Sharp Knife

LET'S START THERE

...after, of course, we've said a prayer for the families of the four slain officers in Washington state.

“Crime Keeps on Falling, But Prisons Keep on Filling.”

So goes the infamous New York Times headline that so captures the goofy, upside-down worldview of liberals. Crime falls BECAUSE prisons fill with criminals--not DESPITE the fact.

Thomas Sowell:

Then, as now, liberals seemed to find it puzzling that crime rates go down when more criminals are put behind bars.

Nor is it surprising that the Left uses an old and irrelevant comparison — between the cost of keeping a criminal behind bars versus the cost of higher education. According to the Times, “Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, and Oregon devote as much or more to corrections as they do to higher education.”

The relevant comparison would be between the cost of keeping a criminal behind bars and the cost of letting him loose in society. But neither the New York Times nor others on the Left show any interest in that comparison.

In Britain, the total cost of the prison system per year was found to be 1.9 billion pounds sterling, while the financial cost alone of the crimes committed per year by criminals was estimated at 60 billion pounds sterling.

The big difference between the two kinds of costs is not just in their amounts. The cost of locking up criminals has to be paid out of government budgets that politicians would prefer to spend on giveaway programs that are more likely to get them reelected. But the far higher costs of letting criminals loose is paid by the general public in both money and in being subjected to violence.

And in this case the full price was paid by police officers, who often have to re-confront those who they have already arrested.

The police appear to have done their job. They kept arresting this guy every time he robbed another store or raped another child. But legislators, judges, attorneys, psychiatrists, parole boards, prosecutors and executives all kept dropping the ball or minimizing his crimes and releasing him. Mike Huckabee was one, and he's going to have to take the heat.

Huckabee cut his sentence in half for an armed robbery committed while he was a teenager. This allowed him to be paroled, even though the guy was a one-man crime wave both before and since. He even committed crimes in court. Yet the system kept spitting him back out to commit more crimes. Prosecutors failed to file additional charges in time and he was released again.

At least Huck wasn't selling pardons like another former Arkansas governor. The Clintons turned the pardon power into a fund-raising arm of the Clinton Library, a Full Employment Act for their in-laws and a Get-Out-the-Vote campaign tool for Hillary. Instead of a last resort for the powerless, it was a first choice for the powerful to grab even more power. Even liberals were mad at the Clintons for selling pardons--for about five minutes.

This is to be distinguished from the Willie Horton case.

As is their habit, the Massachusetts Supreme Court found a formerly unknown Right in the constitution John Adams wrote: murderers have an Iron-Clad Right to a Weekend Pass. Gov. Mike Dukakis and Lt. Gov. John Kerry loved this idea. Even after Willie Horton went on a rape and torture spree, they defended the program. In effect, they were promising to give Horton another Weekend Pass!

To this very day, liberals still bring up the Horton case, but only as an example of Republican dirty politics, because Horton was black. They never admit that letting violent criminals out is an idiotic idea and calls into question the judgment of those who do it. The only liberal I've ever heard denounce it was Al Gore, who brought it up in the first place, but only because he was running against Dukakis.

And just as public safety is the first duty of state executives, national security is the first duty of the chief executive. That's why his dithering, weakness, kow-towing and dictator-coddling are so dangerous.

Huck must take the heat for his do-gooder-ism. The same liberals who encouraged him to commute will now blame him for listening to their advice. Just ask George "Read My Lips" Bush, Sr. about that.

But Huck shouldn't be the only one. Prosecutors blew it. Two judges foolishly granted low bail to the now-dead on-parole perp. Why? And where was Gov. Chris Gregoire and the legislature? Why didn't they stop this policy long ago? She's jetting off to Copenhagen to legislate against the Sun when her first job is to stop criminals from killing her citizens.

First Duties First.

FRIEND TO YOU AND ME?

Or "Og In Empire State of Mind"

Ignoring the Takings Clause is so easy, a caveman can do it.

No. 178

In the Matter of Daniel
Goldstein, et al.,
Appellants,

v.

New York State Urban Development
Corporation, d/b/a Empire State
Development Corporation,
Respondent.

Matthew D. Brinckerhoff, for appellants.
Philip E. Karmel, for respondent.
Willets Point United, Inc.; Institute for Justice; City
of New York; Fifth Avenue Committee et al., amici curiae.

LIPPMAN, Chief Judge:

Og want.

You no give Og.

Og get big stick called "Government".

Og hit you with big stick. That called "Law".

Og take.

Og happy.

Og like this "Law"-thing.

This Honorable Court is now adjourned.

'Til next time Og want.

We've come so far, haven't we?

IT'S CLOSING TIME AT THE BIG GUMMENT BAR & GRILL

Or "You Don't Have to Go Home, But You Can't Stay Here. And You Don't Have to Stay Here--But You Can't Go Home."

Charles Krauthammer, "Carbon Chastity":

Only Monday, a British parliamentary committee proposed that every citizen be required to carry a carbon card that must be presented, under penalty of law, when buying gasoline, taking an airplane or using electricity. The card contains your yearly carbon ration to be drawn down with every purchase, every trip, every swipe.

There's no greater social power than the power to ration. And, other than rationing food, there is no greater instrument of social control than rationing energy, the currency of just about everything one does and uses in an advanced society.

Well, there is one other greater instrument of social control than energy rationing; health care rationing.

Mark Steyn, "Bad Things Come to Those Who Wait":

"If you need surgery," he said, "it's in my interest to get you in and operated on as soon as possible, because that's money for me. The faster it happens, the better my cash flow. But when the government runs the system, every time you get operated on it costs the government money. So it's in their interest to restrict or delay your access. When you look at the overall budgets - salaries, buildings - it's not hard to understand that the level of service you provide to the patient is one of your few discretionary costs. So the incentive is to reduce that."

He was chuckling merrily as he explained this, and I got the feeling he'd said it to many Canadians over the years.

And there is also another word for rationing: "waiting".

Hygiene is the number one issue in Canadian hospitals, and a problem with hygiene is the logical consequence of a system built on "waiting." On March 7 last year, Tse Chi Kwai went to Scarborough Grace Hospital and, as is traditional, was left on a gurney in emergency for 12 hours, exposed to hundreds of people. Two days earlier, his mother had died of SARS but, despite displaying to her doctor all the symptoms detailed in the several health alerts on the subject, had cause of death listed as "heart attack." And at Scarborough Grace, even after discovering that Tse's mother had recently died after returning from Hong Kong, Dr. Sandy Finkelstein concluded that, even if Tse was infectious, it was only with TB. Lying next to Tse on that ER gurney hour after hour was Joe Pollack, who was being treated for an irregular heartbeat. He was subsequently sent home but returned on March 16 with symptoms of SARS. He was admitted and isolated, but apparently it never occurred to the hospital to isolate Mrs. Pollack. So she wandered around the wards and infected an 82-year-old man from a Catholic Charismatic group.

Mr. Pollack, Mrs. Pollack, the 82-year-old Catholic Charismatic and his wife all died. None of these people went anywhere near Southeast Asia. They were exposed to SARS by the Toronto health care system, as was the 82-year-old's son, who was also unknowingly infected at Scarborough Grace and went on to expose another 500 to SARS at a religious retreat. As I wrote in the National Post at the time, "Only in Canada does the virus owe its grip on the population to the active co-operation of the medical profession. In Toronto, the system that's supposed to protect us from infection instead infected us. They breached the most basic medical principle: first do no harm."

Almost all scandals in Canadian hospitals boil down to the same thing: a decrepit system unable to observe basic rules of hygiene and quarantine. Sometimes it's SARS, sometimes it's C. difficile, sometimes it's hundreds of women going in to the Captain William Jackman Memorial Hospital in Labrador City and being gynecologically examined with unsterilized instruments-and thereby potentially exposed to chlamydia, gonorrhea, hepatitis or HIV. And almost all these crises are due to, in Dr. Marshall's words, "the structures" - a system that ensures sick people wait longer in crowded rooms in dirtier hospitals will, by definition, spread disease.

One day it will be something much worse than C. difficile.

Why would we do that to ourselves?

Why would an otherwise sane, "rational" people chose health care rationing and energy rationing? Shortage and deprivation, over health and prosperity?

Because we're in the sway--and in the way--of control freaks and fanatics who see these issues as their last, best chance to impose their provably failed theories of Socialism on you--by hiding behind these twin masks:

"health care" to control your inner world and "carbon care" to control your outer world.

The common denominator is Them, Controlling You.

It's still your choice; the Consent of the Governed...or Government of the Consented.

EACH DAY, ALL DAY, EVERY DAY

Daniel Schwammenthal:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed "great regret" in August that the U.S. is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC). This has fueled speculation that the Obama administration may reverse another Bush policy and sign up for what could lead to the trial of Americans for war crimes in The Hague.

The ICC's chief prosecutor, though, has no intention of waiting for Washington to submit to the court's authority. Luis Moreno Ocampo says he already has jurisdiction—at least with respect to Afghanistan.

Because Kabul in 2003 ratified the Rome Statute—the ICC's founding treaty—all soldiers on Afghan territory, even those from nontreaty countries, fall under the ICC's oversight, Mr. Ocampo told me. And the chief prosecutor says he is already conducting a "preliminary examination" into whether NATO troops, including American soldiers, fighting the Taliban may have to be put in the dock.

"We have to check if crimes against humanity, war crimes or genocide have been committed in Afghanistan,"

Yes. Someone got a fat lip. Convene the Nuremberg Tribunal at vonce!

There is also the issue of whether Predator strikes of unmanned drones targeting terrorist leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan—as carried out in the very first week of the Obama presidency—are part of the bombings he's looking into. Mr. Ocampo chuckled and answered evasively. "We have people around the world concerned about this," he said, and when pressed, added, "Whatever the gravest war crimes are that have been committed, we have to check."

Let me explain:

If America calls in an imprecise airstrike, and any civilians are harmed, it is a war crime.
If America instead orders a pitched man-to-man battle and any civilians are harmed as is so often the case in such a battle, it is also a war crime.
If however, America calls in a Predator strike which is precise and targeted at the bad guy and much less likely to produce civilian casualties...that is a grave war crime!
And should America use a sniper, which gives us the best chance against any civilian casualties at all, that is an unspeakable assassination war crime, the war crime-iest war crime of all. Aside from failing to recycle, I mean.

In other words, it is a war crime for America to war.

"...I prosecute whoever is in my jurisdiction. I cannot allow that we are a court just for the Third World. If the First World commits crimes, they have to investigate, if they don't, I shall investigate. That's the rule and we have one rule for everyone."

Even for those who never agreed to be ruled?

Mr. Ocampo...has a photo of himself with the head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, on his windowsill...

Imagine my shock.

Make no mistake; Democrats want our soldiers, spies and Republican politicians prosecuted by these International Kangaroo courts.

AND A TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE NEWS

Just because the The Great Warmal e-mail Fraud has ripped open the festering pus-bag we call "climate science" doesn't mean the press is going to drain the wound. Oh, no. In fact the BBC is reporting...on coral reefs!

Tim Blair:

A helpful service provided by the Sydney Morning Herald:

We asked Australia’s best-known philiosopher, Peter Singer, how people should think about carbon emissions and climate change. He was unequivocal.

He likened Australia’s production of greenhouse gases to a country dropping bombs on Bangladesh.

These people are insane.

Yes, they are. And yes, it's that Peter Singer, the ethicist. An "ethicist" is a person who's just too darn moral to call themselves a "moralist".

Prof. Singer is one of those "Man=Wombat=Warbler=Worm"-guys. Except sometimes he thinks worms are superior:

"If we compare a severely defective human infant with a nonhuman animal, a dog or a pig, for example, we will often find the nonhuman to have superior capacities, both actual and potential, for rationality, self-consciousness, communication and anything else that can plausibly be considered morally significant."

He also believes in the Money-Back Baby Guarantee:

"...I suggested that a period of twenty-eight days after birth might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right to life as others."

I guess if those Australian bombs were falling solely on Bangladeshi infants less than a month old, it would be cool with Singer. As long the worms weren't disturbed in any way.



Blair also reports that, oddly enough, it is George "Moonbat" Monbiot who has stepped up, refusing to be a climate-denier denier.

Must be the weather.

BEYOND ALL DOUBT

...that Barack Birkenstock Obama would be a one-termer:

the day he saw a President of the United States of America in white socks and sandals.

Robin of Berkeley:

It has been almost two years since I woke up and broke up with liberalism. During these many months, I've discovered that everything I believed was wrong.

But the biggest shock of all has been realizing that the Democratic Party is hardly an oasis for women. Now that it has been infiltrated by the hard Left, it's a dangerous place for women, children, and other living things.

In the wilding of Sarah Palin, the Left shows its true colors. Rather than sheild the vulnerable, leftists will mow down any man, woman, or child who gets in their way. Instead of a movement of hope and change, it is a cauldron of hate.

From Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.

In these dark times, with spiritually bankrupt people at the helm, thank God we have bright lights like Sarah Palin to illuminate the darkness.

SOMEBODY CROSSED IT, YET NO ONE HAS BEEN FIRED

Why is that?

Noted Speech Criminal Mark Steyn:

[A]n opposition MP mused on whether it wouldn’t have been better to prohibit the publication of Mein Kampf.

“That analysis sounds as if it ought to be right,” I replied. “But the problem with it is that the Weimar Republic—Germany for the 12 years before the Nazi party came to power—had its own version of Section 13 and equivalent laws. It was very much a kind of proto-Canada in its hate speech laws. The Nazi party had 200 prosecutions brought against it for anti-Semitic speech. At one point the state of Bavaria issued an order banning Hitler from giving public speeches.”

And a fat lot of good it all did.

But still the old refrain echoes through the corridors of power: vigorous honest free speech will lead to mass murder unless we subject it to “reasonable limits.”

Actually, the opposite is true: a constrained and regulated culture policed by politically correct enforcers leads to slaughter. I’m not being speculative here, as Commissar Lynch is about my murderous prose style. It’s already happened, just a couple of weeks back. Thirteen men and women plus an unborn baby were gunned down at Fort Hood by a major in the U.S. Army. Nidal Hasan was the perpetrator, but political correctness was his enabler, every step of the way....

As the writer Barry Rubin pointed out, Major Hasan was the first mass murderer in U.S. history to give a PowerPoint presentation outlining the rationale for the crime he was about to commit. And he gave the presentation to a roomful of fellow army psychiatrists and doctors. Some of whom glanced queasily at their colleagues, but none of whom actually spoke up. And, when the question of whether then-Captain Hasan was, in fact, “psychotic,” the policy committee at Walter Reed Army Medical Center worried “how would it look if we kick out one of the few Muslim residents.”

So instead he got promoted to major and shipped to Fort Hood. And barely had he got to Texas when he started making idle chit-chat praising the jihadist murderer of two soldiers outside a recruitment centre in Little Rock.“This is what Muslims should do, stand up to the aggressors,” Major Hasan told his superior officer, Colonel Terry Lee. “People should strap bombs on themselves and go into Times Square.”

In less enlightened times, Colonel Lee would have concluded that, being in favour of the murder of his comrades, Major Hasan was objectively on the side of the enemy. But instead he merely cautioned the major against saying things that might give people the wrong impression. Which is to say, the right impression.

This is your brain on political correctness.

“You need to lock it up, major,” advised the colonel.

But, of course, he didn’t. He could pretty much say what he wanted—infidels should have their throats cut, for example. Meanwhile, the only ones who felt any “need to lock it up” were his fellow psychiatrists, his patients, his teachers at the Uniformed Services University, officials at Walter Reed, and the brass at Fort Hood. So they locked it up for years, and now 14 people are dead.

And even when the slaughter had happened, much of the media found it easier to slander both the U.S. military and the general populace than to confront the evidence. The Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano professed to be most worried about an “anti-Muslim backlash” from the knuckledragging bozo citizenry she has the forlorn task of attempting to hold in check. This is the Jennifer Lynch argument: the priority is always some hypothetical atrocity waiting to happen...

...instead of the actual atrocity that's already bleeding on your shoes.

Steyn closes:

Instead, asked “Who ya gonna believe—The Celebrate Diversity Handbook or your lyin’ eyes?”, more and more of us plump for the former, if only for a quiet life. Commissar Lynch has it exactly backwards: it’s the craven submission to political correctness, the willingness to leave your marbles with the Diversity Café hat-check girl, that leads to death—real death, with real corpses, from Texas to Ontario. And when the guy’s on the table firing wildly and screaming “Allahu akbar!”, the PC enforcers won’t be there for you.

Maj. Hasan's Free Speech Rights were protected. Incredibly, unimaginably, irresponsibly protected, to the point of allowing him to openly plan enemy action with our enemies while authorities listened in and made excuses for him.

It was the Free Speech Rights of his colleagues that were repressed. It was unsafe for their careers to report what their lyin' eyes were seeing. The PC enforcers effectively silenced the good guys and bought 1-800-JIHAD phone cards for the bad guy.

And those PC enforcers have names and job titles, even though the Ask-No-Questions Press is reliably not asking.

I'm not a super-smart journalist with an expense account and a secretary and an office and a J-School diploma on the wall and a Rolodex full of Washington's finest leakers, but I've still got a question:

Shouldn't whoever decided that Hasan chatting with al Qaeda was harmless be removed, so they can't get more troops killed?

IT'S ALSO FOR SEMI-COLONS;

In probably the funniest thing you'll read today, Matt Labash goes Impact-Free for the noblest of reasons: so he can lord it over you in waves smugly-sweet low-impact moral superiority. Sample:

As a good eco-citizen, I'm giving up meat as well. Though I'm not entirely sure why. Fact: A cow emits 50 million metric tons of methane gas per year. Fact: I eat lots of cows. Ergo, I'm reducing methane gas emissions. Yet, while I'm sticking to the program, I don't want to take too many chances on the unappetizing root vegetables that plague our farm stands this time of year. So it's navel oranges from South Africa, avocados from Chile and Mexico, sweet onions from Peru. At least the tortilla chips I buy are from Texas. They come in a plastic bag, and sort of cut against the program, but what am I supposed to eat my signature guacamole with? My fingers? I'm not a savage. Plus, they're made out of white corn, making them kind of like a vegetable once removed.

There's a big glitch, however. I've forgotten my old bags. I run to the car, and find whatever I can, which turns out to be a slim Subway sub wrapper, and an unused deodorized pooper-scooper glove, with two smiling dogs on it, called a ScooPick. I apologize to the checkout lady, as she packs avocados into my pooper scooper, telling her I can't make trash and that she must get this all the time. "No," she says, eyeing me suspiciously, "actually I don't." She asks if I want to round up my total to help fight breast cancer. But she clearly doesn't give a rip about the environment. (You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.) I decline.

I take my produce home in the fragrant ScooPick. I may never eat guacamole again without thinking of a dog park.

It's as if his Carbon Footprint had a club foot.

IT'S SUCH A GOOD IDEA...

...it should be a Federal program!

And it will be unless we stop them. Mark Steyn:

On this Thanksgiving Day, let us give thanks that the two greatest all-purpose pretexts for government regulation of every single aspect of your life - "health care" and "the environment" - have now converged. Forget the global warming, global cooling, all the phoney-baloney tree-ring stuff - who can keep track of all that "settled science"? And fortunately we no longer need it, because we have a new rationale for the massive multitrillion-dollar Copenhagen shakendownen. Drumroll, please!

"But slashing carbon dioxide emissions also could save millions of lives, mostly by reducing preventable deaths from heart and lung diseases, according to studies published this week in the British medical journal The Lancet."

Government regulation of health care justifies government regulation of the environment: Ingenious!

Steyn is more right than he knows...

One of the worst things about The Great Warmal Fraud is that these politicians we call "scientists" were quite willing (and still are!) to have us waste trillions on a vast Money-down-the-Rathole -scheme, just so they could maintain their funding and power, especially when there are so many very real needs.

There are pollution issues that really need addressing, and I don't mean when the EPA fines Phoenix because there was a sandstorm out in the desert. How many towns could use a new water treatment plant or a modern landfill or a park? Every dollar already wasted by these creeps in a fantastical effort to control the earth's thermostat is both one dollar wasted and one less dollar that could have gone to meet real needs.

But the same is true in Health Control Reform.

Politicians are quite willing to have us waste trillions there, too, just so they can maintain their funding and power. Every "reason" they give is patently bogus; there would still be millions uninsured. Costs would explode. Quality would suffer.

Health Reform is not about your health, but the health of the government. And Global Worming is not about the health of the planet, but again about the Health of The Planners.

The Environment is everywhere, except your body. So they have Enviro-Care to control the outer world and Health Care to control your innards.

The un-Constitutional mandate forcing you to purchase insurance would essentially be a tax on existing, on breathing air, if you will.

And Cap & Trade would be a tax on exhaling, now that they've declared your breath a CO2 Toxic Waste dump. And that was even before you had a cocktail.

In other words, they want to tax, regulate and control us when we're breathing in ...and tax, regulate and control us when we're breathing out. Coming...and going.

That's beyond "convergence"; it's tyranny. And it must be defeated.

I DO

And you can, too. Don't wait:

"Mankind is never truly thankful for the benefits of life until they have experienced the want of them."--an Army surgeon near Valley Forge, first official Thanksgiving day, 1789


For almost 400 years, Americans have celebrated Thanksgiving, echoing that feast of gratitude in 1621.

But this year, more than ever, it is important to tell the story of the Mayflower Compact, because, as we know, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." The Compact was well-intentioned--but it was socialism. And as such, it caused misery and shortage then, just as it does now.

Some excerpts from an excellent Post Scripts essay:

Basically what the settlers formed was the first social commune of the New World, something that anyone growing up in the 1960s and 70s would easily recognize as a community where all land, houses, farming and other goods were distributed equally amongst all the inhabitants regardless of religious or political beliefs or station. It was the world's first society that was truly set up in a way that nobody would own anything and everyone who was in need would have what they required if it existed. In essence, the Mayflower Compact was a concept that would be popularized 255 years later in 1875 by Karl Marx's slogan,

"from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs."

When Bradford became the new governor of the colony, he recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter which had taken so many lives. Bradford came to realize the very thing that Barack Obama and the Democrats refuse to learn. In his journal Bradford wrote:

"The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years...that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing - as if [we] were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labor and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men's wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it." [...]

So in the Spring of 1623, he decided take bold action by assigning plots of land to each family, and also to each young adult male to work and manage. He also canceled the Mayflower Compact that the Pilgrims all signed, allowing every land owner to keep their own crops and products to trade at the market place for a fair market value.

"This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn, which before would allege weakness and inability, whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression."

In writing about Bradford and his decision to go from collectivism to capitalism, historian Russell Kirk wrote, "never again were the Pilgrims short of food."

Just for the historical record, here are some other contenders for the "First Thanksgiving":

* May, 1541: Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and 1,500 men celebrated at the Palo Dur Canyon -- located in the modern-day Texas Panhandle -- after their expedition from Mexico City in search of gold. In 1959 the Texas Society Daughters of the American Colonists commemorated the event as the "first Thanksgiving."

* June 30, 1564: French Huguenot colonists celebrated in a settlement near Jacksonville, Florida. This "first Thanksgiving," was later commemorated at the Fort Carolina Memorial on the St. Johns River in eastern Jacksonville.

* Sept. 8, 1565: St Augustine, Fla.; "This is where Spanish Adm. Pedro Menendez de Aviles came ashore... This is where he, 500 soldiers, 200 sailors, 100 civilian families and artisans, and the Timucuan Indians who occupied the village of Seloy gathered at a makeshift altar and said the first Christian Mass. And afterward, this is where they held the first Thanksgiving feast. The Timucuans brought oysters and giant clams. The Spaniards carried from their ships garbanzo beans, olive oil, bread, pork and wine.

* Winter, 1610: famine caused the deaths of 430 of the 490 settlers. In the spring of 1610, colonists in Jamestown, Virginia, enjoyed a Thanksgiving service after English supply ships arrived with food. This colonial celebration has also been considered the "first Thanksgiving."

Oysters on a Florida beach sounds pretty good right about now. But wherever you are, have a great Thanksgiving with the people you love and/or tolerate.

And pass me a giant clam, please.

"ALL THE NEWS THAT TIES US IN FITS"

In the Old Days(tm), newspapers existed to keep readers informed of the latest events.

But today, newspapers exist so readers can keep journalists informed.

Read all about it!

OBAMA SURPASSES BUSH ON THE FAIRWAY OF LIFE

Somehow, this is Bush's Fault.

Gateway Pundit:

"Barack Obama has now played 25 rounds of golf ... That’s more golf than former President George W. Bush played in two terms, according to CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller, who tracks presidential trivia."

And they don't come any more trivial than this one.

Meanwhile, back at Caddyshack One, the Undecider is holding a state dinner for India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

In honor of the unemployed, Count Arugula will be serving:

Potato and Eggplant Salad
White House arugula with onion seed vinaigrette
Wine: 2008 Sauvignon Blanc, Modus Oprendi, Napa Valley, California

Red lentil soup with fresh cheese
Wine: 2008 Riesling Brooks "Ara" Willamette Valley, Oregon

Roasted Potato Dumplings with tomato chutney
Chick peas and okra
or
Green curry prawns
Carmelized salsify with smoked collard greens and coconut aged basmati
Wine: 2007 Granache, Beckman Vineyards, Santa Ynez, California

Pumpkin Pie tart
Pear tatin
Whipped cream and caramel sauce
Wine: Sparkling Chardonnay, Thibaut Janisson Brut, Monticello, Virginia

Petits Fours and Coffee
Cashew Brittle
Pecan Pralines
Passion Fruit and Vanilla Gelees
Chocolate dipped fruit

After a reception in the East Room of the White House, guests will go to a tent -- a pavilion really -- on the South Lawn, where they will be seated at tables of 10 for dinner. The china comes from White House and State Department collections: Eisenhower Porcelain, 1955 Clinton China, 2000 and Bush China, 2008-2009.

See--I knew it was Bush's fault somehow! Bush spent all the money he saved on body armor and levees on new china, and it would be wasteful of Obama not to use it!

B-Rock to Man, o, man:

"Yours is the first official state visit of my presidency, its fitting that you and India be so recognised," 48-year-old Obama told the 77-year-old Indian leader.

In other words, "Aren't you lucky I noticed you?"

Kevin Williams:

The general reaction in India has been: Who the heck does this guy think he is? Note to the Great Diplomat: When you do a head of state an honor, you don't remind him, in public, of the fact that you have done him an honor, particularly in self-aggrandizing terms of this sort.

Barack doesn't know whether to bow to the guy or ask him to caddy. Why not both?

And while you're at it, ask him why India's economy is growing at three times the rate of America's (hint: involves giving up decades of socialism). You might learn something. Think of it as the New Delhi Amateur Open.

DESASTRE WHILE OBAMA SIESTAS

Evo Morales is not one of the stars of "Desperate Housewives".

He is a South American Narco-Communist who is staging yet another plastic banana-election.

Mary O'Grady:

This is Bolivia, which in two weeks will hold elections for president and both houses of congress. The government of President Evo Morales will spin the event as a great moment in South American democracy. In fact, it will mark the official end of what's left of Bolivian liberty after four years of Morales rule.

While the U.S. and the Organization of American States have been obsessing over Honduras's legal removal of an undemocratic president, Mr. Morales has been fortifying his narco-dictatorship. He's also made friends with Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who will make another visit to La Paz tomorrow.

Mr. Morales is expected to win re-election easily, in part because in many areas that he controls voters will be escorted into polling booths to make sure they choose correctly. His party, Movement for Socialism (aka MAS for its Spanish initials), is almost certain to retain control of the lower house of congress and is likely to win the senate, which until now has been controlled by the opposition.

If this happens, Mr. Morales's rule will be almost impossible to challenge. But this should not be interpreted as a national embrace of his politics. He will pull off his power grab thanks to a policy of terror against his adversaries.

Elsewhere, in Havana, Yoani began spying on the block police sent to spy on her by "President" Castro. Few Americans can really comprehend the evil entailed in such an affair. It corrupts neighbors one-by-one, setting citizen against citizen, and even family members at each other's throats, all in the service of The Big Lie.

That's why we on the Right get upset when the Compliant Press refers to a dictator as a "president", as if he were duly and freely elected. For if a President Castro and a President Obama an American president are moral equals, then an American president is also empowered to send block police to your street.

Did you know that a century ago, Argentina was poised to compete with America? But instead, Argentina chose the path of Socialism and Dear Leaderism that Obama seeks for us. It turned Argentina into a basket case to this very day. Yet that is the Obama Plan for America.

Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad is coming to tour South and Central America while China plans refineries in Costa Rica to process the oil wealth of the Americas, the wealth that we spurn because we already have full employment and too much money.

Congratulations to those Brazilians who stood up against Iran's torturing Puppet-Master.

And shame on this gutless dictator-coddling administration as it either slumbers through or actively abets South and Central America's slide back into strongman government after so much progress had been made.

Elections matter. And a foolish election in America helps lead to phony elections throughout the hemisphere, and indeed, throughout the world.

IN A NATION OF STATES

Victor Davis Hanson:

I think not merely the thrill is gone, but a righteous anger about an Obama trifecta— of serial apologies and bows abroad, massive borrowing and deficit spending, and government-take overs of private spheres of life—is swelling up in the electorate. I haven’t seen in my lifetime anything quite like it. And this furor of being had has the potential not just to take Obama down, but also his ideology and supporters along with him for a generation.

That's the national scene.



On the state level, Dick Morris:

Anxious to avoid raising taxes too much to pay for their health care proposals, the Obama Administration and its Congressional allies hit on a great new idea: Make the states raise their taxes to fund the program instead. [...]

If Obamacare passes with its expansion of Medicaid benefits – but with no federal funding of the extra spending – it is these Democrats and their legislatures that will have to bite the bullet and pass new taxes to pay for it.

Since states are already facing mammoth financial problems as a result of dwindling revenues and swelling expenditures in the recession, these additional burdens could be politically fatal.

If so, national Democrats will take state Democrats down with them. I just heard Gov. Palin mention that 36 governorships are up for election in 2010. Good. We need statehouses, too.

Those fifty stars still mean something to some of us.

SHOULDN'T YOU SAY

and shouldn't our vaunted "Truth-to-Power"-Press ask the question?

Steven Hayes:

Hasan: "The bullets of the fighters of Afghanistan and Iraq are a reflection of the feelings of the Muslims towards America. "

In the emails, Hasan appeared to question U.S. involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and often used "evidence from sharia that what America was doing should be confronted."

...Hasan tells Awlaki, "I can't wait to join you" in the afterlife.

...Hasan also asked Awlaki "when is jihad appropriate, and whether it is permissible if there are innocents killed in a suicide attack."

That's "benign"? If an Italian police captain frequently called a mafia boss to ask about the fine points of loan-sharking and money-laundering, would the FBI call it "research"?

Got that? A serving U.S. Army officer and devout Muslim emails an al Qaeda recruiter to ask about jihad and collateral damage from attacks, and the FBI, with knowledge of the content of those emails, assures the press they are "benign."

Unbelievable.

Literally unbelievable. I don't believe it for a minute.

That was a political decision by an Obama appointee or appointees following orders. How high up?

Unless you think a Joint Terrorism Task Force was allowed to operate without executive oversight, there was an administration official involved. The most "benign" case would be that this official was negligent. The more likely explanation is that a political or ideological decision was made not to pursue Hasan.

Shouldn't we should know the names of these officials so we know that they are no longer in that position to repeat the same deadly mistakes in the next case?

And if they were following orders from the White House?

Or are some things literally just too much to ask?

Scott Ott:

President Obama on Friday hailed the "amazing growth" in phony stimulus jobs, especially from nonexistent congressional districts, as a "sure sign that we're seeing a make-believe recovery and an encouraging spurt in faux GDP." ...

The president criticized his predecessor, George W. Bush, for "offering false hope without the fictitious numbers to back it up."

"My administration provides genuine false hope," Obama said...

Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress have reacted to the revelation that millions in stimulus cash reportedly generated thousands of jobs in congressional districts that don't exist, by noting that "those congressional districts don't exist ... yet," in the words of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

That reminds me of the video game I'm developing; it's like "Fantasy Baseball", only it's "Fantasy Congress". It will sell for $787 Billion per copy--but I only need to sell one!

I'm also working on some TV pilots for CFN, including:

* "Americans Idled", a singing non-competition for the Funemployed; everybody loses.

* "Dancing with the Decline", in which climate fiction-writers waltz with the data what brung 'em.

* "Desperate Housemembers", the story of Blue Dogs who voted for PelosiCare, and the prequel to the coming new Disaster Flick "2010".

* "The Biggest Loser", which is the story of every American if ObamaCare passes. If not, it's the story of Al Gore and the Warmal e-mails That Capped His Trade.

* "Pimp My Car Company: Yankee Edition" because the car companies down South were doing fine.

* "This Old Housing Crisis" in which Congress ('Liar's Club') and the president ('Welcome Back, Carter') double down on Socialized Mortgages ('Fantasy Poker Tour') in hopes of restarting the housing market ('Fantasy Island').

* and "CSI: Wasilla", in which dozens of AP fact-checkers descend on the tiny town to see if Sarah Palin ever took 16 items through the "15 items or less"-line at the supermarket.

AND IT'S HILLARY'S FAULT

"Wrong, wrong, wrong" by John Howard:

Until this moment I had not fully gauged the recklessness and cynicism of this administration. Bringing the 9/11 terrorists to the United States for trial in civilian courts is an irresponsible, dangerous and cynical act. But it is consistent with Obama’s leftist project. This decision is a purely political act having nothing to do with the high-minded rhetoric that accompanied its announcement. Obama is willing to risk the security of the American people to make his tawdry point. If Khalid Sheik Mohammed is convicted, Obama will declare the vindication of his view that terrorism is a criminal problem to be handled by the criminal justice system. He will, with the cloying self regard that accompanies most of his acts, proclaim that he has single-handedly elevated America’s reputation in the world and brought us out of the dark night of the Bush years.

If Khalid Sheik Mohammed is acquitted – and here is the really cynical aspect of this profoundly wicked act – Obama will, with his practiced look of pain and disappointment, tell us that it is all Bush’s fault. That if Bush had not allowed all of these terrible, unconstitutional things to occur, we would have gotten the convictions Obama so earnestly attempted to obtain.

The cynicism of this act is breathtaking. The naked politics of it is rank. Obama gets to claim the moral high ground as he tries the Bush Administration by proxy, all the while, with plausible deniability, disavowing that that was his intention. At the same time, he will have the opportunity to play the no lose game of taking credit for convictions and credibly casting blame on Bush if he fails to get them.

It is the perfect leftist paradigm. Expose the United States to criticism and ridicule and cast it as a positive evil in the world. Make the political calculation that you can, at once, discredit your political opponents and take credit for trying to elevate the national reputation in the eyes of the world.

The national interest be damned. What is important is its denigration and the political advantage to be gained by the ideology that has tried so long and, until now, so unsuccessfully, to weaken the last, best hope of man on earth.

I was wrong, too. I thought anyone would be better than Hillary. But for all her faults, many-splendored, multi-faceted and numberless as the sands of the desert as they are, I think Hillary sees herself as an American.

I don't think this guy really sees himself as an American in any sense of the word that really matters. America just happens to be the stage on which he can present Himself and His Precious Socialism to the waiting world.

'Questioning the patriotism'? Love to. Gotta' find it first, though.

Update: He iz rite; Bill Bennett:

There is a rot that spreads outside of Washington into the larger culture. It begins with a confusion of terms, and by not calling things by their proper names, it begins with a disassembling of the moral categories. We don’t hear about terrorism or radical Islam so we are surprised to find it in our midst, and when we do, we don’t even recognize it. We have Army generals who elevate diversity over life, we have a president who speaks not of radical Islam or terrorism — though life is what we are fighting for and radical Islam and terrorism is what we are fighting against. And so we are reminded again of the notion that the chief purpose of education is to know when a man is talking rot. Because, if unchecked, the rot will settle, it will metastasize. Soon we no longer know anymore what we are fighting against ... or more importantly, what we are to fight for.

WHEN IT COMES TO GLOBAL WARMING FRAUDS, ANYWAY

After reading the Great Warmal Fraud e-mails, the New York Times Enviro-blog sniffs:

The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.

Say--weren't the highly-classified secrets published on the front page of the Times also "acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye"? But that didn't stop them from aiding and abetting the enemy, did it?

Those e-mails aren't just someone's love letters; they're the very basis of a massive new scheme of national and international taxes, regulation and governance--and they're fraudulent to the core. But the Times says you don't need to know.

The New York Times warns terrorists, but it won't warn you. Here's what the Times said when it warned terrorists that Dick Cheney was listening to their phone calls:

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

"Some".

By the way, Obama has also been listening to terrorists' phone calls just like Cheney did; the difference is, Obama's people think Maj. Hasan had a Constitutional Right to call al Qaeda and chitty-chat about women, baseball, the weather, jihad--whatever pops up.



Michael Goldfarb:

As a journalist, there is no greater glory than publishing materials that were not meant to be published. If I could, I would only publish emails and documents that were never meant to see the light of day -- though, unlike the New York Times, I draw the line at jeopardizing the lives of American troops rather than jeopardizing the contrived "consensus" on global warming.

Once again, it's Anti-News, designed to subtract from the sum of human knowledge, leaving you knowing less about a subject than when you began:

"Women, Minorities and Liberal Sacred Cows Hardest Hit."


UPDATE: It seems like a good time to re-post this from September:

Blinded by Science-ish-Type-Stuff

THE OPPOSITE OF SCIENCE:

“Take my word for it.”

It’s been a long time, but I still remember being taught about the Scientific Method: you observe a phenomenon, you posit a hypothesis to explain it, and prove or disprove it by conducting experiments that other scientists can duplicate, thus confirming your conclusion.

Ace:

Warwick Hughes, an Australian scientist …politely wrote Phil Jones in early 2005, asking for the original data. Jones’ response to a fellow scientist attempting to replicate his work was, “We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”

Now since then, FOIA requests for the data have been filed, and an increasing number of scientists have been curious to see precisely what exactly the evidence is of the much-heralded 0.6 degree Centigrade rise in temperature this century we’ve heard so very much about.

The new answer?

We lost all the old data so we can’t provide it to you.

“The dog ate my Global homework…but she’ll vouch for me! Lassie, come here, girl; if the Hockey Stick is accurate, bark once!”
“Arf!”
“See–that proves it!”

The reason “why” you should “make the data available” is because BY DEFINITION, THAT’S WHAT SCIENCE IS!

Even making it available to skeptics. Especially to skeptics. If they get the same results, BAM–you win!

Here’s the good news, though; because you say it’s rock-solid science…you should be able to duplicate the result again!

And not to rub it in, but if you had shared your research, you would still have a copy today. Or you can always sift through Lassie’s stools. We’ll take your word for what it says.

Again.

But never again again.

"Nothing appeals to intellectuals more than the feeling that they represent 'the people'. Nothing, as a rule, is further from the truth."

"Throughout history, the attachment of even the humblest people to their freedom, above all their freedom to earn their livings how and where they please, has come as an unpleasant shock to condescending ideologues. We need not suppose that the exercise of freedom is bought at the expense of any deserving class or interest — only of those with the itch to tyrannize."--historian Paul Johnson

HERMAN, HERMAN, HE'S OUR MAN

If he can't do it it, nobod...Hey; wait a minute. Who the hell is is this "Herman"-guy, anyway?

Why, he's your new president, peasant!

Small Dead Animals:

Do You Recall Voting For Herman Van Rompuy?

Me neither.

New EU President Herman Van Rompuy: "2009 is also the first year of global governance, with the establishment of the G20 in the middle of the financial crisis. The climate conference in Copenhagen is another step towards the global management of our planet."

I didn't consent to be "globally governed" or "globally managed"--did you? I think I'd remember it. Let's see...make coffee, let the dog out, go grocery shopping, wash the car, go to the hardware store and buy more mental floss--check; give away all my rights to an unnacountable foreign bureacracy--nope; I don't recall that one. And certainly not to this clown und his clown palz.

Not even the Europeans got to vote for Pres. Herm, let alone the "world".

You and I are impediments to these statist weasels. They don't care what we think--they mean to rule us by hook or by crook.

Mark Steyn:

"Climate change" and "health care" are different ends of the same stick: They're both all-purpose pretexts for regulating every aspect of your life. Don't take my word for it - listen to the Belgian nonentity upgraded on Friday to the Holy Roman Emperor de nos jours:

"2009 is also the first year of global governance."

Did you get that memo? And, if you disagree, who do you call? Who do you vote out of office if you want a change in "global governance"?

As we see from the Post-Warmal e-mails, Climate Change is pure fraud designed solely to seize power. Similarly, Heath Care is about the health of the government, not your health. The Gumment was feeling a little run down and out of control, so controlling you is just what doctor ordered!

If the federal government isn't unresponsive enough for you, you'll love the world government they have planned for you. No more messy elections or consulting the public ever again. No, just do as the experts tell you and be a good little world sheep.

Never.

SEC. 2006. SPECIAL ADJUSTMENT TO FMAP DETERMINATION FOR CERTAIN STATES RECOVERING FROM A MAJOR DISASTER.

Section 1905 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1396d), as amended by sections 2001(a)(3) and
2001(b)(2), is amended— (1) in subsection (b), in the first sentence, by striking ‘‘subsection (y)’’ and inserting ‘‘subsections (y) and (aa)’’; and (2) by adding at the end the following new subsection:

‘‘(aa)(1) Notwithstanding subsection (b), beginning January 1, 2011, the Federal medical assistance percentage for a fiscal year for a disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State shall be equal to the following:
‘(A) In the case of the first fiscal year (or part of a fiscal year) for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), increased by 50 percent of the number of percentage points by which the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year after the application of only subsection (a) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5 (if applicable to the preceding fiscal year) and without regard to this subsection, subsection (y), and subsections (b) and (c) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5.

‘‘(B) In the case of the second or any succeeding fiscal year for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection for the State, increased by 25 percent of the number of percentage points by which the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection.

‘‘(2) In this subsection, the term ‘disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State’ means a State that is one of
the 50 States or the District of Columbia, for which, at any time during the preceding 7 fiscal years, the President has declared a major disaster under section 401 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act and determined as a result of such disaster that every county or parish in the State warrant individual and public assistance or public assistance from the Federal Government under such Act and for which— ‘‘(A) in the case of the first fiscal year (or part of a fiscal year) for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year after the application of only subsection (a) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5 (if applicable to the preceding fiscal year) and without regard to this subsection, subsection (y), and subsections (b) and (c) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5, by at least 3 percentage points; and ‘‘(B) in the case of the second or any succeeding fiscal year for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection by at least 3 percentage points.

‘‘(3) The Federal medical assistance percentage determined for a disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State under paragraph (1) shall apply for purposes of this title (other than with respect to disproportionate share hospital payments described in section 1923 and payments under this title that are based on the enhanced FMAP described in 2105(b)) and shall not apply with respect to payments under title IV (other than under part E of title IV) or payments under title XXI.’’.

I hope you didn't read all of that. That's the longest misspelling of the word "Louisiana" in history.

In so many words, that's the new "Louisiana Purchase", Harry Reid's $100 million payoff to Sen. Mary Landrieu for her vote last night.

And "in so many words" is the point.

The whole bill is chock full o' the same kind of obscufatory obstucatorie obfuscatary tricky language, designed entirely to hide from you what your government is doing to you.

That's why the bill is so lengthy; there are so many favors to trial lawyers, payoffs to unions, empowerments to the abortion industry, special pleadings and sweetheart deals, brand new taxes, fees and mandates, invasions of privacy, expansions of raw government power and astronomical costs that they must be cloaked in impenetrable legalese, lest people riot in the streets at this assault on their freedoms.

It's all a lie, a damned lie. And it is the way this crowd does all their business.

Whether its fleeing the country before your attorney general announces the KSM trial while pretending he made an independent decision in some elaborate Good Cop/Bad Cop routine. Or firing Inspector Generals because your friends are under investigation. Or counting "saved or created" jobs. Or passing a law ostensibly to help a little old lady but really aimed at letting trial lawyers gut statutes of limitations and sue dead people who can't fight back. Or slashing budgets of union corruption investigators. Or this:

Under an innocuous-sounding section titled "School-Based Health Clinics Sec. 399Z-1" H.R. 3200 will authorize Planned Parenthood, as a "sponsoring facility," to run a clinic during school hours on the grounds of public schools, with absolutely no accountability either to parents or school administrators. Clinics would be accountable only to the Secretary of Health & Human Services, the radically pro-abortion Kathleen Sebelius, who was a fervent supporter of late-term abortionist George Tiller. All this will be done at taxpayer expense. And unlike the rest of the bill, which isn't slated to go into effect until 2013, these clinics are scheduled to go into schools next fall.

This is the guy who went to Rick Warren's church during the campaign and promised to seek common ground on this issue. Instead, during this entire process, he has been conducting hush-hush meetings with Planned Secrethood.

And that's the way all their public business is transacted. Privately. Dishonestly. Secretivelively. We've grown so used to the deceptions, it barely even registers anymore.

If someone does inadvertently tell the truth, that's called a "gaffe", and their spokesman will soon rush to the microphone and solemnly promise us that their boss will never, ever tell us the truth again, and the world soon returns to its proper order.

And Joe Biden once again sleeps like a baby. Or a Thorazine patient--whatever.

They expect to lie to us and we expect to be lied to.

And for once, they don't disappoint.

THE SHADOW GOVERNMENT KNOWS

Candidate Grant Bosse:

The Double-Zero are without a voice in Congress. Well, that’s unacceptable.

Today, I am announcing the start of my campaign for Congress in New Hampshire Double-Zero District!

The Double-Zero is a magical land. A mythical land. And place that only exists in the buggy databases of DC bureaucrats. In fact, just a few days after finding out that the Double-Zero had created all those stimulus jobs, the bureaucrats at Recovery.gov took them away.

Well, I’m outraged. If we can’t trust the job numbers from a website designed to make Congressional spending look good, what can we trust?

The Administration’s claims that the stimulus has created a million jobs are increasingly unbelievable. They had to admit that 60,000 jobs didn’t exist. The Washington Examiner has published an interactive map of 75,000 bogus stimulus jobs. And ABC News is reporting that 50,000 jobs are credited to projects that haven’t even spent any money yet.

And this morning, we reported exclusively at the Josiah Bartlett Center that New Hampshire has been over-estimating its job numbers by 2,000. Bud Fitch tells us that the state can’t claim to have created or saved any of the 2,000 teaching jobs included in his report to Washington.

These can’t be dismissed as typos or data entry errors. This is a deliberate effort to take credit for jobs that already existed, and would have continued to be funded even if the stimulus bill had never been written.

But don’t blame Bud Fitch. Federal guidelines required him to credit those jobs to the stimulus, even though the money simply replaced state adequacy grants to pay teachers who were already in the classroom.

When Congress passed the stimulus this spring, the President said it would keep unemployment below 8.5%. Today, we’re at 10.2% nationally, and rising. The stimulus is a colossal failure, and the bungling efforts of Recovery.gov to inflate its impact are a disgrace.

The good news is that we have a choice. Nationwide, Recovery.gov created 440 phantom Congressional Districts. That’s more than we actually have in Congress. If we fill those seats in every phantom district, we can take over Congress.

The new Phantom Congress will do things differently. We won’t have to be worried about bringing the bacon home to our Districts, because they don’t exist. We won’t be corrupted by special interests, because they are no voters to send direct mail, no TV stations to air campaign commercials, and no contributors demanding earmarks.

Yes, the Fightin’ Double-Zero can lead the way in the Phantom Congress. But I can’t do it alone. We need candidates across the nation to run in these newly discovered districts.

We need candidates just as fantastic and unbelievable as the job numbers we’ve been given. Jeb Bartlett from the West Wing. Jefferson Smith from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Chuck Norris.

We need hundreds of citizens from around the country to stand up and run on the Phantom Party Ticket. Because a make-believe Congress has to be better than the one we have now.

I think I'll like this new Make-Believe Congress much better than the old Make-Believe Congress.


UPDATE: Surber:

The administration told West Virginians that they have a 54th congressional district where $1 million from this administration created three jobs. I can name the three people who were hired: Mr. Roarke, Tattoo and Julie.

IMAGINE FOR A MOMENT

if we wrote in German. Or in Japanese.

I think we can all be grateful for der fractured Engrish we speak around here instead. And we can be grateful for those who made it so.

I hope you've caught some of History Channel's WW2 in HD. Almost all new color footage, put into high-def--it's amazing. Time well spent.

"Those Americans who believed that we could live under the illusion of isolationism wanted the American eagle to imitate the tactics of the ostrich. Now, many of those same people, afraid that we may be sticking our necks out, want our national bird to be turned into a turtle. But we prefer to retain the eagle as it is -- flying high and striking hard."--President Franklin Roosevelt, on Washington's Birthday, 1942

THERE'S NO KIDDING AROUND IT

"I’m even beginning to think that yelling at Obama for failing to protect America is like yelling at a six-year old for failing to make a dentist appointment, open a 401k and install vinyl siding on the house."--Me, as I have consistently said.

Noted child psychologist Dr. Mark Spock-Steyn:

My radio pal Hugh Hewitt said to me on the air the other day that Barack Obama "doesn't know how to be president."

You know who that helps? Mitt Romney. heh.

Actually, for once, it really does help Mitt Romney, come to think of it.

It was a low but effective crack, and I didn't pay it much heed. But, after musing on it over the past week or so, it seems to me frighteningly literally true.

To me, too.

Let's just face it; we elected a little kid to be Leader of the Free World.

He's such a kid that he doesn't even believe there is such a thing as a "Free World"--only a giant world birthday present wrapped up in a bow and given to him, in honor of him, to open on this, his special, special day.

When he spends trillions of dollars we don't have, that's just a version of eating ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He thinks that no one else in history ever thought of the idea--"Hey--I know; we'll just spend money! And spend and spend and spend! How can we be broke? We've still got printing presses!"

If you disagree, you're just a big mean person who won't let me get a puppy. And a pony. And an elephant--I've always wanted an elephant. Can I? Can I? CanICanICanICanICanICanICanICanI???

It was by playing Milton Bradley's "Operation!" that he first learned that greedy doctors are stealing children's tonsils for money. He passes legislation by keeping the other kids up all night and bribing them with cookies. His approach to statecraft is like a four-year game of RISK played with the Kids Your Parents Warned You About.

Fred Barnes:

Has a president ever been less successful on a trip overseas than President Obama has on his eight-day excursion to Asia? I've been covering presidents since Gerald Ford and I can't think of one.

Obama struck out on his entire agenda in China and he acquiesced as the Chinese subjected him to the humiliation of a choreographed town hall meeting with student members of the Young Communist League. And he suffered through a 30-minute news conference with Chinese President Hu Jintao in which no questions from the media were allowed. Presidents normally come away on visits to foreign countries with "deliverables"--that is, tangible signs of progress like a treaty signing. All Obama got was a list of things the United States and China would do in the future.

But, hey, he also got this:

And out of the Seoul sky, President Lee Myung-bak hands over to the American leader a tae kwon do outfit. And then Lee, who practices tae kwon do himself, presents Obama with a coveted black belt.

After zero long years of study.

Cooooool!

When I was a kid(tm), one popular theme of the Youth Revolution was what it would be like if kids took over the world. Now we know.

"I'm the First Pacific president!" We elected the Fifth Beach Boy, and now We're Sittin' On Top of the World.

What can we do for our troubled adolescent, Dr. Spock-Steyn?

Not being George W. Bush may be enough to impress the 2009 Nobush Peace Prize committee in Oslo, but it's old news everywhere else. America's enemies have figured out that the Superbower is their best opportunity since their Seventies, and for America's friends the short version of the hopeychangey era to date is last week's cover story at the London Spectator showing an empty suit in the Oval Office over the headline "The Worst Kind Of Ally."

Hang on, wasn't that title retired with Bush? Well, no. Apparently, he routinely called up prime ministers hither and yon and kept them in the picture and up to speed. Obama doesn't have time for any of that: When he stiffed Poland on missile defense, he got Hillary to phone it in. The Poles, bless 'em, declined to take her call. In Delhi, meanwhile, they're horrified by Obama's performance in China. America's enemies smell weakness, and our allies feel only the vacuum of U.S. leadership. About himself, the president speaks loudly. For America, he carries a small twig.

Our Lord of the Fly-Swatter.

I've left the real humor and heartbreak there, so read it all. Don't make me stop this car.

MORE LIKE "PAR-CHEESY"

The War on Terror may be half over (our half)...but the War on Sarah Palin's Endlessly Fertile Uterus is just warming up!

Sister Toldjah: AP assigns 11 “factcheckers” to Sarah Palin’s book – and they still get it wrong--with good links to Steyn and Powerline. Check it yourself.

11 fact-checkers for Palin's "Going Rogue"...but zero for "Dreams of His Father" and "The Audacity of Pretending to be Barack Obama" by Bill Ayers.

By contrast, James Taranto says AP was able to spare two whole fact-checkers for the Health Control bills. Priorities!

Jules Crittenden wades through Bedlam to read Greenwald and Sullivan--but he's braver than me.

UPDATE: I believe that children are our future--at least this teen-age gal, who bears up well under Norah O'Donnell's attempt to sandbag her... by "fact-checking" her T-shirt!

That's the kind of hard-hitting journalism we need today, Norah. I'm just glad she can't see my Spiderman T-shirt; even Norah knows radioactive spiders don't cause superpowers.

Spinach does. And Democrats cause them to go away.

“WH documents were sent in error. Can you please destroy them? And can you confirm you receive this e-mail?”--AmeriCorps spokeswoman Ranit Schmelzer

“Confirmed, documents were shredded.”--Acting IG Kenneth Bach, via CNS


In a funny segment, Glenn Beck gave Inspector General Gerald "Gramps" Walpin a competency test on the air after the Chicago-way crooks accused him of being senile and fired him. Of course, "Gramps" passed with flying colors.

Inspector Walpin is just the kind of fair-minded straight-shooter you would want in such a position--unless, of course, you were crooked. Walpin's crime was that he simply found out Obama friend Mayor Kevin Johnson was paying off his girlfriends with public money.

Hot Air:

Who allegedly arranged for the transfer of hush money? In one of the stranger twists in an already strange story, Johnson’s fiancee Michelle Rhee — better known now as the head of the Washington DC school district:

"At the time, Rhee was on the board of St. Hope. A former St. Hope employee who reported one of the allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct by Johnson told Walpin’s investigators that Rhee “learned of the allegations and played the role of a fixer, doing ‘damage control,’” the congressional report says."

There's your trouble: a man shouldn't have a fiancee...and a financee!

It's human to want to help a friend. It's something else to subvert an investigation into sex payoffs with stolen money.

And it's not just this inspector general. There has been a sustained assault on the very concept of IGs by this gang. Robert Stacy McCain has been on the case.

With apologies to David Mamet:

"l'll be the judge of what l must do, Mr. Ness."

"Would you excuse us?" [Whispers]

"Bailiff..."

"Yes, sir?"

"l want you to go next door to Judge Hoffman's Court, where they've just begun hearing a divorce action. l want you to bring that jury in here and take this jury to his court. Are those instructions clear?"

"Yes, sir, they're clear."

"What's he talking about?"

"Bailiff, l want you to switch the inspector generals".

"Your Honor, l object!"

"Overruled!"

"What did you tell him?"

"l told him his name was in the ledger, too."

"His name wasn't in the ledger!"

"Wait a second! ls this the law? What's goin' on here? What do l look like to you? Do somethin'!"

"Your Honor, we'd like to withdraw our plea of Not Guilty, and enter a plea of Guilty."

"Guilty?"

"Order in the court! Bailiff, clear the courtroom!"

"Eliot!"

"Your Honor...is that justice?"

"Please, why did he switch the inspector generals?"?

"What?"

"You heard me, Capone. lt's over."

"You're nothin' but a lot of talk and an IG's badge."

Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown. Chicago-style.

I WAS TOLD THERE WOULD BE NO QUIZ

A: When the bench is a deck chair on Rock Star Lines' HMS Titanic Moral Vanity.

Mike has the whole sorry story on the castaway's ill-fated Three Hour Grandstanding for Gaia-Tour here. If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the minnow-sized moral moment would be lost.

Clearly, we're in the wrong business, Mike. This Expedition About Nothing cost the British taxpayers £150,000, about a quarter-million US. You could dry clean the burkas of a London imam's 5 welfare wives for a year with that kind of money.

Alert the orphans, Tiny Tim--all their problems are solved! Surely a country rich enough to indulge artistes building a bus-bench on an iceberg has solved all its real problems. And the fuel oil used to haul them there was no doubt made from carbon-capturing Unicorn waste!

I wouldn't really care--but our own NEA looks to their European betters for guidance in how to extract pelf from the peons and waste it on ugly art and preening poseurs. Chesterton:

"Savages and modern artists are alike strangely driven to create something uglier than themselves. But the artists find it harder."

How 'bout a federally-funded Bass-Fishing Tour instead?

Nah--they'd just end up taxing our singing bass's off.

And we'd end up on a park bench on some iceberg somewhere.

YOU BETCHA' I GOTCHA'

"He [Ronald Reagan] knows so little and accomplishes so much."--a baffled Robert McFarlane, speaking for the Washington Know-it-All Class

It's the damndest thing; for a Stupid, Stupid Girl, she just keeps on turning out to be correct:

Dick Morris:

The panel evaluating the effectiveness of mammograms did not find that they don’t work or that they do not save lives. Rather, it found that the lives they save are not “worth” the cost of annual testing. This bureaucratic balancing of human life and financial cost lies at the core of the government managed health care in the Obama Bill.

To maximize your chances of avoiding breast cancer, women over 50 should, of course, be tested annually. But to save the government money and to conserve scarce resources, the government would like them to increase their chances of becoming sick and get screened only every other year.

Because of the high standards at this blog, I will not say something like "The government now recommends that women younger than fifty stop by Bill Clinton's Harlem office for a less expensive, free-lance diagnosis." I just won't do it. Thank you for understanding.

Under our current health care system, the government can only recommend such changes.

But under Obamacare, it can and will require them.

Boobs.

Via Rich Lowry:

If the U.S. captures Osama bin Laden, there's no need to interrogate him, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Thursday.

No need. Another 9/11 plot in progress? Whatever. Not important. The names of his operatives? That's personal. He has privacy rights, you know.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (DEMOCRAT-Vt.), the chairman of that committee, said that arguments raised by Republican senators about whether bin Laden would be afforded Miranda rights if he were captured was a "red herring."

No, it's not. You insist he's a common criminal. Common criminals are freed every day to re-offend because they weren't Mirandized. Miranda himself got away with raping a teen-age girl for years because liberal judges cut him loose.

You'd think a guy who runs the Judiciary Committee might be smart enough to remain silent.

"The red herring that my friend [Sen.] Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was covering is not realistic," Leahy said during an appearance on "Washington Journal" on C-SPAN.

"For one thing, capturing Osama bin Laden — we've had enough on him, we don't need to interrogate him," Leahy added.

No. Just order up 3,000 more body bags instead.

It's not about convicting one person of a crime. It's about winning a war and keeping thousands of Americans alive.

Besides, you've helped enough already--No More Lockerbies.

IT'S NOT WHY YOU THINK

Newsweak's Palin cover this month proclaims "She's Bad News For the GOP--and For Everybody Else, Too."

'Everybody', Newsweak? Her legs are paying your mortgage this month, Evan. How does that make you feel? Like this?



Liberals don't talk that way about dictators like Castro or Ahmadinijhad, do they? They don't even let their minds think that way in the privacy of their own thoughts. But Sarah Palin? Fair game. And it's not just because they think she's only a stupid girl.

Doc Zero:

The argument over whether Sarah Palin is “qualified” for the presidency is the opposite of the question conservatives should be asking. What we need to know is whether any other aspiring candidate has the essential qualifications Palin brings to the table. ...

I hope many candidates step forward with these qualifications, especially since Sarah Palin hasn’t declared any intention to run for office again. Even if she does, it would be best to have a spirited competition between worthy nominees. Neither Republicans, nor the republic, have been well-served by “inevitable” candidates. ...

The question before conservatives is not whether Sarah Palin can win. The question is: at this desperate hour, what’s the point of winning without someone like her?

As Doc notes, while liberals say she's not up to it, these same liberals heap money, position, awards and influence on Al Gore--who cannot name the earth's core temperature within a million degrees. Steyn:

His entire, highly lucrative shtick rests on the proposition that a one-degree increase in surface temperature in the course of a century imperils not merely the poor old polar bear, not merely the planet itself, but is "altering the balance of energy between our planet and the rest of the universe."

If there is one area of super-smart liberal expertise, it's tax policy, right? Yet they pass a tax cut that mysteriously morphs...into a tax penalty! Doug Ross:

15.4 million tax filers could owe money to the IRS thanks to Obama's 'tax cut' and 1.2 million may be hit with penalties for under withholding.

The "Party of the Little Guy" doesn't remember how to create even make-work jobs like an FDR or LBJ. The Party of Government can't even count the number of congressional districts anymore. Their genius CINC said the Surge would fail and their expert foreign-policy Veep wanted to split Iraq into thirds--probably still does for all anybody knows.

Like Krauthammer said, the Do-Nothing Administration is now an administration that cannot even do nothing competently; it's A Show About Less than Nothing.

So, obviously, provably, it's not about intelligence.

Maybe it's gender. Dick Morris explains:

Sarah Palin is an existential threat to the Democratic Party. She threatens a core element of the party’s base - women.

When an African-American like Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell or Condi Rice rises to prominence as a Republican, he or she endangers the Democratic coalition. So would a Republican labor leader. And so, above all, does the woman Republican running...

Democrats can’t stomach seeing the feminist movement’s impetus for greater female political participation and empowerment “hijacked” by a pro-life woman who espouses traditional values. They must obliterate her, lest her popularity eat away at their party’s core.

So the Democrats are hysterical in their attacks on her. South Carolina’s Democratic Party chairwoman, Carol Fowler (wife of a national party chairman), said that the only qualification Palin had for vice president was that she hadn’t had an abortion. Tabloids are digging up dirt on Palin’s children. And liberal bloggers have suggested that Palin would neglect her children if she were elected (while the Democratic candidate has young children at home, too).

That liberals would resort to such blatant sexism shows their desperation. She’s not popular because she’s a radical feminist or pro-choice advocate. It’s because she understands what it’s like to be a woman in 21st century America.

She’s never ascended to the elite, so she doesn’t need to stoop to conquer as most well-heeled feminist leaders must. She lives far from the plastic pseudoreality where a fossilized ideology substitutes for human compassion and empathy. As such, she rises above the slogans of both the left and the right and proposes to bring to Washington a dose of reality - a taste of real life.

She may become the first woman in national office - yet the Democrats, feminists and liberals can’t control her, and that burns them up. Elections come and go, but Palin is a far more fundamental threat to the Democratic Party. And that’s why they fear her so.

She's not on Plantation Democrat, that's for sure.

That's why a Jesse Jackson says “You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.” After all the civil war, civil rights and Constitutional amendments, Democrats think they own women, blacks and minorities. "Yes, You Can't!"

But IdentityThink doesn't quite explain the Hate, either.

Maybe, just maybe, it's this;

Enter Mrs. Palin. The former mayor of Wasilla had been appointed by Mr. Murkowski in 2003 to the state oil and gas regulatory agency. She'd had the temerity to blow the whistle on fellow GOP Commissioner Randy Ruedrich for refusing to disclose energy dealings. Mr. Murkowski and GOP Attorney General Gregg Renkes closed ranks around Mr. Ruedrich—who also chaired the state GOP. Mrs. Palin resigned. Having thus offended the entire old boy network, she challenged the governor for his seat.

Mrs. Palin ran against the secret deal, and vowed to put the pipeline back out for competitive, transparent, bidding. She railed against cozy politics. Mr. Murkowski ran on his unpopular pipeline deal. The oil industry warned the state would never get its project without his leadership. Mrs. Palin walloped him in the primary and won office in late 2006. Around this time, news broke of a federal probe that would show oil executives had bribed lawmakers to support the Murkowski tax changes.

Among Mrs. Palin's first acts was to reinstate Mr. Irwin. By February 2007 she'd released her requirements for pipeline bidding. They were stricter, and included only a $500 million state incentive. By May a cowed state house—reeling from scandal—passed her legislation.

The producers warned they would not bid, nor would anyone else. Five groups submitted proposals. A few months before the legislature awarded its license to TransCanada this July, Conoco and BP suddenly announced they'd be building their own pipeline with no state inducements whatsoever. They'd suddenly found the money.

Mrs. Palin has meanwhile passed an ethics law. She's tightened up oil oversight. She forced the legislature to rewrite the oil tax law. That new law raised taxes on the industry, for which Mrs. Palin is now taking some knocks, but the political background here is crucial.

The GOP machine has crumbled. Attorney General Renkes resigned. Mr. Ruedrich was fined $12,000. Jim Clark—Mr. Murkowski's lead pipeline negotiator—pleaded guilty to conspiring with an oil firm. At least three legislators have been convicted. Sen. Ted Stevens is under indictment for oil entanglements, while Rep. Don Young is under investigation.

Throughout it all, Mrs. Palin has stood for reform, though not populism. She thanks oil companies and says executives who "seek maximum revenue" are "simply doing their job." She says her own job is to be a "savvy" negotiator on behalf of Alaska's citizens and to provide credible oversight. It is this combination that lets her aggressively promote new energy while retaining public trust.

They hate her because they're Marxists--grouchy old Groucho Marx-ists, who famously said

"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made."

She's got integrity. Integrity like she has can't be purchased--by definition.

Her critics largely sold out long ago. They know that she's got in spades what they left behind seven times seventy sell-outs ago.

Stop the Hate. Sincerely.