London Times On War- We're Winning!

Contrary to the wishes of much, if not most, of the American media and their fellow believers in the Democratic Party, the United States and its allies are winning the war against Islamic aggression on the battlefields, although our courts and our media seem determined to do their utmost to turn this victory into defeat (see the New York Times coverage and the Supreme Court's decision in Boumediene). Most of the US media has placed its eggs into the basket of American defeat and support for the Islamic barbarians we are facing. So it is as welcome as it is rare to see that the London Times today has a column that points our the indisputable fact that the West is winning.

As The Times reports on the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq, reporter Gerard Baker begins his story by quoting the famous statement by World War I Allied commander Marshal Foch,

"My centre is giving way. My right is in retreat. Situation excellent. I shall attack!”

If only our political leaders and opinion-formers displayed even a hint of the defiant resilience that carried Marshal Foch to victory at the Battle of the Marne. But these days timorous defeatism is on the march. In Britain setbacks in the Afghan war are greeted as harbingers of inevitable defeat. In America, large swaths of the political class continues to insist Iraq is a lost cause. The consensus in much of the West is that the War on Terror is unwinnable.

And yet the evidence is now overwhelming that on all fronts, despite inevitable losses from time to time, it is we who are advancing and the enemy who is in retreat. The current mood on both sides of the Atlantic, in fact, represents a kind of curious inversion of the great French soldier's dictum: “Success against the Taleban. Enemy giving way in Iraq. Al-Qaeda on the run. Situation dire. Let's retreat!”

This is undeniably true. As the Times points out, since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Islamic forces have been denied their safe home base. And with the removal of Iraq from the ranks of terror-supporting states, the Islamic forces have been handily defeated in engagement after engagement, losing their warriors by the score, as opposed to the much smaller Allied losses. Yet our media has refused to acknowledge this- instead simply reducing coverage as it becomes clear even to the anti-American reporters in the New York Times that the Islamic forces are losing. And the Times does not spare its criticism of the Western media's compliance in allowing the Islamic aggressors to appear far more successful than in fact they are, writing bluntly,

There ought to be no surprise here. It's only their apologists in the Western media who really failed to see the intrinsic evil of Islamists. Those who have had to live with it have never been in much doubt about what it represents. Ask the people of Iran. Or those who fled the horrors of Afghanistan under the Taleban.

It is true- only the pampered, spoiled, partisan and petty denizens of the Press have failed to realize that there is a clear distinction between the Allied forces- including the United States military- and the barbaric tactics of the Islamic forces. The Allies fight in uniform, under a recognizable flag and adhere to long-established laws of war. They do not torture civilians, nor do they run rape centers or target non-combatants. And above all they do not treat their prisoners inhumanely. The deplorable events at Abu Ghraib were an aberration, and one that was swiftly punished by the military. Let us not forget that the Islamic forces raped, tortured and beheaded their captives. Nothing remotely similar has occurred to any captive of the US military. Even Saddam Hussein got his day in court- a day denied to Daniel Pearl and all others captured by the Islamic forces.

I would hope that someday the media would recognize their disgraceful behavior in this situation- from Eason Jordan and CNN's compliance with Iraqi censorship before the US invasion to the mainstream media's quick decision to call the invasion a 'quagmire' (a description quickly made into a laughingstock by the US military's rapid conquest of the country) to their disparaging coverage of the subsequent US governing, to the point of not only encouraging the terrorists but actually allowing the Islamic forces to use their own pages to publish their disgraceful propaganda.

The US media bears great responsibility for the success that the Islamic forces have enjoyed in the thought war, thought their success on the battlefield has not been anywhere close to their success in spreading propaganda. But then, the media has never been very apt at analyzing their own failings- recall how their equally disgraceful coverage of New Orleans has been covered up as much as possible by those who were involved.

I do not expect the media to change- that is something that is beyond their small, petty minds. But it would be nice if just once they would recognize that the enemy we face is a real threat and that we are winning this war, despite the best efforts of our own media. in the meantime, at least the London Times has both recognized the situation and has printed it. And we can hope that some US news organ will pick it up. But I won't hold my breath. Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds. Cross-posted on NewsBusters

Fresno State Wins College World Series

Congratulations to the California State University Fresno (also known as Fresno State) mens' baseball team for winning the 2008 NCAA College World Series with a 6-1 victory over the University of Georgia.

I grew up in Fresno in the shadow of the university's Pete Beiden Field and remember some excellent teams under the leadership of former Coach Bob Bennett. My hat goes off to current Coach Mike Batesole and his gutty group of players.

This is Fresno State's third championship on a national level in a team sport and second National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)- sponsored title. The women's softball team led by coach Margie Wright won the 1998 NCAA championship and the men's basketball team under Boyd Grant won the 1983 National Invitation tournament in New York City, back before the NCAA tournament expanded to its current size.

Court Finally Gets One Right

I have been fairly critical of the United States Supreme Court in recent days, especially since they have shown no respect for legislative process. However, events this morning have caused a need for some kudos, after they finally got a judgement correct. According to Reuters news service, the Supreme Court struck down the Washington, D.C gun ban, in Heller v. the District of Columbia, declaring that the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution does indeed guarantee an individual right to own guns.

According to Reuters,

In the majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the Second Amendment protected an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

Although an individual now has a constitutional right to own guns, that new right is not unlimited, wrote Scalia, a hunter.

He said the ruling should not be taken to cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill or on laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in places like schools and government buildings or laws imposing conditions on gun sales.

Honestly, this should have been an easy call. The Second Amendment is one of the shortest and clearest parts of the entire document. As quoted from the National Archives it says,

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

While liberals try to obfuscate the issues with the explanation of the Amendments that mentions the need for a militia, the basic text states "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." This is pretty blunt, and unlike some Supreme Court decisions (Boumediene and Kelo come to mind, not even mentioning Roe) is completely supported by the Constitution's text itself. No foreign law, no waffling from leftists trying to disarm Americans so as to more easily impose their own brand of Communism. It is almost impossible to misconstrue the meaning of the Second Amendment and I am delighted to see that five justices actually had no problem understanding the clear meaning of the actual text itself.

Of course, we should worry that four justices (Ginsburg, Souter, Stevens and Breyer) somehow cannot understand the plain language of the Amendment. They are capable of inventing new rights out of thin air for unlawful combatants, and rewriting parts of the Constitution with which they disagree (Kelo), yet when it comes to one of the clearest parts of the actual Constitution, they are unable to understand its clear import.

This ultimately, is why elections matter. Since Congress has abrogated its Constitutional role of judicial oversight, the only way to guarantee that the Constitution is upheld is to appoint strict constructionists, and the only party that shows any signs of doing that is the Republican Party- the Democrats prefer to appoint people who want to change the Constitution- not uphold it. So to all my conservative and libertarian friends whoa re considering sitting out the 2008 Presidential election, i say that although John McCain is not perhaps the candidate we would prefer, he is infinitely preferable to Barack Obama.

Congress' Financial Follies

I read in the Asosciated Press this morning that Congress is voting on a massive bailout for the people caught in the mortgage/foreclosure mess- a mess that is mostly of their own making. According to the story,

A mortgage aid plan is on track for passage in the Senate as soon as today. The massive foreclosure rescue bill cleared a key Senate test yesterday by an overwhelming margin, with Democrats and Republicans both eager to claim election-year credit for helping hard-pressed homeowners.

The mortgage aid plan would let the Federal Housing Administration back $300 billion in new, cheaper home loans for an estimated 400,000 distressed borrowers who otherwise would be considered too financially risky to qualify for government-insured, fixed-rate loans.

As has been reported before, most of these people who are about to be bailed out by the responsible, bill-paying taxpayers of this country are like Democrat Laura Richardson of California- they are either financially irresponsible (as in the LA Times story linked above) to begin with or they are simply criminally negligent (as Richardson clearly is)in paying their bills. In either case, I do not believe that the country's taxpayers should bail these people out of their self-imposed problems.

Now I know that in this mess, there are undoubtedly some people who were simply caught by events. There are always exceptions. But instead of the government bailing out the very folks who are largely responsible for the mess, I would recommend that the government instead tighten the requirements for loans so that fewer people can qualify and also take a hard look at some of the lenders whose methodology is less-than-honest. That to me is a better use of Congress' time than giving out massive amounts of money that will undoubtedly be as abused as the post-Hurricane Katrina grants were in New Orleans (curiously these abuses did not take place in any other states hit equally hard by the hurricane).

It is time for Americans to understand personal responsibility- if you create your mess, then it should be your job to clean it up, not the government. But that would interfere with the pervasive belief among too many Americans that they are entitled to whatever they want- regardless of the their disastrous personal decisions along the way.

Supreme Court: Criminals Have More Rights Than Victims

In yet another disgraceful decision today, the Supreme Court once again ignored the will of the people and declared that criminals have more rights than their victims. In this case, the defendant was a man convicted of raping his then-eight year old daughter. I believ that there is no one among us- especially of those who have children in their lives- who would disagree that this is a monstrous crime. A child by definitiion is an innocent who is powerless to defend oneself. And the State of Louisiana had passed a law stating that the deserved punishment of such a crime is death. Yet the Court's majority- Souter, Kennedy, Breyer, Stevens and Ginsburg- have decided that this is a mere peccadillo and the criminal should be allowed to subsist on taxpayer funds for the remainder of his life instead of receiving his just desserts. In so doing, they have essentially made it impossible to impose the death penalty on anything- despite a move nationwide back towards a tougher attitude towards criminals

Since Congress cannot or will not exercise it's Constitutional power to rebuke the Court for these kinds of decisions, we must accustom ourselves to this type of judicial over-reach. I am no lawyer, but it seems to me that there is no valid legal reason for the Court to overturn the State of Lousiana's elected representatives' decision in this case. According to Yahoo! News,

"The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion.

Again, if death is not a proportional punishment for raping a child, I don't know what is. The Supreme Court (in the person of these same justices) has already decided that raping an adult woman is OK- they have outlawed the death penalty for that as well. Now they have declared open season on children. If a criminal knows that there is no chance he will face death for raping children, there is no incentive for him to refrain from doing exactly that. Life in prison? No problem- he knows that after say ten or fifteen years, the same bleeding hearts who allowed him to live will ensure his early release because after all- he's only a rapist, not a real criminal.

It is interesting how the media and womens' rights groups are completely silent on this case, where once again, women's protections are stripped away. One would think that the safety of women and children would be important to so-called liberals. Instead, they have once again proven that they care only for the rights of predators- victims are not important. If you are female, the Court has declared open season on you- and now, they have extended that open season to children- the very people that they ought most to protect. If I were a Supreme Court justice, I would be ashamed of myself, but these five have proven before that shame is not in their repertoire.

More Thoughts on Judges and Congress

Remember the Boumediene decisions? The one where the Supreme Court ignored Congress' orders to strip them of jurisdiction? One of the major issues in this case was the fact that the Court trampled all over Congress' ability to determine the limits of judicial oversight. And virtually no mainstream 'news' organ picked up on that fact- nstead they universally trumpeted how the eeevil Bush Adminstraion had been forced to observe the law'. The LA Times, for example, wrote on their front page,

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected for the third time President Bush's policy of holding foreign prisoners under exclusive control of the military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ruling that the men have a right to seek their freedom before a federal judge.

The justices said the Constitution from the beginning enshrined the "privilege of habeas corpus" -- or the right to go before a judge -- as one of the safeguards of liberty. And that right extends even to foreigners captured in the war on terrorism, the high court said, particularly when they have been held for as long as six years without charges.

.
The article admits that Congress stripped jurisdiction from the judiciary in 2006, writing,

After that setback, the administration went to Congress, still under GOP control, and won a law authorizing trials through military commissions. The law also stripped all the foreign "enemy combatants" of their right to go to court via a writ of habeas corpus.

but clearly agreeing with the idea that foreign, unlawful combatants have more rights than lawful prisoners-of-war.

However, the Los Angeles Times today provided a simple clarifier- in the case of the border fence authorized by Congress three years ago. The pertinent language is found approximately halfway through the article, where the Times writes,

Three years ago, Congress gave Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff an unusual power to "waive all legal requirements" that could stand in the way of building the fence.

These requirements included the nation's environmental protection laws. The same congressional action took away the authority of judges to review Chertoff's decisions.

"The same congressional action took away the authority of judges to review Chertoff's decisions." Really? So then is the LA Times admitting Congress DOES have the Constitutional authority to limit judicial influence. Why then did the Court ignore Congress' instructions in Boumediene, and why didn't the LA Times excoriate the judges for this blatant overstepping of their authority? If Congress does indeed have the Constitutional authority (as admitted in this LA Times story), then how can the Court ignore that instruction? Isn't that breaking the Constitution themselves?

As a refresher, here is what the United States Constitution itself has to say about the jurisdiction of the judiciary:

In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

This seems pretty explicit- the Court's jurisdiction can be restricted by Congress. And the LA Times has tacitly admitted precisely this in their story on the Court's refusal of the environmental challenges to the border fence. Yet the Press, again in the person of th LA Times, is seemingly agreeable with the Court choosing when it wishes to actually be bound by the Constitution.

I am amazed at how the the LA Times can manage to completely miss the fact that the Court has once again rolled all over the Constitution and infringed on the prerogatives of another branch. I guess that in the realm of the media and the liberals on the Court, all if fair if it embarrasses the Bush Administration, never mind the disastrous results for the nation as a whole and one more judicial over-reach that we will be paying for for years to come. Cross-posted on NewsBusters.

No Virginia, Tenure is NOT Everything

Tenure- that university-exclusive privilege of being exempt from actually having to produce quality work- has proven not sufficient to prevent a few professors of late from actually losing their jobs. I hope we all remember the racist rants of former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, who was fired last year for falsifying his references and for plagiarism.

Now we see another 'professor' get the sack for the same reason as Churchill- plagiarism. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Constantine has been fired from Columbia after an eighteen-month long probe fro plagiarism. This is the same professor who had a noose hung outside her office in October of 2007. As our esteemed colleague JammieWearingFool says today,

It would also be nice if the NYPD could ever tell us who hung the noose. My hunch has always been it was Constantine herself or someone close to her.

I agree. And I find it delicious that some of these professors from disciplines that lack the legitimacy of some others are finding themselves actually called to account for their misconduct. I hope that Constantine's appeal process is short, but since she is a confirmed agitator, i fully expect that she will hire a lawyer, sue everyone in sight and try to extort a settlement by crying racism everywhere possible- aided and abetted by the mainstream media. Let us not forget that the noose incident was front-page news. Will her firing enjoy the same publicity? I won't hold my breath.

The iTouch Book

Are you tired of holding your iPod Touch whilst engaged in reading your favorite e-book? Well at least one guy has come up with an alternative- disguise it as a moleskin diary!

As a good friend and technology guru stated,

so, kill some more trees and put your ipod in a hole where you can't reach the powerkey. excellent.
the guy must have been sponsored by the pay reader.app to write that tripe because he totally missed RuBooks.app.

The base site for the ruBooks.app is located at http://colel.info/rubooks. And by the way- it handles Japanese, Chinese and Russian. There is a chance it may handle Palm docs as well, though that is not proven as yet. So- how did that idea of the iTouch/faux book work out as a pickup device? Hmm?

Thanks to Expat-Leo for the quotes and the original link to the Wired blog.

More Thoughts On Boumediene

So the Supreme Court has decided that our rights belong to our enemies, not to us, with their decision in the case of Boumediene v. Bush. Yesterday, after reading the decision, I posted my thoughts on this despicable and completely unconstitutional decision and I remain convinced that with this decision, the Supreme Court has laid the germ of the United States' eventual destruction. And of course they have fulfilled the wishes of the media and the left-wing Democrats who so badly want their own country to lose and fall under the control of fundamentalist Islam. The most disturbing part of this scene is that they have managed to prevail in spite of our brave soldiers actually winning the war on the ground. However, facts are irrelevant to the media and their allies in the legal profession. They have handed eventual victory to Islam in their centuries-old war to destroy all opposition to their imperial religion.

The Constitution does not set up judges as the ultimate arbiters of power in this country. There have been bad Supreme Court decisions before- anyone recall Dred Scott? However, there is nothing preventing the President from refusing to enforce any Supreme Court decision that is based either in bad law or that breaks the Constitution's separation of powers. This decision quite clearly does both- it is based on absolutely no precedent that I can discover (no previous cases have ever conferred access to US courts to aliens captured in combat, either lawful or unlawful combatants), and it over-rides the President's Constitutional powers as Commander-in-Chief. It also over-rides Congress' powers to legislate as they have twice passed legislation stripping the courts of jurisdiction over enemy alien combatants- most recently in 2006.

However, none of that appears to matter to five justices on the Supreme Court, as they have decided that the people and their representatives must not be allowed to make decisions- only the unelected, unaccountable justices of the Court are allowed that right. As they did in striking down the Fifth Amendment in the near-equally disgraceful Kelo decision, the justices have once again flouted the Constitution they are sworn to serve, have violated the wishes of the people via their elected representatives and most shockingly, have ignored the fact that Congress twice specifically removed jurisdiction from them. None of this stopped five justices of the Court from imposing their own wishes over those of the vast majority of their fellow Americans.

I repeat- when Islam achieves its goal of complete control over the United States and the rest of the Western, civilized world, those to blame will be the lawyers who fought so hard to give them access to the reins of power, the media who covered for them, and told Americans ceaselessly that we were the bad guys, and the elected politicians (especially those in the Democratic Party) who were too craven to assert their own Constitutional rights and instead allowed these five judges to over-ride centuries of law and the prerogatives of Congress itself.

Supreme Court Snatches Defeat From Victory

Well, it has occurred. I cannot say I am surprised, but I am disappointed. I was hoping that at least one justice would actually read the Constitution before opening the floodgates of litigation by giving rights that are intended for U.S. citizens to people who meet none of the criteria for such rights. Yes, you heard me correctly. Today the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 decision, announced that the inmates of Guantanamo Bay, people who by definition in the Geneva Conventions signed by the United States of America are not eligible for any such rights, are eligible for the right of habeus corpus and are allowed to sue the US government in US federal courts. By so doing, with one stroke they have managed to hand the Islamic imperialist forces the victory that they could not win on the battlefield.

I quote the Geneva Convention as follows- see for yourself if our enemies in al Quaeda and Iraq fall into one of the following categories:

Art 4. A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
(1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

(2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:[
(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) that of carrying arms openly;
(d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

(3) Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.

(4) Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization, from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.

(5) Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.

(6) Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

B. The following shall likewise be treated as prisoners of war under the present Convention:
(1) Persons belonging, or having belonged, to the armed forces of the occupied country, if the occupying Power considers it necessary by reason of such allegiance to intern them, even though it has originally liberated them while hostilities were going on outside the territory it occupies, in particular where such persons have made an unsuccessful attempt to rejoin the armed forces to which they belong and which are engaged in combat, or where they fail to comply with a summons made to them with a view to internment.

(2) The persons belonging to one of the categories enumerated in the present Article, who have been received by neutral or non-belligerent Powers on their territory and whom these Powers are required to intern under international law, without prejudice to any more favourable treatment which these Powers may choose to give and with the exception of Articles 8, 10, 15, 30, fifth paragraph, 58-67, 92, 126 and, where diplomatic relations exist between the Parties to the conflict and the neutral or non-belligerent Power concerned, those Articles concerning the Protecting Power. Where such diplomatic relations exist, the Parties to a conflict on whom these persons depend shall be allowed to perform towards them the functions of a Protecting Power as provided in the present Convention, without prejudice to the functions which these Parties normally exercise in conformity with diplomatic and consular usage and treaties.

This is so disappointing on so many levels it is difficult for me to begin. I think that if I were the President, I would order the troops to shoot ever single inmate at Guantanamo- immediately. After all, since these people have now outlived their usefulness, and will soon be released into American society with (probably) American citizenship (can't deny these poor mistreated people the privileges of US citizenship since the Court has decided to give them every other right). I am sure the Court will do everything in its power now to ensure that these people receive millions of dollars for their 'mistreatment'- never mind that these are the same people who planned and executed 9/11- and will soon have a plan in place to allow them to settle down in the very country thy so badly wish to destroy. When America finally falls, as so many other great cultures have fallen to Islam, it will be the Democrats, the leftist legal profession and the media who will bear all the blame, since they seem determined to take Americans' privileges away and give them to people who do not deserve them.

As far as this disgraceful ruling goes, I think that Michelle Malkin hit the nail on the head. She wrote on her site,

What’s that sound? The thunder of left-wing lawyers and Gitmo detainees jumping up and down for joy at the Supreme Court’s ruling this morning. Brace yourselves. Dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia warns that the ruling “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed” and concludes “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today. I dissent.”

Chief Justice John Roberts says the rule of law and the American people have lost out–and with this ruling, we “lose a bit more control over the conduct of this Nation’s foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges.”

I could not agree more. I think that with this decision, the Court has finally succeeded in doing what Osama Bin Laden could not- deliver victory in this war to Islam. It won't be immediate, but this country is doomed. The Left has got their hands on the true power, since Congress and the President will not exercise their right as equal branches to the Court to refuse to recognize illegal decisions such as this one which have no basis whatsoever in the Constitution itself. The Founders clearly did not intend for non-lawful combatants and illegal aliens to qualify for the same rights as American citizens. Now that the Court has handed those rights over to the worst possible group of detainees, how long will it be before legitimate prisoners of War- those who DO meet the criteria contained in the Geneva Conventions- start suing in federal courts? Malkin says it will not be long and I sadly agree.

To those who have a way out of this country, I strongly advise that you begin looking at your options. To those who don't, I suggest you start practicing your shooting- you will need your defences once sharia takes control, aided and abetted by the same lawyers and so-called 'elites' who were so eager to hand over our rights to our enemies. America has fallen at last, and it is now only a matter of time before Islam replaces the Constitution with Sharia law, since our own elected officials and these unelected judges would rather ignore the Constitution to hand out our rights to our enemies than actually do something to protect their own country. As Byzantium before us, we are doomed, due to our own self-loathing elites. If you happen to have a moment, read Sir Steven Runciman's The Fall of Constntinople. It details the fall of Constantinople, once one of Christendom's proudest empires, but which was eventually delivered to Islam by its own leaders and allies- just as we are being delivered to Islam.

And as an aside, when you are looking for places to retreat, don't choose Europe. Without our protection, Europe hasn't a chance of surviving. They are a lot further down the path of self-destruction than we. Pick a nation that has some nationalistic pride, like China or Japan. But make sure that you pick one that will fight, because I don't think any of us would want to live under Islam's sharia law- it is even harsher to non-Muslims than it is to Muslims. I wonder how the so-progressive Left will enjoy living under what they have brought us? I almost wish that I would live to see that event, but I am saddened by knowing that my son will be forced to live in a world where the United States no longer exists as such.

So farewell to the Great Experiment! Farewell America! She has endured for over two centuries, but now her own elites, encouraged by the people's ignorance and inattention, have delivered her to her enemies and now it is only a matter of time before they manage to hand over the remainder of what once were considered the rights of Americans. To be shortly followed, no doubt, by the reins of power to the medieval clerics who want to take us all back to the Middle Ages. it was a great ride, but like so many other cultures before us, we have been destroyed from inside by our own ignorance, stupidity and pride.

Couric: Hillary Coverage 'Unfair', 'Biased'

Katie Couric will never be recognized for her analytical skills, Nor is she likely to ever go down as a foremost student of history. However, her latest outburst should convince even the most blinded observers of the national media that that institution has lost whatever vestige of objectivity that it pretends to.

According to the website Media Bistro, Couric was honored by he Sewall-belmonth House and Museum. While there, she took the occasion to comment on the press coverage of the recently-ended campaign by Hillary Clinton for the Presidency of the United States. According to Media Bistro,

Some thoughts from Couric at the event:

However you feel about her politics, I feel that Sen. Clinton received some of the most unfair, hostile coverage I've ever seen.

Couric went on to say that latent sexism contributed, in part, to Hillary's defeat.

If Couric thinks that the coverage of Senator Clinton was 'the most unfair, biased coverage' she had ever seen, it would seem that she has been blind to the coverage that current President George W. Bush has been receiving for the entirety of his seven-and-a-half years in office so far. If Couric had any knowledge of history, she would know that this is the most hostile Press Corps any president has faced since Richard Nixon. And in Nixon's case, there was some good reason- the man was a crook. However, in Bush's case, there has yet to be offered any rational reason for the Press' amazing hostility and their ferocious hatred of the man. If Couric can only moan about the coverage of Hillary (which was mostly positive until Obama emerged as a legitimate challenger, and still is far more positive than that received by any Republican, including Presidential nominee John McCain), then she displays her own lack of knowledge in the areas of history and context. And this is the person that we are supposed to trust with the duty of accurately and objectively reporting to us the events of the day?

As for Couric's moan about 'latent sexism', the Democratic Party and their willing enablers in the media have long been completely invested in the politics of class, sex and race. If Obama had not happened to be black, it is my firm belief that Clinton would have continued to sail unimpeded to the nomination. However, she had the misfortune to be running against a member of the one group of victim who have a stronger pull than women- blacks. I do not believe that Barack Obama's sex had anything to do with his victory- other than the fact that he is younger than Senator Clinton.

No, I suspect that the reason Clinton lost had nothing to do with sexism- latent or otherwise. Obama is younger, apparently more attractive to women than Clinton is to men, and a far better orator. And of course, he is racially identified as black. Clinton on the other hand, arouses strong emotions, much of which are negative. She is not seen as trustworthy, and is certainly not going to fire anyone up as Obama does on a regular basis. In the Democratic Party, it is all about winning- regardless of the costs. Obama was seen as a better shot to beat the Republicans and return the White House to it's rightful occupants, thus the Press turned on Clinton to help Obama sew up the nomination as quickly as possible. Had Obama not been in the race, I believe the Press would have been as firmly in Clinton's pocket as they have in the past. And if Katie Couric does not understand that, then she has proved once again how unfit she is to be a news anchor and why the mainstream media is losing subscribers and viewers in droves.

An Educated Electorate

I was discussing a new piece of software with a friend today, and that caused me to reflect on the dangers of an uneducated electorate.

An uneducated electorate is one that currently exists in the United States. The vast majority of voters are people who for whatever reason will never take the time to actually research their candidates, issues and policies before filling out their ballot. As an example, we have the sad case of California Democrat Laura Richardson. This woman, a member of the United States Congress, has defaulted on no less than three home loans in less than two-year time frame. According to The Hill newspaper,

The tale of Rep. Laura Richardson’s (D) personal housing crisis got even more captivating Tuesday as her office said the freshman lawmaker defaulted on loans she took out for not just one, but three, California homes.

The news of one of Richardson’s properties recently being sold at auction captured widespread attention last week in the wake of the nation’s housing crisis. But that was only part of the story.

Richardson’s office said Tuesday she has caught up on her payments and renegotiated the terms of loans she took out to purchase homes in San Pedro and Long Beach, Calif. Her office confirmed that the lawmaker defaulted on both of these homes and was risking foreclosure when she went months without making payments.

And yet, in a new story this morning, it seems that despite Richardson's history of financial irresponsibility, and her penchant of borrowing against her homes (that she later allows to be sold at auction) to lend her campaign money- a history that suggests Richardson's ethics are less-than-stellar- the Daily breeze newspaper reported that her constituents gave her a resounding victory in Tuesday's primary elections.

Let us be entirely honest. This woman should not even be considered for a position of responsibility such as that of a United States Member of Congress. Her less-than-forthright treatment of the facts and her seeming inability to understand that her financial failures are extremely germane to her qualifications for elected office should disqualify her from consideration. And if we had an informed and objective electorate (and if the media actually perffromed their job without the partisan bias that is so prevalent) then I believe that Richardson would not now be in a position where she is one short step (and in her district winning the primary is equivalent to winning the election, so badly are the California electoral districts gerrymandered) from becoming a Member of Congress.

I remember reading an excellent novel by Helen MacInnes some years ago entitled Friends & Lovers. The protagonist made a speech about having an informed electorate that has never left my memory. he made many of the arguments that I am making today. if an electorate is informed and is willing to do the research, then the cesspool of corruption that currently surrounds most political personages and institutions would soon be cleaned out. But only as long as the electorate stays engaged and informed. Once they sink back into their customary stupor and allow the media and talking head who are in actuality no better qualified to pass judgement than they to do their thinking for them, the dross and the fat will begin to collect again.

I would like very much to see an informed electorate that could argue the issues without resorting to insults. But unfortunately most people would rather trust a journalist (who is a member of one of the least rigorous disciplines in academia) to tell them what to think. And so we have elected officials like Randy Cunningham, William Jefferson, Laura Richardson and too many others. these people are not in politics to serve their fellow Americans. No, they are in politics to enrich themselves at the expense of their fellow Americans. It is of no importance to such as they if our great nation collapses due to their silly, uninformed and reckless stewardship- as long as they can continue to get the kind of sweetheart deals Richardson got, or collect cash-filled freezers like Jefferson and Cunningham, they could not care less about the state of their country.

Goodbye Hillary- for now

Well, it appears that after the primaries earlier this week, Hillary Clinton has bowed to the inevitable and is ending her candidacy for the Presidency. According to the story in the Associated Press,

Hillary Rodham Clinton will end on Saturday her historic bid to become the first woman president but Barack Obama said he won't be hurried into a decision on whether to make her his running mate.

Clinton, in an e-mail to supporters, said she "will be speaking on Saturday about how together we can rally the party behind Senator Obama. The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise."

The e-mail was a shift in tone by the former first lady, who announced 17 months ago that she was "in it to win it." Many of her supporters now are pushing for her to be included as the vice presidential candidate, in their minds a "dream ticket" that would bring Obama her enthusiastic legions and broaden his appeal to white and working-class voters.

The Democratic Party has long based its strategy on the politics of race, sex and class division. In any other year, it seems certain that Hillary, despite her well-documented weaknesses as a candidate, would have swept to the nomination. However, Barack Obama, just as Bill Clinton did in 1992, took advantage of a relatively small field and the weakness of the front-runners to eke out a narrow victory in the primaries. However, there can be no doubt that neither Hillary nor Obama would have been in this position if it were not for their sex and color respectively. No white male with the thin resumes both of these candidates had would have been considered. However, Barack Obama is now the Democratic Party's candidate for President. Hillary now has to hope that she is offered a spot as the Vice-Presidential candidate.

I do not see Obama offering her the spot, however. Despite her appeal to a large percentage of the Democratic Party, I believe that she was more the anti-Obama candidate for voters who were appalled at Obama's arrogance, naivete, and the positions of some of his long-standing advisors. And the campaign exposed some serious fault-lines within the Democratic Party, between the various 'favored victim' groups, with personal dislikes between the candidates playing a factor as well. There is some real dislike between Hillary and Obama, and it may be too much to ask that they bury those before the general election. Of course, Democrats as a party are all about winning at any cost- they have a long history of being willing to say and do anything in order to get elected.

If Obama does put Hillary on the ticket, that will mostly assuage her supporters within the party. But on the other hand, it will certainly fire up the opposition. Hillary remains an incredibly divisive figure, and her inclusion on the ticket will bring out Republicans and conservatives who might otherwise sit this election out. I wold suspect that Obama will only put her on the ticket if he is forced to by Democratic Party leadership- if left to his own devices, I believe he will choose someone else- someone who is less well-0known and polarizing than Hillary.

And what of Hillary's own ambitions? If Obama wins, she cannot run for President again for eight years. However, if McCain wins, she will almost certainly run again in 2012. However, regardless of whether she runs in 2012 or not, I believe that this was her best chance to win. Unless she is the Vice-President in an Obama Administration, she will probably be facing a Vice-President in 2012. And she has now shown that she is very vulnerable in a national campaign- her stiffness, arrogance and general unlikability, coupled with her claims to experience she simply doesn't possess, make her unlikely to win against a serious opponent. the fact that she could not even beat Obama- and in fact lost to him- makes it unlikely she will win the big one. However, don't ever count the Clintons out. After all, there is always Chelsea...

So can Obama beat John McCain in the general election, with or without Hillary on the ticket? In part, it depends on McCain's campaign and his choice of a running mate. If he chooses wisely and if he runs a strong campaign, he could beat Obama, though ther is no doubt that he is an underdog- especially when one considers taht the antional Press corps will do everything in their power to elect Obama. After their narrow misses in throwing the election to Democrats in 2000 and 2004, the media is desperate to hand this one to Obama. Thus, McCain will be a decided underdog, but he has a resume and experience that Obama cannot hope to match. In addition, while Obama may like to hype his work as a 'community organizer', McCain has real service- he was a prisoner-of-war to the North Vietnamese while serving his country.

But I think ultimately the election will come down to whether or not McCain can pull the independent vote that the Democrats desperately need. I do not believe that McCain can count on the Democrats crossing over- they tend to be far more partisan and vote the party line, as opposed to actually comparing candidates. But if McCain can get the independents, then he has a real shot at beating Obama, despite the fact that this is shaping up to be a Democratic year in politics.