Monday, May 28, 2007

The "Fairness Doctrine" Venezuelan Style...














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Venezuelan troops used tear gas and rubber bullets on peaceful prostestors who'd gathered to oppose the Chavez regime's refusal to renew Radio Caracas Television's (RCTV's) broadcast license, earlier today (Monday, May 28, 2007).


University students blocked a major highway just hours after the Chavez government forced RCTV off the air, claiming it was "subversive" and claiming the station had backed a 2002 coup attempt against him.


RCTV was replaced with TVES a new public channel that launched its transmissions with various artists singing pro-Chavez music, followed by an exercise show. The socialist President claims he's "democratizing the airwaves" by turning over the station to public use


Founded in 1953, RCTV regularly topped viewer ratings in Venezuela, but Chavez accused the netowrk of "poisoning" Venezuelans with programming that promoted Capitalism.


Germany, which holds the European Union Presidency, expressed concern over Venezuela letting RCTV's license expire "without holding an open competition for the successor license." It also said the "EU expects Venezuela to uphold freedom of speech.


Protestors vowed to continue their protests in opposition to Chavez' tyrannical rule.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

An Abuse of the Patriot Act?....I Don't Think So...




A federal Judge, U.S. District Judge Anne Aiken, in Eugene, Oregon declared that four of the nine fires linked to Kevin Tubbs (shown left with 2nd member of the eco-terrorism groups, ELF & ALF to plead guilty on conspiracy and arson charges) were "acts of terrorism" and sentenced the 38 y/o radical to 12 years and seven months in a federal prison.

"Fear and intimidation can play no part in changing the hearts and minds of people in a democracy," said Aiken in her ruling.

For his part, Tubbs said, "I am disgusted, sickened, saddened and totally ashamed that I played any part in any of the incidents." Tubbs had hooked up with the radical groups back in 1995 when he joined an ELF encampment dedicated to stoping the U.S. Forest Service from logging trees that had been burned by fire. After that, Tubbs regularly picked targets, recruited members and built incendiary devices, although when it came to actually setting the fires, he generally served as a look-out, or driver, according to U.S. Attorney Kirk Engdahl.

OK, so America's domestic WoT provisions have been used, for the first time, on non-jihadist terrorists.

Can anyone doubt that ELF and ALF are terrorist organizations?

Of course not! How could we doubt that? They carry out terroristic acts against U.S. citizens and entities all the time!

So, why shouldn't they be treated as.....well, as terrorists?


SEE: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070525/ap_on_re_us/ecoterror_sentence

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Yet Another PHONEY “Disparate Impact” Lawsuit???






Disparate impact is NOT proof of discrimination.
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I’ll say that again for those a little slow on the uptake, Disparate Impact is NOT proof of discrimination.
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Moreover, our laws are clear that "Disparate Impact" cannot be used to prove discrimination on either an individual or class action basis.
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Any lawyers care to disagree?
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Every single standard (from the LSATs, to the MCATs, to HS Regents exams) has a disparate impact, and not merely between blacks and whites, but between all ethnic groups, in fact, there would be some disparate impact no matter how you divided the people taking those tests.
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As a "proof of discrimination," Disparate Impact is a legal canard. It is the Civil Rights version of the classic “slip & fall” scam.
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But “Disparate Impact” has been used by women’s groups to dilute the physical standards and by black groups to dumb down the written exams for a whole host of .Municipal Services.
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WHY? Is it not obvious that higher standards render a higher quality workforce?

Of course it's obvious and especially post-9/11 one would think that workforce quality would trump all other concerns. "Diversity" is fine, but it's value-neutral. If one CANNOT prove that more females and more minorities on any given job would improve the overall efficiency (ie. cops shooting better, firefighters running, climbing faster) then that concern MUST take a back-seat to demonstrable quality and that quality is best measured on standardized written and physical exams - the more arduous, the better, meaning, the more arduous and demanding the exam, the better quality workforce rendered.
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For the past twenty years the FDNY written entrance exam, like its NYPD counterpart, has been so dumbed down that a group of mentally handicapped people were once bused in to take an NYPD written entrance exam and most of those mildly retarded people passed the entrance exam!
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That's an outrage!
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Disparate Impact proves nothing at all. It merely shows that one given group is doing less well than others. That information should be neither surprising, nor actionable.
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Remember “Test Bias?”
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Quietly, it’s been proven NOT to exist!
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Those who challenged the SAT exam on “Test Bias” failed to prove their case as the largest disparity in SAT scores were found to be on the mathematical portion of the exam, where concepts like "2, 4, division, multiplication and subtraction" are known to be the same for everyone. Even on the Verbal portion, the proponents of "Test Bias" couldn't come up with examples of overt bias, for instance the claim that "inner city students never having seen a yacht couldn't be expected to know what one is."
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Really? Few working and middle class whites have seen a yacht and fewer rural whites, still and yet most of them had no trouble "knowing what one was." In fact, many blacks and Hispanics did too.
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Given that “Test Bias” is a canard, then it stands to reason that “Disparate Impact” is also a ruse.
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The charge that blacks are only 2.9% of the FDNY and Hispanics only 4.5% only seems to indicate that the best candidates from those groups overwhelmingly take other opportunities.
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Moreover, as Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute states the very same disparities exist on the SAT, LSAT and the MCAT tests!
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Moreover, Military pilots and Special Forces have even less “diversity,” as fewer than 1% of the Navy’s pilots are female and less than 3% are minority. There are almost no females in the U.S. Special Forces and again under 3% minorities.
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It seems more than reasonable to presume that so long as the same exam is given to every candidate the exam is, by definition, “FAIR.”
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In fact, if anything, the case can far easier be made that BOTH the written and physical FDNY entrance exams should be made much tougher, NOT any easier.
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I don’t ask much. In this case all I ask if that if you’re going to charge an exam like the FDNY entrance exam with discrimination, be able to prove how that test was designed to discriminate specifically against YOU.
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“Disparate Impact” does not do that. A person truly discriminated against must be able to point to a specific action and its malicious intent to get redress.
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Is that the kind of Justice Department America wants?
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One that would be the quality of First Responders behind other, less vital considerations?
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If you disagree, please, by all means do, but please be prepared to prove how giving the same exam to every candidate, no matter how arduous the standards, "discriminates" against a specific ethnic, racial or gender group. I've yet to see any actual proof of that.

More Discrimination Against Gays???






Yes, gay men remain banned for life from donating blood, the government said Wednesday, leaving in place, at least for now, as a 1983 prohibition meant to prevent the spread of HIV through transfusions.

The Food and Drug Administration reiterated its long-standing policy on its Web site Wednesday.

As gay sex remains one of the primary routes of transmission of the AIDS virus.

Of course, this sound FDA decision has its detractors; “I am disappointed, I must confess," said Dr. Celso Bianco, executive vice president of America's Blood Centers, whose members provide nearly half the nation's blood supply.

Last year the Red Cross and two other blood groups criticized the policy as "medically and scientifically unwarranted." In March 2006, the Red Cross, the international blood association AABB and America's Blood Centers proposed replacing the lifetime ban with a one-year deferral following male-to-male sexual contact. New and improved tests, which can detect HIV-positive donors within just 10 to 21 days of infection, make the lifetime ban unnecessary, the blood groups told the FDA.

(Yeah, why err on the side of protecting the general population?)


In a document posted Wednesday, the FDA said it would change its policy if given data that show doing so wouldn't pose a "significant and preventable" risk to blood recipients.

The FDA said HIV tests currently in use are highly accurate, but still can’t detect the virus 100 percent of the time. The estimated HIV risk from a unit of blood is currently about one per 2 million in the United States, according to the agency.

Critics of the exclusionary policy said it bars potential healthy donors, despite the increasing need for donated blood, and discriminates against gays. The FDA recognized the policy defers many healthy donors but rejected the suggestion it's discriminatory.

As it’s not only gays who’re barred from blood donation. Anyone who's used intravenous drugs or been paid for sex also is permanently barred from donating blood.

But we all know that there aren’t any angry gay men out there who’d look to donate tainted blood to introduce AIDS infected blood into the nation’s blood supply....are there?

SARKOZY!!!

















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Man, could we clone this guy and get him to run over here?

Seriously, this guy’s going where few American Pols Left or Right seem willing to go.

He’s recently gone on record saying NO to any mass legalization of illegal immigrants in France and now, as part of his overall reforms package he’s looking to exempt overtime from social security charges (NOT BAD), NOT replacing half of retiring public servants as they retire (GREAT), forcing the unemployed to accept work (ABSOLUTELY AWESOME) and ending special pensions enjoyed by some in public sector (ALSO GREAT).

Of course, Mr. Sarkozy is going to need a lot of help (in Parliament) to get that agenda passed and he’s hoping to gain a large amount of parliamentary support in the upcoming June Parliamentary elections.

Polls suggest his UMP party may win 40% of the vote, giving it an absolute majority in the national assembly. The polls indicate the UMP could get at least 365 of the chamber's 577 seats - far more than the opposition Socialists, who are predicted to win 28% of the vote.

The legislative elections will be held in two rounds, on 10 and 17 June.

I’ve heard the charge here, that “Sarkozy would be a Centrist Democrat here.”

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REALLY?!

Which “Right-wing Republican" running has had the balls to offer such promises here?!

Any Democrats standing firm against “any kind of mass legalization of illegal immigrants?”

Not a chance!

Again, can we clone this guy???....PLEASE!?

Monday, May 21, 2007

On the Sadly Misguided Soros Axis






When I was a College student living at home, I probably had some of the same confusion that all too many Americans suffer from today. I’m sure I believed things (probably based on feelings) like “income inequality leads to social unrest.”

I’ve since wised up.

George Soros (the money behind MoveOn.org and MediaMatters, etc) believes in the command economy.

He sees Capitalism as akin to Nazism and socialism as the only cure. That makes him both a political and economic simpleton...and an evil man, as well.

Mao, Stalin and Hitler were the world’s worst socialist dictators, and in that order.

Too many people, for far too long have tried to deny that BOTH Stalin & Mao were worse than Hitler in every conceivable way.

Capitalism (the free market economy) is economic democracy, where consumers are the “voters” and businesses vie to give the consumer what he/she wants – the highest quality at the lowest possible price. THAT’S actual democracy in action.

Socialism CANNOT EXIST without mass murder and theft. ALL of the “land (property) reforms” of Stalin, Mao and Hitler resulted in that. In fact, of the three, Hitler saw the flaws of the “command economy” earlier than the other two, and moved toward a state sanctioned, highly regulated economy – a sort of pseudo-socialism.

Stalin killed between 30-50 MILLION civilians and Mao between 70-100 MILLION civilians in their various “land (property) reforms, as people who own and develop properties (lands and businesses) do not generally surrender them except over “their dead bodies.”

Albania and Bulgaria where the world’s last two socialist/command economies and were basket-cases until they switched to more market based economies.

George Soros, like Laura D’Angelis Tyson (the Clinton economic advisor) lauded those Balkan basket-cases. Soros reviles the French, German and Scandinavian models that retain private ownership of lands and commercial ventures by private citizens and has only begrudgingly called those Corporatist economies (the USA is also a Corporatist economy right now) with somewhat larger welfare states as “slightly better than America’s.”

There is no such thing as “democratic socialism.” As “We the people” have no greater collective rights, than we do individual rights, ergo, it is unlawful for even a 90% majority to vote to confiscate and redistribute the property of the remaining 10%.

That is to say, that if 90% of any given nation (it’d never happen) were to vote to confiscate the holdings of the richest 10% and redistribute them, they would be just as morally wrong as if any single one of them decided to do a home invasion on their own.

That’s not at all hard to understand, is it?

It shouldn’t be, it IS America’s “Founding Design.”

That’s the very reason America’s Founders enshrined all those individual protections FROM government action in those first TEN Amendments (The Bill of Rights) – they deeply believed that the minority must be protected at all times, from “the tyranny of the majority,” and the “minority” they were most concerned with, was well-off, property owners, who are indeed a “minority” in almost every society.

The WRONG Focus on Illegal Immigration












There are two major problems with the way discussions about ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION are framed, the first is that they’re framed as part of the overall “immigration debate,” and the second is that it’s framed as “an illegal immigrant,” or “migrating worker” problem rather than what it really is “an ILLICIT EMPLOYER problem.”

This has led to two primarily wrong “solutions” to this problem and with illegal immigration costing EVERY American $19,000 over the cost of their lives, it IS definitely a major problem!

The first wrong-headed “solution” is putting the focus on the illegal aliens themselves, as though they were immigrants who somehow have a right, or even a profound desire to be here. This kind of “solution” is the dumbest, in that seeks some form of Amnesty (pathway to citizenship) for the illegal aliens already here.

It’s dumb because, (1) it defeats the primary purpose over which such people support illegal immigration – CHEAP LABOR, as once they’re made citizens, they’ll be subject to the Minimum Wage laws, that ILLICIT EMPLOYERS subvert by hiring illegal aliens. They’ll also be eligible for a host of social services that are a disincentive to work. In fact, those social services are one of the things that makes so many American citizens “unwilling to do all those menial, low paying jobs,” AND (2) the vast majority of the illegal alien workforce here migrate back and forth between here and Latin America. They come here for the work and leave to be with their family and friends at HOME.

The second and by far, the most disastrously wrong focus is considering the problem to be a trespassing problem or “illegal alien” or “migrating worker” problem.

The overwhelming bulk of the illegal aliens here come for jobs that are unavailable in their homelands. The problems for America are (1) this veritable human trafficking serves to deliberately subvert American laws on minimum wage, withholding income and FICA taxes from employees and (2) serves to lower the American “wage floor” – the wage rate paid to all unskilled labor in America and all other wage rates are tethered to that “wage floor.”

The bulk of the problem really is "an illegal employer" problem, rather than an "illegal immigration" problem.
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So, in that vein, fining employers is a "win-win!" It's good for the government coffers and good for the American people. OK, it's very bad for a very few Americans who are making illicit profits off human exploitation, but it's to the greater good of the vast majority of Americans.Fine an employer $10,000 for hiring an "undocumented worker," and $10,000 for hiring a worker "off-the-books." Those fines must be levied per offense, so if a Slaughterhouse or a Meat Packing plant, for instance, has hired 300 illegals, the total fines will equal $20,000 X 300 workers or $6 Million for that plant. For second offenses, the fines would double and a federal prison sentence should be required of BOTH the plant manager AND the company's CEO at the time the infractions were discovered.
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Yes, those fines and second offense jail terms would have to be applied to small businesses (landscapers) and even homeowners who deliberately use illegal immigrant workers.Under those conditions, the jobs would dry up.
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Once the jobs dried up, the draw would dry up and the illegal immigrants here for work, would then self-deport.The 10-15% or so who are here for nefarious purposes will be caught up in various criminal procedures. We must then draw up some agreements whereby we pay for the incarceration of Americans abroad and those countries pay for their citizens incarcerated here.
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The canard that “cheap labor = cheaper goods and services,” is proven false every day. One such example is the Nike’s Air Jordans saga. Air Jordans were mass produced in Indonesia for pennies and with transportation and distribution costs factored in, their total cost was around $3 per unit, and yet they sold for $150 and up.

The reason is that market prices are determined by demand and what the market will pay and NOT the mere cost of production. Ergo, cheaper illegal immigrant labor does NOT always translate into cheaper goods and services for Americans.
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As far as the overall “immigration debate” goes, I don't see the need for anything more than changing legal immigration to a more "merit based" approach (ending family reunification AND the “anchor baby” system and moving to a system that allows people in based on skills America needs) and bolstering our porous borders (fences and more border guards).
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I have to say I don't now, nor have I ever had much sympathy for illicit employers who seek to use illegal immigrant labor to bolster profits and deliver cheaper goods & services to their customers and the latter is certainly a very lofty goal, perhaps the most lofty there is, but it's still no excuse for breaking the law.

Employers who use illegal immigrant labor are (1) reducing the wage floor - the price paid to unskilled labor in this country and reducing the wage floor puts a persistent downward pressure on all other wage rates, (2) they don't withhold taxes from these workers, increasing the tax burden on the rest of us, (3) their illicit activity and their lobbying for continuing it maintain a porous border that post-9/11 has become a major security risk and (4) they're involved in human exploitation, very close in its depravity to that engaged in by all the other human traffickers - illegals are paid a sub-standard wage, often dozens of them live huddled together in cramped apartments, with barley enough to live on.
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It seems hideously wrong for a select few (unscrupulous "businessmen") to profit at the expense of EVERYone else. These white collar thugs (because they're far worse then mere white-collar criminals - embezzlers and such) don't care that every illegal alien here costs EVERY American $19,000 over the course of their time here. They don't care that they've depressed wages or that they've weakened our national security.Fine them, jail them (if necessary)...then the illegal jobs dry up...and then the overwhelming bulk of the illegal immigrants self-deport.

Some have argued that hiring illegal aliens “hurts no one, increases profitability and makes millions of jobless illegal alien/migrant workers “happy.” Well, hiring illegal aliens is against the law.

There's really no way to rationalize that....well, short of changing the law and moving to an "open border policy, but that would be suicide! A nation without borders quickly becomes a nation without a common language and a common culture, which is to say, "not a nation at all."

We don't allow people to do illegal things simply because those things benefit them or make them happy. Many people like to speed. The fines (now many are over $200 for significant speeding) are very good thing.

They both generate revenue for government AND they serve as a deterrent for offenders.

Owning a business in ANY nation (and God, I really hate to admit this) is a privilege. The fact that you need a myriad of licenses and must go through a gauntlet of government inspections to open most businesses proves that.

Illegal aliens will work for below subsistence wages because they're willing to live at below subsistence levels (ten and more illegals sharing a one BR apt).

The bottom-line is that there’s really no downside to going after America’s white collar THUGS hard.

After all, what are they going to do, shut down their businesses?

And even if heavy fines and jail time puts some businesses out of business, the void left, will draw ten new entrepreneurs looking to fill that niche and take advantage of that opportunity.

There’s no question that America is better off without illegal immigrant labor and the best way of dealing with this is as an “ILLICIT EMPLOYER” problem.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Fred Thompson responds to Michael Moore challenge

Another reason to like Fred Thompson.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Feingold’s Iraq Surrender Bill Goes Down...Thanks in part to the Blue Dog Democrats!






Russ Feingold’s SURRENDER Bill fell 67 – 29 in the Senate!

Blue Dogs like newly minted Senators Jim Webb and John Tester voted it down along with every Republican.

For Soros supporters, this has got to be a great disappointment. The Blue Dogs that both Rahn Emmanuel and Chuck Schumer brought into the Party for the last election have paid the Left-wing of that Party back by voting against one of their most sacred issues.

I’m liking Webb and Tester more every day!

dancing in tongues: Next Stop: The American Gulag#links

dancing in tongues: Next Stop: The American Gulag#links

The Same Liberals Who Rail against Content Restrictions, SUPPORT Other Content Restrictions!






Fresh on the heels of their decrying FCC restrictions on obscene, outrageous &/or offensive content by the likes of Don Imus and Rosie O’Donnell (proof that a stopped clock is right, at least twice a day), many of the same Liberals are out in force supporting...YES, OTHER FORMS of content restrictions!

Yes, the Left is favoring content restrictions in the media in the form of HR 4069 IH or the “Media Ownership Reform Act,” (MONA) which, among other things, seeks to bring back the misnamed "Fairness Doctrine," scuttled in the 1980s by the great Ronald Reagan.

Why was it scuttled?


Because it didn’t work!

Well, actually, it was never intended to “work,” in any “fair” or balanced way. It sought to maintain the Liberal hegemony over the media and it did that quite effectively over its lifespan.

Am I being hypocritical?
Don’t I not only oppose MONA, but would support a “Fairness Doctrine” that mandated the media accurately reflect the public viewpoint, which is more than 2 to 1 Conservative/traditionalist?

While I would love to see the entire spectrum of our media and our educational establishment, for that matter, more accurately reflect the American public’s viewpoint, I DON’T, at this point, support any law that would mandate that.


From the great Mick Brady at Dancing in Tongues;

“The driving force behind this push is none other than our old friend, Dr. Strangelove himself, the radical leftist billionaire, George Soros.”
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From Insight: "At a recent National Conference for Media Reform, sponsored by Free Press, a Massachusetts-based group heavily subsidized by Soros, (Maurice) Hinchey (D-NY) laid bare his plan to silence conservative voices on television and radio. The anti-war McGovernite attacked Savage, Limbaugh and other conservative radio hosts, saying they were “responsible” for leading the U.S. into the Iraq war, as well as for preparing the ground for future military invasions of Iran and Syria. According to Hinchey, these men pose a “threat” to American national security. Hence, under his bill, they would be fired."
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"All of that stuff will end," Hinchey said.”
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Scary stuff indeed. Try for one moment to imagine where this country will end up if one half of its population is silenced. You can find the answer in most of the places in the world that have been taken over by zealous leftists: they invariably end up in totalitarianism.”



Indeed, it is scary stuff, and it begs the question, if it’s OK for the likes of 60’s radicals like Maurice Hinchey to support a law that seeks to silence the majority voice in America within its media, why wouldn’t it be OK for Conservatives to call for an expanded form of that doctrine that would, at the least limit Liberal voices to their numbers in society (16%)...if not eliminating them from the media altogether as Soros and Hinchey seem to support doing with Conservative voices?

SCOTUS Engages in its Own Tort Reform






On Monday, May 15, 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court set aside $55 Million in punitive damages against the Ford Motor Company for a roll over accident that left a 51 y/o mother of two paralyzed, after her 2002 Explorer rolled over.

The ruling did not affect the $28 million in Compensatory damages.

In February, it set aside a $79 Million Punitive verdict for a deceased smoker in Oregon.

In the 1990s the Supreme Court concluded that unrestricted Punitive awards may violate the Constitution and has been seeking ways to limit those verdicts ever since.

THAT’S why Conservative justices are so necessary.

Like the Kelo decision, supported by EVERY Liberal SC justice, the conclusion that unrestricted Punitive awards may be Unconstitutional was supported by EVERY Conservative Justice.

THANK YOU Antonin Scalia!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Illegal Immigration’s Impact on Wage Rates

















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There’s absolutely no question that illegal immigrant labor puts a persistent downward pressure on all wage rates.David Ricardo pointed this out with his "Iron Law of Labor" (published in his 1814 treatise "On Labor") in which he showed that when labor markets are tight, wages go up.

Likewise, when labor markets are flooded with workers willing to work at the bottom of the pay scale, unskilled and semi-skilled wages overall will decrease to what Ricardo referred to as "subsistence" levels.


As the supply of any given commodity rises, relative to demand, the cost/price of that commodity goes down. The larger supply of labor provided by illegal immigration increases the supply of the labor pool relative to demand.Illegal immigration reduces wages in 3 ways.

1. Illegal immigrants, being willing to work for lower wages, then their American counterparts, set the wage floor lower than it normally would be.

2. Illegal immigrants increase the labor force size, thus increasing the "supply" of labor relative to demand. Increasing the supply of labor has the same effect as increasing the supply of any consumer good, it reduces the "price" of labor, which means it reduces wages. Illegal immigrants are currently employed in 7 million of America's 143 million jobs. There are a total of 150 million workers considered to be "participating" in our labor force. The subtraction of the 7 million illegal workers would reduce this number to 143 million participating workers. The effect of such a "supply" reduction would be to increase the "price" of labor by basic supply & demand effect. Again, the increase in "price" of labor equates to an increase in wages.

3. As a result of the above 2 wage-suppressing effects, illegal immigration suppresses total aggregate labor income. Labor economist George Borjas puts the annual wage suppression at 4%, or $1700/worker. Multiplying that $1700/worker loss times 143 million workers gives a total loss of $243 billion dollars annually. That reduces potential consumer spending by $243 billion/year. The reduction in consumer spending reduces demand for production, and the demand for workers to provide that production. The result of this reduced demand for labor is a further reduction in wages.

Any 1 of the above 3 would reduce wages by itself, but the 3 together suppress wages even further. Again, the Borjas estimate of wage suppression from the immigration that occurred between 1980 and 2000 is $1700/worker/year, or 4% per year.


By the Numbers:

• By increasing the labor supply between 1980 and 2000, immigration reduced the average annual earnings of U.S.-born men by an estimated $1,700, or roughly 4 percent.


• Among those born in the United States who did not graduate from high school -- roughly the poorest one-tenth of the work force -- the estimated impact was even larger, reducing wages by 7.4 percent.

• The negative effect on U.S.-born black and Hispanic workers is significantly larger than on whites, because a much larger share of minorities are in direct competition with immigrants.

• The reduction in earnings occurs regardless of whether the immigrants are legal or illegal, permanent or temporary. It is the presence of additional workers that reduces wages, not their legal status, but it is the uncontrolled nature of illegal immigration that makes that situation so untenable.Source: Jorge Borgas, Kennedy School of Government at Harvard .

There are places in the United States where illegal immigration has big effects (both positive and negative). But economists generally believe that when averaged over the whole economy, the effect is a small net positive. Harvard's George Borjas says the average American's wealth is increased by less than 1 percent because of illegal immigration.


According to Dr. Borjas, "The economic impact of illegal immigration is far smaller than other trends in the economy, such as the increasing use of automation in manufacturing or the growth in global trade. Those two factors have a much bigger impact on wages, prices and the health of the U.S. economy."

Monday, May 14, 2007

Why Is This Wrong?.....I'm Just Asking.






Today's (Monday May 14, 2007) New York Post has an "Exclusive" story on Herman Lamison (owner of the home pictured left), a Southampton Village cop who earns $1.3 million/year doing security work for wealthy patrons along with his assigned police duties.


From the NY Post;


" Meet Long Island's million-dollar cop, a Southampton village detective who reeled in a whopping $1.3 million annual salary through side jobs for tony clientele.

"Officer Herman Lamison already rakes in well over $100,000 yearly for his police work. But he's earned hundreds of thousands more performing secondary jobs for local cash-flush residents - tending to their estates, providing security and generally offering them peace of mind, records show.

"And Lamison is not alone.

"As NYPD cops groan about their appalling $25,000-a-year starting salary, Lamison and his colleagues, especially those employed by small East End departments, are living like the glamorous residents they've sworn to protect and serve.

"Lamison, a Southampton native on the force since 1986, uses his stunning income to fund a plush mansion with a three-car garage in the prestigious Parrish Pond subdivision and several other properties, according to records.

"He declined to comment.

"Other current or former East End cops are churning out big bucks through such businesses as Kona Security, Fortress Security and Pondview Services.

"They are setting up shop for a reason. Many mansion owners want to hire local cops to check in on their estates during the off season to guard against theft, burst pipes and squatters...


"...Lamison's crew was noted for throwing filmmaker Michael Moore off the property during an attempted filming in 1998."



I like him already. If the owner of that property wanted Moore to be able to film there, he wouldn't have had security remove him. They were just doing their job.


What's wrong with a guy making an honest living from a legitimate side job? To me, Herman Lamison is a modern day Horatio Alger story. The media should be celebrating this guy instead of trying to stir up class envy at his expense.


See the entire story:


Saturday, May 12, 2007

Olbermann Calls the Fort Dix Six “Morons,” Their Defense Attorneys Claim Entrapment


















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Keith Olbermann, who insists on continuing to out-Rosie the media’s favorite “Truther,” Rosie O’Donnell, dismissed the Fort Dix Six as “morons,” while the defense has a somewhat different strategy – they’re considering claiming “Entrapment.

As the AP’s Jim Mulvihill writes, “He railed against the United States, helped scout out military installations for attack, offered to introduce his comrades to an arms dealer, and gave them a list of weapons he could procure, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

“These were not the actions of a terrorist, but of a paid FBI informant who helped bring down an alleged plot by six Muslim men to massacre U.S. soldiers at New Jersey's Fort Dix.

“And those actions have raised questions of whether the government crossed the line and pushed the six men down a path they would not have otherwise followed.

“It is an argument—entrapment—that has been made in other terrorism cases, and one that has failed miserably in this post-Sept. 11 era.”

Still, Entrapment is defined as “powerful persuasion by a state actor, to commit a crime, which induces the plaintiff to engage in acts he otherwise wouldn't."

That is to say, that it's NOT the same thing as simply asking another person, "Uh, you wanna smoke a joint?" or "Hey! I’ve got an idea, why don’t we attack a U.S. Army installation?" For the entrapment defense to actually work, you usually have to convince a jury that the persuasion was so powerful that pretty much the ONLY reason the particular crime was committed was the persuasion itself.

The fact that the Duka brothers and their cohorts were already practicing their marksmanship at local firing ranges, trying to find gun dealers, making jihadist videos, not to mention, actively planning attacks on Americans, it’s doubtfult the entrapment defense has much of a chance.

This crew was already planning this attack, the FBI undercover guy merely got them to say it on tape.

It’s nice to see Keith Olbermann and other reliable “Truthers” grasping at any available straw to cast America in the worst possible liht.

Go Keith GO!

Yeah, really just GO...get the hell out of here, OK.

Liberal Judges Punishing U.S. Armed Forces Parents?






Eva Crouch (pictured left) had raised her daughter for six years following her divorce, taking her daughter to after school activities and making sure schoolwork was done.

Then Lt. Eva Crouch was mobilized with the Kentucky National Guard, and Sara went to stay with Dad.

A year and a half later, her assignment up, she called her ex-husband and said she’d be there the next day to pick Sara up, but his response was a terse, “Not without a court order you won’t.”

Within a month, a judge had decided that Sara should stay with her dad. It was, he said, in “the best interests of the child.”

What happened? Crouch had already been established by the courts as the legal residential caretaker; this was only supposed to be temporary. What had changed? She wasn’t a drug addict, or an alcoholic, or an abusive mother.

Her only misstep, it seems, was answering the call to duty.

Crouch and an unknown number of others among the 140,000-plus single parents in uniform are now fighting a war on two fronts: overseas for the nation they’re sworn to defend, and on the domestic front, for the children they’re losing because of that duty.

There is a federal law called the Service-members Civil Relief Act is meant to protect them by staying civil court actions and administrative proceedings during military activation. They can’t be evicted. Creditors can’t seize their property and civilian health benefits, if suspended during deployment, must be reinstated.

And yet service members’ children can be — and are being — taken from them after they are deployed.
Some family court judges say that determining what’s best for a child in a custody case is simply not comparable to deciding civil property disputes and the like; they’ve ruled that family law trumps the federal law protecting America’s troops.

To date no one has made a coherent argument, legal or otherwise, why service-members should not retain the guardianship awarded prior to their deployments.

This has caused many supporters of the federal law to support changing it so that soldiers should be assured that they can regain the custody of the children they had custody of before their deployment.

Some states aren’t waiting for congressional action. In 2005, California enacted a law saying a parent’s absence due to military activation cannot be used to justify permanent changes in custody or visitation. Michigan and Kentucky followed suit, requiring that temporary changes made because of deployment revert back to the original agreement once deployment ends.

Similar legislation has been proposed in Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, Texas and North Carolina.

Last September, Eva Crouch got Sara back.
Remarried now, Crouch is expecting another baby this August. But with 18 years in the military, she knows she could be mobilized again. One thing is clear to her now: Serving her country isn’t worth losing her daughter.

“I can’t leave my child again.”

Just what a Liberal judge would want, right?

A Judge Only John Edwards Could Love





A vile administrative law judge from Washington, D.C. has become the poster boy for lawsuit abuse. Administrative Law Judge, Roy Pearson is suing a local Dry Cleaners for a whopping $67 MILLION for (gulp!) misplacing a pair of his pants...his “favorite pants,” from Pearson’s perspective.

How did a lawyer, turned judge come up with such an absurd number?

Well according to Through the Magnifying Glass, “Pearson went to the law books and citing the District of Columbia's consumer protection laws, he "claims" he's entitled to $1,500 per violation, PER DAY!

“So how did he come up with $67 million for damages and legal fees?

“$1,500 for each violation, each day during which the "Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign and another sign promising "Same Day Service" was up in the store - more than 1,200 days.

“Then he's multiplying each violation by three because he's suing Jin and Soo Chung and their son.
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He also wants $500,000 in emotional damages.
Plus $542,500 in legal fees.

“And he wants $15,000 for 10 years' worth of weekend car rentals (for forcing him to drive to another dry cleaner store).”

http://blog.case.edu/james.chang/2007/05/02/the_67_million_dollar_pants


Well, the good news is that Pearson’s law license is being reviewed and his picture no longer appears on D.C.’s list of OAH (Office of Administrative Hearings) judges.

If this guy winds up losing his judgship AND his law license for abusing the legal system, that would certainly be poetic justice.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

More Red Bell Bottomed Moonbattery






Keith Olbermann steadfastly refuses to take off those red bell bottoms. This time he’s taken to dismissing the latest example of jihad in America as “an attempt by the Bush administration to terrorize Americans with phony threats.”


Hmmmmm, shades of Rosie O’Donnell’s now infamous “Gulf of Tonkin, Google it,” about the British sailors illegally kidnapped by Iran last month.

OLBERMANN: "And one other note today. The ultimate premise of the war in Iraq and the ultimate premise, certainly, of the Republican presidential campaign ahead, counterterrorism. The FBI claims it has broken up a plot to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey. The flaw, though, in the breathless reporting of the purported terror cell, the bureau infiltrated the six-person group after its members took video of themselves practicing with assault weapons, brought the tape to a photo store, and had it transferred to a DVD.

"The details of the supposed plot don't seem to hold together that well either, though that did not stop extensive and entirely credulous coverage on TV, the Internet, in print today. The men supposedly had plans to gain access to the base disguised as pizza delivery guys, then cut the power somehow, they, quote, "hit four, five, or six Humvees and light the whole place, and retreat without any losses." And take the tape of yourselves practicing and have it copied at PhotoMat. In other words, the FBI has arrested six morons."



Uhhhhh, not to put too fine a point on this, but the nineteen jihadists who successfully flew three jetliners into both Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were also “morons” by Keith’s own definition! At least they were right up through September 10th!

So too was Richard Reid (the “shoebomber”), Jose Padilla, the Lackawanna Six, the members of the Detroit, Potland and Seattle terror cells that were busted...you get the idea.

As the good folks over at Olbermann Watch said, “All we can say is that it requires a special degree of malice to believe that any time a terror attack is successful its the U.S. officials who are the "morons" but when these same officials prevent an attack its just a scam to "terrorize" Americans cooked up by the Bush administration in cahoots with law enforcement officials and "the media" to arrest "morons" who are never a "serious" threat."

http://www.olbermannwatch.com/



All I can say is, “There’s an Olbermann Watch?”

WoW! That really is a public service. Their moniker should be, “We watch him so you don’t have to,” not that many do now-a-days, but it’s a helluva public service anyway.

Now THAT’S Entertainment!






Showing a startling propensity for ass-f*cking just about anything, the jihadists in the Hamas led government in the Palestinian territories have turned good’ol Mickey Mouse into a tool for terror!

Palestinian Authority Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti said the character — a giant black-and-white Mickey Mouse look-alike, with a high-pitched voice — represented a "mistaken approach" to the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation.

Really? Ya think?!

Geeez, don’t beat yourselves up so much. It’s tough work finding that delicate balance between indoctrination and entertainment. Believe me, I KNOW.

I will say this, the message, "You and I are laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists," which the character, named Farfour squeaked on a recent episode, adding, "We will return the Islamic community to its former greatness, and liberate Jerusalem, God willing, liberate Iraq, God willing, and liberate all the countries of the Muslims invaded by the murderers," isn’t really done any justice when delivered in falsetto. In fact, it’s pretty confusing, especially to really young kids who don’t get the nuance - and by “nuance” I mean that RPG subtle insanity – especially when delivered in a voice they’re reflexively attuned to laugh at.

Nice try though, but seriously, this is one of the worst TV characterizations since that cartoon hero of the former Soviet Union – Boris Bitjakokov.
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I don't know about you, but I'm anxiously awaiting the next incarnation of jihadist entertainment from the Muslim world - "al Borzo the jihadist Clown,"
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I know there are people out there who'll say, "There's nothing funny about a six foot rat preaching hate," but I say, "There's actually an awful lot funny about a six foot rodent with a high-pitched voice preaching hate, at least if you think about it...really, just think about it."
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Data Mining!...At the New York Times






Filed under not so humorous ironies is this story broken by the Village Voice, of all sources;

Having Won a Pulitzer for Exposing Data Mining, Times Now Eager to Do Its Own Data Mining

"Barely a year after their reporters won a Pulitzer prize for exposing data mining of ordinary citizens by a government spy agency, New York Times officials had some exciting news for stockholders last week: The Times company plans to do its own data mining of ordinary citizens, in the name of online profits.

"The news didn't make everyone all googly-eyed. In fact, some people at the paper's annual stockholders meeting in the New Amsterdam Theatre exchanged confused looks when Janet Robinson, the company's president and CEO, uttered the phrase "data mining." Wasn't that the nefarious, 21st-century sort of snooping that the National Security Agency was doing without warrants on American citizens? Wasn't that the whole subject of the prizewinning work in December 2005 by Times reporters Eric Lichtblau and James Risen?

"And hadn't the company's chairman and publisher, Pinch Sulzberger, already trotted out Pulitzers earlier in the program?

"Yes, yes, and yes. But Robinson was talking about money this time. Data mining, she told the crowd, would be used "to determine hidden patterns of uses to our website." ...

"Do readers really want data-mining behavior from their newspapers—not just the Times but every other big media outlet? Do they want newspaper databases to store reading histories, minute by minute, until one day the government shows up to examine ordinary citizens' shopping and viewing and chatting habits in detail? If you think it can't happen, ask the librarians who've been told to hand over readers' checkout records under the Patriot Act...

"...Ancient Times man Arthur Gelb made this hardly surprising observation to the Observer the other day: "Some day we'll all be reading our papers electronically." But the problem with reading papers electronically is that they can also read you."


http://www.villagevoice.com/generic/show_print.php?id=76522&page=&issue=0718&printcde=MzUzNDYzNzAyMA==&refpage=L2FkbWluL2VkaXQvZWRpdC5waHA/JmNhc2U9dXBkYXRlJnNlY3Rpb249JmlkPTc2NTIyJmlzc3VlPTA3MTgmbXNnPQ==


Why's data mining so bad again?


And if it is so bad, then why's it OK for the NY Times to engage in it for profit?

Happy Birthday to Wisconsin’s W-2!






Wisconsin’s ground-breaking welfare reform program (W-2) is ten years old!

Then WI Governor Tommy Thompson (pictured left) instituted the reforms back in 1997 and since then Wisconsin’s welfare rolls have dropped sharply.

W-2 requires recipients, including single mothers, to work or get job training in exchange for a check and child care. It replaced the conventional welfare program, Aid to Families With Dependent Children, which had been around since the 1930s.

When W-2 began in full in 1997, 34,491 families received cash assistance. This past March, it was 6,047 families.

Detractors point to a 2005 state audit that found that only about 20 percent of participants earned more than the poverty level in the year after they left. The audit also learned that mismanagement led to $1.3 million in overpayments to some parents.

Critics also point to higher costs. AFDC cost $430.9 million in fiscal year 1996-97, the last full fiscal year before AFDC ended. For the current fiscal year, W-2 is expected to cost $591.2 million, down from $707.8 million in 2002-03.

Jack Tweedie, a welfare expert at National Conference of State Legislatures, said at least four times more money went to cash assistance under AFDC, whereas more money now goes to child care.

Of course the initial aim of W-2 was and remains to get people OFF the dependency cycle of old styled welfare and back into the workforce and the real world. Thus, despite the outlays for child care having increased costs, the initial goal of W-2 has been met.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070509/ap_on_re_us/wisconsin_welfare

Goodbye Tony Blair






It’s official, Britain’s Tony Blair will resign effective June 27th, after ten years as England’s Prime Minister, the longest serving PM this century after Margaret Thatcher.

Blair’s been an English version of Bill Clinton, bringing the Labour Party out of eighteen years of political isolation and back to a Centrist Party devoid of all references to the failed policies of socialism.

Despite a long string of accomplishments including helping to bring peace to Northern Ireland and transforming Britain’s Labour Party from an extreme Left-wing rabble, with little political currency into a Centrist pro-market Party with considerable political clout today, his tenure will be dominated by sentiments over Iraq.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, it was right, Blair said, to "stand shoulder to shoulder with our oldest ally, and I did so out of belief."

Even thought the charges that “the invasion of Iraq was based on lies” has been thoroughly debunked by documentation that not only did virtually EVERY Intelligence Agency in the world believe Saddam’s Iraq had WMDs, so did the UN and Saddam’s own Generals, as Hussein encouraged and used that belief as a strategy of “deterrence by doubt,” the mismanagement of the post-war occupation of Iraq has eroded support for the effort.

"Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right," Blair told party workers and supporters at Trimdon Labour Club in his Sedgefield constituency in northern England. "I may have been wrong, but that's your call. But believe one thing if nothing else. I did what I thought was right for our country."

Blair had the courage to do what he believed was right without regard to political consequences and as a result Conservative leader David Cameron, who at age 40, has revitalized the party of Margaret Thatcher, since he became leader in 2005, could win a majority in parliament in the coming national elections.

Blair’s dour successor, Gordon Brown, will have to overcome not only his personal lack of charisma but the “Honors scandals” that have rocked the Labour Party.

The past few months have seen a police investigation into claims that the Labour party traded political honors for cash. Senior Blair aide Ruth Turner, Blair's chief fundraiser Lord Levy and two others have been arrested during the police inquiries into claims that seats in the House of Lords and other honors were awarded in exchange for party donations. Prosecutors are considering whether anyone should be charged.

Blair was questioned twice by police as a witness, but is not considered a suspect, but the scandal may well make it difficult for Labour to win in the upcoming elections.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Now THIS is Odd – Jihad in America






Six “Islamic radicals” from the former YUGOSLAVIA were arrested Tuesday on charges of planning to attack Fort Dix and “kill as many American soldiers as possible.”

Wait...the Balkans, the Balkans, didn’t we recently SAVE the Islamists in the Balkans by siding with them over the Serbians and Slobodan Milocevic?

I think we DID!

So, I suppose this is how they say “thanks” in Mujahdim?

According to the AP report, “They were scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Camden later Tuesday to face charges of conspiracy to kill U.S. servicemen, said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey. Five of them lived in Cherry Hill, he said.

"They were planning an attack on Fort Dix in which they would kill as many soldiers as possible," Drewniak said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because documents in the case remain sealed, said the attack was stopped in the planning stages.

Authorities believe the men trained in the Poconos for the attack and also conducted surveillance at other area military institutions, including Fort Monmouth, the official said. The official said that the men had lived in the United States for some time.

The six were arrested trying to buy automatic weapons in a sale set-up by law enforcement authorities, the official said.


But Remember, according to the moonbats, “THERE IS NO Terrorist Threat!”



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070508/ap_on_re_us/fort_dix_plot
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UPDATE: The three illegals among this crew came across our MEXICAN border, through Brownsville, TX as children, probably smuggled in around 1984.
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Anyone oppose that border fence now?

Why is Harold Ford Jr. Being Ignored by his Own Party?



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Two weeks ago Harold Ford Jr. wrote an excellent for Blueprint Magazine about the need for a Primary of Ideas, in which he set forth a NEW Democratic agenda based on Andrew Jackson’s credo “equal opportunity for all, special privilege for none."

A very good start.

In it he acknowledges, “But today, we face a host of challenges that seemed far off or unimaginable 15 years ago -- the spread of Islamist fanaticism, the rise of India and China, the acceleration of climate change. We have different problems to solve, and old problems that demand different answers.”

He calls for (1) Keeping America safe (against the rise of Islamo-fascism), (2) Giving Americans the tools to compete, (3) Hold government accountable for results, (4) Create a new hybrid economy, (5) make America the most pro-family country on earth and (5) end poverty for all who work.

It’s all here;

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/printpage/?url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/its_time_for_an_ideas_primary.html

WoW! The NRA and I Finally Disagree!!!






Last week, the NRA sent a letter to the Bush administration asking it to withdraw its support for a Bill that would “DENY GUN SALES TO TERROR SUSPECTS!”

Their argument sounds like something out of the ACLU’s playbook, “As many of our friends in law enforcement have rightly pointed out, the word 'suspect' has no legal meaning, particularly when it comes to denying constitutional liberties,” wrote Chris Cox the NRA’s executive director.

In the wake of the Virginia Tech rampage, legislators are looking to close some of the more obvious loopholes in gun buying laws. Current law requires gun dealers to conduct a criminal background check and deny sales if a gun purchaser falls under a specified prohibition, including a felony conviction, domestic abuse conviction or illegal immigration. There is no legal basis to deny a sale if a purchaser is on a terror watch list.

Look, if you're on a terror watch list, you are almost certainly there for good reason. Perhaps you unknowingly contributed to a charity that has ties to various terror groups – that’s reason enough for me!

Once a person is cleared, and they’re off that terror watch list, they can buy all the guns they want.

How serious is the problem?

Well, according to a recent AP article, “A 2005 study by the Government Accountability Office found that 35 of 44 firearm purchase attempts over a five-month period made by known or suspected terrorists were approved by the federal law enforcement officials.”

Come on NRA!

Don’t marginalize yourselves standing up for the “rights” of suspected terrorists!



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070504/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/terror_suspects_guns&printer=1;_ylt=At4IeCu7BB7y34Pq28aVrCWWwvIE

Saturday, May 5, 2007

Sarkozy Looks Poised for Victory in France!






After a devastating head-to-head debate, in which Segolene Royal began shouting, only to have Nicolas Sarkozy question whether she had the "emotional stability" to govern France, Sarkozy's lead in the French polls has ballooned to over 10 points.

Yesterday (Friday, May 4, 2007) Ms. Royal took the tack popularized by many Western radicals, by warning of massive violence should Sarkozy be elected Sunday.

But is that really an effective argument for appeasement ("They're already here in big numbers, so we'd better just learn to live with and accept them") or is it really a defense of Sarkozy's warning about "the Muslim menace within?"

To date, no radical anywhere, not communist George Soros, not radical Michael Moore, nor his protege Cindy Sheehan, not anyone, has made an effective argument in favor of "conciliation with Sharia-based Islam."

Perhaps the argument just cannot be made!

After all, if the Muslims in France are really the threat that Segolene Royal claims they are, then that would seem to be an argument in favor of even harsher measures than those proposed by Sarkozy and not the appeasement that Royal and the radicals are calling for.

Certainly one couldn't seriously take that warning as an argument in favor of "surrender" - "They're already here, it's too late to fight, so we just better learn to adapt to and accommodate these new-comers."

The latter is a rationalization for suicide!

Thankfully, it looks as though it's failing.

One socialist acquittance of mine has long argued that "socialism just hasn't been done right."

Of course, history says otherwise. Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot and Castro among others have ALL proven that property rights (private property) gets in the way of socialism and makes "equality" impossible, thus land (property) reform must always be the first step of any socialist regime and that first step can only be achieved through mass murder...and worse, the mass murder of a nation's most productive class - it's property owners.

No, socialism has been tried many times and in many ways and it has been rightfully declared dead.

Let's hope that France realizes that there is no hope in trying to revive a dead ideology, even one advanced by a pretty face.

Thursday, May 3, 2007

The Pay Gap Myth





For years women’s groups have been trotting out statistics that show that women, on average earn less than men in their respective fields, insinuating some insidious bias at work.

Professor Walter E. Williams put that myth to bed years ago showing that women with the same amount of time in the work force earned nearly as much as males who stayed in the workforce.

Black women, on average, earned significantly more, than their white female colleagues because they tended to have fewer breaks in their work history.

On April 24th, the National Committee on Pay Equity announced that among full-time workers, women make only 77 cents for every dollar paid to men. Of course, the three leading Democratic presidential candidates have all endorsed legislation to fix the problem.

I DON’T have a problem with this “Pay Gap,” although I do have a huge problem with people being paid differently for doing the SAME job, for the SAME amount of years and at the SAME proficiency.

None of that seems to be the case in any of the reputable studies done on the subject.

The American Association of University Women (AAUW) has done a report that acknowledges that "women with college degrees tend to go into fields like education, psychology and the humanities, which typically pay less than the sectors preferred by men, such as engineering, math and business. They are also, more likely than men, to work for nonprofit groups and local governments, which tend to offer more job security, but at lower salaries.

"As they get older, many women elect to work less so they can spend time with their children. A decade after graduation, 39 percent of women are out of the work force or working part time -- compared with only 3 percent of men. When these mothers return to full-time jobs, they naturally earn less than they would have if they had never left.

"Even before they have kids, men and women often do different things that may affect earnings. A year out of college, notes AAUW, women in full-time jobs work an average of 42 hours a week, compared to 45 for men. Men are also far more likely to work more than 50 hours a week."

Buried in the report is an incredible admission; "After accounting for all factors known to affect wages, about one-quarter of the gap remains unexplained and may be attributed to discrimination."

Recently, Harvard economist Claudia Goldin was asked whether there is sufficient evidence to conclude that women experience systematic pay discrimination. "No," she replied. “There are certainly instances of discrimination,” she says, “but most of the gap is the result of different choices.”

June O'Neill, an economist at Baruch College and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, has gone even further, as she has uncovered something that debunks the entire discrimination thesis. Take out the effects of marriage and child-rearing, and the difference between the genders suddenly vanishes. "For men and women who never marry and never have children, there is no earnings gap," she said in a recent interview.

GULP!

From “big issue,” to “no issue.”

WoW! So fast?!


I guess Walter E Williams was right all along then.

Obama Pulls a Stalin (property confiscation sans compensation)!





For the past thirty months, a man named Joe Anthony has run Barrack Obama’s official MySpace Page.

In the process he has spent an estimated $30,000 and garnered a list of some 160,000 MySpace “friends” in the process.

Recently the Obama campaign became concerned about an outsider having control of the content and responses going out under Obama's name and told Anthony they wanted him to turn it over.

The two sides tried coming to an agreement over compensation, but acknowledged that it's hard to determine the value of 160,000 MySpace friends — about four times what any other official campaign MySpace page has amassed. Ultimately, the Obama campaign decided they wouldn't pay $39,000, which is what Anthony said he proposed for his extensive work on the site, plus some additional fees up to $10,000.

MySpace reluctantly stepped in to settle the dispute and decided that Obama should have the rights to control http://www.myspace.com/barackobama as of Monday night, while Anthony had the right to take the contact information for all the friends who signed up while he was in control. That includes the right to tell them exactly how he feels about the Obama campaign.

Anthony referred The Associated Press to his MySpace blog, where he has written that he is heartbroken that the Obama campaign was "bullying" him out of the page he built. He said the candidate has lost his vote.

So, I guess Obama isn’t merely a “Liberal,” he’s a devotee of Joe Stalin, Pol Pot and Hugo Chavez as well.

WoW! Now Even Liberals Are Calling the Pelosi-wing of the Democratic party “Morons”





This past Tuesday The New Republic kicked of “May Day” by proverbially kicking Congressional Liberal Dems in the nads.

Senior Editor, Lawrence Kaplan wrote, “Maybe it was a slip of the tongue. But, when Nancy Pelosi confessed last year that she felt "sad" about President Bush's claims that Al Qaeda operates in Iraq, she seemed to be disputing what every American soldier in Iraq, every Al Qaeda operative, and anyone who reads a newspaper already knew to be true. (When I questioned him about Pelosi's assertion, a U.S. officer in Ramadi responded, incredulously, that Al Qaeda had just held a parade in his sector.) Perhaps the House speaker was alluding to the discredited claim that Al Qaeda operated in Iraq before the war.”

Ironically even that charitable last out (the one about al Qaeda not having been in Iraq prior to the U.S./U.K. led invasion has been dispelled by George Tenet whose recent book claims that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was operating in Iraq as early as May of 2002.

At any rate , Kaplan honestly assesses the possibilities in this way, “What is going on here? There are two possibilities: First, Reid and Pelosi could be purposefully minimizing the stakes in Iraq. Or, second, they don't know what they're talking about. My guess is some combination of the two. Political maneuvering certainly contributes to the everyday pollution of Iraq discourse. But a lot of the pollution derives from legislators being functionally illiterate about the war over which Congress now intends to preside. In this, of course, they're hardly alone.”

More perplexing still is these same Congressional Democrats non-reception of General Petraeus. Again, Kaplan explained, “During General Petraeus's visit to Washington last week, for example, House Democrats at first denied the Iraq commander an opportunity to brief them, citing "scheduling conflicts." And, when he finally did brief Congress, the evidence of progress that Petraeus was expected to present was dismissed before he even offered it. "He's the commander," Senator Carl Levin reasoned. "We always know that commanders are optimistic about their policies." The joke here, of course, is that Levin and his colleagues were not so long ago denouncing the Bush administration -- and rightly so -- for the sin of disparaging military expertise.”

Stranger still, is the fact that most of these Congressional Dems voted to confirm General Petraeus, who endorsed the surge, thus confirming Petraeus was, in effect, supporting the surge.

Even the Washington posts’ David Broder has taken Harry Reid to task for undermining his own plan for a diplomatic solution to Iraq.

"Instead of reinforcing the important proposition ... that a military strategy for Iraq is necessary but not sufficient to solve the myriad political problems of that country, Reid has mistakenly argued that the military effort is lost but a diplomatic-political strategy can succeed." Nor is this the only reason to doubt the reasoning behind Reid's "diplomatic surge." To begin with, even if they were inclined to assist the American cause in Iraq, neither Iran nor Syria have much, if any, sway over Al Qaeda. Moreover, the violence in Iraq has its own, wholly internal logic. In fact, the one brand of diplomacy that truly matters in Iraq--the U.S. Army's tribal diplomacy, which accounts for the recent turn-around in Anbar Province--is precisely the mission that Reid's demand for a skeleton force would shut down.”

Lawrence Kaplan calls them “illiterate on Iraq,” and Broder calls Reid’s basic common sense into question.

Does it get any better and yet, at the same time, scarier than that?!




http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w070430&s=kaplan050107
American Ideas Click Here!