As 2009 Begins... Some Sobering Thoughts Concerning Next Year's Budget

"President Barack Obama unveiled his budget for next year (the Federal government's next fiscal year begins on October 1, 2009) and it comes out to about $3.6 TRILLION dollars. If we pretend there are 360 days in a year, that works out to Ten Billion Dollars a day, $417 Million an hour. $6.9 Million per minute. $115,000 per second. Every second. Starting at one second after Midnight on October 1, 2009." -- political analyst Rich Galen

How Much is $1 Billion Actually?

Things Must Be Going Well in Iraq if the Mainstream Socialist Media Admits It

The New York Times published a piece entitled "A War We Just Might Win", authored by Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, both scholars from the Left-leaning Brookings think tank, which stated: "Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration's miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily "victory" but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with."

"Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference."

This Quote Says It All Concerning Liberalism/Socialism...

Enough generations of socialist policies have now passed for us to judge their effects. They are bleak. Socialism undermines the character of a nation and of it's citizens. In simpler words, socialism makes people worse.

Socialism teaches it's citizens to expect everything, even if they contribute nothing. Socialism teaches it's citizens that they have a plethora of rights and few, if any, corresponding obligations (except to be taxed). And that is why the citizens of less socialist (and more religious) America give more charity per capita and per income than do citizens of socialist countries. That is why Americans volunteer time for the needy so much more than citizens of socialist countries do. That is why citizens of conservative "red" states in America give more charity than citizens of liberal "blue" states do.

The more Left one identifies oneself on the political spectrum, the more that person is likely to believe that the state, not fellow citizens, should take care of the poor and the needy.

Under socialism, one is not only liberated from having to take care of oneself; one is also liberated from having to take care of others. The state will take care of me and everybody else.

The socialist idea sounded altruistic to those who began it, and it sounds altruistic to the naive who believe in it today. In practice however, socialism creates self-centered individuals and a narcissistic society. So while it may have begun as a way to help others, it has come to mean a way of evading responsibility for oneself and for others.

The Liberal Propaganda Machine At Work

Dateline Wednesday, October 11th, 2006. The mainstream socialist media has cranked up their propaganda to an all-time level of absurdity in their attempt to regain power in the Senate and the House.

The latest example is a recent poll conducted by The Washington Post and reported in an article writen by David Broder and Dan Balz entitled "Poll Shows Strong Shift to Democrats!". The report starts out with:

“Democrats have regained a commanding position going into the final weeks of the midterm-election campaigns, with support eroding for Republicans on Iraq, ethics and presidential leadership, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.”

There's only one problem with that statement and that's the fact that Broder/Balz don't tell their readers the truth, which is this...

41 percent more Democrats were questioned for this survey than Republicans!! That’s right. The breakdown was: 38 percent Democrats; 27 percent Republicans, and; 31 percent "Independents"! This was the largest skewing of Democrats to Republicans in a Washington Post-ABC News poll since at least April. By contrast, in last month’s poll, the breakdown was 33 percent Democrats, 32 percent Republicans, and 30 percent Independents.

Leave aside the fact that most people who describe themselves as independant/moderate are usually left-of-center, this is an egregious "oversight" by Broder and Balz that can only be designed to inculcate the unknowing general public with the idea that the November elections are all but over.

Don't believe the mainstream/socialist media and their "polls". The above is a classic example of why.

More Comments on Liberalism by Don Feder

More than unworkable, liberal ideas are preposterous, impossible-refuted by logic and human experience. That liberals continue to believe the impossible is due to their particular mental makeup. Liberals believe what they want to believe, the overwhelming weight of evidence notwithstanding. Once a liberal stops clinging to certain illusions central to his worldview, he stops being a liberal.

The Wisdom of Thomas Sowell

In a democracy, we have always had to worry about the ignorance of the uneducated. Today we have to worry about the ignorance of people with college degrees.

200 years ago Democrats held blacks as slaves for their labor. Today they keep blacks as slaves for their vote.

Does it tell you something about our times when a representative of the Taliban is welcome on the Yale University campus but representatives of our own military forces are not?

President Bush says that it is "unrealistic" to think that we can deport 12 million illegal immigrants. It is also unrealistic to think that we can catch all murderers, but does that mean that we should de-criminalize murder? Or turn loose the murderers we do catch?

How can people who say we don't have enough troops in Iraq advocate that we intervene militarily in Darfur?

Some people say it is "name-calling" if you refer to someone as a liberal. There is nothing inherently negative about the word "liberal." If it has acquired negative overtones, that is because of what liberals have done and the consequences that followed.

A number of the nation's leading colleges -- including Harvard, Amherst, the University of Chicago and the Naval Academy -- will admit students who have not finished high school. Many outstanding students would do well to get out of high schools that are wasting their time and go straight into college.

The vision of the left, full of envy and resentment, takes its worst toll on those at the bottom—whether black or white—who find in that paranoid vision an excuse for counterproductive and ultimately self-destructive attitudes and behavior.

The Europeans enslaved on the Barbary Coast of North Africa alone were far more numerous than all the Africans brought to the United States and to the 13 colonies from which it was formed. What was unique about Western civilization was that it was the first civilization to turn against slavery, and that it stamped out slavery not only in it's own societies but in other societies around the world during the era of 'Western Imperialism'.

At the highest income levels, people are especially likely to be transient at that level. Recent data from the Internal Revenue Service show that more than half the people who were in the top 1 percent in 1996 were no longer there in 2005. Among the top one-hundreth of 1 percent, three-quarters of them were no longer there at the end of the decade.

The actual incomes of the elderly are more than 4 times what their earnings statistics might suggest... When it comes to wealth, the average net worth of people 65 years old and up is several times that of people under the age of 45. The highest average net worth in any age bracket belongs to households headed by people aged 70 to 74.

Statistics [cited by politicians and journalists who inflate the number of the poor] do not include income received by low-income people as transfer payments from the government, such as welfare checks, much less various in-kind transfers, such as subsidized housing and subsidized medical care. As of 2001, about 78 percent of the economic resources used by people in the bottom 20 percent of income recipients were in the form of either cash transfers or in-kind transfers. Thus to judge the standard of living of low-income people by income statistics is to leave out more than three-quarters of the economic resources used by them

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it. ... It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it. ... The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all of those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics. ... The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.

The Wisdom of Walter E. Williams

The Religious Origin of the American Flag

We take the stars from heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing liberty.     -- George Washington

Quotes From Conservatives, the Founding Fathers, and Other Right Minded People

How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.      -- Ronald Reagan

Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution.     -- James Madison, Federalist No. 39

If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.     -- Thomas Jefferson

Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.     -- Alexis de Tocqueville

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.    -- Presbyterian minister William J.H. Boetcker (1873-1962)

Democrats -- compared to Republicans -- on average are less affluent, more unhappy, more prone to anti-social behavior, more prone to self-destructive behavior, and more likely to have been shot at, robbed or burglarized. More of them see X-rated movies, more of them smoke, and they're less likely to be married and more likely to have separated or divorced.     -- Larry Elder

According to the Pew Center for the People and the Press, the less you like to fly the American flag, the more likely it is you are Democrat. The more you think hard work and personal initiative aren't the ticket to the good life, the more likely you are to be a Democrat. The more you believe the United Nations is a better steward of international relations, while America is a negative actor on the world stage, the more likely you are to be a Democrat. The more you believe that the government is there to help, the more likely it is you are Democrat. The less seriously you take religion, the more likely you are to be a Democrat. Flip all of these values around and the more likely it is you are a Republican -- or that you vote that way.      -- Jonah Goldberg

Avoiding long-term poverty is not rocket science. First, graduate from high school. Second, get married before you have children, and stay married. Third, work at any kind of job, even one that starts out paying the minimum wage. And, finally, avoid engaging in criminal behavior. If you graduate from high school today with a B or C average, in most places in our country there's a low-cost or financially assisted post-high-school education program available to increase your skills. Most jobs start with wages higher than the minimum wage, which is currently $5.15. A man and his wife, even earning the minimum wage, would earn $21,000 annually. According to the Bureau of Census, in 2003, the poverty threshold for one person was $9,393, for a two-person household it was $12,015, and for a family of four it was $18,810. Taking a minimum-wage job is no great shakes, but it produces an income higher than the Bureau of Census' poverty threshold. Plus, having a job in the first place increases one's prospects for a better job.
-- Walter E. Williams

Until the arrival of Arafat and the Palestinian terrorists, Lebanon was a Christian democracy. But Islamic radicalism could not tolerate either Christianity or democracy. This -- not the presence of tiny Israel (one hundred times smaller than its current antagonists) is the root cause of the violence in the Middle East. The cause is Arab intolerance and Islamic hate. One Jewish state among 22 Arab states was one too many. Six million Jews among 300 million Arabs was too much to bear. A sliver of land, less than one percent of the Arab land mass, which belonged first to the Turks and then to the British was an imperialist outrage. Lebanon, a country raped by the Syrian-Iranian axis and the Palestinians has become an integral component of the terrorists' war plan to push the Middle Eastern Jews, who have lived continuously for 3,000 years in the region, into the sea. Lebanon is indeed a tragedy of the 58-year Arab war against Israel, against democracy, and against Christianity in the Middle East. But its government and its people are by no means innocent.      -- David Horowitz

According to the CDC, DoJ, DHHS and the Bureau of the Census, 63% of teen suicides, 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions, 71% of high-school dropouts, 75% of children in chemical-abuse centers, 80% of rapists, 85% of youths in prison, 85% of children who exhibit behavioral disorders, and 90% of homeless and runaway children are children from fatherless homes. In fact, children born to unwed mothers are ten times more likely to live in poverty as children with fathers in the home.      -- The Federalist

Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled or hanged.      -- Abraham Lincoln

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.      -- Thomas Jefferson

No free man shall ever be de-barred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government.      -- Thomas Jefferson

It is the people's right and duty to be at all times armed.      -- Thomas Jefferson

The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.       -- Samuel Adams

The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any...      -- James Madison

If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense...      -- Alexander Hamilton

The first and primary duty of government is to protect innocent human life.      -- Thomas Jefferson

Nobody has the freedom to choose what is morally wrong.      -- Abraham Lincoln

The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil influence. They deserve a place of honor with all that's good. When firearms go, all goes. We need them every hour.      -- George Washington

It's been a century-long modus operandi for every black liberal politician: Blame Whitey. And for years, white America surrendered the race card trump, placating racial rabble-rousers with over 10 trillion dollars of social programs. Not enough. They created racial preference laws. Not enough. They laid every guilt trip possible on white people. Not enough. Well, not this time. See, Whitey wised up. We know black people cause modern Black America's great plagues. Newt Gingrich doesn't run around knocking up 14-year-old black girls. Black men do. Ronald Reagan didn't gang bang and murder in the hood. Black men do. Rush Limbaugh doesn't coax black people into government servitude. Black liberals do. And certainly, William F. Buckley never advised black people to speak English like Jar Jar Binks. Black people do. And in New Orleans, George W. Bush didn't ignore evacuation warnings, abandon poor black people trying to leave, loot the city and shoot rescuers. Black people did. Black people caused and could have prevented this entire tragedy, and when white people tried to help, black people literally tried to kill them. That is a fact... To be certain, this isn't an indictment of all black people, though it's certainly a wake-up slap to a large black majority who listen to these cretins. It is, however, a direct accusation against liberal race prostitutes who dominate popular black leadership, create misery and mayhem in the black community for self-aggrandizing personal power, and then detestably blame White America, insisting we don't understand the plight of black people.      -- Tom Adkins

Consider that black households that are headed by married couples have median incomes almost 90 percent that of white households headed by married couples. The problem in the black community is that far too few black households are headed by married couples. Black social reality in New Orleans at the moment when the floodwaters started pouring in was fairly typical of black inner-city social reality around the country. Upwards of 70 percent of the households were headed by single parents, mostly women. When I discuss social statistics with audiences around the country, I invariably hear gasps when I point out that the out-of-wedlock birthrate today among young white women (30 percent) is higher than it was among black women 50 years ago. There, of course, remain residuals of racism in America today, and it's news to a lot of whites that black families were relatively intact, headed by married couples, in the '40s and '50s. Today's out-of-wedlock black births and single-parent households are triple what they were then. The collapse of the black family took off when big government programs, particularly welfare, were launched, compliments of black and white liberals, after the civil-rights movement.       -- Star Parker

The media have pushed the idea that the demonstration this weekend at the White House was an 'anti-war' gathering. What they didn't say was who was behind it... For the record, the lead organizer [was] ANSWER, which the media routinely refer to as an 'antiwar group.' It is nothing of the sort. In fact, ANSWER is a front group for the Stalinist Workers World Party. And any group that qualifies for that epithet in front of its name deserves special scrutiny, since Josef Stalin was responsible for the murder of as many as 25 million human beings... So why do communists—particularly those who march under Stalin's flag—get different treatment? And why do thousands of average people feel comfortable marching arm in arm with them? It's a puzzle. After all, according to the 'Black Book of Communism' —a widely cited and respected compendium of communism's crimes in the 20th century— communist regimes murdered as many as 100 million people over the last century. That's quite a record. Indeed, all the century's great mass murders—Mao Zedong (65 million), Stalin (25 million), Hitler (21 million), Pol Pot (2 million)—were communists or socialists. Yet many well-meaning people who marched this weekend perhaps didn't know all this. Or perhaps they don't mind having their cause besmirched by people who aren't really anti-war at all, but anti-America, anti-West, anti-freedom and anti-capitalist... Maybe it proves the old adage: Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas.      —- Investor's Business Daily

History records that as Benjamin Franklin emerged with his colleagues from Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, a curious woman asked, "Dr. Franklin, what have you given us?" Franklin's reply: "A republic, madam, if you can keep it." A republic. Not a theocracy or a dictatorship. And certainly not a democracy. Unfortunately, some of the best educated among us call our system exactly that -- a democracy. It is no such thing. Pure democracy was rejected by Franklin and the others because it was rightly viewed as the path to anarchy or tyranny. The Founders saw the folly of allowing the people to vote on virtually everything. Instead, they wisely instituted a system whereby the people would elect legislative representatives and a chief executive to serve as a check and balance on those legislators' powers. These officials would hold their jobs as long as the voters believed they were serving the public good.      -- Doug Patton

If you think that Uncle Sam feeds you while Big Business is trying to milk you dry, you're a Democrat. If you think that God feeds you, with a little help from a job through Big Business, while Uncle Sam is milking you dry, you're a Republican.      -- Jay Homnick

If Democrats ever dared speak coherently about what they believe, the American people would lynch them.
-- Ann Coulter

Politics is the art of looking for trouble where none exists, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.      -- Groucho Marx

When President Bush was grappling with embryonic stem cell research in 2001, Newsweek's science correspondent, Sharon Begley, warned in a cover story that this might be 'a cruel blow to millions of patients for whom embryonic stem cells might offer the last chance for health and life'. In the current issue of Newsweek, Begley now tells us that the technology was always oversold. The notion that stem cells will lead to quick cures and transplants is 'more fiction than fact', Begley tells us - now.     -- Jonah Goldberg

It is said one of the most accurate ways to judge a person's character is by how they deal with victory and defeat. When the Republicans lost the 1996 election, they accepted the truth, that less than a third of the electorate disagreed with them, congratulated the winners and vowed to fight again another day. When Democrats lose, they come unhinged, accusing the victors of cheating and deceit. It is quite clear that the left has no character or integrity, just a massive lust for power.     -- Justin Darr

It is not true that the world hates America. It is the world's left that hates America. However, because the left dominates the world's news media and because most people, understandably, believe what the news media report, many people, including Americans, believe that the world hates America.     -- Dennis Prager

Are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over thirty-five or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special.     -- Ronald Reagan

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind swept, God blessed and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here... And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that; after two hundred years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home. We've done our part. And as I walk into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time, we made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad. Not bad at all. And so, good-bye. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.     -- Ronald Reagan

A society that puts equality...ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom.     -- Milton Friedman

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.     -- Benjamin Franklin

The War on Terror (yes liberals, we are fighting a WAR)

Iraq Casualty Report (as of 11/15/2007)... Casualties in Iraq were at near historic lows in October. Coalition casualties are down for the 5th straight month. October saw the lowest number of Iraqi civilian deaths in all of 2007.

The North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap wrote in his autobiography that he credited two things (and only two things) for the NVA's "victory" over America in the Vietnam War. What were those two things? The first was the American news media for turning the American people against the war by "broadcasting propaganda"! The second was American war protesters for helping turn the American people against the war! Sound familiar? The same thing is happening today. See my blog for more...      -- TakeThatLiberals.com

Our military forces mercilessly firebombed the city of Dresden, Germany, incinerating tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children. The newsreels ran the story in our theaters, America cheered and we won the war in Europe unconditionally. We dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more people than had ever died in a single attack in the history of the world. Japan surrendered, unconditionally, and as many as a million American servicemen were spared the bloodiest invasion in the history of the world.       -- Doug Patton

Gitmo detainees are guaranteed a full night's sleep, which cannot be broken for interrogations. They eat at least as well as the soldiers who guard them, hearty meals of "culturally acceptable" food. They also get plenty of outdoor recreation, and all the religious perks they could want. Guards are even forbidden to touch the personal Qur'ans each detainee is issued. They receive health care courtesy of the US taxpayer, and their biggest medical problem is that they're gaining weight. The detainees are allowed to send and receive letters, which cannot be opened and read, and pass each other messages by giving them to lawyers. The detainees often cooperate to stage attacks on the guards, sharing resources and strategies. Yet the Left continues to cry that the terrorists aren't being treated gently enough under the terms of the Geneva Conventions.     -- Joe Mariani

It is not the American war machine that should be of the utmost concern to Muslims. What threatens the future of Islam, in fact its very survival, is American democracy.      -- Yussuf al-Ayyeri, Terrorist Asshole

Al Qaeda's declaration of jihad had, as its first demand, the withdrawal of American troops from Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden does not seem to have noticed, but the troops are gone -- yet the jihad continues. The reasons come and go, the violence endures.      -- Fareed Zakaria

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, some 15 million to 30 million prisoners died in the Soviet gulags. By comparison, Guantanamo at its peak held 750 prisoners; currently, there are 520; none have died in captivity, and, as I wrote 3-1/2 years ago, it has the distinction of being 'a camp where the medical staff outnumber the prisoners.' You'll get swifter, cleaner and more efficient treatment than most Canadians do under socialized health care. It's the only gulag in history where the detainees leave in better health and weighing more than when they arrive. This means they're in much better shape when they get back to their hectic schedule of killing infidels: Of the more than 200 who've been released, around 5 percent -- that's to say, 12 -- have since been recaptured on the battlefield.
-- Mark Steyn

I am not questioning Sen. Dick Durbin's patriotism, at least not for the first couple of paragraphs. Instead, I'll begin by questioning his sanity... Spot the odd one out: (1) mass starvation, (2) gas chambers, (3) mountains of skulls, (4) lousy infidel pop music at full volume. One of these is not the same as the others, and Mr. Durbin doesn't have the excuse of being some airhead celeb or an Ivy League professor. He's the Senate Judiciary Committee's second-ranking Democrat. Don't they have an insanity clause?      -- Mark Steyn

I keep reading that there are no WMD's in Iraq -- but that claim is patently false. My unit has found many WMD's -- silk-worm missiles with sarin gas, for example. Soldiers have been killed trying to disarm these weapons. We find the weapons in small numbers -- 2 or 3 at a time, here and there, which does not constitute 'stockpiles', but WMD's ARE most certainly here.      -- US Soldier, Iraq

I'll go so far as to say that someone who is not keeping an eye on a group of six imams chanting in an airport waiting area and then spreading out on a plane and behaving in a disruptive manner, well that person is swimming so far upstream against the basic human wiring of common sense and survival instincts that if one could just capture the contrary energy, the synaptic maelstrom going on inside their feverish, brainwashed, nonjudgmental little skull you could power the massive turbines of the very 757 you're flying on.       -- Comedian, actor and social commentator Dennis Miller, on Fox News

CNN International and Al Jazeera are equally bad in their coverage of the situation in Iraq. When I was in the United States recently and read the negative news in the Washington Post, New York Times and in the network TV broadcasts, I even wondered if things had gotten so bad since I had left that I shouldn’t return.       -- Nerchivan Barzani, Prime Minister of Iraqi Kurdistan

America has the best-trained, most professional, most well-educated military in the world. But the moonbats want only to hear the myths of the soldier-as-victim or the soldier-as-brutalizer or soldier-as-indentured servant. Never mind that for every two volunteer recruits coming from the poorest neighborhoods, there are three recruits coming from the richest neighborhoods, as The Heritage Foundation recently reported. Never mind that 99.9 percent of the enlisted force have at least a high school education. Never mind that 49.2 percent of officers have advanced or professional degrees; 39.4 percent have master's degrees; 8.5 percent have professional degrees; and 1.3 percent have doctorate degrees.      -- Michelle Malkin

This is no isolated case of Democrat incompetence and insensitivity toward the military. Kerry's party is the party of Dick Durbin, who likened American interrogators and Gitmo military staff to Nazis, Soviet gulag operators and genocidal maniac Pol Pot.

Kerry's party is the party of Patty Murray, who praised Osama bin Laden's charity work with nary a nod to our men and women in uniform who have sailed and flown to the most far-flung regions of the world on reconstruction and humanitarian missions. Kerry's party is the party that approved of him tarring American troops as terrorizers in Iraq last year.

And Kerry's party is the party whose national party website couldn't even find an American soldier to illustrate a page dedicated to "Veterans and Military Families". Until a military reader of my blog called attention to it, the DNC site erroneously featured a photo of a Canadian soldier named "Abdul" in its attempt to show support for American troops.

Can you trust a party with such entrenched disdain and contempt for the military to use that power well and wisely at a time of war?       -- Michelle Malkin

Quotes From Liberals (you won't believe this stuff)

A prison population that took four decades to increase by 11,000 between 1951 and 1991, climbed by 25,000 in the following decade, despite the largest and the most sustained fall in crime for more than a century.       -- London Guardian   ** "So a lot of people are in prison, and crime is down and the Guardian's recommendation is to let people out of prison!" -- James Taranto

Violent Crime Rate Hits 30 Year Low - Despite All-Time High Incarceration Rate      -- New York Times Headline   ** "Liberals don't get it in this country either." -- TakeThatLiberals.com

My nominee was a woman - a victim of abuse. A strong, resilient woman who is a constant topic of discussion these days: Mother Earth.    -- NBC's Brian Williams on his nomination for Time's "Person of the Year"   ** "If 'Mother Earth' wins, who's going to accept the award?" -- TakeThatLiberals.com

The Bush administration — a strong promoter of private and religious schools — wants to make it easier for school children displaced by Hurricane Katrina to attend private schools by pushing its pet voucher program... What is it about the public school system that this president doesn't like?      -- Helen Thomas   ** "For starters, many graduates can't read, write, or spell; they don't know basic arithmetic, Western or even American history, and have no knowledge of English literature. Other than that..." -- Federalist.com

Immigration Facts and Fiction

More than 20 percent of children born in the United States are born to illegal aliens! As recently as 2002 that figure was 23 percent!

"In 1970, 6 percent of all births in the United States were to illegal aliens. In 2002, that figure was 23 percent. In 1994, 36 percent of the births paid for by Medi-Cal (California's Medicaid) were to illegals. That figure has doubtless increased in the intervening years as the rate of illegal immigration has risen.      -- Mona Charen

There are currently deportation orders for over 600,000 illegal aliens but virtually no funding or effort to enforce these orders. There are substantial penalties for hiring illegal immigrants but no funding or effort to enforce those laws either.

The "economic benefit" arguement for "guest workers" is suffering a significant trade deficit. On average, the households of illegal aliens are paying about $9,000 in various taxes and receiving about $30,000 in benefits such as social services, public services, education, and health care.

The Binch

Every U down in Uville liked the U.S. a lot, But the Binch, who lived Far East of Uville, did not.
The Binch hated U.S! The whole U.S. way!
Now don't ask me why, for nobody can say,
It could be his turban was screwed on too tight.
Or the sun from the desert had beaten too bright
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that his heart was two sizes too small.
But, Whatever the reason, his heart or his turban,
He stood facing Uville, the part that was urban.
"They're doing their business," he snarled from his perch.
"They're raising their families! They're going to church!
They're leading the world, and their empire is thriving,
I MUST keep the S's and U's from surviving!"
Tomorrow, he knew, all the U's and the S's,
Would put on their pants and their shirts and their dresses,
They'd go to their offices, playgrounds and schools,
And abide by their U and S values and rules.
And then they'd do something he liked least of all,
Every U down in Uville, the tall and the small,
Would stand all united, each U and each S,
And they'd sing Uville's anthem, "God bless us! God bless!"
All around their Twin Towers of Uville, they'd stand,
and their voices would drown every sound in the land.
"I must stop that singing," the Binch said with a smirk,
And he had an idea-- an idea that might work!
The Binch stole some U airplanes in U morning hours,
And crashed them right into the Uville Twin Towers.
"They'll wake to disaster!" he snickered, so sour,
"And how can they sing when they can't find their towers?"
The Binch cocked his ear as they woke from their sleeping,
All set to enjoy their U-wailing and U-weeping,
Instead he heard something that started quite low,
And it built up quite slow, but it started to grow.
And the Binch heard the most unpredictable thing,
And he couldn't believe it--the U's started to sing!
He stared down at U-ville, not trusting his eyes,
What he saw was a shocking, disgusting surprise!
Every U down in U-ville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without any towers at all!
He Hadn't stopped U-Ville from singing! It sung!
For down deep in the hearts of the old and the young,
Those Twin Towers were standing, called Hope and called Pride,
And you can't smash the towers we hold deep inside.
So we circle the sites where our heroes did fall,
With a hand in each hand of the tall and the small,
And we mourn for our losses while knowing we'll cope,
For we still have inside that U-Pride and U-Hope.
For America means a lot more than tall towers,
It means much more than wealth or political powers,
It's more than our enemies ever could guess,
So may God bless America! God Bless us! God bless!

Income Redistribution: Countering Liberal Class Warfare

According to the US Treasury Department...

After tracking the changes in income levels on 96,700 income tax returns from 1996-2005 for individuals over the age of 25, the study found that 58 percent of Americans who were in the poorest income group in 1996 had, by 2005, advanced to a higher income group. Almost 25 percent had moved into a middle or upper-middle income group, and more than 5 percent had actually made the leap to the highest income group. Furthermore, almost 50 percent of those in the second lowest income group advanced at least to a middle-income group, while only 17 percent dropped to a lower group.

So since 1996, more than half of Americans in the lower-income bracket have experienced upward economic mobility.

Finally, the group that experienced the greatest growth in income was the lowest quintile - income grew by 90 percent. By contrast, the highest quintile grew by only 10 percent.