American Patrol

Tammy Bruce

The Fema Rap For Kids. No, Really! REALLY!

Funny Fark Photoshop Contest: Bad Timing

Hugh Hewitt's Painting The Map Red

Humor: Illegal Mexican Wrestlers Taking Smackdowns American Wrestlers Don't Want

The Jawa Report

MacStansbury

New GOP Ad: Censure? Impeachment?

The Official Minutemen Civil Defense Corps

PrestoPundit

The Dan Stein Report

Folks, today was the greatest day of my entire political blogging career so far. I've been mentioned in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN and Time. I've been on the air with Tammy Bruce. I've interviewed Senators, Congressmen, and some of the biggest names in conservatism. I've had really big traffic days. But, today, to the best of my knowledge, was the first time RWN has ever been mentioned on the Rush Limbaugh show.

This is a big deal to me and not just because Rush is such a popular talk show host or the most important figure in the conservative movement over the last 25 years other than Reagan. I first listened to Rush during my college years, when I was essentially apolitical, but looking to learn more about politics. And it was Rush Limbaugh, as much as anyone, who was responsible for why I became a conservative. Furthermore, it was his example that helped inspire me to create a political blog in the first place. If Rush Limbaugh had never been born, Right Wing News probably wouldn't exist.

So, it was very sweet indeed to be in the car, listening, when Rush mentioned the Answering 13 Frequently Asked Questions About Illegal Immigration post, that I made earlier this week, on the air today. It's even sweeter that the transcript made it onto his website tonight.

Here's are the relevant portions (You can also listen to this at the link above):

I'll tell you, I've printed a story today from a blog. As soon as it loads I'm going to print it out to you. I learned some things. By the way, Mansoor, I want you to keep your radio and listen to this. It's called "Thirteen Frequently Asked Questions About Illegal Immigration," and in answering one of the 13 questions, the people that put this together provided information that I didn't know, and it will... I don't know. Some of you may know it. If you don't, it will shock you. The website, is having trouble loading up there, but give it time (Hawkins Note: My host was having technical problems. That's why it was so slow to load).

Well, let me see if I can remember it. It's something like this. One example involved the meat packing business in Nebraska, and I forget the other one. The meat packing business in Nebraska, what was happening was that INS agents were tracking down illegals. They had a system. They developed a system to find all of the illegal immigrants that were being hired in the meat packing industry in Nebraska. They did sweeps every two or three months, and after two or three of these sweeps they had identified and found 4,000 illegal immigrants, and they forced the meat packing companies in Nebraska to fire them.

The execs at the meat packing industry, various companies, called their congressman, and the congressman called the INS, and the INS commissioner was told to resign and to go quietly, which he did -- and basically INS has been told by members of Congress to stand down and not enforce the law. A law that Congress passed, oftentimes members of Congress, members of the Senate are calling the INS on behalf of constituents and saying, "Don't enforce this law." There are a couple other examples of this, too. I'm having trouble having that website print out.

...All right, that web page finally loaded, and I was able to print the relevant passage. The web page is a blog called Right Wing News, and it's 13 frequently asked questions about illegal immigration. It's question three: So, if the American people oppose illegal immigration, why does Congress seem so reluctant to do anything about it? Let me cut to the relevant paragraph provided by Mark Krikorian, who is a blogger.

"In '98, the border patrol noticed that the work force picking onions in the vidalia onion fields of Georgia appeared increasingly to be illegals, so they did some raids, arrested a few dozen illegal aliens, and all the rest of them ran off. So the farmers were there stuck with onions in the ground and no one to pull them out. It was all their own fault, they knew what they were doing, but nonetheless, they were outraged. They called their Congressmen, and by the end of the week, three of Georgia's Congressmen and both Senators, Republicans and Democrats, wrote a joint letter to the Attorney General demanding that the Immigration Service stop enforcing the law," this is 1998; it was called the INS then, "'because they said the INS does not understand the needs of American farmers."

You can't just go north and run these people off that farm! You're going to have onions that aren't picked! That "in ordinary English means, 'let them pick the onions, then arrest them. Preferably before we have to pay them." Well, the INS got slapped down and stopped," any law enforcement. "So what they tried as an alternative to raids [the INS] was something called Operation Vanguard in Nebraska. It was sort of the first effort at something like this to see if it worked. They didn't do raids anywhere, all they did was subpoena personnel records. And they didn't just pick one or two employers, they did all the meatpacking plants in all of Nebraska, so that no one of them would be inconvenienced while the others benefitted [sic].

"They took the personnel records back to the office, checked the Social Security numbers, and came back with a list of people who seemed to be illegal, who did not have authorization to work. They said 'we know some of these people are legit and the records are wrong. We want to fix those people's records and the ones that are illegal, have to leave.... They came back with four thousand names. One thousand people showed up and got their records fixed and three thousand were never heard from again. They were illegal aliens. It worked really well and it was intended to be repeated every two to three months so as to wean the whole industry off of the use of illegal aliens."

"After one effort like this, the political and business elite in Nebraska went insane. The ranchers and the meat packers teamed up with the governor. The governor's predecessor, now Senator Nelson, was hired as a lobbyist to put an end to this initiative. Senator Chuck Hagel made it essentially his mission in life to see that this was never repeated and it wasn't. And the Senior INS official who thought it up in the first place was invited to retire early -- and he did. If you're a bureaucrat and you have kids in college, you're going to take the hint: Congress doesn't want you to enforce the law. So the Immigration Service essentially gave up enforcing the immigration laws inside the country," back in the late 90s.

"They focused on the important, but narrow, issues of criminal aliens and smugglers. I'm all for tha...but there's a lot more to the issue than just that." But if you're just "going after those parts of the issue doesn't get you in trouble politically..." So basically, Mansoor, the reason I wanted to tell you this is because your idea was to give businesses one year amnesty to get their houses in order? If that ever happened... Based on this, it won't. If it ever happened, if that proposal ever gets made (scoffs), can you imagine the phone calls that are going to be made to Washington, DC, and the results that are going to be demanded?

So you wonder why the laws aren't being enforced? It's because members of Congress have seen to it themselves. Now in both of these cases, members of Congress are responding to their constituents, the farmers in Georgia and the meat packing industry in Nebraska. In these two instances I don't think it has anything to do with propping up illegals. These are contributors; these are donors; these are voters, and that's where the concern was. The most amazing thing is that you send the message to the INS: Look, you're going to get in trouble. You're going to be asked to retire early. You get the message real quick. If you got kids, you got a family to support, you want to keep the job, you only investigate the smugglers, the dope smugglers, the people smugglers and this sort of thing but you don't go after businesses who have already hired the illegals.

I'm almost certain Rush isn't a regular reader, so he'll never see this, but thanks! Not just for the mention, but for everything! This country is a better place because of Rush Limbaugh and it's truly an honor to have been mentioned on his program.

I think it is about time we start talking about a violent overthrow of our government. Is political assassination really out of the question? I have always been a non-violent person, but things are getting out of hand. How about some domestic terrorism? America is a blight on the world community, and I think that rational well-intentioned people should start thinking about doing something before our government gets us all killed. It's not just politics. Our economic system perpetuates a greed that will destroy us. The market assumes that we will all act in our own self-interests, so we shouldn't be shocked when corporations fight regulations that seem to make perfect sense. No one wants the world to die as global warming reaches a tipping point, but no one wants to pay the financial price necessary to stop it. Eco terrorism may be our only way out. Kill the corporations; Kill the government; Save the planet. Be on the right side of history. Viva la revolucion!" -- Soymda, A Commenter At The Huffington Post

Hat tip to Brainster's Blog.

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Smart Christian

Yesterday was the twenty five year anniversary of Hinckley's attempt on Reagan's life. That brings to mind a little story Bush, Sr. told during his eulogy at Reagan's funeral.

"Who can forget the horrible day in March 1981, he looked at the doctors in the emergency room and said, "I hope you're all Republicans."

And then I learned decency; the whole world did. Days after being shot, weak from wounds, he spilled water from a sink, and entering the hospital room aides saw him on his hands and knees wiping water from the floor. He worried that his nurse would get in trouble.

The good book says humility goes before honor, and our friend had both, and who could not cherish such a man?"

It's a small thing, cleaning up spilled water. But, it tells you a lot about the man.

One of the things that you have to love about liberals today is that they come up with new conspiracy theories to explain almost every bad thing that happens. Did terrorists fly planes into our buildings? Oh no, it was actually the Bush administration blowing the buildings up. What happens when Democrats lose major elections? The Republicans must have fixed it. Did some event happen that makes Americans more concerned about terrorism? Then Karl Rove must have orchestrated it to help Bush!

Well, the lefties over at the Democratic Underground have another theory they're trotting out. It seems that only 20% of them actually believe John Hinckley acted alone when he tried to murder Reagan. Now, you're probably asking yourself: "So, who do they think is really pulling the strings behind the scenes then? Some Democrat?" A Democrat? No, they're all virtuous like Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy. The person really responsible is, of course, George Bush, Sr. After he assassinated Kennedy, it was just the next logical step. Oh wait? You didn't know he killed Kennedy? Well, no worries, all will be explained by the baying moonbats over at the DU.

From a thread at the Democratic Underground called, "Reagan Assasination attempt. Lone Gunman? Conspiracy? Poppy?"

maveric: Was Reagan planning on going away from the playbook? Doing things that his corporate masters didnt agree with?

dicksteele: It wasn't a "warning"; Poppy tried to stage a coup. It failed, so his plans got set back a few years.

in_cog_ni_to: Poppy Bush is the ONLY PERSON living who doesn't remember where he was when JFK was assassinated. I was in 3rd grade and remember it like it was yesterday. He was involved in that too.

bryant69: Hmmmmmm

Finally it's all coming together. Clearly it was Bush who tried to have Reagen wiped out. Given how evil Bush and his family is, it's really the only logical explanation.

For those of you who doubt this theory ask yourself the following questions.

1. Who would benefit if President Reagan had died?

2. Given their total lack of regard for human life, why would the BFEE refrain from rubbing out Ronnie?

3. Can you prove that Bush didn't have a hand in the Reagan assassination attempt?...

madokie: So poppy bush is implicated in both the Kennedy assination and the reagan attempt. And now this killing in Iraq. Oh the evil ones

KAT119: POPPY BEHIND JFK ASSASINATION-REAGAN ATTEMPT-IRAN-CONTRA &9/11

See if you can figure out what's wrong with this picture:

More than 100 people rallied yesterday in front of the Statehouse Annex, urging state and federal lawmakers to allow children of undocumented immigrants to attend college at in-state tuition rates.

The smaller-than-advertised, but loud, crowd chanted in English and Spanish as students spoke of college dreams snuffed out because their parents illegally took them to America when they were young.

Ozge Ozler, 18, of Cinnaminson wanted to attend Rutgers University or Temple University but is ineligible for student aid or in-state tuition because her parents illegally emigrated from Turkey.

...Camden activist Angel Cordero, 45, led the crowd in fiery chants of "Si, se puede" ("Yes, we can"), "Latinos unido jamas seran vencidos" ("United Latinos will never be defeated"), or simply, "Not fair."

We've now gotten to the point where non-Americans, who are in the country illegally, are out in public, demanding, in Spanish, that they be given things. Meanwhile, we have plenty of politicians in Washington and across the country, from both parties, who believe we should cater to these people instead of deporting them in accordance with the law.

That is absolutely, bughouse nuts. You go to Mexico, Turkey, Venezuela, anywhere else in the world that you like -- illegally -- and then start walking around in the street demanding that the government of that country do things for you and see what happens. Oh, and tell us what the jails look like when you get deported.

Illegal aliens have no right to be here, no right to work here, no right to go to our schools, no right to get services from the government, and no right to demand anything. If they want rights, they should go back to their home countries, where they're citizens, and demand things back there.

Yes, this is a real pic.

(The Democrats) amazing new national security plan has two key provisions:

1) "Responsibly redeploying" US troops from Iraq (i.e., bugging out as soon as we can get the transport ships and planes in);

and

2) "eliminating" Osama bin Ladin.

Eliminating Osama bin Ladin! Why hasn't anyone suggested this before? It's one of those ideas that's so novel and yet compelling you wonder why you never thought of it!

Critics say the plan "lacks specifics," but then, crticis are always saying stupid sh*t like that. Besides, the Democrats do have some specifics. They have a specific five point plan to "eliminate" Osama bin Ladin:

1) Let all Americans know with a massively-overhyped silly little fart of press release that they are ready to "get tough" on Osama, and in fact intend to "eliminate" him.

2) Use this new credibility on military policy to win back the Congress and then impeach President Bush. And then Cheney, too, because that guy is just scary.

3) Repeal all of President Bush's tax cuts and provide subsidies for health care and education.

4) Grant amnesty to all illegal immigrants, thereby reducing the threat of terrorists sneaking in as illegal immigrants. If there is no illegal immigration at all, you see, there is no threat from it. Q.E.D.

And finally:

5) "Eliminate" Osama bin Ladin.

When pressed for details about this crucial step five, Hillary! spokesman Harold Wolfson released a further plan, this one even more specific about "eliminating" Osama bin Ladin.

1) Find Osama bin Ladin, so that he can be eliminated.

2) Send people to where he is now known to be, so they will be in a position to eliminate him.

3) Arm them with weapons appropriate to the task of eliminating him, such as, inter alia, guns, knives, nunchucks, and other useful implements of elimination.

4) Impeach President Bush.

5) Eliminate Osama bin Ladin.

So, there you go. The Democrats have a plan. And all they need to execute this plan is 1, your voting them back into power, 2, your allowing them to impeach President Bush, and 3, nunchucks.

This content was used with the permission of Ace Of Spades HQ.

Vicente Fox: U.S. Will 'Beg' for Mexican Workers (Yeah, Right)

Texas High School Principle Hoists Mexican Flag In Front Of American High School (He Should Be Fired)

After The Mexican Flag Is Raised Over Yet Another American High School, American Students Took The Flag Down And Burned It

Mexican Flag Flies Over American Community

House Conservatives Blast Immigration Bill (Big, Big, Applause!)

Mass. Court: Gays Can't Go There To Marry

Borders, Waldenbooks Won't Carry Magazine Because It Contains Cartoons Of The Prophet Muhammad

McKinney Faces Arrest Over Security Incident (Applause)

Cynthia McKinney's Original Statement, Playing The Race Card To Explain Why She Assaulted A Police Officer

Democratic Rep. Mckinney Has Had 5 Run-Ins With Security

Lynn Swann Leads in Pa. Gov. Race (Go Lynn, Go!)

Blair Will Be Gone By Christmas, Say Friends

Hostage Jill Caroll Released In Iraq. She Says The Terrorists Treated Her Well. Her Interpreter, Murdered During The Kidnapping, Was Not Available For Comment

Osama Bin Laden's Former Personal Bodyguard Is Certain The Al-Qaeda Leader Is Planning A New Attack Against The U.S.

Iran Defiantly Rejects New U.N. Demands (Can We Bomb Yet?)

Would You Let Your Daughter Go to a French Protest? (W/Shocking Pics)

Mark Steyn And Hugh Hewitt Talk About Illegal Immigration

Victor Davis Hanson: Whose Backlash?

Diana West: Mexico North?

Cathy Young: Adoption Swindle Shafts Dads

Heather Mac Donald: If Boys And Girls Are Oppressed Classes, Who's Left?

Victor Davis Hanson: Critiquing The Critique Of The War In Iraq

Michigan Husband On Strike, On His Roof

Europe's Urination Adventures

Humor: Anti-War Hostages Dropped Back Into Iraq

Website Of The Day: Kausfiles

This is an interesting, but hardly surprising development. From WorldNetDaily:

"While politicians debate the fate of some 12 million people residing in the U.S. illegally, the Mexica Movement, one of the organizers of the mass protest in Los Angeles this week, has already decided it is the "non-indigenous," white, English-speaking U.S. citizens of European descent who have to leave what they call "our continent."

Here are some pics that were proudly displayed on the Mexica Movement website. As you look at these pics, remember that our Senate is filled with Republicans and Democrats who don't think the beliefs you're about to see expressed should be disqualifiers for granting someone American citizenship.

That's right! Americans have no right to control their borders because we don't own our own land!

I wonder if the Palestinians carried signs like this before they started blowing themselves up on Israeli school buses?

Is it really a good idea to allow people to stay in this country who believe that non-Hispanic Americans are "stealing" their land?

You didn't see this pic on the front page of your local paper, did you?

Here are some of the lovely sentiments from the page. Again, as you read this, tell me if it makes sense to want illegal aliens with this mentality in our country or if it makes sense to give them American citizenship:

One of the more negative parts of the march was when American flags were passed out to make sure the marchers were looked on as part of "America."

Yes, how terrible it would be for people to look as if they were, "part of 'America."

It was a great feeling to see our people really alive and united. We need to use this motivation, this heart to bring our continent alive with knowledge and actions that will liberate our people.

Do these "actions that will liberate our people" involve car bombs, molotov cocktails, or machine guns?

FINAL NOTE: Racist Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R of California 4th district) of red-neck Orange County said that he didn't care how long people had been in "this country" illegally, if they were here illegally for 5 or 50 years that they should be deported. Fine! Europeans have been here illegally since 1492, START THE DEPORTATIONS NOW! First one to go should be this Nazi Rohrabacher! Sensenbrenner, Schwartzenegger, Rohrabacher, funny how they all have Germanic names! .....No, it's not funny at all!

That's right! We need to get rid of the people who were born in America, so we can make room for more illegal immigrants!

In all seriousness, folks, when you turn a blind eye to people entering this country illegally, you can't be surprised to see these sort of attitudes on display. When the law is broken with impunity, why should anyone be surprised to see the lawbreakers grow more and more brazen?

Yet, we have representatives in Washington who want to give people like this citizenship in our country despite the fact that there are millions and millions of decent, upstanding people who respect and love this country so much that they're willing to wait in line to get their chance to come here legally. Why should Mr. "This Is Stolen Land" from Mexico be allowed to stay here in place of Mrs. "God Bless America" from Mexico who has done the right thing and obeyed our laws?

Admittedly, I'm not wild about the idea of a guest worker program. But, if we're going to do a guest worker program, it should at least by made up of people who respect our laws and view this as a land of opportunity instead of illegals who think, "This is stolen land."

Yesterday, after it came out that Cynthia McKinney had struck a police officer, I said the following:

Sounds like a clear cut case of assault. Wonder if Cynthia will 1) give a heartfelt apology, 2) give a cheap non-apology apology, 3) blame the cop for "making her" hit him, or 4) play the race card?

Given that Cynthia is a particularly kooky Democrat who loves to blame racism for everything, I'm going to guess 2 and 3, with 4 possible if this gets a lot of attention. But, perhaps she'll pleasantly surprise everyone with a 1. We'll see.

So, how did it play out?

Well, first of all, we have Cynthia Mckinney's official statement which essentially, as expected, is a 2-3 combo:

"Earlier today I had an unfortunate confrontation with a Capitol Hill Police Officer. It is traditional protocol that Capitol Hill Police Officers secure 535 Members of Congress, including 100 Senators. It is the expectation of most Members of Congress that Capitol Hill Police officers know who they are. I was urgently trying to get to an important meeting on time to fulfill my obligations to my constituents. Unfortunately, the Police Officer did not recognize me as a Member of Congress and a confrontation ensued. I did not have on my Congressional pin but showed the Police Officer my Congressional ID.

I know that Capitol Hill Police are securing our safety, that of thousands of others, and I appreciate the work that they do. I deeply regret that the incident occurred. I have demonstrated my support for them in the past and I continue to support them now."

See? It's all the fault of the police officer, who didn't recognize her. She also regrets, "that the incident occurred," but notice that she doesn't apologize to the officer for hitting him.

That's the official statement.

Now, here are the details from "An unconfirmed statement attributed to McKinney" that has been linked by Drudge.

"An unconfirmed statement attributed to McKinney has been released on the Internet, where she allegedly claims to have been harassed by Capitol Hill Police.

The statement's writer says that she has been harassed by white police officers she says do not recognize her due to her recently changed hairstyle.

"Do I have to contact the police every time I change my hairstyle? How do we account for the fact that when I wore my braids every day for 11 years, I still faced this problem, primarily from certain white police officers," the statement says.

The writer details the incident, saying, "I was rushing to my meeting when a white police officer yelled to me. He approached me, bodyblocked me, physically touching me. I used my arm to get him off of me. I told him not to touch me several times. He asked for my ID and I showed it to him. He then let me go and I proceeded to my meeting and I assume that the Police Officer resumed his duties. I have counseled with the Sergeant-at-Arms and Acting Assistant Chief Thompson several times before and counseled with them again on today's incident. I offered also to counsel with the offending police officer."

Ah, the race card. Big surprise there with McKinney, huh? But, is it for real? I called Cynthia Mckinney's office to find out. I read some of the details of the story, which they must already be aware of since it's linked on Drudge. Their reaction? They'll get back to me, but for the moment, they refused to confirm or deny whether Cynthia McKinney actually said that. Usually, that's short for, "we're trying to figure out how to spin this huge gaffe." So, I'm going to go ahead and proclaim victory on the prediction that she'd play the race card as well.

So, folks, do I know my kooky, race baiting, liberal congresswomen or do I know my kooky, race baiting, liberal congresswomen?

1) How many illegal aliens are there in the United States? Since they're not here legally, there's no way to do a precise count. Most estimates are in the 10-12 million range, but some people believe as few as 8 million illegal immigrants are here and others think the count may go as high as 20 million plus.

2) How do the American people feel about illegal immigration? Time and time again, across numerous polls, the American people have expressed displeasure with our lax border security and illegal immigration. Here's some info on some of the more recent polling data from a column written yesterday by Tony Blankley:

(A) Gallup Poll (March 27) finds 80 percent of the public wants the federal government to get tougher on illegal immigration. A Quinnipiac University Poll (March 3) finds 62 percent oppose making it easier for illegals to become citizens (72 percent in that poll don't even want illegals to be permitted to have driver's licenses). Time Magazine's recent poll (Jan. 24-26) found 75 percent favor "major penalties" on employers of illegals, 70 percent believe illegals increase the likelihood of terrorism and 57 percent would use military force at the Mexican-American border.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (March 10-13) found 59 percent opposing a guest-worker proposal, and 71 percent would more likely vote for a congressional candidate who would tighten immigration controls.

An IQ Research poll (March 10) found 92 percent saying that securing the U.S. border should be a top priority of the White House and Congress.

Unquestionably, the American people see illegal immigration as a problem and want the borders to be secured.

3) So, if the American people oppose illegal immigration, why does Congress seem so reluctant to do anything about it? The Democrats look at illegal aliens as an easy way to pad their vote totals. Because Hispanics tend to vote for Democrats in disproportionate numbers, 10 million illegal immigrants could translate into a net gain of 2-3 million potential voters for the Democrats once they become US citizens.

Republicans tend to be hesitant to crack down on illegal immigration because they fear alienating Hispanic immigrants and because the members of the business community who make money by hiring illegal aliens, funnel part of their ill gotten gains into Republican (and to a lesser extent, Democratic) coffers.

This leads to a situation where many Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill talk tough about illegal immigration and border security in order to placate the voters, but in actuality, they work hard to keep the flow of illegal aliens from being cut off.

Here's Mark Krikorian giving some examples of how our lawmakers often work behind-the-scenes to thwart our immigration laws:

In ninety eight, the border patrol noticed that the work force picking onions in the vidalia onion fields of Georgia appeared increasingly to be illegals, so they did some raids, arrested a few dozen illegal aliens, and all the rest of them ran off. So the farmers were there stuck with onions in the ground and no one to pull them out. It was all their own fault, they knew what they were doing, but nonetheless, they were outraged. They called their Congressmen, and by the end of the week, three of Georgia's Congressmen and both Senators, Republicans and Democrats, wrote a joint letter to the Attorney General demanding that the Immigration Service stop enforcing the law. Because they said the INS does not understand the needs of American farmers. Which in ordinary English means, "let them pick the onions, then arrest them. Preferably before we have to pay them". Well, the INS got slapped down and stopped.

So what they tried as an alternative to raids, was something called Operation Vanguard in Nebraska. It was sort of the first effort at something like this to see if it worked. They didn't do raids anywhere, all they did was subpoena personnel records. And they didn't just pick one or two employers, they did all the meatpacking plants in all of Nebraska, so that no one of them would be inconvenienced while the others benefitted. They took the personnel records back to the office, checked the Social Security numbers, and came back with a list of people who seemed to be illegal, who did not have authorization to work. They said "we know some of these people are legit and the records are wrong. We want to fix those people's records and the ones that are illegal, have to leave of course". They came back with four thousand names. One thousand people showed up and got their records fixed and three thousand were never heard from again. They were illegal aliens. It worked really well and it was intended to be repeated every two to three months so as to wean the whole industry off of the use of illegal aliens.

After one effort like this, the political and business elite in Nebraska went insane. The ranchers and the meat packers teamed up with the governor. The governor's predecessor, now Senator Nelson, was hired as a lobbyist to put an end to this initiative. Senator Chuck Hagel made it essentially his mission in life to see that this was never repeated and it wasn't. And the Senior INS official who thought it up in the first place was invited to retire early -- and he did. If you're a bureaucrat and you have kids in college, you're going to take the hint: Congress doesn't want you to enforce the law. So the Immigration Service essentially gave up enforcing the immigration laws inside the country. They focused on the important, but narrow, issues of criminal aliens and smugglers. I'm all for that, criminal aliens and alien smugglers are the scum of the earth, but there's a lot more to the issue than just that. But, going after those parts of the issue doesn't get you in trouble politically. So that's what they did, they gave up because Congress told them to stop doing their jobs. They really haven't changed that much (since) 9/11.

If this isn't cynical opportunism, I don't know what you'd call it:

When McCain ran for president the last time, he denounced Falwell as one of America's "agents of intolerance." But now that McCain is gearing up to run for president as the GOP's establishment candidate, he has told Falwell that he spoke "in haste" in 2000. "It just came down to pure old politics in South Carolina and other states," Falwell said.

Falwell and McCain first made peace in a face-to-face meeting a few months ago. In a sign of their improved relationship, McCain has agreed to be the graduation speaker at Falwell's Liberty University on May 13.

This content was used with the permission of Professor Bainbridge.

A panel of former Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges yesterday told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that President Bush did not act illegally when he created by executive order a wiretapping program conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA).

The five judges testifying before the committee said they could not speak specifically to the NSA listening program without being briefed on it, but that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not override the president's constitutional authority to spy on suspected international agents under executive order.

"If a court refuses a FISA application and there is not sufficient time for the president to go to the court of review, the president can under executive order act unilaterally, which he is doing now," said Judge Allan Kornblum, magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida and an author of the 1978 FISA Act. "I think that the president would be remiss exercising his constitutional authority by giving all of that power over to a statute." -- The Washington Times

How ya like them apples, Russ Feingold?

FISA Judges Say Bush Within Law

Abramoff Gets Almost 6 Years In Prison

U.S. Ends Undocumented Immigrant Stings

Statehouses Take Up Immigration Legislation

Cynthia McKinney Gets Into Scuffle With Police Officer

US Man In Bush Murder Plot Sentenced To 30 Years

Teen Charged With Felony For E-Mails Threatening Bush

Terrorism Ruled Out In Tap Water Contamination Scare (Ehr, Why Has It Been Ruled Out So Fast?)

Afghan Convert Given Italy Asylum (Applause)

More Christians Arrested in Afghanistan

US Bans Meetings With Hamas

Tony Blankley: Mexican Illegals Vs. American Voters

Debra Saunders: The 'Immigration Backlash'

Michelle Malkin: Racism Gets A Whitewash

Dale Franks: Illegal Immigration

Bill Frist: Immigration-- Security, Yes; Amnesty, No

John Cornyn: Real Insecurity: My Democratic Colleagues Don’t Shoot Straight

Amir Taheri: Mideast Dictators Try To "Wait Bush Out."

Andrew Mccarthy: Cold Comfort On Islam And Apostasy

Ann Coulter: N.Y. Times, Broken Clock: Both Occasionally Correct

Pics Of Whitney Houston's Trash And Drug Ridden Bathroom

Will Consumers Have A Beef With Test-Tube Meat?

Video: The World's Shortest Horror Film

Website Of The Day: The Official Minuteman Civil Defense Core

So, I'm taking a look at this Muslim dating website that Ace Of Spades HQ is going on about and woah, I have to admit, this girl is kind of intriguing:

My username is geetarfarrah and I am a 20 years old Female.
I am Single and have No child.
I currently live in the city of Syosset, New York in United States.
I would be willing to relocate.
I am originally from Pakistan.
I speak the following languages: English, Urdu.
I am Somewhat religious.
My ethnicity is Mixed race.
My height is 5'2' (157cm) and my weight is 145 lbs (66kg).
I do not smoke.
My education level is Bachelor degree.

More about geetarfarrah in her own words:

I am an English major at Adelphi University in New York and I am in the teaching program. I have good domestic skills including cooking, cleaning,sewing, and raising farm animals. I’m an excellent conversationalist, of course only if you want me to be. Very subservient! ACT NOW!

On the downside, I don't like hash and I'm not sure I want to be in the same vicinity as any farm animals, but otherwise, geetarfarrah strikes me as an appealing woman.

Interesting thought: I wonder if it would bug Maureen Dowd that she's not married yet while Little Miss, "I love to clean, sew, and raise goats," probably has hundreds of guys salivating over the idea of having her as a wife?

Interesting thought #2: I hate reality shows, but you know what might be fun? A dating show that makes men choose between highly successful, independent, intelligent career women and a bunch of little geetarfarrahs whose only goal is to make a man happy.

Interesting related question: Do Muslim women date infidels? Most Christian guys I know wouldn't think twice about dating women who weren't Christians, but is it the same for Muslims? Back in college, I knew a few Palestinian girls and as far as I can remember, none of them used to date anyone besides other Palestinians.

According to a source on the Hill, Cynthia McKinney was entering the building - a cop asked her to wait b/c he was screening people and she smacked him.

Details to follow.

PS: I'm only posting this because I'd like to beat Drudge to a story for once =D

*** Update #1 ***: I called Cynthia McKinney's office, but they refused, for the moment, to confirm or deny the story.

However, the National Journal now has the details:

Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) punched a U.S. Capitol Police officer today after he mistakenly pursued her for failing to pass through a metal detector.

Members are not required to pass through metal detectors and the officer, manning a position at Longworth House Office Building, apparently did not recognize McKinney and didn't see her Member pin.

The officer called out "Ma'am, Ma'am," in an attempt to stop her.

When the officer caught up to McKinney, he grabbed her by the arm.

McKinney pulled her arm away, swung around, cell phone in hand, and punched the officer square in the chest, according to the witness."

Sounds like a clear cut case of assault. Wonder if Cynthia will 1) give a heartfelt apology, 2) give a cheap non-apology apology, 3) blame the cop for "making her" hit him, or 4) play the race card?

Given that Cynthia is a particularly kooky Democrat who loves to blame racism for everything, I'm going to guess 2 and 3, with 4 possible if this gets a lot of attention. But, perhaps she'll pleasantly surprise everyone with a 1. We'll see.

From Getting America Right:

Since 1965, according to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, the federal government has spent $321 billion on education, including a 90 percent increase since 1997, compared with a 40 percent rise in overall federal spending. Shouldn't the logical result be all sorts of wonderful academic improvements in US schools? Sorry, it hasn't worked out that way. Since 1995 test scores for American school children have fallen steadily behind those of students in Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, and most other industrial nations. In 2003, for example, the United States ranked fourteenth out of thirty-five nations in the eighth-grade math testing. In other words, it looks as though education ranks among the black holes of Federal Spending. -- P.22

Opinions differ on many of the complicated issues of the day, and a spirited debate in our political forums is a healthy expression of democratic process. Such debate is what allows opinions to change and consensus to form. But too frequently in recent years, the Court has stepped in and cut off this debate by imposing its personal moral judgments on the rest of the country. Did the framers really intend for a mere nine individuals to settle complicated moral questions? -- P.31

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which has been called the nation's report card, fewer than 25 percent of our high school seniors are proficient in math, science, or history. In an international comparison of students in twenty-one countries, US high school seniors ranked eighteenth in math and science literacy. Only about 70 percent of our high school students graduate in four years, and only a third of graduates have the minimum skills and knowledge needed to enroll in college. -- P.46

When it comes to local highways, airports, poor people, and school children, the locals invariably know most and the feds know least. -- P.52

As a nation, we have...created the most powerful government on earth. But, all too often, its seemingly benevolent programs succeed only in weakening people and condemning them to endless dependency. -- P.61

To appreciate what's at stake, you need to know that Social Security has lived on financial fantasies from birth. All the talk about a "trust fund" and a "lockbox" is fiction. The cash you pay in today doesn't build up, awaiting your retirement tomorrow. Instead, it is used immediately to pay yesterday's retirees; you will never see a penny of it. As Nobel Prize--winning MIT economist Paul Samuelson has noted, it is similar to the pyramid scheme created by the Boston con man Charles Ponzi in 1920, when he paid some suckers part of what he milked from others while keeping the difference. -- P.77

As recently as 1980, there were four workers' contributions to support every retiree. By 2030, there will be just two. Depending on who's calculating, Social Security will start paying out more than it takes in around 2017 and will be flat out of reserves by 2041 -- a slow motion train wreck happening while we watch. -- P.78

Even if the Social Security system were fully solvent, there's an added problem no one talks about. It is increasingly short changing its beneficiaries. When Social Security began, the payroll tax was just 2 percent of income. Now it's 12.4%. Today, the average male worker about to retire will typically get just a 1.27 percent return on his lifetime of taxes -- much less than he would get from a savings account. That's bad enough, but the younger you are, the worse it gets. Twenty-five-year-old workers can expect a return of minus 0.64 percent -- they actually lose money. -- P.79

...(T)he four annual Clinton budget "surpluses" in the fiscal years 1998-2001, supposedly totaling 558.5 billion, were virtually all the result of raiding the Social Security surplus (to the tune of $557.1 billion). If, like any company in the nation, the government had to include known future liabilities in its bookkeeping, estimates indicate the national debt would be reckoned at an astronomical $72 trillion--an incomprehensible number that US comptroller David Walker calls "chilling." -- P.88

In 1982, Congress passed a highway bill containing 10 earmarks for pork-barrel goodies -- 10 too many. By 2005, the number had somehow grown to more than 6300. --P.96

The Heritage Foundation's budget expert, Brian Riedl, maintains that a real war on government waste could easily save $100 billion a year without denting legitimate benefits of government programs. -- P.100

Buried in the Treasury Department's 2003 Financial Report of the United States Government is a short section title. "Unreconciled Transactions Affecting the Change in Net Position." It contains the rather stupefying information that some $24.5 billion vanished into thin air that year. The government knows it was spent by someone, somewhere, on something, but auditors do not know who spent it, where it was spent, or on what. -- P.100

Throughout the government, waste is virtually assured by the overlapping of dozens of programs created over the years to address similar problems. There are, for example, no fewer than 342 separate economic development programs, 130 programs serving the disabled, 130 programs serving at-risk-youth, and 90 for early childhood development programs. Hundreds more overlap in other fields, from international trade agencies (17) to teen pregnancy programs (27). The duplication not only wastes time, talent, and money; it also creates a chaotically confusing jumble of standards, rules, and specialty subprograms for potential users to navigate. -- P.105

In 2003, as we mentioned earlier, Congress passed the Medicare prescription drug entitlement. Accounting for an estimated $8.7 trillion of Medicare's staggering seventy-five-year unfunded liability of $29.7 trillion, its costs have been blithely ignored; there is no plan for paying them. As Comptroller General David Walker put it, "There is no way we are going to deliver all the Medicare promises that have been made. No way." -- P.118

In our view, government regulation of business should always be effective yet minimal, and it should always err on the side of promoting prosperity for the whole economy and all of our citizens, not just a priveleged elite. -- P.125

Free trade is an idea that goes back to Adam Smith, the founder of modern economics. It was Smith who first said, "If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it off them" -- and pay for it with some good or service that we have the comparative advantage in turning out. -- P.128

The link between economic freedom and prosperity is clear. The latest index found that the freest countries had per-capita income averaging $29,212, more than twice the average for "mostly free" nations ($12,839) and more than four times the per-capita income of "mostly unfree" countries. -- P.138

For decades, the United States and many of our well-meaning international friends and allies have tried to help poor countries by showering them with cash to help grow their economies. It hasn't worked. Between 1980 and 2003, we spent more than $116 billion for development projects in eighty-nine countries, half of them with per capita incomes below $765 a year. Of those countries, only thirty-two grew by more than 1 percent, and thirty-seven were worse off than when measuring started in 1980. Over the course of that twenty-three-year time frame, sub-Saharan Africa's per capita income fell from $573 to $514 -- a 10.3 percent drop. -- P.139-140

At 35 percent, the US corporate tax rate is at least twice as high as the rates companies pay in Ireland, Chile, Hong Kong, and Iceland. Estonia has no corporate tax rate at all, and even Denmark, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand have lower corporate tax rates than we do. We must strive to match our competitors. -- P.145

Twenty-four countries, including Canada, Australia, India, Mexico, China, Russia, and even Sweden, that poster child for the welfare state, have no death tax at all. And a recent study by the American Council on Capital Formation found that only two major nations have higher death-tax rates than the United States. -- P.146

Several years ago, a GAO survey found that IRS employees gave incorrect tax advice half the time. -- P.147

The Pentagon believes China may currently be spending up to $90 billion annually on its military, or three times the amount it officially acknowledges. China's defense expenditures at much higher than Chinese officials have publicly admitted," Rumsfeld told an Asian security conference in June 2005. "It is estimated that China's is the third-largest military budget in the world, and now the largest in Asia...Since no nation threatens China, one wonders: "Why this growing investment?" -- P.167

We didn't lose in Vietnam because we were weak militarily: Before, during, and after the war, we could have won any set-piece battle. But we used our strength irresolutely, and our enemy did not have to win in order to triumph. He had only to avoid losing until we got tired and went home. -- P.176

In Los Angeles in February 1998, a Gold Cup soccer game between Mexico and the United States brought our a fervent crowd of 91,255 fans, most of them Mexican immigrants. They waved Mexican flags, booed when "The Star Spangled Banner" was played, and pelted the American team "with debris and cups of what might have been water, beer, or worse." When a few fans tried to raise an American flag, they were attacked with fruit and cups of beer. "Playing in Los Angeles is not a home game for the United States," observed a Los Angeles Times Reporter. -- P.198

Right Wing News is a mainstream, conservative blog that has exactly the sort of readership that Republicans in Washington should want on their side. These are the sort of people who contribute money to campaigns, man phone banks, put up yard signs, and make sure to show up when it's time to vote. In short, these are the sort of voters the GOP desperately needs to show up en masse in November of this year, if we're going to do well.

Unfortunately, because so many Republicans in the Senate have become arrogant and out-of-touch, they've lined up behind an outrageous bill that would not just allow illegal immigrants to stay in this country, but a bill that would hand them American citizenship as a prize for holding our laws in contempt.

Yesterday at RWN, there was a post about this bill. Here are just some of the comments RWN's readers -- who are, again, exactly the sort of conservatives whom Republicans will need most in November -- made on that post:

Read it and weep...

"Basically this is the Republican party telling the American people, f*ck you, we heard you loud and clear you voted time and time again when given a chance that you want immigration reform that stops illegal immigration and doesn't grant amnesty, we have seen the polls showing 60% don't want a guest worker program, but guess what, we don't care what you want, we are going to do what we want and what we want to do is capitulate to the democrats and create a new block of voters that will vote democrat. That's a pretty brilliant way to give away your majority." -- mbranca

Thank you, Arlen Specter.

"They are giving away their majority. Howard Dean need to nothing but keep his mouth shut and watch his party walk away winners in November." -- poordrunkannie

Thank you, Mike DeWine.

"Congrats to the GOP... I'm now a single issue voter... and most of their candidates are on the wrong side of that issue and to think that I used to donate money to these clowns." -- RepublicanPig1

Thank you, Lindsey Graham.

"I plan on contacting my Republican Congresswoman and let her know that if this goes down the way Spector wants, I will sit out the November Election..." -- CoolCzech

Thank you, Sam Brownback.

"...It is becoming more and more clear to me that there are negative consequences to this kind of loyalty. Republican officials take for granted that they will get votes because Republican voters don't want to stay home, and they don't want to indirectly support Democrats.

The thing they fail to account for is this: Eventually, for many people (and in todays atmosphere, it doesn't take all that many to tilt the scales) it gets to the point where you see no difference between voting Republican and throwing away your vote.

I have reached this point. From here on out, I'll vote for individual Republicans if I believe they are dedicated to representing my interests. But never again will I vote for or give money to a candidate just because the have an R next to their name. If that means I'm throwing away my vote, so be it. I'd rather vote for a loser for the right reasons than a winner for the wrong ones." -- President_Friedman

Thank you, John McCain, for saying this bill doesn't constitute amnesty.

"This bill is now the most prominent reason for those in the Republican base to not vote this year. It's the exact opposite of the gay marriage ban, this actually UN-motivates Those on the right. It would be understandable if it came from the Dem side, but FOR THE REPUB'S TO PUT THIS FORWARD IS SUICIDE!!! ARE THEY RETARDED?" -- anon2

Thank you, George Bush, for going against the majority of your own party and the majority of Americans with your pro-illegal immigration policies.

If this bill becomes law, in November, the Democrats -- if they're polite -- will be thanking these men as well -- for handing them the Senate.

"Whittier area students from Pioneer, California and Whittier high schools walked out of classes to protest the proposed federal immigration bill March 27, 2006. The protestors put up the Mexican flag over the American flag flying upside down at Montebello High. (Leo Jarzomb/Staff photo)"

Republicans in the Senate think the illegal aliens who hung our flag upside down, under the Mexican flag, should be allowed to become Americans? They should have been checked for green cards and deported on the spot if they weren't Americans.

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin

"His Majesty thinks that it’s about time that Congress adopts a responsible, reasonable and realistic approach to the scourge of vehicular theft or, as we prefer to call it, undocumented possession of an automobile.

For too long, we’ve ignored this problem, creating criminals out of hard-working car thieves undocumented drivers and with very little to show for it. Indeed, for the last decade or so, about 1,200,000 undocumented drivers have been reported every year with absolutely no signs of the number going down.

...Obviously, there is no realistic way that our prison systems can accommodate 12,000,000 undocumented drivers, as some extremist pedestrophobes have suggested. And, of course, that would mean that we’d have to catch them all in the first place, which I think that it’s pretty obvious that we can’t.

Besides, as a nation of highly mobile people living in a vast area where transportation is vitally important, it goes completely against the values upon which we founded this society of ours to adopt such draconian measures against undocumented drivers who, let’s face it, just want a piece of the American Dream, feeling the wind in their hair as they race down the Interstate.

...So I propose that Congress, sooner rather than later, gather to decriminalize undocumented possession of an automobile. Under my program, undocumented drivers will be allowed to drive unattended automobiles that nobody wants to drive at the moment anyway and, after a three year period of driving responsibly, will be given the title to the vehicle in question.

Irresponsible, extremist, hateful and plainly un-American critics have suggested that this is unfair to those who’ve worked hard to gain documented possession of an automobile or even that such a program will discourage purchase of cars and encourage undocumented driving. To them I say… Well, I’m going to say something, as soon as I can come up with a brilliant retort. Rest assured, however, that it’ll include the words “racist”, “elitist”, “snob”, “pedestrophobe”, “totalitarian” and “doo-doo head”, not necessarily in that order.

...With this visionary program, I foresee that car theft will become a thing of the past in short order." -- Misha from The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler

Mexican Flag Waving Illegals Rush The Dallas City Hall

McCain Comes Out In Favor Of Giving Illegal Aliens Citizenship (GRRRRRRRRR)

Andrew Card Resigns as White House Chief of Staff (Good Riddance)

The WAPO Leaks Off The Record Coversations With The White House

Democratic Congressman Jim Mcdermott Busted For Violating Federal Law By Turning Over An Illegally Taped Telephone Call To Reporters Nearly A Decade Ago

Former Defense Chief Caspar Weinberger Dies At 88

Gallup: Worries About Health Care Now Top Issue In U.S.

Christian Convert Vanishes After Release

U.S. Troops Defend Raid, Say Iraqis Faked "Massacre"

Police Find 14 Bodies Shot In Head In Baghdad

Israel's Olmert Declares Election Victory

A Million French Protest Against Youth Job Law

Furor As London Mayor Calls US Ambassador "Crook"

Thomas Sowell: Guests Or Gate Crashers

Human Events: Tell Waffling Republicans -- No Amnesty!

National Review: Reckless In The Senate On Illegal Immigration

Rich Lowry: Illegals vs. Enforcement

A Q&A With Newt Gingrich

La Shawn Barber: Black Marriage

Richard Brand: Why Is Hugo Chávez Involved With U.S. Voting Machines?

Charles Krauthammer: Fukuyama's Fantasy (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Jack Kelly: Sunday's Gunfight In Iraq

Tony Blair: We Must Stay United

Charlie Cook: The GOP's Structural Advantage

Paul Begala: “McCain Sat Out The (Viet Nam) War” (Disgusting)

Man Is Charged $4,300 for Four Burgers

Website Of The Day: NumbersUSA

Sometimes, you just have to scratch your head and wonder what goes on in the vast empty space between the ears of some of the Republicans in the Senate. For example, that sort of head scratching might happen after you saw the nightmarish concoction that the Senate Judiciary Committee just came out with. Here we are in a Senate, that has 55 Republicans -- 44 Democrats -- and 1 left leaning independent -- on an issue that is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to the conservative base, and we get a bill that gives liberals everything they want while those of us on the right get a boot in the mouth.

Here's a description of the bill, which might as well have been written by Vicente Fox, that is going to be going to the Senate floor:

"(Illegal) Immigrant supporters claimed their first major victory since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks after a bipartisan group of senators approved legislation that would give millions of illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship.

...In general, the Judiciary Committee's bill is designed to strengthen enforcement of U.S. borders, regulate the flow into the country of guest workers and determine the legal future of the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally.

The bill would double the Border Patrol and authorize a "virtual wall" of unmanned vehicles, cameras and sensors to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border. It also would allow more visas for nurses and agriculture workers, and shelter humanitarian organizations from prosecution if they provide non-emergency assistance to illegal residents.

The most contentious provision would permit illegal aliens currently in the country to apply for citizenship without first having to return home, a process that would take at least six years. They would have to pay a fine, learn English, study American civics, demonstrate they had paid their taxes and take their place behind other applicants for citizenship, according to aides to Kennedy, D-Mass., who was instrumental in drafting the legislation.

...The Judiciary Committee also approved a five-year plan to provide visas for about 1.5 million agriculture workers and allow them to eventually seek legal residency.

Recent polls show that about six in 10 Americans oppose letting illegal immigrants remain in the country and apply for citizenship and three of every four don't believe the government is doing enough to stem the continuing tide of new arrivals."

So, what do we have here? No real wall, a bunch of security measures that will probably never actually be fully implemented (just like last time), illegal aliens who don't respect our laws being given US citizenship, and a guest worker program.

For a moment, let's just set aside the fact that...

-- This legislation is a disaster for America and will lead to more illegals pouring over the border in hopes of a future amnesty.

-- The same people who snuck into our country in the dead of night and were out in the street this week-end waving Mexican flags and claiming America is stolen land, will be offered citizenship.

-- This is a huge slap in the face, a big, "You're an idiot," to all the people who obeyed our immigration laws and actually waited in line to enter this country legally. When lawbreakers are rewarded and people who respect the law are treated like fools, expect more criminal behavior.

-- We've already had one massive amnesty back in 1986. Back then, they promised we'd never have another one and that we'd tighten up security. Now, 20 years later, here we are right back in the same position. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Setting all that aside, consider the politics of this bill.

You'll notice, even in the article above, that a significant majority of Americans oppose allowing illegals to stay here and apply for citizenship. Furthermore, the Republican base is -- and has been -- breathing fire over this issue for years. So, in an election year, when the base is already demoralized, the Republicans in the Senate are going to tell us, and the majority of American citizens, to go straight to hell on a critically important issue? Does that really make sense politically?

Furthermore, let's say all 11 million illegal aliens become US citizens. Which party do you think they're going to vote for? Even if they split 60/40 for the Democrats -- and given that they're mostly poor, uneducated people, from mostly socialist countries, who don't respect our laws, those are probably extremely generous numbers for the GOP -- this will add more than 2 million potential votes for the Democrats.

Oh, but that's not all! Inevitably, because of this amnesty, more illegal aliens will pour into the country. Which means what? Another amnesty in 5 or 10 years and another 2 or 3 million net votes for the Democrats?

But wait, there's more! Since the "solution" suggested above will take years to implement and really won't fix the problem, it guarantees that this issue will continue to be a sucking chest wound for the GOP that won't go away for years.

In other words, this bill is a complete disaster for America and the GOP. It's the political equivalent of the Harriet Miers fiasco, McCain-Feingold, and the Dubai Ports World deal all rolled up into one big, ugly package and it absolutely must be stopped.

It has been a while since I last ranked the best opinion columnists in the business, so I figured it was time to do it again. Here are my current faves in order...

30) Cal Thomas
29) Kathleen Parker
28) Ben Stein
27) Heather Mac Donald
26) Larry Elder
25) Peggy Noonan
24) Michael Fumento
23) John Fund
22) Michael Barone
21) Brendan Miniter
20) Byron York
19) James Lileks
18) Robert Novak
17) Tony Blankley
16) Jeff Jacoby
15) David Limbaugh
14) John Leo
13) John Podhoretz
12) Ralph Peters
11) Michelle Malkin
10) Victor Davis Hanson
9) Walter Williams
8) John Stossel
7) Rich Lowry
6) Ann Coulter
5) Jack Kelly
4) Jonah Goldberg
3) Charles Krauthammer
2) Thomas Sowell
1) Mark Steyn

One of the things that puzzles a lot of people is why Africa is such a complete and utter mess. Explanations for why that's the case abound, but most of them conveniently try to blame the West for Africa's problems. You have people claim that colonization or slavery is to blame. Some people will tell you that the West doesn't care enough or that rich Western countries take advantage of Africa.

My theory? The culture in Africa, the backwards, superstitious, tribal mentality, that's almost incomprehensible to Westerners is what's dooming so many people in Africa to miserable lives and making real progress almost impossible.

Let me give you a piece of evidence, from the New York Times, that I think supports my theory.

The story is about the attempt to eradicate the Guinea worm in Africa. And the Guinea worm, as you're about to read, is a nightmare well worth eradicating:

For untold generations here, yardlong, spaghetti-thin worms erupted from the legs or feet — or even eye sockets — of victims, forcing their way out by exuding acid under the skin until it bubbled and burst. The searing pain drove them to plunge the blisters into the nearest pool of water, whereupon the worm would squirt out a milky cloud of larvae, starting the cycle anew.

"The pain is like if you stab somebody," said Hyacinth Igelle, a farmer with a worm coming out of a hand so swollen and tender that he could not hold a hoe. He indicated how the pain moved slowly up his arm. "It is like fire — it comes late, but you feel it even unto your heart."

Sound horrible, right? Well, the good news is that the Guinea Worm, thanks to Jimmy Carter of all people, is about to be wiped out in Africa:

"Fewer than 12,000 cases were found last year, down from 3 million in 1986."

The bad news, or more appropriately, the strange news is that it took 20 years to get to this point. The reason why it's strange is that the Guinea Worm doesn't appear to be particularly tough to send packing, as the New York Times explains:

"(The Guinea worm) ought to be almost ridiculously easy to wipe out, because it has a complex life cycle in which humans, worms, fleas and shallow ponds each must play their parts perfectly. Any missing link disrupts the chain of transmission.

Wells can be drilled to prevent the afflicted from plunging their limbs into the village's drinking water. Or local water sources can be treated with a mild pesticide that kills the fleas that swallow the worm larvae and are, in turn, swallowed by the humans. Or every family can faithfully pour its water through a filter cloth each day, or drink through filtering straws. With unremitting effort, experts at the Carter Center now estimate, purging the last nine African countries of the disease could take five more years. Dr. Ernesto Ruiz-Tiben, technical director of its campaign, says he is sure that, at long last, victory is in sight."

So, what's the problem here? You would think this could have been done in a year, tops. Well, the problem is the culture as you're about to see in this long excerpt about the agonizing quest to clear an area called Ogi of the worm:

"In 2001, Jacob Ogebe, a field officer for the Carter Center Guinea Worm Eradication Program, was trying to track down every pond in the area surrounding Ogi. He treated each with Abate, a mild pesticide that left the water potable, but killed the microscopic fleas that carry Guinea worm.

But slowly, he realized that Ogi's villagers were misleading him. He heard rumors of a sacred pond, but no one would take him to it. "They kept leading me to other places," he said. "Then one day, I was treating another pond, and I got lost and discovered it."

Though it is only a triangular puddle about 20 feet on each side in a heavily trodden grove of trees, the villagers revere it. "We have laws here, so no one dirties it," Gabriel Egba, the pond's high priest, said in an interview on its edge.

...The pond teems with whiskery fish, turtles and snakes. More important, villagers say they believe that the souls of their ancestors also dwell in it, and Mr. Egba officiates at the sacrifices of roosters and rams for anyone wishing to talk to them.

After Mr. Ogebe found the pond, he said, villagers tried to dissuade him from treating it. "Some of them offered me money to hide it," he said. "But I told my boss at the Carter Center. Then, each time I went to the village, people followed me around. There were threats on our lives."

But by November 2003, the Carter Center's office in Jos, the regional capital, had persuaded village leaders to treat it. Nigeria's political leaders, constantly on the defensive against foreign accusations that the government here is inept or corrupt, had developed a sudden interest in the country's increasingly successful Guinea worm eradication campaign. The Carter Center's office was able to send in its biggest gun, short of a visit from Mr. Carter himself: Gen. Yakubu Gowon, who ruled Nigeria from 1966 to 1975.

...On the day of his visit to Ogi, he was greeted politely beneath the village's central tree and was personally invited to pour the Abate into the pond. But when he and the other dignitaries walked the several hundred yards through tall grass to it, they found many of the village's women forming a human wall around it.

"They had colors rubbed on their faces to show resistance," like Indian war paint, Mr. Ogebe said. "They were chanting songs of their refusal."

Sarah Pantuvo, General Gowon's Guinea-worm eradication director, said the women shouted: "This disease is a curse from our ancestors, it has nothing to do with the pond water! If we let you touch anything, the ancestors will deal with us. We heard them crying all night!"

"I was very angry," Ms. Pantuvo said.

But General Gowon tried to defuse the situation, telling the women: "You, the women who fetch water from this pond, were not consulted about treating it? You should have been."

He assured them that the Abate would not harm the fish, and he told them that if their ancestors were benign, they would not want their children to be sick, and would like the pond treated.

But the women would have none of it. "Why don't you go treat AIDS instead?" they shouted.

Finally, he backed down, saying he would return when the women were ready.

That evening, he visited Matthew Ogbu Egede, the paramount chief of the area around Ogi. Chief Egede was mortified.

"I am a Christian," he said in an interview. "I don't believe in anything about juju. These people objected out of ignorance. The devil made them object."

He convened a meeting of "the elites," a local chiefs council. Furious, they ordered the village to accept the pesticide treatment and pay a fine of "one very mighty native cow, plus goats, yams and kegs of palm wine," Chief Egede said. The council sent the general an effusive letter of apology.

...Mr. Ogebe was allowed to treat the pond. Slowly, cases of Guinea worm disease died out in the area.

Let's look at what we have here. In 2001, they find a pond. A very simple act, pouring a mild pesticide into a pond to kill microscopic fleas, could have taken care of the problem right then and there. But, it took people who persevered, despite death threats, until November of 2003 to get the job done and it only happened after the intervention of the former ruler of Nigeria.

Those women, who were standing around the pond with their faces painted, worrying about their ancestors? If one of those same women had been adopted and taken to the US when she was a baby, she might be a doctor or computer programmer today. But, trapped by their culture in Nigeria, these women are acting in a fashion that probably would have been considered primitive 500 years ago.

And it's not just the Guinea worm. It's how they deal with other diseases, capitalism, technology, and all the other wonders and tribulations of modern life. These people are crippled by their culture and all the well meaning Westerners in the world aren't going to fix that. Until more African nations accept Democracy, the rule of law, capitalism, freedom of the press, and the other things that go along with a successful society, they're doomed to wallow in poverty in misery, no matter how much money or help we try to give them. They're living in a hell of their own making and until they decide they'd rather change their attitudes, there's only so much we can do to help them.

Did Bubba and Babs engage in a little bouncy bouncy? This article in USA Today, about Barbra Streisand's unauthorized biography seems to suggest exactly that:

"(Streisand) was perhaps the most famous FOB (Friend of Bill), but was President Clinton more than a friend? Hillary banned Babs from the White House, according to Andersen, after Streisand stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom while Hillary was away."

So was Hillary just being paranoid or was Bill doing Barbra in the Lincoln Bedroom? A better question: given that Bill Clinton is a serial adulterer who has at a minimum cheated on Hillary with a few women and has probably had a dozen plus during their freaky pseudo-marriage, why did Hillary get so upset about one more? Obviously, Hillary has made peace with the fact that her husband sleeps around on her, so what set her off about Babs?

You know, it'll never happen, but if Bill Clinton were to actually write a truthful memoir that talked openly about his strange relationship with Hillary and all the affairs he's had, it would be the best selling book since the Bible.

Hat tip to Debbie Schlussel for the story.

The Brussels Journal has a very interesting and detailed look at the failures of the European social welfare mode:

Why is Europe performing so poorly? Europe’s deficient performance is incompatible with its huge potential as the world’s largest single consumer market. Its slow growth contradicts its unequalled industrial productivity and infrastructure, its outstanding education level and labour ethics, its favourable climate, “fair business” morality, and not in the least its tremendous potential provided by the opening of the iron curtain. Obviously Europe’s fairy-tale is not materializing. Nor are the inflated expectations prognosticated by Europe’s political elite at the launch of the Common Currency and the Lisbon Agenda.

The reality of Europe’s ailing economy contrasts sharply with its economic potential and with the massive resources employed to cure its ailing growth. The whole arsenal of Keynesian remedies has now been tried and has failed one by one. Massive deficit spending throughout the eighties and nineties has left Europe with a public debt unequalled in history. The size of Europe’s monumental public debt is only surpassed by the hidden liabilities accumulated in Europe’s shortsighted pay-as-you-go public pension schemes.

The fact remains that what’s happening in Europe right now could very well happen here – in fact, it will unless we start working towards changing our current course. Europe made a very conscious decision to try to create a state based off of certain utopian principles – that economic goods such as health care and housing were “rights” and that the best way to promote a healthy society was to have a more “fair” tax system. Years of massive social welfare spending, confiscatory taxation, and Keynesian economics have failed to produce economic growth or significant prosperity. In fact, with Europe’s unemployment rates in the double digits and their total labor underutilization even double that, it’s quite clear that trying to emulate a European model is trying to emulate failure.

At the same time, one European country does provide a model for how to grow an economy in the 21st Century. Ireland went from being 22nd in the OECD prosperity index to being fourth. The Irish economy has grown at an annualized rate of 5.6% for the past 20 years. Granted, that sort of growth isn’t sustainable over the long term, but in a generation Ireland went from being under conditions that resembled the Third World to being one of the most dynamic countries in the EU.

What did Ireland do? They were the first in Europe to truly embrace globalization. Irish leaders realized that high protective tariffs were stunting economic growth and preventing foreign investment. The Irish government engaged in a policy of free trade, slashed taxes across the board, and worked to attract foreign investment. Ireland also has the benefit of having a large diaspora in the United States - one quarter of US FDI to Europe is invested in Ireland.

Ireland has the exact opposite set of problems as the rest of Europe - Ireland’s population is rising rather than falling, and immigration is still strong. The economic boom has meant that prices on everything from real estate to pints of Guinness have increased dramatically. The Irish economic boom has left government coffers flush with cash - which encourages the kind of spending that isn’t sustainable as the Irish economy completes its transition. Yet for all those problems, it’s far better to have to deal with a rising population and high growth than the opposite.

Ireland’s flat tax structure and pro-growth policies have done better at providing an increased quality of life than the European social model has - and because of Ireland’s economic growth they’re better able to build infrastructure and invest in education, continuing that trend of growth. Policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic need to understand that the quasi-socialist welfare state model doesn’t work. If you want solid economic growth and a better life for your citizens, you must embrace free trade, low taxes, and foreign investment. Ireland’s victory and Europe’s decline are living proof of what it takes to destroy and economy and what it takes to develop one. The question is which model this country will embrace over the next few years and which future we have in store for ourselves.

This content was used with the permission of Jay Reding.

Senate Panel Approves Amnesty Bill That Would Allow 11 Million Illegals To Become American Citizens (This Is An Absolute Outrage)

Illegal Aliens Waving Mexican, El Salvadoran, Guatemalan And American Flags Protest On The Freeways In LA

'Dirty Bombs' Crossed U.S. Borders in Test

A Study Shows That The Number Of Illegal Immigrants Working Is Rising As More American-Born Workers Are Becoming Unemployed

Bill Clinton's Chauffeur An Illegal Immigrant

On Stand, Moussaoui Says He Knew Of Plan To Attack W.T.C. (Free NYT Reg Req)

FEC Won't Regulate Internet Politics (This Is Good News)

UPI Botches Report On Scalia

Afghan Christian Facing Execution Requests Asylum Abroad

Dutch Consider Legalizing Infanticide

Bush Was Set on Path to War, British Memo Say (Free NYT Reg Req -- This Is Producing A Lot Of Buzz On The Left, But Its Nothingburger)

Rich Lowry: Jobs Americans Won’t Do? Think Again.

20 Questions With Irshad Manji (Question #17 Is A Little Wacky, But Otherwise, Very Good)

Mark Krikorian: Guest Worker Programs Are A Dead End

National Review: Enforcement First

Robert Novak: How To Erase Earmarks

Pentagon Stays The Course With Laser Weapon

Drilling Into A Hot Volcano

Soldier Returns From Iraq To Surprise: Restored Collectible Car

Sinkhole Swallows Up SUV In New York Street (W/Pics)

Police Raiding A House For Suspected Illegal Drugs Found A 5-Year-Old Boy Weighing Just 15 Pounds, Suffering From Down Syndrome And Sitting In Diapers Full Of His Own Waste. Lice Covered His Body

Alec Baldwin V. Sean Hannity In Radio Donnybrook

Sean Penn Has A Torture Doll Of Ann Coulter (He Sounds Mentally Disturbed)

Website Of The Day: South Park Pundit

I was fortunate to get an opportunity to do an interview, via email, with Claire Berlinski about her new book, Menace In Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis Is America's, Too. We discussed secularism in Europe, anti-Americanism, France, the future of America's "special relationship" with Britain, among other topics.

You can read the interview here.

As most of you are no doubt aware, there were multiple pro-illegal immigration rallies this week-end, the biggest of which was in Los Angeles. Here's part of the AP report on the LA Rally:

More than 500,000 immigration rights advocates marched in downtown Los Angeles yesterday, demanding that Congress abandon attempts to make helping illegal immigrants a crime and to build more walls along the border.

The massive demonstration, one of a half dozen around the nation in recent days, came as President Bush prodded Republican congressional leaders to give some illegal immigrants a chance to work legally in the United States under certain conditions.

Yesterday's march in Los Angeles was the largest in a series of demonstrations across the country. Police Commander Louis Gray Jr. said officers in helicopters estimated the crowd.

Many of the marchers yesterday wore white shirts to symbolize peace and also waved US flags. Some also carried the flags of Mexico and other countries, and even wore them as capes. A sign carried by one demonstrator read: ''Illegal immigrants are welcome to go to war, but why can't we have a job, home, or license?"

Elger Aloy, 26, of Riverside, a premed student, pushed his 8-month-old son in a stroller in yesterday's march. ''I think it's just inhumane. . . . Everybody deserves the right to a better life," Aloy said of the legislation.

...''They say we are criminals. We are not criminals," said Salvador Hernandez, 43, of Los Angeles, who came to the United States illegally from El Salvador 14 years ago and worked as truck driver, painter, and day laborer.

In Denver, police said more than 50,000 people gathered at Civic Center Park next to the Capitol to urge the state Senate to reject a resolution supporting a ballot issue that would deny many government services to illegal immigrants in Colorado.

On Friday, thousands of people joined in rallies in cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Atlanta, staging school walkouts, marches, and work stoppages. The Los Angeles demonstration led to fights between black and Hispanic students at one high school, but the protests were largely peaceful, authorities said."

Here are some more details from Mickey Kaus,/ who covered the rally:

Crowd size: Big! Bigger than a couple of football games--I'd say 200,000 plus. ***

Demeanor: Pleasant!

Makeup: 99 percent Latino (an oversimplification--I saw one T-shirt saying "I'm Mexican, not Latino")

Most telling placard slogan: "Somos illegales, no criminales!"

Flags: Evenly split between Mexican and U.S., with El Salvadoran running a very distant (1%) third. And there were lots of flags. If you said "Mexican flag" every time you saw a Mexican flag, you never stopped talking.

You have to wonder what percentage of the protesters was made up of illegal aliens. Certainly, it must have been significant. You've even got illegals carrying signs identifying themselves as illegals ("Illegal immigrants are welcome to go to war, but why can't we have a job, home, or license?").

Question: Doesn't this tell you a lot about how lax enforcement of immigration laws in this country have gotten? Certainly, you don't see burglars or arsonists turning up by the tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands to rally against tougher sentences, do you?

Another Question: How did we get to the point where we have people who aren't even in this country legally, walking around in broad daylight, waving Mexican flags, and demanding that our government cater to them?

Still Another Question: Why wasn't Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the scene checking green cards?

A Question That May, In A Roundabout Way, Explain The Answer To The Last Question: "So, if we toughen up enforcement, will they start burning cars?" -- From Mark Krikorian at the Corner

Here's the situation in a nutshell: we have illegal aliens, the businesses that hire them, immigrants whose first loyalty seems to be to Mexico, and the democrats who want to turn the illegals into citizens to get more votes -- being given preference over a much larger group of law abiding Americans who believe, correctly, that we need to secure our borders and that we should not reward people for breaking our laws.

Unfortunately, a lot of Republican Senators want to placate the first group -- and they're making a huge mistake. If Republicans allow illegals to become citizens, it will cost them the Senate. If they come up with some sort of guest worker program that rewards illegals, not only will the problem get worse, because we'll likely end up with illegals AND guest workers pouring in, this issue will not die politically. The fight will only get nastier and will continue to drag on.

There's one way out of this mess: it's to do the right thing and treat our immigration laws like they mean something.

Secure the border, crack down on businesses that hire illegals, cut off government services to "undocumented workers," and refuse to allow people who entered this country illegally to benefit in any way from their criminal behavior. If we do have a guest worker program, it needs to be made up of honest people who followed the rules and didn't steal into our country like thieves in the night, instead of rewarding illegals with amnesty.

If these Republicans on the Hill just set their petty political concerns aside and do the right thing, guess what? Long term, they'll find out that good governance is good politics, just like it was with welfare reform. On the other hand, if they cave and do the wrong thing, just because they think it'll give them a temporary political advantage, it'll come back to bite them just like the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. Good policy on illegal immigration will turn out to be good politics as well.

Initially, I was jazzed to see that Ben Domenech from Redstate was tapped to blog for the Washington Post. You see, I've long thought that the time would come when big papers and corporations would start raiding the blogosphere for talent. So, today it could be the WAPO picking up Domenech, but tomorrow it could be the LA Times grabbing Betsy Newmark or the Chicago Tribune offering Ann Althouse a pretty penny to guest blog. In other words, when one blogger succeeds on that level, it has the potential to create new opportunities for the rest of us.

Of course, the reverse is also true and when a blogger like Ben Domenech really blows it on a high profile gig, it hurts the rest of us, too, because it makes media and corporations more wary of bloggers. In Ben's case, it turned out that he was a serial plagiarist who ripped off everyone from Jonah Goldberg to PJ O'Rourke.

Naturally, the Washington Post had to get rid of him and although Domenech didn't immediately own up to what he did wrong, belatedly he admitted his guilt and apologized. It's tempting to just give him credit for eventually doing the right thing and give things a little time to cool off. That's because -- although some people won't agree -- I don't think a 24 year old kid should be branded with a scarlet "P" for the rest of his life. After all, Joe Biden committed plagiarism when he was a seasoned political veteran running for President in 1988 and now he's talking about running again in 2008. If committing plagiarism at one point in your career doesn't make you unfit to run for President, then it certainly doesn't make you unfit to blog.

That being said, the reason I decided to weigh in on this topic was the infuriatingly immature attitude on display by some people over at Redstate. You see, apparently there were people who were terribly offended that Michelle Malkin correctly pointed out that Ben had engaged in plagiarism and then suggested that he resign his position with the WAPO.

There were not just one, but two recommended diaries over at Redstate this week-end aiming venom at Michelle for what -- actually having the audacity not to blindly excuse Ben Domenech's bad behavior?

Here's an excerpt from one of them, called "Dear Michelle Malkin" from a "MrsNachos:"

"What you have managed to do, in the words of the infamous Beatles is to "get by with a little help from your friends." Oh, sweetie, bless your heart, because that is coming to an end. In the south, they'd say you've shown your behind. Well, they'd use another word for it, but I'm enough of a lady not to say it. What you've done is sold out a friend for one article.

It's not to say that I don't see your motivation, love, because I do. I see that Ben helped you with one of your books, and, in all honesty, probably wrote all the funny parts because you and I both know it's not your strong suit isn't it, sweetpea? However, your little notes came out before you made it a point to talk to a FRIEND about what happened before you flapped the carefully sucked in jowls and screwed him over."

Here's an excerpt from another recommended diary this week-end called "Michelle Malkin: Dead to Me" by machiavel:

"I don't agree with the positions taken by Rick Moran and Patrick Frey. But I can at least understand them. They don't know Ben, so it's easy for them to criticize a faceless blogger in order to take an abstract position against the monstrous actions he stands accused of. Misguided, yes. Treacherous, no.

It is entirely another matter, however, to know the man, to have worked with the man, and feel the irrepressible urge to show your fair-mindedness, to strut your reasonableness, to tell it like it is, sister! -- friendship be damned. All this before your former colleague has had the opportunity to speak.

...Beware befriending Malkin. Because the moment something goes wrong, you will be thrown under the bus. You will be judged before you have a chance to speak. And whatever mea-culpa you offer will be judged inadequate for 120,000 readers to see."

Newsflash, geniuses: Michelle was absolutely right and Ben was not only absolutely wrong, his huge flameout was so prominent that it was actually bad for blogging. If you want to be mad, be mad at Ben. He's the one who handed the left a club to beat him with by plagiarizing article after article. He's the one who put National Review in a position where they felt compelled to apologize to their readers for posting Ben's plagiarized work.

Ben? I have some sympathy for him because we all make mistakes and the goofs we made when we were teenagers shouldn't follow us our whole lives. But, people who are so keen to defend Ben's behavior that they want to rip people who don't give him a complete pass? That's a different story. I had no sympathy for the Dems when they did it with Clinton and I have no sympathy for the conservatives doing it in this case. If you want to try make a case that plagiarism is OK when Ben does it, try to make that case, but otherwise, don't jump on Michelle for applying the same ethical standards to Ben that she'd undoubtedly apply to a liberal in similar circumstances.

"For all intents and purposes, "Impeach Bush" is the new "I'm moving to Canada": a Moonbat impulse designed to demonstrate to the world how much they really, really, really want to get back into power, but which, in the end, will hurt Democrats more than Republicans, by a damn sight.

It is, indeed, a terrible distratction that will end up costing Democrats seats in Congress, despite the fact that they have already begun to celebrate their 2006 victory. But what is uniqely sad about all this is that, for lack of anything else on the agenda, the "Impeach Bush" mantra is the exclusive offering from the 2006 Democrat slate.

Don't believe me? Fill in this blank:

If we Democrats are elected to a majority in Congress in 2006, we will _________________!

You really have only two answers: 1.) Declare defeat and cut-and-run from Iraq, or 2.) Impeach Bush.

Neither is a winning message." -- Patrick Hynes

John Aravosis contends that liberals are much less angry and nasty than their conservative counterparts.

They have terrorists - pro-lifer murderers. Who do we have on the liberal side who outright murders their political opponents?

Well, there are various ecoterrorist groups like the Animal Liberation Front, the Animal Rights Militia, Greenpeace, and others. The various groups that spike trees to injure loggers. Those who set fire to SUV dealerships. Unabomber Ted Kaczinski. Going back a little further, we had the Weather Underground, Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and others.

Ann Coulter and Pat Robertson have called for the assassination of their political opponents. Jerry Falwell and the religious right groups are bigots who are still embraced by the Republican party. Who do we have on the religious left who even holds a candle to these hatemongers?

Is there a “religious left” nowadays? Al Sharpton?

Then there’s the angry factor: Ken Mehlman, O’Reilly, Hannity, Scarborough, Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, Newt, Frist, Santorum, Delay, George Will, Krauthammer, most of the top Republican bloggers, Bob Dole, Cheney, and more. The Republicans are an angry party, most of their leadership on TV, the radio and in politics is simply motivated by, and exudes, an unhealthy anger.

But who on the left exudes the same? Michael Moore? Hardly, the man is usually smiling and laughing in his appearances. Compare him to Sean Hannity. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Hillary or Bill? None of them are angry or nasty. Nor are our TV personalities angry: Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart get their points across with humor and facts, but not the obvious seething hate you see from a Hannity.

Howard Dean, Al Gore, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Cynthia McKinney, Sheila Jackson Lee, Bobby Rush, Maxine Waters, most of the top Democratic bloggers, Molly Ivins, Ted Rall, Chris Matthews, Al Franken, Janeane Garafolo, Randi Rhodes, MoveOn.org, etc. I always liked Harry Reid but think he’s been pretty angry since assuming the Minority Leader mantle.

I don’t watch enough talking head TV anymore to be able to do much comparison. Hannity is annoying, to be sure, but surely no more angry than a Bob Beckel, Paul Begala or James Carville. Let alone Chris Matthews (”Hardball” incarnation, not the Sunday show guy). Indeed, when one includes the generally professorial George Will in a list of the other side’s crazies, it’s a pretty good sign that the list is thin. And Steny Hoyer? That’s reaching pretty far down the fame threshhold to come up with a pleasant personality.

Think about the conservatives most hated by the left. They’re all angry, negative, nasty-hearted mean people. But compare them to those most hated by the right: Hillary, Bill, Moore, Soros, Phil Donohue, Alan Alda, Norman Lear, and a whole host of Hollywood - Barbra Streisand on down. Where do you find the hate and the anger spewing from those people? Sure, the right hates them, but you really can’t point to any of these people who are as filled with hatred and anger as anyone on the right. In fact, the quality most often shared by those hated by the right: intelligence, eloquence, and a message.

Who’s been hating on Donohue, Alda, or Lear in the last twenty years or so? People on the right disagreed with Alda and Lear, to be sure, but I don’t recall a lot of venom directed their way; indeed, most of us regularly watched their shows. Donohue, who I actually rather like as a person, was surely at least as angry as Hannity. There’s plenty of anger and hate spewing from Streisand and Moore, although most on the right are just annoyed with the idea of Hollywood celebs being taken seriously when they try to tell us how to lead our lives.

So, in conclusion, their religious folks are angrier and nastier than ours - well, theirs are outright bigots, ours are puppy gods. Their political leaders are angrier and nastier, whereas again, ours are puppy dogs. Their TV and radio personalities, and their other celebrities, all kind of nasty (they get Charleston Heston, enough said, gun man).

Really? Charleton Freakin’ Heston? The man’s a teddy bear. Whatever one thinks of his stands on the issues, he is incredibly classy in his public discourse. His solliloquy on Ice T’s “Cop Killer,” for example, is a classic of calmly shredding the other side without raising one’s voice.

Across the board, conservatives are represented by people who are simply motivated by, and exude, an irrational hatred and anger. Is it any wonder that Republicans are so prone to striking out domestically and internationally at whomever they perceive as today’s enemy?

Yes, Republicans tend to advocate force against foreigners who are trying to kill us. Then again, until very recently, so did Democrats. Even Bill Clinton sent American troops into combat on a dozen or more occasions. And Hillary Clinton strongly championed the Iraq War.

Moreover, this whole argument is silly. Operation Rescue and Timothy McVeigh are about as representative of mainstream Republicans as the Animal Liberation Front and Ted Kaczinski are of mainstream Democrats; which is to say, not at all. There is anger and frustration on both sides, as there are serious cultural divides in the country. But then, with perhaps a handful of brief intermissions during particularly unifying national events, that has always been the case.

Talk radio and blogs have made angry expression more public than it once was, I suppose, but that’s true outside of politics. Most sports talk radio is more vitriolic than Rush Limbaugh. Indeed, most Americans are probably more passionate and agitated about sports than they are about politics.

This content was used with the permission of Outside The Beltway.

Officials: Case Dropped Against Afghan Christian

Afghan Paper Calls For Release Of Christian Convert

CAIR Calls For Release Of Afghan Christian

Conversion A Thorny Issue In Muslim World

Britain: An Islamist Terrorist Sold Poisoned Burgers From A Street-Corner Van And Planned To Contaminate Beer At A Football Stadium

Iran to Go Nuclear This Year, Ahmadinejad Says

Iraq Shi'ites Accuse US Troops

US Troops Arrest Iraq Forces

Israeli Army Takes Tough Stand

Thanks, But No Thanks, Some Marines Say To Extra Body Armor

500,000 People, Many Of Them Illegal Immigrants, March In Favor Of Illegal Immigration (Free LA Times Registration)

The 2004 Federal Prison Population Was 180,328 Inmates; Criminal Aliens (47,000) Comprised 27% Of The Total

Tom Tancredo: Illegal Aliens Are "A Scourge That Threatens The Very Future Of Our Nation"

Rice Accepts DJ's Apology For Accidental Racial Slur

Scalia Said To Slam Detainee Rights At Gitmo

Wife of W.Va. Sen. Byrd Dead at 88 (Sorry To Hear That. RIP)

Mark Steyn: Will We Stick Our Necks Out For His Faith?

Claire Berlinski: Paris Burning, Once Again (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Stephen Hayes: Camp Saddam. What We've Learned About Iraq's Terrorist Training Camps

Joy Jones: 'Marriage Is for White People' (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Charles Murray: A Plan To Replace The Welfare State. The Government Should Give Every American $10,000--And Nothing More

Mark Steyn: If The Koran Permits, You Must Acquit (Free Jerusalem Post Reg Req)

Top 50 Countries With Highest Proportion Of Atheists

Jerome Corsi & Monica Crowley Allowed To Get Away With Plagiarism?

Harper's Magazine Has Gone Insane

Liberal Vs. Conservative Scorecard In The Blogosphere

Humor Rap Video: Lazy Munzie (Some Bad Language)

Website Of The Day: David M