The mature follower of Jesus stops asking, "Who's going to meet my needs?" and starts asking, "Whose needs can I meet?" Do you ever ask that question? -- Rick Warren
Three political goals - less pollution, less dependence of foreign oil, develop incentives for alternative fuels.
Today's Reality - gas prices are sharply up.
Probable Result - less miles driven, less pollution, less dependence on foreign oil, more of an incentive to alternative fuels. More using mass transit.
Today's election year "reality" - claim to feel pinched citizen's pain, demand oil companies reduce price of fuel, promise windfall taxes, flooding the market with oil from the Strategic Petroleum reserve and suspending federal gas tax to lessen the price of gas.
Probable Result - enable more miles, thus more pollution, more dependence on foreign oil, less incentive to develop alternative fuels.
"Writer and academic"? Yeah, wasn't Joseph Goebbels one of those, too?
Then, as a topper -- Noam Chomsky! Sympathetic to Arab mass murderers, those guys? Really? Who knew. Good thing about these Internets is you get the news and stuff fast!
First off, I want to wish all the moms out there a very happy Mother's Day. If you want to keep it happy, I'd advise you not watch the following video clip of females in Obama's travelling press corps swooning over and oogling a jeans-clad Barack Obama on a plane:
Is it just me or early on in the video did he perform a model-like twirl around one time for no apparent reason?
Look, I'll be the first one to say that he looks good in jeans. But then again, I'm not a member of the mainstream media, a group of people who are supposed to be reporting on the presidential race objectively. I personally find the whole incident appalling and believe it should be added to the mountains of evidence regarding the MSM's dereliction of duty (the Chi Tribune's John Kass writes more about that here) when it comes to fairly covering the candidacy of Barack Obama.
Michelle Malkin says the video made her throw up a little bit in her mouth. It's come pretty close to making me want to skip out on eating Mother's Day lunch.
Related: Several bloggers have caught the the Obama campaign and the NYT trying to rewrite history as it relates to his promise last summer that he would be willing to meet unconditionally with some of the world's most notorious despots, including Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Columnist Jacky Kelly ripped Obama over this in a column a few days ago about The Chosen One's repeating this promise on the campaign trail - most recently at his victory speech in North Carolina:
In defending his stated intent to meet with America's enemies without preconditions, Sen. Obama said: "I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did."
That he made this statement, and that it passed without comment by the journalists covering his speech indicates either breathtaking ignorance of history on the part of both, or deceit.
I assume the Roosevelt to whom Sen. Obama referred is Franklin D. Roosevelt. Our enemies in World War II were Nazi Germany, headed by Adolf Hitler; fascist Italy, headed by Benito Mussolini, and militarist Japan, headed by Hideki Tojo. FDR talked directly with none of them before the outbreak of hostilities, and his policy once war began was unconditional surrender.
FDR died before victory was achieved, and was succeeded by Harry Truman. Truman did not modify the policy of unconditional surrender. He ended that war not with negotiation, but with the atomic bomb.
Harry Truman also was president when North Korea invaded South Korea in June, 1950. President Truman's response was not to call up North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung for a chat. It was to send troops.
Perhaps Sen. Obama is thinking of the meeting FDR and Churchill had with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in Tehran in December, 1943, and the meetings Truman and Roosevelt had with Stalin at Yalta and Potsdam in February and July, 1945. But Stalin was then a U.S. ally, though one of whom we should have been more wary than FDR and Truman were. Few historians think the agreements reached at Yalta and Potsdam, which in effect consigned Eastern Europe to slavery, are diplomatic models we ought to follow. Even fewer Eastern Europeans think so.
When Stalin's designs became unmistakably clear, President Truman's response wasn't to seek a summit meeting. He sent military aid to Greece, ordered the Berlin airlift and the Marshall Plan, and sent troops to South Korea.
Sen. Obama is on both sounder and softer ground with regard to John F. Kennedy. The new president held a summit meeting with Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev in Vienna in June, 1961.
Elie Abel, who wrote a history of the Cuban missile crisis (The Missiles of October), said the crisis had its genesis in that summit.
"There is reason to believe that Khrushchev took Kennedy's measure in June 1961 and decided this was a young man who would shrink from hard decisions," Mr. Abel wrote. "There is no evidence to support the belief that Khrushchev ever questioned America's power. He questioned only the president's readiness to use it. As he once told Robert Frost, he came to believe that Americans are 'too liberal to fight.'"
That view was supported by New York Times columnist James Reston, who traveled to Vienna with President Kennedy: "Khrushchev had studied the events of the Bay of Pigs," Mr. Reston wrote. "He would have understood if Kennedy had left Castro alone or destroyed him, but when Kennedy was rash enough to strike at Cuba but not bold enough to finish the job, Khrushchev decided he was dealing with an inexperienced young leader who could be intimidated and blackmailed."
It's worth noting that Kennedy then was vastly more experienced than Sen. Obama is now. A combat veteran of World War II, Jack Kennedy served 14 years in Congress before becoming president. Sen. Obama has no military and little work experience, and has been in Congress for less than four years.
[...]
History is an elective few liberals choose to take these days, noted a poster on the Web log "Hot Air." The lack of historical knowledge among journalists is merely appalling. But in a presidential candidate it's dangerous. As Sir Winston Churchill said:
"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
Wait is it 10:41 CST? Why, yes it is. I rolled my old bones out of bed an hour ago, secure in the knowledge that I got to sleep in today. Sleeping is just better when you know someone else is responsible for the urchins. A breakfast spread (not in bed--that mode of eating is overrated--crumbs, spilled stuff, it's better in theory) sat on the table. My little cherubs were there. The youngest one sans clothes. He's happier that way these days.
I got a present. Try to not be jealous. It's going to be hard because they're so freakin' cool!
The earphones, made by Etymotic Research specially for my iPhone, cancel noise, so I'm not blasting my eardrums now turning the music up so dang loud to cancel external noise. They fit into my wee ear canal comfortably. My Apple earphones hurt my ear and were falling apart after daily use since December. I endured the pain because 1) I'm cheap and 2) my options sucked for so long. The benefits of the old Apple earphones still outweighed the other two choices. With the Apple earphones, you could use the phone and I really, really like the feature of uninterrupted music. That is, I could receive a phone call or make one, and the song I was listening to would fade out and then back in right where it was. The other headphones were either headphones or wireless blue tooth phone, but not both phone and headphones.
Not now. The Etymotic HF2's do everything the old Apple earphones do, they just do it oh so much better. The sound is astonishingly good. Rich and full, nice bass, mid-tones good, treble decent. Sounds a bit tinny right now but I'm listening to an old Roy Orbison recording of You Got It so it might be that. Now, I'm listening to Prince's I Would Die For You. Sounds the same. It's the earphones. But I'm quibbling. They are fantastic.
I accepted one phone call and experimented with going outside. A complaint about the Apple headphones was that the microphone picked up every little sound. Thus, a breezy day negated talking on the phone outdoors with the headphones on a walk say, requiring me to pull them out, hold the headphones in one hand (no clip--the new ones have a clip) and gab on the phone. I know. I suffer. We'll see if it's the same deal with the new ones. I don't know. During my one test run, the caller could hear the birds chirping in the background, so we'll see.
If I was a good mother, I'd be waxing elephant about the inherent joys of motherhood first before telling you yahoos about the rocking headphones. But I never claimed to be a good mother. No award winning, heroic deeds of self-sacrifice (this morning yet, anyway) to distinguish me from any other mother who does her loving duty day in and day out. I just love my kids.
I had no intention of writing another "liberals seethe" post regarding Jenna Bush's nuptials. Been there, done that. Yet, this one caught my eye. Why? Because it was not the DU, Kosbat, HuffPost, or any of the usual suspects.
Here is the winning comment for Most Compassionate Liberal
A gross filthy little *** who eats our food, drinks our water, and vomits in our faces.
These Bushes are like a VD infection, some kind of gross bacteria parasites, wasting our substance with their drunken parties and immoral filthy behavior. They do no work, they contribute nothing to this nation, and they live the high life of absolute indolent waste on their little "ranches" in OUR state of Texas, why must we continue to tolerate these gross indolent thieves?
Liberals sure love their fellow Americans. Such tolerance and love.
Other pleasant responses
Do you think maybe this was a shotgun wedding? It appeared to me that Dubya might be a proud grandpa in about months!!
I wonder how many of their weddings presents were paid for with some of the billions in blood money her father''s war profiteer friends have made?
Her father has murdered more then 4,000 of our brave young troops. More then 4,000 young men and women that will never have families or at least never be part of their lives. And then there are the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians the he has slaughtered. And for what? Only for the profit of the already rich. Nothing more. They all died so his friends could get richer. That''s it. That''s the sickening truth. They died for money and greed! they all died in vain. And I''m supposed to be happy that the daughter of a mass murdering war criminal got married? Fu*ck ''em!
Ten bucks says it''s over within the year. Any takers?
I hope she someday comes to realize that she is the spawn of hell and turns on her father for the murders and war crimes he has committed. I hope she comes to a place where she hates him forever.
Tough sh*it. this is no different then announcing the marriage of Hitler''s daughter. Why should I be happy with all of the blood her father has dripping from his hands? he is a war criminal and a mass-murderer. He is scum. He is what maggots puke up. It doesn''t matter if she "seems decent", she is the child of a demon who deserves to DIE!
I hope their marriage goes as well as W''s term! You live by the sword......
The coward daughter of a coward father weds a coward dickless son-in-law.
Aw gee, isn''t that nice. That warms my heart almost as much as watching a tramp blow chunks in a sewer. Have a nice honeymoon brat and brat-ess.
A match cursed in hell.
I hope they''ve both been sterilized so as not to spawn any more GOP scum.
Early evening update: Half of the comments, including the main excerpted one, have been wacked. Apparently, someone is actually awake at CBS News. You can still see the screen shot above, though.
William Teach | 10:40 AM |
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May 10, 2008
Westboro Baptist Cult May Protest Jenna Bush's Wedding?
Even Cindy Sheehan concedes this would be too tacky...but the Westboro Cult has never let something small like tact get in the way. I'm not sure how these attention whores twist a heterosexual marriage into an appropriate place to protest homosexuality, but then I don't see how they twist any of the funerals they protest at as appropriate settings either. Anything that will make a headline, I guess.
The crowd from the Crawford Texas Peace House may be sitting this one out, but the sanctity of President Bush’s daughter’s wedding Saturday won’t necessarily stop anti-homosexual protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church from trying to crash the blessed event.
Shirley Phelps Roper, daughter of the leader of the Topeka, Kan., church whose members picket at locations where they believe homosexuality is being encouraged, said eight church members will picket near Jenna Bush’s wedding Saturday night.
The protesters will set up at Prairie Chapel Road and Farm-to-Market Road 185 from 6 to 7:30 p.m., Roper said.
Meanwhile, peace activist Kay Lucas, caretaker of the Crawford Texas Peace House, says the organization plans no protests of its own Saturday but will staff its headquarters at 9142 Fifth St. in Crawford, several miles east of the president’s 1,600-acre ranch.
“We just felt that she (Jenna) doesn’t have anything to do with her father and his policies,” Lucas said. “And this is a woman’s one-time dream of a wedding day. Protesting would just be tacky.”
It’s a rare concession by the peace activists, who have mounted local protests of President Bush’s war policies since 2003.
They were pivotally involved in Cindy Sheehan’s massive anti-war protest near the president’s ranch in August 2005.
Roper’s group, however, trailed the president last week as he toured tornado-ravaged areas of Kansas, she said.
Professional racist Al Sharpton ruined careers with the Tawana Brawley hoax, got Yankel Rosenbaum killed by inciting riots in Crown Heights, and provoked the murder of seven people at a "white interloper's" store in Harlem. Just this week, he shut down New York City's bridges and tunnels with yet another of his self-serving publicity stunts. Rather than the contempt and derision he deserves, Sharpton has been rewarded with a position of great prominence in the Democrat Party, and treated with absurdly inappropriate respect by the media.
Naturally Sharpton is spinning expectations that he pay his taxes like everyone else as another example of the white man's oppression. We'll see if this strategy also works with his National Action Network's failure to properly maintain workers compensation and unemployment insurance.
An incorrigible lowlife, Sharpton has been sued for not paying his bills many times before. But now he's under federal investigation by the FBI and IRS, and ten of his associates have received grand jury subpoenas. However, Sharpton has managed to beat the rap for tax fraud in the past by pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges.
At least this might be enough to derail a Supreme Court nomination if by some tragedy the MSM is able to install his identity politics colleague Barack Obama in the White House.
On tips from Wiggins and conservativeteen. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.
Van Helsing | 12:46 PM |
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Mark Steyn provides "greatest hour of television in Canadian history"?
OK, that's not saying too much, since the previous "greatest hour" was, by general consensus, The Trailer Park Boy's Christmas Special...
In less than a month, a quasi-judicial tribunal may order Canada's oldest national newsweekly to run 5 pages of Islamist propoganda, because the magazine once printed an excerpt from Mark Steyn's book America Alone.
As part of the media tour, he actually faced his "accusers" for the first time -- on a live TV show called The Agenda.
(Actually, Steyn faced the "boy band" pretending to be his accusers, hired to give the case a more attractive public face; the actual name on all the court documents, Mohammed Elmasry, once declared on national television that all Israeli civilians over the age of 18 are legitimate targets for death and dismemberment. And no: he wasn't charged with anything for saying that.)
It's Mark Steyn like you've literally never seen him before.
PS: if you're keen on following the Mark Steyn/Ezra Levant "hate speech" cases, remember to visit FreeMarkSteyn.com, for daily updates on their travails plus free speech/anti-Islamist commentary from around the globe.
Sen. Barack Obama won the endorsement of the Teamsters earlier this year after privately telling the union he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption, according to officials from the union and the Obama campaign.
It's an unusual stance for a presidential candidate. Policy makers have largely treated monitoring of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as a legal matter left to the Justice Department since an independent review board was set up in 1992 to eliminate mob influence in the union.
Well, he likes to associate with terrorists and racists, so why not corrupt teamsters and mobsters, too?
Besides, he's a politician. Who cares about what's good for the people when he could screw them over to get a few extra votes?
Cross-posted from Cassy's blog. Stop by for more original writing.
Cassy Fiano | 10:26 AM |
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Arianna Huffington: Iraq is McCain's viagra
Un-freakin-believable.
Here's the Head Huffpo herself being a REAL class act on the Colbert Report:
I don't know where she gets that McCain is some ulta-right wing conservative now all of a sudden, because honey, he's not. It's interesting, though, that Arianna Huffington, of all people, would criticize someone for switching sides. Isn't she, like, the queen of that?
And apparently, McCain is no longer an American hero, simply because he's adopted a few more conservative values in her book.
Attention soldiers, veterans, and former POWs: you're only considered an American hero if your politics are strictly aligned with the left. Otherwise, your heroic service means nil.
Make sure to give all of them a warm welcome and check out their blogs!
John Hawkins | 01:48 AM |
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May 09, 2008
The 25 Most Influential People On The Right According To Conservative Bloggers
Right Wing News emailed more than 235 right-of-center bloggers and asked them to send us a list of whom they considered to be the most influential people on the right. Representatives from the following 54 blogs responded...
All bloggers were allowed to make anywhere from 1-12 unranked selections and were allowed to choose anybody on the right or generally perceived to be on the right that they liked: Republican, Conservative, Libertarian, politician, preacher, blogger, columnist, radio host, you name it!
Without further ado, here are their selections with the number of votes beside of each selection:
#25: Mark Levin: 6
#21) Hugh Hewitt: 7
#21) George Will: 7
#21) John Roberts: 7
#21) Ronald Reagan: 7
#20) Victor Davis Hanson: 8
#19) Antonin Scalia: 9
#18) John McCain: 10
#14) Glenn Beck: 11
#14) George W. Bush: 11
#14) Glenn Reynolds: 11
#14) Matt Drudge: 11
#13) Bill Kristol: 12
#10) Charles Krauthammer: 13
#10) Thomas Sowell: 13
#10) Laura Ingraham: 13
#9) Karl Rove: 14
#8) Jonah Goldberg: 15
#7) Bill O'Reilly: 17
#5) Newt Gingrich: 21
#5) Ann Coulter: 21
#3) Mark Steyn: 23
#3) Sean Hannity: 23
#2) Michelle Malkin: 24
#1) Rush Limbaugh: 49
Cassy Fiano: "God, you're a whale. ROFL. Hate to break it to you, hunny, but liberals don't WANT to date you." (W/ hot pic)
Cracked: The 6 creepiest comic book characters of all time
Rittenhouse: The worst Honeymoon story evah!
Rachel Lucas: How about 8 things he hates about you?
Hollywood Tuna: Marisa Miller bikini pictures
You can check out all those links and more by clicking here. Don't forget to bookmark RWN's companion page, CG! Remember, if you're not reading RWN and CG every day, you're not getting the full story!
PS: If you'd like to submit articles to be linked to Conservative Grapevine, register at CG, and then shoot me an email.
John Hawkins | 06:30 AM |
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My Latest Townhall Column: The Republican Party's Real Problem In A Nutshell
How do you win elections when your supporters are unenthusiastic, people are sick of your political party, and money is in short supply? Unfortunately, in 2006, the answer was, "You don't."
In 2006, Republicans lost 6 seats in the Senate and 30 seats in the House. Although it's far too early to say for sure, judging by the direction the political winds are blowing, it wouldn't be the least bit surprising if the GOP loses another 4-6 seats in the Senate and an additional 10-15 House seats this time around.
So, why does the GOP seem to be trapped in this recurring political nightmare?
There are a plethora of different reasons for it: the war in Iraq, gas prices, a soft economy, George Bush's lack of communication skills, corruption scandals, the illegal immigration brouhaha, nominee John McCain, out-of-control spending -- you can go on and on.
However, there is one overriding problem that dwarfs all the others, a problem that few people in the leadership of the Republican Party seem to have come to grips with. That problem is...
The RWN List Of 19 Things Every Man Should Be Able To Do
Esquire has a list of the The 75 Skills Every Man Should Master. Although it's a fun list, they left out a few essentials and went heavy on the fluff. Here's the RWN list of the 19 things every man should be able to do,
1) Shoot a gun.
2) Catch a fish.
3) Throw a punch.
4) Take a punch.
5) Know how to deal with a dog that is acting aggressively.
6) Know what to do if a tornado or hurricane hits.
7) Cook a steak and a baked potato.
8) Jump-start a car.
9) Change a tire.
10) Drive a stick shift.
11) Give a firm handshake.
12) Read a map.
13) Handle a budget.
14) Swim.
15) Tie a tie.
16) Give a 5 minute speech.
17) Comfort someone who has just had a loved one die.
18) Negotiate a raise or a price on something he's going to buy.
19) Tell a pushy salesman "no."
John Hawkins | 06:25 AM |
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Advertising Promo
Hey, it would be really great if you could click on a few of my advertisers to show them that advertising on Right Wing News pays off for them. The more clicks they get, the better value they get for their money, the more likely they are to advertise here again...
PS: If you'd like to purchase a banner ad on Right Wing News for a month, you can get it for $60. If you're interested, click here and follow the instructions.
John Hawkins | 06:24 AM |
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Irony Alert: A Democrat Complains About People Being Split Into Groups?
I found this quote from Democratic strategist Donna Brazile to be deliciously ironic,
"Paul, baby, we need to not divide and polarize the Democratic Party. . . . So stop the divisions. Stop trying to split us into these groups, Paul, because you and I know . . . how Democrats win, and to simply suggest that Hillary's coalition is better than Obama's, Obama's is better than Hillary's -- no. We have a big party, Paul." And: "Just don't divide me and tell me I cannot stand in Hillary's camp because I'm black, and I can't stand in Obama's camp because I'm female. Because I'm both. . . . Don't start with me, baby." Finally: "It's our party, Paul. Don't say my party. It's our party. Because it's time that we bring the party back together, Paul."
"So stop the divisions. Stop trying to split us into these groups..." -- you've got to be kidding me. The Democratic Party is all about identity politics and so splitting people into groups is at the core of what the Democratic Party does.
It's black vs. white, women vs. men, North vs. South, atheists vs. Christians, successful people vs. unsuccessful people, the poor vs. businesses, on and on and on. Heck, both of their candidates? Barack Obama wouldn't be a contender is he wasn't black and Hillary Clinton wouldn't be a contender if she wasn't a woman.
So, of course they're dividing and splitting each other into groups; promoting envy, jealousy, and hatred between different groups of Americans is the bread and butter of the Democratic Party.
John Hawkins | 05:30 AM |
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Why We Need Gitmo
If you want to see a great example of why Gitmo is absolutely necessary and why it would be a disaster to feed the terrorists we capture through our justice system, this story is it,
An extremist Muslim cleric regarded as "Osama bin Laden's spiritual ambassador in Europe" must be released on bail, a judge ruled today.
Abu Qatada, 48, who won his legal fight against deportation to Jordan last month, will be freed from prison under strict bail conditions amounting to 22-hour house arrest despite the fact that he is still deemed to be a threat to national security.
The cleric applied to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) for bail on the grounds that it was inhumane to detain him indefinitely if there was no prospect of his being deported.
The order to release him is the latest in a series of judicial decisions which undermine the Government's stance on terrorism.
In the past year, the courts have effectively rewritten sections of terrorism legislation and ruled that financial sanctions on terror suspects were absurd and unlawful.
The earlier judgment on Abu Qatada's deportation wrecked the policy of drawing up "memoranda of understanding" for the return of suspects to Middle East countries with poor human rights records.
Further embarrassments are likely to follow. The Times understands that the head of an Algerian terrorist network which plotted bomb attacks in Europe and north America is also seeking to be released because the courts have thwarted attempts to deport him.
Get ready, folks, because whether we end up with McCain, Obama, or Hillary in the White House, this is probably what our future looks like.
The website of the day is 
