over it. And we might add gullible to the title as well. (Though that's redundant, but let's point out the obvious to the clueless.)

The League of Gullible, Liberal Women Voters.

NOTE: This column was written before he Goracle won the Nobel. Thoughts on that here.

UPDATE: I notice BlueSkirt does not deny the LOWV is a liberal group, rather than non-partisan as it proclaims. And as BlueSkirt shifts the argument to other groups, I would just add that the LOWV is essentially a monopoly on debates at the local level--an especially pernicious force hostile to true democracy-deserving of challenge everywhere.

And yes, I agree that we should not treat all viewpoints equally. C-SPAN is bad enough proposing to host a holocaust denier in the interests of fairness, but Columbia University is a disgrace to host a terrorist head of state and holocaust denier, giving him an Ivy League forum. And no balance there at all. I didn't hear any squawks from liberals on that one. In fact, Columbia is all too typical of the liberal-dominated universities in this country, who purport to be interested in truth and the spirit of inquiry-NOT.

FoxNews has Democrats on all the time. Yeah, they're not all flaming liberals, but then most Democrats aren't flaming liberals. (Though most of their leadership is.)

And BlueSkirt illustrates my point on the close-mindedness of the Left when she defends scientists who refuse a debate with creationists. Aside from the merits of the case for intelligent design, Blue Skirt describes the scientists as having "studied the historical record". Well, as far as I know, pursuing science is a series of testing hypotheses, not dusty, established "fact". Granted there are scientific facts that are pretty much beyond dispute, but the theory of evolution is not one of them. (Hint--lots of stuff happened a long time ago--there are gaps in our knowledge.) There are still black boxes of assumptions yet unplumbed in the realm of science.

Getting back to global warming, there is no scientific consensus, as noted by an eminent MIT professor of atmospheric science. Recently, a retired citizen and blogger found errors in NASA's numbers on temperature, on which global warming alarmists had largely based their case. NASA has now corrected their numbers.

And presumably the League thinks we should all still have a vote, a questionable assumption I know. They should at least try to persuade us through honest debate.

Dem Stab in the Back

Ooh, have the Democrats moved on from Darfur, since they have obviously done all they can there, (zip, zero, nada) and found another issue to flog that won't actually require them to do anything to help anyone alive? There was the spectacle of the Democrat majority leader Steny Hoyer on the Sunday shows blathering on about this.

Here's the Tribune on the fundamentally unserious Democrat Congress' attempt to exhume a World War I tragedy between Turks and Armenians and condemn Turkey:

What risks? Eight former secretaries of state, Democratic as well as Republican, have signed a letter to Pelosi contending that passage of the resolution would "strain our relations with Turkey, and would endanger our national security interests in the region, including the safety of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan." The administration concurs. Turkey, for all its imperfections, is something rare and precious: a Muslim country that is both a democracy and a staunch American ally. The Pentagon says 70 percent of the U.S. military cargo sent to Iraq goes through or over Turkey. If the Turks stop cooperating, crucial materiel may be delayed.

So much for the Dems' support for our troops.

And we are trying to persuade the Turks to ignore sporadic Kurdish incursions from northern Iraq, as well as be more even-handed toward their own Kurdish minority. So much for Dems supposed commitment to diplomatic measures. This Democrat action is already destabilizing --Turkey has withdrawn its ambassador to the US for consultations.

And why this why now from the Democrats, when they didn't pass this during the Clinton administration? Ralph Peters says the Dem objective is to get us thrown out of our base at Incirlik (which, by the way, also played a key role in liberating Afghanistan):

It's a brilliant ploy - the Dems get to stab our troops in the back, but lay the blame off on the Turks. They pretend they're responding to their Armenian-American constituents - while actually moving to placate MoveOn.org.

For the Democrats in Congress, it looks like a cost-free strategy. For our troops? When did the Dems give a damn about our troops? This resolution isn't a stand in favor of historical justice. It's an end-run that ducks behind the bench. It's one of the most cynical betrayals in our legislative history - of our troops, of Armenian-Americans, of the Kurds under threat from the Turkish military and of the people of Iraq.

We can't let Pelosi & Co. get away with this one.

We also have the current Democrat attempt to roll back our intel protection under FISA and for the first time require a warrant for foreign-to-foreign conversations that come across a US server--turning an advantage in the war on terror into a liability. Democrats want to build up the very over-lawyerly wall the 9/11 Commission found blindsided us to Sept. 11th.

Democrats can not be trusted on national security.

Undeniable Progess in Iraq

I like classical music in the mornings, so I tune in to WFMT. It's reliably soothing, except for the predictable liberal Dem drumbeat of NPR on the hour--casualties in Iraq. (maybe I should just download more classical iTunes.)

To liberals, though, bad news in Iraq is soothing, pablum for the self-pampered set (still infantile and toothless). But even the NY Times has noticed the shift in Iraq, less they squander what little journalistic integrity they have left. (I imagine NPR will move on to something else, rather than actually report the news.)

The civilian death toll in Iraq fell to its lowest level in recent memory Saturday. AP:

Saturday's decline in deaths was in line with a sharp drop in September of both Iraqi civilian and U.S. military fatalities.

The NY Times notes the Shia Awakening--in Baghdad, one of the most intractable areas of the country until now. Via Powerline:

In a number of Shiite neighborhoods across Baghdad, residents are beginning to turn away from the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia they once saw as their only protector against Sunni militants. Now they resent it as a band of street thugs without ideology.

The hardening Shiite feeling in Baghdad opens an opportunity for the American military, which has long struggled against the Mahdi Army, as American commanders rely increasingly on tribes and local leaders in their prosecution of the war.

The moderate Shiites have been enabled by our security to join the government and find jobs.

So military progress goes hand in glove with political progress.

Our military has begin ensuring key business development and job training zones, slow and steady progress to help Iraqis rebuild Iraq and provide a future for themselves and their families. This is one in the old Sunni triangle, the heart of Saddam Hussein's support:

In the first month after the contracting office opened in June, the Iraqi contracts in the province jumped by more than 20 percent and nearly $4 million. Villagers watched two Iraqi-owned plants go up in a semi-secure area in less than two months, grabbing several enormous contracts that typically would have gone to better-positioned Turkish firms. And 35 residents from four small villages received apprenticeships for on-the-job training as carpenters, plumbers and electricians, jobs that provide lunch and a decent salary by Iraqi standards.

Now, when we tell them to expect an additional 85 jobs this winter when we expand the IBIZ skills training program to include welders, small-engine mechanics and air conditioner repairmen, Iraqis are more likely to believe us, even though it might be a different "us" after my unit rotates out of theater.

And the Washington Post:

During the first 12 days of October the death rates of Iraqis and Americans fell still further. So far during the Muslim month of Ramadan, which began Sept. 13 and ends this weekend, 36 U.S. soldiers have been reported as killed in hostile actions. That is remarkable given that the surge has deployed more American troops in more dangerous places and that in the past al-Qaeda has staged major offensives during Ramadan. Last year, at least 97 American troops died in combat during Ramadan. Al-Qaeda tried to step up attacks this year, U.S. commanders say -- so far, with stunningly little success.

There is undeniable progress in Iraq.

The Latest Tres Che Chic

The latest Che chic. The Economist, "Why the Che myth is bad for the left":

The wider the cult spreads, the further it strays from the man. Rather than a Christian romantic, Guevara was a ruthless and dogmatic Marxist, who stood not for liberation but for a new tyranny. In the Sierra Maestra, he shot those suspected of treachery; in victory, Mr Castro placed him in charge of the firing squads that executed “counter-revolutionaries”; as minister of industries, Guevara advocated expropriation down to the last farm and shop. His exhortation to guerrilla warfare, irrespective of political circumstance, lured thousands of idealistic Latin Americans to their deaths, helped to create brutal dictatorships and delayed the achievement of democracy.

Sadly, Guevara's example is invoked not just by teenagers but by some Latin American governments. In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez wants to create the guevarista “new man” (see article), just when Cuba is having second thoughts.

He was a cold-blooded killer. Look, the left doesn't want to know the truth. That's why they're the Left.

So maybe capitalism has the last laugh.

HT The Bench.

P.S. Ah yes, New Trier High School still sports the Young Communist Club. It meets Tuesdays at 3:30 on the Winnetka Campus. (on the right side of the page, clubs-who, what, etc. Click Winnetka and scroll down page 4 on the PDF.) Your capitalist taxes pay for this elitist lunacy. Sponsor Sterling Humphrey. Killers are OK. Yeah.

P.P.S. Mr. Humphrey was part of New Trier High School's illustrious strategic plan component "Ethical Conduct and Global Citizenship Action Plan Recommendations", implemented this last spring apparently.

One more note: Red or Dead--it's education!
Previous post: It's the Culture, Stupid

It's the Culture, Stupid

It's not the 60's, 70's or 80's any more, it's not the Cold War, but it's still the culture war. It's still about values. The Left still spectacularly doesn't get it. Mark Steyn:

To take another example, on CNN the other night Anderson Cooper was worrying about the homicide rate in Philadelphia. The City of Brotherly Love is the murder capital of the nation, and CNN had dispatched a reporter to interview the grieving mother of a young black boy killed while riding his bicycle in the street. Apparently, a couple of cars had got backed up behind him, and an impatient passenger in one of them pulled out a gun and shot the kid. Anderson Cooper then went to commercials and, when he returned, introduced a report on how easy it is to buy guns in Philadelphia and how local politicians are reluctant to do anything about it. This is, again, an argument only the expert class could make. In the 1990s, the number of guns in America went up by 40 million, but the murder rate fell dramatically. If firearms availability were the determining factor, Vermont and Switzerland would have high murder rates. Yet in Montpelier or Geneva the solution to a boy carelessly bicycling in front of you down a city street when you're in a hurry is not to grab your gun and blow him away. It's the culture, not the technology.

Ah yes, the liberals may suggest gun-control in Gaza. Or Tehran. Or Seattle.

It's the culture war at home. And it's the war on the sharia culture, the killer culture of Islamo-fascism, stupid.

UPDATE: And bringing the counterculture to Berkeley, the good old reliable US Marines, those GREAT Americans. Via Zombie, Code Pinko imagery noted above, "San Francisco Values", as they themselves proclaim.

Marine preemptive strike in their window, a quote from John Stuart Mill:UPDATE: NY Times story on the internet jihad, some US based, aimed at converting US viewers. YouTube for jihad.

Unsung Heroes

An American Hero:

A Navy SEAL who was killed while leading a reconnaissance mission in Afghanistan will receive the nation's highest military award, the Medal of Honor.

Lt. Michael P. Murphy, 29, of Patchogue on Long Island, is the first Medal of Honor recipient for combat in Afghanistan, the Navy said in a statement Thursday.

In late June 2005, Murphy led a four-man reconnaissance mission east of Asadabad trying to find a key Taliban leader in advance of a mission to capture or destroy the local militia leadership. Taliban sympathizers alerted fighters to the SEALs' positions, and the four men were quickly outnumbered and came under fire, the Navy said.

Even after being wounded, Murphy crawled into the open to make a radio call for help and still continued to fight, the Navy said. The call ultimately allowed the rescue of one wounded SEAL and the recoveries of the bodies of Murphy and two others killed in the firefight.

President Bush will present the Medal of Honor to Murphy's parents at the White House on Oct. 22.

Ignored by the NY Times, busy congratulating that useless posturer Al Gore.

Michelle Malkin on The NY Crimes:

The New York Post rightly rips into the Old Gray Lady for failing to mention “not a whisper of news yesterday about the bestowal of the Medal of Honor to Navy Lt. Michael Murphy of Patchogue - the first time the honor has been given for action in Afghanistan:”

“If he had killed 15 people, he’d be on the front page of their newspaper,” fumed James Casey of Malverne, a Vietnam vet and past commander of the state American Legion organization.

And the WSJ on the unsung heroes ignored by the leftist Nobel Committee--those who put their lives on the line for peace and freedom.

Blood Near the Red Line

Blood spilled near the Red Line. The Bench, formerly known as Rogers Park Bench with eyewitness reports and video. This is the liberal gadfly Alderman Joe Moore's ward.

Friday rush hour: Howard Street: Savages Among Us

Saturday night: Bloody Night in Rogers Park, Chicago

Tom Mannis with some Sunday reading.

McCain Again Competes

Sen. John McCain, back on my list again, after his prescience on the war, his spirited defense of General Petraeus, his vision on healthcare (and his kick in the pants to Al Gore). Rich Lowry, NRO, RCP:

That leaves, among the plausible contenders, John McCain. His campaign crashed a few months ago because of his support for an amnesty for illegal immigrants, but an ember still burns amidst the wreckage because McCain is more authentic than Romney, more conservative than Giuliani, and more vibrant than Thompson.

The case for McCain from a Chicagoan.

The New Messiah

Obama eclipsed by the new Dem messiah, the Goracle, and a humble Rahmbo? NY Times, "from loser to laureate":

“Why would he run for president when he can be a demigod?” said Representative Rahm Emanuel, Democrat of Illinois, who was a top aide in the Clinton White House. “He now towers over all of us because he’s pure.”

It seems appropriate at this point to recall one of the last intellectually credible Democrats, (aside from Sen. Joe Lieberman, whom the Kossacks kicked out of the party) the late, great, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and his comment on defining deviancy down. The Democrats have lowered the bar into the dust with all their empty posturing and alarmism---and their definition of purity.

All this homage to a man who is the epitome of a hypocritical Lear Jet Liberal and who earns income from selling phony carbon credits. At least he shows some good sense:

Even former President Jimmy Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, weighed in. “I’ve called Al Gore and urged him to run for president so many times,” he said Friday on “Today” on NBC-TV. “He finally told me the last time, ‘President Carter, please do not call me.’”

P.S. We have a related story in the Times about the new landed gentry. Rich liberals, having killed off the livelihoods of timber harvesters in the West (exporting jobs to Canada) are now buying up the land to develop their personal playgrounds (jetting in from time to time.)

On the borders of national parks and forests.

We are paying for their view. And some are limiting access to our forests.

Ah, but they have that messianic vision. For themselves.

(Oh, no, who will thin the trees now to prevent sweeping forest fires?)

UPDATE: The Swamp's take.

UPDATE: From beyond the pond, Damian Thompson, The Telegraph:

The former US Vice-President has already taken over from Michael Moore as the most sanctimonious lardbutt Yank on the planet. Can you imagine what he'll be like now that the Norwegian Nobel committee has given him the prize?

ManBearPig

Updated
Ok, going around the blogosphere again, in honor of the Goracle's Nobel--ManBearPig.UPDATE: Bjorn Lomborg "An Inconvenient Peace Prize". Andrea Peyser, NY Post:

Of course, Oslo, home of the Nobels, is not known for its common sense. The voters ignored a British judge's recent finding that Gore's signature movie is so riddled with distortions that schoolkids can watch it only after being warned about political indoctrination.

My favorite Goreism is his assertion that arctic polar bears, forced to swim up to 60 miles to find ice, are drowning. In fact, said the judge, only four bears were found drowned - in a storm.

Democrat NASCAR Moment

Wonder why NASCAR fans lean GOP?

Cells Magnified

My daughter's pix of cells in her college bio class.

Obama on the Ropes

Obama vows to take the gloves off and go after Hillary, threatening to muddy the "above politics" image he has cultivated and the press has now saddled him with. His first punch is on her vote to designate the Quds Force in Iran as a terrorist organization, a move that will make it possible for the US to enforce highly effective diplomatic and monetary sanctions against the elite leadership in Iran. (Even toothy, spineless Dick Durbin, Obama's ally, finally voted for it.)

Why wouldn't Barack be in favor of tightening sanctions against a terror state trying to develop nuclear weapons?

The answer is that Obama is naive and indecisive, a point effectively underscored by Hillary's campaign counterpunch: "If Senator Obama felt so strongly about this resolution, why didn't he speak out against it or vote against it?"

Obama on the fence, on the ropes.

Previous post: Can BarackStar in Iowa?

GOP Laboratory of Ideas

The GOP is the laboratory of new ideas in health care--and individuals come first. Universal health care is a mirage (say it en francais) and Hillary's frumpy, shapeless one-size-fits-all approach is really a robe cloaking the Grim Reaper.

From the autumn issue of CityJournal, Peter Huber "Cherry Garcia and the End of Socialized Medicine":

This great etiological shift—from the medicine of us versus germs to the medicine of us versus us—upends everything. Disease and its cures now depend on factors too fragmented for conventional insurance pools to contain, too costly for public treasuries to underwrite, and too divisive for public authorities even to discuss, much less manage. The era of big government is over in medicine, too. Within a decade or two, a charismatic president will deliver on the promise to end health care as we know it. What then? Science will discover, competition will supply, patients will choose, and freedom will deliver better medicine and far better health, at lower cost, to many more people.

Worth reading all the way to the end.

McCain's Medicine takes a free market approach along with Giuliani and Romney (to a lesser extent). WSJ editorial:

One major difference among these front runners concerns insurance regulation, and here Mr. McCain comes out on top. Part of the reason coverage costs differ so sharply among states is because some have chosen to impose multiple rules and mandates. Mr. McCain would allow people to purchase policies across state lines, which is currently prohibited. That would let people choose the coverage levels that best serve their needs, and would make insurance far more affordable for people in mandate-heavy states like New York and Massachusetts. Mr. Giuliani says he'll allow for this eventually, with some caveats, and Mr. Romney goes out of his way to trash it.

And McCain would reform Medicare in a substantive way, showing the right stuff, alone among candidates of either party in tackling this entitlement bankrupting us. He proposes that government pay based on outcomes, particularly for seniors, rather than the outmoded and unwieldy fee-for-service--the Journal calls it supply side medicine. And this:

While the proposal would leave the beneficiary structure intact, we suspect that Mr. McCain is setting up an even bolder reform. Changing the payment architecture could be used as a lever to move Medicare toward a defined-contribution health-care model, where the government would pay a certain amount per individual, and private insurance would compete to insure patients. This would be a major step toward free-market spending discipline.

And here in Illinois we have a candidate for Senate, Dr. Steve Sauerberg, who understands what's at stake. There's a direct cause and effect relationship between Governor Blagojevich's wrong-headed big government approach to health care (not to mention state bankruptcy and Illinois' as judicial hellhole) and health care providers leaving the state in droves.

Do we want to be government guinea pigs or be able to choose our own health care?

The free market is driven by the choices of millions of individuals and has accountability and responsiveness far superior to that of any government bureaucracy. For us, it could be the difference between life and death.

UPDATE: My friend Pat Hickey, ...With Both Hands, endorses McCain's plan.

UPDATE: Giuliani health advisor Sally Pipes in the WSJ on HillaryCare (and Romney's plan in Massachuesetts):

Costs have turned out to be higher than expected in Massachusetts -- and they promise to keep climbing. In a bond filing, government officials told Wall Street that health spending under its plan would increase total state spending by $151 million. This was before the administration of Gov. Deval Patrick, in the face of a collapsing coalition, pushed $13 million more into the plan. On a household level, citizens have found that their government expects them to spend as much as 10% of their household income on health insurance, and then face deductibles and copays.

These high expenses will erode public support for the program. Officials active in designing and implementing the plan are fretting publicly about the need to control costs and how failure to do so will cause the scheme to collapse.

The lesson here is plain for Ms. Clinton's plan. It already projects an increase in spending of $110 billion and, unlike the state, cannot hide cost increases by shifting some of them to the federal taxpayer.

Related post: Stability and Portability

Listening to an Inner Voice

Another Tribune blogger takes on Zorn's arid, liberal scorn for a moment of silence in Illinois' schools at the start of a day. Issues of possible prayer aside, this is a "teaching moment" too. Time to take a cleansing breath, gather thoughts in peace, or just look out the window at the day. Manya Brachear:

I, for one, cherish the moments of solitude and silence that so rarely punctuate my day. On those long, extended moments of silence I like to call vacation, I often read and occasionally re-read works of literature that remind me to seek more silence once I return to the daily grind.

One of those essays is “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers,” an account of a boat trip Henry Thoreau took in 1839. Thoreau wrote: “Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”

Silence is a key to self-reliance, and may instill respect for listening to wise outer voices, as well as inner ones. (Even voices of conscience, Eric.)

What Prize Peace

Gore gets the peace prize. (along with a UN panel!) My vote would have been for the Myanmar monks and Aung San Suu Kyi, risking their lives for democracy. Silly me.

UPDATE: Trib story on Gore's win asks whether he deserves it. You can vote here.

UPDATE: Czech president: "relationship between his activities and world peace is unclear..."

UPDATE: Sen. John McCain agrees with me. He may be back on my list.

Google Leans Left

Google carries MoveOn's water. Via RedState.

UPDATE: Google sides with the Soros' funded MoveOn. The secretive and malicious Soros is a menace, his "Open Society" Institute Orwellian in name and nature. Read Jeffrey Lord, The American Spectator.

Soros is also very cozy with Obama. And Daniel Henninger, WSJ weighs in with some questions for Hillary. More from Powerline.

This is serious stuff. So Google, how do you live up to your creed, don't be evil, by siding with those who would suppress free speech, the basis of your business?

That Lovin' Feeling

Nancy Pelosi's Botox smile slips to reveal the limousine liberal. Dana Milbank:

But her spirits soured instantly when somebody asked about the anger of the Democratic "base" over her failure to end the war in Iraq. "Look," she said, the chicken breast on her plate untouched. "I had, for five months, people sitting outside my home, going into my garden in San Francisco, angering neighbors, hanging their clothes from trees, building all kinds of things -- Buddhas? I don't know what they were -- couches, sofas, chairs, permanent living facilities on my front sidewalk."

Unsmilingly, she continued: "If they were poor and they were sleeping on my sidewalk, they would be arrested for loitering, but because they have 'Impeach Bush' across their chest, it's the First Amendment."

Ooh, where's the love? (Next time Cindy wants to camp out at Bush's ranch will she defend W?) And who knew she could be so un-PC? Ah, but it's different when the liberal activist riff-raff affect her personally. And could the aging flower children elite in San Francisco be getting a little testy about the consequences of encouraging scofflaws for years?:

“Maybe there has been an epiphany,” says David Latterman, president of Fall Line Analytics, a local market research firm. “People have realized they can hate George Bush but still not want people crapping in their doorway.”

You've lost That Lovin' Feeling, Nancy...now it's gone, gone, gone.

P.S. Hey Nancy, maybe your protesters might soften their attitude with a spa treatment at your other place, Auberge du Soleil. (They probably could use a bath anyway) Or maybe the island your family is developing at some taxpayer expense.

P.P.S. Maybe if they were smoking something you could banish them from the open air.

UPDATE: The Politico on Pelosi's penchant for having meetings about meetings:

It’s not just the nature of the members and the party, but the agenda itself requires more meetings, said Frank. “We’re more activist than they are,” he said. “You need more meetings to say yes. The easiest thing to say is no.”

Difficult as it may be to say yes, a House GOP leadership aide said excessive meetings have led less to consensus and more to stagnation. “That explains why they can’t get anything done,” he said.

Something Rotten in Paris

In more health care news, banging the Dem's drum on page ONE, the NY Times has discovered a new healthcare crisis--not enough people are getting in to see a dentist. They are "uninsured".

The horror.

(Recall this: "So, out of 45 million uninsured Americans, 9 million aren’t American, 9 million are insured, 18 million are young and healthy. And the rest of these poor helpless waifs trapped in Uninsured Hell waiting for Hillary to rescue them are, in fact, wealthier than the general population.")

But I digress. Well in France they have had "universal" health care for some time (which one of its experts calls broken and suggests emulating the US private system---maybe they will export their babies here--Michael Moore you lying leftie sicko call your office) and there is still something rotten in Paris---they don't brush their teeth anyway. Perhaps you missed this from The Economist, quoting Le Figaro:

The article quotes a pair of dentists, one from a Paris teaching hospital and one from the French dentistry association, and offers the following statistics (without citing sources).

- one million French citizens never brush their teeth

- half of all French do not brush their teeth in the evening

- 57% of French children under five have never brushed their teeth

- the average French citizen uses between one and two toothbrushes in a year

So much for romance in France.

I suggest the NY Times blare a big headline across their front pages for a week or so---BRUSH YOUR TEETH. It's the least they can do. Given their influence on the MSM, perhaps they could solve the problem here singlehandedly.

Related post: Throwing Out the Babies

Empire Building on our Backs

An empire building Mayor Daley proposes a crushing $5.9 billion budget. Tribune:

Mayor Richard Daley proposed a whopping $293 million increase in taxes, fees and fines Wednesday, including a 15 percent jump in Chicago's property-tax levy, among the biggest in the city's history.

If the City Council approves the plan, Daley will have raised property taxes more in this budget than he has in his previous 18 years in office combined. Until now, the mayor has liked to boast that since he was elected in 1989, he has limited property-tax increases to an average of about 1 percent a year.

But hey, what's one more tax among many?:

Daley's budget proposal comes at a time when other units of government are considering tax-increase proposals. The state, for example, is weighing a regional sales-tax increase to fund the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace as the Cook County Board considers its own sales-tax increase, a telecommunications-tax increase and two utility-tax increases. The Chicago Board of Education, meanwhile, already has approved a $74.2 million jump in its property-tax levy.

"I've never seen such a rush for money in the 15 years I have been doing this job," said Roper of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. "It has just been incredible. They all just say, 'I'm not the city,' and the city says, 'I am not the county,' and the county, 'I am not the state.'"

Building their patronage empires on our backs. Here comes the rise of the exurbs, the exodus from Illinois. I'm not your patsy. Just say no.

UPDATE: John Kass:

Chicago, how do you like your Duff Tax?

That's what you should call Mayor Richard Daley's proposed $108 million property tax increase -- part of his plan to increase taxes, fines and fees by $293 million -- which includes taxing bottled water.

The property tax increase covers what Chicago taxpayers paid the Duffs, the mayor's white-guy drinking buddies with Outfit connections whom Daley gave $100 million in city affirmative action cleaning contracts years ago, even though they weren't exactly black or female.

And Kass cites a memorable poem.

UPDATE: Tribune editorial:

The mayor seems to blame his workforce's wage and benefits increases for those higher costs. As if the increases in personnel costs that he approved were imposed on him by some unseen dictator.

Example: Daley recently inked contracts with 33 unions to provide raises for as many as 8,000 city workers. For 10 years! Imagine the new wage and pension burdens those contracts will create.

Canada in the News

At one point in the Republican debate the other night, Chris Matthews tried to play gotcha with Fred Thompson, asking him who's the leader of Canada. Harper, Fred said, and spoke well of our major trading partner. Later, Rudy Giuliani quipped one reason not to institute HillaryCare here --where would Canadians go for their health care? (the other question is where would we go?)

Universal health care is being touted as a panacea--John Stossel has a few thoughts about that. Consider what is really happening now. On Brit's show last night there was a story about high-risk preemies being born in Seattle and surrounds. Nothing too unusual about that, on its face, but these babies were born to Canadian mothers, who sometimes have to stay in the hospital for months. The reason? No room in Canada. No beds, no care. Such much for "free" and "universal" health care. Canadian taxpayers are paying through the nose for this of course---which has to be unsustainable.

One other minor point---these minors upon birth enjoy dual citizenship.

Hillary Wants YOU!

"To Hillary Rodham Clinton, self sufficiency is a vice." Nealz Nuze on Hillary's latest scam.

Hillary Wants YOU! (and she won't take no for an answer)

Previous posts: A Little History Quiz, Clintons in the News

Dog Bites Man

HT HotAir.

Bloody Greenpeace and the Left

Greenpeace goes red. Read on here.
Won't PETA see red?

A bloody split among the loony left.

And in other news the Goracle gets brushed back by a British judge. But this will doubtless not affect his Nobel Peace Prize chances, to be announced this Friday, which supposedly will encourage him to run for president. But then Hillary would see red, so I wouldn't bet on the Nobel. Bill has more clout than Al.

Governor Hold-Up

Continued wrangling in Springfield with the Dems balking at the leadership of their very own Governor Hold-Up. State Sen. Bill Brady (R-Bloomington):

This Governor is holding up the business of an entire state because he stubbornly insists on a healthcare program that lawmakers do not support," Sen. Brady said. "So it is rather ironic that he has still not fulfilled his obligations to appoint the members of a Board that oversees healthcare facilities in Illinois."

HT Illinois Review.

Previous posts: Governor No Credibility, Governor Mum, Governor Hellhole

Can BarackStar in Iowa?

Obama cultivating the youth vote in Iowa, hoping for a good harvest of teens to put him over the top in the January caucuses. Under a quirk in Iowa law, 17 year olds can participate in the caucus as long as they turn 18 by election day the next November. WSJ:

After a recent foreign-policy speech, the candidate invited some of the attending teens and their friends backstage. Told that 17-year-old Anna Murray was student senate president of Iowa City's West High School, he asked her advice on running for president. Ms. Murray, smiling broadly, was speechless. The next day she rushed up to her old government teacher, who is the student-senate adviser, to recount the tale. The Obama campaign is also actively cultivating teachers, along with high-school principals, using them for entree to the youngest voters. Sometimes Obama aides try to hunt the adults down at home, begging for classroom time.

(Gee, I wonder if they would be equally as open to appeals from Republicans.) Obama's field offices hold "BarackStar" sessions to proselytize teens and encourage them to distribute campaign literature at schools. Obviously this is a natural constituency for him--naive and inexperienced.

But even teachers and principals for Obama can't organize bus trips for kids to cut class to go to the Iowa caucus--it's held at night. And the arcane rules favor the veterans. So it remains an open question whether Barack can star in Iowa. (Hillary is the darling of the very organized Dem teachers' unions, after all.)

Related posts: Obama Old Hat, A Little History Quiz