In his latest column, Victor Davis Hanson discusses how many of our troops are still stationed in Europe...

"We lament the lack of plentiful European troops in Afghanistan and Iraq for a variety of other reasons. Almost 150,000 American sailors, airmen, and soldiers are concurrently stationed in various European countries while thin lines of Americans battle in the Afghan badlands and the Sunni Triangle — a de facto damning indictment of our entire approach to military deployment abroad."

The Soviet Union is no longer a threat, it doesn't look likely that Western Europe is going to start slugging it out again in the near future, and certainly Europe can afford to defend itself. So why in the world do we still have 150,000 troops in Western Europe?

VDH suggests cutting our troop levels down to about 30,000 or so in the region and agree with him. Why not move some of our troops to more relevant locations, ones where they're more appreciated and of more strategic use, and bring the rest home? I'm not saying we should totally get rid of our European bases, but there's just no need to have 150,000 soldiers siting around old Europe.

Furthermore, once we get the nukes out of the North Korea and get that situation settled down, I'd like to see us move our troops out of South Korea too. Again, why keep American troops, 40,000 of them, in a rich country that is fully capable of defending itself with a little bit of preparation? We have battle groups in the area and bases in Japan that we can launch planes from in the event of a North Korean attack, so it's not as if we would be forced to totally abandon South Korea. So, I see little value in leaving our troops there especially given the increasingly hostile attitude younger South Koreans have towards our soldiers and our country.

So all total here, we're talking 160,000 US troops that would almost certainly be more welcome & better positioned in places other than where they're currently deployed. Should we have that many soldiers on the sidelines in the dangerous world we live in today? I think not...

Look out conservative America because Air America Radio is on the air now! Saucy & controversial liberal hosts like Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo, & Chuck D., are going take the fight to the right -- yeah! -- in conservative strongholds like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, Minneapolis, Inland Ca., satellite radio....and geeze...is that it? 6 stations all located in ultra-liberal cities (correction: Inland in an area, not a city) & satellite radio? Yeesh....well at least the left will finally have a way to get their message out -- well other than all the newspapers, cable outlets, and websites that have being incessantly hyping the debut of "Air America". Well in any case, with great interviews like this from conspiracy spewing harpy (And yes, I've heard her show before) Randi Rhodes, how can they go wrong?

Ralph Nader: ... can you – is this the way you want to start Air America? You want it to be Hot Air America?

The interview ended when Nader finally hung up on Rhodes.

Wow....that was uh...uh...something. But hey, they're getting the message out...assuming it has something to do with bickering.

But, if NPR can make, Alan Colmes can make it, Ted Rall can get published on Yahoo, Noam Chomsky can make a living peddling America hatred, why not these guys? Sure, if I were betting, my guess would be that Air America will probably be playing Salsa or Top 40 radio in 18 months or so rather than continuing on with Franken, Chuck D., Garofalo, and the rest of "team screechy liberal," but stranger things have happened. I can't say that I'm wishing them luck, but at least from this point on, no one will ever be able to claim that conservatives have somehow, someway, held back the left on radio...

I really enjoyed the original "Walking Tall," the tale -- based on a true story -- of a vigilante who becomes sheriff of a Southern town and cleans it up by beating every bad guy he can find with a 2x4. Furthermore, I enjoyed the "Scorpion King" and ranked "The Rundown" as my #29th favorite movie of all time, so I was looking forward to seeing how well the Rock could do in the role of Buford Pusser (changed to Chris Vaughn in the movie). I mean if a stiff like Joe Don Baker could turn this into the role of a lifetime, then I figured a much more talented actor like the Rock (stop laughing, the Rock may not be Travolta or Gibson, but he's fantastic for an action movie star) should have been able to really shine in the role.

The movie opens up with the Rock returning to the small Southern town he grew up in and not liking what he sees. The mill where his father worked closed down and a casino opened up in its place, drugs are everywhere, and the town is run by his old, but not very likable buddy Jay.

This opening part of this movie held your interest, but was still a little slow. You get to meet the Rock -- who comes across as extremely likable -- a few of his friends, his family, you find out what's happening around, etc, etc. A lot of action movies like to toss a meaningless fight scene in early to keep the audience from getting antsy, but it was not to be in this film.

But things do pick up -- boy do they pick up -- after the Rock catches a dealer cheating him at the casino and gets beaten up, sliced to pieces, and left for dead. Next thing you know he's inspired to go back the casino and tear the place up, he's in court, he's the sheriff, he's going after the bad guys, the movie is over, and you're going "is that it"?

Normally, when I have a problem with the length of a movie, I end up thinking it was too long. But in this case, the movie was too short. The film only runs an 1:25 as compared to the original, which took 2:05 minutes to tell roughly the same story. Just to give you an example of how quick things went, at one point the Rock says he's running for sheriff and less than 2 minutes later, he IS the sheriff. No campaigning, nobody voting, just a few people in the background chanting "Vaughn, Vaughn, Vaughn" and wham, bam, thank you mam, and Chris Vaughn is the "People's Champ".

Does that mean the movie's bad? No, just disappointing compared to the original which weaved a longer, much more compelling, storyline that really sucked you in. The original "Walking Tall" was an epic tale of sacrifice and struggle whereas this movie flies by far too fast to merit such high praise.

That being said, the action was good, the story wasn't bad, and the characters, particularly the Rock and his buddy Ray (played by Johnny Knoxville) were likable. So I will give the movie a thumbs up, just barely, on that basis. However, had they stuck a little closer to the plot of the original, and added let's say 30 minutes to the movie, I think this could have been the film that made the Rock into a huge star. It's too bad the script writers let him down...

Washington, DC - Speaking before the National Association of Economists yesterday, Senator John Kerry, Democrat candidate for President, presented his plan for the economic revitalization of the United States.

“President Bush has devastated the economy of the United States by emphasizing discredited ideas such as economic growth, productivity, and entrepreneurship,” said Senator Kerry. “We all know that the only way to stimulate the economy is to have people marry rich widows.”

In a statement released by the Kerry campaign, the Senator says that if elected he will eliminate the Commerce, Labor and Treasury Departments as well as the Federal reserve, and will replace them with a Department of Hooking Up which will be in charge of pairing up sexually active unemployed American men with rich widows from throughout the world.

In related news, the Kerry campaign has come out in favor of gay marriage, but only as long as one of the partners is extremely wealthy.

If you enjoyed this satire by William Grim, you can read more of his work at Broken Newz.

If you're a new RWN reader and want to know a little bit more about the page than the FAQ tells you, why not check out some of the interviews that have been done with me over the last couple of years? Besides, it's really late and I'm about to keel over I'm so tired -- ***yawn*** -- and this beats punching up more real content...

Here are the interviews I did with...

Dawn Olsen of Up Yours & More Helpful Hints on August 6, 2002

Andrew H. of Belly Flop on 5/22/03

Ben Murnane of Totally Fushed that was released on Aug 7, 2003

John Little of National Security Blog on 1/17/04.

Update #1: Dustin Hawkins of dustinmhawkins.com on 6/16/04.

This is ridiculous enough to be an April Fool's joke, but unfortunately, it's all too real...

"A House of Representatives panel has approved a sweeping new copyright bill that would boost penalties for peer-to-peer piracy and increase federal police powers against Internet copyright infringement.

Other sections of the PDEA would require Ashcroft to boost the number of antipiracy cops on the Justice Department's payroll, and order the U.S. Sentencing Commission to revisit prison term guidelines to make sure they reflect "the loss attributable to people broadly distributing copyrighted works over the Internet without authorization." The PDEA also combines parts of another of last year's proposals that bans unauthorized recording in movie theaters and includes harsh penalties if pre-release movies are swapped on peer-to-peer networks."

Holy mother of God -- 3 years in jail and a $250,000 fine for having a thousand dollars worth of downloadable songs or movies on your computer? What are they going to do next -- chop your hands off to make sure you don't use a keyboard?

This is absolutely nuts. It's like handing out prison sentences for jaywalking -- especially since it's debatable at best whether file trading even hurts sales.

And we're going to drag the FBI into this? Really? Do we have some sort of massive glut of FBI agents with nothing to do or have we already permanently eradicated all the real crimes; which is it? Is this scenario something we really want to see happen one day?

Agent Jones: Sir, I think we have a real problem here. You know that guy from Yemen we've been checking into? The guy down in Florida who went to Al-Qaeda's Afghan training camps in the 90s? Well, he has acquired enough fertilizer to take down a good sized building and he has been getting satellite calls from Pakistan. The last one said to "stab the eagle on the 11th of April". Something big looks to be in the works...

FBI Supervisor: That's very interesting Jones, but we're pulling you off of the case...

Agent Jones: But sir, I believe that...

FBI Supervisor: Sorry Jones, we've bigger fish to fry. This file trading has gotten out of control. We've got an 18 year old kid with over 250 songs on his computer. Streisand, Metallica, Vanilla Ice, the Dixie Chicks -- you name it, this kid has it. We've got to put this kid in the slammer before it's too late. Today it's Moby and Eminem, but tomorrow it could be James Brown "The Godfather of Soul". All I can say is not in my America, Jones, not in my America...

And you know what kind of impact these draconian penalties are going to have on file trading in the long run? Not much. Even if you toss a few hundred kids into jail in America, file trading will still be legal all over the world. And once Americans figure out what's going on, they will simply download songs from other countries while turning off their own file trading, which will make them unprosecutable, even under this law. What -- do these Senators think Americans are the only ones who listen to Britney Spears and Outkast? These clueless lackeys of the Entertainment industry in the Senate just drive me up a wall...

I have seen some sick threads at the Democratic Underground, but even I wouldn't have expected so many of them to be cheering on the Iraqis who murdered 4 American civilians and desecrated their bodies. To applaud the death of Americans, particularly Americans who were in Iraq to guard food being sent to the very people who murdered them in a terrorist attack, is just appalling. This is the unpatriotic left at its sickest and most disturbing...

DulceDecorum: "Death to ALL mercenaries. The beer is on me."

5thGenDemocrat: "Regular Army here. I wore a uniform and followed Geneva conventions. These swine were MERCENARIES. Paid Hessians. Murderers for hire. John They're worse than Al-Queda. At least Al-Queda is fighting for a cause. I say "too bad, so sad, bye-bye."

cliss: "As long as we continue to stomp on these people and "storm through doorways during a room-by-room search" like the thread says, there is no making amends with them. I've read numerous articles articles how US troops barge into peoples' homes at gunpoint, frisk women, stand on men with our boots on their heads. There is only one alternative for them: seek revenge.

And we've driven them to it."

saigon68: "Ya Payback is a b*tch. A lot of retired mercs and spooks living in Fl on the taxpayers dime after spending years working for companies like Bilgewater Industries. Air America, Continental Air Services, Kellogg Brown (they built Cam Ranh Bay)

I guess these 4 won't get that opportunity."

tedthebear: "Dey were da terminators! Only dey got terminated instead. Oops"

cleofus1: "mercenaries. These men are just serial killers with a good retirement plan. They deserve what they get."

Hat tip to A Small Victory for finding this one.

***Update #1***: From the ultra-popular left-wing blog, Daily Kos...

"Every death should be on the front page

That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them."

Here is an incredibly popular left wing blogger who has absolutely no problem with terrorists murdering a bunch of Americans and defiling their corpses. I can't tell you how repulsive, unpatriotic, and just plain old sick I find that sentiment to be. But, do you think you're going to see a lot of left-wingers denouncing what this creep said? No. Is he going to lose a lot of his regular readers. No. That tells you a lot about today's American left...a lot.

Hat tip to Little Green Footballs for pointing this post out.

***Update #2***: By the way, I thought it was worth taking note of the advertisers on the Daily Kos site. They include a number of people of Democrats running for Congress and even the Democratic National Committee itself. The Daily Kos is an "mainstream" as it gets on the left and he has no problem with Americans being butchered, burned, and hung from a bridge. Like I said, this "tells you a lot about today's American left...a lot."

***Update #3***: The Daily Kos has yanked the offending posted a lame, non-apology apology in its place. According to LGF, the Daily Kos has already lost a couple of advertisers so far as well.

By the way, can I share my opinion on something with you? Why of course I can since this is my blog =D What Markos Zuniga -- the guy who runs Daily Kos -- thinks about these "mercenaries" as he calls them is exactly what he really thinks about American soldiers.

Hell, for all intents and purposes, these guys might as well have been American soldiers. They were in Iraq at the request of the US government to guard food shipments. If our military were bigger, US soldiers would have been doing that job, not these guys. Furthermore, you can be certain that members of the American military have done and are probably still do the exact same job these men were doing in other parts of Iraq.

And no matter how much you loathe the American soldier, you have to say you "support the troops," even if you don't mean it, or you get written off as an unpatriotic dirtbag by most of the American people. So you'll hear the same leftists who rant about Bush being a Nazi and this being an illegal, imperialistic war, having to say through gritted teeth that they "support the troops". Does that really make any sense? If you think Bush is the equivalent of Hitler, logically, wouldn't the people in the field by the equivalent of the Nazi soldiers?

But in this case, since these men weren't soldiers, people like Zuniga get to say what they really think of troops, unencumbered by the platitudes that radical lefties normally have to mouth so people won't realize how they really think. I'm certainly every leftie is another Zuniga, but a large chunk thinks exactly like he does...

With Senator John F. Kerry (D-Mass) set for shoulder surgery in Boston today, an orthopedic surgeon familiar with the Senator’s condition said that Mr. Kerry’s penchant for flip-flopping may have caused the injury to his shoulder.

“Constant or repetitive flip-flopping can cause major orthopedic damage,” said Dr. Robert Claman of Massachusetts General Hospital. “If it goes unchecked, flip-flopping can injure a shoulder far more seriously than tennis or golf.”

Dr. Claman said that Mr. Kerry first felt a nagging pain in the tendon of his shoulder at the outset of his quest for the Democratic nomination, when he started flip-flopping on his vote to authorize military action in Iraq.

“At first he started favoring his right shoulder, but as Howard Dean started gaining in the polls, he started favoring the left,” Dr. Claman said.

The orthopedic specialist added that once the surgery is completed, he would strongly urge Mr. Kerry not to change his positions for the next two weeks to give the damaged tendon time to heal.

“I told him that if he goes out there and starts flip-flopping on gay marriage or taxes, he’s going to wind up right back on the operating table,” Dr. Claman said. “He agreed with me at first, then disagreed, but then agreed with me again.”

In other news, the French lawyer who is defending Saddam Hussein said today that he was actively seeking the lone Tyco holdout juror to sit on the Iraqi madman's jury.

If you enjoyed this satire by Andy Borowitz, you can read more of his work at The Borowitz Report.

There is little that government does that the free market wouldn't be capable of doing better, cheaper, and in a more timely manner with similar resources. All you have to do to figure that out is to compare Walmart to the DMV.

If you want a perfect example of what I'm talking about, just feast your eyes on this
story. And before you ask, no, it's not satire -- this is real...

"The Department of Energy program to compensate sick nuclear weapons plant workers has cost $74 million of taxpayers' funds - and only one worker has been paid.

"In my state of Iowa, almost no one will be paid," Grassley said."

Only a government agency could waste 73,985,000 out of $74 million dollars and then have the chutzpah to ask for another $76 million.

Furthermore, I find it incredibly ironic that we as a society get outraged, we bay for blood, when we see executives at Tyco & Enron making out like bandits while their companies go bankrupt. Yet, our own Federal government wastes hundreds of billions of dollars of our money every year -- and yes, I mean hundreds of billions of dollars -- on poorly run programs with reams of unnecessary red tape & staggering administrative costs and people just shrug their shoulders.

As far as I'm concerned, this should be a major breaking story at every newspaper in the country, but sadly, I understand why it isn't. You see, we've gotten so used to the government frittering our money on comically useless government programs that this sort of story barely makes anyone bat an eyebrow anymore. And that is truly lamentable..

John Kerry may flip and he may flop, but somehow, someway, he manages to land on the left. Want to see proof? Well, then you need look no further than this column by William Mayer that irrefutably shows that John Kerry is an ultra-liberal...

"...The question of how to measure a senator’s or representative’s ideology is one that political scientists regularly need to answer. For more than 30 years, the standard method for gauging ideology has been to use the annual ratings of lawmakers’ votes by various interest groups, notably the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) and the American Conservative Union (ACU).

In recent weeks, a number of commentators have asserted that Kerry’s voting history is complicated to classify. The evidence doesn’t bear this out. If you take the numbers here, cover up Kerry’s name and then ask a sample of American political scientists, “I have here a senator who in the past 10 years has had an average ADA score of 92 and an average ACU score of 6. Is he a liberal, a moderate or a conservative?” they would have no difficulty in classifying the 2004 Democratic candidate as, for better or worse, a liberal."

Come on folks -- "an average ADA score of 92 and an average ACU score of 6"? Kerry is to the left of TED KENNEDY. Who would have thought that Ted Kennedy was the most conservative Senator in Massachusetts? Ok, a lot of you already knew that...but, how can anyone read this column by Mayer and deny that Kerry is ultra-liberal?

The results of the most recent Roper/CNN poll show that President George W. Bush would overwhelmingly lose the election if voting was limited to the grandchildren of Nazi Party members, Frenchmen who bathe less than five times per decade, Spanish communists and unemployed British soccer hooligans.

“This is very bad news for Bush,” said Sidney R. Martin, chief strategist for the Democrat Party Central Committee. “It clearly shows that Bush is limited to his core constituency of registered American voters and is unable to reach out like Senator Kerry has to people who are ineligible to vote in American elections.”

Sources close to the Bush re-election campaign have told Broken Newz that the President has all but conceded the French and German vote to Kerry and will concentrate his resources on the 50 states that actually participate in the Electoral College.

Democrats, however, have pledged to contest the November election in court if President Bush’s victory is obtained merely on the strength of election results in the United States.

If you enjoyed this satire By William Grim, you can read more of his work at Broken Newz.

In Brian S. Wesbury's latest column at the American Spectator, he makes the case that deficits don't matter. I think the last three paragraphs do a pretty good job of summing up the article...

"WHILE DEFICITS ARE CLEARLY back for the time being and the just-released Bush budget forecasts a peak deficit of just 4.5 percent of GDP in 2004, this deficit is small compared to the past. Between 1982 and 1986, the federal budget was in deficit by an average of 5.0 percent of GDP. The economy continued to grow, with low inflation and falling interest rates, throughout the 1980s, and there is no reason to believe that deficits in the 2000s will result in any different outcome.

I doubt this is the last time I will have to explain these realities about budget deficits, but I hope I have set the record straight this time. Reagan taught us right -- deficits don't matter, spending does."

Interestingly enough, I agree with most of what Wesbury says. The current deficit is lower percentage wise than the one run by the Reagan administration, Social Security and Medicare are such messes that they'll have to be reformed no matter what, the economy can hum along just fine despite running a large deficit, etc, etc, etc.

There's just one problem with that theory and it's one Wesbury and many other people conveniently ignore. That problem being: at some point your debt gets too big to manage and your economy nosedives into the pavement a la Argentina. Is that going to happen next week, next month, of next year? No. But, eventually the check always comes due and it would be a catastrophe if we can't pay it.

Now the standard response to this is that we can cut taxes & stimulate the economy which will produce more tax dollars, allow us to outgrow the deficit, run an ever increasing surplus, and eventually pay off the debt. And I agree that yes, that is theoretically possible. But of course, there is a catch: for that to work, it requires that the government show some restraint and not continue to spend more and more of our tax dollars on every useless government program that comes down the pike.

We managed to pull that off in the Clinton years only because the Republicans in Congress managed to stymie the overwhelming majority of new spending Clinton wanted and because of the truly massive cuts in defense spending after the Cold War ended (Wesbury notes that defense spending dropped from 5.4% of GDP to 3% of GDP).

Would we see the same reductions in spending if let's say Kerry were elected instead of Bush? Absolutely not. There's no way Kerry could slash defense spending the way Clinton did in the middle of a war on terrorism. Furthermore, although divided government would undoubtedly slow spending, I have become convinced over time that since triangulation is the political philosophy du jour, we're just not going to see the Republicans currently in office putting their foot down on spending the way the GOP did in the nineties. That's why I think it's essential that we put some form of Balanced Budget Amendment in place to legally obligate the Federal government to stop spending so much of our money.

But in any case, don't let anyone tell you that we can continue running the same sort of deficits that we are today, ad infinitum, because what we're currently doing is unsustainable over the long-term. If we don't get a handle on our spending, we're going to find out how much deficits really do matter the hard way at some point in the next decade or two....

Hat tip to Powerline & Yahoo.

The strict anti-abortion stance of Pope John Paul II is "tragically not nuanced," according to U.S. Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry, a practicing Roman Catholic.

"I pray for an America where rosary beads are sold in abortion clinic gift shops," said Mr. Kerry. "But I won't be a Catholic president, or even, as John F. Kennedy called himself, 'a president who happens to be Catholic'. I will be a president who happens to say he is Catholic but doesn't feel constrained by the black-and-white teachings of a church which is the bedrock of values, of sureness about who I am."

Mr. Kerry made the remarks as he left Sunday Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Flexible Doctrine.

"I dream of a nation that honors people who understand the difference between personal beliefs and public actions," said Mr. Kerry, who just last week hurried back to the Senate chambers to vote against a bill that makes harming a fetus a criminal offense. "All during that Senate vote, I was meditating on the rosary...you know, quietly repeating 'Hail Marys' and 'Our Fathers,' etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum."

If you enjoyed this satire by Scott Ott, you can read more of his work at Scrappleface.

I'm a big fan of Thomas Sowell and not just because I've interviewed him. Sowell is as good as anyone you'll ever read at taking complex economic concepts and explaining them in a way that laymen can understand. Combine that with a heaping helping of common sense and respect for the Constitution and liberty and Sowell is difficult to match. Just read these quotes and you'll see what I mean...

That is the impression I got after speaking with Tim Pawlenty for a few moments and having the opportunity to watch the taping of the hour long public access show, "Your Legislators."

"Your Legislators" is a weekly show that reaches nearly every part of Minnesota and the majority of North Dakota as well. The Moderator of the show is a close friend of mine and he invited me to the taping of the show earlier today. After watching Pawlenty talk on the issues of the day for an hour it was clear that he knew exactly what he was talking about.

The most interesting part was when he spoke about his experiences visiting both Bosnia and Iraq. He drove nearly 9 hours in the fog to get to where Minnesota troops were stationed in Bosnia after his plane flight was cancelled. (the fog) Just a passionate, all around good guy.

Press Release

PAST POST @ PATRIOT BLOG FROM JAMES

"Governor Pawlenty delivered his State of the State address last Thursday night. I was personally moved. I am proud to live in Minnesota and to have such a great leader at the helm. Pawlenty is taking the state of Minnesota in the right direction. After meeting the Governor a few times and closely following his political career over the last six years, I can definitely see him going places. I would not be surprised to one day see Tim Pawlenty in the Oval Office. This man represents the American spirit.

Coming from simple roots in South Saint Paul, Pawlenty went to law school, married, and worked in law. Then he decided something needed to be done in government. He served on the Eagan City Council, in the State House as House Majority Leader, and won a close race to get the Republican nomination for Governor. "

Pawlenty State of State @ Patriot Blog Continued

When I read this story today on the Drudge Report, I thought it was absolutely outrageous...

"Several hundred people stormed the small yard of President Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, yesterday afternoon, pounding on his windows, shoving signs at others and challenging Rove to talk to them about a bill that deals with educational opportunities for immigrants.
Protesters poured out of one school bus after another, piercing an otherwise quiet, peaceful Sunday in Rove's Palisades neighborhood in Northwest, chanting, "Karl, Karl, come on out! See what the DREAM Act is all about!"

Palacios, trembling and in tears herself, said, "He is very offended because we dared to come here. We dared to come here because he dared to ignore us. I'm sorry we disturbed his children, but our children are disturbed every day."

So you have busloads of kooks encircling Karl Rove's house, yelling, & banging on the windows. His kids are quite understandably terrified and then after a furious Rove finally meets with these lunatics, their leader Palicios is crying and trembling like she's the victim. Poor her! Karl Rove yelled at her for bringing a mob to tresspass on his property and terrify his children over some bill that probably 500 people outside of the loons who were protesting know or care about.

But of course, as outrageous and indefensible as the "National People's Action" was, there are of course people at the Democratic Underground cheering them on! Way to stick to Rove's kids guys! Here are a few select comments from a http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1306649 on this article...

johnlr6: "Kind of reminds me of that scene in "For Whom the Bell Tolls," when the townspeople march the Fascists out of their palace, and, well . . . 'twasn't pretty, but it was war. Rightwingers declared war on liberals and anything or anyone else in their way over ten years ago. Dems seem to be sitting this one out, or, in the words of the writer of FWTBT, have made their "separate peace," and refuse to join the fight against our own homegrown Fascists. From behind enemy lines in West Texas (please send books! almost any kind of book. Please!)"

DemLikr: "No one "busted into" Karl's house. Isn't the question here primarily one of where are our priorities? Which is worse? The countless crimes of Bushco or the tears of a Rovian offspring? Given the abomination that this administration has turned out to be, the sanctity of Karl's azalea beds are not at the top of my list"

SemperEadem: "Rove only *said* they were crying... he was probably lying they probably weren't even home at the time."

Joanne98: "It's not a child it's spawn. When fighting monsters you have to be a monster. It's the only thing that works. They would do it to us."

tom_paine: "Eichmann had children, too. It was said he was a doting father. So?"

camero: "The utter hypocracy in this thread. We give lip service to those who have been beaten down by the Bush Admin and when they decide to fight back against their oppressors, some here denounce it. Give the protesters credit for standing up for themselves. Pushing paper isn't going to knock the Brownshirts out."

rezmutt: "Well said, camero! You've got to fight the evil with fang and claw."

camero: "Oh yes. What if the Founding Fathers made "nicey-nice" with King George III? Or the French revolutionaries made "nicey-nice" with Marie Antoinette? The biggest weapon we have is that we now know WHERE HE LIVES. and he knows it now."

Isn't it ironic to hear Karl Rove called a Nazi by people who support mobs banging on his window and gleefully intone that "the biggest weapon we have is that we now know WHERE HE LIVES"?

So far, George Bush has not effectively gotten his message out on the economy. One of the Bush team's first ads referred to the economy "turning the corner," but that doesn't even begin to explain what Bush had to deal with and how well he has handled it.

Remember that right as Bush came into office (or even during the Clinton administration depending on who you believe) America was hit with a recession. The stock market decline and the huge corporate accounting scandals both began before Bush ever took office. Then to top it all off, we had 9/11 and we've been fighting a war on terrorism since then. Few Presidents since WW2 have come into office with tougher economic circumstances to deal with.

So what did Bush do? Over the objections of the Democrats, he slashed taxes in order to stimulate the economy and put more money back in the American people's pockets. Did that strategy work? Well it has taken longer than we'd like and less jobs than we'd like have been created, but overall, it has been a success. As Bob Dole says,

"The good news for President Bush this year is that the economy is looking up on his watch, too. All the major indicators are moving in the right direction. America has enjoyed nine consecutive quarters of economic growth. In the second half of 2003, the economy grew at the fastest rate in nearly 20 years. Meanwhile, inflation is down and interest rates are at historic lows. The result is that ownership of homes and automobiles is at a record high.

And here's the kicker: some economic indicators are even more favorable now than they were back in 1996. The misery index — the combination of unemployment and inflation — is actually lower now than it was at this point in 1996. And less misery is a good thing for incumbents."

RWN reader Gary Wickert of Matthiesen, Wickert & Lehrer, S.C. & author of Dark Redemption also points out that...

"The unemployment rate is exactly what it was in 1996 when Clinton ran for reelection. 5.6%. Nine months prior to the 1996 presidential election, Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers cheerfully reported that the "American economy has performed exceptionally well over the past 3 years." While that may not surprise you, you may however be surprised to learn that President George W. Bush's economic record is, in many ways, better than the record Clinton ran on for reelection. Compared with the "exceptional" years of 1993, 1994, and 1995, the first three years of George W. Bush's presidency featured:

lower inflation
lower unemployment
faster productivity growth
faster labor compensation growth (i.e., wages and benefits)
29.4 percent ($6.9 trillion) more economic output
45 percent ($960 billion) more exports; and
an economic growth rate 81.2 percent as fast as that under Clinton

Considering the circumstances under which the U.S. economy has labored for the past few years, including 9/11 and the War on Terrorism, President Bush's record is all the more impressive. When George W. Bush moved into the White House, the economy was on the verge of recession. The largest stock market bubble in U.S. history had recently burst, exports were declining, manufacturing employment had been falling for half a year, and people were finding it harder and harder to find work. And that was before 9/11, the war on terror, and the revelations of the corporate-governance scandals that grew out of the late 1990s.The tax cuts President Bush signed into law helped alleviate the impact of these economic shocks and kept millions of Americans working who would have otherwise lost their jobs. Consequently, the unemployment rate peaked in June 2003 at 6.3 percent, compared with peaks of 7.8 percent and 10.8 percent during the previous two recessions. With the U.S. economy on the upswing, President Bush's critics are finding it increasingly difficult to disparage his economic record. But that won't stop them. Fortunately, as Aldous Huxley observed, "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." So what are the facts?

At 5.6 percent, the national unemployment rate is now lower than the average unemployment rate of the 1970s, 1980s, and the 1990s. According to the Labor Department's household survey — the survey used to calculate the monthly unemployment rate — more Americans are working now than ever before. The payroll survey is also showing improvement: 112,000 new jobs were created in January and 366,000 jobs have been added over the last five months. While President Bush's economic record is arguably better than the record Bill Clinton ran on in 1996, this truth is frequently obscured by unrelenting partisan criticism based more on fancy than fact. But the fact remains that the United States boasts the world's largest and most vibrant economy. It will stay that way so long as we are guided by a trust in what President Bush calls "the power and possibilities of freedom."

Maybe the Bush team is simply waiting for a month of big job growth to start running positive ads on the economy, but I'm not sure they should wait that long. Bush has done a great job of bringing the economy out of a funk that would have been a lot worse without his tax cuts and he needs to start tooting his horn a lot more...

Washington, DC - Congressional Democrats today denounced the Bush Administration for having done nothing to avert the extinction of the dinosaurs. Senator Barbara Boxer of California, ranking member on the Senate Dinosaur Extinction Oversight Panel, says that the Bush Administration came into office with no clear plan for dealing with nuclear-winter-causing giant meteors.

“The lack of a clearly defined giant reptilian extinction policy is just scandalous,” said Senator Boxer at a press conference this morning. “Even at this late date, there is still no unified and well thought out policy concerning dinosaur extinction emanating from the White House.”

Sandy Berger, National Security Advisor under former President Clinton, says that the Clinton Administration handed over to the Bush Administration in 2001 not only the most ethical administration in the history of the country, but also a complete and fully functioning dinosaur extinction policy.

“The Bush Administration really dropped the ball on this one,” said Mr. Berger yesterday on CBS’s Face the Nation. “If President Bush had followed our plan there would be brontosauruses swimming in the Potomac today. But the Bush Administration seems obsessed with the so-called War Against Terror.”

Speaking on ABC’s Good Morning America earlier today, Vice President Richard Cheney defended the Bush Administration’s record. “There are plenty of dinosaurs roaming the streets. All you have to do is take a peek in the Democrat Cloak Room in the Senate.”

If you enjoyed this satire by William Grim, you can read more of his work at Broken Newz.

Ok, I've had just about enough of listening to Kerry talk about "Benedict Arnold CEOs"...

If you want a clearer version to email to your friends or post on your web page, you can get it here.

***Update #1***: After being clued in by an RWN reader, I've done a bit of research and found that the article I quoted was not entirely accurate...

"Neither Mrs. Heinz Kerry nor Senator Kerry nor any of the Heinz trusts or endowments - either individually or collectively - holds a significant percentage of shares of the H.J. Heinz Company. In 1995 the Heinz Endowments and family trusts sold a large percentage of Heinz shares in a secondary share offering to diversify their holdings. As a result, their current holdings are under 4 percent.

There is no connection between any philanthropic programs of the H.J. Heinz Company and its Foundation and the Heinz family interests (including the Howard Heinz Endowment, the Vira Heinz Endowment, and the Heinz Family Philanthropies)."

So although Teresa Heinz Kerry was once the "family business" for Teresa Heinz Kerry and it is the source of her -- and of course John Kerry's -- enormous wealth, I don't think it's fair to call it the "family business" any longer. So I would encourage you not to send this graphic out or use it on your website.

That being said, it is worth noting that John and Teresa Kerry still own millions of dollars worth of Heinz stock despite the fact that Heinz now has the majority of its operations overseas. Would you invest in the business of someone you considered to be a "traitor"? Apparently, John Kerry would....