RWN returns on Monday. Until then, have a great week-end, enjoy the links below, and consider this to be an open thread.

Video Of The Coulter Appearance On Hannity & Colmes Where RWN Is Mentioned

TimChapman Blog

Muslims ‘Still in Denial’ About 9/11, Pew Survey Finds

A Study Of Giving To Katrina Victims Shows That Democrats Are Much More Racist Than Republicans

Hang Right Politics

Bush Order Would Limit Property Seizures

Don Goldwater For Governor Of Arizona

A Message From TNR'S Lieberman-Loving Neocon Owner To Kos

The Daily Brief

Romenesko

Star Trek Jokes That Are So Incredibly Lame That They're Funny

The Adventures Of Chester

Winds Of Change

Michelle Malkin

Richard Morin at the WAPO presents these captivating study results:

"Are Republicans stingy but principled while Democrats are generous but racist?

"I wouldn't put it quite so starkly," said Stanford University professor Shanto Iyengar. He would prefer to call Democrats "less principled" rather than bigoted, based on his analysis of data collected in a recent online experiment that he conducted with The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com.

As reported in this column a few weeks ago, the study found that people were less likely to give extended aid to black Hurricane Katrina victims than to white ones. The race penalty, on average, totaled about $1,000 per black victim.

As Iyengar and his colleagues subsequently dug deeper into these data, another finding emerged: Republicans consistently gave less aid, and gave over a shorter period of time, to victims regardless of race.

Democrats and independents were far more generous; on average, they gave Katrina victims on average more than $1,500 a month, compared with $1,200 for Republicans, and for 13 months instead of nine.

But for Democrats, race mattered -- and in a disturbing way. Overall, Democrats were willing to give whites about $1,500 more than they chose to give to a black or other minority. (Even with this race penalty, Democrats still were willing to give more to blacks than those principled Republicans.) "Republicans are likely to be more stringent, both in terms of money and time, Iyengar said. "However, their position is 'principled' in the sense that it stems from a strong belief in individualism (as opposed to handouts). Thus their responses to the assistance questions are relatively invariant across the different media conditions. Independents and Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely to be affected by racial cues."

To test the effects of race, participants in the study were asked to read a news article about Katrina victims. Some read a story featuring a white person. Some read identical stories -- except the victim was black, Asian or Hispanic. Then they were asked how much assistance they think the government should give to help hurricane victims. Approximately 2,300 people participated in the study."

It's not a surprise to me that Republicans were less "generous" than Democrats if generosity is measured by how much government largesse they were willing to dole out.

On the other hand, all I have to say to the racist Democrats out there (and there are a lot more of them than there are racist Republicans) is, "Stop the hate, Ok?" Oh...and quit projecting your racist beliefs onto Republicans.

Could you look at a few of these ads? Just a few? Especially if you haven't ever clicked on one before? It would really help me show these advertisers that it's worth their time to advertise on RWN:

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RWN now has two banner ad slots available. You can purchase a 468x60 banner ad on RWN for $60 $50 a month (until Tuesday only). The banners appear on every page of RWN. If you're interested, send $50 to my Paypal account (which is also located in the support section -- please mention what the money is for in the comments section) and email me your 20kb or smaller banner ad at johnhawkins-at-rightwingnews.com. I will sell a maximum of 4 of these ads per month and if a refund is given for any reason, it will be prorated.

One of the wacky tricks that the left used in the 2004 elections was to suggest a draft themselves and then use the buzz that created as evidence that the Republicans would actually have a military draft if Bush was reelected.

That sounds completely nonsensical, but it's exactly what they did, and because their pals in the MSM published some silly, scaremongering stories about the possibility of a draft, it seemed to have an impact.

Bush, Rumsfeld, the military, and almost the entire Republican Party adamantly said over and over, in the strongest terms, that they didn't want a draft. Meanwhile, some Democrats, like Charles Rangel came out in favor of a draft. The reaction? Democrats screamed Republicans want a draft! Republicans want a draft! Republicans want a draft! It was completely ridiculous and many, myself included, said so.

Well yesterday, Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi came out in favor of a draft. Here's some of what Joan had to say:

"REINSTATE THE military draft and see how quickly the United States ends its war in Iraq.

Imagine if all our sons and daughters were at risk for deployment to the desert. Imagine if all our children faced the Al Qaeda-style butchery that took the lives of two American soldiers, Private First Class Thomas L. Tucker of Madras, Ore., and Private First Class Kristian Menchaca of Houston.

If we feared our children were next up to be gutted like fish, we might be less likely to shake our heads at crazy antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan. If turning 18 meant your kid's boots on the ground, a resolution to pull troops out of Iraq by a certain date might grab more than six votes in the US Senate.

...The country has not had a military draft since 1973, when the United States converted to an all-volunteer military. The registration requirement was suspended in 1975, but resumed again in 1980 under President Carter in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

During the Vietnam conflict, the draft sent hundreds of thousands of protesters to the streets. When war is not an abstraction but a personal, involuntary destination, the blanket rationale of war -- defending liberty -- receives tougher scrutiny. Then, politicians have to answer to every American family, not only to those whose loved ones volunteered for military service.

Either this war is worth every citizen's effort, or it's not worth any soldier's life."

A lot of people just have trouble wrapping their minds around this. Conservatives are hawkish and pro-military, yet they strongly oppose a draft. On the other hand, liberals are dovish, protest military recruiting, and raged against the draft in the sixties. Now, they're the ones calling for a draft. How can that be?

Actually, it makes perfect sense.

By and large, Conservatives oppose a draft because we believe it will reduce the quality of our forces, cut into public support for using the military, and will generally make our military less effective.

On the other hand, the liberals who support a draft do so because they believe it will reduce the quality of our forces, cut into public support for using the military, and will generally make our military less effective.

If the Democrats want to pick up the ball and run with a draft that liberals like Vennochi and Charles Rangel are suggesting, that's fine. But, this time around, Americans should be aware that it's the Republicans who oppose a draft and that almost everybody who supports it is a Democrat.

You don't want a draft? Well, don't worry because it's too politically unpopular and just isn't going to happen. But, if you don't believe that and are determined to vote against anyone who might implement a draft, vote against the Democrats.

Over at the Daily Kos, there's a recommended diary at krazypuppy, that explains that the terrorist ring down in Miami was busted -- get ready for this -- in order to distract people from John Kerry's attempts to cut'n'run in Iraq. No, REALLY! He believes this and worse yet, so many Kossacks agree with him that they turned this into a recommended diary.

Just take a look...

So the story of the Miami group of black militants that converted to Islam and want to blow up the Sears Tower really hits home with me.

A mission "just as good or greater than 9/11?"

They ran their group like "a military boot camp?"

"Kill all the devils we can??"

& worse of all:

They're black and Muslim!

Perfect! I mean, errr, well, keep reading. Did I mention 9/11?

These are pretty serious charges and in a post-9/11 world, we need to take seriously militant forces who go beyond talk & threaten our security.

But this stood out to me about the story:

There is no imminent threat to Miami or any other area because of these operations," said Richard Kolko, spokesman for FBI headquarters in Washington. He declined further comment.

Wait. Stop. There was NO imminent threat? Then why did you bust them now??

Here's why: TO SHUT YOU UP AGAIN.

In the same week that two Democratic resolutions forced the Bush and the GOP into the defensive by focusing attention on their incompetent management of the Iraq war, can we at least not be skeptical that this isn't an attempt by the Bush Administration to to change the focus away from Iraq?

Alberto Gonzales will be having a press conference. He'll say how grave a threat it was and will say once again we should give Bush everything he wants to pursue the "War on Terror" - NSA domestic spying, Iraq, and OUR OBEDIENCE.

Don't fall for it.

...Timeline of a Political Setup

Ok, now I'm going to get serious because this is the part that's truly dangerous.

Don't get me wrong, those kids - use your common sense - could've hurt somebody and needed attention, BUT they didn't need the damn FBI.

Put them in juvenile detention & de-program them. Or hell, send them to Chicago's Southside. Trust me - the locals would've straightened these "terrorists" real quick.

No, these seven were just fleas.

The real danger is the Bush Administration and Alberto Gonzales.

They are continuing to use the Justice Department as a political tool to drive their incompetent war & failed agenda.

The mind just reels. There are so many bizarre assertions in this post, that it's hard to know where to start.

To begin with, arresting terrorists has now been reduced to some sort of political trick? Why? Because the threat wasn't "imminent." Does that mean that the FBI should have waited until they were driving a truck bomb towards the Sears Tower and screaming, "Jihad! Jihad! Jihad!," out the windows to react? In the minds of Kossacks, I guess so.

And the point of this "distraction" is supposed to be to keep people from noticing that John Kerry is self-immolating in the Senate by offering a politically motivated proposal to cut and run from Iraq?

Maybe that explains the Volpac ad on the right side of RWN that has John Kerry's face on it, with cut-n-run posted above it, and the words, "Do you accept the Democrat strategy of retreat to defeat?" posted below. It's all part of Karl Rove's master plan to bury the whole, ugly incident before people find out about it.

Then there's the idea that this is all a big joke and we should just send them to, "juvenile detention & de-program them." Ehr...they wanted to blow up the Sears Tower! Let me repeat that: they wanted to blow up the Sears Tower! Yet, they need to go to "juvenile detention" and the "real danger is the Bush Administration and Alberto Gonzales?"

Yet, despite all of these ridiculous statements, the Kossacks loved this post so much that it became a recommended diary? The warped view of the world that so many of these hard core liberals seem to have these days is almost beyond belief and we should all be grateful that liberals with this mentality aren't running the war on terrorism.

"Seven young men arrested in an alleged plot against the Sears Tower were part of a group of "homegrown terrorists" who sought to work with al-Qaida but ended up conspiring with an informant, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Friday.

...The alleged terrorists - five U.S. citizens, a legal immigrant from Haiti and a Haitian national who was in this country illegally - were expected to appear in federal court in Miami later Friday. They had taken an oath to al-Qaida and sought help from someone they believed was a member of the terrorist organization, the indictment alleged." -- Associated Press

Yesterday, the champion of the unhinged left in the blogosphere, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga went after the liberals at the New Republic for roughing him up on the Ko$ola story.

"This is what the once-proud New Republic has evolved into -- just another cog of the Vast RIGHT Wing Conspiracy.

If you still hold a subscription to that magazine, it really is time to call it quits. If you see it in a magazine rack, you might as well move it behind the National Review or even NewsMax, since that's who they want to be associated with these days."

Well today, Les Siegel fired back at Kos and the rest of the blogosphere.

"It's a bizarre phenomenon, the blogosphere. It radiates democracy's dream of full participation but practices democracy's nightmare of populist crudity, character-assassination, and emotional stupefaction. It's hard fascism with a Microsoft face. It puts some people, like me, in the equally bizarre position of wanting desperately for Joe Lieberman to lose the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont so that true liberal values might, maybe, possibly prevail, yet at the same time wanting Lamont, the hero of the blogosphere, to lose so that the fascistic forces ranged against Lieberman might be defeated. (Every critical event in democracy is symbolic of the problem with democracy.)"

New Republic is a, "cog of the Vast RIGHT Wing Conspiracy?" Kos and Company are, "hard fascism with a Microsoft face?" Those are rough insults to hurl at fellow lefties. What's next? Will they be calling each other little Eichmans? Maybe they'll pull out the big guns, for liberals, and start comparing each other to George Bush.

Either way, it's hilarious!

Update #1: All sorts of fascinating side angles have popped up since this story hit the web. Here's one that really caught my eye, from Riehl World View. According to Dan Riehl, Jerome Armstrong of MyDD used to be some sort of an Astrologist/political forecaster/stock adviser and MyDD started out as some sort of Astrology/stock page. Look at this quote from someone called "Starmother" on MyDD on April 18, 2001:

"Starmother says: I am quoting a trader "The key here is investor and business confidence, and the only way the Fed can turn that around is by springing a surprise on the market," said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo. "That's exactly what we got today."; My feelings are that this is the making of a fortune off of the market - always look to the event and say to yourself who stands to make the most money from it. With the aspects today this kind of upsurge is not a given we do of course have a lovely trine from Sun/Merc in Aries to Pluto/Mars/Chiron in Sag, of course the market may be feeling the Venus station coming on 4/20, granted. But this sick feeling about the economy still sticks in my solar plexus. The market is flying up really high +420 but they had to cut the interest rate at the fed to manipulate (Pluto) the market and the Moon entered Pisces today at market opening will be a square with Pluto Thurs. at 2:56 pm EDT. Pluto is billionaires. I also heard that the Fed held this meeting to lower by 1/2% over the phone this morning. The DJIA soared at 11 am EDT, Being a Cancer rising chart (I use Koch) the moon in Pisces is in the 8th house disposited by Pluto, a plutonian influence is assuring us that the truth will squeeze out soon. Uranus is there in the 8th also with Neptune in the 7th house. What is that archangel trumpets? Or the Veil being lowered? Kate Plumbs article in MTA is coming to pass I think."

Starmother? Manipulating Pluto? Feeling the Venus Station? Does this mean a Mark Warner victory in 2008 is, "in the stars," since he hired Armstrong? Has Armstrong ever read Kos's palm? Come on, inquiring minds want to know.

"The duo of Eric Lichtblau and James Risen have published the details of yet another classified national-security program. This time, they exposed the workings of a database of financial records that the administration has used to track al Qaeda's banking transactions:

The Bush administration has made no secret of its campaign to disrupt terrorist financing, and President Bush, Treasury officials and others have spoken publicly about those efforts. Administration officials, however, asked The New York Times not to publish this article, saying that disclosure of the Swift program could jeopardize its effectiveness. They also enlisted several current and former officials, both Democrat and Republican, to vouch for its value.

Bill Keller, the newspaper's executive editor, said: "We have listened closely to the administration's arguments for withholding this information, and given them the most serious and respectful consideration. We remain convinced that the administration's extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest."

According to the NYT's own reporting, the program is legal. The program is helping us catch terrorists. The administration has briefed the appropriate members of Congress. The program has built-in safeguards to prevent abuse. And yet, with nothing more than a vague appeal to the "public interest" (which apparently is not outweighed in this case by the public's interest in apprehending terrorists), the NYT disregards all that and publishes intimate, classified details about the program. Keller and his team really do believe they are above the law." -- Steven Spruiell

You know, the United States spends billions of dollars every year to improve technology, hires huge staffs, works to gain intelligence assets, negotiates with foreign governments for more information, interrogates prisoners, on and on and on. The money, work, and effort expended to protect us from another terrorist attack is just endless.

But, the terrorists have it easier. All they have to do every day is just open up the New York Times, where they recklessly and deliberately undermine our national security on a regular basis by giving the terrorists, and everyone else in the world, all the details of incredibly sensitive classified programs.

So, how about a new motto for the New York Times to replace "All The News That's Fit to Print." How about,

"Sure, we might be helping the terrorists kill thousands of Americans, but if it hurts the Bush Administration or helps us get a Pulitzer, it's worth it."

It's not quite as short or as catchy as the old motto, but at least it would have the benefit of being accurate.

Over at Think Progress, they're using Dan Bartlett's courtesy against him:

"Matt Lauer gave Bush councelor Dan Bartlett the opportunity to point out one person “calling for the white flag of surrender.” Bartlett couldn’t do it.

LAUER: The white flag of surrender — that’s a very dramatic and harsh expression to use against the Democrats. Have you heard any Democrats calling for the white flag of surrender?

BARTLETT: Well, I have heard a lot of Democrats call this President a liar, saying we’ve gone into Iraq for the wrong reasons, saying that he’s incomptent. So there is a lot of heated rhetoric in Washington. But what we see in the heart wrenching developments, when we see our 2 soldiers lose their lives in such a horrific way, is that we’re up against a very determined enemy. This is an epic struggle in which we have to be committed to winning."

Know why Bartlett dodged the question? Because if he starts naming off the Democrats who want to give in to Al-Qaeda in Iraq, he'll be up to his eyeballs in offended liberals all complaining that it's unfair to label their position as "surrender," even as they ceaselessly argue that we should admit defeat and let the terrorists win.

In my book, if you say the war is lost in Iraq and you want to cut and run? Then you want to surrender. You say we need to set a timetable, which is going to be based on politics, not the conditions on the ground? Then you want to surrender. You want to wave the white flag like a Frenchman and give up without victory.

Maybe Dan Bartlett wouldn't name names, but I will. Here are just some of the many, many Democrats who want to wave the white flag of surrender in Iraq: Barbara Boxer, Max Cleland, Russ Feingold, Tom Harkin, Gary Hart, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Michael Moore, John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, Cindy Sheehan...you can go on and on.

If it bothers liberals to be accused of, "calling for the white flag of surrender," then they should stop calling for the white flag of surrender.

From the WAPO:

"Doug Hattaway, a Democratic communications consultant who worked for Al Gore's presidential campaign in 2000, recalled a moment of epiphany during a focus group of Democratic operatives and marketing professionals he attended last year. The participants were asked to say what Democratic accomplishments they were most proud of. Their responses filled several pages on a flip chart set up in the focus group facility. "We all realized there was nothing there within the past 30 years," Hattaway said.

Many Democratic politicians are still tied to past glory and what worries some of the progressives trying to generate new ideas is that elected officials are divorced from what is a lively debate-in-the-making on national security and domestic challenges. "Somehow or another this conversation does not really make its way to Democratic politicians very much," said Michael Tomasky, editor of the liberal American Prospect.

The lone exception he cited was Bill Clinton and his presidency.

Baer offered a sharper critique of the politicians, criticizing as poll-driven and uninspired the 2006 campaign agenda issued by congressional Democrats. "You could go through it line by line and write the poll questions that generated each line," he said.

The people in the middle of the Democrats' idea week seem to agree on another point, which is that the two-decade-old battle between party centrists and liberals may have run its course. "I think the old centrist-liberal debate in the party is to some extent dead," Teixeira said. "I think people have lost interest in that."

The Democrats have lots of ideas. The problem is that their ideas aren't popular. You want to know the ideas that are near and dear to the heart of the Democrats? Just listen to them regularly and look at the issues that they talk about with a lot of passion.

They want to cut and run in Iraq. They want to impeach Bush for whatever they think will fly. They want to roll back Bush's tax cuts. They want to sign on to the Kyoto Treaty or create something similar, which would do major damage to America's economy. They want to socialize our health care.

So why don't they talk about those issues? Because the American people don't want any of those things. So, as Baer referenced, they came up with a bloodless, poll-tested agenda full of items that they thought might appeal to the voters instead. But, we're not talking about issues that really move them.

That's why these efforts to come up with "new ideas" keep failing -- because as Teixeira said, "The old centrist-liberal debate in the party is to some extent dead." What Teixeira didn't say is that the reason that debate isn't as hot is because the centrists lost. There isn't a free spirited debate about ideas happening on the left. Instead, what you find is a lot of Bush bashing and debate about how to beat Republicans. In the minds of most people on the left, the ideas are set -- the only question is, "How do we foist these ideas on a public that doesn't currently want them?" To do that, they've encouraged activism among judges and they consistently lie about the things they really care about in hopes of being able to do a bait-and-switch on the American people when they get into office.

Tomasky was right about Bill Clinton though. He did have a new idea, courtesy of Dick Morris: triangulation. In other words, his new idea was to go along with some big Republican ideas in hopes of being able to get in office and stay in office long enough to implement a few liberal ideas. The problem with that was that when Clinton strayed to the left too much, right at the beginning of his presidency, it helped lead to a Republican landslide in 1994. That, along with all the scandals, helped keep him from being able to implement a lot of Democratic ideas nearer and dearer to his heart, like Hillarycare. So in the end, Clinton's biggest accomplishments, NAFTA, Welfare Reform, DOMA, and balancing the budget, all turned out to be things that were nearer and dearer to conservative hearts than liberal ones.

Long-term, there are only three plausible ways out of this mess for the Democrats. They can hope the Republicans completely collapse and put the Democrats in power basically by default. So far? It hasn't happened, although Bush and the Republicans haven't done themselves any favors this election cycle.

Another option would be to convince the American people that liberal ideas are really better than conservative ideas. The left is forever trying to do this and they've had successes in some areas, but overall, they've failed. This is why a liberal who admits his liberalism can't get elected President while Republican candidates always call themselves conservatives, even if they don't really qualify for the label.

The last option would be for the centrists to actually defeat the liberals and move the party more to the middle. That would be the best strategy for the Democrats to pursue, but the liberals have the passion, the purse strings, and the power in the party and they've used those factors to dominate the debate.

For the moment? The libs are just going to keep treading water and if anything, will probably feel validated by the gains they're likely to make in 2006, which, if they happen, will have much more to do with Republican failures than Democratic successes. That means the complacency will continue and the real pressure to come up with ideas just won't be there.

Hat tip to Betsy's Page for the story.

Domestic

Seven Arrested In Sears Tower Plot

Senate Rejects Calls On Iraq Troop Pullout

House Approves Weaker Line Item Veto

Successful Missile Intercept Reported In Us Sea-Based Defense Test

Celebs To Join Cindy Sheehan In Hunger Strike (Go Hunger!)

Supposedly, Chafee's Not Leaving the GOP

Foreign

Former Defense Sec. Perry Wants N. Korean Missile Destroyed

Three Foiled Hijack Plots Revealed in U.S. Document

5 Troops Killed; Iraqi Police Free 17 Hostages

Afghan Leader Condemns U.S. Anti-Terror Tactics (Sounds Like Political Posturing)

Hamas: Islam Will Conquer US And Britain

Columns

Noel Sheppard: The Deflating Democrats

Dan Riehl: 'Astrologer' Jerome Armstrong?

Jack Kelly: Iraq, Vietnam, The MSM & Dan Rather

The Arizona Republic: Barbaric Acts Against GIs Have No Equivalent

Iain Murray: The Hockey Stick Is Dead. Long Live the Hockey Stick!

Steven Spruiell: NYT: We're Still Above the Law

Left-Overs

Representative Steve King (R-Iowa) Has Apologized To Helen Thomas For Suggesting That Abu Musab Al Zarqawi's "72 Virgins In The Hell He's At" Each Looked Like Her.

Ann Coulter Says 'Insane' Democrats Should Win In 2006

Democratic Underground: Miami Terror Raid Keeps the Black Man Down

Video: A Giant Centipede That Actually Kills And Eats Bats

Humor: The Baby Shiloh -- Chosen By God To Stop Global Warming

Humor: Fear The Kos

Website Of The Day: The Truth Laid Bear

Here are my 20 selections for the Right-Of-Center Bloggers Select The Worst People In America post:

Al Gore: For the election conspiracy theories he helped get started and for the global warming hysteria he has also encouraged.

Al Sharpton: A race baiting poverty pimp.

Bill Clinton: A former President who disgraced the office and who has broken tradition by publicly trying to undermine the President, especially on foreign policy.

Cindy Sheehan: Exploiting her son's death for political gain, profit, and fame.

Fred Phelps: The God Hates F*gs lunatic who organizes protests of funerals.

Jesse Jackson: Race baiting poverty pimp #2.

Jimmy Carter: One of the worst Presidents of the last hundred years. Completely incompetent, hopelessly naive, a strong supporter of various dictators, and he also has broken tradition by publicly trying to undermine the President, especially on foreign policy.

John Kerry: For stroking the election paranoia in this country, via his wife among other methods, and for wanting to cut and run from Iraq for political gain.

John McCain: If the Republicans are doing something dumb, you can almost always count on McCain to be leading the charge.

John Murtha: The leader of the cut'n'run caucus.

Joe Wilson: A habitual liar and an egomaniac who caused countless problems by shamelessly lying over and over again.

Louis Farrakhan: An anti-semitic racist kook.

Paris Hilton: A stupid, spoiled slut who has helped popularize her idiotic lifestyle.

Michael Moore: The left's master propagandist.

Michael Schiavo: A cold blooded, vile human being who I believe, in the end, wanted his wife to die for no other reason than to stick it to her parents.

Noam Chomsky: The poster boy for the hate-America left.

Ramsey Clark: The man has never met an enemy of America that he didn't want to find a way to help.

Ted Kennedy: If it's bad for America and there's political gain to be had by supporting it, count on Teddy to be there.

Ted Rall: A bitter, spite filled ultra-lib, without the slightest shred of human decency.

Ward Churchill: The archetype of the America hating, loony liberal professor.

Of course, I could have added in spies, traitors like Jane Fonda, or other assorted bad Americans, but I wanted to focus on bigger, more current names.

Also, here are a few other assorted things of interest about the survey:

-- Despite the fact that George Bush has been bashed on the right relentlessly over the last few months, he didn't receive a single vote for this list.

-- The lefty I was most surprised not to see make the list? Robert Byrd. A lot of venom gets aimed at old Sheets, but somehow he didn't quite make the list.

-- I was a little surprised that Michael Moore ended up in first place. After all, he has been relatively quiet since 2004.

-- The three biggest names who may be running for President on the Democratic side in 2008 -- Clinton, Kerry, and Gore -- all finished in the top 5. That might be a strong indication that they're so unpopular on the right that any of them might help drive turnout for the GOP candidate.

-- The mainstream media keeps trying to convince people that John McCain is the front runner for the Republican nomination. Well, he just tied with Chuck Schumer, Paris Hilton, Jane Fonda on a list of the worst Americans chosen by conservatives. Does that sound like a front runner to you?

Last night, Ann Coulter was on Hannity and Colmes and they discussed the Murtha "fragging" comment she made in the interview with RWN that went up last night.

That interview is the gift that keeps on giving publicity to her and to RWN...

"I think An Inconvenient Truth is a convenient starting point for changing hearts and minds on the global warming issue. But in order to truly make a difference, I believe it needs some sort of marketing tie-in. People need to know this problem hits close to home. And they need to know it transcends mere politics. They need a reason to cross partisan boundaries—a reason to unite on the steps of Capitol Hill and hold hands and sing the Pledge of Allegiance and/or We Shall Overcome.

Only one thing can compel people to act this way. And that one thing is Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s baby, Shiloh.

In order to stop global warming, Al Gore has to threaten to kill that baby." -- Jonathan David Morris and yes, it is satire.

* Learn more about Al Gore's quest to save the earth from Manbearpig by watching this video (Warning: some obscene language).

Earlier this afternoon, I was pleased to have the opportunity to get in on a teleconference about the Voting Rights Act with Republican Congressmen Steve King, Lynn Westmoreland, and Phil Gingrey.

As you may have heard, the Voting Rights Act was scheduled to be voted on, but the vote was postponed.

Here's the short version of the teleconference:

-- A lot of Republicans were upset that they weren't allowed to have an opportunity to amend the Voting Rights Act because the bill would stay in force until 2032. So essentially, either they had to make changes now or wait 25 years for another shot. That's why the vote was delayed.

-- Steve King wants to dump the mandated requirement to provide multilingual ballots because in his view, it's expensive and practically pointless. After all, anyone born here should be able to speak English and anyone who becomes an American citizen is required to learn English. So, why force every state to provide ballots in languages other than English? If they want to do it, fine, but King thinks it shouldn't be mandatory.

-- Another problem is that some of the people from Southern states resent having to run every minor change they make through the Department of Justice based on what the voting rights situation was in 1965. To tell you the truth, I think they have a great point. An American who's in the minority, or any other American for that matter, probably has a better chance of having his vote counted in South Carolina or Mississippi than he does of having it correctly tabulated in South Dakota or Wisconsin, given some of the shenanigans that have gone on in those states. So why should they still be penalized for things that happened 40 years ago?

-- King thinks that it will be close, but if the Republican leadership backs it, the multilingual ballot requirement can be dumped. As far as the situation with the Southern states goes, it sounds like they're just shooting to make it easier for counties in the affected states to get out from under the DOJ requirements, rather than a blanket removal.

-- Whatever the case may be, provisions of the Voting Rights Act aren't scheduled to expire until 2007, so they do have plenty of time to vote and eventually, the Voting Rights Act will be passed.

Keith Olbermann has a book coming out later this year entitled, The Worst Person In the World: And 119 More Strong Contenders.

Sounds like a fun topic for a book, doesn't it? In fact, it sounded like so much fun that I decided to modify it a bit and turn it into a poll topic for the right side of the blogosphere. But, what definition should be used for the "worst American?" Well, since we're paying homage to Keith Olbermann here, it seemed fair to use his definition:

"It's a euphemism for somebody who's wrong and egregiously stupid and abusing their own position."

The only real caveat I gave to the bloggers being polled was that no serial killers or mass murderers were allowed. Everyone knows they're rotten people and there didn't seem to be a point to having them clutter up the list.

So, Right Wing News emailed more than 225 right-of-center bloggers and asked them to send in an unranked list of 1-20 of the "worst" Americans, going by how Keith Olbermann defines the word. Representatives from the following 51 blogs responded...

Aaron's CC, Ankle Biting Pundits, Annika's Journal, The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, Atlas Shrugs, Bad Example, The Baseball Crank, Being American in T.O., BlameBush!, Blogs For Bush, Blogs of War, Brainster's Blog, Classical Values, Cobb, The Club For Growth Blog, dcthornton.com, Drumwaster's Rants, Dummocrats, Ed Driscoll, Election Projection, Free Will, Generation Why?, Hog Haven, Hugh Hewitt (MKH), In The Bullpen, Iowa Voice, Inside Larry's Head, Isaac Schrödinger, JackLewis, My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, Musings, The Nose On Your Face, Patterico's Pontifications, Damian Penny, The Pink Flamingo Bar & Grill, Potfry, PrestoPundit, Pubilus Pundit, Red-State, Relapsed Catholic, Right Angle Blog, Right Thinking Girl, Right Wing News, Debbie Schlussel, Shots Across The Bow, Sister Toldjah, Slobokan's Site Of Schtuff, Solomonia, The Real Ugly American, Villainous Company, Wires From The Bunker

Without further ado, here are the worst Americans according to the right side of the blogosphere:

Honorable Mentions: Chuck Schumer (5), John McCain (5), Paris Hilton (5), Jane Fonda (5)

29) Pinch Sulzberger (6)
29) Pat Robertson (6)
29) George Clooney (6)
28) Barbra Streisand (7)
27) Ted Rall (7)
26) Fred Phelps (7)
25) Natalie Maines (7)
23) Paul Krugman (8)
23) Barbara Boxer (8)
22) Dan Rather (9)
21) Ward Churchill (10)
18) Al Sharpton (11)
18) Harry Reid (11)
18) Al Franken (11)
17) Keith Olbermann (12)
16) Cynthia McKinney (13)
13) Howard Dean (15)
13) Noam Chomsky (15)
13) Jimmy Carter (15)
12) Bill Clinton (16)
10) Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (18)
10) Jesse Jackson (18)
9) George Soros (19)
7) Nancy Pelosi (22)
7) John Murtha (22)
5) John Kerry (23)
5) Al Gore (23)
4) Cindy Sheehan (26)
3) Hillary Clinton (27)
2) Ted Kennedy (28)
1) Michael Moore (36)

Rarely, do I post like just to tell you to check out a video, but this is great! It's another Lazy Sunday parody, but this time, it's straight out of Iraq. It's called Lazy Ramadi. Enjoy!

Hat tip to Blackfive for pointing this out.

PS: There is one beeped profanity, but otherwise it's pretty tame.

Are you ready for an exciting foray into the seamy underbelly of the blogosphere? Well then, strap on your seatbelt and let me tell you a little bit about the still unfolding Kos-ola scandal.

To make a long story short, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga of the Daily Kos has had a long business relationship with Jerome Armstrong, who has left MyDD to consult.

And what's interesting about that is people have noticed that in several instances, after money has gone into Jerome Armstrong's hands, the people shelling out the cash suddenly seem to have good things happen to them on the Daily Kos.

Three examples noted by Jim Geraghty over at TKS include:

-- Kos doing a u-turn on his support for Paul Hackett and backing Sherrod Brown, who had previously hired Armstrong, instead.

-- Jon Corzine paying Armstrong's consulting firm and getting a diary at the Daily Kos three days later.

-- The strong support Kos has had for Mark Warner, another Armstrong client, despite the fact that Warner has strong ties to the DLC, an organization Kos seems to loathe.

Interestingly enough, although this story has started to pick up steam because it has been revealed that Jerome Armstrong was engaged in some shady stock deals (along with some other factors that will be talked about momentarily), it has been percolating for longer than most people realize. In fact, Salon noted the sometimes odd synergy between Kos and Armstrong back on May 30, 2006:

"The online unity was shattered, however, in October when Sherrod Brown, an outspokenly liberal seven-term congressman from Ohio, announced that he would run for the seat. Armstrong, who had been working as a consultant for Brown, encouraged an online rebellion against Hackett. Before long, Moulitsas and other bloggers had abandoned their once-favorite son, arguing, along with Democratic Party leaders, that Brown was more electable. In one post,, on Oct. 6, Moulitsas wrote, "It might be a good idea for Hackett to stand down." This shocked many readers who had cheered another Kos post just two days earlier, in which Moulitsas seemed to endorse Hackett in a race against Brown. "Give me an Iraq vet over a career politician," he wrote.

"It looked like Jerome and Markos were using their big-box blogs to steamroll into Ohio," said Russell Hughlock, aka Pounder, an electrical engineer who runs the BuckeyeStateBlog. "A lot of people left Kos ... because they got pissed."

...Armstrong's friendship with Moulitsas, whose Web site attracts more traffic than the next three largest liberal blogs combined, is the topic of extensive discussion on DailyKos and other sites. The pair's friendship dates back to 2002, and the early days of the Dean campaign, when Moulitsas began blogging for Armstrong's MyDD, the home page for many of Dean's early supporters. In addition to the Hackett posts, bloggers have wondered if Armstrong's work for Warner caused Moulitsas to abandon his once ferocious campaign to shame any Democrat who associated with the DLC. "We need to make the DLC radioactive," Kos wrote in August 2005. "No calls for a truce will be brooked."

Moulitsas says he does not identify Warner with the DLC, especially when compared to other prospective presidential candidates. As for the lack of recent rants against the organization, he says he no longer rails against the DLC because he does not want to raise its profile. "I realized that the more I talked about them the more relevant they became," he said. "That was my realization last summer." As for his friendship with Armstrong, Moulitsas makes no apologies. "There is no doubt that Jerome impacts my thinking and my thinking impacts his," he said. "The fact is that Jerome and I talk a lot."

So, does this all point to a Kos/Armstrong backdoor deal? Although some of these maneuvers on Kos's part are admittedly more than a little bit suspicious, it doesn't mean that he's on the take.

-- Brown was a better candidate than Hackett.

-- Corzine may have gotten a diary at the Daily Kos based on Armstrong's suggestion and what blogger would say, "no," to having a Senator posting guest blogs?

-- Mark Warner would be the best candidate that the Democrats have, although it is very odd that Kos, a guy who despised the DLC and was talking openly about trying to take them down, suddenly supported a DLC connected candidate.

Put it all together and the most likely explanation would seem to be that Kos is good friends with Armstrong and pays a lot of attention to what he tells him. In other words, one of the fringe benefits of hiring Armstrong may be knowing that your consultant appears to have a lot of sway with the guy running the biggest liberal blog on the net.

Now, if that was all there was to it, I wouldn't bother to write about it. But, in the course of reacting to this story, Kos sent out a missive to a private email list of liberal bloggers called "Townhouse" -- and told them not to discuss the story. Wait a second...there's a list of liberal bloggers out there where they discuss what stories are to be talked about and what stories are going to be ignored? Well, well, well.

Here's part of the email Kos sent out, via The Plank:

"I am exploring legal options against some of the wingnut bloggers who are claiming I'm syphoning netroots money into consultants and my own pockets. Note how Glenn Reynolds is fueling it with his typical passive aggressive, "I don't think it's a big deal, but let me provide links to everyone who thinks this is THE BIGGEST STORY EVER!"

...This story will percolate in wingnut circles until then, but I haven't gotten a single serious media call about it yet. Not one. So far, this story isn't making the jump to the traditional media, and we shouldn't do anything to help make that happen.

My request to you guys is that you ignore this for now. It would make my life easier if we can confine the story. Then, once Jerome can speak and defend himself, then I'll go on the offensive (which is when I would file any lawsuits) and anyone can pile on. If any of us blog on this right now, we fuel the story. Let's starve it of oxygen. And without the "he said, she said" element to the story, you know political journalists are paralyzed into inaction."

Isn't it fascinating to see that the same liberal bloggers who claim conservatives are mind-numbed robots are getting marching orders from Kos behind-the-scenes?

Moreover, this apparently isn't the first time this "Townhouse" list has had a big impact on how the liberal blogosphere behaves. Via Redstate, take a look at what happened to the Online Integrity project, a bi-partisan effort to set some standards for conduct in the blogosphere that originally had more than a little left-wing support, after it hit the Townhouse list:

"With the reaction against OI at Townhouse, left-bloggers began dropping out of the effort en masse. Stoller, previously supportive, sent some e-mails which I find frankly dishonest (again, that I can forward to you) about his reservations, and his decision to withdraw. SusanG of dKos, previously an avid supporter, e-mailed to rescind her participation. Jonathan Singer of MyDD, upon learning of his blogging colleagues’ opposition, also e-mailed to rescind his participation. The few left-bloggers that did stay on board either laid low and said nothing (ie, mcjoan) or were ejected from Townhouse for their refusal to conform. This last was, in fact, the fate of Maryscott O’Conner of My Left Wing, whom you should speak with. Notably, in the end, the only two significant left-bloggers who remained willing to speak publicly in favor of the privacy concept were Ms O’Conner and Armando of dKos."

There were people kicked off the email list for refusing to toe-the-line? Tsk, tsk tsk. But, it could be worse. What if refusing to bow to Kos actually costs bloggers money? Over at The Plank, they're speculating that Kos and Company might be controlling the behavior of liberal bloggers through the "Townhouse" list by threatening to yank them from the liberal advertising network at BlogAds.

"Along with Armstrong and MyDD's Chris Bowers, Kos runs a BlogAds advertising network called Advertising Liberally, to which a number of "Townhouse" members belong. (If you want a fuller understanding of how BlogAds advertising networks operate, and how they allow lower-traffic blogs to gain more clout with advertisers by combining their traffic, read this piece.) Therefore, Kos (along with Armstrong and Bowers) gets to decide which blogs belong--and don't belong--to Advertising Liberally, which means a lot of these blogs' financial health hinges upon staying in Kos's good graces. Is it any wonder they're so obedient?"

I run the conservative network for BlogAds, so I can answer a few questions, asked and unasked about this.

-- Would getting kicked out of the liberal advertising network cost a liberal blog a lot of money? Yes. They could still sell ads on the main website, but a lot of advertisers buy their ads on those networks so it would definitely sting to get kicked off the list.

-- Could Kos kick someone off the network for disagreeing with him? I can't speak for the arrangement BlogAds has with those guys, but I have complete control over who gets in my network and who doesn't. So, if I were the sort of person who was inclined to kick someone out for the pettiest of reasons, could I do it and get away with it? Absolutely, and my assumption is that Kos could do it as well.

-- I can tell you for a fact that there has already been a purge of liberal blogs from the network -- although, ostensibly, the reasons had nothing to do with ideology or personal issues with Kos.

So, does this mean Kos is explicitly using fear of lost ad revenues to keep people in line? Again, probably not. But, look at it this way: Kos has proven himself to be extremely vindictive towards liberals who don't toe the line, (See his latest comments about The New Republic for a perfect example) and he has an enormous blog. Given that, would it be a big surprise if there were liberal bloggers who were really worried about getting on the wrong side of a guy who can send or deny them endless fountains of traffic -- and who has control over how they get paid? Actually, it wouldn't be a big surprise at all.

Put it all together and you may have a lot of sound of fury signifying nothing -- but, it sure is fun to watch it all unfold.

Update #1: The Sanctuary, Via Allah at Hot Air, explains who's really behind these problems for Kos:

Update #2: Interestingly enough, The Plank, over at the very liberal New Republic, has been running point on this story and they have some more behind-the-scenes emails from liberal bloggers on the TownHouse mailing list, who were privately concerned about how this whole story makes Kos and Armstrong look bad. Check them out.

Also, the borderline insane Kos response to the original work New Republic did on the story is just too good not to quote from:

"Ludicrous, all of it, but that's the new rules of the game. TNR and its enablers are feeling the heat of their own irrelevance and this is how they fight it -- by undermining the progressive movement. Zengerle has made common cause with the wingnutosphere, using the laughable "kosola" frame they created and emailing his "scoops" to them for links. This is what the once-proud New Republic has evolved into -- just another cog of the Vast RIGHT Wing Conspiracy.

If you still hold a subscription to that magazine, it really is time to call it quits. If you see it in a magazine rack, you might as well move it behind the National Review or even NewsMax, since that's who they want to be associated with these days.

...It is now beyond clear that the dying New Republic is mortally wounded and cornered, desperate for relevance. It has lost half its circulation since the blogs arrived on the scene and they no longer (thank heavens!) have a monopoly on progressive punditry. We have hit their bottom line, we are hitting their patron saint hard (Joe Lieberman) and this is how they respond. By going after the entire movement."

See? It's not about Kos. It's actually about, "the entire movement." And when New Republic posts something that makes Kos look bad, the entire movement suffers which means they're conservatives....or something. Liberal logic can be a little hard to follow sometimes...

There are a lot of liberals out there who've called George Bush a liar because no large quanities of WMDs had been found in Iraq.

It didn't matter that plenty of Democrats with access to intelligence reports came to exactly the same conclusion; it was, "Bush lied and people died."

It didn't matter that intelligence agencies all over the world also believed Saddam had WMDs. It was, "Bush lied and people died."

It didn't matter that Iraq's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, told us that Saddam had WMDs and wanted more. It was, "Bush lied and people died." It's such a great slogan and it fits on a bumper sticker, so it has to be right!

We even found small amounts of WMDs in Iraq. But it was still, "Bush lied and people died." Listen to it: it rhymes!

Well now, with the announcement that over 500 WMDS have been found in Iraq, we have a much better picture of what was happening.

It's now clear that Saddam Hussein had previously manufactured weapons of mass destruction, had used them on his own people, had plans to make more according to the Deulfer report, and had stockpiles of WMDs on hand when we went to war against him.

So where does that leave the anti-war crowd? Arguing that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and intended to make more, but that he wasn't making any at the moment when we hit him, so we had nothing to worry about on the WMD front?

Those type of tortured arguments are exactly why no one trusts the left with our national defense in the first place...

Foreign

The United States Has Found 500 Chemical Weapons In Iraq Since 2003, And More Weapons Of Mass Destruction Are Likely To Be Uncovered

Former Mossad Chief: Iran Weakening, May Do Deal

Saudi Claim: Iran War 'Could Triple Oil Price'

The Marine Corps On Wednesday Announced That Seven Marines And A Sailor Had Been Charged With Murder In The April Death Of An Iraqi Civilian

Domestic

Hastert Doubts Alien Bill In 2006

Illegal Alien Rapes Puppy. Suspect Felt There Was No Problem, Claiming Animal Was His To Abuse

Senate Kills Minimum Wage Increase (Good Job)

A Kos-Ola TimeLine

Court Denies City's Attempt To Block Soledad Cross Ruling (This Is An Egregious Abuse Of The First Amendment)

Columns

'Godless' Causes Liberals to Pray ... For a Book Burning

Mark Steyn: Ann Coulter -- America's Fiery, Blond Commentatrix

Dennis Prager: Why Liberals Fear Global Warming More Than Conservatives Do

Matt Labash: Riding With The Kossacks. Markos Moulitsas Zúniga And Me

Marc Cooper: The Democrats' Electoral Roulette

David Limbaugh: The Democrats' Withdrawal Conundrum

James Lileks: Democrats' 'New Direction For America' Is A Wrong Turn

Peggy Noonan: Off Base

Left-Overs

Judge Throws Out Rape Case After Prosecutor Late To Court

Christians On Football Film: Give Us A G! (Free LA Times Reg Req)

Steven Hawking Was "Very Worried About Global Warming." He Said He Was Afraid That Earth "Might End Up Like Venus, At 250 Degrees Centigrade And Raining Sulfuric Acid." (Can He Seriously Believe That?)

The Blogosphere's Smoke-Filled Backroom

Humor: Goat Claims He Was With 20th Hijacker the Night Before 9-11

Website Of The Day: RedState

Earlier this afternoon, I was in on a teleconference with Congressmen Jack Kingston and John Doolittle about what's being hailed in some corners as the death of the Senate Immigration Bill this year.

Kingston and Doolittle opened things up by saying that the death tax and line item veto are going to come back up again. They also talked about public hearings for the immigration bill and said it would be brought back up in the House again in August.

Then, it went to the Q&A phase. Here's a general synopsis of what was said from my notes (Nothing below is a direct quote).

John Hawkins: Most people are saying that this means the bill is dead for the year. Do you believe that is the case?

Jack Kingston: I hope not. We have a chance to come back after the hearings and get a bill done. I would not support this if I thought it was a way to let the bill die slowly.

John Doolittle: I think the intent is to have a bill. Our problem is reconciling our bill with what the Senate has done.

Question: How do you think the President will come down on the bill?

Jack Kingston: I think these hearings will push the President in our direction.

Question: If a bill doesn't happen, are you comfortable with that going into the 2006 elections?

Jack Kingston: I'd like us to be in Conference. Unfortunately, there was a lot of outrage when the Senate passed its bill and while we understood that, they didn't seem to get it. We want to separate ourselves politically from the Senate on the issue.

John Hawkins: What happens if the bills can't be reconciled in Conference? Does that mean we won't see any improvements on border security and illegal immigration crackdowns this year?

John Doolittle: Well, the Bush administration is already doing more because of the debate. They've put the National Guard on the border. They're doing more funding for immigration enforcement. We also authorized the completion of a fence on the border. So we're already making progress. Those things would have never happened if not for the House bill. I think the administration will ramp up enforcement law.

Jack Kingston: They've also ended catch and release (Hawkins' note: I don't know about that). The Guard will continue without a bill. Virtual fences and grants will continue without a bill. We need to pass the Dave Drier ID act

Question: What's the perfect scenario for immigration? What would a perfect bill look like?

Jack Kingston: You need border security, employer sanctions, clarity and certainty of the law, biometric ID cards, and we need to get rid of birthright citizenship.

Question: Are you seeing a change on the other side of the aisle on the war?

Jack Kingston: I think so. I think Murtha is finding himself in a position where he only has the hard left following him. His supporters are Dennis Kucinich types.

John Doolittle: I think the American people think we did the right thing; they're just not sure we can be successful. We need to show them what we can do.

Jack Kingston: What if we pulled out? We'd have no credibility. The third largest oil-producing country in the world could be run by terrorists. What do you say to the families who lost people? That it was for nothing? It would be a terrible idea.

In Utah's Third District, John Jacob is taking on the incumbent, Chris Cannon, in what's shaping up to be one of the most hotly contested primary races in America.

Cannon, a 5-time incumbent, is a huge supporter of the amnesty bill in the Senate and to give you an idea of how pro-illegal immigrant Cannon is, just take a look at this quote from him back in 2002:

“We love immigrants in Utah. And we don't make the distinction very often between legal and illegal.”

Now that immigration has become the biggest issue in the primary, Cannon has started talking tough about enforcing the borders, but it seems to be a little late for Cannon to get his credibility back on the issue.

Still, Cannon is a 5-time incumbent, has the support of most of the Republican establishment, including George Bush, and was ahead 48-28 in a poll of Third District residents done in mid-May. So, can he be beaten? Maybe. There are some indications that an upset may be in the works.

Jacob beat Cannon at the Utah GOP Convention in mid-May, 52-48. Also, Jacob's staff told me that their last internal poll of registered Republicans, which was taken last week, has Cannon at 34% & Jacob at 28% with 38% undecided. With the primary less than a week away, those are scary numbers for an incumbent who should be pushing 50% or higher by now.

That's why, yesterday, I was pleased to get an opportunity to do a short interview with John Jacob, a man a lot of conservatives would like to see as the next Congressman in Utah's 3rd District.

What you're about to see below is an edited, partial transcript of my conversation with John Jacob on Tuesday. Enjoy!

John Hawkins: I heard that Bush came out for Cannon. I guess he felt like he had to back the guy who was backing his immigration policy.

John Jacob: ...The Wall Street Journal came out with an article that said (the House) was going to dig in their heels if I get elected. If the President coming out for Chris Cannon doesn't put that in cement, I don't know what does.

John Hawkins: Your opponent, Chris Cannon, who's the incumbent in your district tries to say that he's tough on illegal immigration. Do you think that's the case and if not, why not?

John Jacob: (Laughs) He's only tough on illegal immigration because he knows that if he's not, he's going to lose to me. So, he has flip-flopped more than John Kerry has. There are too many things on his record that show he's not (tough on illegal immigration).

...Laura Bush has got a phone message to vote for Chris. I've heard the phone message; it's not a bad one. It says that he supported the war in Iraq, which I would have done and that he's trying to (secure) our borders. For 10 years, I don't think he has tried to (secure) our borders.... The point is that the President is now supporting him and this President is not tough on illegal immigration.

...Chris can have it one way or the other, but he can't have it both (ways). He can come out and say, "I've always been against illegal immigration," or he can be on the President's side of immigration.

Now, I think the President is great and I like him in a lot of ways. But, at the same time, on immigration, he has not been strong on it. The country is saying, "We've got to secure our borders," and we're not doing it. No matter how much they've said they're thinking about it, they haven't done it and until we do that, we can't fix this problem.

John Hawkins: What kind of message do you think it would send in Washington if you were to defeat a 5-time incumbent like Chris Cannon with an issue like illegal immigration being the deciding factor?

John Jacob: ...There's no question that we can send a mandate to Washington, D.C. that we must fix this problem. We're not replacing a Republican with a Democrat, we're replacing a Republican with a Republican that is saying, "It's time to listen to the people." ...Imagine a Congressman actually representing the people. Can you imagine how much synergy that would (produce)?

John Hawkins: If a voter said to you, "OK, give me 3 differences between you and Chris Cannon that would convince me to vote for you," what would you say?

John Jacob: One is my contract with Utah. If they go to Electjohnjacob.com, under issues, the first one is a Contract with Utah. I put 4 things in there that my constituents picked -- education, immigration, energy, and the 2nd Amendment....What I did is I put it in writing, I signed it, and if they vote for me, they've signed it. That is a major difference between me and anyone in Congress. I've actually put it in writing. You don't have to remember, "What was he really saying?" because it's in writing. I've said that if I don't work on these things when I'm in Congress, then I'm not going back in the next election cycle.

Obviously, we're also on very different sides of the illegal immigration issue. Finally, it is working with the voter...instead of (thinking) I am this intelligent person who has all the answers and it's too complicated for the average voter. What I've found is that if the majority of the people are asked on items, they usually pick what's right.

John Hawkins: One thing a lot of people are probably saying to themselves is, "Sure, I'd love to see Jacob knock off Cannon. But, there hasn't been any polling done in the district lately, that we've seen publicly. So, how do I know he has a chance to win?

John Jacob: Actually the polling that was done by Dan Jones, for a newspaper, just polled everybody. It had Democrats as well as Republicans....What's interesting is that if you poll a person who votes (in the primary), the Republican voter, he was at 38%. His own camp told us last Saturday that he had dropped to 34%. Now Laura Bush and the President have come out (for him) and that may take him back up to 38-40%.

John Hawkins: One last question: despite the fact that a lot of people are unhappy with their representatives, we don't see a lot of strong primary challenges to incumbents. Why do you think that is?

John Jacob: Oh, you're under attack. Any good person who tries to get involved in politics...I'm a businessman. I haven't been a professional politician. I knew it was going to be rough and I used to be an air traffic controller and stress really doesn't bother me. But, when I met with Senator (Bob) Bennett, his first question was, "How strong is your marriage?" -- because it's hard on your wife. It's hard on other people who love you to see you under attack because they know the type of person you are.

John Hawkins: I thank you for your time and...

John Jacob: Let me answer a couple of questions that you didn't ask...

In my mind, when 70% of a country votes, in a country where if you go to vote, you could be blown up or shot -- and you stick your finger in an inkwell and when you go away from the safety of the polling...anybody could know you voted -- and 70% of that country votes...? That tells me we're winning that war and I support the President on that 100%.

As far as spending in Washington, D.C. goes, I think that illegal immigration is one of our biggest expenses. It's costing our nation more than we can imagine. This cheap labor we're supposedly getting? It's the most expensive labor you can possibly pay (for). They call this a one issue situation? Illegal immigration affects our jobs, our schools, our hospitals, crime.

...If we don't get this fixed, if we don't work on this now, immediately, and do it right -- not just put a band-aid on it, not give up and say, "Ok, you can stay here," -- our country is headed for one of the biggest disasters we could possibly have.

It's bad enough that the sore losers on the left carp endlessly about George W. Bush defeating Al Gore in Florida, but at least you can understand it. It was a really close election that Bush won by only 537 votes. Then there was the U.S. Supreme Court stepping in to stop the Florida Supreme Court's unconstitutional recount. There were even recounts after the fact, sponsored by newspapers -- which, although they did conclude that Bush would have won if the recount had gone forward -- added to the confusion. Still, it did seem to be a rare snafu that we wouldn't have to repeat again.

Fast forward to 2004. This time around, Bush clearly won the Electoral College and the popular vote by a healthy 3 million vote margin. So, finally America could put the Florida debacle behind us for good -- except, we didn't because liberals hated Bush so much that they simply refused to accept the fact that he could beat them legitimately.

On November 5, just three days after the election, wacky conspiracy theories were already being tossed around on the left:

"I cannot possibly put into words how disappointed, angry, and perplexed I am right now. The reported results coming out of Florida and Ohio simply make no sense to me. I cannot comprehend how we could have such a massive increase in turnout and not win the election. To paraphrase that little weasel Tucker Carlson: You don't wait in line for five hours to vote for more of the same. Who knows, maybe some people really would wait in line for more of the same. But my impression is that something just stinks here. As EarlG told me this morning: The result is either massively fraudulent or deeply disturbing." --Skinner, the owner of the Democratic Underground

"My progressive friends: I know you are disheartened. So am I. A record turnout should have ensured a Kerry sweep. And there's no doubt that we will never know whether the Ohio vote count was legitimate. One thing is certain, however: Bush is still not the legitimate president of the United States. He ran on an incumbency he never earned."-- Ted Rall

"First of all, this election was definitely rigged. I have no doubt about it. It's a statistical impossibility that Bush got 8 million more votes than he got last time." -- Mark Crispin Miller gives his answer to the question "what do we do now?" which was posed by Salon.

"I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry." -- Greg Palast

It was hard to take these doubters any more seriously than the people who claim we never landed on the moon or that the Pentagon was really hit by a truck bomb on 9/11. After all, we're talking about people who immediately decided that the election must have been rigged simply because their candidate lost and then started working from there. Yet, the stolen election chatter never really went away, as much as anything because Democrats believe these conspiracy theories fire up their base and delegitimize Republican victories.

Want to have a rational debate about the topic? Forget about it. It's like arguing with a football fan who insists the NFL rigged a playoff game against his team because there was a questionable holding call in the second quarter. It doesn't matter if the final score is 35-14, he just "knows" that the league is targeting his team and nothing you say can change his mind.

Yet and still, let's take a look at a few inconvenient facts that the conspiracy theorists love to gloss over.

To begin with, the final tally in Ohio showed Bush burying Kerry by 118,443 votes. That's more than 220 times the final margin in Florida and it's not a "close" race by any stretch of the imagination.

How could the GOP even rig an election by that kind of margin? Perhaps Diebold, a corporation a lot of nutters on the left believe has thrown in with the vast right-wing conspiracy, ginned up those totals? Well, that doesn't really seem possible given that "Diebold machines were used in only two of Ohio's 88 counties." So, if Diebold didn't digitally create those extra 118,443 votes, where did they come from? Perhaps little Republican "vote fairies" sprinkled their magical pixie dust on the ballot boxes and created extra votes for Bush out of thin air, all across the state, without anyone being the wiser.

But what about the exit polls? Didn't they show Kerry ahead in Ohio? Yes they did, just as the exit polls showed the Democratic candidate overperforming in every election from 1988 to the present.

So, why were the exit polling numbers off? According to Warren Mitofsky, whose company supervised the exit polling:

"Our analysis of the exit polls suggests that we had slightly better cooperation from the Kerry voters than from the Bush voters. In other words, the non-response was not even. There was some unevenness to it. And it favored Kerry."

The Mayflower Hill blog also said the following after an interview with Mitofsky:

"One possibility he was able to rule out, though, is touch screen voting machines that don't leave any paper trail being used to defraud the election. To prove this, he broke down precincts based on the type of voting machine that was used and compared the voting returns from those precincts with his own exit polls. None of the precincts with touch screen computers that don't leave paper trails, or any other type of machine for that matter, had vote returns that deviated from his exit poll numbers once the average 1.9% non-response bias was taken into account."

So, who are you going to believe? The professional pollster who actually ran the exit polling or the liberal partisans, sitting around in their basements wearing tinfoil beanies, who say that the exit polling proved the election was rigged?

As if that wasn't enough, what about the polling data from before the election? Was it indicating a Bush or Kerry victory? Bush won nine out of the last 10 polls in Ohio. That's just another indication that the results in Ohio were right on the money.

Here's the final reality that the conspiracy theorists need to accept: Bush won Ohio in 2004 by a margin so big that it practically precludes the possibility of fraud or inadvertent mistakes having been the deciding factor, especially in our political system, which has people from both political parties involved almost every step of the way. As Michael O'Grady, "the legal counsel to the Ohio Democratic Party" has said about the possibility that the election in Ohio was stolen, "That point of view relies on the assumption that the entire Republican Party is conspiratorial and the entire Democratic Party is as dumb as rocks. And I don't buy that." O'Grady is right not to buy it and no one else should either.

"Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff promised Tuesday to end the "catch and release" policy that has allowed tens of thousands of non-Mexican illegal aliens to disappear within the United States.

"Return every single illegal entrant — no exceptions," Chertoff said in prepared testimony to a Senate Judiciary Committee (search) hearing on proposals to overhaul the immigration system.

...Chertoff said that the nearly 900,000 Mexicans who are caught entering United States every year are returned immediately to Mexico, "but other parts of the system have nearly collapsed under the weight of numbers."" -- October 18, 2005

"Local police said they intercepted 20 illegal Mexican immigrants, but were ordered by immigration officials to let them go free.

Belmont County Sheriff Fred Thompson said his officers were instructed by federal immigration services to let all 20 illegal immigrants go free, and said his department has no choice but to follow the orders from immigration officials." -- June 20, 2006

Update #1 A change from the original post was made. One more paragraph was added to the October 18, 2005 quote.

The Reality-Based Community.

Strong. Smart.

Frankly, I see this situation as so important that I do not cultivate or initiate friendships or even associations with Neocons if I can avoid it.

I will tolerate opposing points of view (such as TRUE conservatism) if it is not accompanied by support for the Pig Bush.

...

I have no Neocon FRIENDS. I no longer associate with Neocon RELATIVES. Support for the Pig Bush is not something I feel the need to tolerate anymore. I have to admit, if I know that you have Neocon FRIENDS, I may even avoid YOU.

This is not a matter of opinion anymore: we as "liberals" or anyone in opposition to the Neocon NeoNAZIS are the New Jews, and they would GLADLY put us in the camps if they could get away with it; make no mistake.

Andy the Squirrel says that many of the comments are "strangely sexual" in nature.

I didn't find any of those yet -- not exactly -- but I did find this. Apparently a leftoid woman is annoyed that her boyfriend won't propose to her. Turns out it must be because he's a dirty Jew "neocon:"

My *sshole of a...

"permanent" fiance is a neocon, big time. So much for morals-he has no problem in continuing to live together and not get married. His decision, not mine. F*CKING HYPOCRITES, THAT IS WHAT ALL OF THE NEOCONS ARE!

Reality-Based.

Strong. Smart.

Layers.

This content was used with the permission of Ace Of Spades HQ.

DarkSyde at the DailyKos is trying to find a short, unifying slogan for the Kwazy Kos Kids. He has his suggestions, but here are mine:

* I'm Running Out of Tin-Foil!
* Stop Laughing at Me!
* 'Don't Eat Paint Chips' Is One of Bush's Lies!
* You Say "Angry" Isn't a Platform? YOU SHUT UP!!!
* You're Either With Us, Or I'm Going to Bite You
* No, You're Mentally Retarded and Probably Insane!
* Bush Lied, I Soiled Myself and Cried
* I Don't Want the Pills! Don't Make Me Take the Pills!
* Aw Tawt Aw Taw a Putty Tat!
* Why Do You Care If I Forgot to Wear Pants When There Is an Illegal War Going On?
* YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

Come on! Help out the Kos Kids in their slogan search in the comments.

This content was used with the permission of IMAO.

Unfortunately, my DSL kicked out last night and it prevented my being able to get the daily news completed in a timely manner. It'll be back tomorrow. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Last week, Dani Cutler, an endearingly perky liberal, did a roughly 45 minute long interview with me for her podcast show, Truth Seekers.

Well today, Dani put up the first part of the interview and you can listen to it here.

It was very conversational and Dani was extremely nice, so nice that I think her liberal listeners will probably hate the podcast.

We talked about illegal immigration, Ann Coulter, the war on terrorism and a variety of other issues. There is a 12:50 long opener from Dani, but you should be able to fast forward through it if you want to get directly to the conversation.

The left-wing reaction to American soldiers being tortured and murdered? Boiled down to its essence, it's, "We deserved it and it's all Bush's fault."

Read it yourself. From a recommended diary at the Daily Kos called So our boys were tortured - how quaint, by occams hatchet:

"The bodies of the two captured U.S. soldiers were found in Iraq - bearing signs of "barbaric torture."

How quaint.

I hope Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo will sleep well tonight, with visions of those boys' bodies and the horrible barbarities inflicted upon them dancing in their heads. Perhaps Gonzales, and Yoo, and Rumsfeld and Bush will be able to envision the same inhumanities being visited upon their family members and loved ones as they drift off to peaceful slumber.

This cannot stand. We cannot allow this administration and its incomprehensible defense of and support for torture in violation of the "quaint" Geneva Conventions to remain.

The chickens have come home to roost. As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

Blame America first. Blame Bush for the actions of the terrorists. Call for the Geneva Convention to be applied to people who haven't signed on to it and to whom it wouldn't apply to anyway, since they're combatants who don't wear uniforms or follow the rules of war.

Another typical lib in a wartime situation -- hopelessly lost, confused, and unable to figure out whether he should support America or the people who want to kill him.

I'm scheduled to be on the The Lynne Breidenbach Show today from 4:35-4:53 EST to talk about Hillary Clinton and Third Parties. You can listen to it live here.

Update #1: We talked a lot about 2008, third parties, the impact of the blogosphere and the Democratic "non-agenda." It was a a lot of fun.

People get oh so upset about how detainees at Gitmo are treated. International human rights groups condemn us over Gitmo, foreign governments complain, and liberals get their pillows all wet because they spend their nights crying themselves to sleep over how the terrorists we've caught are treated.

But, how do the terrorists treat our soldiers when they're captured? We already knew the answer to that, but sadly, we've gotten another reminder:

"An Iraqi military official said Tuesday that the bodies of two missing U.S. soldiers showed signs of torture, and that men appeared to have been killed "in a barbaric way." Also, the umbrella group for Iraqi insurgents claimed responsibility for the soldiers' deaths.

"We give the good news ... to the Islamic nation that we have carried God's verdict by slaughtering the two captured crusaders," said a statement in the name of the Mujahedeen Shura Council, which groups five insurgent organizations including al-Qaida in Iraq."

See? This is why my reaction to terrorists killing themselves at Gitmo is, "good!" It's also why, despite the fact that I oppose torture and the sort of degenerate sadism that went on at Abu Ghraib, that I strongly support using harsh interrogation methods, like waterboarding and sleep deprivation on terrorist detainees.

If the terrorists, who offer our captured troops nothing but torture, savagery, and death, start promising to treat our soldiers humanely -- and then actually follow through -- then I'll start to get concerned about how they're treated when they're captured. Until then, as far as I'm concerned, they're getting off light at Gitmo.

"Thus far four of the 18 provinces are ready for the transfer of power -- two in the north (Irbil and Sulaymaniyah) and two in the south (Maysan and Muthanna). Nine more provinces are nearly ready.

With the governors of each province meeting these strict objectives, Iraq's ambition is to have full control of the country by the end of 2008. In practice this will mean a significant foreign troop reduction. We envisage the U.S. troop presence by year's end to be under 100,000, with most of the remaining troops to return home by the end of 2007." -- Iraq's National Security Adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie

-- Judging by his comments this week-end, the lesson John Murtha apparently took from Somalia and Beirut was to cut'n'run when the going gets tough. But, given that cutting and running encourages our enemies, isn't the real lesson that we shouldn't get involved militarily in any country unless we're willing to hang in there even after American blood is spilled? That's one of the big reasons why we should steer clear of situations where American interests aren't at stake. If we don't care enough to stick it out until the job is done in a country, then we shouldn't be there in the first place.

-- Remember the folks over at Truthout who claimed that Karl Rove had been indicted and then stuck by their story even after he was cleared? Well, they've now finally come forward to announce...that they're still sticking by their story.

"On Tuesday, June 13, when the mainstream media broke their stories that Karl Rove had been exonerated, there were frank discussions amongst our senior editors about retracting our stories outright. The problem we wrestled with was what exactly do we retract? Should we say that Rove had not in fact been indicted? Should we say that our sources provided us with false or misleading information? Had Truthout been used? Without a public statement from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald we felt that it was premature to retract our report.

After spending the past month retracing our steps and confirming facts, we've come full circle. Our sources continue to maintain that a grand jury has in fact returned an indictment. Our sources said that parts of the indictment were read to Karl Rove and his attorney on Friday, May 12, 2006. Last week, we pointed to a sealed federal indictment, case number "06 cr 128," which is still sealed and we are still pointing to it. During lengthy conversations with our sources over the past month, they reiterated that the substance of our report on May 13, 2006, was correct, and immediately following our report, Karl Rove's status in the CIA leak probe changed. In summary, as we press our investigation we find indicators that more of our key facts are correct, not less.

That leaves the most important question: If our sources maintain that a grand jury has returned an indictment - and we have pointed to a criminal case number that we are told corresponds to it - then how is it possible that Patrick Fitzgerald is reported to have said that 'he does not anticipate seeking charges against Rove at this time?' That is a very troubling question, and the truth is, we do not yet have a definitive answer."

Hey, guys, "There is no pony under the manure"! (If you don't get it, look here -- but be warned, there is some bad language).

--

"Off duty New Castle police officers, supported by officers from other departments, held another in a series of demonstrations over their lack of a contract outside the Clinton residence on Old House Lane today.

The cops say they want their salaries more in line with other Westchester County departments, and are fighting increases in contributions to their health-insurance coverage.

U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was not home, according to one protester, but former President Bill Clinton was. However, he did not come out to chat with the officers, as he has in the past."

In my book, there's just no good excuse to protest outside of someone's personal residence. It's an invasion of privacy, it smacks of intimidation (we know where you live), and it inappropriately crosses the line between politics and people's personal lives.

--

"As the fall elections approach, the Democrats have formally unveiled their platform for the war in Iraq: snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

At the very moment that documents captured from the Zarqawi death site indicate that Al Qaeda feels it is losing its war against the Iraqi future and has become so desperate that its only hope to prevail is by embroiling the U.S. in war with Iran; at the very moment Iraq’s democratically elected government is establishing itself as a functioning regime, and its increasingly capable military becomes more successfully engaged against the insurgents —at this critical moment for the future of Iraq and the Middle East, more than three quarters of the House Democrats have voted against a resolution to “complete the mission.”

For the first time in American history, a major political party wants America to run from a war we are winning." -- Peter Collier and David Horowitz

-- Last week at Human Events, I wrote a column explaining Why Hillary Clinton Is a Weaker Candidate Than People Think. Well, the numbers from the latest CNN poll would seem to back up what I wrote rather well:

"Regarding potential Democratic candidates, 47 percent of respondents said they would "definitely vote against" both Clinton, the junior senator from New York who is running for re-election this year, and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the party's candidate in 2004. (Poll)

Forty-eight percent said the same of former Vice President Al Gore, who has repeatedly denied he intends to run again for president.

...Among all choices, Clinton had the highest positive number; of those polled, 22 percent said they would "definitely vote for" her."

Those are brutal numbers. 69% of the general public is at least claiming that they've already made up their mind about Hillary and she'd need to capture about 90% of the people who say they're undecided just in order to break even. Of course, things can change over time, but as of today, those are really terrible numbers.

-- Here's an unintentionally hilarious (and telling) post from a commenter called SBJack from the very liberal Huffington Post. This one was so good that you just had to see it (Hat tip to Brainster's Blog for pointing this out):

"Ms. Hirshman is right...quitting "life" to be a "mommy" and "hausfrau" IS a waste of a talented mind. Let me make this real clear:

PEOPLE NEED TO STOP BREEDING

Within the context of that belief, I think you can see why this is such a waste. The world has too many mouths to feed already. The youth of this country get shipped off to die in Corporate Wars fought for the profit of others. Our resources are dwindling, please explain why its a good idea to procreate? Is it your vanity at wanting a "little YOU"? Do you think your "precious" is going to save the world? Is "sweetums" going to change your Depends™ when you get old and gray?

Just why in the hell do you or anyone need to procreate?

To "cement" your loving life commitment with your partner? Someone who, by making this choice, you are going to send off to his own hamster wheel while you grow fat and resentful at home? What a great plan.

THERE IS NO JUSTIFIABLE REASON TO HAVE CHILDREN.

Being a mommy WAS a career choice when bearing offspring was about populating the farm with helping hands. Mommy was the shop boss. Now, she's wasting petroleum and increasing pollution driving all over town to take the little ankle-bitiers off to soccer in SUV.

Get an education and then go do something with it other than wipe the snotty noses of your sniveling over-privileged children. There are plenty of uneducated idiots who believe Jay-Sus will provide who keep their legs apart for the ingress and egress of their dip-witted spawn. Witness Britney "Trailertrash" Spears. Now THAT was some career move.

It has nothing to do with "feminism" and everything to do with making smart choices in a f**ked up world. Motherhood is not a career choice."

As conservatives, we believe in the wisdom of the markets. We believe that the free market is better at allocating capital than government planners. We note that communism caused the USSR to collapse, and socialism has caused stagnation in Old Europe, while the U.S. and other relatively free-market economies (Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the UK) have thrived.

I also believe in the wisdom of the markets in predicting future events. I think stock markets are pretty hard to beat because they represent the sum of all views of all market participants. Similarly, I think that betting markets are good predictors of political outcomes. Any yahoo can spout an opinion on a TV show, but the betting markets are people putting actual money on the line.

Via Tradesports.com, an early look at the market’s view of the 2008 Presidential race:

For the Democratic Nominee:

Candidate Probability
Hillary Clinton 44%
Mark Warner 21%
Al Gore 15%
John Edwards 6%
John Kerry 4%

And for the Republican Nominee:

Candidate Probability
John McCain 40%
George Allen 17%
Mitt Romney 12%
Rudy Giuliani 10%
Condoleezza Rice 5%

Other points: Senate control is 81% to stay with the Republicans… House control is 50/50… 2008 Presidential race is dead even.

As I said, I think the markets are pretty efficient… but I still like to take a bet from time to time. If I had to bet, I’d short Hillary and McCain. I might even buy a little Obama, who is going for just 2 cents.

This content was used with the permission of Polipundit.

(Hawkins' Note: I don't agree with the way the Tradesports rankings are currently panning out, but it's always interesting to see which candidates conventional wisdom says will carry the day.)

Foreign

Group Claims It Kidnapped U.S. Soldiers

Three U.S. Soldiers Were Charged With Premeditated Murder After Being Accused Of Shooting Three Detainees North Of Baghdad On May 9 And Then Threatening To Kill A Fellow Soldier

N Korea Threatens To ‘Wipe Out’ US Forces

Taleban Use Children As Shields To Fight British

Domestic

Cheney Sees Success in Warding Off Attacks

Has Duke Case Collapsed: The Prosecutor Insists His Rape Case Is Strong. One Big Problem: The Facts Thus Far

U.S. Officials Fear Spike In Illegals Entering In Cars

Lieberman Will Run In Primary But May Run As An Independent If He Loses

A CNN Poll Released Monday Suggests That Nearly Half Of Americans Would "Definitely Vote Against" Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton

Valedictorian's Speech Cut Short At High School For Mentioning God

Columns

John Fund: Democrats Keep Betting On Failure In Iraq

Joe Lauria: My Unwitting Role in the Rove 'Scoop' (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Peter Collier and David Horowitz: The Party of Retreat and Defeat

Robert Kagan: Anti-Americanism's Deep Roots

Michael Barone: Bush Is Stronger Than He Seems

An Immigration Q&A With James Sensenbrenner

Center for American Common Culture: First Things First on Immigration

Steven Pressfield: Tribalism Is The Real Enemy In Iraq

Left-Overs

A Bitter Blonde Infected With The Aids Virus Went On A Vengeful Mission To Spread The Disease

Mid-Term Impact Of The Netroots

Jerome Armstrong: Hype for Hire

Wearing 'Purity Rings' Is Banned At Girls' School

Video: Connie Chung Does An Almost Impossibly Bad Parody Version Of 'Thanks For The Memories To Commemorate' Her Show Going Off The Air

Humor: The First Annual MySpace Stupid Haircut Awards!

Website Of The Day: Riehl World View

On Friday, I said this about Ann Coulter:

"It's also worth noting that for all the hullabaloo what Ann Coulter has said, comments that are just as rude & vicious as the ones Ann makes are the rule, not the exception on the left.

It's not the least bit unusual for liberals to call conservatives racists, Nazis, theocrats & fascists. They compare George Bush to Osama Bin Laden, call him a a chimp, and proudly talk about how much they hate his guts. They accuse black Republicans of being Uncle Tom's, they throw pies at conservative speakers on college campuses, and they send the most racist, misogynist hate mail you've ever seen to minority conservatives like Michelle Malkin. They claim conservatives hate poor people and want old people to die in the streets. They accuse Republicans of wanting to lock liberals in camps, rigging the elections, invading Iraq just so Haliburton can make a few extra bucks, and of engineering 9/11 for political gain.

Then, despite the fact that this is just standard, run-of-the-mill discourse on the left, they turn around and complain that Ann Coulter is being mean to them? Maybe it's just me, but I think I can live with that."

Now, today? I ran across a thread at the Democratic Underground where they discussed Ann's comment about Murtha in her latest interview at RWN.

Now, as you read these quotes about Ann Coulter from the Democratic Underground, which, quite frankly, aren't anything out of the ordinary for liberals when they're talking about conservatives that they don't like, ponder the irony of all the complaints that Coulter is "too mean" to liberals:

Sarah Ibarruri: Exactly. The things Coulter says, are the things GOPers believe in. Which is why Republicans are subhuman.

Zorra: Why does anyone pay attention to this bimbo nazi airhead? She has the personality of cackling harpy fishwife at a public hanging, absolutely no talent for writing, and is incapable of thinking logically.

Oh, yeah...I guess that's precisely why she is popular with the right wingers in this country.

Chi-Town: My guess the closest she's been to the Military is during Fleet week in NY when she takes a couple of sailors home after getting sh*tface at one of the club's she frequents.

Wonder if any of her "partners" have figured out she's a man. LOL

Notice how she called the Jersey Girls Harpies? What's that about disturbed people projecting what they think of themselves onto other people?

I would so love to have her gender questions solved for all the world to see then we can tell any Wingnut male that has been fantasizing about her the following, "Yes, it does make you GAY if you found "her" attractive." Their reactions would be amazing since that is what every good Republican believes! LOL

rfranklin: Actually she is neither woman nor man, she is a beast! And sex with Coulter is like Santorum and his German Sheperd. Hot man on dog action. (With apologies to all innocent animals.)

wisteria: You know, I have had enough of her. A good, well aimed punch in the nose would help a bit.

smoogatz: I think frequent and consistent pie-throwing would be much more effective. Punching is just violent. Pie-throwing is a form of ridicule, and makes for excellent political theater.

The Wizard: How about urine filled water balloons?

The Wizard: Annie Coulter is the voice and face of the Republican party. Annie Coulter is the voice and face of the Republican party. Annie Coulter is the voice and face of the Republican party. Annie Coulter is the voice and face of the Republican party. Make them deny it. Make Annie (Arthur) prove his/her gender. I want to see genitalia. And Murtha can walk down any street in America without a body guard. Can Annie or her fuerher say the same?

Qanisqineq: oh Ann...you are why we invented bludgeoning

bushwhacked2008: somebody should fragg her

Tell you what: when these sorts of comments cease to represent how liberals talk about conservatives that they don't like on a day in, day out basis, then I'll start getting more upset when Ann Coulter says vicious things about liberals...

Ole Cut'N'Run, John Murtha, who seems to be the closest thing the Democrats have to hawkish expert on foreign policy these days, offered up some real gems on Tim Russert's show yesterday:

REP. MURTHA: He’s, he’s in New Hampshire. He’s making a political speech. He’s sitting in his air conditioned office with his big, fat backside, saying, “Stay the course.” That’s not a plan. I mean, this guy—I don’t know what his military experience is, but that’s a political statement. This is a policy difference between me and the White House. I disagree completely with what he’s saying.

Now, let’s, let’s—give me, give you an example. When we went to Beirut, I, I said to President Reagan, “Get out.” Now, the other day we were doing a debate, and they said, “Well, Beirut was a different situation. We cut and run.” We didn’t cut and run. President Reagan made the decision to change direction because he knew he couldn’t win it. Even in Somalia, President Clinton made the decision, “We have to, we have to change direction.

REP. MURTHA: Kuwait’s one that will take us. Qatar, we already have bases in Qatar. So Bahrain. All those countries are willing to take the United States. Now, Saudi Arabia won’t because they wanted us out of there in the first place. So—and we don’t have to be right there. We can go to Okinawa. We, we don’t have—we can redeploy there almost instantly. So that’s not—that’s, that’s a fallacy. That, that’s just a statement to rial up people to support a failed policy wrapped in illusion.

MR. RUSSERT: But it’d be tough to have a timely response from Okinawa.

REP. MURTHA: Well, it—you know, they—when I say Okinawa, I, I’m saying troops in Okinawa. When I say a timely response, you know, our fighters can fly from Okinawa very quickly. And—and—when they don’t know we’re coming. There’s no question about it. And, and where those airplanes won’t—came from I can’t tell you, but, but I’ll tell you one thing, it doesn’t take very long for them to get in with cruise missiles or with, with fighter aircraft or, or attack aircraft, it doesn’t take any time at all. So we, we have done—this one particular operation, to say that that couldn’t have done, done—it was done from the outside, for heaven’s sakes.

So, let me get this straight. If I am understanding him correctly, John Murtha, the best guy the Democrats have on defense matters, wants to emulate Clinton's Somalia debacle in Iraq and also thinks we should station more troops in Okinawa Japan, a nation that would be 5000+ air miles away, to use as a rapid reaction force that would engage in "timely" attacks in Iraq?

Does this make any sense? According to Froggy, over at the military blog Black Five, it would likely take 10-12 hours and at least 6 mid-air refuelings each way to bomb targets in Iraq from Okinawa. And our actions in Somalia during the Clinton Administration? That was one of the events that apparently convinced Bin Laden he could get away with attacking America:

"In 1993, 18 U.S. soldiers, part of a contingent sent on a humanitarian mission to famine-struck Somalia, were murdered by street fighters in Mogadishu. Bin Laden later claimed that some of the Arab Afghans were involved. The main thing to bin Laden, however, was the horrified American reaction to the deaths. Within six months, the U.S. had withdrawn from Somalia. In interviews, bin Laden has said that his forces expected the Americans to be tough like the Soviets but instead found that they were "paper tigers" who "after a few blows ran in defeat."

There's only one upside to this "strategy." It's probably better than anything Ted Kennedy would have come up with.

Newsmax wrote another story on the Coulter/Murtha/Fragging comment from the interview.

"In an e-mail interview by John Hawkins at the Right Wing News Web site, Coulter was asked to give her opinion of certain people, among them anti-war Congressman Murtha, D-Pa. In a style familiar to journalists who have quizzed her via e-mail, Coulter responded with her characteristic single brief line: "The reason soldiers invented 'fragging.'"

That's it. That's all she wrote.

She did not suggest that Murtha, long out of the military service, should be killed by a grenade because his men considered him deserving of death -- which is what fragging means -- she was describing him as the kind of leader soldiers have good reason to distrust.

That however is not how the Coulter haters at E&P and the rest of the liberal mainstream media portrayed her remarks - universally they accused her of wanting to frag Murtha.

This in spite of the fact Hawkins, the recipient of the e-mail, told E&P that she meant no such thing. Said Hawkins: "Although I wouldn't have phrased that like Ann did, I would say in her defense that in that quote she didn't say that she wanted to kill Murtha, she'd didn't say that she thought he should be killed, and she didn't say that she thought Murtha should have been fragged. Is that hair splitting?"

Two things:

#1) Saying that I, "told E&P that she meant no such thing," makes it sound as if I contacted them somehow. I just posted a follow-up since they -- and Newsmax -- talked about the article.

#2) Newsmax has now talked about the interview and my follow-up post and yet, not only did Newsmax not post a link to RWN in either case, they didn't even put up the URL (They just said "Right Wing News"). Would it kill Newsmax to link directly to RWN so their readers could just pop over and read the interview and what I have to say? I can certainly tell you that I would have appreciated the thousands of extra readers.

Still, thanks for the mentions, Newsmax! It's great to know that some of the big boys are reading RWN.

In the age we live in, even something as innocuous as a business requiring people to have a nice, neat haircut if they're going to work with the public is portrayed as an insensitive, racist practice that may lead to lawsuits.

From a WAPO article on the "controversial" Six Flags haircut policy:

"It's right there, under "Extreme Hairstyles," in the 2006 seasonal handbook for Six Flags America employees: no dreadlocks, tails, partially shaved heads "or any hairstyle that detracts or takes away from Six Flags theming."

Braids "must be in neat, even rows and without beads or other ornaments," the amusement park handbook advises.

...Femi Manners and her 16-year-old son, Shakir, agreed that he would not change his hair: short cornrows with a small design braided in. Instead, she contacted the American Civil Liberties Union, which is investigating complaints from more than a dozen black employees of Six Flags America.

The complaint is the latest in recent years alleging that private companies or government agencies are violating civil rights with restrictions on ethnic and Africa-inspired hairstyles and beards.

"This is culturally very, very insensitive and possibly discrimination," said King Downing, coordinator of the ACLU's national campaign against racial profiling. "The question is, how long do we have to keep going around and around with this when it comes to people of African descent and the natural style of the hair that they wear?"

In the 1980s, a Marriott reservations clerk in downtown Washington sued successfully to keep her cornrows. Five years ago, District firefighters sought to wear longer hair or beards for religious reasons. Now, the fight has come to Prince George's, a predominantly black, middle-class county where many people consider such hairstyles a point of ethnic pride and few consider them "extreme."

"Many of the people who go to Six Flags have locks and twists and Afros," said Demetrius Hall, 16, of Suitland, a Muslim who said he will not cut his hair, for religious reasons. "Black people are not offended by those hairstyles."

...The recent dust-up at Six Flags America probably resulted, said Goldberg, the national spokeswoman, from the effort by the new general manager, Terry Prather, to enforce the policy since he came on board in February.

...Prather, who is black, said that allowing employees to wear hairstyles that violate the park's policy would lead to customer service problems. He said he has dealt with the ethnic hairstyles of his children, ages 23 to 33. "I totally understand it," he said. "I live with it."

He denied that the policy was antiquated or discriminatory, although he understands why some employees might be upset."

Here's what it all comes down to: if you're a businessman and you have employees who are meeting with the public, you want them to look nice, neat, and presentable. You don't want them to look like punk rockers, thugs, hippies, prostitutes, goths, or weirdos.

That means, among other things, no mohawks, no dreadlocks, no rat tails, no corn rows, no mullets, no afros, no spiked hair, no long hair on guys -- no haircuts whatsoever that are going to automatically turn part of the population off because they believe the cut looks strange, sloppy, or trashy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah -- I know. If people have a problem with your hair, that's their problem, not yours. Your hair is a unique part of your identity. It makes you -- well, you. Well, guess what? Businesses don't care about your "unique identity," especially when you're talking about someone who sells popcorn or takes tickets. If you don't want to wear your hair in a professional manner, get a job as a roadie or a record store clerk, where they don't care about your hair, or better yet, get a job that doesn't require you to work with the public.

But, if you want a customer service job that requires face to face contact with customers, you should do the same thing I've done before, the same thing a lot of people have done: cut your hair.

"North Korea appears to have completed fueling a long-range ballistic missile, American officials said Sunday, a move that greatly increases the probability that it will go ahead with its first important test launching in eight years.

...American intelligence officials say they believe that the system is a Taepodong 2 missile and that a three-stage version could strike all of the United States. One administration official said the missile at the launching pad was a two-stage version.

While North Korea claims to have developed nuclear weapons, it has never allowed outsiders to see them. American experts believe that North Korea has enough plutonium for at least half a dozen nuclear weapons and has produced a small but growing nuclear arsenal. It is not known if the North Koreans can build a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a missile, but experts say it seems plausible that they could do so.

"Assuming the missile is a Taepodong 2 and assuming the missile test is successful, North Korea would demonstrate that they have made important progress toward the ability to hit targets in the continental United States with a missile large enough to carry a nuclear weapon," said Gary Samore, a former senior aide on the National Security Council and a vice president of the MacArthur Foundation."

So, the Missile Defense Shield that the Bush Administration has been working so hard to get going, despite the fact that liberals have opposed it all the way? Is it looking a little better now? Does the big push to get it ready make more sense given this article? Does Bush's approach make a little more sense than say, the John Kerry or Ted Kennedy approach, which consists of counting on the rationality of that poofy haired psycho, Kim Jung-Il? Although we still have more work to do to get the shield fully operational, we have some protection now, because Bush had a lot more foresight than most of the Democrats.

You know how open borders advocates are always claiming that Mexicans are doing jobs that Americans won't do? Well, according to the New York Times, there are so many Mexicans pouring into the US, that illegal immigrants are now going into Mexico to do the jobs that Mexicans won't do:

"Here at Mexico's own southern edge, Guatemalans cross legally and illegally to do jobs that Mexicans departing for the north no longer want. And hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from nearly two dozen other countries, including China, Ecuador, Cuba and Somalia, pass through on their way to the United States.

... If the major characters in the migration drama unfolding in Chiapas could be captured in a collage, it would include a burly, white-haired farmer named Eusebio Ortega Contreras, who did not hide that most of the workers who picked mangos in his fields for $6 a day were underage, undocumented Guatemalans. Indians from Chiapas used to do these jobs, Mr. Ortega said. But in the past five years, they have been migrating to the United States. And lately, he said, he has begun to worry that he is going to lose the Guatemalans, too.

"We know that the conditions we provide our workers are not adequate," said Mr. Ortega, president of the local fruit growers' association, who showed a reporter the meager shelter he can offer: an awning off a hay shed for a roof and lined-up milk crates for beds. "But costs are going up. Production is going down. We barely earn enough money to maintain our orchards, much less improve conditions for the workers."

Good grief, how bad off do you have to be to emigrate to Mexico so you can make those $6 a day wages and sleep on milk crates?

But wait, it gets worse:

...Migrants are also routinely detained by machete-wielding farmers, who extort their money by threatening to turn them over to the police. So many female migrants have been raped or coerced into sex, the authorities said, that some begin taking birth control pills a few months before embarking on the journey north.

Imagine being willing to risk rape to get into a country where you can make $6 a day wages and sleep on milk crates...I told you it got worse.

But of course, even most Mexicans don't want to live in Mexico. So, you have to suspect that a lot of Mexico's illegals are hoping to make it into America. On that front, because of the corruption and incompetence in Mexico, very little is being done to stop the flow of illegals heading up to our Southern Border:

George Grayson, an expert on Mexico at the College of William and Mary who has made several research trips to Mexico's southern border, said little had come of those efforts. He described this border as an "open sesame for illegal migrants, drug traffickers, exotic animals and Mayan artifacts."

...Mexican migration officials acknowledged that they had fewer than 450 agents patrolling the five states along this frontier, which has some 200 official and unofficial crossing points.

....The Rev. Ademar Barilli, a human rights advocate who, with the support of the Roman Catholic Church, runs a shelter for migrants in Tecún Umán, a Guatemalan border city, said that unlike crossing patterns at the northern border, migrants here did not typically go far into remote areas, hoping to avoid the authorities. Instead, he said, the migrants try to bribe their way through.

"A migrant with money can make it across Mexico with no problems," Father Barilli said. "A migrant with no money gets nowhere."

That's encouraging, isn't it? Are you a serial rapist? A drug runner? A terrorist? Bring a few bucks to bribe the corrupt Mexican police and then you can make a run for the American border where only undermanned border patrol and a bunch of National Guardsman who aren't allowed to arrest you stand in the way.

Can we seal the border faster please?

Hat tip to Right Thinking Girl for the story.

Foreign

Claim: How An Al-Qaeda Cell Planned A Poison-Gas Attack On The N.Y. Subway

2 Missing U.S. Soldiers Appear To Have Been Captured By Terrorists In Iraq (Free New York Times Reg Req)

Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Says Iraq Has An Agreement To Take Over Security Responsibilities From Australian, British And Japanese Forces In Southern Iraq This Month

U.K. Imam Supports Attack On Tony Blair

U.S. Weapons Transferred To Palestinian Terrorists

The "Quartet" Have Agreed On A Plan To Resume Aid For Palestinians. $120 Million On The Way

Ayatollah's Grandson Calls For U.S. Overthrow Of Iran

Domestic

House Majority Leader John Boehner: Immigration Bill All But Dead

Illegal Hiring Is Rarely Penalized. Politics, 9/11 Cited In Lax Enforcement (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Cindy Sheehan Supports U.S. Deserters In Canada

Murtha Slams Rove For 'Fat Backside'

If Hillary Clinton Were To Become President, Bill Says He Will "Do Whatever She Wants"

Kos Partner, Jerome Armstrong, Was Shill for Worthless Stock

Columns

David Limbaugh: A Religion Or A Cult?

Mark Steyn: Nude Cyclists Are Peddling Threadbare Ideas

Karen Zautyk: Should This Marine Have Apologized? No

Nolan Fimley: Welcome Immigrants Willing To Adapt

Left-Overs

Blacks Are Fading From Baseball

New Contact Lenses Give Athletes an Edge

Natalie Maines: "The Entire Country May Disagree With Me, But I Don't Understand The Necessity For Patriotism. Why Do You Have To Be A Patriot? About What? This Land Is Our Land? Why? You Can Like Where You Live And Like Your Life, But As For Loving The Whole Country… I Don't See Why People Care About Patriotism."

If You Disagree With Larry Johnson, You're Gay

Funny Video: The Immigration Debate (Some Bad Language)

Website Of The Day: BuzzJungle