More Bush harassment
A House Judiciary panel sued to enforce subpoenas to Bush's chief of staff and former counsel in the continuing investigation into the firing of 9 federal attorneys almost two years ago. This is the first time in history that the Executive branch has ever been sued by the Legislative branch to enforce a subpoena. This measure was passed when Republicans walked out to protest that the Dem leadership was ignoring the expiring FISA law. These Bush aides are on solid legal footing now, and there was actually no legal problem in the first place - U.S. attorneys can be hired and fired by the President at will, for any or no reason! But that's not stopping the Dem leadership from hassling Bush over this non-scandal 'scandal' rather than doing their jobs and protecting America.
Pollution from 'clean' fuel
It was recently discovered that Alabama's first biodiesel plant, which was designed to convert soybean oil into an 'earth friendly' fuel was leaking into a nearby river. While the spilled vegetable oil is non-toxic, it is just as deadly to birds, fish, and other organisms in nature. Oops...
House counter-proposes wiretap bill
Rather than passing Bush's FISA bill, which the Senate passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and would grant retroactive immunity to telephone companies who helped identify terrorists after 9/11, the House has proposed its own wiretapping bill. Bush said of the bill:
"[It] could reopen dangerous intelligence gaps by putting in place a cumbersome court approval process that would make it harder to collect intelligence on foreign terrorists."
"Their partisan legislation would extend protections we enjoy as Americans to foreign terrorists overseas," the president said. "It would cause us to lose vital intelligence on terrorist threats, and it is a risk that our country cannot afford to take.
If you're scratching your head over why the Dems would be so opposed to Bush's bill, it's because they're protecting their most important constituency: trial lawyers. There are already billions of dollars' worth of lawsuits against these telephone companies, and this retroactive immunity would make them go away instantly. They'd rather protect trial lawyers than American citizens.
Feminist quota-mongers target science
Michelle Malkin reports on efforts by feminists who have turned their sights on science education. While there are actually more women earning PhDs than men nowadays, only a small percentage of women earn doctorate degrees and tenure-track positions in the areas of computer science, math, physics, and electrical engineering. To equalize this obviously vicious anti-woman conspiracy (never mind the fact that most women probably are not terribly interested in these areas), feminists are attempting to use Title IX to level the playing field. Yes, this is the same Title IX that has destroyed men's sports in the name of 'equality' all over the country at the university level. The money quote:
Although there are many factors affecting the evolution of men's and women's college sports, there is no question that Title IX has led to men's participation being calibrated to the level of women's interest. That kind of calibration could devastate academic science.
Once again, why let pesky little things like facts or reality stand in the way of 'equality'?
The Costs of Crime
Thomas Sowell has an outstanding article about the mind-numbing stupidity of how the Left treats criminals. Some key excerpts:
For more than two centuries, the political left has been preoccupied with the fate of criminals, often while ignoring or downplaying the fate of the victims of those criminals.
Back in 1997, New York Times writer Fox Butterfield expressed the same lament under the headline, "Crime Keeps on Falling, But Prisons Keep on Filling." Then, as now, liberals seemed to find it puzzling that crime rates go down when more criminals are put behind bars.
In Britain, the total cost of the prison system per year was found to be 1.9 billion pounds sterling, while the financial cost alone of the crimes committed per year by criminals was estimated at 60 billion pounds sterling.
The big difference between the two kinds of costs is not just in their amounts. The cost of locking up criminals has to be paid out of government budgets that politicians would prefer to spend on giveaway programs that are more likely to get them re-elected. But the far higher costs of letting criminals loose is paid by the general public in both money and in being subjected to violence.
The net result is that both politicians and ideologues of the left are forever pushing "alternatives to incarceration." These include programs with lovely names like "community supervision" and high-tech stuff like electronic devices to keep track of released criminals' locations.
Just how do you "supervise" a criminal who is turned loose in the community? Having the released criminal reporting to some official from time to time may be enough to allow the soothing word "supervision" to be used. But it hardly restricts what a criminal does with the other nine-tenths of his time when he is not reporting.
One of the most insidious aspects of "alternatives to incarceration" programs is that those who control such programs often control also the statistical and other information that would be needed to assess the actual consequences of these programs.
They not only control what information is released but to whom it will be released.
When officials whose careers are on the line can choose between researchers who view incarceration as being "mean-spirited" toward criminals and other researchers who are much less sympathetic to criminals, who do you think is going to get access to the data?
This is a beautiful portrayal of how the Left views crime and criminals. The insanity speaks for itself.
The Left's war on military recruiters
Michelle Malkin recounts the last couple years' worth of radical Leftist attacks on military recruiters around the country. Go read this whole article - there's far too much for me to repeat here. Suffice it to say that she lists 18 separate incidents of violence, vandalism, or attacks over the past 2 1/2 years from all around the country. Her conclusion:
There will be no end in sight until lawmakers, law enforcement, the media and the public open their eyes to the hate, connect the dots, and stop coddling the increasingly crazed and emboldened anti-military militants before more bombs go off -- and innocents get harmed -- in the name of "peace."
This is yet another example of how the liberal Leftist mindset is fundamentally hypocritical. They attack and destroy in the name of 'peace'? Come on. It's gotten to the point where memos have been sent out to recruiters to expect violence against them. The rest of us need to open our eyes and create an atmosphere in which this behavior is unacceptable. It's one thing to dissent; this is completely different. But, since they're liberals, they believe they're entitled to chuck the rules and do what they want, including squashing the opposite viewpoint by any means necessary.
Climate totalitarians
Vaclav Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic, stated in his latest essay that climate alarmism is a distinct threat to freedom around the world. Having lived under the Soviet Union, he would know about such things. Jerome J. Schmitt says:
"Climate Alarmists' calls for mankind to sacrifice economic activity for the sake of reducing CO2 emissions, while indulging themselves in large 'carbon footprints' generated by their mansions, SUVs and private jets , remind me of George Orwell's ANIMAL FARM -- an allegory for the Soviet Revolution -- wherein the Pig-Commissars abridge the Farm's commandments to state that 'All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.'"
I've been blogging about this monumental hypocrisy on the part of global warming wackos for months. This is a brilliant way to put it.
BBC fakes story in support of Palestinians
The BBC has been outed in faking a story to establish sympathy for the Palestinian terrorist who recently gunned down 8 Israeli students in a Jerusalem seminary. Basically, they showed a clip of bulldozers taking out a house, and accused Israel of retaliating against the terrorist's family. Problem is, the terrorist's home is still intact, and even has a shrine erected nearby to honor the 'martyred' terrorist. Liberalism runs deep in other countries, too. The BBC is deeply anti-Israel, so this fake story fit their template very nicely. Never mind those pesky little facts. This also illustrates the example above of how the Left exalts the criminal and ignores the true victims.
As you can see, liberalism has infected all areas of life. As I mentioned yesterday in the blog about education and terrorism, half the problem is that many good people don't even realize this infection has taken hold. Wake up, people! This is a real problem, one that affects every area of American life. We need to stop this creeping infestation before it passes the point of no return. That means conservatism: individual responsibility, smaller government, lower taxes and incentives to invest and produce, strong defense, and an undeniable belief in American exceptionalism.
There's my two cents.
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