It's Official: Most People Think The Media Sucks

Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe traditional journalism is out of touch, and nearly half are turning to the Internet to get their news, according to a new survey.

NAFTA

Boston Globe:
Democrats compete to outbash NAFTA
Some analysts say opting out is unrealistic

USA Today:
USA Today: Clinton, Obama 'Pandering' on NAFTA
Bashing NAFTA misses real reason for factory job losses

Washington Post:
Bush Assails Democratic Candidates' Views on NAFTA, Foreign Policy

Baltimore Sun:
Md. Global Warming Plan Alarms Industries

DOUBLE SPEAK

Despite repeated requests, Barack Obama's campaign is still neither verifying nor denying a CTV report that a senior member of the team made contact with the Canadian government -- via the Chicago consulate general -- regarding comments Obama made about NAFTA.

Allegations of double talk on the North American Free Trade Agreement from both the Obama and Clinton campaigns dominated the U.S. political landscape on Thursday..... (Read on)

Also more here.

Obama Sees Presidency as 'Bully Pulpit' for Full 'LGBT Equality'

In an open letter posted on his presidential campaign Web site Thursday, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) expounds on the "promise of equality for all - a promise that extends to our gay brothers and sisters." He said he'd use the "bully pulpit" of the presidency to press for a number of laws and policy changes backed by the homosexual community. As president, Obama said he would press for passage of a hate crimes law and a "fully inclusive" Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would outlaw workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. He would urges states to treat same-sex couples with full equality when it comes to family and adoption laws. He would repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Full Story

BUSH LEAGUE JUSTICE

Do we have another 60 Minutes scandal?

BARACK SUPPORTS THE 2ND AMENDMENT .. OR DOES HE?

We're not so sure what his position is on guns and the 2nd amendment. I guess what we can say is that his position is "A Consistent Inconsistency."

A tip of the fedora to Instapundit.

Army recruiting exceeds goals again.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE

BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA

Tammy Bruce writes:
Barack Hussein Obama--Believe Him

"Do yourself a favor and believe every word he says. When I say this man is the most dangerous candidate for president we may have ever seen, I mean it. The disarmament agenda he spews in this video is classic George Soros theory aimed at knocking America into a second-world country, putting us at grave risk to tyrannical regimes around the world. It is craven self-loathing, aimed at ending the future of our country, capitalism and liberty. And imagine, Obama says these things with the world at war and as genocidal regimes continue to build their bombs despite 'promising' not to do so, or being 'banned' from doing so."

Execution of 'Chemical Ali' approved

Los Angeles Times

BAGHDAD -- Iraq's three-member Presidency Council has approved the execution of Ali Hassan Majid, a cousin of Saddam Hussein known as "Chemical Ali," said a high-ranking Iraqi government official today who was not authorized to speak on the subject.

The official said there was no date set for the hanging, which must be carried out within 30 days. He also said the Presidency Council had agreed only to the execution of Majid, not two codefendants also convicted in June of genocide and other crimes.........

TONGUE-TIED IN TEXAS

A FREUDIAN SLIP?

Israel prepares for assault on Gaza

Jerusalem Post:

As Hamas drew Ashkelon into the circle of communities coming under heavy rocket attacks, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the Foreign Ministry on Thursday began preparing both Israeli and world opinion for the possibility of a large-scale incursion into Gaza........

Did we get Ayman al Zawahiri?

Hat tip to LGF.

There was an airstrike in Azam Warzak South Waziristan yesterday with reports that Arabs and fighters from Central Asia were killed in the attack. One of the reports suggest that an "al Qaeda fugitive from Egypt" was among those that went to claim their 72 virgins, leading to speculation that Ayman al Zawahiri was the intended target.

Bill Roggio reports on it here.

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY - MAY YOU REST IN PEACE

I said to Johnny Carson that to say that the CIA and the KGB engage in similar practices is the equivalent of saying that the man who pushes an old lady into the path of a hurtling bus is not to be distinguished from the man who pushes an old lady out of the path of a hurtling bus: on the grounds that, after all, in both cases someone is pushing old ladies around.

-- William F. Buckley --

REDNECK MAP SIMPLIFIED

CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE

HUMOR OF THE DAY

OBAMA TIME
A Paid Political Announcement by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois)

A THANK YOU FROM AMERICA'S (NEXT) PRESIDENT

My fellow Identity-Americans:

As your future President I want to thank my supporters, for their ... well, support.

Your mindless support of me, despite my complete lack of any legislative achievement, my pastor's relations with Louis Farrakhan and Libyan dictator Moamar Kadaffi, or my blatantly leftist voting record while I present myself as some sort of bipartisan agent of change.

I also like how my supporters claim my youthful drug use and criminal behavior somehow qualifies me for the Presidency after 8 years of claiming Bush's youthful drinking disqualifies him. Your hypocrisy is a beacon of hope shining over a sea of political posing.

I would also like to thank the Kennedy's for coming out in support of me. There's a lot of glamour behind the Kennedy name, even though Teddy killed a female employee with whom he was having an extra marital affair and was pregnant with his child.

And I'd like to thank Oprah Winfrey for her support. Her love of meaningless empty platitudes will be the force that propels me to the White House.

Americans should vote for me, not because of my lack of experience or achievement, but because I make people feel good. Voting for me causes some white folk to feel relieved of their imagined, racist guilt.

I say things that sound meaningful, but don't really mean anything because Americans are tired of things having meaning. If things have meaning, then that means you have to think about them.

Americans are tired of thinking. It's time to shut down the brain, and open up the heart. So when you go to vote in the primaries, remember don't think,
just do.

And do it for me.

Thank You, America.

President (to be) B. Hussein Obambi

Europe’s Time to Choose

By Paul Belien

During the past two centuries three major European continental nations have tried to impose their will on the rest of the continent, indeed, on the globe. First France in the early 19th century, then Germany in the first half of the 20th century, and finally Russia. France was defeated in 1815, Germany in 1918 and 1945, and Russia in 1989. Britain stood up to all these attempts of the major European countries to gain European and world hegemony. In 1815 America was too young to become involved in Europe’s wars, but it became entangled in European affairs from 1917 onward. The willingness of Britain, and later also of America, to stand up against continental Europe’s bullies made London and later Washington into the natural allies of the smaller European countries, who feel threatened by their big neighbors........ (Read on)

Public Education And Higher Taxes

By Richard Rahn

Why do individuals and countries engage in self-destructive behavior? Many books have been written on the topic, but given the U.S. election campaign, it is worth examining why some politicians and other opinion leaders advocate policies contrary to both good theory and empirical evidence.

During the last quarter-century, most countries on the globe went through an economic renaissance as Austrian and Chicago school economists gained the upper hand from the old Keynesian and socialist policymakers. This was due to the political triumphs of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and their many disciples around the globe.

The successes of lower tax rates, deregulation, privatization, and freer trade are obvious to all who care to look, yet both in Europe and the United States many in the political class are running from these successful policies...... (Read on)

Infantilizomania, the obsessive compulsion to treat adults as children.

I came upon this column. It was written a over two years ago but the message is still pertinent.

INFANTILIZOMANIA
[The neurotic compulsion of liberals]
To The Point [subscription needed]
September 23, 2005
By Dr. Jack Wheeler

"Yes, I invented this term. You won’t find it in Webster’s, the OED, or Google. At least not now. Hopefully soon you will, as it becomes the accepted term for the neurosis with which all those on the Left are afflicted.

Just as a pyromaniac is driven by a compulsion to set fires, a kleptomaniac by a compulsion to steal, and – everyone’s favorite example – a nymphomaniac by a compulsion to have sex, an infantilizomaniac is driven by a compulsion to treat adult human beings as children.

The compulsion to infantilize people is the neurotic compulsion of liberals.

Liberals of course do not call it infantilizomania. They call it compassion.

We can see the results of liberal compassion in the wake of Katrina: hundreds of thousands of New Orleans inner city blacks helpless to take responsibility for themselves. Liberal compassion is the modern form of the White Man’s Burden, and has destroyed, just obliterated, three to four generations of inner city poor in America.

How many more generations of inner city blacks have to be wiped out until liberals admit their compassion is a fraud of epically tragic proportions?

It is a blatantly phony compassion. Compassion for the plight of others in difficult and desperate circumstances is a noble emotion. But it becomes fraudulent when you demand that your compassion be paid for with other people’s money. A liberal’s compassion is a Ponzi scheme, robbing Peter through government taxation to pay for his compassion for Paul.

Most of all, however, liberal compassion is rendered demeaning, patronizing, and un-noble by equating compassion with treating adults as if they were children.

There is a fundamental aspect to our human nature that allows the Left to get away with it. It’s called neotony. Neoteny is a biological and neurological process where a species retains juvenile traits into adulthood. Just as a dog is a neotenous wolf, so man is (among other things) a neotenous ape.

Our neotony accounts for many of the most distinctly attractive and lovable features we possess as adult human beings – such as our unbridled curiosity, our sense of humor and playfulness. Young apes, just as the young of many other species, are playful and curious – but not as adults.

The price of maturity, for most all species except man (and those species bred by man to retain them, such as dogs bred to be adult puppies), is that such endearing traits as juvenile playfulness must go out the window.

But for everything there is a price.

For many human beings, the price of neotony is a pronounced need for a parent after their physical childhood is over. Most often this need is fulfilled through either a cosmic or ruler-parent who promises to protect you if you are a good obedient little boy or girl, and threatens to punish you if you are a bad disobedient little boy or girl.

One’s own parents cannot satisfy this need, because they cease being physically larger, dominant, and biologically protective when their children grow up. Communist dictatorships were well aware of this price of neotony, with the omnipresence of gigantic statues of Lenin, for example (which is especially funny as Lenin was five-foot-three, one inch shorter than Stalin).

The purpose of such huge statues was to reduce adult subjects in a Communist country to the physical size and status of children who will obey their ruler-parents.

The liberals’ path to power is to reduce adults to children through their phony claim of compassion. As French philosopher Pascal Bruckner points out, in order to look at grown adults as innocent, they must be infantilized. But by transforming real grown people into idealized innocent infants, liberal compassion becomes contempt.

In Bruckner’s book, Tears of the White Man: Compassion as Contempt , he observes how there can be “sadism in pity.” He requests that liberals, those “prophets of guilty conscience,” those “martyrs of malediction,” abandon compassion as contempt, stop looking at inner city blacks as children, and accept them instead as adults capable of being responsible for their own happiness.

In his latest work, The Temptation of Innocence: Living in the Age of Entitlement , Bruckner discusses the devastation wrought upon people whom liberals infantilize. Not only are they encouraged to think and behave as children, as infantilized victims, but to believe that their powerlessness is “a virtue without responsibility.”

Conning people into viewing themselves as children allows liberals to get them hooked on their drug of OPM (yes, pronounced “opium” and standing for Other People’s Money).

OPM welfare subsidies are no less an addictive drug than cocaine or heroin ( so it is no coincidence that most drug addicts are welfare addicts). Once you get on the drug of the dole, you can’t conceive how you could survive without it.

Conservatives need to regard liberals as drug pushers. By building up constituencies hooked on OPM, liberals assure themselves of votes by doling out the drug. New Orleans is the most currently perfect example – and of the fantastic danger it has become.

The danger results from non-liberal politicians falling for the fraud of liberal infantilization. They buy into the liberal message, “We have to take care of the helpless children no matter how much it costs!” – no matter if the “children” are full grown adults hooked on OPM. (One reason so many folks didn’t evacuate New Orleans is because they didn’t want to miss their next welfare check due to arrive in the next day or so.)

George W. Bush began his presidency by promising it would usher in a new Age of Responsibility. Katrina has provided liberals with an ideal opportunity to intimidate him into abandoning his promise. Oceans of OPM will now be spent to placate the infantilizomaniacs.

The Age of Responsibility was a pipe-dream. Until the liberal neurosis suffers constant exposure and can no longer be used as the liberal path to power, we will continue to live in an Age of Infantilizomania."

Maggie Gallagher:
The Truth About Nationalized Healthcare

Hillary Clinton opened fire on Barack Obama across an array of issues, but saved the really big guns for health care.

Radicals Never Say Sorry

By Jonah Goldberg:

"Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon."

This excerpt from William Ayers' memoir appeared in the New York Times on Sept. 11, 2001 - the day al-Qaida terrorists crashed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Ayers, once a leader in the Weather Underground - the group that declared "war" on the U.S. government in 1970 - told the Times, "I don't regret setting bombs," and, "I feel we didn't do enough."

The question of why Ayers isn't in jail is moot; he was never prosecuted for the Weather Underground's bombing campaign. Still, Ayers is unrepentant about his years spent waging war against the United States. "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at," Ayers was widely quoted as saying at the time. continued...

Lawrence Kudlow: Obama's Big-Government Vision

Sen. Barack Obama is very gloomy about America, and he's aligning himself with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party in hopes of coming to the nation's rescue.

Amanda Carpenter:
Obama Runs from Liberal Record in Debate

Barack Obama, deemed the most liberal U.S. Senator by the National Journal, called rankings by outside groups ?silly? in the final Democratic presidential debate before critical March 4th nominating contests in Ohio and Texas.

REFORM? ........ REFORRRRM?

We don't need no stinkin' reform. We're as honest and ethical as the day is long. Transparent too.

Washington Post:
House Democrats Withdraw Reform Plan for Ethics Office

HOW DO WE MAKE GASOLINE CHEAPER? I KNOW. LET'S TAX IT.

USA Today:
House Dems primed to hike oil taxes $18B

Rasmussen Reports:
Texas Democratic Presidential Primary
Texas: Obama 48% Clinton 44%

Reuters:
Pres. Bush raps Obama pledge to meet hostile leaders

Reuters:
Vast immigrant smuggling ring smashed in L.A.

Abbas Says 'Armed Struggle' May Be Future Option for His People
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who is considered a “moderate” by Israel and the U.S. because he supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, didn’t talk like a moderate in a newspaper interview published on Thursday.

Israel Concerned About Another Hizballah Build-up Along Border
Israel, beset with rocket attacks from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, is preparing for another escalation along its northern border with Hizballah, a senior Israeli officer said...

Congressmen Call for Defunding Planned Parenthood
After reviewing materials posted on Planned Parenthood’s teenwire.com Web site, three House Republicans are calling for the termination of Planned Parenthood’s federal funding. Among other things, teenwire promotes the use of pornography by teenagers...

Canada TV: Obama Deceived Debate Viewers on NAFTA Plans
Did Sen. Barack Obama say one thing privately to the Canadian government about NAFTA -- and something very different during Tuesday night’s debate? The answer is yes, according to CTV, a Canadian television network...

WE NEED ASK: "WHO IS BARACK OBAMA, REALLY?"

The Obama Files
by John Batchelor

What you need to measure about Barack Obama, a likely potent adversary for the presidency, is that while he is a politically junior and consciously liberal-voting member of the U.S. Senate, he is actually a veteran Chicago politician with a fertile record of surprising associations in controversial events well apart from his work in legislatures.

Some few of these associations from his years in Chicago law work and urban development, and from his career in the Springfield, Illinois senate, speak to the quality of his judgment and to the strength of his character. Four associations in particular go the heart of the inquiry ahead in order to ask and answer the fundamental questions about who is Barack Obama.

Read more about these four associates of Mr. Obama here.

NEVER MIND

Voting machines in Florida not faulty after all.

Obama's 'Patriot' Act
Meet the Senator's un-American employer bill.

Obama's Cash Games
The Wall Street Journal

Economy to Skirt Recession, but Growth Said to Crawl
Reuters

Chilling Effect

Global warmists try to stifle debate.
By John Fund

EPA Should Avoid Regulating Carbon Dioxide Emissions

By Ben Lieberman
Heritage Foundation

Critics of big government focus most of their attention on soaring federal budgets and the endless stream of new legislation that would further increase spending and taxes. Often overlooked is the trillion-dollar annual cost of compliance with federal regulations. Like the federal budget, this regulatory burden continues to increase and usually accelerates during the final year of an Administration.

The most worrisome regulation now under consideration is a declaration by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles endanger public health. The so-called endangerment finding would spark many costly measures with the potential to harm the U.S. economy and intrude on citizens' daily activities. The EPA should refrain from initiating any regulation that would jump ahead of Congress on global warming.

Continue reading more...

COMMENTARY

Econ 101: The Great Depression
Dr. Gary Wolfram explains why we're not in another one ... but politicians could take us there.

Not-So-Great Depression Coverage: All of the Hype, but None of the Bread Lines

Unsatisfied by characterizing economy as in recession, networks try comparing current situation to the Great Depression.

By Nathan Burchfiel, Business & Media Institute

Hillary in Distress

Robert Novak says:

1. The best indicator of Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-N.Y.) distress is the fact that erstwhile supporters, including former Clinton Cabinet members, are badmouthing her as a very poor candidate. Inside the Democratic Party, it is already taken for granted that the queen is dead and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is the king.
   
   
2. Conservative apprehension about Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has less to do with issues than personalities. For example, the picture of Republican moderates and liberals at McCain's side as he celebrated his Virginia primary victory signaled nervous conservatives in the state that they are being read out of the GOP.
   
   
3. However, McCain had a good closed-door dinner meeting Saturday night with Republican governors during the annual National Governors Association (NGA) meeting in Washington. Governors from coal- and oil-producing states spelled out their problems with McCain's energy policies, and he was responsive.
   
   
4. It was a less favorable NGA meeting for the organization's chairman, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. His carbon-emissions proposal was shot down by bipartisan opposition from the coal-oil bloc of governors, and that did not help his vice presidential aspirations.
   

And this is fine with me. Our Minnesota governor has gone over to the dark side on the global warming issue. It pleases me to hear his plan was not well received. As far as his VP chances .... well ... whatever.... who cares?

TYRANNY

The Nanny-Nazzis are at it again. This time it's about food.

The quote I posted the other day from Walter Williams has garnered some attention. Mr. Williams wrote a column on Feb. 13th called "They're Coming After You" and that is where the quote came from.

His column can be read here.

I just wanted to let you know so you may read the whole column if you wish.

UPDATE:
According to this, this piece of sh.... uhmm..... excrement .... legislation (in Mississippi) died in committee on Feb 19th -- just a few days after Mr. Williams wrote his column.

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith, becomes an American, and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language. And we have room for but one sole loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people."

- Theodore Roosevelt

TYRANNY JUST AROUND THE CORNER?

“Anti-tobacco zealots don’t have a monopoly on tyrannical designs. There are those who wish to control what we eat, and the successful attack on smokers has provided a template for their agenda... Here’s the Mississippi Legislature House Bill 282,... that in part reads: ‘An Act to prohibit certain food establishments from serving food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health; to direct the Department to prepare written materials that describe and explain the criteria for determining whether a person is obese and to provide those materials to the food establishments; to direct the Department to monitor the food establishments for compliance with the provisions of this act.’ The bill proposes to revoke licenses of food establishments that violate the provisions of the act. You shouldn’t believe that if this measure is successful in Mississippi that it will stay in Mississippi. Moreover, it will be expanded upon because most people who are obese don’t become so by eating at restaurants; mostly, it’s food eaten at home. Thus, the food tyrants won’t be satisfied with restaurant restrictions, just as the anti-tobacco zealots weren’t satisfied with warning labels on cigarettes. They will push for legislation restricting the sale of foods at supermarkets. Since an obese person can get a svelte person to do his grocery shopping for him, legislators might propose sting operations to fine or arrest people giving an obese person high-calorie food... Americans turning away from rule of law and constitutional government are following in the footsteps of other people around the world who discovered their liberties gone and recovering them was next to impossible. But, what the heck. You might be among those Americans who don’t smoke and are not obese, so why sweat it?”

—Walter Williams

“The natural instinct of civilized human beings is to protect those who are more vulnerable in the face of danger. Civilized cultures have placed women on a pedestal not because they are less capable but because we honor them and hold them in a special place in our society. Not so with radical Islamists. They treat women as chattel and they abuse children. Just as it is becoming increasingly incumbent upon the Iraqi people to take responsibility for their government and their future, it is increasingly imperative that responsible Muslims take a stand for human decency.”

—Oliver North

“Talk is cheap—except when Congress does it.” —Cullen Hightower

Victor Davis Hanson:
Ivy League Populism

The rhetoric of Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton about the sad state of America is reminiscent of the suspect populism of John Edwards, the millionaire lawyer who recently dropped out of the Democratic presidential race.

"Patriotism isn't about loving your country when your party is in power. It isn't about liking its political leaders or even agreeing with all the nation's policies.

No matter how much we may have disliked Bill Clinton, conservatives didn't feel ashamed of our country or think it is any less great and noble a nation when he was in office. You can't imagine conservatives refusing to fly the flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance because Clinton raised taxes or misbehaved in the Oval Office.

Patriotism is a lot like the unconditional love of a parent for a child. A parent doesn't demand a child be perfect in order to love him. Nor does that love mean that a parent does not recognize a child's faults.

Conservatives seem to understand this almost intuitively, but liberals seem to struggle with it. Liberals' patriotism often seems grudging -- as if they believe it's the country's duty to win their love rather than their duty to love their country.

Our elected officials don't make America great, nor do temporal policies. America is great because of its people, its defining institutions and its freedoms."

-- Linda Chavez

WHAT DO WE CALL A ONE CLASS SOCIETY?

Barack Obama laid out numerous liberal policies he would pursue if elected President and dodged a blow from Hillary Clinton in a critical Democratic presidential debate before the March 4th nominating contests in Ohio and Texas.

When pressed for policy details on several issues like immigration, healthcare, the economy and international relations Obama supported liberal positions.

Obama chided what he described as hateful rhetoric surrounding debates on immigration. He said immigration rhetoric has had “an undertone that has been ugly” and “we’ve seen hate crime skyrocket in the wake of the immigration debate.”

Obama, who supports comprehensive immigration reform and drivers licenses for illegal aliens, said in the debate he also thought there should be lower immigration application fees because “it’s discriminatory” for immigrant families to “hire a lawyer” and “pay thousands in fees” to receive legal status. Obama added he thought Congress should immediately pass the DREAM Act to give in-state tuition to illegal aliens.

“I do not want two classes of citizens in this country,” he said.

Read more of Amanda Carpenter's Obama Outlines Liberal Policies in Debate.

Oh yea ... I almost forgot to answer the question, "What do we call a one class society?"

Ummmmm ..... go here.

What Canada Tells Us About Government Health Care

Some excerpts from a column by Doug Wilson:

"Americans may not agree on much between now and November, but we have reached a consensus about the importance of at least one issue: health care."

"This public concern has prompted political action—or at least political posturing. It seems every politician has a plan to solve our health care woes. For Democrats, the silver bullet remains universal, government-funded coverage. Both Senators Obama and Clinton have proposed regulation and tax-heavy programs to offer cradle-to-grave health care for Americans.

Ironically, these proposals come at a time when some of our other entitlements—Social Security and Medicare—stand on the brink of collapse. For example, most experts agree that Social Security will be entirely bankrupt by 2041, and that the system will show serious financial strain as early as 2017. If a business faced such dire financial straits it would cut costs, but the government continues its perpetual spending spree."

"Canadians pay more for their health care and get less.

How, exactly, do Canadians pay more for their health care? Taxes, naturally—and higher and higher ones at that, for there is no other way to maintain such an enormous entitlement. Consider that by 2035, six of 10 Canadian provinces will spend half of their taxpayer-generated revenue on health-related expenses." (Read more)

Phyllis Schlafly:
Congress Contemplates Giving Cash to Foreigners

Republicans allowed a bill that carries his name, among nine others, to pass the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by voice vote last week - without any hearings.

Thomas Sowell:
Bad Times

The front page of the New York Times has increasingly become the home of editorials disguised as "news" stories. Too often it has become the home of hoaxes.

Dumb Governors
By Alan Caruba

Being a governor has always been a stepping stone to the presidency. It’s just a thought, but perhaps people are less confident in their governors these days because so many of them are leaving their states ever deeper in debt. The National Governors Association just finished its winter meeting in Washington, D.C., and managed to ignore the crisis most common to their states -- overextended budgets and ballooning deficits. So what did the National Governors Association discuss? “Reinforcing the role of states in advancing a clean energy future for America.”

Fox News/AP:
Health Care Spending Projected to Double by 2017

ON RELIGION

Boston Globe:
US religious identity is rapidly changing

Washington Times:
Catholic tradition fading in U.S.

Mercury leaks found as new bulbs break

Energy benefits of fluorescents may outweigh risk
Boston Globe

Islamist Party Downplays Shari’a Ahead of Malaysia Election
An Islamist party in Malaysia that has drawn attention in the past for supporting controversial shari’a corporal punishment has changed tack ahead of general elections next weekend, in a bid to regain waning support...

Russia’s Likely Next President Wades Into Kosovo Row
President Vladimir Putin’s handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, increased his international profile Monday with a visit to Serbia, where he reiterated the Kremlin’s opposition to Kosovo’s recent declaration of independence. The United States has backed Kosovo...

Planned Parenthood Web Site Promotes Porn to Teens
Teenwire.com, the Planned Parenthood Web site that says it was created “to provide medically accurate sexual health information for teens on the Internet,” is advising teens that viewing pornography is a normal and “safer” way of enjoying sex...

Who Will Tell Hillary It’s Over?
By Robert D. Novak

Even before Sen. Barack Obama won his ninth-straight contest against Sen. Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin last Tuesday, wise old heads in the Democratic Party were asking this question: Who will tell her that it’s over, that she cannot win the presidential nomination and the sooner she leaves the race the more it will improve chances of defeating Sen. John McCain in November?

Democrats Demagogue Poverty Again
By Alan Caruba

The Democrats are at it again. Both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama have made “poverty” a central theme of their campaigns, promising to lift up the poor and put a chicken in every pot, a large screen TV on every wall, and a new car in every driveway. But there always have been and always will be poor Americans…

PORKY PIG GOES TO WASHINGTON

And plans to stay there as:
Democrats Try to Shut Down Republicans' Earmark Reform Web Site
House Republicans are blasting Democratic leaders for ordering the shutdown of an “earmark reform” Web site that was launched two weeks ago to "change the way Washington spends taxpayer dollars........"

Islamic Links on Obama Web Site Stir Criticism

A page for Muslim supporters of Sen. Barack Obama hosted on Obama’s presidential campaign Web site promotes events sponsored by controversial Islamic groups...

Conservatives Place Hold on Obama’s Global Poverty Bill

Two conservative members of the U.S. Senate have anonymously placed a hold on Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) global poverty bill, Cybercast News Service has learned. They want to slow down the progress of a bill that conservative analysts say could eventually force the U.S. to increase its foreign aid by hundreds of billions of dollars... (READ MORE)

This Global Poverty Bill was mentioned in one of my posts from yesterday about Mr. Obama.

APPARENTLY SUCCESS HAS ITS DRAWBACKS

Violence Against Border Agents Viewed As Sign of Success
Violence against Border Patrol agents -- including attempts to run them over and behead them with wire -- increased by almost a third in 2007, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said. He interpreted the increased violence as an indicator that the border is becoming more secure...

Feds Should Give Texas More to Pay for Illegals, Says Clinton

Arguing that "we need a path to legalization" for illegal aliens to bring them "out of the shadows," Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said the federal government should provide more "help" to communities in Texas to cover the health care, education and law enforcement costs incurred by illegal aliens...

Obama, Clinton Back Off Border-Fence Law

Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton agreed Thursday night that the Secure Border Fence Act of 2006, which directs the secretary of Homeland Security to construct 700 miles of double border fencing along specific sections of the U.S.-Mexico border, should not be enforced as written...

From the (far) Left:

While there has been some commentary on the
Cuban flag with the murderous thug Che Guevara’s face printed on it that can be seen here in this photo in a Obama campaign office in Houston, Texas, it has largely gone unreported - certainly by the "old major media."

"Che Guevara joined Fidel Castro's revolutionary 26th of July Movement, which fought a guerrilla war and ultimately seized power from the regime of the U.S. supported Cuban dictator General Fulgencio Batista in 1959. For a few months after the success of the revolution, Guevara was assigned the role of "supreme prosecutor", overseeing the public revolutionary tribunals and executions of suspected war criminals associated with the previous regime. After serving in various important posts in the new government, touring the world and meeting with leaders on behalf of Cuban socialism. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolutions first in Congo-Kinshasa, and then in Bolivia, where he was captured in a military operation supported by the CIA and the U.S. Army Special Forces.Guevara was summarily executed by the Bolivian Army in the town of La Higuera near Vallegrande on October 9, 1967. After his death, Guevara became an icon of socialist revolutionary movements worldwide." -(Wikipedia)

This should cause one's antennas to go up. Barack is for "change." We all know this by now. He says it 50 times or more in each speech he makes. But just what kind of change does he want?

The Patriot Post has written about "Obama’s communist mentor" as follows:

"While Senator Barack Obama has been touting himself as the candidate for change, one thing he has conveniently not been advertising is his close relationship while growing up with Frank Marshall Davis, a known communist writer and member of the Communist Party USA. In his book, Dreams from My Father, Obama tells of “a poet named Frank” who cautioned the young future senator before he left for college against forgetting his “people” and against “believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that [stuff].” This is the same Frank who, according to Professor Gerald Horne, a contributing editor of Political Affairs, the Communist Party journal, “befriended” the Obama family after moving to Hawaii from Kansas.

Obama followed the ideologies of his mentor, openly attending socialist conferences and brushing elbows with the Democratic Socialists of America. While he vehemently denies being a “hard-core academic Marxist,” his socialist-inspired philosophies often belie that claim.

In January, the communist newspaper People’s Weekly World published a letter from a supporter celebrating Obama’s Iowa caucuses victory as “more than a progressive move; it was a dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle.” The letter goes on to say, “Marx once compared revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface. This is the old revolutionary ‘mole,’ not only showing his traces on the surface but also breaking through.”

There is an inherent contradiction in seeking to become the next leader of the free world while clinging to Marxist philosophy. Common sense dictates that one who would bear the standard of liberty should embrace its philosophies. Unfortunately, common sense has become rather uncommon in today’s political arena. Had it not, perhaps more scrutiny would be directed toward a certain senator from Illinois who grasps Marxist ideologies with one hand and seeks to lead the United States of America with the other."

More of the Obama-Marshall connection can be read here where Cliff Kincaid writes:

Davis was a known communist who belonged to a party subservient to the Soviet Union. In fact, the 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii identified him as a CPUSA member. What's more, anti-communist congressional committees, including the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused Davis of involvement in several communist-front organizations.

Obama's communist connection adds to mounting public concern about a candidate who has come out of virtually nowhere, with a brief U.S. Senate legislative record, to become the Democratic Party frontrunner for the U.S. presidency.

AIM recently disclosed that Obama has well-documented socialist connections, which help explain why he sponsored a "Global Poverty Act" designed to send hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. foreign aid to the rest of the world, in order to meet U.N. demands. The bill has passed the House and a Senate committee, and awaits full Senate action.

But the Communist Party connection through Davis is even more ominous. Decades ago, the CPUSA had tens of thousands of members, some of them covert agents who had penetrated the U.S. Government. It received secret subsidies from the old Soviet Union.

It behooves us all to learn more about Mr. Obama and what it is he really truly believes in and where he would take this country.

I fear it would be a bad place.

Campaign watch: Obama’s commanding lead

From The Patriot Post-

"John McCain and Barack Obama both won handily in their parties’ respective primaries on Tuesday—McCain in Washington and Wisconsin, Obama in Wisconsin and Hawaii. Obama has won ten straight contests since Super Tuesday—by an average of more than 30 percentage points—giving him a sizeable delegate lead over Hillary Clinton. The Clinton campaign reportedly ended January $7.6 million in debt and is betting the house on the Texas and Ohio primaries on 4 March, in which more than 200 delegates are up for grabs. Unfortunately for Clinton, however, the Teamsters’ endorsement of Obama could be a key factor in Ohio. The Service Employees International Union and the United Food and Commercial Workers also endorsed his this past week. Meanwhile, Clinton’s black supporters are beginning to wonder if the time has come to jump ship and join Obama. Some party leaders are looking to none other than Al Gore to broker a deal that could keep the nomination fight between the two from ending in a debilitating brawl at the convention. Yet considering Al and Hillary’s mutual abhorrence, any such negotiation is unlikely. Besides, Obama has no reason to give up the fight, and Clinton simply won’t give up, no matter the consequences. Call it pathology, but the Clintons are not going to lose graciously. Asked if she’s going to stay in the race if she loses Texas and/or Ohio, Clinton predicted, “I don’t make predictions. I never have, I never will.” Um, right. That whistling sound you hear is not the remains of an obliterated spy satellite; it’s the once-high-flying Clinton campaign plummeting toward earth."

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