Question: "As a side note, do you think that the republicans are not taking Hillary seriously enough?" -- liberty

"Why do you think Republicans fear Hillary Clinton so much, given her long list of baggage and drawbacks?" -- Christopher_Taylor

Answer: Like any other candidate, Hillary Clinton has strengths and weaknesses. In her favor, she seems to be fairly well liked by the press and the Democratic base, has proven she can fund raise, and seems -- at least, in my opinion -- to be much smarter politically than John Kerry. Personally, I think she will be a tougher opponent than John Kerry.

The flip side of this argument is Clinton has some enormous weaknesses as well. She's a liberal, from a liberal state, with a liberal voting record. Furthermore, she has more baggage than anybody short of Ted Kennedy or Robert Byrd which is why in the last poll I saw on the topic in December of 2004, she already has a staggeringly high 42% negative rating. Just imagine that as a starting point and then add on a year of negative ads and lots of time spent reminding people about "Hillarycare," Whitewater, The Rose Law Firm Billing Records, her crooked looking cattle futures deal, on and on and on as far as the eye can see. It's not a pretty picture.

On top of all that, is Hillary really the candidate who's going to capture Southern states for the Dems for the first time since 1996? The Clinton name is practically an epitaph in the South right now (Erskine Bowles was hammered with negative ads playing up his connection with Bill Clinton in the North Carolina Senate race, for example) and how does Hillary spin abandoning Arkansas for New York? Her husband might have been able to pull it off at one time because he's slick and he "speaks Southern," but I haven't seen much evidence that Hillary can do the same thing.

So, while I take Hillary seriously and believe she's capable of winning, I think she's overrated as a candidate and, personally, I would be much more worried about Dems like Bill Richardson (NM), Phil Bredesen (TN), and Mark Warner (VA) who'd be capable of carrying 3-4 Southern States. Fortunately, I don't think any of them appeals enough to the liberal base to gain any traction in the 2008 Democratic Primaries.

Question: "The subject of animosity between the Palestinians and Israel is something that has been weighing on my mind for some time now. The land that was given to the Jews in 1948 had been promised to the Palestinians twice before by the British, who they fought beside. Why should the land have been given to the Jews instead when the Palestinians already had claim to it?" -- Kinneary

Answer: It's all very messy, confusing, and controversial, but let me give the short & sweet answer to that question:

During the dark days of WW1, the Brits made murky and competing promises to two different groups of Arabs as well as to the Jews in the Palestinian region in order to try to obtain their help. One of those promises took the form of the Balfour Declaration which was issued in 1917 and essentially promised the Jews a homeland in the region. Then after WW1, the Brits took over that slice of the Middle-East from the Ottoman Empire.

There were already Jews living there and naturally more of them emigrated to the area over time because they anticipated a Jewish state being there one day. Unfortunately the Arabs who lived in the area, who were referred to as Palestinians, didn't like the idea, didn't agree to it, and became progressively more angry about it.

Things were ugly in the region for a long time, but the tension ratcheted up enormously because of the fall-out from WW2. As Jews were persecuted & murdered in Europe, more of them came to Israel. This infuriated the Palestinians and the Brits did their best to try to keep the European Jews out. This in turn enraged the Israelis who felt that the Brits were deliberately allowing Jews to die in Europe. Terrorist attacks against the Brits by Jewish groups (and, yes, that's what they were although some people will deny it) followed and things progressively spiraled out of control.

After WW2, the British public soured on British involvement and the government looked for a way to wash their hands of the whole affair. So, they went to the United Nations and starting talking about the idea of a Jewish and Palestinian state. The surrounding region, Palestinians included, were adamantly against having any sort of Jewish state and the Brits at least claimed that they didn't want to go forward without the approval of the Palestinians and the surrounding region. However, there was more support for a Jewish State at the UN than the Brits anticipated (The US & USSR both thought it was a grand idea) and the political pressure at home became enormous.

So, the Brits basically just said, "To Hell with it," and washed their hands of the whole thing. Even as they pulled out, troops from the surrounding region prepared to slaughter the Jews and there was a war in 1948. Surprisingly, the Jews, who were outmanned and outgunned, managed to hold out, defeat the armies aligned against them, and Israel was born.

Question: "In the past, you wrote that you support school vouchers. Won't private schools that accept federal money have to face government regulation? The way I imagine it would play out is this: Private schools that choose not to accept voucher money, (because of fears of regulation) would have to close their doors. Why would parents pay tuition out of their own pocket when the government is willing to pay for their children's tuition to private school? The private schools that accept voucher money would have to adhere to new regulations (which the government would provide for accountability purposes) and lose their autonomy, which is the very thing that parents send their children to private school for. So we end up with a whole bunch of pseudo-private schools that seem an awful lot like the public schools that we are stuck with now.

What do you think are the long term effects of vouchers?" -- homeschoolmom

Answer: Certainly there would be more regulation of private schools if vouchers became widespread, but to be honest, I can't say that I think it's a big concern overall.

If government regulation of private schools that took vouchers became so odious that it ruined the schools, you'd see some private schools refuse to take the vouchers and we'd be in the same situation we're in now. Some parents would pay to send their kids to better schools and the others would have to settle for free schools of lesser quality.

So, I wouldn't worry about that too much.

Question: :If you could choose, would you make a court up of 9 Scalia's, 9 Thomas's, or would you keep the current court?: -- jayd42

Answer: I only support judges who view the role of the court the same way the Founding Fathers did and there are only three judges on the Supreme Court who currently meet that standard in my estimation: Scalia, Thomas, & Rehnquist. So, yes, I want judges who view the law the way they do, not just on the Supreme Court, but at every level of the Federal judicial system.

Question: "What do you think about the president not dipping into the national reserve to lower gas prices? With gas prices cheaper than they were 20 years ago (inflation corrected), I don't see the big problem. I also believe that the reserve should be saved for a true emergency, not to lower prices. I do, however, see the current price situation creating jobs and revenue in our oil-producing states, decreasing our reliance on foreign oil and creating demand for higher-mileage vehicles. These higher prices may also create enough demand for auto manufacturers to create alternative-fueled autos. What's ironic is that the Dems have been trying to accomplish this by artificial means (government demand/regulation), which has failed, versus market demand, which is what it will take for alternative-fueled vehicles to be profitable and successful. Your thoughts?" -- Dennis

Answer: As far as dipping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve goes, I agree that would be a bad idea. The national reserve is supposed to be used for emergencies and from what I've read, most experts don't believe that would make a large impact on prices anyway.

On the other hand, as you say, high oil prices, especially if they stay high, will help fuel demand for alternative-fueled vehicles. Of course, it also slows economic growth, so the sooner we get cheap gas back, the better...

Question: In two parts:

B) If this is true, what does it mean? Is it because a woman might not be tough on enemies? Or because women are too emotional? Is it just that we need a female VP first? What does this mean for Hillary and Condi? Would the republicans not run Condi because of this plus the possibility that female+black is just too much?" -- liberty

Answer: Before I get in trouble, let me just make it clear that I'm not talking about my personal feelings, I'm talking about political "strategery" and public perception here. There's a big difference. But on to the questions:

A) As far as polls go, there's a Rasmussen poll out showing that only 72% of respondents would vote for a woman in the White House. Do I buy that? For the most part, no. There are female Senators, like Liddy Dole from here in North Carolina, and if women can make it to the Senate, I see no reason why they can't make it to the White House as well.

B) That being said, I do think that female candidates for the presidency had better be very careful not to play to any stereotypes that could hurt them. If you're a woman, you better sound tough as nails on defense and crime. You better not cry, you better not come across as being emotional or having wild mood swings. In other words, the voters will feel a lot more comfortable with another Margaret Thatcher than a touchy, feely Oprah type.

As far as Condi and Hillary go, Condi's foreign policy experience and hawkishness would help stem any doubts about being too soft for the presidency. Hillary on the other hand could be hurt more by stories about emotional outbursts behind the scenes with her husband and because Democrats are considered to be soft on defense any way.

In any case, I think we'll probably see a female President in our lifetime and maybe even in 2008...

If you're wondering why there's no daily news today, it's because I'm on vacation. However, before I left (on Thursday), I did prepare some answers for today's Q&A Friday.

While you're waiting for me to get back, feel free to check out my advertisers along with the brand spanking new RWN T-Shirts...oh, and have a great week-end!

After reading the latest column from Helen Thomas, I had to double check the calender to make sure it wasn't April 1st because it's hard to believe anyone could stoop to this level of self-parody. Here we have a blatantly partisan liberal columnist -- who goes to White House press conferences and asks ridiculous questions -- sniffing that bloggers don't measure up as journalists because we're not objective enough. Yeah, right!

Check out the finger wagging from Thomas:

"One does wonder where the lines are these days that distinguish between legitimate reporters and anyone who has a laptop computer or a Web site.

This isn't a requirement for bloggers with axes to grind."

Oh, I see: Bloggers have "axes to grind" whereas journalists try not to "take sides." It's funny to hear that coming from a woman who asked questions like these at White House press conferences:

Helen Thomas: "My follow-up is, why does (George Bush) want to drop bombs on innocent Iraqis?" -- January 6, 2003

Helen Thomas: "Is this (war) revenge, 11 years of revenge?" -- January 6, 2003

Here's more on Ms. "Objective Reporter" from Slate:

"I dare say that if you were Bush or his handlers, you'd pass her over at a press conference, too. Her loathing for Bush is palpable. "This is the worst president ever," she told the Torrance, Calif., Daily Breeze in January. "He is the worst president in all of American history." Though Thomas never masked her crush on Democrats when she worked as a news writer, she comes completely out of the closet in her columns, ripping "Bush's headlong drive into war, his favor-the-rich economic policy and his campaign to put right-wing ideologues on the Supreme Court." As the child of Lebanese immigrants, Thomas knows exactly which religious button she's pushing when she repeatedly condemns Bush's plans for war on Iraq as a "crusade."

So Thomas says that Bush is the "worst president in all of American history?" Wow, is that a great moment in the history of "impartial journalism" or what? Oh, we bloggers have so much to learn about objectivity and even-handedness from a "reporter" like Helen Thomas. Yeah, right.....

Taxes are due Friday. I still haven't done mine, but I have my CPA fiancée to help me get it done and submitted online. Others aren't so lucky, and thus I sent my crack research team to find out as much as they can about taxes.

FUN FACTS ABOUT TAXES

* Taxes strike violently without notice at the exact same time each year.

* A lot of people get excited when they get some of the money back that the government had been taking from their paychecks all year; this is a bit like if there was a robber who kept breaking in and stealing your stuff each week, and you got all excited when, after a year, he brings back your T.V.

* Some people don't calculate things right and have to voluntarily hand over their stereo to the robber when he visits after a year.

* If you find yourself surrounded by taxes thirsting for your blood and see no escape, try declaring bankruptcy.

* There's a place on the tax form where you can declare all your illegal earnings. I think that's a trick.

* Income tax was unconstitutional until the 16th amendment was passed with the vote of two thirds of the states and the blessing of Satan.

* The I.R.S. headquarters is a cursed place built on an ancient Indian burial ground. It's filled with spirits, but they barely ever make any disturbances since most are trying to hide from the death tax.

* In a fight between Aquaman and taxes, the I.R.S. would seize Aquaman's kingdom in Atlantis and put it up for auction. It would then be bought by his arch nemesis - BLACK MANTA!!!

* They say that the only two things certain in life are death and taxes. They're usually also preferred in that order.

* Taxes attack without mercy or remorse. They cannot be stopped by bullets or fire.

* Hiding sometimes works.

* Unless you go buy some gum; then sales tax will find you.

* Taxes are so unstoppable and attack so swiftly, they cannot even be dodged by a ninja!

* The tax code is the largest, most complex set of written material in the history of the universe. At its current rate of growth, it will block out the sun by 2067 and plunge us into eternal winter. On the other hand, there will be a few new deductions for mortgage interest.

* The best way to avoid taxes is to lie in a ditch and curl up into a fetal position. It's only two days until taxes are due, though, so it's probably too late to find a good ditch that isn't already taken.

This satire was used with the permission of Frank J. from IMAO. You can read more of his work by clicking here.

"Debate over judicial appointments used to be more decorous, largely because the stakes were lower. If we empowered the head of the U.S. Postal Service to rule vast swaths of our lives, we'd have huge confirmation battles over the postmaster general. For good or ill — and I certainly think for ill — the days of decorum are over for the foreseeable future. Judges are unilateral legislators, unchecked by democratic accountability." -- Jonah Goldberg

I am inclined to support the new proposed amendment to McCain/Feingold, exempting the Internet from any regulation whatsoever under campaign finance reform laws.

The language is very straightforward:

Paragraph (22) of section 301 of the Federal Election Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 431(22)) is amended by adding at the end of the following new sentence: “Such term shall not include communications over the Internet.”

You can’t get much simpler than that.

This is far better than begging the FEC for a media exemption (which I have previously opposed), for two reasons.

First, and most important, it is not squishy. Bloggers can heartily endorse candidates, urge readers to contribute to candidates, and engage in other robust political speech. They need not feel chilled in the slightest by the fear that they are crossing some nebulous line separating “legitimate” bloggers from those whom government deems undeserving of the protection of the media exemption.

Second, the amendment will have the force of law, just as McCain/Feingold does. I would much prefer a Supreme Court ruling or constitutional amendment that makes clear that McCain/Feingold is unconstitutional. But I prefer a statutory change to an effort to effect change through the regulatory process, primarily because changes that occur through the political process have a more permanent feel to them.

When I opposed the online petition that begged the FEC for a media exemption, many criticized my bullheaded stance. With all genuine respect to the many fine people who signed the petition, it was, in my view, a genuinely wrongheaded idea – caving to authority at a time when compromise should not have been an option.

But I have some sympathy with the general principle advocated by those critics: that the perfect is the enemy of the good. For the reasons I have stated, I think that principle applies to the current proposed amendment.

This content was used with the permission of Patterico from Patterico's Pontifications. You can read more of his work by clicking here.

Want to know why so many conservatives would be thrilled if the National Endowment of the Arts were disbanded? Because this is what passes for "art" these days:

"Organizers of a politically charged art exhibit at Columbia College's Glass Curtain Gallery thought their show might draw controversy.

The Columbia exhibit features 47 artists from 11 countries and depicts powerful religious and political leaders worldwide on mock postage stamps. One, called "Citizen John Ashcroft," shows Ashcroft's face fashioned from images of naked bodies at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Another piece -- "I saw it in a movie starring Steven Segal" -- shows a series of images of an airplane nearing, then crashing into the Sears Tower, and ends with the Chicago skyline without the skyscraper."

Yeah, what geniuses these "artists" are. I can just hear them now:

"Oh, here's one with a gun at Bush's head? The meaning? I want Bush to die, like duh! Oooh, take a look at this avant-garde piece. It's like imagining how cool it would be if terrorists crashed a jet into the Sears Tower. Would that be awesome or what?"

I know, that dialogue is too straight forward. Usually, when someone is asked to explain this sort of garbage, they throw on their art poseur hat and start sounding like they learned how to converse with other human beings by watching "The Matrix Revolutions."

Setting that aside, this particular art exhibit, irritating though it may be, isn't primarily what I wanted to talk about since it appears to be privately funded. If someone wants to waste part of his life staring at this sort of pretentious crap instead of doing something more meaningful like -- well, just about everything else -- so be it.

But why, in 2005, do we still have such a thing as government funded art? What would we be risking by getting rid of it? Sure, if we cut out government funding for the arts, some future artist might have to get a real job instead of spending a few months making a life sized statue of Laura Bush out of monkey dung, but never before has art and culture been as readily available as it is to people in 21st Century America. You want some art in your life? Go to eBay and buy some on the cheap. Want to "get some culture?" Go to Blockbuster and rent "Cats" or "Oklahoma".

If that's not enough for you, if you're really desperate to see a painting of Condi Rice made entirely out of the boogers of terrorists detained at Gitmo, then get some of your rich liberal friends to divert some of the money they're spending on MoveOn to local artists or hold your next "Peace March for Mumia" at a local art gallery. They'd probably appreciate the business...and the rest of us would appreciate one less pointless use of our tax dollars.

D@mn, this was a hell of an email. RCL just put me some knowlege in a big way, dropping hot links like rappers name-check fast-food joints.

I just formatted it and added a little here and there. The rest is his.

The Passion of Justice Ginsberg

..."[U.S. Supreme Court Justice] Ruth Bader Ginsberg gave a speech defending the Supreme Court's use of foreign law in interpreting the U.S. Constitution," National Review notes in an editorial...

-- from the Washington Times.

By all means, let's bow to the superior wisdom of Mrs. Ginsberg and look abroad for constitutional guidance. What could it hurt? Well, let's check the record.

...A 42-year-old German man who confessed to killing, dismembering and eating another man who he said agreed to the grisly act was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison...
A German court convicted Armin Meiwes of manslaughter on Friday, ruling he had no "base motives" in the crime and sparing him a murder conviction...

... "For him, it was a nice death."

-- cite

...Cuba has added new repressive laws and continued prosecuting nonviolent dissidents while shrugging off international appeals for reform...

-- cite

...Ahmad Turki al-Saab and two other Shiite Isma'ilis were arrested after talking with a Wall Street Journal reporter about the April 2000 confrontation between Saudi Arabian security forces and members of the Shiite Isma'ili community in Najran province. All three remain in prison...

-- cite

RCL opines:

What's troubling is that judges and the judiciary will be the sole arbiters of which foreign laws will impact American jurisprudence. The people, who through their legislators are responsible for making American laws, will have no say in which foreign laws are employed. There is no mechanism for any legislative control of which foreign laws are used.

If I understand this correctly, in essence, there will be two sets of laws. One will contain laws created by domestic legislation. The second will be foreign laws, of which the domestic legislative branch will have no part of creating. For all intents and purposes, they are introduced into our legal system ex nihilo.

The judiciary has sole proprietorship over the foreign set. The relationship between the two sets will be one-way, the foreign laws impacting the domestic as deemed appropriate by the judiciary.

If I was a lawyer or constitutional scholar, as opposed to my current incarnation as a mouth-breathing redstater, I think that this arrangement might disturb me.

...

Slice like an f'n' hammer, RCL. Like a Viking.

And that's the point. There are foreign laws that say just about anything you might want, from the ludicrously lenient to the draconian-deadly. The judiciary has awarded itself the power to make up American law wholesale -- a privilege, of course, restricted by the Constitution to persons called "legislators" -- through this back-door judicial importation of "foreign law."

The foreign laws they prefer, of course.

American legislators could borrow from foreign law if they liked as well. In fact, they often do. But the liberal activists of the judiciary have now created a new basis for flat-out judicial lawmaking, in express contravention of the Constitution they are charged with interpreting. Any time they don't like a domestic law, they can import a foreign law they prefer -- claiming, rather unpersuasively, that such a law now represents "global legal norms" or some such nonsense -- and replace the American law as they like.

It's not really anything they haven't been doing for at least fifty years in earnest. But the fact that they are now arguing for a new basis for doing so seems to indicate they intend to do so a lot more.

And they have even less to restrict them by using this new basis. Previously, the courts have been required to claim that watershed decisions -- decisions overturning fifty or a hundred years of jurisprudence -- were somehow dictated by the "precedents" that came before, that somehow what the law had been now required the exact opposite. Or that a "national consensus" had emerged. Or that something in the actual Constitution somewhere contained a secret "emanation" requiring a result.

But there are almost no such limiting factors as regards foreign law. There are hundreds of differing statutes and procedures for every point of law all over the world. And the judiciary now merely needs to select a group of countries they deem sufficiently evolved, claim this small group of countries now represent the "prevailing foreign law" that now informs the 200+ year old American Constitution, and impose whatever foreign system they like.

Who died and made them Kings, I wonder? Apparently George III.

This content is being used with the permission of Ace from Ace of Spades. You can read more of his work by clicking here

The hypocrisy on the left about gay marriage is as deep as the Marianas Trench as evidenced by Bill Clinton's comments about Republican strategist Arthur Finkelstein:

"NEW YORK Former President Bill Clinton unleashed an attack against a gay Republican strategist who plans to work against the re-election of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, suggesting that, to work on behalf of the Republican Party, the man may be "blinded by self-loathing."

"Either this guy believes his party is not serious, and he's totally Machiavellian," Clinton said, or "he may be blinded by self-loathing."

This, my friends, is a very instructive incident that will teach you a lot about the hypocrisy and outright deception that has become standard practice on the left today.

That's not to say that it's unfair to categorize Republicans as being against same sex marriage. The overwhelming majority of Republicans (myself included) and George Bush are opposed to gay marriage.

However, what's so fascinating is that the majority of Democrats claim to be against gay marriage as well. John Kerry publicly said he didn't favor legalization of gay marriage. John Edwards also said he didn't support it. Even Bill's wife Hillary openly says she opposes gay marriage.

But Bill Clinton himself is a particularly fascinating case study. Here he is now -- after the election -- accusing Finkelstein of "self-loathing" because he's a Republican who participated in a gay marriage.

Yet, when Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas, did he ever suggest legalizing gay marriage? No. When Bill Clinton was President, did he ever suggest legalizing gay marriage? No. To the contrary, during his Presidency Clinton announced that he opposed gay marriage and he also endorsed, supported, and then later signed the "Defense of Marriage Act" in 1996, which among other things, defines marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Have Bill's views changed over time? Apparently not according to this story from Newsweek that came out right after the election:

"Clinton Advice Spurned. Looking for a way to pick up swing voters in the Red States, former President Bill Clinton, in a phone call with Kerry, urged the Senator to back local bans on gay marriage. Kerry respectfully listened, then told his aides, "I'm not going to ever do that."

See? Same old story with the Democrats. They'll lie through their teeth to the American people about an issue like gay marriage and then soon as the election is over, they'll shift their position 180 degrees without batting an eyelash. It's just business as usual on the left and they do this with issue after issue after issue...

Here's Glenn Reynolds on religion in politics:

"Likewise, I think there's a lot of sentiment in favor of people being able to practice their religion, and talk about their religion, without discrimination or ridicule. And I think there's some support (though less so) for efforts to inform legislation with religious values. There's also a commonsense attitude toward de minimis expressions of religion: Americans are not, for the most part, offended by references to God, or by things like prayers at football games.

Religious, yes. But not too much."

When it comes to politics, that's spot-on advice although I have this sneaking suspicion that Glenn and I might have a serious disagreement about what constitutes "too much"...

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA, continued her verbal assault on President Bush's nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. today -- this time questioning the source of Undersecretary of State John Bolton's mustache.

During a withering barrage of rhetorical questions, Sen. Boxer told Mr. Bolton that he needs anger therapy and virtually accused him of stealing the prodigious, light-colored, facial growth from a junior analyst at the CIA.

"We know you're a bully," the California Democrat said. "Given your track record of abusing the little people, this committee would like to see some proof that your alleged mustache isn't a battle prize torn from the lip of one of your pathetic victims. I want to see the DNA comparison."

Mr. Bolton deflected the question and politely thanked the Senate committee for its "substantive review" of his qualifications.

One unnamed Senate Democrat privately conceded that Mr. Bolton would "likely win confirmation by a whisker."

Satire used with permission of Scott Ott from Scrappleface. You can read more of his work by clicking here.

*** I'm going on vacation this Thursday and instead of doing retro-RWN posts for Friday, I thought I'd just do a Q&A Friday instead. All questions will be answered by Wed night at midnight, so if you want to submit a question, make sure you do it by then. ***

This Friday will be the 14th Q&A Friday at RWN.

So, if there's a subject you've been wanting me to tackle or an issue you want to hear my opinion on, just ask your question in the comments section. Your question can be about politics, ideology, history, blogging, RWN, from a liberal, conservative, or libertarian perspective; heck, it can even be about movies, music, literature, or TV. Then, I'll select some of the more interesting questions and answer them.

So ask away!

There has been a lot of talk about a "Conservative crack-up" of late.

The Libertarians are squabbling with the Social Conservatives, the Fiscal Conservatives are duking it out with the Rockefeller Republicans, the Paleocons are railing against the Neocons, & there are dogfights going on about immigration, deficits, and all manner of issues related to Social Conservatism.

And let's face it: The GOP controls the Presidency, the Senate (55-44-1), the House (232-203), the majority of Governorships (28-22) and State Legislatures (20 - 19 - 10 split - 1 non-partisan), and, heck, we even appointed the majority of Supreme Court Justices although O'Connor and Kennedy are activist mediocrities.

So, doesn't it almost have to be all downhill from here? Actually, no. Michael Barone has the goods and they would send a chill down my spine were I a liberal Democrat (Emphasis mine):

"And the hardest numbers in politics are election results. Most journalists and politicians don't spend much time looking at them. They should. Because the 2004 presidential election results tell us that Republicans are in even stronger shape than their 55-45 and 232-203 Senate and House margins suggest.

As for the House, we now know which presidential candidate carried each of the 435 congressional districts, thanks to Polidata, which crunched the numbers for National Journal and the Almanac of American Politics (of which I am co-author). These numbers surprised even some political pros. Bush carried 255 districts and John Kerry only 180. In all, 41 Democrats represent Bush districts and 18 Republicans represent Kerry districts. Eliminating the districts where the House member's presidential candidate won 47 percent or more, we find only five Republicans in strong Kerry districts but 30 Democrats in strong Bush districts."

Yes, you're reading that right. The potential is there for the GOP to significantly expand their leads in the Senate and the House over the next few years.

Will it happen? There are no guarantees in life so don't count your chickens before they hatch, but I do think it's possible that we could get to a point within the next 4-12 years where we have a Republican President, with a large majority in the House, a veto-proof majority in the Senate, and a Supreme Court that has 5 or more Scalia/Thomas style justices.

Those would be heady days indeed...

From Newsmax:

"For Ann Coulter, the failure of Pima County authorities to charge her attackers undoubtedly led to the other attacks on conservatives.

He had a point. As the Washington Times recalled in an editorial last Monday, Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was on the verge of a general-election victory in 2002. "About a month before the election, protesters had thrown two cream pies laced with urine in Mr. Fortuyn's face," the Times reported. "The Dutch media dismissed this as non-violent protest. Mr. Fortuyn, however, began expressing fears for his safety. Just a week before the election he was shot to death."

Once again, it's time to post some of the deranged, semi-coherent hate mail that has come to my very inbox (although their email addresses have been removed). Enjoy!:

---

From: Christy Bley
Subject: your hate

Dear John,

Your hate makes all hate. I'm so sorry for you. Anything anybody can do? Your desire to backhand me, would that make it all better, little boy? If so, come to my house and beat me to a bloody pulp. Or shall I come to you,? I'll bet convenience is really important to you, and I'd so love to make your crying out contribute something positive to the world.

Your Friend, Christy

---

From: nischt
Subject: u.s.a.

America is gay, so are you and your conservative beliefs. You are a homosexual. All conservatives are homosexuals.

Sincerely,

Burke H. Grant
Ontario, Canada

---

From: gudrun gruber
Subject: None

Dear John Hawkings;

I´m a 20 years old girl from Austria, Europe and I´m telling you something:

You´ve got your own Hitler. I´d be soooooooooooo ashamed if I were you! I´m so sorry for that you have to waiste your life being FANATIC and FUNDAMENTALIST.

I´m soooooo sorry for you. We in Europe have seen where limited thinking leads to. Everone who doesn´t share your view is the devil. IN NAZI GERMANY IT USED TO BE THE EXACT SAME WAY..

and this in a country of free speech.

your country is no democracy- it´s a dictatorship-
AND YOU ARE NOT BETTER THAN THE IRAQIES AT ALL!
YOU ALSO KILL INNOCENT CHILDREN! who is gonna pray for them?

nobody...

I hope one day all the senseless waisted blood, anger and sadness will make you see what we´ve learned trhough WW2..

MAKE PEACE- NO WAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

---

From: Stuart Pinnell
Subject: BLACK MAGIC IN CARTOONS? hat

WHAT THE HELL
101 DALMATIONS RULE
SMURFS ARE COMMUNIST, BUT BLACK MAGIC, WHAT!?
YOU ARE TAKEING IT WAY TO SERIOUSLY YOU RIGHT WING HAT (no thats not a typing error)

---

From: Kit Kimberly
Subject: Whine Away: Your day is almost over

You know, if you and other right wing idealogues had a REAL message--something logical and meaningful--you wouldn't have to make up lies and use bad emotional rhetoric to whip your so-called supporters into a frenzy. How sad you all are, in your little paranoid worlds, where you refuse to recognise that (A) the policies your so-called "leaders" put into place aren't designed to help you or anyone else but the multi billionaires who like to think they control the world; and (B) that the rich white male patriarchy is at its last stand: Yes, the other 98% of the world has figured out that you are a tiny minority, that you are weak, and that, as our hero Aruhdhati Roy has said, "[you] need us much more than we need [you]; we be many and they [that's YOU] be few". That message is traversing the world at breakneck speed these days, and you and your ilk are not long in a position to do anything but whine.

From ex-warblogger Michelle Catalano who laments the state of the political blogosphere:

"Sometimes people ask me, how do you become a popular blogger? How do you make a name for yourself and get readers? I'll tell you. Controversy. Raging anger. Venom and spitfire. That's what sells, for the most part. If you aren't a forerunner in the specific area of blogging you want to get into (those guys have it good, they can just be themselves), you have to carve a niche and more likely than not, that niche needs to be carved with a serrated knife coated in lemon juice and salt. Leave some scars and some pain. That will bring them running..."

Of course, the point of that rant was supposed to be: "Could all of you political bloggers stop being so mean and petty," but ironically, I couldn't help but think: "When you write about liberals, try to make your words into a serrated knife coated in lemon juice and salt. Don't just prove they're wrong; leave some scars there, doggone it!"

That's probably not what Michele was going for, but advising bloggers to write with passion isn't such bad advice and, wow, can she turn a phrase. Too bad she got out of political blogging...

Karl Rove emerged from the shadows. "Are the plans in motion?"

"Yeah, everything is good," President Bush answered, "Rummy is right now meeting with the Iraqis in Baghdad."

* * * *

"Rarr!" Rumsfeld shouted as he violently shook an Iraqi, "You get your government together so I can move on to attacking other countries!"

* * * *

John Negroponte came into the Oval Office. "Hey, Negroponte," Bush said to him, "How did the hearings go?"

"Everybody loved me! They even sang me a song!"

"Cool! Hopefully things will go as well for Mr. Mustache."

* * * *

"My first question is why someone who despises the U.N. so much would even want this job?" Senatorette Barbara Boxer said.

"I don't!" John Bolton answered, pounding the table, "Getting this job will make me violent and angry!" He then rubbed his glasses. "Is that a woman asking me questions? They let women be Senators now? No one told me this!"

"See, this is what we need; someone who doesn't even want the job for his own personal ambitions," Senator Richard Lugar remarked.

"Do you think you will be able to work with Kofi Anan?" Senator Joe Biden asked Bolton.

"If I ever see him in person, I'll bash his head in with a rock!" Bolton vowed.

"Those are the words of a reformer," Senator George Allen stated.

"But what will other countries think?" Senatorette Boxed exclaimed.

Bolton pointed to his face. "Does this look like the mustache of a man who cares what other people think?"

"Is it true you have vowed to make all in the U.N. pay for their alleged incompetency with blood?" asked Biden.

"I'll gut them like pigs!" Bolton shouted, wielding a custom made shiv.

"I think it's good we have someone who is not afraid to take on the U.N.'s corruption," Lugar commented.

"I'll strangle them with their own entrails," Bolton yelled, cutting the air with his shiv.

"Do you even know anything about diplomacy?" Senatorette Boxer inquired.

"Does that mean I kills them alphabetically?" Bolton responded, looking confused.

"We have Carl W. Ford Jr. here to testify that Bolton intimidated other officials," Biden announced.

Ford sat down to testify, and Bolton pointed his shiv at him while staring at Ford with crazy eyes. "You have something to say about me intimidating people?" Bolton demanded.

Ford wet his pants and ran off. "No!"

"And we have reports that you've already started things off on the wrong foot," Biden said, "Having hit Kofi Anan's son with your car and shoved him into a duffle bag."

"That's my business, and I'm not answering questions about it!" Bolton shouted.

"Help me!" said the wriggling duffle bag lying next to Bolton, "I'm Kojo!"

Bolton started stomping the bag. "Duffle bags don't talk!" Bolton looked to the Senators. "So when do I start?"

This satire was used with the permission of Frank J. from IMAO. You can read more of his work by clicking here.

One phrase you often hear tossed around during immigration debates is, "Illegal immigrants do jobs Americans won't do."

However, that's totally untrue. There is no such thing as a "job Americans won't do;" there are only "jobs Americans won't do at a certain price."

For example, how many people out there would be interested in shoveling elephant crap at the circus? It's likely that very few of you would. However, what if I said you were going to be paid 10 million dollars a year to shovel elephant dung? In that case, it would be likely that a very high percentage of you would suddenly become quite willing to grab a shovel and get ankle deep in "elephant leavings" if it meant you could become rich.

The same thing is true with jobs illegal aliens do except, of course, it's on a much smaller scale.

Illegal aliens depress wages and not just because they're willing to work for less because they usually come from third world countries with dismal economies.

Many illegals (There's debate about the percentages) get paid cash under the table and don't report their income or pay Medicare & Social Security taxes. For the illegals who have fake ID and are on a payroll somewhere, you can be certain that they're going to do everything possible to minimize the amount of taxes they pay each week because they can always just disappear when the IRS comes calling for the rest of the money.

Then there are medical bills, which most illegals don't have to worry about. If they get injured, they just show up at an emergency room where they can't be denied treatment by law and then they skip out on the bill.

What do they have to lose?

Chances are they aren't going to get caught because we make minimal efforts to ferret out illegals once they get past the border and even if they do get caught after not paying taxes or medical bills, they're not going to be asked to reimburse the money. They're just going to be shipped back home for a little vacation before they slip through our porous border security and go back to work.

How would you like to try to compete for a job in an industry full of people who may or may not have to pay Medicare and Social Security taxes, who pay far less taxes than you if they pay them at all, and who don't have to buy health insurance? If you did, you might find yourself priced out of the field and next thing you know, your job might be declared one that "Americans won't do."

On April 1, hundreds of American descended on the Arizona-Mexico border to highlight the vast national security problem at the southern border.

Their president, in conjunction with the liberal media, called them vigilantes. The “patriots” of the American Civil Liberties Union, which purports to protect the rights of Americans, are “monitoring” their countrymen to make sure the illegal border crossers are treated “in a humane way.”

The Minuteman Project, founded by Jim Gilchrist, a former military man, is accomplishing the goal of raising awareness of just how extensive the illegal immigration scourge really is. Some government bureaucrat must have noticed. Several days before the start of the border watch, U.S. officials decided to send 500 border agents down to Arizona. Many speculated that George Bush was embarrassed that civilians volunteered to do the job he’s paid to do but so far hasn’t done.

It looks like several states are beginning to crack down on illegal immigration. For instance, Mark Warner, a Democrat and governor of Virginia, signed legislation denying welfare to illegal aliens. (See Immigration and Welfare) In California, the police chief of the Los Angeles Police Department is proposing changes to the ridiculous Special Order 40, which prevents cops, charged with the enforcement of the law, from asking criminals about their citizenship status. Politically correct crime non-fighting. (Source - reg. req.) A related story appears in the New York Times (reg. req).

The most infuriating aspect of our lax immigration policy is that while Americans are losing their lives in Iraq fighting the so-called War on Terrorism, illegal aliens, along with Middle Eastern men, cross the southern border as if it’s a stroll in the park. While our president, in the age of terrorism, is considering amnesty for aliens, family members wave goodbye to their loved ones, not knowing if they’ll ever see them alive again, as they leave these shores to fight in a foreign country. (See Suicide Nation)

I think Bush should reassign some of these soldiers to defend us against enemies from the south.

My frustration is somewhat abated when I realize how much attention the Minuteman Project has already brought to this issue. The media coverage, however negative, is still valuable, and the Project has inspired others to start similar groups. (Source) Arizona Border Watch will pick up where the Minuteman Project leaves off.

At least for the month of April, illegal border crossings are down. (See here and here). Barely a week into the border watch, the volunteers caught over 100 illegal aliens. (Source) In a related development, Los Angeles County may finally do something about the closure of its clinics because of the strain caused by treating uninsured non-citizens:

According to the Los Angeles Daily News, the audit found that the county spends about 340 (m) million dollars a year treating undocumented immigrants at its health facilities and could save between 130 (m) million and 138 (m) million a year by discontinuing nonemergency services to them….The audit found the county treats five times as many undocumented immigrants as required by state law. (Source)

Despite the shifting sentiment, pro-enforcement Americans still face violations of their freedom of speech and association. And a few bad apples involved with the Project have been dismissed, as Jim Gilchrist said they would be.

For the latest developments, check immigration on Yahoo! and Michelle Malkin’s immigration blog.

This content was used with the permission of La Shawn Barber's Corner.

Remember Jonathan Klein's famous quote?

"...(Y)ou couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances [at '60 Minutes'], and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing what he thinks."

Of course, Klein's quote was in defense of the forged CBS memos...oops!

But, let's face it -- Klein isn't the only one who holds that opinion. I'm sure there are legions of folks in the mainstream media who think that way. The counter to that usually goes:

Oh yeah? Well, if the MSM is so much more accurate than the blogosphere, explain Jayson Blair, Dan Rather, Stephen Glass, & Jack Kelley?"

It's fair to bring all of those people up and it certainly undercuts the whole "multiple layers of checks and balances" argument, but there might be those who would say, in the MSM's defense, that all of those people were fired except Rather who could be fairly said to have been demoted.

On the other hand, you want to know about a big name reporter who hasn't been demoted or fired and who's a perfect example of what's wrong with the mainstream media today? I'm talking about Seymour Hersh -- a man who undeniably has scored big scoops over the years including the My Lai massacre story which made his career. On the other hand, Hersh is also extremely sloppy, relies extensively on unverifiable anonymous sources, and has been known to outright lie. Despite the big stories that he breaks on occasion, Hersh shouldn't even have a job. However, because he almost exclusively targets politicians and causes near and dear to the conservative heart (like the military), Hersh has been given a free pass by the liberal mainstream press even though he would have been run out of the business long ago if he targeted Democrats.

Want some proof?

Then read this long column in the New York Metro by left-of-center columnist Chris Suellentrop who takes Hersh to task, rather gently I might add, over his "loose relationship with the literal truth" and decide for yourself if Hersh should be treated as a journalistic icon or should be out of a job. Here are some excerpts from Suellentrop's piece:

...There are two Hershes, really. Seymour M. is the byline. He navigates readers through the byzantine world of America’s overlapping national-security bureaucracies, and his stories form what Hersh has taken to calling an “alternative history” of the Bush administration since September 11, 2001.

Then there’s Sy. He’s the public speaker, the pundit. On the podium, Sy is willing to tell a story that’s not quite right, in order to convey a Larger Truth. “Sometimes I change events, dates, and places in a certain way to protect people,” Hersh told me. “I can’t fudge what I write. But I can certainly fudge what I say.”

...Seymour Hersh has always had a rather loose relationship with literal truth. He seems to share with many of the people he writes about the belief that in certain circumstances, the end justifies the means. When Hersh was pursuing the My Lai story, he tracked down the lawyer of William Calley Jr., the man later convicted of participating in the 1968 massacre of Vietnamese civilians. Hersh intentionally inflated the number of deaths for which Calley was charged, in order to get the attorney to tell him the correct number, 109. A few years ago, Hersh told a crowd at Duke, “a word for what I did—an actual word, it has three letters—it’s called ‘lie.’”

...Hersh’s rocky tour through the print Establishment has involved some factual misfires. In 1981, while he was working on his Kissinger book, Hersh wrote a 3,000-word, front-page retraction in the Times as penance for having mistakenly named Edward M. Korry, the former U.S. ambassador to Chile, as a collaborator in the CIA-backed 1973 coup. Throughout his career, Hersh has won a reputation as something of a journalistic pit bull, who can unsettle even his admirers with his single-minded determination to establish certain facts above others.

...Hersh’s career as an author has run the gamut from intensively researched exposés to dubious scandalmongering. And its wilder swings in the latter direction came close to endangering his career. His first two books after leaving the Times—1983’s exhaustive, 700-page account of seemingly inexhaustible Kissinger moral trespasses, The Price of Power, and 1986’s The Target Is Destroyed: What Really Happened to Flight 007 and What America Knew About It—were critically applauded. But his next book, 1991’s The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, relied heavily on a source whom Hersh later characterized in an interview as a liar. And after the publication of The Dark Side of Camelot in 1997, Hersh’s reputation took another dip.

The reviews of Hersh’s singularly tumescent account of the Kennedy presidency were savage. Gail Collins wrote in The Nation that Hersh’s book on JFK was “best read as a sort of journalistic tragedy.” In the Los Angeles Times, Edward Jay Epstein decreed that Hersh “must have invented” some of his facts and that the book “turns out to be, alas, more about the deficiencies of investigative journalism than about the deficiencies of John F. Kennedy.”

More damaging than the book’s critical reception were revelations that Hersh had fallen for a set of forged Kennedy documents—including a handwritten note from JFK offering Marilyn Monroe hush money to keep quiet about their affair—peddled by Lawrence X. Cusack III, a con man. The phony docs didn’t make it into The Dark Side of Camelot, but the moral of the story stuck: The onetime giant of investigative journalism had let himself be duped again. Hersh’s next book, on Gulf War syndrome, was almost completely ignored.

...Occasionally, Hersh’s half-confirmed spoken accounts of key events in the Iraq War do get significantly revised when they make their way into print. Last July, not too long after the Abu Ghraib story broke, Hersh spoke to the annual membership conference of the American Civil Liberties Union. He stood before the crowd and in mid-speech appeared to talk to himself. “Debating about it,” he muttered, then paused. “Um.” Clucked his tongue. “Some of the worst things that happened that you don’t know about. Okay? Videos,” he said. “And basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children, in cases that have been recorded, the boys were sodomized, with the cameras rolling, and the worst above all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking. That your government has. They’re in total terror it’s going to come out.”

What Hersh said wasn’t entirely correct. His book Chain of Command would deliver the authoritative Seymour M. version: “An attorney involved in the case told me in July 2004 that one of the witness statements he had read described the rape of a boy by a foreign contract employee who served as an interpreter at Abu Ghraib,” Hersh wrote. “In the statement, which had not been made public, the lawyer told me, a prisoner stated that he was a witness to the rape, and that a woman was taking pictures.”

Horrifying stuff. But key details were different from the impression Hersh gave to the ACLU crowd. And the Sy version raced halfway across the Internet before Seymour M. could get his boots on.

Seymour Hersh regularly engages in sloppy, Enquirer-style journalism that's impossible to be independently verifiable, yet he's a mainstream media rock star. If you're looking for reasons not to trust the MSM, Hersh is as good as any...

Do you think people who disagree with you have a right to speak at all? Apparently there are more than a few people who think not including Dadahead, a blogger who had his fascistic rantings actually linked by Salon's Daou Report.

Here's Dadahead's take on why conservatives should have food flung at them when they try to speak:

"Let the wingnuts scream from here till kingdom come about their free speech rights being stifled, I don't give a sh*t. They'll scream about it anyway. We have to realize that their complaints only occasionally and accidentally correspond to reality, and that this is of absolutely no concern to them. They will call us Nazis and terrorists and traitors no matter how nice we play.

...Whatever you do, don't treat irrationality as rationality; don't treat insanity as sanity. And if flinging sh*t is the only way to expose the lie that says that the chimpanzee screechings of these f*cktards are actually attempts at rational discourse, then so be it."

Yes, in the world according to Dadahead, people who disagree with him don't have a right to speak at all, not even to groups of supporters who want to hear their message. But free speech is a right reserved for human beings, is it not? And in Dadahead's world, people who disagree with him apparently do not rise to that level. Instead, to him, Horowitz is a "hallucination," an "evil spirit," who's spewing out "chimpanzee screechings," so it's OK to throw things at him if he tries to speak. That's the sort of "nuanced" opinion that most people probably associate with the sort of thugs who walk around with shaved heads and swastikas on their arms, darkly muttering about "subhumans." What was that Dadahead said early on in his rant, "They will call us Nazis...?" Well, if the jackboot fits...

If Dadahead and others who think like him have their way, political dissent will quite literally become a food fight featuring goons hurling things at those who disagree with them. However, lowering ourselves to the level of feces flinging chimps at the zoo is not something that should be endorsed by civilized human beings, whatever their ideology may be...

News that Virginia has banned the use of red light cameras reminded me of the minor stir kicked up a couple of years ago when my friend and colleague Eugene Volokh surprised his fellow libertarians by defending their use (see his op-ed and blog post). In contrast, I hate the d@mn things, but I figured they at least save lives and property. According to the report on Virginia's action, however, they don't:

Virginia's decision was prompted in large measure by a state Department of Transporation study study showing an overall increase in injury accidents where red light cameras were used. Similar findings have appeared in studies from North Carolina; Ontario, Canada and Australia.

This seems counter-intuitive doesn't it? After all, shouldn't red light cameras reduce accidents by discouraging red light bandits? According to the linked studies, however, it turns out that any such effect is more than off-set by a dramatic increase in rear-end collisions. Apparently people approaching a camera-enforced intersection as the light changes tend to slam on their brakes to the surprise of the driver behind them.

The law of unintended consequences once again rears it ugly head and bites safety regulators in the @ss. (So to speak.)

This content was used with the permission of Stephen Bainbridge of ProfessorBainbridge. You can read more of his work by clicking here.

This is no big deal, but have you seen the newest Burger King commercial? No, not the one featuring Hootie singing the almost hypnotically appealing cowboy song about having a "Tendercrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch" while hot women wander around playing with food...the other one.

You know, this guy turns around and there's a creepy looking guy in a Burger King mask peering in the window and offering him a tasty breakfast sandwich, which he takes. Now personally, if I were to open the shades and there were a guy looking in the window and holding a sandwich, I'm not taking the sandwich, I'm getting the gun. Moreover, I don't accept breakfast sandwiches from strangers, particularly ones wearing masks and trying to look through my window, and I suspect that's the case with most people.

So think twice, Burger King, think twice! More Hootie singing, more hot women, and less mask wearing peeping toms...

After U.S. troops this week arrested a cameraman employed by CBS who apparently also worked for the Iraqi insurgency, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asked CBS News president Andrew Heyward for "some tips on infiltrating enemy organizations," according to an unnamed source.

"The CIA has not been able to get any reliable human intelligence out of Iraq for years," said the source. "But CBS News has a double-agent on the payroll. Although, working for both CBS and the terrorists might not qualify him, strictly speaking, as a 'double' agent."

In response to the CIA request, the CBS News chief said he would "do what he could, as a patriotic American, to help the CIA. But there's no trick to getting good information like this. It's all about trust."

Retired CBS anchor Dan Rather, who personally interviewed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his palace shortly before the Iraq war, said, "The line between journalists and their sources sometimes gets as blurry as a pair of spectacles smeared with bacon grease. And if you have to curry favor with a tyrant, or put an insurgent on the payroll, well...that's just the price of getting to the truth."

Satire used with permission of Scott Ott from Scrappleface. You can read more of his work by clicking here.

It's hard to say if this report in the Daily Telegraph should be given any credence since none of the sources for the story are willing to go on the record, but if it's true, it's a very bad idea:

"Saddam Hussein could avoid the gallows under a secret proposal by insurgent leaders that Iraq's new administration is "seriously considering", a senior government source said yesterday.

"We are trying to reach out to the insurgents," the source said. "We don't expect them to stop fighting unconditionally. Sending Saddam to prison for the rest of his life is not a huge price for us to pay, but it will save them a lot of face."

Setting aside the fact that few -- if any -- people on earth deserve a bullet to the brain more than Saddam, it would be very foolish to allow Saddam to live.

As long as he lives, there's a thin ray of hope for Sunnis who wish for a return to the old order. If he's alive, in their minds, there will always be the possibility that somehow, some way, the old tyrant will gain his freedom and claw his way back to power. That certainly seems highly unlikely at this point, but one can hardly blame Sunni dead-enders for harboring such fantasies given that history is full of such tales.

Moreover, who's to say that the US will always be around to guarantee Iraq's security? Perhaps the Iraqis will not allow the US to have permanent military bases in the country. Then, restoring Saddam to power could become a pretense, an excuse for one of Iraq's many belligerent neighbors to crush the fledgling Iraqi democracy and perhaps take control of a few "disputed" oil fields in the process. Again, there would be many historical precedents for such an event.

That's why the world in general and the Iraqis in particular would be better off if Saddam Hussein were to shuffle off this mortal soil, preferably sooner rather than later...

It has been a long time coming and it's finally here: the first Right Wing News T-Shirt!

The cost is $15.95 for short sleeves and $19.95 for long sleeves. You can get them here.

PS: If you have any great ideas for a RWN T-Shirt, feel free to leave them in the comments section. I'd like to build up a stable of them over time.