The SCOTUS decided to allow a safe haven for Rep. William (Dollar Bill) Jefferson (D-La) to conduct illegal activity by refusing to hear an appeal by the FBI.
Hiding behind the ’speech or debate’ clause of the Constitution creates a safe haven for criminal behavior. Who thinks that was the intention of the founding fathers?
related link: The Godfathers In Congress | Court Declines FBI Jefferson appeal | Best Defense Is A Good Admission?
Ever notice how politicians in both parties always want to spend more on education at all levels? There never, never seems to be enough money. After all, spending more on education is a feel-good type exercise. It makes our caring-karma glow and helps politicians get re-elected. But what good does it do our children? Why are we not seeing positive results there? Could it be because of the K-Mart (no offense to K-Mart) mentality of educating our children. That is to say, quantity rather than quality, like the editor writes. . .
The problem at the bigger, higher-profile institutions like the University of Florida and Florida State University is that they have been trying to handle too many students with increasingly tight budgets.
Yes, the budgets have risen in total dollars, but not enough to offset the rising costs of providing high-quality education to growing numbers of students.
Time is long overdue to expect more for our money which is already ‘invested’ into educating our children, and to dispel this blank-check, or bottomless-pit theory that if we just spend more money on education that we will get bright and educated children. We’ve had bright and educated children in our history with much smaller expenditures than what we are seeing today.
In financing education in Florida, the lottery shell-game that we all bought into years ago ‘has come home to roost.’ And while some politicians are quick to trash BIG OIL, BIG PHARM, BIG INSURANCE, and BIG ENERGY on costs, where in the world are they on BIG EDUCATION? The assumption that spending more money because costs are rising, instead of addressing the rising cost is where we lose focus on the important thing, teaching our children to be bright, productive, and able to think and reason on their own.
To borrow an overused phrase and campaign slogan, it’s time for change we can believe in. It’s time for politicians to step up and attack the ‘rising cost’ factor like they are so quick to do with other industries, instead of the taxpayers’ wallet. But first, they have to come to terms with their biggest obstacle, BIG LABOR, teacher’s unions.
related link: PNJ editorial, No free lunch on tuition
Things just keep getting curiouser and curiouser. Today it is Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, who earned the moniker ‘Baghdad Jim’, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California, going on an all expenses paid junket to Iraq in October of 2002 to meet with Saddam Hussein over a year before the war began. And not one of them knew that the trip was financed by Saddam Hussein.
Are we to think that these three anti-war Democrats did not know who was paying for the trip, since they were not? ‘Plausible deniability’ dictates not to be so curious as to inquire who is picking up the tab. Take the free ride to Saddam’s palace. Take the opportunity to accuse the President of lying to the American people. And let’s not forget, all the free propaganda material Saddam can use.
I’m reminded of the words of James Carville, then attack dog and political adviser to President Clinton, when Clinton Inc. was smearing Paula Jones as ‘trailer park trash.’ Of Paula Jones, he said something like ‘that’s what you get when you drag a dollar bill through a trailer park.’ The analogy fits when applied to these three, Baghdad Jim McDermott, David Bonior and Mike Thompson. Drag a dollar through their office and they’re yours. They’ve apparently been conditioned to not ask questions.
Of the lawmakers . . .
None was charged and Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said investigators “have no information whatsoever” any of them knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.
That’s one issue. Then there’s what they said while in Baghdad. Baghdad Jim told ABC, from Baghdad, that “the president of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war.” But wait, there’s more! He said this on Iraqi TV . . .
“We are three veterans of the Vietnam War who came over here because we don’t want war. We assert from here that we do not want the United States to wage war on any peace-loving countries. As members of Congress, we would like diplomatic efforts to continue so as not to launch any aggression. We will visit children’s hospitals to see the negative impact of the sanctions imposed on Iraq. We hope that peace will prevail throughout the world.”
related link: US: Saddam paid for lawmakers’ Iraq trip | The Baghdad Democrats
Nothing but heroic courage and selfless sacrifice to celebrate today. Not the fact that the total war casualties reached 4000. Seems like only yesterday that the media was all pumped up for the 500th. Then the 1000th.
Militarily, this war has proven to be the most successful war, especially considering the global scale of the enemy, in history. Actually, the total casualties is 7,000. The first 3,000 were unarmed civilians.
One can only imagine how much lower the count would have been, and how much closer to being able to leave Iraq we would have been if the other half of the country did not choose to abandon the war in mid-stream.
Flashback to this time last year, when Gen. Petraeus wrote a ‘Letter To The Iraqi People.’ This was when the planned surge operation was about to begin. It looks like the Iraqi people took him at his word because the Iraqi people have done and are doing what he asked of them even to this day. They are turning in the insurgents and isolating them from their neighborhoods so they can be taken out. And its a good thing. Unfortunately, the left would rather abandon the Iraqi people for political expediency. Doesn’t it make sense to finish the job now instead of letting Iraq regress into a safe house/country for terrorists where we’ll have to go back and start all over, only this time with a much more dug in, armed and deadly enemy? If casualty numbers are of any concern to the Left, then they know the best option is to finish this one out and not leave, only to return to start from scratch.
related link: Iraq: The Real Story by Oliver North
Last week, mass tort lawyer Richard (Dickie) F. Scruggs, who squeezed hundreds of billions of dollars from tobacco companies, pleaded guilty to trying to bribe a state court judge in Mississippi. This, concerning a mass tort scam on insurance companies over Hurricane Katrina victims and his fees. His son, David Zachary Scruggs, reached a plea agreement today with federal prosecutors who had charged him with a role in a conspiracy to bribe a state court judge.
Is this part of a ‘design to dismantle the plaintiffs bar’ as has been suggested, or simply a matter of law enforcement? Kudo’s to the judge who did not take the bribe.
Are you as shocked as this white guy to learn what goes on in some, I hope very very few, black churches on Sunday? From Barack Obama’s former minister and still ‘spiritual leader’ spewing political and racial hatred, to a church in Harlem that tore Obama to shreds, from the pulpit. Is is painful to hear. I don’t care if you read The Lord’s Prayer on Sunday and spew that political and racial hatred, it doesn’t qualify to be the tax exempt entity it is supposed to be. Question is, how is it that THESE churches still have tax exempt status? Not to mention how damaging it is to the life and spirit of generations of black children being exposed to this kind of hatred.
Always on top of things Brian Ross of ABC News, finds that Hillary was in the White House on ‘blue dress day.’ But Brian, where’s the cigar?
Stuff White People Like. Hilarious blog. Covers many subjects that might answer some questions about white people. Helpful information for people of all races.
According to the Telegraph.co.uk, not everyone in Iran is as loony as their president. Two thirds of Iran’s population is under 30 years old. Iran has an annual inflation rate of 20 percent. With a tightly controlled media, the blogosphere and the Internet represent the only ‘free press’ in Iran. It’s only free though until the government finds you and shuts you down.
If a democratic government presided over this disaster, it would be swept from office. The young are a vital constituency; two thirds of the country’s 70 million people are under 30. They are bitterly aware that Iran floats on a sea of natural wealth, boasting the second largest reserves of oil and natural gas in the world. With oil prices exceeding $100 a barrel and no fewer than 130 billion barrels lying beneath Iran’s mountains and deserts, there is no excuse for decades of economic failure.
Like Iraq, there are a lot of people in Iran that are not hostile to freedom, liberty and the United States. The demographics in Iran will force the current political situation there to change. A change that includes the ‘west,’ that includes joining this century, that includes prospering in a world economy. Including a change from the ways and means of their current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The only question is when.
Unlike the situation in Iraq in 2003, there are, or soon will be, enough Iranians to make a change in their government peacefully. That’s the best case scenario. That could not and did not happen in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
Good luck in the elections Iran.
related link: Iran can only wait and pray
Keith Olbermann’s take on the Ferraro – Obama flap perfectly represents the ‘media’s racial angle‘ to this story. As an added bonus, you can hear, if not see, Olbermann foaming at the mouth over this.
In typical Olbermann / Liberal fashion, he accuses her and Rush Limbaugh of doing things they did not do, taking the racist accusation to the highest level. The best part is where he says that Hillary is acting like a republican. But don’t take my word for it, see for yourself.
Please notice which party it is that is turning a political fight into a racial one. These are Democrats, who are always first to notice things like race, gender, sexual preference, and the first to accuse Republicans of being racists, sexists, and homophobes. They set themselves up as caretakers for the victims they create and, through a dependent-creating liberal agenda, cultivate.
related video: Issues of race infiltrate Dems contest
Rush enjoys taking credit for the current situation the Dems find themselves in. Critics call it the Rush Factor, The Rush Vote, and the Limbaugh Effect. Rush sums it up in a way that only Rush can. I’m enjoying the chaotic view from the sidelines.
update 5/7/08: Rush, Happier Than A Pig In
From the looks of the news over the Geraldine Ferraro – Barack Obama flap, I’m feeling that there’s a whole lot of race going on and it isn’t being perpetrated by Ferraro when she said this . . .
If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.
I agree with Obama when he said that he did not take that as a racist remark. I didn’t see it that way either. It was an opinion of all the dynamics at work in a Presidential election where there is a woman and black for the first time in American history. What is distressing is the extent to which the media is running a racist angle on the story.
For the woman’s part, Ferraro has been there, done that. For the black’s part, Barack is there today. What Ferraro said was exactly right. If Barack was white, he would have been in the also-ran line with Dennis Kucinich long ago. But he is Black. He’s a handsome guy, he gives good speeches, is inspirational and, according to Joe Biden (D-DE), he is clean. In this case, the fact that he has not yet finished his first term in the Senate, has no executive experience outside of organizing neighborhood projects, seem to have no bearing on his qualifications to be President and Commander in Chief, during a war. If he would have been white, he’d be outta there. But the media apparently can not recognize that fact. Is it because they want to pick the candidate on the Democrat side of the ticket as well?
Obama’s response is clever, but shows his inability to deal with what she said. He instead attempts to tell her, and you and I, what we can and can not talk about.
“Part of what I think Geraldine Ferraro is doing, and I respect the fact that she was a trailblazer, is to participate in the kind of slice and dice politics that’s about race and about gender and about this and that, and that’s what Americans are tired of because they recognize that when we divide ourselves in that way we can’t solve problems,” Obama said on NBC’s “Today” show.
Let’s see if I understand this. Americans are tired of the race and gender politics? Oh, I thought there were record number turnouts in voting in the Democratic primaries. To the contrary, Americans are very interested in it. It isn’t Geraldine Ferraro who is dividing the Democratic party. This woman vs black issue is exposing the Democratic party in the same way that illegal immigration revealed the Republican party fissure between conservatives and Republicans.
All in all, Obama’s attempt to squelch speech by saying what you should not talk about, and to use it to accuse her of trying to divide the Democratic party, exposes his amateur, not presidential, abilities.
related links: Obama Says Ferraro Dividing Democrats | Ferraro:They’re attacking me because I’m white | Olberman Goes Ballistic Over Ferraro