Is it anti-Semitic to oppose a Jewish state?

John Spritzler says no and here are his 7 reasons:

1) Prominent Jews like Albert Einstein and Judah Magnes (the first Chancellor of Israel's Hebrew University) opposed the idea of a Jewish state.

2) What makes Israel a Jewish state is that it officially declares the ultimate sovereign authority in Israel to be "the Jewish people" rather than all Israeli citizens regardless of their religion.

3) One fifth of Israeli citizens are non-Jews and therefore are officially second class citizens as long as Israel remains a Jewish state. (The word limit on the Op-Ed prevented it from pointing out that this second class citizenship is the basis for discrimination against non-Jewish Israeli citizens in their ability to own, buy and lease land, live in certain neighborhoods, gain access to public services and government benefits, marry a Jewish person, and so forth – the kind of discrimination which the ADL would denounce as anti-Semitic if directed against Jews in the United States.).

4) The founder of the World Zionist Organization, Theodor Herzl, in 1896 rejected the principle of democracy -- that a state's legitimacy derives from the consent of all whom it governs, not just those of a favored religion or race or ethnicity. Herzl argued, instead, that the Jewish state's authority would derive from the need of Jews for a state to be their guardian, even if Jews were a minority of its citizens.

5) In 1948 when Zionist leaders founded the state of Israel as a Jewish state they knew that it could only gain legitimacy by purporting to be a democracy. But this required that Jews make up the overwhelming majority of the citizenry. And this in turn required ethnic cleansing, which -- as documented by pro-Zionist Israeli historian Benny Morris and others -- Israel's new leaders did indeed carry out, resulting in the Palestinian refugees whom Israel continues to bar from returning to their homes in Israel.

6) Far from being anti-Semitic, opposition to the idea of a Jewish state is the only way to consistently embrace the universal values of equality and democracy.

7) Exactly the same arguments apply to a Muslim, a Christian, a Black or a White state.

France: doing what it does best

Appeasing the enemy. Having provided transportation and medical care for terrorist leader and anti-Semite Yasser Arafat, French officials are now wondering if their recent actions will help the situation of 2 French hostages being held in Iraq.

• French experts, however, are divided on whether the humanitarian gesture could benefit French efforts to free journalists Georges Malbrunot, Christian Chesnot and their Syrian driver, who marked their 73rd day in captivity Sunday.

• "We can only conjecture," said Abderrahim Lamchichi, an expert at Picardie University and author of "Political Islamism."

  "But perhaps Islamic militants will interpret this as a gesture in favor of the Palestinian cause, and that could perhaps allow the process of liberating the hostages to be accelerated," he said in a telephone interview.

Since the people responsible for the kidnappings in Iraq are "Iraqi insurgents", why would they care about Arafat or "Palestine"? I thought the NY Times told us that Iraq is a diversion from the war against terrorism and our battles there are with freedom fighters angry at the coalition for occupying their country...

Kerry and Bush bios are incomplete

Why don't the biography pages of either George Bush or John Kerry mention the elections they each lost trying to run for the House of Representatives?

In 1970, Kerry ran and lost the Democrat primary among a group of anti-war leftists. When Kerry ran and lost in 1972, he again ran and lost on an anti-war platform, this time in the general election. To me, this indicates that he was MOST proud of his actions AFTER the Vietnam war than he was of his actions while in combat.

In 1978, George Bush ran for the US House but lost to a Texas State Senator named Kent Hance.

More muslim Violence

From the NY Times:

• Violent clashes between members of the Muslim Hui ethnic group and the majority Han group left nearly 150 people dead and forced authorities to declare martial law in a section of Henan Province in central China, journalists and witnesses in the region said today.
• Many Hui areas remain economically impoverished despite rapid economic growth in China's urban and coastal regions, and some members of minority groups say the Han-dominated government does little to steer prosperity to them.

How soon until this muslim violence is blamed on America or Israel by the marxist-left?

I actually agree with George Soros

According to this WND article, a group challenged Soros and what they called his "retreat and defeat" position on the war on drugs. While legal heroin in America might not be exactly the correct path to take right off the bat, I fail to see any substantial evidence that the DEA is having any real success, especially since the borders between Mexico and the US are being left wide open.

On the other hand, it's easy to see evidence that we're spending ALOT of money and putting many non-violent people in jail for long stretches (where they learn to be better criminals). The marxist left wants to talk about Vietnam and Iraq being lost causes and quagmires. When do the taxpayers get to declare the wars on drugs and poverty to be quagmires that we should pull out of?

Does the newspaper media lean left?

The argument I hear most often which supposedly disproves the notion that the media is liberal is that most newspapers endorse Republican candidates. Not so this year.

The best news I found in the story is that even the endorsements supporting Bush basically warn him that he is failing and that if reelected, major policy changes are needed. Runaway spending, invisible border security, and an expansion of government services/programs are the 3 most cited arguments as to why Bush has failed.

As I've been saying, I'll vote for Bush while holding my nose, because Kerry is such a lousy choice who would clearly sell us out to the UN while requiring global tests to dictate our foreign policy. If I were not in a battleground state, I would have campaigned day and night for Michael Petrouka.

Arafat goes to Paris

UPDATE (31 October 2004):

Sharon says Arafat will NOT be buried in Jerusalem. Good, that would only give his phony "Palestinian" leadership role legitimacy.

Original(28 October 2004)
Well, this settles it. The French government is coming out of the closet and telling the entire world that it is unashamedly anti-Semitic.

• An aide said Arafat would be taken Friday morning to Amman, Jordan, where he will be flown by plane to Paris. French President Jacques Chirac's office said France will send a plane to transport Arafat.

As far as I'm concerned, Ariel Sharon should give the Mossad a green light take Arafat out if at all possible, and within weeks, should publicly declare France as an official enemy of Israel. Since the UN agrees with Chirac in regards to anti-Semitism, we won't hear anything from Kofi either. Alas, the free world is reduced to 3 states with useful military and intelligence services, Great Britain, America and Israel.

Presidential politics and sports

Thanks to James Taranto, I found out two interesting things today. I strongly suggest subscribing to his daily email called "Best of the Web". (The following are directly lifted from the 28 October 2004 edition)

• Back in August, Kerry had this to say (link in MP3): "We've been waiting since 1918 for the Boston Red Sox to win the World Series, and . . . if I had a choice between the White House and the World Series this year, I'm going to take the White House."

No shock there, he sold out the US Military in 1970, and now he has sold out his "favorite" baseball team, which leaves one question. Is his favorite Red Sox player still Eddie Yost, or does he now prefer Manny Ortez?

• On Tuesday we discussed the "Redskins rule," according to which if the Washington NFL team wins its last game before a presidential election, the incumbent party prevails; otherwise, it goes down to defeat. "As in sports," we noted, quoting an earlier article of ours, "streaks and slumps in politics go on only until they end."

  Well, it turns out this particular streak already ended, eight years ago. According to blogger Justin Taylor, on whose posting we relied, the Redskins beat the Indianapolis Colts in 1996's last pre-election game, and the incumbent, Bill Clinton, was re-elected.

  It's true of course that Clinton won, and the Redskins did beat the Colts, 31-16--but that game took place Oct. 27, eight years ago yesterday. On Nov. 3, the 7-1 Skins lost to the 5-3 Buffalo Bills, 38-13--and the incumbent president won two days later.

So much for that straw being grasped at by the Democrats this evening...

8000 US Soldiers wounded in Middle East

Why? Because we are not willing to dessimate key areas known as operational centers of Iraqi "insurgents" or islamo-fanatics. We have 2 options as I see it. We can either pull out of Iraq and allow the work already done and sacrifices already made to be in vain. Or, we can unleash the full capacity of the US Military and systematically crush the enemies. One thing is for sure, there are too many enemies of America that need to be dealt with to continue doing what we have been doing for another 4 years. Whoever wins this election on Tuesday needs to understand one simple point. The islamo-fascists that we are fighting will continue to fight until they are dead. We have to kill them, and so far our strategy is too weak and "sensitive". Just as people had to be sacrificed in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, I fear that the same scenario may have already come upon us in regards to Fallujah and Najaf. Will we emerge from this election with a leader resolute enough to win the war the way Truman and Patton did?

President Bush didn't plan for Iraq aftermath

John Kerry and the Democrats are running on a platform that says President Bush rushed to war in Iraq without planning for the rebuilding phase ahead of time. (Although, they've recently told us we should have gone in sooner in order to secure dangerous weapons from being stolen)

In this column, Thomas Sowell explains that clear-thinking adults understand that war plans are valid until the war starts. Perhaps that's why the Democrats haven't caught on yet...

Real reason for Iraq war?

UPDATE: 31 October 2004

Well, it seems as though I am not the only one who suspects our plan to "rebuild Iraq" might have something to do with resurrecting the badly damaged, and getting worse all the time, American economy. Are we working to create a new Iraqi state full of consumers looking to buy American goods and perform work for American companies? Judge for yourself...

Here are the relevant websites for the Commerce Dept. and State Dept. regarding Iraq reconstruction.

POSTED: 22 September 2004
China is the largest foreign lender to the United States. Aside from the Federal Reserve, the US government owes China more money than anyone else. This model seems to be working for the Chinese, and I'm beginning to wonder if Bush and the "neocons" are doing the same thing in Iraq. By developing new markets in Iraq, US corporations will have 25 million new customers all of a sudden. While it's clear that Saddam had to go in order to secure ourselves against WMD attacks, we've yet to find the WMD that he had been working on. Republicans have now decided to tell us that free Iraqi people will cause the entire islamic world to turn on itself and "fix" the problem of extremists who cut heads off people and explode themselves in crowded areas. All this while continue to allow open borders into America. Why is our focus and resolve on Iraq so strong while we so nonchalantly allow our precious resources to be diverted from hunting the terrorists and the weapons that are in any of a dozen other countries?

Is Bin Laden alive or not?

The Bush haters say the recently released video tape proves he is. This article from the US Newswire contains several statements by very high-ranking officials from the US and elsewhere who wanted us to believe that he had been killed.

Clearly, whoever released the tape wanted American voters to get the idea that Bush is a failure because Osama is still alive and orchestrating terror cells around the globe. Why does Bin Laden seem to use the Democrat talking points in his video?

Interestingly, for as much as the Democrats complain when conservatives insinuate that the terrorists are in favor of Kerry winning, Governor Rendell of PA says just the opposite.

Campaign financing

Go here to peruse campaign financing by geography, industry, and many other categories.

WMD in Iraq

NBC news is reporting:

• "Democrat John Kerry says the missing explosives — powerful enough to demolish a building, bring down a jetliner or set off a nuclear weapon — are another example of the Bush administration’s poor planning and incompetence in handling the war in Iraq."

From Kerry's own website, here is the original statement:

• 380 Tons of Explosives Missing from Sensitive Former Iraqi Military Installation. “The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.” [New York Times, 10/25/04]

From John Kerry's speech on 26 October:

• Before the war, the explosives were monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which warned the Bush Administration that they could fall into the wrong hands. And it urged the Bush Administration to secure them.

Senator Kerry failed to mention that Charles Doelfer warned President Clinton and the IAEA about this weapons depot 9 years ago.

The IAEA mission in its own words:

• The IAEA is the world's center of cooperation in the nuclear field. It was set up as the world's "Atoms for Peace" organization in 1957 within the United Nations family. The Agency works with its Member States and multiple partners worldwide to promote safe, secure and peaceful nuclear technologies.

Why is the IAEA interested in this stuff anyway?

January 21, 2005

Whoever is the President next January will have to deal with the Iraq situation. Whether or not you think it's a failure, a success, worthwhile, a quagmire, or the most noble endeavor the United States has ever undertaken, the President of the United States will have to conduct some sort of policy.

We know what George Bush will do. He will continue to rebuild schools, roads, electrical facilities, water infrastructure, and hospitals. He will help Iraqis have free and fair elections. He will help them write their very own Constitution. He will continue to train and equip the Iraqi army.

What will John Kerry do? Throw up his arms and say that he's found "Lebanon" and declare the situation hopeless? Declare a stalemate and withdraw immediately? The sad truth is that we have no idea what his "plan" is. Campaign rhetoric is nice, but I hope people think long and hard about this. If Kerry wins, he won't have the luxury of criticizing President Bush's policy anymore. He will have to devise and execute his own, and after 20 years in the US Senate, he apparently has nary a clue about how to deal with the "new" Iraq.

Presidential qualifications

Let's see here...

John Kerry says he is qualified to run the war against terrorism because he served in a combat zone. He knows what it's like to be shot at, so he understands the issues facing our troops in Iraq today.

The marxist left also says that Bush is arrogant and reckless, and he is unqualified similarly because he "only served in the TANG". He avoided combat and doesn't understand combat or war.

I guess that's why the draft dodging Bill Clinton simply looked the other way when we were repeatedly attacked during the 90's. When confronted with the choice to fight or run away, he tucked tail and ran.

I believe...

(swiped off the internet)

I believe in God and his ultimate power over everything.

I believe in Duty, Honor and Country and that nothing except God, not even family comes before those things, for without them we have nothing for our family.

I believe that heroes are victims of circumstances beyond their control and are simply caught in the wrong place at the right time.

I believe that warriors make war because that is what they do, and that they hate war above all things, as they know first hand the horror of it.

I believe that the appeasers and peacemakers have caused all of our wars except the Revolutionary War for our freedom, history has born me out in this already, for in appeasing one group you alienate others and they will fight to be heard.

I believe that you can only win if and only if you refuse to lose.

I believe there is no such thing as a fair fight.

I believe once a fight is enjoined there is no end until the battle is won and furthermore the war.

I believe my death in a battle to be irrelevant and insignificant, and the death of a comrade or ally to be of utmost importance and defining in its' occurrence.

I believe in The United States of America without limit and without question.

I believe our duty to educate our children is paramount, lest we lose our heritage to the television and to those who would deny our history and heritage.

I believe we must fight all tyrants, no matter how small or how big, by any and all means possible.

I believe those who have lied to me and/or about me are due only my vengeance and scorn.

I believe to omit or block the truth is worse than a lie, for you have taken away my power to evaluate the truthfulness of whatever it is.

I believe love can conquer most all, but there is a place and time for controlled anger and if necessary extreme violence.

I believe if you strive to silence me, you do not respect me.

I believe if you strive to silence me, you will fail, not I.

If you choose to quote me, quote me fairly.

Treason by ABC news?

This developing story on Drudge is alleging that ABCNews is holding a video tape which it acquired over the past weekend in Pakistan.

• US intelligence officials believe the man on tape may be Adam Gadhan - aka Adam Pearlman, a California native who was highlighted by the FBI in May as an individual most likely to be involved in or have knowledge of the next al Qaeda attacks.

Wait a minute, didn't Michael Moore tell us that "there is no terrorist threat"?

Of course, ABC denies that it was holding the tape in an effort to hide new facts about America's enemies. According to Drudge:

• ABCNEWS strongly denies holding the tape back from broadcast over political concerns during the last days of the election.

Here's my conclusion on this election, it's really quite simple.

If you are scared of the terrorists, and want to pretend they don't exist or are only mad at us because of George Bush and America's support of Israel, vote for John Kerry.

On the other hand, if you believe that Osama bin Laden's open letter to the United States demonstrates clearly a hate-filled ideology bought into by millions of people world wide who are willing to die while killing Americans, and that these extremists can only be defeated by pursuing them aggressively, vote for George Bush.

UPDATE: CIA can't authenticate the tape.

UPDATE: ABCNews suggests that the amount of "missing explosives" may have been overestimated.

UPDATE: US Army commander theorizes that the weapons were already gone when his unit secured the al QaQaa weapons depot.

UPDATE: CIA and FBI have now authenticated the tape say Drudge and WND, according to a Drudge source:

• One senior federal official alleged ABCNEWS is now holding back from broadcasting any portion of the video out of fear it will be seen as a political move by the network during election week.

As the Washington Post reports:

• The problem, say ABC News executives, is that they can't determine whether the tape, obtained by a producer, involves a real threat -- or even the identity of the figure on it, a man wearing an ammunition belt and a headdress that obscures his face. The network enlisted the aid of the FBI and CIA but still can't authenticate the 75-minute videotape.
  
  "We're not quite there to broadcast something that would be quite frightening," investigative reporter Brian Ross said yesterday. "I'd love to have the exclusive, but first we'd like to get it right."

UPDATE: Thursday afternoon(28 October 2004), Drudge claims that:

• ABCNEWS withheld portions of an alarming new al Qaeda videotape which warns the next terror attack will dwarf 9/11 from the CIA when they submitted the video for analysis, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

UPDATE: Thursday night, MyWay news reports:

• ABC News on Thursday broadcast a videotape it obtained last week of an English-speaking man who threatens bloody new al Qaeda attacks on the United States, but the network said U.S. intelligence officials could not authenticate the man's voice.

  "U.S intelligence officials say while they still cannot authenticate the voice on the tape, it has all the trademarks of an al Qaeda production," ABC News said.

Remember, there is NO bias at ABC News. None at all.

Remembering our country's heroes

Pat Tillman gave up a pro football career.
What have you done to keep America strong and free?

Red Sox win first WS since 1918...

... and the hero endorses Bush.

On Good Morning America this morning, Schilling told ABC News' Charlie Gibson, "And make sure you tell everybody to vote, and vote Bush next week."

Do you know the USA?

Geraghty posts this on NRO's Kerry Spot after a discussion with wome RNC operative known as "Obi Wan Kenobi" .

NYT, CBS, DNC conspiracy to divert our attention?

Here is a story from WND on this. Here's another.

Credit the following article to "notkerry", a FReeper, who stated this.

Why are the New York Times, CBS and John Kerry hyping a fraudulent story on the missing explosives? Why did CBS state the story would not hold until 48 hours before the election?

My opinion is they knew John Kerry’s presidential run was over when the following documents broke on October 26, 2004 if press and public where not all distracted elsewhere.

Documentary evidence was reveled on October 26, 2004 establishing that John Kerry worked with the Vietnamese communists while Vietnam War was still ongoing. The documents clearly state:

“The spontaneous antiwar movements in the US have received assistance and guidance from the friendly ((VC/NVN)) delegations at the Paris Peace Talks.”

The documents further state:

“Of the U.S. antiwar movements, the two most important ones are: The PCPJ ((the People's Committee for Peace and Justice)) and the NPAC ((National Peace Action Committee)). These two movements have gathered much strength and staged many demonstrations. The PCPJ is the most important. It maintains relations with us.”

The proof that John Kerry’s anti-war group, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, was working with People's Coalition for Peace and Justice is contained in an April 20, 1971 letter written by Kerry VVAW sidekick, Al Hubbard. The letter is addressed from the offices of the VVAW in Washington, D.C. and states:

“This is an appeal for help for the Peoples Coalition for Peace and Justice. Over the past months the Peoples Coalition has supported the Vietnam Vets Against the War in many ways. The Coalition has made office space available at no charge, and permitted the use of all necessary office equipment such as mimeograph machines, stencil-making machines, folders and typewriters. They have loaned us cars, bullhorns, and public address equipment. Their staff has taken messages for us and joined fraternally in building our progress. Now we can return this support.”

John Kerry has admitted that he met with leaders of both communist delegations to the Paris Peace Talks in June 1970. This meeting actually included Madame Binh, foreign minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) of South Vietnam, also known as the Vietcong. The recently discovered documents clearly state that:

"The Nixon-Thieu clique is very embarrassed because the seven-point peace proposal is supported by the SVN people's (( political struggle)) movement and the antiwar movements in the US. Therefore, all local areas, units, and branches must widely disseminate the seven-point peace proposal, step up the people's ((political struggle)) movements both in cities and rural areas, taking advantage of disturbances and dissensions in the enemy's forthcoming (RVN) Congressional and Presidential elections. They must coordinate more successfully with the antiwar movements in the US so as to isolate the Nixon-Thieu clique."

John Kerry completed his betrayal of the country on July 22, 1971 when he called on President Nixon to accept the seven-point peace proposal supported by the Vietcong. The FBI files even document that Kerry returned to Paris to meet with the North Vietnamese delegation in August of 1971.

Churches should be non-taxable

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I fully believe that the first amendment of the United States is being violated by the IRS. When churches are faced with the choice of: pay taxes or preach religion according to our laws, I see a clear violation of our right to freely exercise religion. Here is a statement by "Catholics for a Free Choice".

This group seems to be a front group for the abortion racket, a key component of the Democrat party. From the press release:

• CFFC has called on the IRS to exercise its “immediate action against the Archdiocese of Denver, which has violated its status as a public charity under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 501(c)(3) by intervening in campaigns for public office.”

Continuing on, they claim that

• Archbishop Chaput, leader of the Archdiocese of Denver, has repeatedly engaged in voter instruction by explicitly urging Catholics to vote against candidates who support abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research. In fourteen of 28 of his columns in the archdiocese’s weekly newspaper, Archbishop Chaput has repeatedly and continuously urged voters to reject candidates opposed to the organization’s views.

The CFFC is an outfit attempting to suggest that "American Catholics" are a wide variety of people, each having different views on issues. Here is their website's "about us" section. I'm not Catholic, but I was under the impression that the Pope sets policy for the Catholic church worldwide. If an individual or group disagrees with his decree, they must leave the church (voluntarily or otherwise) and align with some other group. The tenets of Catholicism are not left up to the whims of individual churches. The CFFC seems to disagree.

UPDATE: In a new story today, this same outfit has filed charges against the Archdiocese of St. Louis, MO. According to this story:

• A Catholic abortion rights group is asking the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Archdiocese of St. Louis and halt any further attempts by the archdiocese to influence the Nov. 2 election.

  The Washington-based Catholics for a Free Choice filed a complaint with the IRS on Tuesday, saying the archdiocese violated its status as a public charity under federal tax laws.
  

  The complaint says St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke has "explicitly urged Catholics" to vote against certain candidates and has "clearly crossed the line into political intervention." Officials at the archdiocese declined to comment.

UPDATE: The IRS says that people in tax-exempt churches cannot pray for Bush to win the election.

Clinton supports Kerry?

Reuters reports that Clinton was out campaigning for Kerry the other day. I guess this is the statement most telling about who Clinton wants to win this election.

• "If one candidate is trying to scare you and the other is trying to get you to think, if one candidate is appealing to your fears and the other one is appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the one who wants you to think and hope," he said.

Let's see...Bush talks about free elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, young workers getting a chance to own their own social security fund, home ownership levels at all time highs, education reform that is working, 75% of al-Qaeda being killed or caught, Libya giving up its WMD programs, and aggressively battling global terrorists through courage and bravery of our outstanding military.

On the other hand...Kerry talks about failing schools, Republican plots to draft kids into military service, bigots who prevent gay "rights", social security benefits being cut, rich people getting tax breaks while "most of us" are struggling, enourmous job losses, the worst economy in 70 years, failed energy and environmental policies and a world inflamed at the United States.

Ann Coulter talks about the Democrat strategy of needing black votes but not doing anything to earn them. "40 Excuses and a Mule"

You're a Republican?

(Full disclosure, I'm registered "no party affiliation")

This full page ad was placed in the Washington Post by a businessman named George J. Esseff, Sr. He paid $104, 655.60 to run the ad and only did it because he is sick and tired of the way that "The Rich" are portrayed by liberals these days. It is a great read!


You're a Republican???

In today's America, ask a growing number of high school and college students; their teachers and professors; the self-anointed media elite and/or hard working men and women of all ethnicities, the question, "What is a Republican?", and you'll be told "... a rich, greedy, egotistical individual, motivated only by money and the desire to accumulate more and more of it, at the expense of the environment ... the working poor ....and all whom they exploit..."

I am a Republican ... I am none of those things... and I don't know any Republicans who are.

WHAT I AM ... first and foremost, is a loving husband of some 52 plus years, the father of four and an American who's proud of his country... and his country's heritage.

WHAT I AM ... is the grandson of immigrants who risked everything, including their lives and those of their children, to escape tyranny in search of freedom.

WHAT I AM ... is a man who grew up during the Depression and witnessed, first hand, the effects of the Stock Market crash and the soup lines that followed. I watched as both my parents and grand parents, who had very little themselves, share what food they had with a half dozen other families, who had even less.

WHAT I AM ... is someone who worked his way through college by holding down three and four jobs at a time and then used that education to build a better life.

WHAT I AM ... is a husband who, at age 24, started his own business for the "privilege" of working 60, 70 and 80 hours a week, risking everything I had, including my health, in search of a better life for myself and my loved ones.

WHAT I AM ... is a businessman whose blood, sweat and tears.... and plenty of them..., made it possible for me to provide a secure living, not only for my family and myself, but also for literally hundreds of my employees throughout the years. Employees, who in turn, were able to buy their own homes, raise their own families and give back to their communities and their country.

WHAT I AM ... is a man who believes in God; a God who has blessed this country... and all for which it stands.

WHAT I AM ... is someone who knows, if you doubt miracles exist in today's world, you need only to look into the face of those who received them ... and the eyes of those who give them.

WHAT I AM ... is an American who's proud that his President embraces a belief in God; proud of a President who understands, as "politically incorrect" as it may be, there is evil in this world and for the security and safety of all freedom loving people everywhere, it must be confronted... and it must be defeated.

WHAT I AM ... is an American who takes comfort in the knowledge that our President refuses to allow decisions concerning the very safety and security of this nation, to be governed by the political whims of foreign governments.

WHAT I AM ... is tired of hearing from leading Democrats who see only negativity in America; racism in her people; class warfare in her society and "political incorrectness" in her character.

WHAT I AM ... is a former democrat who now understands that it is the soldier and not the reporter that guarantees us our freedoms of press, speech and dissent.

WHAT I AM ... is a man who believes in the sanctity of life. A man who is repulsed by the pandering of the political left for votes, at the expense of the unborn.

WHAT I AM ... is a husband and father who believes in the sanctity of marriage and the preservation of the family unit.

WHAT I AM ... is a movie go-er who is repulsed by those insecure, socially inept, elementary thinking, ego-inflated "entertainers" who have appointed themselves "experts" in the fields of national security and geo-politics and then use their forum to attack this nation, its leaders and its actions....much to the delight and encouragement of our enemies.

WHAT I AM ... is an American who understands the difference between "censorship" and "choice". Evidently, these individuals do not, because when these same "celebrities" receive public ridicule for their offensive actions, the first thing they yell is "Censorship!". What they seem incapable of understanding is... the right of free speech and dissent is shared equally by those offended... as well as those who offend. I support and will continue to support those films and performers whom I choose to ... and refuse to support those I don't. It is my right as an American ... a right I will continue to enthusiastically exercise.

WHAT I AM ... is a voter, tired of politicians, who, every time their voting records are subjected to public scrutiny, try to divert attention from their political and legislative failures by accusing their opponents of "attack ads" and "negative campaigning".... and the news media who allow them to get away with it.

WHAT I AM ... is a Catholic who loves his God and his Faith... and who's been taught to respect all religions whose teachings are based in love, peace and charity. As such, I am embarrassed and ashamed of those individuals, in both private and public life, whose decisions and actions are devoid of any sense of character or morals; individuals who are only driven by what's best for them ... rather than what's right ... often times at the expense of many .... including our national security.

WHAT I AM ... is a realist who understands that the terrorist attack that murdered hundreds of innocent Russian children could have occurred here, in our heartland. That's why I sincerely believe America needs now, more than ever, a President who sees with a clear and focused vision and who speaks with a voice when heard by both friend and foe alike, is understood, respected and believed.

WHAT I AM ... is eternally grateful to Ronald Reagan for having the bravery to speak out against Communism and the courage of his convictions in leading the fight to defeat it; and George W. Bush for the vision, courage, conviction and leadership he has shown in America's war on terrorism amidst both the constant and vicious, personal and political attacks both he and his family are made to endure.

WHAT I AM ... is a human being, full of numerous faults and failures, but a man nonetheless, who, though not always successful, has continually strived to do "what's right" instead of "what's easy". A man who is challenging the religious leaders of all faiths, to not only preach to their congregations the fundamentals of "what's right" and "what's wrong", but to also then hold them accountable for their actions in both the public and private sectors.

WHAT I AM ... is disgusted with the Courts who, on one hand, call the murder of a pregnant woman a "double homicide" but then refer to the abortion of her baby as, "pro-choice".

WHAT I AM ... is someone deeply troubled by a political party which embraces a candidate whose primary "leadership" qualities center around his protesting of the Vietnam war and his labeling the honorable men and women who fought in it, (50,000 of whom gave their lives in that action), as rapists, and war criminals. That same political party then stepped forward this year to block the appearance of a true Vietnam war hero, retired Admiral and former United States Senator, Jeremiah Denton, (a man who spent seven years and seven torturous months in a North Vietnam prison), from speaking before an open session of the California legislature as part of that state's 4th of July celebration. The reason Democrats gave for refusing to allow this American hero to speak before their state legislature was because of the "conservative" nature of his views. As an American, that troubles me deeply ....as well it should you.

WHAT I AM ... is a man who feels the need to spend, $104, 655.60,(tax paid) of his own money, to purchase this advertisement, in order to set the story straight. Some may say this money would have been better spent feeding the world's poor. At the risk of sounding self-serving, as an American and as a Republican, for the last six decades of my life, I have done exactly that... and more. Following the examples of my parents and grand parents, I have used my earnings to feed the poor, shelter the homeless, provide housing for the elderly and medical care for the sick..... and continue to do so... and I'm not alone in that work.

WHAT I AM ... is someone who is paying for this announcement, at my sole expense, in hopes of opening the eyes of those led blindly by ill-informed elements of our great nation, who, through either ignorance, or malicious intent, repeatedly attack and belittle those of us who belong to a political party that holds true to the belief, "... the rights of the governed, exceed the power of the government". For those interested, I am speaking only as a tax-paying individual who is in no way associated with The Republican National Committee, nor with any of its directors, or delegates.

WHAT I AM ... is a man who understands, "the American way of life" is a message of self-empowerment for all.

WHAT I AM ... is an American who is grateful that our nation gives each of us the opportunity of self-determination and the right to benefit from the fruits of self achievement.

WHAT I AM ... is an American who wants to preserve that way of life for all who seek it.

WHAT I AM ... is blessed to be an American.... and proud to be Republican.

John Kerry and gun control

Take a look at this picture I found at keepandbeararms.com.

Notice the "hint" under the text field where you are supposed to enter the term.

Then, go to the live site, here.

Notice the "hint". Hmm...if Kerry really were as gun friendly as he wants us to think, wouldn't he WANT us to look up his record to make sure? I guess one of the many things he opposed Reagan on was "trust but verify".

The Fair Tax plan

I have some unresolved questions and concerns with the plan myself.

ISSUE #1: How will imported goods be taxed? I believe in tariffs very strongly, however, I am concerned with the distinction between imports which are final goods for sale versus imported raw materials. Will the feds place tariffs on each on the way into the country and then impose the sales tax at time of sale, thereby successfully double taxing consumers?

THOUGHT: Do Democrats oppose this plan because it would free churches and other 501(c)(3) corporations from the restrictive laws which prohibit certain speech? Particularly, would the Fair Tax enable churches to begin publicly railing against Democrat social policies?

THOUGHT: The Democrat party is opposing this bill because it will take away some incentives that illegal workers who come here and work for "under the table" wages will no longer be able to avoid paying taxes. Not only that, the illegals will have to register in order to receive their monthly rebate check for the taxes each person will pay for basic life necessities.

The fundamental differences between supporters and opponents can be boiled down to the following:
-Those bureaucrats hungry for power want the income tax so they can control the economy from Washington
-Progressive taxes are "fair"
-Consumers and employees pay all taxes, "companies" don't pay anything
-Poor people deserve a "free ride" which they get now but wouldn't get under the Fair Tax
-Accountants would be out of work

Boortz lays it out for the 149th time, here.

UPDATE: Fairtax.org has filed an official FEC complaint because many Democrats are misrepresenting the plan.

Did Russia move Iraq's weapons?

I'm not jumping to any conclusions yet, and we'll have to see how this plays out over the next few days, but this could be the final nail in Kerry's koffin.

GERTZ // THURSDAY // WASH TIMES: Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned. John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, “almost certainly” removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it liberals.

Bill Gertz article in the Washington Times. I'm willing to bet that the Washington Times had this info for a while, and were just waiting for the phony "missing explosives" story to be let out. (I copied this from Drudge as the WT servers are getting hammered right now...)

Did Ion Pacepa beat Gertz to this story?

The MOST important question in my mind at this time (other than "is it true") is why did Russia/Putin do this? My gut instinct is that they knew if we found the weapons, it would be painfully obvious that Russia was arming Saddam for his next offensive strike. Is Putin an anti-Semite who wanted Saddam to go after Israel? Were the weapons that we would have found tied to the oil-for-food scam? Would they have been proof positive that Moscow is both corrupt and an enemy of the United States?

Here is a historical timeline of relations between Russia and Israel.

Robert O. Freedman wrote this on 2 September 2001 for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs about the Russian policy on the middle east under Yeltsin and Putin.

On 10 October 2003, The Russia Journal reported that "Russia and Israel have signed a $1 bln deal to sell PHALCON early airborne warning systems to India, sources in the Indian Defense Ministry said."

On 31 March 2004, the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security reported the following:

• A recent agreement between Russia and Israel will soon allow Russia to supply the Asian markets with crude oil through the Trans-Israel Pipeline (TIPline), a 150-mile pipeline running straight through Israel, thus breaking for the short term the Saudi near-monopoly on oil sales to East Asia, the world's fastest growing energy market.

Also, Andrei Zhuravlyov was murdered west of Moscow earlier this year marking the first time ever that Israel extradicted one of its nationals to another country for criminal prosecution.

Will Kerry sellout Israel?

Charles Krauthammer's recent column asks this very question.

The poor logic of progressive income taxes

As John Kerry repeatedly tells us, he will "roll back tax cuts on the middle class", meaning of course that he will raise taxes. He says he will fight for the middle class while forcing the wealthiest among us to shoulder even more of the burden than they already do. So, in a nutshell, Kerry's plan is as follows: I will help the middle class become financially stable but once you do, I'll punish you for having done so. In other words, the middle class should work hard, get educated, make wise choices and invest their money so that one day they can have their hard earned money taken away and given to those who fail to do the same things. Yea, that's fair.

The threat from Iran

Here is a transcript of this movie.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Official in Tehran University Lecture (Part II): We Plan To TargetUS Nuclear Warheads on US Soil; Should Take Over England

Hassan Abassi, who heads the Center of External Security Doctrinal Analysis of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps gave a lecture at Tehran University in May. The following are excerpts from the lecture posted in an audio version on the Internet here.

It seems clear to me, although Michael Moore and Jimmy Carter disagree, that Iran is an enormous threat. Excerpts:

• It would be an honor to do something that would make the Americans afraid. If it is possible to strike fear in the White House and in Tel-Aviv and to scare the Zionists and the Americans, that would be a great honor.
• We have only one lesson: The lesson of jihad and martyrdom. So, Dick Cheney! We will uproot the Anglo-Saxon race. This is retaliation. I will only say this once: We have two million Iranians there [in the U.S.]. You can be sure that I will recruit from among them guerillas against you.
• We have established a department that will take care of England. England's demise is on our agenda.
• If America attacks us, Don't worry at all. It won't be like what you've seen in Afghanistan and in Iraq. ... This is a very suitable spot for maritime guerrilla warfare. Our special forces are definitely ready for action there.

Too bad Bush's diversion from the "real" War on Terror has permitted us to station 130,000 troops next door to Iran...

Junk science from the communist left

The radical left has been telling for years that global warming is real. Some have said that Bush's reversal on the Kyoto treaty is the direct cause of the barrage of hurricanes in Florida this summer. Here's a story about Al Gore's tirade earlier this year touting the opening of the movie "The Day After Tomorrow".

I wonder how they would explain the earliest opening of 2 ski resorts in Utah since 1960.

Those missing weapons in Iraq

From today's NY Sun, it looks like for 5 years or more, Bill Clinton and the IAEA did nothing about the known stockpile of weapons which have recently been reported as missing.

• The chief American weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, told The New York Sun yesterday that in 1995, when he was a member of the U.N. inspections team in Iraq, he urged the United Nations' atomic watchdog to remove tons of explosives that have since been declared missing.

  Mr. Duelfer said he was rebuffed at the time by the Vienna-based agency because its officials were not convinced the presence of the HMX, RDX, and PETN explosives was directly related to Saddam Hussein's programs to amass weapons of mass destruction.

(I guess these weapons were only intended to be a part of Saddam's collection of weapons of minor destruction.)

• The vice president of the American Enterprise Institute for foreign and defense policy studies, Danielle Pletka, told the Sun yesterday, "What is odd to me is that the Kerry campaign is suddenly concerned about WMD in Iraq and Mohammed ElBaradei after years of indifference, is suddenly concerned about conventional explosives in the Middle East." Ms. Pletka is a supporter of Mr. Bush's re-election.

Understatement of the Millenium

The nation's most highly decorated living veteran, Bud Day, will not be voting for John Kerry.

"Col. George "Bud" Day, an Air Force pilot who spent 67 months in a North Vietnamese prison and was awarded the Medal of Honor among other decorations, visited Sioux City to campaign against Kerry."

He had the following to say:

• "The notion that his guy would think he is qualified to be president of the United State when he has already pledged his allegiance to North Vietnam makes absolute zero sense,''
  
• "My view is he basically will go down in history sometime as the Benedict Arnold of 1971.''
• [Day directly addresses Kerry] "How can you expect our sons and daughters to follow you, when you condemned their fathers and grandfathers?"

Wisconsin Citizen Action

Who We Are: Wisconsin Citizen Action is the state’s premier public interest organization, dedicated to social, economic and environmental justice for all.

What they are doing: (courtesty of the Kerry spot)

• Hundreds of public schoolchildren, some as young as 11, are taking time out of regular classes to canvass neighborhoods in Milwaukee, Madison and Racine in a get-out-the-vote effort organized by Wisconsin Citizen Action Fund - a group whose umbrella organization has endorsed John Kerry for president.

  The coalition says the effort is non-partisan, but because the group is targeting minority neighborhoods and those with historically low voter turnout - overwhelmingly Democratic areas - Republican operatives are crying foul amid the highly charged political atmosphere in the state.

Call me a McCarthyite, but I get very nervous when groups talk about "economic equality for all". To me, that means one thing. And, yes, it begins with a "C" and ends with "ommunism".

Anti-Semites rally in San Francisco

The "Stop the Wall" campaign (www.stopthewall.us) will be coming to San Francisco on October 30 at Washington Square Park in San Francisco, from 10 AM to 5 PM.

Unfortunately, these radical lefties don't understand or care that the "apartheid wall" has dramatically reduced the suicide bombings in Israel from the "Palestinians". I suppose they would be happier if more Jews got killed trying to defend their homes.

Also on the SFvoiceforIsrael website, they have a great post about illuminating the communist front group called ANSWER. (Don't bother reading this site if you consider San Francisco to be a "mainstream" American city.)

"Winning the Peace"

Today's Washington Times has a story reporting that the "insurgents" in Iraq are acting violently towards US troops so that President Bush loses this election.

• "If the U.S. Army suffered numerous humiliating losses, [Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John] Kerry would emerge as the superman of the American people," said Mohammad Amin Bashar, a leader of the Muslim Scholars Association, a hard-line clerical group that vocally supports the resistance.

So, let's see now. President Bush is supposedly working to end the torture and murder of Iraqi people by a ruthless dictator. He wants Iraqis to have free and fair elections so they may choose their country's leadership. He wants to rebuild the infrastructure of the country, build schools, enable individuals to operate businesses, and revitalize the nation's economy.

And we as American citizens are supposed to believe that peace can be 'won' with animals like Mohammad Bashar? Not a chance, people like him oppose all that is good and must be wiped off the face of the Earth. I suspect his opposition has nothing to do with the aforementioned points. I think ALL of the resistance is directly tied to our support for Israel and President Bush's unwillingness to deal with Yasser Arafat. Here's a great column by Charles Krauthammer talking about how Kerry may abandon Israel to satisfy the Europeans in exchange for more help in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When in doubt, blame President Bush

Florida billboards being co-sponsored by "Scientists and Engineers for Change and Environment2004" are displaying the following message:

• "Global warming equals worse hurricanes. George Bush just doesn't get it." (The billboards show a photo of a hurricane swirling toward Florida.)

Without researching this phony group of make-believe scientists, I'm willing to wager they're somehow tied to George Soros and/or the international communist movement. As usual, these people don't really care about the environment, they just want government to have more control over business, property, and people.

Anthrax attacks of 2001

Here is an interesting editorial I found while researching the anthrax attacks in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Of particular note is a statement by Bill Clinton.

• "If we fail to respond today, Saddam [Hussein], and all those who would follow in his footsteps, will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program,"

Here is another quotation from the Secretary of Defense.

• "Days may go by without posing a threat immediately, but weeks or months, and then he's able to reconstitute his capacity to develop large amounts of chemical and biological weapons," the Pentagon chief said. "We're well aware of the ticking of the clock."

(By the way, that was NOT Secretary Rumsfeld, but actually Secretary Cohen.)

Was Iraq and Saddam behind the anthrax attacks? We may never know, but it's clear that some in the Bush administration wanted to use the theory to justify a second Gulf War. Both the WSJ and the Weekly Standard seemed to be in support of an attack on Saddam. Richard Perle seems to concur in this "mid October 2001" interview that the US needs a new policy in regards to Saddam post-9/11.

Another ABC story from 27 October 2001 indicates that Iraq was an extremely likely culprit in the anthrax attacks based on an additive found in the spores collected from various envelopes. Excerpts of note from the article:

• While it's possible countries other than Iraq may be using the additive, it is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program.

  "It means to me that Iraq becomes the prime suspect as the source of the anthrax used in these letters," former U.N. weapons inspector Timothy Trevan told ABCNEWS.

  In the process of destroying much of Iraq's biological arsenal, U.N. teams first discovered Iraq was using bentonite, which is found in soil around the world, including the United States and Iraq.

  "That discovery was proof positive of how they were using bentonite to make small particles," former U.N. weapons inspector Richard Spertzel told ABCNEWS.

The article goes on to discuss a hotly debated meeting between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence official met in Prague, Czech Republic.

• Raising new questions about whether Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, officials in the Czech Republic now confirm for the first time that a key hijacker met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague.

  Czech Interior Minister Stanislav Gross said Mohamed Atta, believed by U.S. investigators to be a ringleader of the hijackers, met an Iraqi diplomat shortly before the consul was expelled. Czech intelligence officials were troubled by Al-Ani's photographing of the Radio Free Europe building in the city.

  "At this point we can confirm," Gross said, "Mohamed Atta made contact with Iraqi intelligence officer Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani, who was expelled from the Czech Republic for conduct incompatible with his diplomatic status on April 22, 2001."

Here is an ABC news story dated 18 March 2003 stating unequivocable that Saddam failed to meet the demands of UNSC resolution 1441.

It's worth noting that some people believe that the anthrax attacks were orchestrated by US government employees, either with the motive of instigating an attack against Iraq or somehow profiting from the scare the attacks caused among Americans. The NY Times has this article from 2 December 2001.

• Separately, a private expert in biological weapons, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, has recently published a paper contending that a government insider, or someone in contact with an insider, is behind the attacks.

This site contains a lengthly examination of facts, opinions, and questions surrounding the attacks.

John Kerry's new campaign slogan:

President Bush rushed to war too slowly to protect the illegal weapons that Saddam didn't possess by the terrorists who weren't there until after we invaded in our illegal war that I will solve by bringing my faith into the oval office which will help me lead this nation as we continue to fight the wrong war at the wrong time with our coerced and bribed allies if and only if the action passes a global test to ensure we aren't diverting from the terrorism that I wish was just a nuisance.

Stolen Honor: Wounds that do not Heal

Watch the entire 45 minute film here.

And check out this blog.

Missing weapons in Iraq

In an attempt to smear President Bush and the US military, CBS recently came out with a story alleging that a huge stockpile of explosives had gone missing in Iraq. Kerry came out firing by saying that this represented a failure on the part of the Bush administration. Kerry said Bush "must answer for what may be the most grave and catastrophic mistake in a tragic series of blunders in Iraq." Subsuquently, it was learned and reported that the weapons had gone missing before US troops had even reached the location where the weapons had been. From this NBC News story,

• An NBC News crew that accompanied U.S. soldiers who seized the Al-Qaqaa base three weeks into the war in Iraq reported that troops discovered significant stockpiles of bombs, but no sign of the missing HMX and RDX explosives.

Here is the Drudge story where the truth broke.

This begs one question. If explosives known to the UN went missing before coalition troops reached Baghdad in early 2003, were the WMDs known to be there also removed before we arrived?

CONCLUSION: John Kerry thinks we rushed to war too slowly to prevent weapons that didn't exist from being stolen by terrorists who didn't exist until we got there. Instead, we should have allowed the bribed UN inspectors to continue enforcing UN sanctions, because the 17 resolutions passed against Iraq and Saddam were working.

UPDATE(credit to Rush, from Presidential debate #2):

• KERRY: You rely on good military people to execute the military component of the strategy, but winning the peace is larger than just the military component.

  General Shinseki had the wisdom to say, "You're going to need several hundred thousand troops to win the peace." The military's job is to win the war.

  A president's job is to win the peace.

  The president did not do what was necessary. Didn't bring in enough nation. Didn't deliver the help. Didn't close off the borders. Didn't even guard the ammo dumps. And now our kids are being killed with ammos right out of that dump.
  

Which ammo dumps are those, Senator? If you knew about this on October 8, why are you shocked by this story coming out now?

UPDATE: Why did CBS originally plan to release this story on October 31? Was this supposed to be the October surprise?

UPDATE: Today, Kerry has once again repeated his claim that President Bush "rushed to war" without a plan to "win the peace". However, isn't it now obvious that we didn't invade soon enough? After all, had we gone in sooner, might not there have been a chance that we would have located these missing explosives, and perhaps even the WMD that the left now claims never existed?

Did Kerry meet with UNSC before the Iraq invasion?

The Washington Times says he did not, According to Kerry during Presidential debate #2:

• "This president hasn't listened.

  I went to meet with the members of the Security Council in the week before we voted. I went to New York. I talked to all of them to find out how serious they were about really holding Saddam Hussein accountable."

According to the Times article:

• Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in December 2003, Mr. Kerry explained that he understood the "real readiness" of the United Nations to "take this seriously" because he met "with the entire Security Council, and we spent a couple of hours talking about what they saw as the path to a united front in order to be able to deal with Saddam Hussein."

However, the Times goes on to report:

• But of the five ambassadors on the Security Council in 2002 who were reached directly for comment, four said they had never met Mr. Kerry. The four also said that no one who worked for their countries' U.N. missions had met with Mr. Kerry either.
  
• The former ambassadors who said on the record they had never met Mr. Kerry included the representatives of Mexico, Colombia and Bulgaria. The ambassador of a fourth country gave a similar account on the condition that his country not be identified.

Good and evil

Despite the problems I have with President Bush on a variety of issues, I believe that at his core, he is a good man. He is honest, faithful, trustworthy, and respectable. I think he honestly wants America to be strong and prosperous, and that he believes in the just nature of our cause. This story confirms just such an opinion.

Democrats should be embarassed

A once proud Democrat, named Bob Just, has become utterly embarassed at his own party. Once a true champion of "the little guy", the Democrat party has sunk to an all-time low. It now has become a bastion of America haters, fascists, and hate-filled corrupt politicians hungry for power. From Democrats slandering a Republican in Alabama, to the excuses made for Bill Clinton's perjury, to the Robin Williams routine given at a fundraiser during the summer of 2004, Democrats have proven that party over principle is the prevailing methodology. Today's Democrats are a collection of communists, socialists, globalists, extremists, and willing accomplices who excuse poor behavior and bad leadership.

These people are alleging voter intimidation BEFORE an election while shooting up GOP campaign offices. They are willing to tell flat out lies about an imaginary draft, the fair tax plan, and an end to social security. They seem to take the side of America's enemy in the War on Terror. They have suggested that books and movies casting their candidates in poor light should be censored and banned. There is no low too low for these people to stoop in their quest for power, and if given the opportunity, they will take the country down with them.

It's time for the "Reagan Democrats" to wake up and realize what has happened to their party. They have a chance next week.

Does poverty lead to terrorism?

Here is a Frontpage magazine article covering a recent panel discussion on this question. I think the liberals who purport this theory have it exactly backwards. Terrorism leads to poverty. Those who constantly spend their time and resources making bombs and killing themselves will never achieve scientific or technological advances. They will never invent a new device or prove a new mathematical theory. They will never develop beyong the squalor in which they toil. Yasser Arafat is one of the richest men in the world. Yet, his struggle against the "infidels" in Israel continues unabated. No matter the problem, liberals in America find a way to blame all problems on economic inequality. When was the last time some thug from an American ghetto conducted a suicide bombing? Did I miss the stories about exploding busses in south central LA? No, of course not.

UPDATE: This new article from Frontpage illustrates how young islamists turn to terrorism as an escape from the failings of their own culture. The article explains how young islamists are caught in a perpetual catch-22. Since their culture breeds despair and squalor, yet they are not allowed to "westernize" according to islamic law, the only choice left is to murder non-fundamentalists. Sadly, it is the non-conformists who would be able to provide opportunities for economic, technological, and societal improvements in arab culture.

Liberals seek a weaker America

An article appears on Frontpage Mag's website illustrating the complete distortion of the war effort in Iraq. Liberals are claiming that Bush told us Saddam was currently in possession of WMD with the imminent capability and intent to strike against us. Bush never said any such thing, but he has been less than adamant in making this point. Here are some excerpts from the article:

• The joint congressional resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq and passed by majorities in both political parties, Democrats as well as Republicans and John Kerry and John Edwards in particular, has 23 "whereas" clauses articulating the rationale for the use of force. Only one of the 23 focuses on weapons of mass destruction
• twelve of the clauses refer to Saddam's violation of 16 UN resolutions – resolutions which constituted the terms of the truce in the 1991 Gulf War

• For those who have indeed forgotten, these are the facts: We have been continuously at war with Saddam Hussein since 1990. The conflict in 1990 was caused by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait and was ended by a ceasefire, not a peace. The terms of the truce were embodied in UN resolutions 687 and 689. Fourteen subsequent UN resolutions were designed to compel Saddam to adhere to the terms of this truce which he continually violated but which the UN and the Clinton administration failed to enforce.

  Thus, it was Saddam Hussein's violation of these 16 resolutions and a 17th – Resolution 1441, a final ultimatum – that caused us to go to war.

• UN Resolution 1441 called on Saddam Hussein to disarm and to provide an accounting for the disposition of all weapons of mass destruction that the UN inspectors had already identified.
• In his book Disarming Iraq, chief UN inspector Hans Blix declares that this resolution was diplomatic language for a war ultimatum and that Saddam failed to meet the terms of the ultimatum. That was why we went to war.
• We went to war because we could not maintain 200,000 troops in the desert indefinitely while Saddam played games with the UN inspectors.
  
• We went to war because 17 defied UN resolutions had made the word of the UN and the United States meaningless – an extremely dangerous situation in itself.
• We went to war against Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003, because to withdraw the 200,000 troops without a war and without Saddam’s capitulation to the UN demands would be a catastrophic defeat for the forces of freedom and peace.

The underlying theme of the article is that the left in America wants the average American public to distrust its government-specifically when under Republican leadership. The left wants America to relinquish sovereignty in regards to our own defense, and to cede power from Congress to the UN Security Council. The left wants Americans to become too weak to defend itself from military enemies, and ultimately too weak to defend itself from communism-the ultimate goal of the left.

Other great reads on Frontpage mag today include:

• Do we want a 9/10 President or a 9/12 President for the next 4 years?
• The world is looking to America and this election to decide how to handle terrorism. Will we confront evil or hide from it?
• The lies that islamo-fascists teach themselves about the hated Americans and Israelis.
  

Why I would vote for Alan Keyes

Recently, I saw a debate between Barack Obama and Alan Keyes who are vying to be the next US Senator from Illinois. Obama will win in a landslide, but I was extremely impressed by Mr. Keyes. I had not seen him before nor did I know much about him, but I liked what he had to say on a variety of issues.

1. He is unabashedly pro-life.

• I stand for the defense of innocent life.
  
• More than AIDS, more than violence, more than heart disease, more than any of those causes, including accidents and so forth combined, abortion has claimed the lives of black people--more than twice as many, amounting to twenty-five percent reduction in the black population.
• Abortion is intrinsically, objectively, wrong and sinful,
• There are certain issues that objectively violate the most fundamental canons of moral decency, and abortion, for instance, is one of them--the taking of innocent life.
• People looking at the babe in the womb take the view that that child is not developed enough to be treated as a human being, and therefore can be killed at will.
• I want to know where He stands with respect to the will of the Father, to Whom He looks. And on these questions, like abortion, He says the taking of innocent life is an abomination.
• Did you know that something like thirteen million black babies have been killed since Roe v. Wade, as a result of this holocaust of abortion? Did you know that the black population today is something like twenty-five percent less than it would otherwise be, because of abortion?
• the advocates of abortion, that they take the objective condition of poverty, and use it to justify a situation in which you then herd and push people toward the killing of their children.

2. He understands that sound morals are a critical foundation to a strong society, and that poverty, drug use, gangs, welfare, and education are issues that cannot be dealt with unless and until the traditional family is restored.

• I stand for the defense of traditional marriage.
• I think we must educate the heart and soul of people, so that they will control themselves.
• I think that if we care about our freedom, we have to care about the moral foundations of our liberty--moral foundations that are relevant, by the way, to every practical problem we face.
• In education, in health care, in our economic life, every study shows that if you allow, for instance, the breakdown of the family structure--the greatest contributing factor to poverty, to the gap in affordable housing, to the rising tide of crime and violence, to the inability, in fact, to deal with a lot of the problems that drive our young people into gangs, all are related to the breakdown of the family structure.
• the root of our problem lies in the decay of our moral culture. And government has assaulted this culture with stands on abortion, with, now, an assault on the traditional family, with regulations in the social welfare programs that drove fathers out of the home and broke down the family structure.
  
  He says, "This is not a concern of government." And yet government has, in fact, been deeply contributing to the damage that is being done to the moral culture of this country.
  
  I think we're gonna go bankrupt if we keep paying for the consequences of moral decay, and refuse to address its causes.
  

3. He understand that states' rights are waning and that it is critical to repeal the 17th amendment of the US Constitution.

• Senators were originally chosen, under our Constitution, by the state legislature--for the simple reason that the Senate was supposed to represent the state governments, not geographic entities, but the governments that are empowered to take care of the affairs of the states, as sovereign entities that, under our Constitution, retained the residual powers of government not delegated to the federal government.
  
  In point of fact, the notion that this somehow disenfranchises people--our laws, in the state of Illinois, are passed by the state legislature. In the passage of those laws, are the people of this state "disenfranchised"?
  
  Of course they're not. When the legislature makes a decision, puts a criminal law on the books, it is "The People v. So-and-So" when that law is violated, because the legislature is presumed to represent the people. That is the meaning of our Constitutional system.
  
  But what has happened under the federal aegis, since we adopted the Seventeenth Amendment, isn't that people are enfranchised.
  
  It's that more and more important issues--including, under certain education laws now, things vital to the community like education--are being more and more decided by distant bureaucrats, by people at a level of government not as responsive as the state and local level. That's why we should protect the prerogatives of the state governments that are closer to our people.

4. He champions the very fundamental values that were inherent in our founding fathers, such as faith in God, capitalism, and individual liberty.

• In point of fact, the most important principle of our nation's life--that we are all created equal and endowed by our Creator, not by human choice, with our unalienable rights
• I think that's the same position, in principle, and it violates the fundamental principle of our way of life--that we are not developed nor born, but created equal, and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.
• I do not say that homosexual relations is an abomination, the Bible says so. And many people in this state believe the Bible when it says so.
• For, the Lord said I must love Him with my whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. There's nothing left over. Without faith, there's just a faith-shaped void where the conscience ought to be.
• separation of church and state, something found nowhere in the Constitution, and certainly found nowhere in the Scripture as such.

5. He understand the threat of global terrorism and the threat that America is facing.

• [W]e have no choice now but to confront the terrorists where they live, to attack them before they attack us, to disrupt their lines of supply, their financial lines of supply, their training camps, and to make it clear to state sponsors of terrorism--such as Saddam Hussein was--that we are not going to tolerate their activities, and that none of them are going to be left alone.
• when dealing with domestic crime and with international relations, is that you must go after the people who cause the problem, and that you must get to those people before they do harm to your citizens or to your country.

6. The 2nd Amendment, he understands it's about individual liberty and personal protection.

• I will state boldly, though, that I am a supporter of the Second Amendment, and I believe strongly that law-abiding citizens should have their right to keep and bear arms left intact.
• The gun control mentality is ruthlessly absurd. It suggests that you pass a law which will bind law-abiding citizens. They won't have access to weapons. Now, we know that criminals, by definition, are people who don't obey laws.
• I don't believe in arming the criminals and protecting the criminal, while leaving the law-abiding citizens disarmed,
• I think one of the great problems is that the Assault Weapons Ban deals with a fictional distinction.

7. The Fair Tax plan (from his website)

• The income tax is a twentieth-century socialist experiment that has failed. Before the income tax was imposed on us just 85 years ago, government had no claim to our income. Only sales, excise, and tariff taxes were allowed. We need to return to the Constitution of economic liberty that our Founders intended to be a permanent bulwark of our political liberty.
• Replacing the income tax with a national sales tax would rejuvenate independence and responsibility in our citizens. True economic liberty and moral revival go hand in hand.
• A national sales tax would also put the American citizen back in control of fiscal policy. The best way to curtail government spending is to cut taxes, because they can't spend what they don't get.

Liberal hypocrisy

I'm going to start a running list of what I see as stark hypocrisy evidenced by the American left. The "Liberal Creed" is a great place to start.

-Abortion is choice, but the death penalty for convicted criminals is cruel and unusual.
-Unilateral war without Congressional authorization is wrong, unless it's Bill Clinton dropping bombs in Kosovo.
-Halliburton should not be given no-bid contracts when a Republican is President, but it's okay when a Democrat is in the White House.
-The Democrat party says it is for the little guy, but 10 of the 12 wealthiest US Senators are Democrats.
-Democrats are telling us that rich people sit around and count their bank statements while the rest of the people toil at jobs where they are exploited and abused by greedy employers. Many of such Democrats are trust-fund babies who never earned a paycheck in their lives.
-Democrats also tell us that they want to "save" public education, but how many of their kids go to public schools?
-George Bush is a Christian bigot, but he has the most diverse cabinet ever.

Here's a great column asking where the women of the 1940's have gone and who has replaced them.

Illegal immigration hurts us all, mostly Bush

As a follow-up to this recent opinion I wrote, let's take a more in depth look at how the 4,000 illegal immigrants who invade this country every day hurt every single one of us. Currently, there are estimated to be between 8 and 12 million illegals in the country, according to Marcela Sanchez of the Wash. Post. The Center for Immigration Studies has concluded that 8-9 million illegals are here.

Aside from the simple fact that illegal immigrants who receive shortcuts to citizenship (Kerry's plan) or "temporary" worker cards (not amnesty, says George Bush) are being rewarded for breaking federal laws. Recidivism is a real concept, and those who come here illegally should be expected to commit additional crimes. Many illegals come here as drug couriers. Illegal Hispanic immigrants are being blamed for rising gang activity as the turf wars from their home countries don't end at the border, as Angie Morfin testifies to the House Judiciary committee.

Some say that there are jobs that Americans are unwilling to do. It seems that none of the Americans unwilling to wash dishes or work farms have any reservations about cashing welfare checks and collecting food stamps. The illegals who come here are competing for low paying jobs which leads to fewer opportunities for low-income Americans to improve themselves. Worth noting, a disproportionate percentage of low-income American families are minorities, so illegal immigration hurts them the most.

Further, the US government tells us that it would be "unrealistic" to completely eliminate all of the illegal immigrants that are here already. To that I say, fine. How about stiff punishment for the half that we CAN locate? Have these people ever heard of the concept of deterrence as a law enforcement strategy?

What about the problem that faces the American worker of supposed difficulties getting and keeping a "good" job? Not that creating or guaranteeing jobs to individuals is a Constitutionally mandated responsibility of the federal government, but the feds should enforce immigration laws even more vigorously than ever if illegals are stealing jobs from American citizens and legitimate green card holders. Immigrant populations are going up and so are the recipients of government welfare, and we all know who pays THOSE bills.

Michelle Malkin weighs in here about why the War on Terror sounds phony when we refuse to police the border region. 2 things are becoming clear to me and some others. One, conservative American citizens are being taken for granted while "Hispandering" is the newest target for GOP leadership. Second, a civil war is going to erupt in the Republican party, beginning on November 3 between the Bush/Rove neocons and the traditional Goldwater/Buchanan Republicans. Speaking of which, here is Buchanan's endorsement of Bush, which makes this point very well.

National Review says that most of the visa applications by the 9/11 hijackers should have been rejected, but were not. Illegals are a threat to our security, especially those who attempt to gain access to military installations.

This election is about George Bush. Kerry can and often has said or done some of the most ridiculous things any politician could dream of. He can't articulate a policy for Iraq, he won't acknowledge the coming problems with social security, he is promising to raise taxes and expand the government even more than Bush. Nothing Kerry says matters. The people will be voting for or against George Bush by and large.

If Kerry wins this election, it will be because of the immigration issue and the mistakes being made in Iraq. We are fighting a PC war, too concerned with "winning the peace" when we have yet to win the war. Bush, Rumsfeld & co. apparently learned nothing from the debacle that was Vietnam.

If Bush wins, it will be because Americans choose to stand up to the terrorists and confront them head on. Some Bush voters aren't terribly enthused with the events in Iraq of late, many wonder if the Saudis are really friends of America, and a few may even want us to pull out of Iraq all together declaring it a stalemate. In any case, a Bush win is a win for strong national defense and a Kerry win is a victory for the UN and the global test.

I'll be voting for Bush on November 2, but on November 3, the border issue becomes job #1. Reviewing the info at the website for the House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee for Immigration, Border Security, and Claims would be a good start. It must be dealt with by whoever wins the Presidency or we shall all pay the price.

Truth about social security

SOCIAL SECURITY:
Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. He promised:
1.) That participation in the Program would be completely voluntary,
2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes into the Program,
3.) That the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year,
4.) That the money the participants put into the independent "Trust Fund" rather than into the General operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program, and,
5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.

Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month -- and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government to "put away," you may be interested in the following:

Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent "Trust" fund and put it into the General fund so that Congress could spend it?
A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the Democratically-controlled House and Senate.

Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?
A: The Democratic Party.

Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?
A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the "tie-breaking" deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the U.S.

Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?
A: That's right! Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party. Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive SSI Social Security payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it! Then, after doing all this lying and thieving and violation of the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away! And the worst part about it is, uninformed citizens believe it!

Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during this 2004 election year! If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe good changes will evolve. Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

If you want to know the truth about the coming bankruptcy of our marxist social security system, go to this CATO institute site.

The liberal creed

Kirkuk, Iraq—For all the talk about a widening religiosity gap between the right and the left, sentiment from the left indicates a certain religious fervor about the war in Iraq. A string of recent letters and articles from those of a more liberal persuasion suggest that they choose to ignore or simply do not believe information which is inconsistent with their basic tenets. Theirs is a policy of faith, and here is their creed.

We believe in the United Nations, and Kofi Annan, the maker of international legitimacy.

We believe that the UN inspections worked.
We believe that SCUD missiles fired at U.S. troops minutes after the war began don’t change anything;
We believe that 3 liters of sarin gas used against U.S. troops doesn’t change anything;
We believe that finding evidence of mustard gas doesn’t change anything.

We believe that the war in Iraq conducted by a Republican president was unjustified because it lacked UN approval;
We believe that the "military action" in Kosovo conducted by a Democratic president was justified without UN approval.

We believe that the Iraq war was unilateral.
We believe that the participation of Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Honduras, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom, and Ukraine does not change the fact that the war was unilateral;
We believe that multilateralism can only be achieved with the participation of France and Germany;
We believe in multilateralism.

We believe that this war was motivated by greed and oil;
We believe that when France, Germany, and Russia opposed the war, they were motivated by principle, and not by sweetheart oil deals or Oil-For-Food kickbacks;
We believe that US oil prices are too high, and that the administration failed in its responsibility to do something about it.

We believe that the U.S. may only legitimately use force for humanitarian ends in one place if it does so in all places where aid might be needed;
We believe that the U.S. may not quell threats in places where the cost is relatively low unless it is willing to use force in places like North Korea, where the cost in lives would likely be very high;
We believe that a humanitarian action is only truly humanitarian if there are no strategic interests to muddle the altruism.

We believe that President Bush lied.
We believe that Prime Minister Blair lied.
We believe that when Hillary Clinton and Dick Gephardt voted for the war based on the same intelligence relied upon by Bush and Blair, they made reasonable decisions based on the intelligence available at the time.

We believe that the administration did not make the case for war;
We believe that the administration offered many different reasons but could not offer a coherent message explaining the need to go to war;
We believe that the administration made perfectly clear that the only reason we were going to war was because of the threat from WMDs.

We believe that there were no WMDs.
We believe that finding sarin gas is 14th page news;
We believe that if the sarin gas is old, then it really isn’t a WMD we were looking for;
We believe that it wasn’t really sarin gas;
We believe that sarin gas isn’t necessarily a WMD.

We believe that there was no terrorist connection to, or threat from, Iraq.
We believe that members of Abu Nidal in Iraq would not have committed terrorist acts if we had not invaded;
We believe that al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would not have committed terrorist acts if we had not invaded;
We believe that Saddam’s terrorist training camp at Salman Pak—complete with a Boeing 707 plane used for hijacking drills—did not exist or posed no real threat;
We believe that it was merely a coincidence that the pharmaceutical factory bombed by President Clinton in Sudan was using al Qaeda funds and a uniquely Iraqi formula to produce VX gas;
We believe that we are responsible for bringing terror on ourselves.

We believe that the prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib is widespread and is probably the tip of the iceberg;
We believe that Abu Ghraib proves that the America’s occupation is no different than Saddam’s tyranny;
We believe that any attempt to suggest that there is a moral difference between a regime which systematically killed 300,000 people and tortured countless others and a regime which punished the acts of Abu Ghraib is illegitimate.

We believe that soldiers deliberately target women and children;
We believe that the soldiers abuse and kill Iraqis because they are racists;
We support our troops.

We believe that no one should question our statement that we "support our troops;"
We believe that the best thing that could happen for this country would be for Bush to lose in November;
We believe that the best way for Bush to lose in November is for the Iraq effort to go poorly, even if that means that more Iraqis and troops will die;
We believe that most of the troops are minorities and the poor;
We believe that when the word "heroes" is used to describe our troops, it should always be enclosed in scare quotes.

We believe in quagmire.
We believe that when fringe Iraqi groups attack hard targets and are soundly defeated with relatively low Coalition casualties, that this is inescapable evidence of crisis;
We believe that Iraq is Bush’s Vietnam.

We believe that Vietnam is the lens through which all wars should be viewed.
We believe that soldiers in Vietnam were baby killers;
We believe that John Kerry is a hero for his service in Vietnam.

We believe that because John Kerry is a hero, he necessarily has the national security expertise necessary to be commander-in-chief.
We believe that any attempt to question his national security expertise based on his voting record, including his decision to vote against a supplemental bill used to buy the soldiers body armor, is an unfair attack on the patriotism of a hero, who by virtue of this honorific has the expertise to be commander-in-chief.

We believe in the trinity: NPR, CNN, and the New York Times. We believe in Ted Kennedy, Tom Harkin, John Kerry, and all the DNC, and we look for President Clinton yet to come. Amen.