Nuff Said! 

FIlibuster, Compromise, and Bolton

What a lousy week for Republican lawmakers who still can't act like the majority party.

With the Bolton filibuster in place, what we are currently being treated to is 42 Democrats saying, in effect, "all that 62 million votes for President Bush and 55 Republican Senators means nothing: unless we approve, nothing gets done." Our leftwing friends say this is "checks and balances", but what they mean is "stopping the GOP from using its political victory". As it stands now, we've managed to get one of ten filibustered judges approved, after a four year wait and, meanwhile, during a time of war when diplomacy moves at a swift pace, the United States lacks an ambassador at the United Nations. All of this because the Democrats believe that they know better than the majority and, dammit, the majority will just have to learn its place until it wises up and puts the Democrats back into majority power.

Keep in mind that if during this past week it was President Hillary Clinton sending the nomination of Jesse Jackson to be Chief Justice of the United States over to a Senate headed up by Majority Leader Reid, then the "nuclear option" would have happened, and rated a page 18 blurb in the MSM....The only principle the Democrats are acting upon is the bizarre and un-American principle that they are to be in control regardless of the outcome of elections. Our masters have spoken, and in the matter of judges found seven GOP fools to bend the knee.

This, you see, is how the Democrats view the American people; stupid children who must be prevented from doing themselves harm. If they were to go along with their crushing defeat last November 2nd, then we would be going about passing laws which would only harm our best interests...heck, if we started acting like we won the election, we might even reform Social Security! Can you imagine a world in which the mass of the American people have complete control over their own financial assets? It is too horrific to contemplate and so the Democrats wisely thwart us in our desires. Thank God for the Democrats...without them I might start sticking pennies into electrical outlets.

All kidding aside, the Democrats are doing the political things which are done in the run-up to civil war. In a democratic republic, the first requirement is that the losing side quietly accept their defeat and only work towards changing the outcome at the next election. We cannot have a functioning democratic government if a minority can stop all action when they lose. What we must do, as Republicans and in defense of bedrock American political principle, is somehow break this Democratic logjam on the levers of power. We have to force them to back down.

All of us hoped after 9/11 that as far as the war went, Americans would show a united face to the enemy. Additionally, when President Bush came to town and said he'd be happy to sit down with Democrats and work out a mutually satisfactory solution to all pending problems, we figured that the Democrats would grasp their chance to get half a loaf. It didn't work out that way.

Quietly and only on the fringe at first, the war was opposed before the fires died down at WTC; within a year of 9/11, the Democrats were out on the political warpath saying that the President was failing at the war and that, at any rate, there wasn't really a war and the President was just using 9/11 for political advantage. The Democrats took the President's pledge to be a uniter and not a divider and when the President indicated that this didn't mean a 100% surrender of political principle, the Democrats painted the President as a monster of tyranny, riding roughshod over the Democrats. These two things indicated for all to see that truth and justice mean nothing to Democrats...only getting and holding power matters to them, and if they can't get it, they'll prevent those who hold it from exercising it.

The Democrats want war to the knife; so be it. They started this, we will finish it.

The New Deal

A new "deal," created by 14 senators, allows for the Democrats' continued use of filibusters in "extraordinary circumstances," and pledges Republican senators not to vote in favor of a rules change. Defining the term "extraordinary circumstances" is to be left to individual senators -- meaning that Democrats lost nothing by their obstructionism, and Republicans lost everything. Yes, a few of President Bush's judicial nominees will reach the Senate floor: Priscilla Owen (who has been waiting in line for over four years), William Pryor (more than two years), and Janice Rogers Brown (22 months) will all be confirmed. But many more will not, and the Republicans just threw away their only remaining weapon.

So in this political game of chicken, it is the Democrats who emerge victorious. It is the Republicans who cover themselves in shame. Here are the big winners and losers in this, the most important political battle in recent memory.

WINNERS:

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) -- Reid played the Republicans like fish here. He breached Senate protocol -- and plain decency -- by implying that FBI files on judicial nominee Henry Saad contained damning material. He called President Bush a "loser" and obstructed for months on end. Now, Reid is smirking for the cameras, and Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean is chuckling that the deal was "a huge loss for the right wing" and for the president.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) -- McCain's "maverick" credentials are intact. The media love him, and he certainly loves the media more than either his base or his principles. McCain's side-dealing highlights him as a rival to President Bush and the real leader of the Senate.

Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) -- With McCain's backstabbing and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's weak-kneed schoolgirl routine, Allen (who immediately condemned the deal) now emerges as the Republican senator with the best shot at the 2008 presidential nomination.

Janice Rogers Brown -- By explicitly allowing Brown onto the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Democrats have painted themselves into a corner if she's nominated for the Supreme Court. It will be difficult to cite "extraordinary circumstances" to filibuster her once she's already received an up-or-down vote.

LOSERS:

President Bush -- He's relegated to choosing second-tier candidates for his judicial nominations and fuming about judicial activism. So much for "spending political capital."

Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) -- Majority leader? What majority leader? McCain made Frist look foolish and probably prevented Frist's ascent to the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. Frist should have pushed the nuclear option sooner and whipped his senators into line. Now he's left an emergency message with Fox's "Nanny 911."

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) -- McCain better enjoy his glory now because he will never win a Republican presidential primary. Ever. From campaign finance reform to judicial nominees, from flirting with John Kerry to criticizing President Bush, McCain has amply demonstrated that he is unfit to run on a national ticket with an "R" next to his name.

The Republican Party -- Never has a majority party proved to be so spineless. Republicans, lest we forget, constitute 55 out of 100 senators and have the power to do what they please. Instead, they capitulated. It is now crystal clear that unless Republicans own almost 60 seats, rules will not be changed; unless Republicans own almost 70, cloture will never be invoked on a major issue. If that doesn't discourage the Republican base, nothing will.

The American people -- Hope everyone out there likes Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter, because whoever replaces Justices Rehnquist, Stevens and Ginsburg will likely look more like those three faux-Constitutionalists than like Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. You can thank McCain and Co. and the gutless Republican leadership as America is force-fed pure European liberalism through the unchecked hand of judicial review.

Oh Yea--I'm Outraged 

Outrage this!

Let’s see if we can get a consensus here. All those who agree with me, raise hands:

I am getting just the teensiest, tiniest, merest, hint of the scent of a whiff of being really, completely, and thoroughly SICK AND TIRED of the Western press pouncing on the Outrage! in the Arab world about something the United States has done; hasn’t done, is accused of doing, or is accused of not doing.

The latest – protesting photos of Saddam Hussein in his tighty whities on the front page of two Rupert Murdock newspapers – is just about enough, shukrun very much.

Saddam Hussein is a butcher. He is in the same – thankfully very small – club with Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot.

Saddam in his underwear is no different than Saddam in a bathing suit. Given how fit he looks, he doesn’t seem to be suffering very much from his incarceration.

If anything, the “Arab street” should be incensed because Saddam’s treatment has not been harsh enough. How tender should the prison stay of a man be who ordered the deaths of some 300,000 of his countrymen? Maybe we should throw him back into his spider hole.

Saddam Hussein in his drawers? Who cares?

This has little to do with Saddam but much to do with the world-wide effort to discredit anything and everything American, not a little of which comes from within the United States.

We don’t need to recount the good things we have done over the past 90-or-so years to protect our pals in Europe and Asia from domination by Germany and later Japan and later, still, the Soviet Union.

We’ve torn up the IOUs because (a) we didn’t do those things to keep score in the first place, and (b) we know we’d never be re-paid even if we did.

Saddam in his U-trou? Give me a break.

What about the continued hostage-taking of unarmed reporters and aid workers? Some of them have been ransomed. Some of them have been killed. None of them has been the object of Outrage!

You want to be Outraged! about something? How about the billions – BILLIONS – of dollars that Saddam and his band of thugs stole from the people of Iraq. The Oil-for-Palaces program was the most successful swindle since Carlo Ponzi invented the genre.

The people of Iraq went without food, clean water, housing and power so Saddam and his boys could build dozens of monuments to … Saddam. His partner in that deal was none other than Kofi Annan of the Ewe-Nighted Nations.

Hello? Can I interest you in even a modest amount of fury, rage or wrath? No? I’ll settle for just a smidgen of polite indignation.

Saddam in his smalls? Pul-eeze.

What about the footage of people having their heads chopped off – beginning with Daniel Pearl a reporter for the Wall Street Journal who had done nothing at all to deserve being held captive, much less butchered. Where was even the most diffident suggestion that it was unpleasant let alone barbaric? Outrage! Yeah, right.

The list goes on and on. Fallujah. Remember the four contractors who, escorting a food convoy, were ambushed, burned, dismembered and then hung from a bridge? No Outrage! then, either.

Saddam in his BVDs. Yuck. You couldn’t turn on a television over the weekend without seeing the photo with a studio host staring into the camera sadly reporting the damage it was doing to American credibility overseas. Every 17 seconds.

So, let’s just call this what it is: A sham. A fake. A lie. A victory for the “America is Always Wrong” crowd.

Fabrizio Quattrocchi 

I got your desecration right here pal

Hello, my name is Fabrizio Quattrocchi. I was captured by Muslim holy warriors and tortured before cameras, just for their sport. In the end, they set aside of any respect for international law common, human decency or even the restraint of their own religious doctrine and beheaded me. I shouldn’t have expected any special treatment as this is a common act that they perform even among their own people. However, you won’t see the video of my beheading because I died like a man rather than the sniveling coward they wanted me to be.

I just want you all to know that I find all Muslims who decry to horrors of “George Bush and abu-ghraib” and now this desecration of the Koran to be a bit, shall we say “shallow” in light of the fact that the same “abu-ghraib” that you decry under Bush was a charnel house under Saddam, and yet you said nothing since it was a fellow Muslim doing the killing Oh, and I tell you, the International Red Cross coming out for concern over “civilian deaths in iraq” now that Saddam is gone is rich, real rich. Where was all the concern when the Kurds were being gassed? Where was all the concern for the marsh arabs then, eh? Where’s all the indignity when the supposedly holy kingdom of Saudi Arabia works so hard at killing and subjugating so many of the worlds Muslims. See any Christians in Arabia? No, Golly why is that? Oh that’s right, because it’s a death sentence. Any Muslim converts to Christianity? Oh that’s right, Death penalty. I ask you, from the grave, what’s more of a desecration? An act of defiance in a prison by a Muslim prisoner flushing his own Koran down the toilet, or the subjugation of your most holy sites by a dictatorship of thugs and corrupt princes. You tell me, I’m ready to listen, frankly I’ve got all of eternity to wait for your answer.

Have you people counted up the Muslim bodies in your mass graves created by Muslim warlords? Not just in Iraq, but in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia? You’re worried about words on paper? Look I know God wrote the Koran, but its not like it’s the only copy that went down the porcelain fountain there in Cuba. If the US wanted to desecrate a holy site, dontcha think they could just launch one of those nuclear missiles at Mecca? That would get your attention pretty quick now wouldn’t it? So what’s stopping the yanks? Oh, it’s that common decency that those “infidels” have in their religion. As someone who had his head chopped off for sport by your :”holy Warriors” , I think its something you might want to check into.

Desecration? Don’t talk to be about desecration. You people eat desecration for breakfast on your corn flakes. You use your mosques and holy sites as munitions dumps, you use then as sniper nests. So what’s a little water on a copy of your holy text?

And just to be clear, The story isnt true. So, isnt there some proviso in the Kraon for bearing false witness? Well, given your track record there probably is againt fellow Muslims but not against "infidels". That must be the catch-22 of the Koran.

Oh, and by the way, just so you are completely aware of what I think of you and your murderous islamofascist culture, you can all kiss my ass.

Oh, and NEWSWEEK, you can cancel my subscription. Thanks to you and your indiscretions in the media, you made people like me easy and valuable targets. I’m dead, not that you care because before I died I didn’t denounce George Bush, so to you, I guess I deserved it.

How’s that for a desecration?

Tell me again how important to World Peace the Un is???? 

Move the UN to Paris

What’s that smell? Mmmm, smells like a whitewash!

The lawyer for the committee investigating the U.N. Oil-for-Food program has written a letter to the world body asking it to instruct a former investigator who resigned from the commission not to comply with two congressional subpoenas regarding the probe, sources told FOX News.

Paul Volcker, the man picked by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to lead the investigation, said on Friday the integrity of the probe into the Oil-for-Food program is at stake and lives may be in jeopardy if details of the investigation are leaked.

The letter to the U.N. and Volcker’s public statements are in reaction to recent congressional efforts to subpoena a former senior investigator on the Independent Inquiry Committee who thinks the panel has been too soft on Annan in its investigation.

The former investigator, Robert Parton, has also provided Congress with documents from the probe. In his remarks on Friday, Volcker asked Congress to return those records, which may contain information potentially harmful to Annan, sources told FOX News.

Rep. Henry J. Hyde, R-Ill., however, refused to return the documents. Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said he appreciated the gravity of Volcker’s concerns, but that his committee is obligated to continue its own investigation.

Okay, let’s break it down. Kofi, knowing his kleptocracy is riven with corruption, appoints Volcker. Volcker releases a report which appears, on the surface, to be critical of Kofi. Then Robert Parton, one of Volcker’s investigators, resigns, claiming that Volcker is protecting Kofi. Parton gives to Congress a lot of evidence to support his claim. Congress, following up on the information, subpoenas Parton to testify. And now Volcker is asking Kofi to order Parton to ignore the subpoena.

Kofi appoints Volcker, and now Volcker wants Kofi to order Parton not to testify to avoid embarrassing Kofi.

I don’t smell a whitewash, I smell bullshit.

Chucky's logic -

A day after Senator Uriah Reid (D-Nev) brands the president a "loser" and then apologizes, a week after Senator Ken Salazar (D-Colo) labels Focus on the Family as the anti-Christ and then apologizes, and a month after Senator Robert Byrd (D-WVA) brands the Senate GOP as Hitler's heirs, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) appeals to President Bush to bring moderation to the Republican side of the debate on the filibusters.

Now that is rich. Wildly amusing and ineffective, but rich.

Hi--My name is Harry Reid--you know---the Democrat Senate Leader??? 

Open Mouth, Insert Foot, Repeat As Desired

As if the Democrats couldn't look more foolish than they already have this session, now Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has taken to calling George Bush names while the President represents the US at World War II memorials around Europe. Reid called Bush a "loser", in what has to be the oddest case of projection so far this year:

In the course of a discussion on filibusters and Senate rules, Washington's top Democrat gave the 60 juniors a lesson in partisan politics, particularly about the commander in chief. "The man's father is a wonderful human being," Reid said in response to a question about President Bush's policies. "I think this guy is a loser.

"I think President Bush is doing a bad job," he added to a handful of chuckles.

He's a loser, eh? Let's take stock:

A. He beat an incumbent VP for a popular President after two terms of perceived peace and prosperity.

B. He marshaled his own political capital on mid-term elections when supposedly his presence was a liability, and won a majority in the Senate and several house seats.

C. He won his next presidential election despite managing a divisive war and the open hostility of the national news media. He survived a major smear effort by one of the country's biggest news organizations late in the campaign. Not only did he win re-election himself, but he further extended his majorities in both houses of Congress.

Harry Reid wishes he could "lose" like George Bush. He's about to get outfought by a reluctant Bill Frist and watch as Bush's judicial nominees finally get confirmed to the appellate court and the Supreme Court. The real losers are the people who picked Reid and Nancy Pelosi to run the Democratic legislative caucuses.

If you squat to pee --then this is torture.. 

Torture my ass

The courtroom was silent as the military judge read the list of charges against Pvt. Lynndie England. Among them:

1. Five counts of leading naked men around by a leash without an official Dominatrix license issued by the mayor of San Francisco,

2. Three counts of piling naked men on top of each other outside the confines of an accredited Ivy League fraternity,

3. One count of repeatedly saying "Nee" until Iraqi prisoners brought her a shrubbery,

and the most heinous crime of all, an act of such inhuman brutality that it makes the Rape of Nan King look like a Sunday picnic:

4. Eleven counts of genital mocking.

To those who think that genital mocking is a victimless crime, think again. Nationwide, over 300,000 white males have their genitals mocked each year. The numbers are significantly higher among enlisted men, who have teensy, peanut-sized genitalia, for which they compensate by carrying around big guns and saying, "OOoh, look me at me, I'm so macho!"

To Muslim males, having one's genitals mocked by a woman is considered a fate worse than having one's head slowly sawed off while other men laugh and sing over your bloodcurdling screams. That's exactly why this crime was so insidious, and why that palimpsest piece of flatulovaporous effluvium must never be allowed to see the light of day again.

Statistics show that 9 out of 10 gential mockers will mock genitals again if released into the general population. Serial mockers such as England have been known to mock hundreds of genitals before finally being apprehended. Unless anti-genital mocking hate crime legislation is enacted immediately, we may never again return to the bygone days when young men could walk the streets at night with their flies open and their tackle out.

Unfortunately, the neocon judge in this case refused to accept England's guilty plea, citing that some of the photographic evidence was taken at a democrat party fundraiser at Martha's Vineyard last weekend. The judge's decision sends a dangerous message to genital mockers that the mocking of genitalia will not only be tolerated, but encouraged as a matter of military policy.

Three and a Half Months until Football Season

ABU GHRAIB IS BACK

Do you know what this past Tuesday was? Just another day? Nope. Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy (known to his friends as 'Teddy' and to some friends of Mary Jo Kopechne as 'murderer') took time out of his busy schedule to issue a press release reminding us all that it was the first anniversary of the scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Thank you very much, Senator Kennedy.

Did Ted Kennedy say anything about the first anniversary of the liberation of Iraq? The capture of Saddam Hussein? Nope. When this slime ball wants to celebrate an anniversary, he looks for one that can be cast in anti-American terms.

Make no mistake, Ted Kennedy and his liberal buddies hate the United States of America and especially despise the Military. They will never pass up an opportunity to bash the U.S., make us look bad, or draw attention to what they perceive as our shortcomings. All of this on top of the fact that Ted Kennedy is a backstabbing partisan Bush-hater. Back to his press release, though.

It was filled with all sorts of outrageous claims and outright lies. Right off the bat, he refers to the "torture" at Abu Ghraib. Actually, most of what went on there would barely qualify as prisoner abuse. He also compared the United States Military to Saddam's henchmen. Nice going. He also bemoaned the damage to our reputation in the Middle East. You see, liberals constantly worry what Islamic terrorists and assorted hate-mongering Muslims might think of us.

Like racism, the left must continue to dredge up problems so that they can continue to draw power from the "problem." Exploiting the men and women of the U.S. military for political gain is no problem for hardcore leftists like Teddy Kennedy.

Not that anyone seems to care. His brain-damaged constituents have been sending this national embarrassment to Washington for over 40 years.

My Favorite Quote Of The Week

“I think the only people who could conceivably be talking about a draft are people who are speaking from pinnacles of near-perfect ignorance."– Donald Rumsfeld

The statement above made by Rumsfeld during a hearing of a Senate appropriations subcommittee, “prompted laughter among the spectators.” Well, I just bet it did.

dumb and dumber

The New York Times reports that many Americans are ignorant about basic economics. No kidding. Were that not true, Democrats would be as rare as libertarians.

Most Democrat policy is based on zero-sum economic thinking: if someone gets wealthy, someone else must have gotten correspondingly poorer. Creation of wealth is thus mislabeled as exploitation. That's not just dumb, it's dangerous.

Of course the Times has another agenda, which is convincing voters that we're too dumb to invest some of our Social Security funds in private accounts.

Dumb people fall for Ponzi schemes, and the current SS system is exactly that. How smart must you be to understand that the $1.7 trillion dollar SS "trust fund" is not an asset, but a liability that today's young citizens will be stuck paying?

The notion that the government can be both a lender and borrower in the same transaction is absurd. Yet Democrat partisans claim just that. Along those lines, I have a perfect solution to the problem. When I retire, I plan to sue myself for $2 million. That'll do me nice. If everyone does the same, we'll all be in clover.

Full Circle:

1986--I think we should protect our borders and enforce immigration laws.

Response: Racist!

1996--I think we should do a better job of protecting our borders and enforcing immigration laws.

Response: Racist!

9/12/2001--I think we should really, finally get serious about protecting our

borders and enforcing immigration laws.

Response: Good idea! Never forget! Whatever it takes!

Spring 2005--Hey, um, what happened to protecting our borders and enforcing immigration laws?

Response: Racist!

He's Working On It

Decision '08 has a progress report on John Kerry's effort to sign a form 180 to release his military records, now entering its fourth month:

In a hastily organized news conference, a spokesman for the Perpetual John Kerry for President Campaign said the initial phases of "Operation Sign Form SF-180" were going better than expected. Specifically, in the 90 days since Kerry promised on national television to sign the form releasing his military records, the following milestones have been achieved:

--a pen has been procured from a Walmart on the outskirts of Little Rock "for substantially less than the $12,000 budgeted";

--a special committee has been formed to discuss the best way to remove the cap from the pen;

--a copy of the notoriously difficult to obtain form has been located on eBay and bidding is underway; and

--a "Dinner With John" fundraising extravaganza is in the works to obtain the necessary postage to mail the signed form, should such a step be required.

UPDATE: Archie Thomas is puzzled:

Strange I mailed a copy with a stamped envelope - addressed to the proper offices - to John Kerry's office in Washington over two months ago with a request for him to complete it. He must be good at filling out forms - is that not the way he got all of those medals?

“Economy Grows at Slowest Pace in Two Years” and “Dow Loses 128 Points on Weak GDP Report” raged the Associated Depressed.

{gasp}

It’s gloom. Doom. Vote Kerry!!!

From what pipe are these people smoking?

First of all, of course the economy is slowing down. How could it not? It grew at breakneck speed, for 18 consecutive months, and the Fed has been raising rates to stem inflation. And there’s the oil and gas price issue with which we’ve been saddled too. And, incidentally, the stock market has been in the process of correcting for several months. Do they not even teach basic economics and finance in school anymore?

Second, today’s (preliminary) report indicated real GDP growth of 3.1 percent over the first 90 days of the year. I mean, come on. It’s not like 1931 revisited. Plus, to put things into perspective, what, pray tell, was real GDP growth in the first quarter of 1997, when the media used to swoon about the economy nearly every single day? Yep, you guessed it, the very same 3.1 percent. In fact, in between January 1, 1996 and December 31, 1997, and despite the brewing tech/telecom mania, there were three separate quarters in which real GDP growth (annualized) came in at or below last quarter’s 3.1 percent expansion. (See here.) But if you think the media trotted out even one gloom and doom headline about the economy, back then, please call me. And please be prepared to provide me with your credit card numbers and their respective PIN’s.

In any event, the “mainstream media” is suffering from an affliction. It’s called the GOP runs the country and will be doing so for quite some time. And those space cadets are nearly as happy about that development as Anheuser-Busch would be happy to see prohibition return.

Beam me up, Scotty.

Mario Cuomo is a lying, failed, Dickhead!

In his radio address for the Democrats on Saturday, Mario Cuomo showed himself to be the faithful student of cornpone constitutionalist and former Ku Klux Klan Kleagle Robert Byrd. Thus spake His Honor:

Now, the Republicans in the Senate...are threatening to claim ownership of the Supreme Court and other federal courts, hoping to achieve political results on subjects like abortion, stem cells, the environment and civil rights that they can not get from the proper political bodies: the Congress and the presidency.

How will they do this? By destroying the so-called filibuster, a vital part of the 200-year-old system of checks and balances in the Senate that allows the fullest possible debate before one of the president's choices for the Supreme Court or other federal courts is allowed to take his or her place on the bench. That would be a change so undesirably destructive that it has been called the nuclear option.

The Republicans say it would assure dominance by the majority in the Senate. That sounds democratic until you remember that the Bill of Rights was adopted, as James Madison pointed out, in order to protect all Americans from what he called, the tyranny of the majority. And it sounds nearly absurd when you learn that the minority Democrats in the Senate actually represent more Americans than the majority Republicans do.

How many whoppers, stretchers, flips and flops can you spot in these three paragraphs? It would be cruel to unleash Paul Mirengoff on them, but even I can follow the Cuomo postulates to the inference Cuomo shrinks from drawing explicitly: that the Bill of Rights was adopted to protect us from the tyranny of the Democrats. But then again, I am a Straussian and a believer in "reading between the lines."

These are the three most ludicrous paragraphs I've seen in a long time. First Cuomo stands history on its head; as in the classic instances of Roe v Wade and gay marriage, it has always been the Democrats, never the Republicans, who have used the federal courts to force policies on the American people that the "proper political bodies" won't vote for.

Next he stands the meaning of the filibuster on its head, pretending that the device is intended to assure "the fullest possible debate" before a judicial nominee "takes his or her place on the bench." In reality, as Harry Reid explicitly admitted just last week, the filibuster has nothing to do with assuring ample debate; that's why he rejected the Republican compromise that offered 100 hours of debate--more than two weeks--on each and every judicial nominee. In reality, as everyone knows, the filibuster is intended to prevent Republican nominees from "taking their places on the bench," ever.

Finally, he stands the Constitution on its head with the absurd suggestion tbat the minority should run the Senate rather than the majority, apparently on the theory that majority rule is per se tyrannical. It's hard to respond to that except by saying, "Huh?" And he concludes with a stunning non sequitur: Senate Democrats represent more people than Senate Republicans; therefore it's appropriate for the minority Democrats to get their way. We do, of course, have a body where votes are apportioned on the basis of population; it's called the House of Representatives. But population is completely irrelevant to the Senate. It's also irrelevant to the filibuster, which can just as easily be implemented by Senators from the twenty smallest states. And if the question is, where do most Americans stand on the question of who gets to appoint judges to the federal bench, they answered that question last November, when President Bush won by something like three million votes.

Setting The Record Straight: Social Security Reform Means Funded Benefit Growth, Not "Benefit Cuts"

Today, some opponents of fixing Social Security are suggesting that the President's proposals would result in "benefit cuts." This rhetoric recklessly disregards the facts about the President's proposal:

• Fact: Under the President's proposal, benefits would grow relative to today's levels. Future generations of seniors would receive benefits that are at least as high as seniors receive today (even after adjusting for inflation.)
• Fact: The Pozen proposal referenced by the President would allow for faster overall long-term benefit growth than can be paid by current-law Social Security.
• Fact: Under the Pozen proposal referenced by the President, lowest-income Americans would get the fastest benefit growth of all, significantly faster than inflation.
• Fact: Under the Pozen proposal referenced by the President, medium-wage workers would also receive faster benefit growth than the current system can pay.
• Fact: The current Social Security system can fund only 74% of promised benefits in 2041. The Social Security actuary's analysis of the Pozen proposal finds that at the same time, each of "Low Earners," "Medium Earners," and 'High Earners" would all receive benefits that are higher than the current system can pay.
• Fact: All of the above figures exclude income from personal accounts. Social Security Administration figures show that expected benefit growth will be even greater for those who choose to participate in voluntary personal accounts.

This is an actual photograph of Pope Benidict XVI and Come on---is this a Joe Pesci look-alike or what? 

I'd like to get that old drunk Dodd by the freaking neck and------ 

What you won't hear on the Sunday Morning talk shows

The first time I read this New York Sun story, I almost figured it was a put-on. I mean, it's got 'punchline' written all over it: Ted Kennedy's brother-in-law pleads guilty to political corruption related to Hillary Clinton's campaign, it's revealed that he's been a secret informant to the FBI for years, and oh, by the way, he's also under investigation for trying to lure young girls into his car using a fake police light. But it's not a joke--it's a real story.

And what a story! It's got corruption, Kennedys, secret informants, Clintons, even weird sexual allegations. You'd think it would be the lead headline from coast to coast.

But funny thing--you can't find it much of anywhere. It's nowhere to be seen at CNN.com, even on the Politics page. It's not on the front of the New York Times website, and the only mention within the site is a canned AP story.

Gee, I thought the Times was supposed to be the 'newspaper of record,' with the best reporters in the world--they couldn't even spare one of them to cover a story involving the Democratic Party's two most prominent elected officials, Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton?

The Washington Post, allegedly the Times' biggest competitor for political news, doesn't mention the story at all. A search for "Raymond Reggie" at WaPo gets no relevant hits.

Golly, I wonder why not.

But have no fear, I'm sure Steve Lovelady and the Columbia Journalism review are on top of things, and will weigh in with a scathing Corey Pein condemnation in no time.

Of course, it'll be a condemnation of the Sun for daring to print the Reggie story in the first place...

Fili bluster

A field guide to the judicial filibuster brouhaha:

• Democrats claim filibustering judges is a historic right. In fact, it was never done before 2003.
• Democrats claim Bush's judicial nominees are extremists. Not so, says self-described liberal Jonathan Turley.
• Democrats act like eliminating the filibuster will destroy the Constitution. But Democrats tried to do it themselves.
• Democrats accuse Republicans of politicizing the judiciary. Read the collusion memos and witness the Democrats' manipulation of the process.
• Democrats claim they've approved the vast majority of Bush nominees except for extremists. Not so, says the Committee for Justice.

SATIRE ALERT (FOR YOU DUMMIES WHO STILL CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT)

The Chimp that Stole Earth Day

I just can't seem to get into the Earth Day spirit this year. Between Easter, the death of Pope Torquemada and the subsequent election of Pope Hitler, the fundies have completely dominated the whole vernal equinox, turning into a great big psuedo-religious farce. I'm so burned out on religion that even the appearance in my emailbox of a very special Earth Day message from Steven Seagal failed to put me in a celebratory mood.

On the other hand, what's to celebrate, anyway? Our ecosystem is on the verge of collapse, thanks to Bush. His Big Oil Buddies are drilling in the once pristine Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. The rotting corpses of dead CIA agents are polluting the once pristine waters of the Tigris River. Carcinogens are polluting the once pristine follicles of Jane Fonda's hair. The ice caps are melting, Mt. St. Helens is erupting, and human fingers are springing out of our once pristine chili. The whole wyrld is going to hell in a non-biodegradable handbasket and that CHIMP doesn't even give a damn. One would think that SElected peeResident in thiEF could find a little time in his busy schedule to come down off the mountain and celebrate an international celebration of peace and love with the little Whos of Whoville. But then again, he probably couldn't get Pat Robertson's permission.

One thing's for certain: a President Ralph Nader would never have been so consumed by superstitious religious beliefs that he'd be afraid to wear flowers in his hair and dance naked amongst the sacred ferns with the Elders of the Olde Way. Then again, Ralph Nader doesn't get his kicks pouring barrels of arsenic into our drinking supply.

My clinical depression notwithstanding, I did get up enough gumption to participate in some Earth Day activies. Every year, a bunch of us from Tampa Bay Hemp Products and Other Shit that Makes you Go Hmmmmmmm, like to spend the day doing something to make the world a greener place for our chemically lobotomized children - although every year Bush does his best to spoil it. Last year, we planted 30 young trees along a nearby riverbank. Overnight, Republicans crept in, gnawed down every single tree, and dragged them into the river. A week later, the entire parking lot was under a foot of water. If the destruction of just 30 trees was enough to melt the ice caps and flood our parking lot, just think of what Bush's wholesale destruction of entire forests are doing to our precious planet.

This year, we decided to chase away our doldrums by marching to city hall on our lunch break and having a Prayer Circle for Peace. There's a large lawn in front of the building, and we found a nice shady spot of grass unspoiled by man. But no sooner had we assumed the lotus position than a pair of undocumented landscapers began cursing at us in español.

"I think they want to mow the lawn," said Phil from Accounting.

"Fantastic," I spat. "Can't we spend just one day out of the year without devastating our precious natural resources?"

We ignored the unbelievers and continued our ceremony.

As Earth Day tradition dictated, I handed a small box of pine cones to the person immediately to my right in the pray circle, Peter from Marketing.

"Taketh a pine cone and eateth it," I instructed him, "for it is the flesh of Gaia. He who eateth the flesh of Gaia shall have breath like an air freshener for at least 12 hours."

Pete took a pine cone and passed the box down.

After everyone had patrook of a pine cone, I handed a recycled paper cup full of yellowish liquid to the person sitting at my left, Paul from Public Relations.

"Drinketh from this cup. For it is the blood of Gaia, and he who hath drinketh the blood of Gaia shall be blessed with severe stomach cramps, followed by an ambulance ride to the emergency room, and then total enlightment."

Paul took a small sip and quickly spat it out in disgust.

"WHAT IS THIS?" he cried. "CAT PISS?"

"Close," I told him. "It's Mountain Dew. Pass it down."

After everyone had sipped from the sacred chalice, I lead a non-denominational Earth Day prayer for world peace.

"Infinite Spirit, Grandfather, Grandmother, Father Sky, Earth Mother, Great Heavenly Uncle who Lives Under the Viaduct and Reeks of Malt Liqour," I began, "We gather here today to praise your creation and open our unworthy orifices to your holy guidance. Help us to understand and achieve our place in the cosmos—not at the center of it, but a balanced and more tolerant place slightly to the left of center, where every step we take becomes a prayer carried up to your excessively pierced ears on gossamer wing. Oh great purveyor of silly hats, give us the courage to live in harmony with the vast, vibrating, and occasionaly undulating ecosystem, joyfully singing the Song of Life, available on CD and cassette at most Tower Records locations, a small portion of the proceeds going towards the preservation and maintenance of Jane Fonda's pristine hair follicles. O Wondrous Father Trees, sacred elders of a gentle race, flatulators of the precious air we breathe: give unto us your precious gifts of fruit, so that we may pelt conservative speakers with them, and in so doing nibble upon your sacred leaves of tolerance. Show us the way towards mutual interrelatedness, cosmic interdependence, and the seamless procreation of generations of drooling idiots, so that life will not end in smog-choked skies blotting out the sun, but rather in an orgasmic utopia of clean air, healthy forests, wholesome water, inexpensive abortions, socialized health care, forced labor camps..."

"And casual sex!" Jerry in Marketing interrupted.

"...and casual sex," I continued, "for all critters and sub-critters great and small. Oh blessed Mother Starshine, nurture us in your metaphorical uterus, a hollow muscular organ located in the pelvic cavity of female mammals in which the fertilized egg implants and develops, so that we may become not your exploiters, but your loyal stewards, ending the immoral and unsanctioned-by-France wars that plague our us like rug burns on our pasty white thighs, and unite the peoples of all races, religions, and sex orientations together into one unified, collective Hive Mind of Love. We pray in the name of the Creator, Gunga Galunga...gunga -- gunga galunga...goonga, galunga..."

Before I could complete the final seven stanzas of Goonga Galungas, the fascist landcapers cranked up their lawnmower and began pushing it towards our prayer circle, rivers of decimated grass clippings spewing forth from it's metallic blowhole. The other members of the circle pressed their hands to their ears and wailed in pain, the horrendous screams of thousand of blades of grass being slaughtered to much for their gentle souls to bear.

"Bloodthirsty maniacs!!!" exclaimed Doug from Accounting.

"Murdering fascists!!" screeched Marge from Human Resources.

"I'm sitting in dog poop!" blubbered Al from Shipping.

Furious, I leapt to my feet and defiantly shook my fists at the latino lawn mowing monsters.

"YE SHALL NOT PASS!!!!!" I roared.

Paralyzed with fear, they stopped the Lawnmower of Death about six inches from my Birkenstocks and stomped off. They returned minutes later with the head groundskeeper, who could have passed for a Scotsman if he had been wearing a kilt and wasn't Chinese.

"I'm sick of chasing you hippies out of here!" he yelled at us angrily. "One of these days, you're going to pick the wrong mushroom and kill yourselves, and I'm the one who is going to get sued!"

"Peace be upon you, Earth Brother," I greeted him. "But we are not picking mushrooms. Today is Earth Day, and we have come together in fellowship and prayer. You are welcome to join us, if you like."

"Prayer?" he snorted. "This is city property! You can't pray here!"

"Worry not, Earth Brother," I assured him. "for it is not a Christian prayer. We're praying for peace and love, not war and hate."

"Doesn't matter," he snapped. "Religious activities of any kind are not permitted on city property!"

"Since when?" I asked, incredulous.

"Since this Lawrence Chomstein asshole threatened the city council with legal action if they didn't enforce the Constitutional Separation Between Church and State."

I threw my dreamcatcher to the ground. "THAT WAS FOR NATIVITY SCENES, YOU INTOLERANT BASTARD!!!"

"Nativity scenes, prayer circles. Religious activities are religious activites," he replied. "Now pick up your dreamcatchers, your bongo drums, and your pretty purple rocks and get out of here before I call the cops!"

"The cops?" Jerry in Accounts Receivable whined. "What for? I didn't do anything! I'm not with these people? I don't even know this guy!"

Somewhere in the distance, a rooster crowed.

We spent the remainder of our lunch break at Taco Bell, shovelling 79 cent tacos down our gullets and cursing George W. Bush for ruining yet another Earth Day.

Don't ya just love plain talk? 

Clinton would have saved Social Security

Isn’t it amazing how many wonderful things former President William Jefferson Clinton would have done for this world if it weren’t for the Uncalled-For Meddling of Special Prosecutor Ken Starr?

The most recent such revelation suggests that Mr. Clinton would have reformed Social Security in his second term if he had not been distracted by those dastardly and unnecessary impeachment proceedings. Such are the proclamations in a San Francisco Chronicle front-page story entitled "Social Security rehab died first under Clinton.”

To begin with, the Chronicle’s Carolyn Lochhead states that saving Social Security from imminent insolvency was a key initiative of the Clinton administration:

“'It would be unconscionable if we failed to act,’ President Bill Clinton said at a forum in 1998, when he made fixing the nation's retirement program a top priority of his second term.”

Top priority? In his 1998 State of the Union address, Mr. Clinton spent three paragraphs on Social Security out of a total of 140. That’s less than two minutes of an hour and a half speech. Is that how much time a president devotes to his top priority?

That said here was the crux of his solution presented to the nation that evening:

“Tonight, I propose that we reserve 100 percent of the surplus – that's every penny of any surplus – until we have taken all the necessary measures to strengthen the Social Security system for the 21st century.”

In his 1999 SOTU address, Clinton “increased” his focus on this “top priority” by committing ten out of 160 paragraphs to this issue, offering basically the same solution:

“Specifically, I propose that we commit 60 percent of the budget surplus for the next 15 years to Social Security, investing a small portion in the private sector just as any private or state government pension would do.”

In reality, both of these proposals were red herrings, and would have had a negligible impact on Social Security’s imminent insolvency if enacted. Why? Because in the four years that our nation was supposed to be in the midst of budget surpluses “as far as the eye can see,” the actual on-budget surpluses totaled $25.9 billion. That’s it. The other $533.4 billion worth of reported unified budget surpluses during this four-year period emanated directly from off-budget trust accounts -- mostly Social Security.

Given this, Mr. Clinton’s fabulous idea was to allocate budget surpluses to Social Security that were largely already in the Social Security trust. On the streets of Manhattan, this is widely referred to as a “Three Card Monty.”

However, the most uproarious solution to this imminent crisis offered by our 42nd president came in his 2000 SOTU address wherein he committed only one sentence of his entire speech to this “top priority”:

“Tonight, I ask you to work with me to make a bipartisan down payment on Social Security reform by crediting the interest savings from debt reduction to the Social Security Trust Fund so that it will be strong and sound for the next 50 years.”

What makes this so hysterical, and somewhat insulting? Well, because there never was any debt reduction during Mr. Clinton’s second term. In fact, contrary to Democratic assertions and public opinion, the last year that America’s gross federal debt declined was 1969. As such, there wouldn’t have been any interest savings, and, therefore, wouldn’t have been one penny credited to the Social Security trust under this proposal.

I would venture a guess that, like most Americans, Ms. Lochhead was not aware of this fact. Moreover, though she suggests, as her article continues, that it was questions about Monica Lewinsky which distracted the President from keeping his focus on Social Security reform, nowhere does she address military attacks in Kosovo as the real source of this distraction.

Instead, she conveniently chooses to omit that many people at the time felt that Clinton intentionally used problems in Kosovo and the need for U.S. involvement as a smokescreen to divert the public's attention away from his sexual indiscretions. Remember the movie Wag The Dog, Carolyn?

Former Clinton advisor Dick Morris has proffered on many occasions the real truth that the left conveniently ignores about this issue. In his view as a high-profile member of the Clinton team, the primary reason the administration moved away from any serious discussion of Social Security reform was because Clinton was advised by top Democratic leaders that he would be doing his party a huge disservice if he repaired a problem that they all needed to be able to campaign on every two years.

Of course, another truly delicious snippet of hypocrisy rests with the following obvious question that appears to have eluded Ms. Lochhead and her ilk: If Clinton was so prescient seven years ago with his concerns regarding America's largest retirement program, why are today’s Democrats trying to convince the American people that President Bush is inventing a problem that doesn't really exist?

Or, did Social Security become financially solvent the very moment Al Gore lost in 2000?

Hat tip to Noel Sheppard