When I heard the Senate passed S.2636, The Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, by a vote of 84-12, I immediately wanted to know who the 12 Senators were who voted against it. Those might be 12 Senators I could support. Those might be 12 Senators interested in doing the right thing, as opposed to the pandering election year thing that actually makes the problem worse. Those 12 Senators might actually be, gasp, fiscally responsible, a notion that almost seems quaint in these days of mutually assured fiscal destruction (spend, spend, spend, borrow, borrow, borrow, tax, tax, tax, prop up the economic house of cards for another day, the future be damned, this Titanic is a really nice ship, what's that sticking out of the water up ahead ? Aw, who cares, I'm too fat and lazy to bother turning the wheel, I'm sure it will all be fine, ooh, did we hit something ?).

It came as no shock to me that all 12 of the Senators who voted 'Nay' on S.2636 were Republicans. Every single Democrat Senator voted for the taxpayer funded boondoggle, except for Obama and Hillary, who didn't vote. Here are the S.2636 'Nay' voters. Kudos to them:

Barrasso (R-WY) Bunning (R-KY) Coburn (R-OK) Corker (R-TN) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Enzi (R-WY) Gregg (R-NH) Hagel (R-NE) Inhofe (R-OK) Kyl (R-AZ) Warner (R-VA)

It also came as no shock to me that the fiscally conservative position of these 12 Republicans is the minority position within their own party, a party that gives lip service to fiscal conservatism, but in reality has morphed into something else entirely, especially during these last 7 years (FYI - Senator John McCain supports S.2636, even though he didn't cast a vote. He has given it verbal support, contradicting statements he made against an unwise mortgage bailout only a couple weeks earlier). This bodes very poorly for our future. When Republicans aren't interested in fiscal responsibility, we're in big trouble, because the big spending socialist Democrat foxes sure aren't going to guard the fiscal hen house.

One of the 12 'Nay' voters on S.2636 was Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY). Here are a few of his comments on the Foreclosure bill:

“This is an unusually bad bill, and I have opposed it from the start. The course it has followed almost guarantees that it will be filled with the worst kind of gimmickry. And it is. The Senate may be the world’s greatest deliberative body, but this bill is anything but the product of deliberation. It is a jumble of disjointed ideas, unlikely to solve the crisis at hand, and it’s unpopular.

“It turns out that the American people don’t like the idea of bailing out banks and their neighbors who gambled on home prices. The voters understand what is going on in Washington, better than we do.

“Another provision that deserves far more scrutiny is the $4 billion in community development block grants that will be allocated to state and local governments to buy foreclosed properties. To begin with, this program is very poorly managed. The Wall Street Journal called it among the worst-run programs in Washington, and there is a lot of competition for that title…

Let’s not have any illusions. This extraordinarily unwise grant of taxpayer money is really just a bailout for banks in disguise. It goes to states, but the ultimate beneficiaries will be banks that made risky loans. Instead of selling foreclosed properties on the open market, these banks will have the luxury of selling to local officials with whom they may already have a relationship. These officials will be buying properties not with their own funds, but with ‘O.P.M.’ O.P.M. stands for ‘other people’s money.’ And, in this case, the O.P.M. comes from you and me, the American taxpayer, and millions of unborn Americans that we are saddling with even more debt.

Another provision that could benefit from more thoughtful deliberation is the $100 million of spending on counseling. … We also don’t know all that much about the non-profit groups that will get the money. Are some of these groups funded mostly by credit card companies? If so, they will have a clear conflict of interest. Maybe they will actually advise people to abandon their homes to foreclosure in order to pay credit card debt. That would make the foreclosure situation worse, not better.”

But Mr. Bunning, if Congress actually considered the effects of the bill before they voted on it, they might not get it passed in time to pat themselves on the back for the fall elections. What's important is that Congress DID something, even if it's the wrong thing. That's how they get votes. That's how demagoguery works.

The mortgage crisis can only be resolved by a revaluation of housing prices, which is what this temporary housing problem would have brought about had it been left to run it's course. It is counterproductive in the long run for the government to move in and try to keep property values artificially inflated. Free market capitalism doesn't mean that the market will go up, up, up forever. Sometimes it needs to go down too. Pushing huge new costs onto the taxpayers is NOT the answer here.

As for John McCain, Senator Obama has been going around saying it took McCain three tries to get the correct housing crisis response. I say McCain had it right the first two times, and abandoned the right thing the third time, when he caved and started pandering like the rest. The government (actually the taxpayers) shouldn't be in business of bailing out banks and homeowners who made unwise economic decisions. All this bill accomplishes is to move the Titanic a little closer to the iceberg.

Listen up, midwestern states. Barry O has got your number. Here's your problem, as stated by the Great Orator in San Francisco the other day:

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.
And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

There you have it, rednecks. Straight from the elitist mountaintop. Y'all are a bunch of gun-lovin', racist, superstitious, evangelical, bitter hicks. You lost your jobs 25 years ago and just didn't know what to do after that, so you loaded up on guns, god, and chewin' tobacco, and started hating anyone who doesn't look or talk just like you. You are ignorant, small town midwestern flyover state rubes, given to all sorts of crazy notions, helpless without the guidance of your government masters like Barry. Y'all are kind of like those apes in the beginning of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's nothing short of amazing that you are even toilet-trained, especially when you consider there isn't an $18 billion government potty initiative (must be a failure of leadership).

As one of those aforementioned midwestern hicks, I have a response to the Harvard educated Mr. Obama: Take your condescending stereotype and stick it up your arrogant tailpipe, you pompous piece of prattling pig puke.

Barry Bonehead offered a followup comment on the topic friday night in Indiana:

"They don’t vote on economic issues because they don’t expect anybody’s gonna help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns … issues like gay marriage … take refuge in their faith and their community and families, things they can count on … so here’s what’s rich. Senator Clinton says, “Well, I don’t think people are bitter in Pennsylvania …” John McCain says, “Oh, how can he say that? How can he say people are bitter?”

Now, being a 2001 apeman, I don't know nuthin' 'bout no E-caw-nuh-mee, but I sure do recognize spin when I hear it (He really DOES think we're that stupid, doesn't he ?) He tried to say Hillary and McCain objected to him calling people "bitter", when that wasn't what they objected to at all. What they both objected to Barry, was your bigoted view of midwestern americans, you schmuck (and McCain actually meant it). They objected to the fact that you don't even give midwesterners enough credit to form their own opinions about issues like the Second Amendment, religion, illegal immigration, or free trade. Instead, midwesterners are "bitter" and "frustrated," especially when they disagree with YOU, right Barry ? If people disagree with Obama's liberal attitudes, why then, they must be racist, they must be zenophobic, they must be psychologically unbalanced ! It's the same bankrupt liberal argument I've been hearing for years. I'm sick to death of politicians like you, Barry. You talk about unity, but all you do is divide people into stereotyped groups, ptting one against the other. And, of course, every one of those aggrieved groups needs help from the government. They need help from Barry. After all, how can a bunch of apes fend for themselves ? We need zookeepers.

FYI - Those jobs that Barry talked about leaving 25 years ago were factory jobs. Barry isn't going to bring any of them back. Not one. It's pols like Barry that caused them all to leave in the first place. Barry thinks you're too stupid to realize that too.

Take a hike, Obama. Too bad. I really would like there to be a black president. That would a be great step for our country. It's just that Barry's not the one. He IS the manchurian candidate (you nailed it, larry d). What's Colin Powell doing these days ? I'd take him over anyone left in the presidential race.

That's all I have to say about this. Now we can all sit back and listen to Obama and friends spin this over the next few days to tell us what he REALLY meant, just like they tried to tell us Obama sat in Jeremiah Wright's black liberation theology church for 20 years and never heard Wright make any racist comments (they really, really think we're that stupid, don't they ?) It will be comical and entertaining, I'm sure.

Lawyers give more money to political campaigns than does any other industry. During the 2004 elections, lawyers donated $183.8 million. So far in 2008, they've given $103 million, and we have 7 months to go until the election. Approximately 75% of the lawyer's money goes to Democrats. Lawyers, and specifically trial lawyers, are the Democrats number one special interest group, and have been for years. By comparison, the industry that donates the biggest percentage to Republicans is Oil/Gas. They are 16th on the industry donor list, having given $11.5 million in 2008. 73% of that goes to the GOP. You can find the donor numbers at opensecrets.org. The other big Democratic donor industries are Securities/Investment (like Bear Stearns), TV/Movies/Music (the liberal media), and Education (failing public schools/teacher's unions).

So, what do lawyers get in return for all that money they are throwing at the Democrats ?

Well, the Dems let the Protect America Act expire rather than grant immunity to the telecom companies that aided the government in tracking terrorists following 9/11. The lawyers have billions in lawsuits waiting in the wings there. Even national security took a back seat to the trial lawyers on that issue. That's what the Dems do for the trial lawyers. Dems block tort reform, block medical malpractice reform, block 'loser pays' lawsuit reform, and block damages award caps. Democrats are a trial lawyer's dream come true. Dems allow lawyers to continue to feed at the trough, uninhibited. Dems are money in the bank for trial lawyers. It's no wonder that Obama, Hillary, and John Edwards are all lawyers. No wonder all three of them buy into the ideas of victimology and entitlement. It's in their DNA. Everybody I know thinks our society has become overly litigious (except the litigators living in their mansions. They think it's peachy). Democrats are the reason our society is so sue happy. It's a big part of their agenda.

This leads me to the prestigious law firm of Milberg Weiss LLC (and by 'prestigious', I mean 'crooked as hell'). Milberg Weiss is one of the big tort law firms, and their specialty is class action lawsuits against corporations on behalf of their shareholders. You see, if shareholders don't get the expected return on their stock investment, the landsharks at Milberg Weiss are ready and willing to call that fraud or mismanagement, and sue the corporation. I kid you not. If you are a corporation and your stock price drops, Milberg Weiss will sue you if they can get enough of your stockholders to go along. Another specialty of Milberg Weiss is the so-called 'strike suit', which is a lawsuit that is so expensive to defend that corporations find it easier and less expensive to settle rather than fight. I'm pretty sure they used to call that extortion in the old days, but this is a brave new world.

There was a bigger problem with Milberg Weiss - they gave kickbacks to shareholders who provided primary testimony against the corporations they were suing. In other words, the testimony was bought and paid for, and that IS fraud, big time.

To call Milberg Weiss successful is an understatement. A 2004 Forbes article estimated Milberg Weiss lawsuit winnings at $30 billion. A couple weeks ago, I heard a Wall Street Journal analyst say it was up to $45 billion by 2008. The pattern of corruption at Milberg Weiss was mind boggling. They paid millions in kickbacks.

When the Bush Justice Department indicted several Milberg Weiss attorneys in 2006, after investigations that had been going on since the Clinton administration, Democrats in the US Congress rushed to their defense. The Dems politicized the indictments (surprise, surprise !) by issuing the following accusatory statement against the Bushies, which was signed by four Democrat Congressmen - Charles Rangel, Carolyn McCarthy, Gary Ackerman and Robert Wexler:

“The unprecedented recent indictment of Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman is a very thinly veiled attempt by the Bush Administration to accomplish by bullying and intimidation what it has not been able to do by law - to end class-action lawsuits, one of the few tools remaining to safeguard the American consumer.”

That is typical Dem hyper-partisanship, but Rangel and company had a bit of a problem - Milberg Weiss attorneys were guilty as hell, and now the convictions are coming down. Seymour Lazar, retired, was convicted of paying $2.6 million to "professional plaintiffs" [link], and previously was found guilty of obstruction of justice, filing a false tax return, and making false statements to the court. Mel Weiss pled guilty to conspiring to obstruct justice by hiding secret payments to plaintiffs in securities lawsuits [link]. The prosecutor in the case against Mel Weiss said the firm has been running this scam for 25 years. Bill 'The King Of Torts" Lerach was also convicted in the kickback scheme [link]. Several others are still awaiting trial.

So, what kind of prison time did these felonious mass corrupters of the justice system get ?

You're gonna love this part.

After defrauding and extorting corporations for 25 years, bribing witnesses, giving kickbacks, obstructing justice, lying to the court, and collecting tens of billions in ill-gotten gains from it all….

Seymour Lazar got probation (he's 80 years old). Mel Weiss got 20-33 months, and Bill Lerach got 2 years. You'd get more time than that if you robbed $200 from the local mini mart.

Isn't it great to have friends in high places ?

Btw, Hillary Clinton has received more money from Milberg Weiss than any other member of Congress. Barack Obama received a lesser amount.

At least this time, the Left didn't slander general David Petraeus or call him a liar (not as much, anyway). There were no 'General Betray-Us' ads or references to the 'willing suspension of disbelief'. The Left learns to censor their more hideous traits, but they usually have to step in it a time or two before they do.

There has been undeniable progress in Iraq in the seven months since Petraeus last spoke to Congress, and substantial progress in the last year since the surge started. Anyone who denies those facts is simply not being truthful. However, as Petraeus put it, the progress is "fragile and reversible." Much remains to be done, and though we all want our troops out of Iraq as soon as possible (and for you Dems out there, that includes John McCain), the idea of a fixed timetable for withdrawal is neither wise nor workable if a secure Iraqi government is our goal. Both Petraeus and Iraq ambassador Ryan Crocker made that point during their testimony yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

There's something about a group of presidential wanna-bees (that's 'bees', as in buzz, buzz) and congressional partisans making political speeches disguised as questions for Petraeus and Crocker that irks me. With the cameras rolling, the effect is magnified, since the cameras amount to free political advertisement. Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich), who opened the proceedings, personified partisanship. He downplayed the progress of the surge, acted like the recent Basra flare-up nullified it all, and mentioned every possible negative aspect of the Iraq conflict. If there was a poster boy for the attitude known as "Defeatocrat," Levin was it. Since Levin said nothing at all helpful, I'll briefly paraphrase his opening comments and move on. Levin more or less said "Bush sucks, Iraq's a mess, screw the Iraqis, let's quit." Not exactly the can-do spirit that made america great.

When Barack Obama, an intelligent man, but one who frankly knows little more about Iraq than I or any other random person who follows the events knows, offers up his opinions to Petraeus, opinions are all they are, and they'd be insignificant, except Obama could be the next president, so we have to pay attention to him. Obama has spent a grand total of two days in Iraq in his lifetime, and those were in 2006. He couldn't possibly have an iota of knowledge about Iraq in comparison to Petraeus or Crocker. I don't mean this to be a particular criticism of Obama, since pretty much the same could also be said of Hillary Clinton or John McCain. In fact, if I heard what I think I heard yesterday, McCain repeated his blunder of not knowing whether Al Qaeda is Sunni or Shia. If McCain wants to be the big boss man, he should at least know a wahabbist from a wabbit, and it seems he doesn't. An insufficient regard for the different fractious elements within Iraqi society is a large part of the reason our troops are still there 5 years later. When McCain makes this mistake, I am reminded of gross oversimplifications like Dick Cheney saying "we will be greeted as liberators." Yes, by some Iraqis we were, but most definitely not by others, and Dick, what about the post-liberation ? The Bushies went in like a bull in a china shop, but didn't appear to know the first damned thing about what they were getting into, given the ensuing events.

Since Obama is the likely Democratic nominee for president, here's a link to a transcript of Obama questioning Petraeus and Crocker, and following is a cobbling together of key parts of that testimony:

OBAMA: I just want to close with a couple of key points.

Number one, we all have the greatest interest in seeing a successful resolution to Iraq — all of us do. And that, I think, has to be stated clearly in the record…I also think that the surge has reduced violence and provided breathing room, but that breathing room has not been taken the way we would all like it to be taken. And I think what happened in Basra is an example of Shia versus Shia jockeying for power that underscores how complicated the political situation is there and how we still have to continue to work vigorously to resolve it. I believe that we are more likely to resolve it, in your own words, Ambassador, if we are applying increased pressure in a measured way. I think that increased pressure in a measured way, in my mind — and this is where we disagree — includes a timetable for withdrawal. Nobody's asking for a precipitous withdrawal, but I do think that it has to be a measured but increased pressure; and a diplomatic surge that includes Iran. Because if Maliki can tolerate as normal neighbor-to-neighbor relations in Iran, then we should be talking to them as well. I do not believe we're going to be able to stabilize the position without them…Our resources are finite. And this has been made — this is a point that just was made by Senator Voinovich, it's been made by Senator Biden, Senator Lugar, Senator Hagel. There's a bipartisan consensus that we have finite resources. Our military is overstretched, and the Pentagon has acknowledged it. The amount of money that we are spending is hemorrhaging our budget, and Al Qaida in Afghanistan I think is feeling a lot more secure as long as we're focused in Iraq and not on Afghanistan. When you have finite resources, you've got to define your goals tightly and modestly.

…It's obviously not perfect. There's still violence, there's still some traces of Al Qaida, Iran has influence more than we would like. But if we had the current status quo, and yet our troops had been drawn down to 30,000, would we consider that a success? Would that meet our criteria, or would that not be good enough and we'd have to devote even more resources to it?

CROCKER: Senator, I can't imagine the current status quo being sustainable with that kind of precipitous drawdown.

OBAMA: …I'm not suggesting that we yank all our troops out all the way. I'm trying to get to an endpoint. That's what all of us have been trying to get to. And, see, the problem I have is if the definition of success is so high, no traces of Al Qaida and no possibility of reconstitution, a highly-effective Iraqi government, a Democratic multiethnic, multi- sectarian functioning democracy, no Iranian influence, at least not of the kind that we don't like, then that portends the possibility of us staying for 20 or 30 years.

If, on the other hand, our criteria is a messy, sloppy status quo but there's not, you know, huge outbreaks of violence, there's still corruption, but the country is struggling along, but it's not a threat to its neighbors and it's not an Al Qaida base, that seems to me an achievable goal within a measurable timeframe, and that, I think, is what everybody here on this committee has been trying to drive at, and we haven't been able to get as clear of an answer as we would like.

CROCKER: And that's because, Senator, is a — I mean, I don't like to sound like a broken record, but this is hard and this is complicated.

I think that when Iraq gets to the point that it can carry forward its further development without a major commitment of U.S. forces, with still a lot of problems out there but where they and we would have a fair certitude that, again, they can drive it forward themselves without significant danger of having the whole thing slip away from them again, then, clearly, our profile, our presence diminishes markedly.

But that's not where we are now.

The first thing I'd take exception with is Obama saying they all [Democrats] want a successful resolution in Iraq. Many of his comrades most certainly do NOT care about that. Many of them just want to get out of Iraq, with little regard for the consequences. Obama himself voted to stop funding the war last year, and he also voted to start a troop withdrawal that, had it been adopted, would have had all our troops out by now. Thus, Obama is being disingenuous when he says nobody is advocating a "precipitous withdrawal.' Obama himself advocated that.

Secondly, nobody has ever said that Iraq has to become the perfect society with no traces of Al Qaeda and no traces of sectarian violence before US troops pull out. Obama is building a straw man argument there. What has always been the stated goal is for the USA to stand down as the Iraqi forces stand up. That is where the difficulty has lain, and no formally announced public withdrawal timetable is going to assist in that effort. Even if we get to a place where a withdrawal timetable is set, there is no advantage in making it public, other than to some politicians who want to take credit and garner some support from it. I also keep hearing Democrat after Democrat being all indignant that Bush will leave Iraq for the next president (who they presume will be a Democrat) to deal with. Yes, that's probably so, Dems. Deal with it. Your party is not more important than the country.

Go here for a transcript of general Petraeus' comments to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

February 16, 1999
Harvard Law School Forum

I remember my son when he was five, explaining to his kindergarten class what his father did for a living. 'My Daddy,' he said, 'pretends to be people.' There have been quite a few of them. Prophets from the Old and New Testaments, a couple of Christian saints, generals of various nationalities and different centuries, several kings, three American presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses, including Michelangelo. If you want the ceiling re-painted I'll do my best. There always seem to be a lot of different fellows up here. I'm never sure which one of them gets to talk. Right now, I guess I'm the guy.

As I pondered our visit tonight it struck me: if my Creator gave me the gift to connect you with the hearts and minds of those great men, then I want to use that same gift now to re-connect you with your own sense of liberty, your own freedom of thought, your own compass for what is right.

Dedicating the memorial at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said of America, "We are now engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure."

Those words are true again. I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what resides in your heart. I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you — the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is.

Let me back up. About a year ago I became president of the National Rifle Association, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. I ran for office, I was elected, and now I serve — I serve as a moving target for the media who've called me everything from "ridiculous" and "duped" to a "brain-injured, senile, crazy old man." I know — I'm pretty old — but I sure thank the Lord ain't senile.

As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue. No, it's much, much bigger than that. I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are mandated.

For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 — long before Hollywood found it fashionable. But when I told an audience last year that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone else's pride, they called me a racist.

I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life. But when I told an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe.

I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, when I drew an analogy between singling out innocent Jews and singling out innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite.

Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my country. But when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution, I was compared to Timothy McVeigh.

From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they're essentially saying, "Chuck, how dare you speak your mind. You are using language not authorized for public consumption!"

But I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd still be King George's boys — subjects bound to the British crown.

In his book, The End of Sanity, Martin Gross writes that "blatantly irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost every area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules, new anti-intellectual theories regularly foisted on us from every direction. Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something, without a name is undermining the nation, turning the mind mushy when it comes to separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And they don't like it."

Let me read a few examples. At Antioch college in Ohio, young men seeking intimacy with a coed must get verbal permission at each step of the process from kissing to petting to final copulation — all clearly spelled out in a printed college directive.

In New Jersey, despite the death of several patients nationwide who had been infected by dentists who had concealed their AIDS — the state commissioner announced that health providers who are HIV-positive need not — need not — tell their patients that they are infected.

At William and Mary, students tried to change the name of the school team "The Tribe" because it was supposedly insulting to local Indians, only to learn that authentic Virginia chiefs truly like the name.

In San Francisco, city fathers passed an ordinance protecting the rights of transvestites to cross-dress on the job, and for transsexuals to have separate toilet facilities while undergoing sex change surgery.

In New York City, kids who don't speak a word of Spanish have been placed in bilingual classes to learn their three R's in Spanish solely because their last names sound Hispanic.

At the University of Pennsylvania, in a state where thousands died at Gettysburg opposing slavery, the president of that college officially set up segregated dormitory space for black students.

Yeah, I know that's out of bounds now. Dr. King said "Negroes." Jimmy Baldwin and most of us on the March said "black." But it's a no-no now.

For me, hyphenated identities are awkward — particularly "Native-American." I'm a Native American, for God's sake. I also happen to be a blood-initiated brother of the Miniconjou Sioux. On my wife's side, my grandson is a thirteenth generation Native American — with a capital letter on "American."

Finally, just last month, David Howard, head of the Washington D.C. Office of Public Advocate, used the word "niggardly" while talking to colleagues about budgetary matters. Of course, "niggardly" means stingy or scanty. But within days Howard was forced to publicly apologize and resign.

As columnist Tony Snow wrote: "David Howard got fired because some people in public employ were morons who (a) didn't know the meaning of niggardly, (b) didn't know how to use a dictionary to discover the meaning, and (c) actually demanded that he apologize for their ignorance."

What does all of this mean? It means that telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can't be far behind. Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did political correctness originate on America's campuses? And why do you continue to tolerate it? Why do you, who're supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression?

Let's be honest. Who here thinks your professors can say what they really believe? It scares me to death, and should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason.

You are the best and the brightest. You, here in the fertile cradle of American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River, you are the cream. But I submit that you, and your counterparts across the land, are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge.

And as long as you validate that — and abide it — you are, by your grandfathers' standards, cowards. Here's another example. Right now at more than one major university, Second Amendment scholars and researchers are being told to shut up about their findings or they'll lose their jobs. Why? Because their research findings would undermine big-city mayor's pending lawsuits that seek to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from firearm manufacturers.

I don't care what you think about guns. But if you are not shocked at that, I am shocked at you. Who will guard the raw material of unfettered ideas, if not you? Who will defend the core value of academia, if you supposed soldiers of free thought and expression lay down your arms and plead, "Don't shoot me."

If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you a sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion. If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe.

Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism. But what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation?

The answer's been here all along. I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people.

You simply disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely. But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom.

I learned the awesome power of disobedience from Dr. King, who learned it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus, and every other great man who led those in the right against those with the might.

Disobedience is in our DNA. We feel innate kinship with that Disobedient spirit that tossed tea into Boston Harbor, that sent Thoreau to jail, that refused to sit in the back of the bus, that protested a war in Viet Nam.

In that same spirit, I am asking you to disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives and onerous law that weaken personal freedom.

But be careful — it hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at risk. Dr. King stood on lots of balconies. You must be willing to be humiliated — to endure the modern-day equivalent of the police dogs at Montgomery and the water Cannons at Selma. You must be willing to experience discomfort. I'm not complaining, but my own decades of social activism have taken their toll on me. Let me tell you a story.

A few years back I heard about a rapper named Ice-T who was selling a CD called "Cop Killer" celebrating ambushing and murdering police officers. It was being marketed by none other than Time/Warner, the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the world. Police across the country were outraged. Rightfully so — at least one had been murdered. But Time/Warner was stonewalling because the CD was a cash cow for them, and the media were tiptoeing around it because the rapper was black. I heard Time/Warner had a stockholders meeting scheduled in Beverly Hills. I owned some shares at the time, so I decided to attend.

What I did there was against the advice of my family and colleagues. I asked for the floor. To a hushed room of a thousand average American stockholders, I simply read the full lyrics of "Cop Killer" — every vicious, vulgar, instructional word.

I GOT MY 12 GAUGE SAWED OFF
I GOT MY HEADLIGHTS TURNED OFF
I'M ABOUT TO BUST SOME SHOTS OFF
I'M ABOUT TO DUST SOME COPS OFF…

It got worse, a lot worse. I won't read the rest of it to you. But trust me, the room was a sea of shocked, frozen, blanched faces. The Time/Warner executives squirmed in their chairs and stared at their shoes. They hated me for that. Then I delivered another volley of sick lyric brimming with racist filth, where Ice-T fantasizes about sodomizing two 12-year old nieces Of Al and Tipper Gore. SHE PUSHED HER BUTT AGAINST MY ….'

Well, I won't do to you here what I did to them. Let's just say I left the room in echoing silence. When I read the lyrics to the waiting press corps, one of them said, "We can't print that." "I know," I replied, "but Time/Warner ís selling it."

Two months later, Time/Warner terminated Ice-T's contract. I'll never be offered another film by Warner, or get a good review from Time magazine. But disobedience means you must be willing to act, not just talk.

When a mugger sues his elderly victim for defending herself, jam the switchboard of the district attorney's office. When your university is pressured to lower standards until 80% of the students graduate with honors, choke the halls of the board of regents. When an 8-year-old boy pecks a girl's cheek on the playground and gets hauled into court for sexual harassment, march on that school and block its doorways. When someone you elected is seduced by political power and betrays you, petition them, oust them, banish them. When Time magazine's cover portrays millennium nuts as deranged, crazy Christians holding a cross as it did last month, boycott their magazine and the products it advertises.

So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobediences of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men, by God's grace, built this country.

If Dr. King were here, I think he would agree.

Thank you.

Hey ! Da King had that same haircut and beard in 1973 ! (as Bill, not Hillary). Ah, the sixties and seventies, who can remember forget 'em.

—

The endless media prattle about whether Hillary Clinton should drop out of the presidential race has become a steady irritant to me (the media spends so much time talking about so very little), so I apologize now, because I'm about to jump in that same pool.

What spurred me was an article from salon.com called 'If The System Made Sense, Clinton Would Be Far Ahead.' I nearly avoided reading the article, since I didn't believe it could possibly be persuasive, and like I said, I'm tiring of the endless repetitive drone emanating from the talking heads on this subject. Upon reading the piece, however, I changed my mind. It was persuasive, actually compelling.

On all fronts, the Democratic primary has been about the most undemocratic exercise in cynicism and stupidity I've ever had the displeasure to witness. I have already discussed some of that previously here, but there is much more I left out.

First of all, if the Democrats ran their primary they way the country runs the general election, Hillary WOULD be far ahead:

"If the Democrats heeded the "winner takes all" democracy that prevails in American politics, and that determines the president, Clinton would be comfortably in front. In a popular-vote winner-take-all system, Clinton would now have 1,743 pledged delegates to Obama's 1,257. If she splits the 10 remaining contests with Obama, as seems plausible, with Clinton taking Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Puerto Rico, and Obama winning North Carolina, South Dakota, Montana, Oregon and Guam, she'd pick up another 364 pledged delegates. She'd have 2,107 before a single superdelegate was wooed. You need 2,024 to be the Democratic nominee. Game over. No more blogospheric ranting about Clinton "stealing" the nomination by kidnapping superdelegates or cutting deals at a brokered convention."

Obama supporters may cry, 'yes, but Obama has the lead in the popular vote as well !'. True, but if Michigan and Florida were added to the mix instead of being disenfranchised, the popular vote AND the delegate count would be up for grabs, even under the current distorted funhouse mirror of Democrat primary rules:

"Obama's current lead in the popular vote would nearly vanish if the results from Michigan and Florida were included in the total, and his lead in pledged delegates would melt almost to nothing. The difference in the popular vote would fall to 94,005 out of nearly 27 million cast thus far — a difference of a mere four-tenths of 1 percentage point — and the difference in delegates would plummet to about 30, out of the 2,024 needed to win. Add those states' votes to the totals, and take a sober look at Clinton's popular-vote victories in virtually all other large states, and the electoral dynamic changes. She begins to look like the almost certain nominee."

Worse yet, Obama, who attempts to pass himself off as a new kind of politican - post-partisan, hope inspiring, and a unifying influence, has steadfastly resisted enfranchising those disenfranchised voters in Florida and Michigan. This makes Obama less a new kind of politican, and more the old kind, as in Chicago mob boss politics. His attitude is strictly self-serving, the voters and democracy be damned:

"The Obama camp's reaction has not been to clean up the mess the party has created, but to benefit from it. Given the original primary outcomes in Michigan and Florida, Obama has rejected the idea of certifying the results. Although Obama's supporters conducted a stealth "uncommitted" campaign in Michigan after he voluntarily removed his name from the state ballot, and even though, contrary to DNC directives, his campaign advertised in Florida, Clinton still won both states decisively. This leaves open the option of holding new primaries in both states. National and state party officials have announced that such revotes could be conducted."

"…the Obama campaign has stoutly resisted any such revote in either state. In Michigan, Obama's supporters thwarted efforts to pass the legislation necessary to conduct a new primary. In Florida, campaign lawyers threw monkey wrenches to stop the process cold, claiming that a revote would somehow violate the Voting Rights Act, and charging that a proposed mail-in revote would not be "fraud proof." (Obama himself, it's important to note, proposed a bill in 2007 to allow for mail-in voting in federal elections.)"

There's your Obama hope and change, folks. What Obama has exhibited is the same thing so many politicians exhibit, the lust for power above all else, and that sure ain't new or different.

The Democratic primaries are SO screwed up that Obama has actually received more delegates in some states he LOST to Hillary Clinton:

"In Nevada, Clinton also won a popular majority, despite pressure from union officials on the rank and file attending the caucuses to vote for Obama. Yet Obama claims, on the primary electoral map posted on his official Web site, that he actually won Nevada — presumably because rules that gave greater weight to rural than urban votes mean he won a marginal edge in the Byzantine allotment of the state's delegates. Why, in deference to the clear-cut Nevada popular majority, doesn't Obama cede the majority of the state's delegates to Clinton? Because, according to the rules, he's entitled to those delegates. But why are the rules suddenly sacrosanct and the popular vote irrelevant? Might it be because the rules, and not the popular vote, now benefit Obama? And what about Texas, another state where Clinton won the popular vote but has not been awarded the majority of pledged delegates? Once again, for Obama, the rules are suddenly all-important — because the rules, and not the popular majority, now favor him."

Most of the states Obama has won in the Democratic primaries are red states, meaning they are states Republicans won in 2004. Republicans are likely to carry most of them again in 2008. Hillary has won the big key swing states in the primaries. The only big swing state Obama won was his home state of Illinois. This does give Hillary a legitimate reason to claim she is the more electable candidate in the general election:

"Obama has tried to reinforce his democratic bona fides by asserting his superior electability, and by claiming that Clinton's supporters are more likely to back him in November than vice versa. The polls, however, show otherwise. And even more important, the polling data on the electoral vote totals show an outcome very different from the one suggested by Obama. The latest state-by-state figures (as of late March) updated from SurveyUSA, indicate that if the election were held today, Clinton would defeat McCain in the Electoral College because of her lead in big, electoral-vote-rich states such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania — and McCain would beat Obama."

Here's salon.com's final thought:

"In the final analysis, though, the fights inside the Democratic Party aren't really about either an ideal American democracy or the American democracy that actually exists. According to the Obama campaign, democracy is defined as whatever helps Barack Obama win the Democratic nomination. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a candidate arguing this way. But everybody should see it for what it is — not something new or transformative, but one of the oldest ploys in the playbook of American politics."

Hard to disagree with that when all the evidence is weighed.

Hillary may not become the nominee, but what ultimately stops her might not be Barack Obama so much as the bizarre nature of the game the Democrats have rigged up.

They say this is the Dems year. If so, I hope they govern better than they select a nominee, but it sure doesn't look good so far.

Barack Obama supports a citizen's right to bear arms, as stated in the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

Sort of. Sometimes. Except when he doesn't, which is usually. Got it ? Me neither. I'll try to sort it out.

On the campaign trail in rural Iowa in 2007, Obama said the following: (link)

"I respect the Second Amendment. I think lawful gun owners should be able to hunt, be sportsmen, protect their families."

About three sentences later in the same speech, Obama said this:

"So the point is, though, we should be able to do that, and we should be able to enforce laws that keep guns off the streets in inner cities…"

See what I mean ? Obama say he supports the right to bear arms for people in rural areas, but then turns around and says guns should be banned in urban areas. I recall no such distinction in the Constitution. In addition, who needs to protect their families the most, low crime rate rural america, or high crime rate urban america ? The question is rhetorical, because the answer is self-evident.

Here's more of Obama's nuanced position on guns, as reported by Bob Owens:

In his answers to the 1998 Illinois State Legislative National Political Awareness Test, Obama said he favored a ban on “the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons.”

By definition, this would include all pistols ever made, from .22 target pistols used in the Olympics to rarely-fired pistols kept in nightstands and sock drawers for the defense of families, and every pistol in between. Obama’s strident stand would also ban all semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, whatever their previously legal purpose.

In 1999, Obama proposed to make it a felony for the gun owner if a firearm stolen from his residence and used in a crime was not “securely stored” — effectively negating the homeowner’s right to self-defense.

For someone who claims to support the Second Amendment, Obama sure doesn't support the Second Amendment. Did you get a load of the part where Obama wants you to be charged with a felony if someone breaks into your house and steals your gun, and then uses it to commit a crime ? What kind of Orwellian police state garbage is that ? If your gun is "securely stored", it won't be much use to defend your family in case of an emergency. By the time you unlocked and loaded the weapon ("securely stored" means the bullets are stored in a separate place), you and your entire family could be dead. So much for self-defense.

The gun issue is also one of those where Obama has weakly voted "present" in the past. In 1999, he voted "present" on Illinois legislation that would have required teens 15 and older to be tried as adults for firing weapons on or near school grounds. There's leadership for you.

Obama has voiced support for the Washington D.C. ban on handguns, which is a direct contradiction of his alleged support of the Second Amendment. He also voted against protecting gun manufacturers from lawsuits, and invariably votes on the side of gun control. He's against concealed carry laws. The National Rifle Association gives Obama a grade of 'F' on supporting the Second Amendment. You can find some of Obama's voting record on guns here.

In 1996, on an Illinois voter group’s questionaire, filed under his name during his bid for a state Senate seat, Obama responded that he supported bans on the sale, possession, and manufacture of guns. Obama denied ever having taken such a stance, and denied even having filled out the questionaire, until handwriting analysis determined it was Obama's handwriting on some notes that were written in the margins of the questionaire. (Link). Oops, you're busted Barack. I can't wait for the "I misspoke" or "I misremembered" excuse that will surely come if the media every bothers to mention this, which they probably won't.

This issue appears to me to be Obama attempting to have it both ways, like a good little double-talking politician. You can't say you support the right to bear arms and then vote against it at every turn. The Second Amendment doesn't mean Iowa can have guns, but Illinois and D.C. can't. It appears Obama really supports the standard liberal doctrine on guns (ban them), like he does on every other issue, but he doesn't want to come out and say so, because it will cost him votes in the general election. Instead, he's trying to tell everybody what they want to hear, in order to get as many votes as possible. If this is what Obama calls "change you can believe in", then, sorry Barack, but I don't believe you.

Too bad the media is too busy getting a tingle up their leg to notice stuff like this.

The lies and distortions are coming at us so fast and furious that it's almost hard to keep up. The historic Democratic presidential campaign has deteriorated into a daily discussion of Who's Zoomin' Who ? (my vote goes to Hillary, for Lifetime Achievement In Falsehood).

However, since Congress put on it's annual dog and pony show with the oil company executives yesterday, I want to say a word about one of Obama's distortions. Obama claims that he doesn't take money from the oil companies:

“Since the gas lines of the ’70s, Democrats and Republicans have talked about energy independence, but nothing’s changed — except now Exxon’s making $40 billion a year, and we’re paying $3.50 for gas.
I’m Barack Obama. I don’t take money from oil companies or Washington lobbyists, and I won’t let them block change anymore. They’ll pay a penalty on windfall profits. We’ll invest in alternative energy, create jobs and free ourselves from foreign oil. I approve this message because it’s time that Washington worked for you. Not them.” - Barack Obama

Barry claims he doesn't take money from oil companies, and it's true, he doesn't. The part Barry leaves out is that NONE of the candidates take money from the oil companies. They can't, because it's ILLEGAL. The other part Barry leaves out is that he DOES take money from oil company executives, and two of his largest fundraisers are oil company executives, according to factcheck.org. I'm sure it just slipped his mind. We can call this the Obama Oil Slick.

I'm also growing a little tired of Democrats like Obama talking about taking away the profits of the oil companies, especially since THE GOVERNMENT MAKES MORE MONEY FROM OIL COMPANY SALES THAN THE OIL COMPANIES DO ! If the government truly cares about us little people, why don't they ever talk about removing the 65 cents tax on every gallon of gas ? Why is it immoral for oil companies to make a profit, but perfectly fine for the government, who doesn't drill, refine, or deliver one drop of oil to the pump, to make even bigger profits from oil ? Who IS zoomin' who ? What the Dems are really saying is that THEY want to steal the oil company profits for themselves. That ain't free market capitalism, folks. That's a whole different -ism, one we've fought wars against. One we shouldn't tolerate for a second.

The Democrats also ask why the oil companies should continue to get tax breaks when they are making record profits. That's a valid question, but, do the Dems realize that raising taxes on oil companies won't lower the price of gas, but will instead raise it ? They DO realize that, don't they ? Please tell me they do.

Amid all the blame being doled out to the mean old oil companies by the Democrats, one congressman actually asked a useful question (golf clap):

"What would bring lower prices?" asked Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, the committee's ranking Republican

"We need access to all kinds of energy supply," replied Robert Malone, chairman of BP America, adding that 85 percent of the country's coastal waters are off limits to drilling.

Source

What's this ? You mean increasing the supply of gasoline (combined with reducing demand) might reduce the price of gasoline ? Too bad some economist hasn't come along and realized that this supply vs demand thingy might be important, huh ? I think it could even be some kind of economic law, maybe. Perhaps someone should look into it.

And guess which political party has been responsible for restricting the supply of oil in the good old U.S. of A, by restricting drilling, among other things ? If you said "THE DEMOCRATS", the same people bitching about the price of gas now, you win a cigar (just don't try to smoke that cigar. The Dems don't like smoking or oil drilling. They've restricted both).

By the way, since the Democrats took control of Congress following the 2006 elections, the price of gasoline has risen by about $1.00 per gallon. Those SOB's.

The increase in the price of gas isn't the Dems fault, of course, I was the one zoomin' you that time, but since this is election season, and since I've heard Bush blamed for the price of gas about ten billion times by Democrats, I thought I'd throw that in to score a cheap and dishonest political point. It's the Democrat way… Ewww. Suddenly, I feel dirty. This must be what those Dems in Congress would feel like…if they had consciences.

Exxon/Mobil made $40 billion in 2007. I think their net profit margin was about 9 percent. That's not a very large profit margin. It's pretty low when compared to other businesses, even though the absolute profit number is huge. I'm not saying this to defend the oil companies, I'm saying it because it's true. Exxon's profit is due to Exxon's enormous record sales. I couldn't find the exact number, but CNNmoney has some of the numbers here.

If the Democrats would agree to expanded offshore drilling, drilling in ANWR, and new refineries, Exxon could and would use a lot of those profits for new oil exploration to increase the supply of domestic oil and reduce foreign consumption until such time as alternative fuels are ready for mass use and cost effective. That would be sensible and would benefit america, but the Dems are against it, apparently because a polar bear or fish might have to relocate. They'd rather just point the finger and steal Exxon's money instead. Those are some oily politicians, and their policies are providing NO help to americans.