J. Raymond Wright

CHICAGO MURDERS SOAR: MAYOR HAS HEAD UP ASS!

2009-03-12T07:43:00.000-07:00

Hey Major Daley: Why don’t you pull your head out of your ass?

Keep in mind three things: #1) Chicago has a complete and total ban on the possession of handguns just like the D.C. law found unconstitutional last year. #2) Illinois completely prohibits concealed carry. #3) Every State that has passed concealed carry laws has experienced a drop in violent crime and a drop in the number of murders.

508 Chicago School Students Shot In 16 Months

http://wcbstv.com/national/Chicago.School.Students.2.955165.html

Twenty-five Chicago Public School students have been murdered this year. As shocking as that number is, there is another figure that's very disturbing as well: the number of students who have been shot in a 16-month period is enough to fill an elementary school - 508 students, according to school officials. CBS station WBBM-TV in Chicago's Chief Correspondent Jay Levine asks why, and what is being done to stop it. Think about it. By this time tomorrow, odds are at least one Chicago Public School student will have been shot. {{Update}} {{The writer was correct, there was one more and the number as of 3-12-09 stands at 26 for 2008-2009 school year with three months to go!}} By this time next week, there'll be seven.

It's a staggering, frightening, shameful statistic that judging from the reaction we got, those who could do something aren't anxious to talk about. "No one really wants to address this but we need to call for a state of emergency," said Pastor Roosevelt Watkins……

2008: Chicago Murders Total Tops U.S. Soldier Deaths in Iraq

by BMCWrites January 5, 2009 at 08:18 pm

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/2008-chicago-murders-total-tops-u-s-soldier-deaths-iraq

Few Americans realize the number of people murdered in Chicago during 2008 was larger than the number of U.S. soldier deaths in Iraq during the same period.
In a Sept. 4 post, I noted an effort by Chicago’s CBS television affiliate to change that fact. CBS2Chicago broadcast a report that included an interesting stat — that is, the city’s 125 summer murders total nearly doubled the number of soldiers killed in Iraq during the same time period (65). Unfortunately, they seemed to stand alone.

Five days ago, Associated Press had the opportunity to share the facts for comparison. Unfortunately, they opted to publish a story containing only half of the story (i.e., that at least 314 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq during 2008, down from 904 in the previous year).

Four days ago, the folks at the Chicago Tribune had a similar chance. Unfortunately, their article that appeared in yesterday’s edition also included only half of the story (i.e., that the Windy City closed 2008 with 509 homicides, an increase of about 15 percent over 2007).
Combine the two stories, and the whole 2008 picture — the picture unpainted by members of the media — is made clear:

314 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq;
509 people were murdered in Chicago.

POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

Mayor Richard M. Daley (son of Mayor Richard J. Daley)
Cook County Board President, Todd Stroger (son of former Bd. President Stroger)
Sens. Barack Obama & Dick Durbin,Rep. Jesse Jackson, Rahm Emmanuel and several others all Democrats.Gov. Rod Blogojevich,House leader Mike Madigan,Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan (daughter of Mike Madigan)

.....our leadership in Illinois.....all Democrats.

City of Chicago Alderman – all Dems
Cook County Board Members – all Dems
Illinois House of Representatives – run by Dems
Illinois State Senate – run by mostly all Dems

Thank you for the combat zone in Chicago.

Of course, they're all blaming each other.

Can't blame Republicans; there aren't any!

State pension fund $44 Billion in debt, worst in the Country.

Cook County (Chicago) sales tax 10.25% highest in country. Look 'em up if you want).

Chicago school system rated one of the worst in the country.

Major Daley’s response to any attempt at concealed carry is to claim that it would turn our streets into the “Wild West” with shoot-outs happening all the time. Hey Dickhead: There already are shoot-outs all the frickin time on your damn streets! It’s fricken worse in Chicago than in the whole bloody country of Iraq! And it’s much worse in Chicago than in Iraq’s capital city of Baghdad. Chicago averaged 1.4 shoot-out murders each day in 2008!

Also, studies have shown that in states that pass concealed carry laws people with concealed carry permits don’t go around shooting people and in fact, people with concealed carry permits are eight (8) times less likely to be involved in a crime than the average ordinary citizen.

So Major Daley: When are you going to pull your Head out of your ASS?

You, Major Daley, are directly responsible for an inflated murder rate that would be on average around 7-14% lower if concealed carry were permitted. So in 2008 numbers, around 50 people who died could have been saved if you allowed for concealed carry. 50 PEOPLE!!!

Rant over: My $.02.

Some Issue Positions to Consider for the NCCPA

2009-01-23T07:37:00.000-08:00

ISSUE POSITIONS

These are simply some “First Thoughts” and the NCCPA will forever remain flexible

Abortion: Abortion is wrong, it is a sin, and should be discouraged. However, we are all sinners – no one is perfect, and it should be left up to the States to determine what type of Abortion Laws they would like to have rule in their State. Federal Government money should never be used to help finance abortion and it is permissible to allow the States to put certain restrictions on abortion, such as: 1) Requiring a minor to have the permission of a parent in order to obtain an abortion. 2) Requiring a 72 hour waiting period, unless the health of the mother is at risk. 3) Limiting abortions to pregnancies that are in the first or second trimester only. 4) Prohibiting “partial-birth” abortions. 5) Requiring abortion clinics to donate a small percentage of their profits to abortion alternative groups. 6) Creating a registry of couples desiring to adopt a baby and of mothers with unwanted pregnancies in an effort to save lives in stead of aborting them. 7) Prohibiting a State from an all-out ban on abortions.

Income Taxes: Income Taxes should be abolished. For over 100 years our Country survived quite well with no Income Tax. It wasn’t until the 1900’s that the first Income Tax was put into effect. Income taxes inhibit personal ambition and penalize people for hard work. In stead we will first, massively cut our current federal budget. Second, we will be re-instituting reasonable import taxes on all foreign goods being sold in America. This will not only help raise money to run the federal government, it will also attempt to start leveling the playing field for American manufacturers. Free trade is BS because everybody else is subsidizing or taxing in one way or another. “Free Trade” has led to the loss of millions and millions of American manufacturing jobs. Fair Trade, on the other hand, will level the playing field and help American businesses be competitive in the world market.

National Defense: Get out of the over 100 treatise we are entangled in around the world. Send Germany and Japan a bill for all of the Defense costs to protect those countries for the past fifty years. Pull all our troops out of Europe and Japan and place them on the Mexican and Canadian borders. Leave a few small “staging” areas across the globe that we could use in the case of a real, international emergency incident, perhaps two or three per continent. Invest heavily in research and development for future weapons and space defense. Maintain and improve our Navy, Air Force, Army, Marines and Coast Guard. Consider making 1-2 years of service mandatory for all 18-20 year olds, men and women. In exchange for the service, give them money for college or trade schools.

Welfare: Welfare shall be limited to only those willing to participate in job training programs or those with a physical or mental disability that prevents them from working. People on welfare will be given up to one year, and one year only, to participate in free job training program(s) and get a job. After the one year is up, no more welfare. Corporations, in stead of being taxed to death, will be required to contribute to job training and job creation programs.

Promote Limited Government: Budget Cuts: The following Federal Bureaucracies will either be eliminated entirely, or in the alternative, severely diminished. 1) The Department of Education (leave education up to the States, it is a State responsibility); 2) The Environmental Protection Agency (leave it up to the States, it is a State responsibility); 3) The Department of Housing and Urban Development (A State issue); 4) The Department of Agriculture; 5) The Department of Labor; 6) Department of Commerce; 7) Department of Transportation; 8) Cut all funding to the United Nations, let them pay themselves, no more free ride on our backs; 9) Severely limit or completely abolish numerous Administrations and Agencies. Cut, cut, cut!

Gun Control: Make it a requirement that all households in America have at least one handgun and one long gun and everyone in the house is trained on how to safely use them. Permit Concealed Carry by law-abiding citizens in every state and eliminate all “Gun Bans.” Have the federal government help low income people to purchase a handgun for their self defense and learn how to use it safely (everyone gets a 10 hour gun safety and use course free of charge)(paid for by arms manufacturers and not paid for by the federal government). Ban fully automatic machine guns and prohibit convicted felons and the mentally defective from possessing firearms. After 10 years a convicted felon can petition for possession of a firearm. Every child by age 14 shall be trained and proficient in the use of a .22 caliber pistol and rifle. Every citizen by age 18 shall be proficient in the use of at least a 9mm/38 caliber pistols, a 30 caliber rifle, and at least a 20 gauge shotgun. Felons in possession of an illegal firearm and any criminal who uses a firearm to commit a crime will receive an additional penalty, on top of whatever else they get, of an additional 20 years in prison.

Bailouts: No more bailouts of failing companies. Let the free market run its course.

Intelligent Design: Permit schools to teach the theory of intelligent design along with the theory of evolution in our schools.

Immigration: Seal our borders. Build a wall or a fence or whatever is necessary to seal our borders and prohibit anyone from illegally entering our country. Take our armed forces that are currently stationed all over the world, bring them home and place them on our borders. Ease up the regulations to obtain legal entry and citizenship in our country. People here illegally can stay and have five years to apply for legal citizenship and must pay a serious fine for having entered illegally before they can obtain citizenship.

Anti-terrorism. Maintain the world’s greatest anti-terrorist network the world has ever seen. Squash the bugs while they are small, before they grow and multiply. I.E. kill the terrorists before they can kill us. Machiavelli must be studied and his strategies and tactics must be employed. Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” will be taught to all American children in High School. Intercept and destroy arms shipments from places like Iran, North Korea, and Russia that are bound for terrorist groups or terrorist friendly nations. Be pro-active in the fight against terrorism. Defeat our enemies before they can even think to oppose us!

Gay Marriage: Contrary to popular, liberal beliefs, the NCCPA loves gays and lesbians and transgendered individuals. We are not to judge, but rather to accept people as they are and love them and serve them as best we can. That having been said, we can still disagree with the homosexual lifestyle and try to convince gay people that heterosexual relationships are God’s plan for all people. Gays should have equal rights, and should be allowed to be legally joined to each other through a Civil Union Ceremony. Gays joined in Civil Union should have the same rights as Married people do with the same rights to divorce each other that married people do. However, we will not refer to Gay people as married; marriage has always been, in every civilization throughout all of recorded history, a union of a man and a woman. This will not change. But as far as rights to community property and to shared health-care benefits and in every other respect, gays will be allowed to join together in Civil Unions.

Energy Resources: Immediately begin construction of at least 100 nuclear power plants throughout the United States to provide clean, affordable electrical power to our people. Europe has gone nuclear, so should we! This will create thousands and thousands of jobs too. Lift the ban on oil exploration and drilling on the continental shelf and in ANWAR and start producing our own oil in stead of being dependant upon foreign governments for our oil, many of whom are hostile towards the United States. Immediately start to build dozens and dozens of oil refineries here in the U.S. so we can refine our own oil. This will also create thousands of jobs and secure our energy needs for the future. Invest millions into the pursuit of alternate energy sources so we can wean ourselves off of our dependence on fossil fuels and oil.

Healthy, Twelve-Step Principles. The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous can, and should be, applied by everyone to their lives. The Twelve Steps, which I believe are biblical in nature, should be taught in all of our high schools as a required course. These are only “suggestions” but they are some of the best damn “suggestions” evah. Millions and millions of people are leading healthier, happier lives thanks to their learning and employing the principles of the Twelve Steps to the everyday lives. These tools will not be forced on anyone, but they will be made available to everyone.

Fatherless children: Promote marriage and make it economically more beneficial in an effort to promote two-parent families. Fatherless children are nine times more likely to have trouble in school, or to get involved in criminal activity or with drugs. Responsible fathers should be exalted and promoted

Labor Unions: Abolish them as unconstitutional. While labor unions were necessary during the beggining of the 20th Century, ever since the middle of the 20th Century they have turned into corrupt organizations that look out more for themselves than for the common worker. Workers should be freed from the constraints Unions impose on them. Millions of American jobs have been shipped overseas thanks to the Unions who were supposed to be looking out for the common workers. The Unions ended up screwing the common worker out of decent jobs and screwing up the American manufacturing base.

No more sitting around like a bunch of morons while we let others, and liberals, take over our country. The America I grew up in the 80’s is gone and gone forever. We can’t bring that back and we are not trying to bring that back. What we are trying to do is move America in a healthy direction for the future based upon Judeo-Christian culture, beliefs and principles.

We are NOT Racist in any way shape or form. We try to love all peoples equally, as Christ would if he were here because he is here, in us. People are not to be judged and to the extent we fail in this endeavor, for we will surely fail sometimes, we will only judge the content of their character and not the color of their skin, their gender or sexual orientation.

January 20, 2009: NCCPA is Born

2009-01-20T08:58:00.000-08:00

On this day, the day America swears in the single most unqualified person evah for president, the single most radically liberal socialist president evah, the Right needs to come up with a new game plan to ensure that the damage that will surely be done by such a presidency, is limited to four years, and does not get eight years to wreck its havoc on our society, economy, industry and educational institutions.

The “New Christian Conservative Party of America” (”NCCPA”) is born this 20th day of January, 2009.

If we are going to dream, we will dream big! People will look back, years from now, at this day and not remember it as the day Socialist President Obama was sworn in, rather, they will remember this day as the day of rebirth of conservative christian values in America. The first day of a new era in American Politics. The day the Right stopped hiding in the corner sniveling and holding a pity-party for itself and decided to stand up and fight back against the forces of liberalism to try to win back America.

The day christian conservatives overturned the tables of the tax collectors and money changers and drove them from the temples of power. Or, we can continue to hide in the corner, sniveling and feeling sorry for ourselves as the left takes us further and further left. We do have a choice. We still are free (at least for now). Silence and sniveling; or, ACTION!

Oh Bluto, they’re to strong for us, they’re too powerful for us….

Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell No! Let’s Do IT!!!

NCCPA: New Christian Conservative Party of America

2009-01-20T07:26:00.000-08:00

My fellow Americans:

Politically, we, as a Nation, have been drifting left, inch by inch for the past 30 years. So much so that there has, in fact, been a huge fundamental shift to the left. What used to be the Democrat’s position back in the 70’s and 80’s is now the Republican (Dem Lite) position. What used to be radical liberal socialism has now become mainstream Liberal Democratic principles. What used to be mainstream Republican principles are now seen as extreme right wing “fringe” positions. Everything has shifted dramatically to the left. Fact, not opinion, Fact.

Unfortunately, I believe the Republican party is in its death throws. Modern day Republicans have sold themselves out by supporting bigger government, higher spending etc. They have tried to beat the Dems at their own game, but never will be able to outspend the Dems. Modern day Republicans are wimps in that they no longer stand up for the core conservative principles they used to stand up for. Truly, our modern day Republicans have become “Dem-Lite.”

America needs a New Conservative Party. I’ve looked at the “Conservative Party of America” which has some potential. But I think we need a new party even bolder, stronger on fundamental right wing conservative issues. Issues like Abortion, Gun Control – The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Taxing, Spending, Smaller Government, Strong National Defense, Free Enterprise Capitalism, Freedom of Religion, Same Sex Marriages.

Is there a “New Christian Conservative Party?” It is time for Christian Conservatives to stand up and stop cowering in the corner and letting the liberals run the bloody show. I’m bleepin angry at the way our society has gone these last 30 years. But what to do with the anger? Use it to start something new.

Now, some may say, if you’re a Christian you can’t be angry. I call BS. The Bible says “In your anger do not sin.” It doesn’t say don’t be angry. Even Jesus got angry. Remember the tax collectors and money changers in the Temple? What did Jesus do? Did he talk to them? Try to reason with them? NO! He stormed in, turned over their tables and drove them out of the temple.

It is time for Christian Conservatives to stand up and route the modern day tax collectors and money changers from our governmental, mass media, and educational positions of power and control. They will only drive us deeper into the pit, if we let them. And for far too long we have been letting them take us further and further left by passively sitting back and watching as they take us ever further left, inch by bloody inch until we’ve seen a complete and total shift to the left of center. Enough is enough.

It is time for the pendulum to swing back to the Right! Let the Revolution Begin Today! What about it? How about a New Conservative Party, one that’s not afraid to call it like it is: “The New Christian Conservative Party of America!”

NCCPA

FROM JOHN LOTT'S BOOK: MORE GUNS, LESS CRIME

2009-01-12T08:37:00.000-08:00

More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws
By John Lott, Jr.
The University of Chicago Press, 1998
-- A SUMMARY of POINTS
p.1 Accidental Deaths: In the entire U.S. during a year, only about 30 people are killed by private citizens who mistakenly believe the victim to be an intruder. By comparison, police accidentally kill as many as 330 innocent individuals annually.

p.3 Defensive Use of Handguns: National surveys indicate that 98% of the time that people use guns defensively, they merely have to brandish a weapon to break off an attack.

p.4 Injury from attacks, women: the probability of serious injury from an attack is 2.5 times greater for women offering no resistance than for women resisting with a gun.

p.4 Criminal’s Choice: Criminals choose victims whom they perceive as weak.

p.4 For example: Criminals in one case decided against robbing a cab driver or a drug dealer because both sometimes carry guns. Instead they chose a man walking across a parking lot carrying a musical instrument.

p.5 Criminals and Self-preservation: Criminals are motivated by self-preservation, and handguns can therefore be a deterrent.

p.5 “Hot” Burglaries: (Burglaries where a resident is home when a criminal strikes): Note: Both Canada and England have very, very strict gun control measures: In Canada and England almost half of all burglaries are “Hot” burglaries. In contrast in the U.S. with fewer gun restrictions, the rate of “hot” burglaries is only 13%. Criminals are not behaving differently by accident. Convicted American felons reveal in surveys that they are much more worried about armed victims than about running into the police.

p. 5 Simple economics: Just as when the price of apples increases people will buy more oranges or other fruit, criminals will switch to attacking more vulnerable prey. This is called “the substitution effect” by economists.

p.6 Proof of the substitution effect: 56% of convicted felons surveyed, claimed that they would not attack a potential victim who was known to be armed. Indeed, the criminals in states with high civilian gun ownership were the most worried about encountering armed victims.

p.7-8 False “gun facts”: Many commonly accepted “facts” about crime are simply not true. For example, take the claim that individuals are frequently killed by people they know. Some gun control groups claim that this figure is as high as 58%. However, this grouping includes rival gang members, a cab driver and his fare, and pimps and their prostitutes. Hardly fitting “people you know.” In fact Chicago Police Department statistics show that just 5% of all murders in the city from 1990 to 1995 were committed by nonfamily friends, neighbors or roommates.

p. 8 Law Abiding citizens are not murderers: In the largest seventy-five counties in the U.S. in 1988, over 89% of adult murderers already had criminal records as adults. From 1990 to 1994, 76% of juvenile murder victims and 77% of juveniles who murdered other juveniles had prior criminal records. Murderers are people who already have criminal records. Law abiding citizens don’t all-of-a-sudden turn into murderers because they have a gun. Criminals are not typical citizens.

p.9 Accidental firearm deaths: in 1995 there were a total of 1,400 accidental firearm deaths in the entire U.S. A relatively small portion of these involved children: 30 deaths involved children up to four years of age and 170 more deaths involved five- to fourteen-year-olds. In comparison, 2,900 children dies in motor-vehicle crashes, 950 children lost their lives from drowning, and over 1,000 children were killed by fire and burns. More children die in bicycle accidents each year than die from all types of firearm accidents.

P10 Unintended consequences of “safety” precautions: We protect aspirin bottles with child safety caps to prevent accidental deaths. However, evidence indicates that child-resistant bottle caps actually have resulted in “3,500 additional poisonings of children under age five annually from aspirin related drugs.” Why? Because consumers have been lulled into a less safety-conscious mode of behavior by the existence of safety caps.

p. 10 Query: Would stricter gun control regulations primarily reduce the number of guns held by law-abiding citizens? I.e., would “criminals” be likely to comply with gun control regulations or would they ignore them? How much would stricter gun control regulations alter the relative balance of power between criminals and law abiding citizens? (Hint: it would help the criminals!)

p.10 Query: Will allowing citizens to carry concealed handguns mean that otherwise law-abiding people will harm each other? Or, would the threat of self-defense by citizens armed with guns primarily deter criminals?

p.11 Defensive gun use: Some claim that each year there are “only” 80,000 to 82,000 defensive uses of guns during assaults, robberies, and household burglaries. However, other national polls imply much higher defensive use rates. Fifteen national polls, including those done by the Los Angeles Times, Gallup, and Peter Hart Research Associates imply that there are 760,000 to 3.6 million defensive uses of guns per year.

p.12 The fear that giving people concealed carry firearms will greatly increase incidents of “road rage” shootings or turn our streets into the “wild west.” (Chicago’s Mayor Daley’s argument). Facts: There exists only one recorded incident of a permitted concealed handgun being used in a shooting following a traffic accident, and that instance involved a case of self-defense! Moreover, no concealed carry permit holder has ever shot a police officer, and there have been cases where permit holders have used their guns to save officer’s lives!

p.14 What do police officers think about concealed carry? 76% of street officers and 59% of managerial officers agreed that all trained, responsible adults should be allowed to obtain handgun-carry permits. By similarly overwhelming percentages, these officers and police chiefs rejected claims that the Brady law would lower the crime rate.

p. 14 What do registered voters think about concealed carry? By a margin of 69% to 28%, registered voters favor “a law allowing law-abiding citizens to be issued a carry permit to carry a firearm for personal protection outside their home.” Only 16% favored a ban on handguns.

p.14 Who supports tighter restrictions on gun ownership? “The less educated and those who haven’t been threatened with a gun are most supportive of gun control.” Those most supportive of restrictions also tend to be those least directly threatened by crime.

p.15 Lawmaker and celebrity hypocrites: Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Cal.), Cybill Shepherd, Bill Cosby and Arthur O. Sulzberger (chairman of the N.Y Times) all have concealed-handgun permits! In fact, according to one U.S. Senator, “You’d be surprised how many senators have guns.”

p.18 Stiffer penalties or higher probabilities of conviction result in fewer violations of the law. The evidence consistently finds a negative association between crime rates and the risks of apprehension, conviction or imprisonment. I.e., deterrence works!

p.19 Data from 3,054 U.S. counties from 1977 to 1992, and additional available data from 1993 and 1994 were used by Lott to arrive at his conclusions and to verify his results.

p.19 And? National crime rates have been falling at the same time as gun ownership has been rising. Likewise, states experiencing the greatest reductions in crime are also the ones with the fastest growing percentage of gun ownership.

p.19 Criminals, as a group, tend to behave rationally – when crime becomes more difficult, less crime is committed. Higher arrest and conviction rates dramatically reduce crime. Criminals also move out of jurisdictions in which criminal deterrence increases.

p.19 ALLOWING CITIZENS TO CARRY CONCEALED HANDGUNS REDUCES VIOLENT CRIMES, AND THE REDUCTIONS COINCIDE VERY CLOSELY WITH THE NUMBER OF CONCEALED-HANDGUN PERMITS ISSUED.

p.19 MASS SHOOTINGS IN PUBLIC PLACES ARE REDUCED WHEN LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS ARE ALLOWED TO CARRY CONCEALED HANDGUNS.

p.19 THE LARGEST DROPS IN VIOLENT CRIME FROM LEGALIZED CONCEALED HANDGUNS OCCURRED IN THE MOST URBAN COUNTIES WITH THE GREATEST POPULATIONS AND THE HIGHEST CRIME RATES.

p.20 OF ALL THE METHODS STUDIED SO FAR BY ECONOMISTS, THE CARRYING OF CONCEALED HANDGUNS APPEARS TO BE THE MOST COST EFFECTIVE METHOD FOR REDUCING CRIME.

P22 Lott looked at both time series data and cross-sectional data. That is, one area over time and multiple areas at the same time and multiple areas over time.

P23 Lott used sets of measures that controlled for the average differences in crime rates across places even after demographic, income and other factors had been accounted for. NO PREVIOUS GUN-CONTROL STUDIES HAVE EVER TAKEN THIS APPROACH.

P23 Kellerman study: Guns more likely to kill friend or relative than a bad guy. Serious problems with methodology and facts. Only 8 out of 444 homicides established that the gun involved had been kept in the home. (See also, Chicago Police Dept. study from 1990 to 1995 only 5% of murders were by non-relative friends or roommates.)

Chapter 3:

P36 From 1988 to 1996 there was a large increase in the percentage of people who own guns. Registered voters who were gun owners in 1988 were 27.4%, And in 1996 the number was 37%! In overall general population gun ownership rose from 26% in 1988 to 39% in 1996! (Note: the violent crime rates during this time were dropping!)

P39 Rural areas have the highest gun ownership rates and the lowest crime rates. Cities with more than 500,000 people have the lowest gun ownership rates and the highest crime rates.

P43 Violent crime rates were 46% higher in 1995 than in 1976 and 240% higher than in 1965.

P43 Violent crime rates were the highest in states with the most restrictive gun control rules, Next highest was states with discretionary concealed carry permits and the violent crime rates were the lowest in the states with the nondiscretionary “shall issue” concealed carry permit rules.

P47 The difference is quite striking: violent crimes are 81% higher in states without nondiscretionary concealed carry laws. For murder, states that ban the concealed carrying of handguns the murder rates are 127% higher than the states with the most liberal concealed carry laws. For property crimes, the difference is much smaller: 24%. States with nondiscretionary concealed carry laws have less crime, but the primary difference appears in terms of less violent crimes.

Chapter 4

P50 While the initial comparison of crime rates in states with and without concealed handgun laws was suggestive, obviously many other factors need to be accounted for. The next three chapters use common statistical techniques known as regression analysis to control for these factors.

P51 The results clearly imply that nondiscretionary concealed carry laws coincide with fewer murder, aggravated assaults and rapes. On the other hand, property crimes like auto theft and larceny rates rise. THE RESULTS ARE ALSO LARGE, INDICATING HOW IMPORTANT THE CONCEALED CARRY LAWS CAN BE.

P51 WHEN STATE CONCEALED HANDGUN LAWS WENT INTO EFFECT IN A COUNTY MURDER FELL BY ABOUT 8%, RAPES FELL BY 5% AND AGGRAVATED ASSAULTS FELL BY 7%. IN 1992 18,469 MURDERS, 79,272 RAPES, 538,368 ROBBERIES AND 861,103 AGGRAVATED ASSAULTS occurred in COUNTIES WITHOUT THE NONDISCRETIONARY CONCEALED HANDGUN LAWS. If those states without the nondiscretionary concealed handgun laws had been forced to issue concealed carry handgun permits, murders in the U.S. would have declined by 1,400! (That’s one year, 1,400 lives!)

P54 Gun control proponents always stress the increase in accidental deaths from increased concealed carry permits. In 1988 there were 200 accidental handgun deaths. Of these 200, 22 were in states with concealed handgun laws while 178 occurred in states without concealed handgun laws! The reduction in murders alone is as much as 8 times greater than the total number of accidental deaths in concealed handgun states (assuming however unlikely, that all the accidental handgun deaths were caused because of concealed carry handguns.) The numbers indicate that rapes in states without concealed carry handgun laws would decline by 4,200, aggravated assaults would decline by 60,000 and robberies would decline by 12,000.

P58 When individual state time trends were included in the analysis, all results indicated that the concealed handgun laws lowered crime. Under this specification, the passage of nondiscretionary concealed handgun laws in states that did not have them in 1992 would have reduced murders in that year by 1,839; rapes by 3,727; aggravated assaults by 10,990; robberies by 61,064; burglaries by 112,665; larcenies by 93,274; and auto thefts by 41,512. The total value of this reduction in crime in 1992 dollars would have been $7.6 billion.

P60 concealed handgun laws have statistically significant effects only in the relatively high crime counties. For most violent crimes—such as murder, rape, and aggravated assault—concealed weapons laws have much greater deterrent effects in high-crime counties.

P63 The concealed-handgun laws have varying effects depending upon the size of the county. When counties with almost 600,000 people (two standard deviations above the mean population) pass a concealed-handgun law, the murder rate falls by 12 percent. That is 7.4 times more than it was reduced for the average county (75,773 people).
The most densely populated areas are the ones most helped by concealed-handgun laws.
Higher-income areas and counties with relatively more blacks both have particularly large drops in crime associated with concealed-handgun laws.

P64-67 See Bar graph figures, very dramatic!

P68 While many blacks want to make guns harder to get, the irony is that blacks benefit more than any other groups from concealed-handgun laws. Allowing potential victims a means for self-defense is more important in crime-prone neighborhoods.
Even more strikingly, the history of gun control in the United States has often been a series of attempts to disarm blacks.

P69 Lott testified before the Illinois House of Representatives and afterwards, he was approached by a black representative from Chicago who supported the bill. He told Lott that he was not surprised by Lott’s finding that areas with large minority populations gained the most from these concealed-handgun laws.
Noting the inability of the police to protect people in heavily black areas when “bad guys” already had illegal guns, the representative said he believed that the current power imbalance between law-abiding people and criminals was greatest in black areas.
NOTE: Chicago has a complete and total ban on handguns and even after the Heller decision striking down D.C.’s similar law, Mayor Richard Daley, Jr. is still fighting to maintain the total ban. He claims that the Second Amendment only applies to the federal government, not the states. While all other Bill of Rights provisions have been held to be incorporated as against the states by the 14th Amendment, he still wants to fight it and waste thousands and thousands of taxpayer dollars in stupid legal fees. What’s far, far worse is the Fact that in 2008 Chicago recorded 509 murders, more than that of U.S. Soldiers killed in Iraq. Imagine that, you’d be safer on the streets of Iraq than you’d be on the streets of Chicago! Moreover, if Illinois passed a concealed-carry law and murders dropped by 8%, as they have in other areas that passed concealed-carry laws, the number of murders in Chicago would have dropped by over 40! And since Chicago is definitely a densely populated area where the concealed-handgun laws would have three times the impact over standard population counties, passing concealed handgun laws for Chicago would have reduced the number of murders in 2008 by over 120!

P69 Perhaps it is not too surprising that blacks and those living in urban areas gain the most from being able to defend themselves with concealed handguns, since the absence of police appears most acute in black, central-city neighborhoods.

P70 Law-abiding minorities in the most crime prone areas produced the greatest crime reduction from being able to defend themselves (by concealed-handgun laws).

P73 Lott’s results consistently indicated that the concealed-handgun law lowered the rates of violent crime, rape, and aggravated assault and murder. … the nondiscretionary laws affected crime immediately, with an additional change spread out over time.
Re-estimating progressions to account for time trends in crime rates before and after the passage of the concealed-handgun laws provides consistent strong evidence that the deterrent impact of concealed-handgun increases with time.

P75 The drops [in crime rates] not only begin right when the laws pass but also take crime rates well below what they had been before the passage of the laws.
Moreover, deterrence increases with the number of concealed-handgun permits that are issued.

P79 Nine of the ten states [which passed nondiscretionary concealed-handgun laws] experienced declines in violent-crime rates as a result of these laws, and eight of the ten states experienced declines in murder rates; in the states where violent crimes, murders, or robberies rose, the increases were very small. In fact, the largest increases were smaller than the smallest declines in the states where the crime rates fell.

P81 …larger declines in crime were recorded in the most densely populated states. The differences are quite large: the most densely populated states experienced decreases in violent crimes that were about three times greater than the decreases in states with the average density.

P83 What about other gun laws? Lott looked at mandatory waiting periods to determine their impact on crime rates. Taken together, the results make it very difficult to argue that waiting periods (particularly long ones) have an overall beneficial effect on crime rates.

P90 Even using updated information, Lott found that all the results indicate that concealed-handgun laws reduce crime, and all the findings are statistically significant.

A BRIEF HISTORY: THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS

2008-12-11T08:05:00.000-08:00

HISTORICAL FACTS:

335 B.C.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle thought that bearing arms was necessary for true citizenship and participation in the political system (in Politics).

124 B.C.
Imperial Chancellor Kung-Sun petitioned the Emperor Han to take the people’s arms from them. The Emperor replied:

“Your subject has heard that when the ancients made the five kinds of weapons, it was not for the purpose of killing each other, but to prevent tyranny and to punish evil. When people lived in peace, these weapons were to be prepared against emergencies and to kill fierce animals. If there were military affairs, then the weapons were used to set up defenses and form battle arrays…”

The petition to disarm the people was turned down, stressing the right of the individual to bear arms for the common protection of society and the individual.

46 B.C.
The Roman politician Cicero supported bearing arms for self-defense of the individual and for public defense against tyranny (in De Officiis).

871 A.D.
King Alfred of Saxon England’s laws give every man the right to keep and bear arms, but prohibits murder and other crimes.

1020
England’s King Cnut’s laws recognize the right to keep and bear arms, the right to self-defense, and the right to hunt on one’s own land.

1181
In his Assize of Arms, King Henry II gives “every knight and freeman” the right to have weapons and armor.

1215
King John tries to disarm both nobles and commoners, but the barons force him to recognize the right to bear arms as part of the Magna Carta, which later becomes the model for the American colonists in their struggle against the English monarchy.

1252
Under Henry II, the arming of the citizens is extended to serfs. An “arming of the whole people” rather than a large standing army gradually becomes the basis for England’s defense.

1300’s
Gunpowder, already in use in China, is introduced into Europe. At first it is used primarily in crude siege cannons that can blow holes in castle walls, enforcing the power of the monarch over the nobles.

1328
In response to rowdiness by knights and others, Edward III issues the Statute of Northampton which prohibits “persons great or small” from carrying weapons in public, although it allows for defense of the home. The law is widely disobeyed, and, in practice, the courts applied it only to those who used arms to “terrify the good people of the land.” In other words, they only applied it against criminals – law abiding citizens maintained the right to keep and bear arms.

1500’s
Portable firearms such as the arquebus become more common on the battlefield. At first the unwieldy guns are fired from tripod-like supporters, but versions that can be fired from the shoulder soon appear.

1511
King Henry VIII orders that all fathers should provide each son, at the age of seven, with a bow and two shafts and to see to it that the child knew how to use them. Failure to do this resulted in a stiff fine which underlined the Crown’s seriousness in this matter.

1600’s
Permanent British settlement in America begins. The colonists use firearms daily for hunting as well as in ongoing conflicts with Native Americans and French colonists.

Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England listed in the first chapter his list of rights. After listing the Rights, he stated: “In vain would these rights be declared, ascertained, and protected by the dead letter of the laws, if the constitution had provided no other method to secure their actual enjoyment.” As an added protection, he explained, there were “auxiliary rights.” The fifth and last auxiliary right, meant to protect all the others “is that of having arms for their defense. . . . It is, indeed, a publick allowance under due restrictions, of the natural rights of resistance and self preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.”

A seventeenth-century guidebook for justices of the peace explained: “If Thieves shall come to a Man’s House, to rob or murder him, he may lawfully assemble company to defend his House by force; and if he or any of his company shall kill any of them in defence of Himself, his Family, his Goods or House, This is no Felony, neither shall they forfeit anything therefore.”

1670
King Charles II restricts guns and bows to large landowners (who make up the nobility), thus disarming the emerging middle class and the poor. At its time, this was the most restrictive English weapons control law ever passed.

1686
In his work Two Treatises on Government, philosopher John Locke maintains the “natural” right of citizens to have arms for their individual and collective defense.

1688
In the bloodless “Glorious Revolution,” William and Mary defeat King James II, abolish the standing army, and restore – to Protestants only – the right to keep and bear arms.

1689
The word Bill of Rights (or Declaration of Rights) is an act of the Parliament of England, whose formal name is An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown. The Bill of Rights of the United Kingdom is largely a statement of certain rights to which citizens and permanent residents of a constitutional monarchy were thought to be entitled in the late 17th century, asserting subjects' right to petition the monarch, as well as to bear arms in defence. The British Bill of Rights includes a condemnation of previous kings for disarming the people and specifies that henceforth “The subjects which are Protestant may have arms for their defense suitable to their conditions and allowed by law.”

1698
Philosopher Algernon Sidney in his book Discourses Concerning Government states that “the body of the People is the Public defense, and every man is armed and disciplines.” American colonists soon put the idea in practice in the form of local militias.

1700’s
Two new kinds of long guns come into use: The smoothbore musket has a short range and can be fired about four times a minute by well-trained soldiers. The rifle with its grooved barrel takes longer to load but has greater range and accuracy.

1739
In the British court case of Rex v. Gardner, the judge holds that the game laws did not forbid a person from mere possession of a gun for purposes of self-defense. Several later cases have similar verdicts.

1754-63
A combination of British and colonial volunteer forces defeat the French in the French and Indian War. Actually the colonists took primary responsibility for their own defense.

1770
British soldiers fire on unarmed Americans in Boston, leading to an up-surge of revolutionary sentiment. The British respond by beginning to raid colonial homes and gatherings to seize guns and ammunition.

1775
The American War of Independence is ignited when British troops under General Gage attempt to seize guns and ammunition from colonists at Lexington and Concord. Although faced down initially by the trained British troops, the American Minutemen militia begins a relentless fire, aided by accurate long-range rifles.

1776
In addition to declaring independence, the various states write constitutions that include bills of rights. In general, they refer to the danger of standing armies, the reliance on a well-regulated militia, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

1777
British colonial undersecretary William Knox presents a proposal concerning what to do with the colonies when they were subjugated and returned to British control. His proposals include the repeal of the militia laws, the confiscation of all arms held by the people, and the prohibition of the manufacture or importation of guns or powder in America.

1789
The Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution is approved. It includes the Second Amendment, which guarantees “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” In the Bill of Rights, the individual retained his basic natural rights; rights deemed unalienable, coming not from Society (or the State as the political manifestation of Society); but bestowed by the Almighty as inherent to the very nature of man.

1822
In the Kentucky case of Bliss v. Commonwealth, the court holds that the state constitution prohibits any interference with the right to keep and bear arms, even concealed weapons.

1836
Samuel Colt’s revolver is patented. Because it can fire six shots without reloading, it represents a formidable increase in firepower for close combat and helps the settlers repel Indian raids.

1837
Georgia passes the first ban on handguns. It is later overturned in 1846 in Nunn v. State as a violation of the Second Amendment.

1866
The Winchester repeating rifle lets its user fire up to 15 shots by working a lever every few seconds. It will become known as the gun that won the West.

The Fourteenth Amendment, the Freedman’s Bureau Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1866 all include the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms among the rights that the states are prohibited from taking from any citizen.

Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1789

2008-11-26T08:44:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1789

by President George Washington

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor, and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanks giving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many single favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the Service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks, for His kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the single and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of His providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, of the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have to acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge and in general for all the great and various favors which He hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humble offering our prayers and supplications to the Great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all people, by constantly being a government of wise, just and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed, to protect and guide all Sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace and concord. To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us, and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone know to be best.

OBAMA'S RECORD ON GUNS: ROTTEN TO THE CORE!

2008-09-26T09:40:00.000-07:00

From www.isra.org

'Nobody Knows Obama's Record on Guns Better Than I Do,' Says ISRA Executive Director Richard Pearson

SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Sept. 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following was released today by the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA):

"One of the most blatant lies ever to come from a politician's mouth," is how the ISRA is characterizing a recent statement by U.S. Senator Barack Obama. Speaking in the latest issue of "Field & Stream," Obama claims that Illinois sportsmen know him as an advocate for their rights.

On the contrary, Obama's voting record while a state senator clearly indicates that he has nothing but contempt for the law-abiding firearm owner. "Any sportsman who counts Barack Obama as one of his friends is seriously confused," said ISRA Executive Director Richard Pearson.

"Throughout his tenure in the Illinois Senate, Obama served as one of the most loyal foot soldiers in Mayor Daley's campaign to abolish civilian firearm ownership. While a state senator, Obama voted for legislation that would ban and forcibly confiscate nearly every shotgun, target rifle and hunting rifle in the state.

Obama also voted for bills that would ration the number of firearms a law-abiding citizen could own, yet give a pass to the violent thugs who roam our streets. And, inexplicably, Obama voted four times against legislation that would allow citizens to use firearms to defend their homes and families."

"Let us also not forget that Obama served as a director of the Joyce Foundation," continued Pearson. "While on the Joyce Foundation board, Obama funneled tens of millions of dollars to radical gun control organizations such as the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence and the Violence Policy Center."

"If Senator Obama considers his legislative record and his philanthropic endeavors to be acts of advocacy on behalf of sportsmen's rights, then I submit that the Senator is seriously confused as well," asserted Pearson.

"Nobody knows Obama's record on guns better than I do, and it's rotten to the core," said Pearson. "I've been involved in Illinois politics nearly as long as Obama has been alive. In that time, I have never encountered a legislator who was more hostile towards or more disinterested in sportsmen's rights than Barack Obama."

The ISRA is the state's leading advocate of safe, lawful and responsible firearms ownership. Founded in 1903, the ISRA represents the interests of over 1.5 million law-abiding Illinois firearm owners.

This press release is posted @ PRnewswire.

Posted Wed Sep 24 10:07:10 CDT 2008

OBAMA vs. PALIN (From a leftie!)

2008-09-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

September 01, 2008
Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama
By Gerard Baker, US Editor and Assistant Editor of The Times of London

Democrats, between sniggers of derision and snorts of disgust, contend that Sarah Palin, John McCain's vice-presidential pick is ridiculously unqualified to be president.

It's a reasonable objection on its face except for this small objection: it surely needs to be weighed against the Democrats' claim that their own candidate for president is self-evidently ready to assume the role of most powerful person on the planet.

At first blush, here's what we know about the relative experience of the two candidates. Both are in their mid-forties and have held statewide elective office for less than four years. Both have admitted to taking illegal drugs in their youth. So much for the similarities.

How about the differences?

Political experience

Obama: Worked his way to the top by cultivating, pandering to and stroking the most powerful interest groups in the all-pervasive Chicago political machine, ensuring his views were aligned with the power brokers there.

Palin: Worked her way to the top by challenging, attacking and actively undermining the Republican party establishment in her native Alaska. She ran against incumbent Republicans as a candidate willing and able to clean the Augean Stables of her state's government.

Political Biography

Obama: A classic, if unusually talented, greasy-pole climber. Held a succession of jobs that constitute the standard route to the top in his party's internal politics: "community organizer", law professor, state senator.

Palin:A woman with a wide range of interests in a well-variegated life. Held a succession of jobs - sports journalist, commercial fisherwoman, state oil and gas commissioner, before entering local politics. A resume that suggests something other than burning political ambition from the cradle but rather the sort of experience that enables her to understand the concerns of most Americans.

Political history

Obama: Elected to statewide office only after a disastrous first run for a congressional seat and after his Republican opponent was exposed in a sexual scandal. Won seat eventually in contest against a candidate who didn't even live in the state.

Palin: Elected to statewide office by challenging a long-serving Republican incumbent governor despite intense opposition from the party. (And won the General Election against a popular former Democratic Governor of Alaska!)

Appeal

Obama: A very attractive speaker whose celebrity has been compared to that of Britney Spears and who sends thrills up Chris Matthews' leg

Palin: A very attractive woman, much better-looking than Britney Spears who speaks rather well too. She sends thrills up the leg of Rush Limbaugh (and me).

Executive experience

Obama: Makes executive decisions every day that affect the lives of his campaign staff and a vast crowd of traveling journalists

Palin:Makes executive decisions every day that affect the lives of 500,000 people in her state, and that impact crucial issues of national economic interest such as the supply and cost of energy to the United States.

Religious influences

Obama: Regards people who "cling" to religion and guns as "bitter" . Spent 20 years being mentored and led spiritually by a man who proclaimed "God damn America" from his pulpit. Mysteriously, this mentor completely disappeared from public sight about four months ago.

Palin: Head of her high school Fellowship of Christian Athletes and for many years a member of the Assemblies of God congregation whose preachers have never been known to accuse the United States of deliberately spreading the AIDS virus. They remain in full public sight and can be seen every Sunday in churches across Alaska. A proud gun owner who has been known to cling only to the carcasses of dead caribou felled by her own aim.

Record of bipartisan achievement

Obama: Speaks movingly of the bipartisanship needed to end the destructive politics of "Red America" and "Blue America", but votes in the Senate as a down-the-line Democrat, with one of the most liberal voting records in congress. (Actually, the most liberal voting record).

Palin: Ridiculed by liberals such as John Kerry as a crazed, barely human, Dick Cheney-type conservative but worked with Democrats in the state legislature to secure landmark anti-corruption legislation.

Former state Rep. Ethan Berkowitz - a Democrat - said. "Gov. Palin has made her name fighting corruption within her own party, and I was honored when she stepped across party lines and asked me to co-author her ethics white paper."

On Human Life

Obama: Devoutly pro-choice. Voted against a bill in the Illinois state senate that would have required doctors to save the lives of babies who survived abortion procedures. The implication of this position is that babies born prematurely during abortions would be left alone, unnourished and unmedicated, until they died.

Palin: Devoutly pro-life. Exercised the choice proclaimed by liberals to bring to full term a baby that had been diagnosed in utero with Down Syndrome.

Now it's true there are other crucial differences. Sen Obama has appeared on Meet The Press every other week for the last four years. He has been the subject of hundreds of adoring articles in papers and newsweeklies and TV shows and has written two Emmy-award winning books. (About himself!)

Gov Palin has never appeared on Meet the Press, never been on the cover of Newsweek. She presumably feels that, as a mother of five children married to a snowmobile champion, who also happens to be the first woman and the youngest person ever to be elected governor of her state, she has not really done enough yet to merit an autobiography.

Then again, I'm willing to bet that if she had authored The Grapes of Wrath, sung like Edith Piaf and composed La Traviata , she still wouldn't have won an Emmy.

Fortunately, it will be up to the American people and not their self-appointed leaders in Hollywood and New York to determine who really has the better experience to be president.

Gerard Baker is US Editor and Assistant Editor of The Times of London.

Thank you Gerard for that enlightening analysis!

The Two Charlie Gibsons

2008-09-13T10:17:00.000-07:00

Charlie Gibson interviewing the Obamessiah:

How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?
How does it feel to “win”?
How does your family feel about your “winning” breaking a glass ceiling?
Who will be your VP?
Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP?
Will you accept public finance?
What issues is your campaign about?
Will you visit Iraq?
Will you debate McCain at a town hall?
What did you think of your competitor’s [Clinton] speech?

These questions are soooo hard, how could he answer them???

Now, here are the questions he asked Sarah Palin:

Do you have enough qualifications for the job you’re seeking?
Specifically have you visited foreign countries and met foreign leaders?
Aren’t you conceited to be seeking this high level job?
Questions about:
-foreign policy
-territorial integrity of Georgia
-allowing Georgia and Ukraine to be members of NATO
-NATO treaty
-Iranian nuclear threat
-what to do if Israel attacks Iran
-Al Qaeda motivations
-the Bush Doctrine
-attacking terrorists harbored by Pakistan
Is America fighting a holy war? [misquoted Palin]

Sure Charlie, continue to lie to yourself, sure, you are an "objective" reporter. Hah!!!

Liberal Fascist Journalistic Nazi Stormtrooper!

LIBERAL FASCIST JOURNALISTIC NAZI STORMTROOPERS

2008-09-12T08:05:00.000-07:00

A new term for the rabid Anti-Palin Press Corps:

Liberal Fascist Journalistic Nazi Stormtroopers!!!

Liberal: They are definately liberal, just look at two things: 1) their voting record, and 2) their political donations. Both of which favor Democrats by about 90% to 10%.

Fascist: Everything from the State, nothing outside the state: They are for State Health Care, State Unemployment, State Retirement, State Racial, Gender and Sexual Preferences Quotas, State Regulation of Industry, State Control over Schools, State control of Guns, .....

Journalistic: Not journalist. Journalist implies some type of objectivity. The Press Corps has lost any semblance of objectivity so they are like journalists in that they try to do things journalists do and try to look like journalists, but at the end of the day they are only journalistic, not journalists.

Nazi: Rabid, unrelenting, smearing, slandering twisters of words and mis-quotes and partial quotes all in support of the Socialist goal of getting their Leader, Der Fuhrer, Herr Obama, the top spot of Chancellor and King of the World.

Stormtroopers: Just look at the way they shove microphones into peoples faces and "hunt down" their stories. They will stop at nothing to find the prize "slam" of Sarah Palin. Viciously pursuing a "gotcha" moment just like Stormtroopers blitzkrieging across Europe.

THE "BUSH" DOCTRINE

2008-09-12T06:14:00.000-07:00

From: Richard Starr at:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/09/what_exactly_is_the_bush_doctr.asp#more

What Exactly Is the 'Bush Doctrine'?

It's being taken in some quarters as revelatory of inexperience that Sarah Palin sought clarification when ABC's Charlie Gibson asked her about the Bush Doctrine. To review, here is the passage from the transcript.

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?

PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?

GIBSON: The Bush -- well, what do you -- what do you interpret it to be?

PALIN: His world view.

GIBSON: No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.

PALIN: I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made. And with new leadership, and that's the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better.

GIBSON: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with that?

Gibson should of course have said in the first place what he understood the Bush Doctrine to be--and specified that he was asking a question about preemption. Palin was well within bounds to have asked him to be more specific. Because, as it happens, the doctrine has no universally acknowledged single meaning. Gibson himself in the past has defined the Bush Doctrine to mean "a promise that all terrorist organizations with global reach will be found, stopped and defeated"--which is remarkably close to Palin's own answer.
Consider what a diversity of views on the meaning of the Bush Doctrine can be found simply within the archives of ABC News itself:

September 20, 2001 PETER JENNINGS: . . . Claire, the president said at one point, 'From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.' Should we be taking that as the Bush doctrine? CLAIRE SHIPMAN reporting: I think so, Peter,

September 21, 2001 CHARLIE GIBSON: The president in his speech last night, very forceful. Four out of five Americans watched it. Everybody gathered around the television set last night. The president issued a series of demands to the Taliban, already rejected. We'll get to that in a moment. He also outlined what is being called the Bush Doctrine, a promise that all terrorists organizations with global reach will be found, stopped and defeated.

September 21, 2001 CHARLIE GIBSON: Senator Daschle, let me start with you. People were looking for a Bush Doctrine. They may have found it when he said the war on terror will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped or defeated. That's pretty broad. Broader than you expected?

December 9, 2001 GEORGE WILL: The Bush doctrine holds that anyone who governs a territory is complicit in any terrorism that issues from that territory. That covers the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Second, the war on terrorism is indivisible, it's part of the Bush doctrine.

December 11, 2001 GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Two years ago, September 1999, Bush gave his first speech when he was running about terrorism. And his first--had the first explanation of the Bush doctrine, that if you harbor a terrorist, you're going to be attacked. The Bush White House is putting this out, saying it shows that Bush was very prescient, but that was only one speech given in the campaign.

January 28, 2002 BOB WOODWARD: This is now the Bush Doctrine . . . , namely that if we're attacked by terrorists, we will not just go after those terrorists but the countries or the people who harbor them.

January 29, 2002 GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: It was striking and significant that the president really expanded the Bush doctrine. If a nation builds a weapon of mass destruction--Iraq, Iran or North Korea--we will reserve the right to take out those weapons even if we're not attacked or even if there's not a threat.

March 19, 2004 TERRY MORAN: That was the Bush doctrine we just heard. On this one-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, President Bush offered a very broad justification of American leadership in the world under him since 9/11. Not just since one year in Iraq. For American voters as an argument that the country is safer, but more as you point out, for the world, which has been divided by his leadership, that Iraq is knit, in his mind, very firmly into that war on terrorism. One omission which I believe will be noted around the world, he made no mention of the role of multilateral institutions, the UN and others, in this fight against terrorism. In his mind, it's clear it's American leadership with others following along.

May 7, 2006GEORGE WILL: Now the argument from the right is the CIA is a rogue agent because it has not subscribed to the Bush doctrine. The Bush doctrine being that American security depends on the spread of democracy and we know how to do that. The trouble is, Negroponte, who is considered by some of these conservatives the villain here and an enemy of the Bush doctrine is the choice of Bush, which makes Bush an insufficient subscriber to the Bush doctrine.

I'll stop there, although anyone with a Nexis account can find far more where that came from. Preemptive war; American unilateralism; the overthrow of regimes that harbor and abet terrorists--all of these things and more have been described as the "Bush Doctrine." It was a bit of a sham on Gibson's part to have pretended that there's such a thing as 'the' Bush Doctrine, much less that it was enunciated in September 2002.

September 11, 2001

2008-09-11T08:42:00.000-07:00

Watch these videos: http://www.history.com/genericContent.do?id=60326#/home/

UPDATE: I can't get the link to work. Go to the History Channel: 102 Minutes that Changed America.

God Bless those Firefighters, God Bless those Cops, God Bless those Victims and their Families and God Bless George W. Bush for keeping us safe for the last seven years.

OBLIGATORY PIG LIPSTICK POST

2008-09-10T08:41:00.000-07:00

"Plausible deniability," but for most people, it is what it is. A backhanded attempt to demean Sarah Palin as evidenced by the audiences' reaction of hooting, hollaring and applauding. Watch the tape, he even pauses after the first sentence to let it sink in with the crowd: "You can put lipstick on a pig. (Laughter and some clapping while he pauses). But it is still a Pig." Rowdy laughter and applause and that smirky little grin on the Great One's face that says it all --Ha gotcha Hockey Mom! Take that!!! Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah nyah! How desperate is this guy? In the last 11 days he's lost 20 points! How pathetic is this guy? He's squeelling like a stuck pig!!!

Sarah Palin injected lipstick into the race when she said that the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull was: lipstick. This was one of the most, if not the most memorable line from her speech last Wednesday. (I can't believe it has only been a week! It seems like she has endured months of Liberal MSM crap). In any event, Sarah injected "lipstick" into the debate.

I know that the phrase of "Putting lipstick on a Pig" has been around for a while and John McCain even used it last year referring to Hillary Clinton's Health Care Plan. (Not Hillary herself mind you). But with Sarah making lipstick part of the definition she gives herself as a hockey mom, the Great One tried to throw it back in her face. Like this is an 8th Grade election!

Are we in the 8th Grade? Or maybe it is like High School electioneering. Barry O surely was sophmoric in his choice of words. And remember, he is the Great Communicator! What's he going to do with Putin? Poke him in the eyes and go "Knuck, Knuck Knuck" like Curly of the Three Stooges fame? Woobaba Woobaba Woobaba, Knuck, Knuck Knuck, why certainly!"

It is hysterical to see all the lefties contorting themselves into all kinds of outrageous positions to defend Barry on this one. All I have to say is, Keep it up Barry, please keep it up!!!

BTW did you hear about the airdrop of liberal lawyers, investigators and journalists that have descended on Wasilla, Alaska? Evidently there is at least thirty (30) of them trying to dig up dirt on Sarah. Where were they investigating Mr. Obama?? Oh, that's right, they have not investigated Mr. Obama, not even one! And, because they like him so much, they never will.

What a joke. Journalists in this country have pretty much turned into a complete joke. No wonder their ratings are dropping like rockes (except FOX) and their stocks are crashing and burning. The American people are fed up with the liberal crap the MSM keeps dishing out day after day, week after week. At least they provide me with lots and lots of opportunities to laugh my ass off.

When I fist heard what Barry O said about Palin, and the lib media trying to cover for him and say that he didn't mean what everyone in the audience understood he meant, I was ROTFLMAO!!!!!

UPDATE: I have come up with a new name for the press and how they are attacking Palin:

Liberal Fascist Journalistic Nazi Stormtroopers! (LFJNS)

MEDIA BASHES PALIN: THE PROOF

2008-09-05T10:11:00.000-07:00

Liberal bias in the Media, what liberal bias…. Says Olberdork and Matthews.
Try this on for size gentlemen:

1) John Roberts CNN August 29, 2008 Newsroom:
“There’s also this issue that on April 18th, she gave birth to a baby with Down’s Syndrome…. Children with Down’s syndrome require an awful lot of attention. The role of Vice President, it seems to me, would take up an awful lot of her time, and it raises the issue of how much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?”

2) Liz Trotta, Media Prof at New School:
“How can a woman run a state and bring up five children at the same time?… I think they have every right to ask that…”

3) Sally Quinn, August 29, 2008 Washington Post:
“Is she prepared for the all-consuming nature of the job? She is the mother of five children, one of them a four-month-old with Down Syndrome. Her first priority has to be her children. When the phone rings at three in the morning and one of her children is really sick what choice will she make?”

4) Bill Weir, ABC August 30, 2008, Good Morning America:
“Adding to the brutality of a national campaign, the Palin family also has an infant with special needs. What leads you, the Senator, and the Governor to believe that one won’t affect the other in the next couple of months?”

5) Mark Shields, PBS:
” There is another question though which essentially I’ve heard expressed here many times today and from calls elsewhere, and that is the decision made by Sarah Palin herself, when knowing her daughter’s condition, by accepting John McCain’s offer she guaranteed that her daughter would be known globally as the best known 17-year-old unwed teenager in the world, and that decision many people question… The question of how it affected her daughter is not open to question. It has made her daughter a front-page item for the country.”

6) Meredith Viera, NBC Today Show:
“But there’s also, I think the part of it is the particular dynamic of her family, Megan. Her youngest child, down’s syndrome and now her oldest daughter is pregnant. And there are some moms out there that are angry, that are saying she has put her family unfairly into the spotlight.”

7) Norah O’Donnell, MSNBC:
“Congresswoman, what about the argument that, you know, vice president is a tough job, and that having a four month old baby, who has Down’s Syndrome, that will have special needs, requires extra time, that, that she should be focusing on her four month old, that some people have said that, fairly or unfairly. What do you think of that?’

PALIN SPEECH: HIGHLIGHTS

2008-09-04T10:16:00.000-07:00

Note: The teleprompter didn’t slow down enough for the extended applauses so by about ½ way through the speech, she was on her own, with no teleprompter support! What poise under pressure!

My favorite line:

“There are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change."

Another zinger:

Our opponents say again and again that drilling will not solve all of America's energy problems, as if we didn't know that already. But the fact -- the fact that drilling, though, won't solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all.
"In a McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more pipelines, build more nuclear plants, create jobs with clean coal and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative sources."

On experience:

Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska -- I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess -- I guess a small-town mayor if sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.

On two-faced politicians:

I might add -- I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they're listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening. No, we tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.

On the liberal media elites:

Well, I'm not a member of the permanent political establishment. And I've learned quickly these last few days that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.
But -- but -- now here's a little news flash -- now here's a little news flash for those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this great country.

View on Service:

No one expects us all to agree on everything, but we are expected to govern with integrity and good will and clear convictions and a servant's heart. And I pledge to all Americans that I will carry myself in this spirit as vice president of the United States.

On actual governing accomplishments:

When oil and gas prices went up dramatically and filled up the state treasury, I sent a large share of that revenue back where it belonged: directly to the people of Alaska.
And despite fierce opposition from oil company lobbyists who kind of liked things the way that they were, we broke their monopoly on power and resources. As governor, I insisted on competition and basic fairness to end their control of our state and return it to the people.

On energy policy:

To confront the threat that Iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of the world's energy supplies, or that terrorists might strike again at the Abqaiq facility in Saudi Arabia, or that Venezuela might shut off its oil discoveries and its deliveries of that source, Americans -- need to produce more of our own oil and gas. And take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of Alaska; we've got lots of both.

Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more pipelines and build more nuclear plants and create jobs with clean coal and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative sources.

We need -- we need American sources of resources. We, we need American energy brought to you by American ingenuity and produced by American workers.

On Obama’s Vision for America:

What does he actually seek to accomplish after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer -- the answer is to make government bigger and take more of your money and give you more orders from Washington and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world.

On McCain:

Senator McCain's record of actual achievements and reform helps explain why so many special interests and lobbyists and comfortable committee chairmen in Congress have fought the prospect of a McCain presidency from the primary election of 2000 to this very day. Our nominee doesn't run with the Washington herd. He's a man who is there to serve his country, and not just his party; a leader who's not looking for a fight, but sure isn't afraid of one either.

Conclusion:

For a season, a gifted speaker can inspire with his words. But for a lifetime, John McCain has inspired with his deeds. If character is the measure in this election, and hope the theme, and change the goal we share, then I ask you to join our cause. Join our cause and help America elect a great man as the next president of the United States.
Thank you, and God bless America. Thank you.

Libs can bellyache all day long, but to Republicans, and to many independents, she not only hit a home-run, she hit a Grand-Slam Walk-Off Homer!

COMPARE THE TWO: PALIN & OBAMA

2008-09-03T08:59:00.000-07:00

Tuesday evening at the RNC MSNBC reporter Ron Allen said to the former Speaker Newt Gingrich of Sarah Palin, "But to be fair, her resume is not something we're familiar seeing with presidential candidates." This question goes along with the Old-Fashioned Media Meme of Sarah Palin is not qualified to be Vice President. The question didn't sit well with Gingrich who strongly replied:

“It's stronger than Barack Obama's. I don't know why you guys walk around saying this baloney. She has a stronger resume than Obama. She's been a real mayor, he hasn't. She has been a real governor, he hasn't. She's been in charge of the Alaskan National Guard, he hasn't. She was a whistleblower who defeated an incumbent mayor. He has never once shown that kind of courage. She's a whistleblower who turned in the chairman of her own party and got him fined $12,000. I've never seen Obama do one thing like that. She took on the incumbent governor of her own party and beat him, and then she beat a former Democratic governor in the general election. I don't know of a single thing Obama's done except talk and write. Newt then challenged Allen: “I'd like you to tell me one thing Sen. Obama's done.” Silence. Change the subject, move along, nothing to see here, move along.

But let’s look at this a little deeper, shall we. The Presidency is the office of the Chief Executive of the United States. Note: That is not the Office of the Chief Speechmaker, nor Chief Legislator, nor Chief Community Organizer, nor Chief Campaign figure head. The Chief Executive is charged with the responsibility of actually running things. The Chief Executive is in charge of not only National Defense, but also has to deal with personnel issues, hiring and firing of employees. The Chief Executive more importantly has to deal with a Budget and taxes and balancing a budget.

When asked about Palin’s experience, Obama smiled and said Palin's town of Wasilia, Alaska had 50 employees. His campaign has 2500. The town's budget is about $12 million a year. His budget is 3 times that per month. He cited the legislation he's passed on emergency management post-Katrina and that many recommendations he made were adopted and are being put in place as we speak. (Note: He signed on to Bills drafted by other Senators never once authoring his own.)

It's true that Obama's biggest accomplishment is his success (thus far) in running a Presidential campaign. But isn't this a bit absurd? One qualifies to run for President by the very activity of running for President? I'm glad to hear that he smiled when he said that, because I don't think it's an argument you can make with a straight face.

Why is Obama comparing her experience in running a small town to his of running for president, when what she's been doing for the last two years is running the state of Alaska, which has a lot more employees and a much larger budget than his presidential campaign.

Obama is making a false comparison. His 2500 staff against her 8 years as mayor.Compare his 2500 staff against her 25,000 state employees!Then factor in that he doesn’t run the campaign. He's the talking head. Axlerod runs the campaign. David Axlerod is pulling the strings over at Team Obama. Why is Obama even taking credit for running his campaign? Obama is just the titular head of a machine. Then note that getting 2500 fanatics to move in the same direction is different than applying leadership skills to get 25,000 civil servants, many of whom didn’t vote for you, to work productively. Lastly of course, he's not running for VP is he?

So lets do some Staff, Budget, and Executive Decision-making comparisons.

1994-1996 Palin: Mayor, staff of 50 Budget of $12 million. Executive decisions concerning personnel, budgeting, taxes, public utilities, public relations, managing a city council and working with the Police Force and Fire Department.

1994-1996 Obama: Part time law professor and community organizer. No staff no budget. No executive decision-making. (Strike that: he had to decide what to wear every day). (Strike that: Michelle probably did that for him).

1996-2002 Palin: Mayor - staff of 50, budget of $12 million. Executive decisions concerning personnel, budgeting, taxes, public utilities, public relations, managing a city council and working with the Police Force and Fire Department.

1996-2002 Obama: State Senate - staff of ? less than 5, budget of what, maybe a few thousand dollars. Executive decision-making minimal to nil.

2003-2004 Palin: Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission, staff of 25, budget of $5 million. Executive decision-making responsibilities all day long. Took on Big-Oil and won!

2003-2004 Obama: State Senate - staff of ? less than 5, budget of what, maybe a few thousand dollars. Executive decision-making minimal to nil.

2005-2006 Obama: U.S. Senate office, staff of maybe 50. Budget minimal – maybe a few hundred thousand at most, executive decision-making minimal to nil. Major goal: positioning to run for President.

2005-2006 Palin: running for governor, assume very little staff. Taking on the Chairman of her own party and getting him fined $12,000. Taking on the sitting Governor from her own party and beating him in the primary. Taking on a former Governor from the other party and beating him in the general election.

2007-2008 Palin: Governor of Alaska, America’s Number 1 energy producing State with borders with Russia and Canada. Staff of 25,000, budget of $12 billion. Executive decision-making all day long. Negotiated natural gas pipeline deal with Canada. Squashed the Bridge to Nowhere project. Cut taxes and refunded taxes to citizens. Has the highest approval rating of any sitting Governor in all fifty (50) United States.

2007-2008 Obama: Running for President, staff of 2,500 (many unpaid). Budget of what, say 350 million – 400 million tops? Executive decision-making – do what Axlerod tells him to do. Review and edit speeches prepared by others. Deliver speeches. Avoid debates. Throw people under the bus. Change positions on almost every major issue.

Let’s see, 25,000 employees, including the National Guard v.s. 2,500 fanatically loyal campaign workers. Hmmmm. Budget of 12 Billion v.s. budget of 350-400 million. Hmmmm. Total and complete Executive decision-making experience v.s. making speeches. Hmmmm. Taking on entrenched politicos from your own party no less and defeating them v.s. pandering to your own party’s left-wing extreme elements. Hmmm. Oh yeah and I almost forgot, Obama didn’t think the surge was a good idea, nor that it would work. In fact, he said it would make things worse. Yet, despite its overwhelming success, he would still oppose it rather than admit that he was wrong.

What a putz.

As shown above, since 1992 in every moment of time by direct comparison, Palin's responsibilities and executive experience are far, far greater than Obama's. It is not even close.

That is a fact. So come on Old-fashioned Media, keep harping on the Meme of Experience. Our V.P. candidate has more executive experience that your Presidential candidate.

One last thing: Palin was asked: What’s the difference between a Hockey Mom and a Pit-bull? Her response: Hockey Moms wear lipstick. I lover her! She is a real salt-of-the-earth woman who loves America, Jesus, Babies, Guns and Energy Independence.

As I’ve said before, McCain-Palin in a landslide, a landslide. And the Old-Fashioned Media will be the most depressed people on the face of the earth come the evening of November 4th. Their bias will become even more clear (if that’s possible after the last 5 days) and they will blame it all on racism. When clearly, as evidenced above, the outcome will be based upon experience, (and Obama’s lack thereof) plain and simple.

MCCAIN-PALIN CRUSH OBAMA-BIDEN

2008-08-29T06:38:00.000-07:00

One can dream. Mr. Empty suit gave his typical “moving” yet completely void of any substance speech last night. Truly, it was a Historic event, but not because of anything he said, but rather because he is the first African-American to be nominated for President. He said he’s open to debates, yeah right. Actions speak louder than words. So far he has done everything possible to avoid a debate. He sucks at debate, but he’s great at giving empty, yet “inspiring” pre-written speeches. Hitler was a great orator too, so was Mussolini.

After having taken a look at Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism” I have come to the conclusion that the Obamessiah is just that: a liberal fascist. Everything for the State and nothing outside of the State. Health care – the State. Retirement -- the State. Unemployment – The State. The economy – the State. Education – the State. The environment – the State. Quotas – the State. Charity – the State. Media control – the State. Gun control – the State. Nationalism – Americanism. Check, check, check, check, check, check and check. Liberal Fascism.

Just look at what he’s done to try to stifle free speech that he disagrees with: Letters, emails, complaints to the Attorney General and the Justice Department to try to silence any critic. Attempts to shut down a radio show, even though they were offered to appear and rebut any claims. Sounds like Stalin doesn’t it? God forbid he should win, then we would have press along the lines of Pravda. Anything that is “anti-State” will be treason.

But not to worry, McCain and Palin are going to crush Obama-Biden, just wait and see. Why? Because Americans are not the stupid dolts the Dems and the Old Fashioned Media think they are. Americans know a player when they see a player. Obama talks of new politics in a new time. Yeah right, then he picks Mr. old-time Washington D.C. Joe (plagiarizing) Biden as his running mate. Same-old same-old democratic fluff with no substance. No grit. He has basically no experience. Duh!

November 4th will be a sad, sad day for the Dems and the old fashioned media. We’ll see announcers on all the “News” (did I mean to say propaganda) shows, all mournful, sad and depressed. Their great one will be crushed. They will, of course, blame it all on racism, when the fact of the matter has nothing to do with race and has everything to do with experience, qualifications and judgment.
(See: http://jraymondwright.blogspot.com/2008/07/obamasiah-gaffe-master.html

It is really kind of funny to watch our supposed “objective” media fawn all over the Obamessiah. I think that some of them still think they are objective, middle of the road reporters. Hah! What a joke! The old fashioned media are basically publicists for “The One.” You’ll be able to clearly see their partisanship on election night. You will have never seen such a sad, sour and mournful press as you will see on election night 2008. Happy Day!

WISE WORDS

2008-08-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

During this political season, it is good to be reminded of these wise words.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

--Abraham Lincoln

Cpl TONY MIHALO: PATRIOT WARRIOR, R.I.P.

2008-08-22T07:09:00.000-07:00

Megan Allen is a friend of our family. Here is a short story from our local paper.

Megan Allen plummeted from joy to sorrow within about 60 minutes Thursday afternoon. Just one hour after learning she had earned her first job as a third-grade teacher, the 22-year-old found out that the man she planned to marry had been killed by an improvised explosive device while serving with a Marine battalion in Afghanistan.

Marine Cpl. Tony Mihalo, 23, was one of two servicemen from Naperville killed this week in combat. Army Cpl. Jim Hale, 23, who attended Naperville Central High School but moved to Ohio before graduating, died Wednesday when his vehicle also encountered an IED in Baghdad.

Mihalo enrolled in the Marines while still a student at Naperville North High School, where he played as a defensive lineman on the football team. He also played basketball and wrestled. In October 2004 he headed off to train in San Diego and was deployed for a seven-month stint in Iraq 10 months later, serving with the 2nd battalion of the 7th regiment. After spending a year at the Marine Corps Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif., he was deployed for the second time in March 2007.

Allen threw a big party for Mihalo when he finished the tour last January, expecting that he was back to stay. But that wasn’t the case. He was called to Afghanistan one month later, this time to serve in the 3rd battalion because the unit was short on combat veterans.

Allen said the last time she spoke with him 20 days ago, he talked about completing the last two credits of his associate degree and studying criminal justice when he returned home in October. “He was talking about what he was going to do when he got back,” said Allen, adding that he loved wrestling, history and politics. “He was always dreaming about the future.”

Just before that last phone call, Mihalo had been hospitalized for three days after being hit by a grenade. When Allen – tipped off by a phone call from the Marines – asked him about the shrapnel, he at first denied that he had been injured.

His injury last month was his third Purple heart and could have been his ticket home via a hospital in Germany. But Tony didn’t want to abandon his unit and chose to stay in Afghanistan.

Gob Bless Tony Mihalo. God Bless his family and friends. God Bless all our brave men and women who stand in harms way to defend all of us. We are the luckiest people on the face of the earth.

OUR HEROS

2008-08-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

I am proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. And I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me. And I'd gladly stand up, and defend her still today. There ain't no doubt, I love this land, God Bless the USA!

Going home....EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, WE GET IT RIGHT.

The people of the United States really do honor our service personnel. God bless this Captain.

Subject: Commercial Pilot's blog on the internet....good story

We have H.R. on this flight', she said. H.R. stands for human remains. 'Are they military', I asked. 'Yes', she said. 'Is there an escort', I asked. 'Yes, I already assigned him a seat', 'Would you please tell him to come to the flight deck, you can board him early', I said. A short while later, a young army sergeant entered the flight deck. He was the image of the perfectly dressed soldier. He introduced himself and I asked him about his soldier. The escorts of these fallen soldiers talk about them as if they are still alive and with us. 'My soldier is on his way back to Virginia ', he said. He proceeded to answer my questions, but offered no words on his own. I asked him if there was anything I could do for him and he said no. I told him that he has the toughest job in the military and that I appreciated the work that he does for the families of our fallen soldiers. The first officer and I got up out of our seats to shake his hand. He left the flight deck to find his seat.

We completed our preflight checks, pushed back and performed an uneventful departure. About 30 minutes into our flight I received a call from the lead flight attendant in the cabin. 'I just found out the family of the soldier we are carrying, is onboard', he said. He then proceeded to tell me that the father, mother, wife and 2-year-old daughter were escorting their son, husband, and father home. The family was upset because they were unable to see the container that the soldier was in before we left. We were on our way to a major hub at wh i ch the family was going to wait 4 hours for the connecting flight home to Virginia . The father of the soldier told the flight attendant that knowing his son was below him in the cargo compartment and being unable to see him was too much for him and the family to bear. He had asked the flight attendant if there was anything that could be done to allow them to see him upon our arrival. The family wanted to be outside by the cargo door to watch the soldier being taken off the airplane. I could hear the desperation in the flight attendants voice when he asked me if there was anything I could do. 'I'm on it', I said. I told him that I would get back to him.

Airborne communication with my company normally occurs in the form of email like messages. I decided to bypass this system and contact my flight dispatcher directly on a secondary radio. There is a radio operator in the operations control center who connects you to the teleph one of the dispatcher. I was in direct contact with the dispatcher. I explained the situation I had onboard with the family and what it was the family wanted. He said he understood and that he would get back to me.

Two hours went by and I had not heard from the dispatcher. We were going to get busy soon and I needed to know what to tell the family. I sent a text message asking for an update. I saved the return message from the dispatcher and this following is the text.

0D

'Captain, sorry it has taken so long to get back to you. There is policy on this now and I had to check on a few things. Upon your arrival a dedicated escort team will meet the aircraft. The team will escort the family to the ramp and plane side. A van will be used to load the remains with a secondary van for the family. The family will be taken to their departure area and escorted into the terminal where the remains can be seen on the ramp. It is a private area for the family only. When the connecting aircraft arrives, the family will be escorted onto the ramp and plane side to watch the remains being loaded for the final leg home. Captain, most of here in flight control are veterans. Please pass our condolences on to the family, thanks.'

I sent a message back telling flight control thanks for a good job. I printed out the message and gave it to the lead flight attendant to pass on to the father. The lead flight attendant was very thankful and told me, 'You have no idea how much this will mean to them.' Things started getting busy for the descent, approach and landing. After landing, we cleared the runway and taxied to the ramp area. The ramp is huge with 15 gates on either side of the alleyway. It is always a busy area with aircraft maneuvering every which way to enter and exit. When we entered the ramp and checked in with the ramp controller , we were told that all traffic was being held for us.

'There is a team in place to meet the aircraft', we were told. It looked like it was all coming together, then I realized that once we turned the seat belt sign off, everyone would stand up at once and delay the family from getting off the airplane. As we approached our gate, I asked the copilot to tell the ramp controller we were going to stop short of the gate to make an announcement to the passengers. He did that and the ramp controller said, 'Take your time.'

I stopped the aircraft and set the parking brake. I pushed the public address button and said, 'Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking. I have stopped short of our gate to make a special announcement. We have a passenger on board who deserves our honor and respect. His name is private XXXXXX, a soldier who recently lost his life. Private XXXXXX is under your feet in the cargo hold. Escorting him today is army sergeant XXXXXXX. Also onboard are his father, mother, wife, and daughter. Your entire flight crew is asking for all passengers to remain in their seats to allow the family to exit the aircraft first. Thank you.'

We continued the turn to the gate, came to a stop and started our shutdown procedures. A couple of minutes later I opened the cockpit door. I found the two forward flight attendants crying, something you just do not see. I was told that after we came to a stop, every passenger on the aircraft stayed in their seats, waiting for the family to exit the aircraft. When the family got up and gathered their things, a passenger slowly started to clap their hands. Moments later more passengers joined in and soon the entire aircraft was clapping. Words of 'God Bless You, I'm sorry, Thank you, Be proud, and other kind words were uttered to the family as they made their way down the aisle and out of the airplane. They were escorted down to the ramp to finally be with the loved one lost.

I never did see the family. Another soldier died, another family grieved and we did what we could. That is the way it works sometimes. I get a call from the cabin; we work as a team to do what we can. That day everybody from the flight crew, to the operations center, to the 184 passengers onboard, we did what we could. Many of the passengers disembarking thanked me for the announcement I made. They were just words, I could say them over and over again, but nothing I say will bring that soldier back. I respectfully ask that all of you reflect on this day and the sacrifices that millions of men and women have made to ensure our freedom, safety, and the right to live a good life.

God bless this Captain.

God Bless our Men and Women who fight, and die, for us.

I am proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. And I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me. And I'd gladly stand up, and defend her still today. There ain't no doubt, I love this land, God Bless the USA!

BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA: WE HARDLY KNEW YA!

2008-08-15T07:04:00.000-07:00

Jack Wheeler was the author of Regan's strategy to break the back of the Soviet Union with the star wars race and expose their inner weakness. For years he wrote a weekly intelligence update that was extremely interesting and well structured and informed. He consults(ed) with several mega corporations on global trends and the future, etc. He is in semi-retirement now. He is a true patriot with a no-nonsense approach to everything.

Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler

The O-man, Barack Hussein Obama, is an eloquently tailored empty suit. No resume, no accomplishments, no experience, no original ideas, no understanding of how the economy works, no understanding of how the world works, no balls, nothing but abstract empty rhetoric devoid of real substance.

He has no real identity. He is half-white, which he rejects. The rest of him is mostly Arab, which he hides but is disclosed by his non-AfricanArabic surname and his Arabic first and middle names as a way to triply proclaim his Arabic parentage to people in Kenya. Only a small part of him is African Black from his Luo grandmother, which he pretends he is exclusively.

What he isn't, not a genetic drop of, is 'African-American,' the descendant of enslaved Africans brought to America chained in slave ships. He hasn't a single ancestor who was a slave. Instead, his Arab ancestors were slave owners. Slave-trading was the main Arab business in East Africa for centuries until the British ended it.

Let that sink in: Obama is not the descendant of slaves, he is the descendant of slave owners. Thus he makes the perfect Liberal Messiah.

It's something Hillary doesn't understand - how some complete neophyte came out of the blue and stole the Dem nomination from her. Obamamania is beyond politics and reason. It is a true religious cult, whose adherents reject Christianity yet still believe in Original Sin, transferring it from the evil of being human to the evil of being white.

Thus Obama has become the white liberals' Christ, offering absolution from the Sin of Being White. There is no reason or logic behind it, no faults or flaws of his can diminish it, no arguments Hillary could make of any kind can be effective against it. The absurdity of Hypocrisy Clothed In Human Flesh being their Savior is all the more cause for liberals to worship him: Credo quia absurdum, I believeit because it is absurd.

Thank heavens that the voting majority of Americans remain Christian and are in no desperate need of a phony savior. His candidacy is ridiculous and should not be taken seriously by any thinking American.

Pass this on to every thinking American you know!

HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD -- OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD

2008-08-11T08:52:00.000-07:00

I was standing in church yesterday singing along in Worship to the song, “How great is our God,” and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Just how long will we be able to sing such a song? I also thought of the song ‘Our God is an awesome God, he reigns from heaven above, with wisdom power and love, our God is an awesome God.” My fear is that pretty soon, such songs will be banned. You see, in this secular humanitarian multiculturist world we live in, these songs are bigoted. They discriminate on the basis of religion. They claim that one particular God is somehow better than other gods. Moreover, they claim the mere existence of a God. And soon, the Politically Correct Police (“PCP”) will ban their use as a “hate crime.”

You see, it won’t be too long before some Muslim, atheist, or secular humanist claims that these songs are discriminatory, violate their rights to believe in a different god, or no god at all, and are in fact, “hate speech.” Remember, these songs claim that one God is somehow “better than” all the other gods. To the PCP this is blatant discrimination and they won’t stand for it until it is completely eradicated from society. The PCP have already eradicated this type of speech from all of our public schools, from all of our public squares, from all of our graduation ceremonies and before sporting events, and from all of our courthouses. What’s next? Will the members of an Evangelical Free Church be forbidden from claiming how great is their God? Don’t laugh. For the secular humanists are on the march and we Christians have been asleep at the wheel for far, far too long.

But churches are private entities, right? Therefore, the government can’t regulate their speech or their form of worship, right? Maybe, maybe not. I could see some aggressive secular humanist claim that because the Church uses public utilities and public roads, and receives tax breaks from the government (preferential treatment) they can be regulated. Remember, the Supreme Court recently ruled that taking private land from one landowner and giving it to another private land owner was for a “public purpose” because it would increase the tax revenue for the municipality. If the S.Ct. can make that giant leap, why not control worship that some find to be offensive and discriminatory? They will argue that it is not a violation of the free exercise of religion clause, but rather is striking a balance between the free exercise clause and the right to be free from discriminatory language. (A giant, giant leap, I know, but what if?)

So what can we do? Keep singing, of course. But also, we need to make sure that the next president appoints conservative Judges and Justices who will look to the framer’s of the Constitution’s original intent. Rather than judges who seek to make new law by judicial dictate from the bench. Therefore, as much as I find John McCain to be far too liberal for my tastes, he is by far the better option than anything the democrats have to offer. So as they say in Chicago, “Vote early and vote often.” Our children’s and their children’s future ability to freely worship may depend upon it. We are in a war, a cultural war, and we are losing. Onward Christian Soldier, marching off to War! (That would be banned too -- way too violent and clearly hate speech, etc. etc.)

DID YOU KNOW: IRAQ?

2008-07-30T07:15:00.000-07:00

Did you know that 47 countries' have reestablished their embassies in Iraq?

Did you know that the Iraqi government currently employs 1.2 million Iraqi people ?

Did you know that 3100 schools have been renovated, 364 schools are under rehabilitation, 263 new schools are now under construction and 38 new schools have been completed in Iraq?

Did you know that Iraq 's higher educational structure consists of 20 Universities, 46 Institutes or colleges and 4 research centers, all currently operating?

Did you know that 25 Iraq students departed for the United States in January 2005 for the re-established Fulbright program ?

Did you know that the Iraqi Navy is operational ? They have 5 - 100-foot patrol craft, 34 smaller vessels and a naval infantry regiment.

Did you know that Iraq's Air Force consists of three operational squadrons, which includes 9 reconnaissance and 3 US C-130 transport aircraft (under Iraqi operational control) which operate day and night, and will soon add 16 UH-1 helicopters and 4 Bell Jet Rangers ?

Did you know that Iraq has a counter-terrorist unit and a Commando Battalion?

Did you know that the Iraqi Police Service has over 55,000 fully trained and equipped police officers?

Did you know that there are 5 Police Academies in Iraq that produce over 3500 new officers each 8 weeks?

Did you know there are more than 1100 building projects going on in Iraq? They include

364 schools,
67 public clinics,
15 hospitals,
83 railroad stations,
22 oil facilities,
93 water facilities, and
69 electrical facilities.

Did you know that 96% of Iraqi children under the age of 5 have received the first 2 series of polio vaccinations?

Did you know that 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary school by mid October?

Did you know that there are 1,192,000 cell phone subscribers in Iraq and phone use has gone up 158% ?

Did you know that Iraq has an independent media that consists of 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations?

Did you know that the Baghdad Stock Exchange opened in June of 2004?

Did you know that 2 candidates in the Iraqi presidential election had a televised debate recently?

OF COURSE WE DIDN'T KNOW! WHY DIDN'T WE KNOW? YOUR NEWS MEDIA REFUSES TO TELL US!

Instead of reflecting our love for our country, we get photos of flag burning incidents at Abu Ghraib and people throwing snowballs at the presidential motorcades.

Tragically, the lack of accentuating the positive in Iraq serves two major purposes of the liberal news media:

1. It is intended to undermine the world's perception of the United States thus minimizing consequent support, and:

2. It is intended to discourage American citizens and erode their support for the war.

---- All the above facts are verifiable on the Department of Defense web site.

(http://www.defenselink.mil/)

I first got this as an email about two years ago, so I'm sure that there has been a lot more progress in Iraq than what's listed here. I just thought it was interesting and worthy of sharing.

OBAMASIAH: THE GAFFE MASTER

2008-07-24T11:09:00.000-07:00

The Antique Media (“AM”) has been going after John McCain lately for his verbal mistakes, commonly referred to as “gaffes.” Gaffes are often blown up or downplayed based on whether or not they further a story line the media has attached to a politician. Lately, the AM has been trying to cover for the Obamasiah by playing up McCain’s gaffes and completely not mentioning Obamasiah’s gaffes, or at least minimizing them. Remember that this AM donates $$ to Obamasiah 100 to 1 as compared to McCain. Now, don’t confuse gaffes with flip-flops. Flip-flops are a whole different animal than gaffes, although a couple of gaffe’s I’ve listed are also flip-flops. I understand that Patterico is compiling a list of the Obamasiah’s flip-flops – I can’t wait for that to come out!

There are three main kinds of gaffes. The first kind of gaffe is when someone mis-speaks and utters a word that they clearly did not intend to utter when taken in context. An example of this was when the Obamasiah recently said, "Well let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel's." Clearly, he meant to say that the United States is a strong friend of Israel.

The second type of gaffe is when someone says something that is factually in error and it is an innocent mistake of fact or an exaggeration of a fact. An example of an innocent mistake of facts was when the Obamasiah stated that his “Uncle helped to liberate Auschwitz.” This is clearly a false statement because anyone who knows anything about the History of WWII knows that Auschwitz was in Poland, on the Red Army side of the War and that it was the Russians who liberated Auschwitz, not the Americans. The statement is also factually false because Obama’s mother was an only child. What he meant to say was that his “great uncle” was a member of the 89th Infantry Division that liberated the Ohrduf camp, part of Buchenwald and, according to the Holocaust Museum, the first concentration camp liberated by U.S. troops. (What’s funny about this one is it wasn’t an off-the-cuff remark, but rather was actually written into a speech he gave on Memorial Day.)

The third type of gaffe is when someone says something that is factually in error and it was not an innocent mistake of fact, but rather an intentional distortion or falsehood. An example of this type of gaffe was when the Obamasiah recently said: “Now, in terms of knowing my commitments, you don’t have to just look at my words, you can look at my deeds. Just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill to call for divestment from Iran, as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don’t obtain a nuclear weapon.” The problem is, Obamasiah is not on that committee. The Democrat members of Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee are: Dodd (Ch), Johnson, Reed Schumer, Bayh, Carper, Menendez, Akaka, Brown, Casey, and Tester. So here we have a knowing falsehood as surely Obamasiah knows what Committees he is on, right? To be fair, he was one of the co-authors of the bill in question, along with 34 other co-authors.

Anyhow, like I said, the AM has been coming down rather hard on John McCain for his alleged gaffes. So I thought I would try to catalogue some of the Obamasiah’s gaffes and place them into one of the three categories of gaffes: 1) Word or words mis-spoken; 2) Innocent factual errors and exaggerations; and, 3) Intentional factual errors.

Type One Obamasiah mis-spoken errors:

- claiming to be in Sioux City instead of Sioux Falls, an easy mistake.

- claiming to be in Sunshine FL instead of Sunrise FL, an easy mistake.

- stating that he had “already visited 57 states and had one more to go” (making the U.S. a country of 58 total states) Clearly, he meant to say 47 states with one more to go which would have been the 48 mainland States.)

- stating that Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s

- stating “I think that DOMA, the Defense Against Marriage Act, was, was a (sic) unnecessary imposition on what had been the traditional rules governing marriage and how states interact on the issues of marriage.” – Barack Obama, referring to the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA), 7/1/08

- stating “So if you’ve got a wall that’s cutting the campus of the University of Texas in Brownville in half…” – Barack Obama, discussing the University of Texas in Brownsville.

- Stating “My father served in World War II, and when he came home, he got the services that he needed.” – Barack Obama, on how his grandfather served in WWII.

Type Two Obamasiah innocent factual errors or exaggerations:

- claiming that his “uncle” helped liberate “Auschwitz.” This was wrong on two counts, first it was his “great uncle,” not his “uncle” and second it was “Ohrduf” camp, part of Buchenwald, not “Auschwitz.”

- in another, earlier gaffe back in 2002, Mr. Obama claimed his grandfather knew U.S. troops who liberated Auschwitz and Treblinka – even though only Russian troops entered those concentration camps.

- JFK helping to bring his father to the US. Clearly an exaggeration.

- Claiming that Arkansas was a "nearby" state to Kentucky. (When his own state, Illinois actually shares a border with Kentucky and Arkansas is three states away from Kentucky.

- BARACK OBAMA: The objective of this trip was to have substantive discussions with people like President Karzai or Prime Minister Maliki or President Sarkozy or others who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to ten years. …
LARA LOGAN: Do you have any doubts?
OBAMA: Never.

- Memorial Day speech in New Mexico where he said that America's "fallen heroes" were present and listening to him in the audience.

- At The Obamasiah’s Berlin speech he said: “Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together;” Wrong! In fact, more walls are going up in Belfast. http://www.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2008-05-03-1826820552_x.htm

Type Three Obamasiah intentional factual errors:

- Obama's claim that the 1965 Selma march brought his parents together when Obama had been born four years before the march! This one is hysterical. He was born in 1961, Selma was in 1965. This was either intentionally wrong or he is the stupidest candidate ever.

- His boast that he helped pass legislation regulating the nuclear industry when that legislation didn't pass the full Senate.

- Obamasiah’s claim that "10,000 people died" in the Kansas tornadoes when the death toll was really only 12. Had he said 10 people, or even 1200 people, we could maybe put this in category two above, but come on, 10,000! He was clearly trying to make the disaster appear much worse than it really was in order to score points.

- his denial last April that it was his handwriting on a questionnaire in which, as a state senate candidate, he favored a ban on handguns. (His campaign later admitted that it was his handwriting, but that that did not mean he had read the whole thing.)

- told a Portland, Ore., crowd that Iran doesn't "pose a serious threat to us," saying that "tiny countries" with small defense budgets aren't much to worry about.” But Iran has almost one-fourth the population of the U.S. and is well on its way to developing nuclear weapons. The next day Mr. Obama had to reverse himself and declare he had "made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave." This gaffe is also a complete flip-flop.

- he said he would meet with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez to discuss, among other issues, Chavez's support of the Marxist FARC guerrillas in Colombia. The next day, in Miami, he insisted any country supporting the FARC should suffer "regional isolation." This is another flip-flop too.

- But At A July 2007 Debate, Obama Announced He Would Personally Meet With Leaders Of Iran, North Korea, Syria And Other Hostile Nations "Without Precondition." Question: "[W]ould you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?" ... Obama: "I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration - is ridiculous." (CNN/YouTube Democrat Presidential Candidate Debate, Charleston, SC, 7/23/07)

However, he later said "I Didn't Say That I Would Meet Unconditionally With Hostile Leaders.” Obama: "I didn't say that I would meet unconditionally as John McCain maintained, because that would suggest whether it was useful or not, whether it was advancing our interests or not, I would just do it for the sake of doing it ... That's not a change in position, that's simply responding to distortions of my position." (Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny, "Obama Seeks To Clarify His Disputed Comments On Diplomacy," The New York Times, 5/29/08)

- He's claimed, in defense of his “without preconditions” position, that John F. Kennedy's 1961 summit with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna was a crucial meeting that led to the end of the Cold War. Hah! Not quite. Kennedy himself admitted he was unprepared for Khrushchev's bullying. "He beat the hell out of me," Kennedy confided to advisers. The Soviet leader reported to his Politburo that the American president was weak. Two months later, the Berlin Wall was erected and stood for 28 years. Yet Obamasiah calls this a crucial meeting that led to the end of the cold war. Lie.

- An Obama ad team will be on hand for the Berlin rally, which figures to become part of the campaign… as a TV commercial. Evidently the campaign thinks the giving of an overseas speech by a US senator with three years experience and no major legislative accomplishments under his belt constitutes campaign ad magic. Fair enough. It’s just that today’s report undercuts somewhat Obama campaign senior advisor Robert Gibbs’ claim this “is not a campaign trip.” Now, while this lie falls at the hands of his campaign staff, it is whopper and deserves mentioning.

- The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a "problem" that had barely reduced violence. "The surge is not working," Obama's old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks - not U.S. military muscle - for quelling violence in Anbar Province. Obama's campaign posted a new Iraq plan Sunday night, which cites an "improved security situation" paid for with the blood of U.S. troops since the surge began in February 2007. It praises G.I.s' "hard work, improved counterinsurgency tactics and enormous sacrifice." So was he lying then, or is he lying now?

- Obama was embarrassed after an aide told the Canadian government that Obama wasn't really serious about renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement. When his campaigning at that time was calling for a renegotiation of NAFTA! Outright lies.

- Another great gaffe by one of his major advisors was when Obama advisor Richard Danzig claimed that Winnie the Pooh would be a good model for U.S. Foreign Policy and national Security. “Richard Danzig, who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House, told a major foreign policy conference in Washington that the future of US strategy in the war on terrorism should follow a lesson from the pages of Winnie the Pooh, which can be shortened to: if it is causing you too much pain, try something else. Mr Danzig told the Centre for New American Security: “Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”

It was covered in the U.K Press, but nowhere to be seen in the AM. I wonder why? Could it be that it is so ridiculous that it would make the Obamasiah’s Foreign Policy look like a complete and utter joke? Check out the article and decide for yourself if you think having Winnie the Pooh foreign policy is, or isn’t a monumental gaffe. Check this out: “Winnie the Pooh, Luke Skywalker and British football hooligans could shape the foreign policy of Barack Obama if he becomes US President, according to a key adviser.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/2139573/Barack-Obama-aide-Why-Winnie-the-Pooh-should-shape-US-foreign-policy.html. Or, just Google “winnie the pooh foreign policy obama. ROTFLMAO

While this list is as thorough as I can make in the hour or so spent researching it, I do not believe that it is exhaustive and I’m sure that there are even more Obamasiah gaffes out there. I simply wanted to come up with a representative showing of some of the GaffeMaster’s errors and outright lies. Don't hold your breath waiting for the AM to get these out though, they don't fit with their game plan to get the Obamasiah elected. Rather, you'll probably continue to see the AM harp on any little mistake McCain happens to make and then question his age.

I can’t wait to see Patterico’s list of flip-flops when that comes out.

In the end, what does all this show? I think it clearly and convincingly demonstrates, using his own words, that the Obamasiah is simply not experienced enough to be the President of the United States. It also shows, beyond a doubt, that far from being a “new breed” of politician, he’s just the same old same old tired liberal politico hack who will say anything to get elected.

EINAT, AGE 4, YAEL, AGE 2, VICTIMS OF TERRORISM

2008-07-23T13:55:00.000-07:00

Recently released Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar: here’s what he did --

It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer. As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.

Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat. They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. “This is just like what happened to my mother,” I thought.

As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl’s skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her.

Samir Kuntar, this evil, disgusting child-killer, was celebrated and lauded by a large group of Lebanese terrorists after he was released in exchange for two Israeli soldier’s bodies that had been horribly disfigured by their captors. Not a fair trade. In fact, a really, really stupid trade.

Can you see how the Israeli’s are really fighting for their lives?

Terrorists like Samir Kuntar deserve one thing: to die so that he never has another opportunity to do this again. Because given the opportunity, he will kill again.

Welcome!

2008-07-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

The prior posts were written some time ago, but were misplaced. Today I found them and started all over again.

My name is J. Raymond Wright and I wish to welcome you to my political discussion blog. Some Ground Rules. On political issues, I am always open to hearing everyone's arguments before deciding on a diagnosis and prognosis. Truly "fair and balanced" is what I will strive to present. I will allow each side to lay-out their position and the support for that position and I'll try not to judge. No foul language and everyone must treat each other respectfully, even if they vehemently disagree with someone. Also, no attacking the person personally, attack their arguments, reasoning or factual basis, but no name calling. This blog is for serious discussion of important, relevant issues currently facing our great nation. And, let's not get too caught up in taking ourselves too seriously. One has to be able to laugh at themselves sometimes.

I like to think that I am a Ronald Reagan Republican. I completely support our men and women who have volunteered to serve our country in the armed services. Go Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard! I'll be the first to admit when I make a mistake, and I will make mistakes. My background is in History, Political Science, Philosophy, Sales and Law. I did my undergraduate at North Central College in my hometown of Naperville, Illinois, and went to Chicago-Kent College of Law. After Law School, I worked as an assistant prosecuting attorney for one of the collar counties for several years. I have been in private practice for the last twelve years bringing my legal experience up to 16 years total. I have appeared in State Court and Federal Court. I have done trial work and Appellate work and have a background in Civil and Criminal Litigation, Corporate Filings and Commercial Construction negotiations and contracts.

I am an Evangelical Christian and happy and proud to be so. I love my Wife and my children and have a friendly disposition. Generally speaking, I'm a happy guy who has been truly blessed with experiences in Eastern and Western Europe and Asia. I attend the Evangelical Free Church of Naperville. I am a broken and very imperfect man who is involved in several 12 step groups, and qualify for even more. I think Americans need to know that it is OK to be a Christian! It is OK to be imperfect and broken. And it is OK to state your position. Christ died for my sins and because of that, if I simply believe in Him, I will be saved from eternal death and will enjoy eternal life. Praise God!

Unnecessary Terror in Texas for 416 innocent kids (from 4-18-08)

2008-07-23T12:46:00.000-07:00

Please don’t get me wrong here, if these guys are forcing girls under 16 to marry, have sex, get pregnant and have babies, then the men should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. That would be a Criminal Investigation and Prosecution by the State against the alleged perpetrators. If the State can prove them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, then they should be punished, and punished severely. The MEN should be punished: not the kids. They got it backwards in Texas.

They should have taken all the men out of the compound and left the women and children. Or, if they felt like they really had kids in danger of abuse, take the kids who were in danger of abuse and leave the other kids alone. Something like all girls between 12 and 16. It’s not like the women and children are going to run away or anything. They have cooperated throughout this entire investigation. But yet some Texas child care workers deemed it in the “Best Interest of the Child[ren]” to scare the hell out of these little kids and rip them apart from their Mothers and place them in unsanitary circus like conditions emotionally scarring them for life! And a Judge who had temporarily lost her senses commanded it to be. And so it was. Doh!Like a highly trained surgeon can take out a scalpel and very carefully perform incisions during a miraculous surgery procedure, the Judge could have finely crafted an order for the search and investigation of the allegations that were allegedly made by the 16 year old caller.

Instead, the Judge took out an axe and went CHOP! She cut these kids, most of whom do not come close to falling in the category of potential victim of the type of abuse that has been alleged. There are about 20 teen age girls with kids or pregnant that need to be checked out. The six month old babies and four year old boys little girls under ten do not fall under the category of “potential to be abused” unless the State took the drastic step and removed the children from the home, thereby separating them from their mothers.

My children are 6 (girl), 11 (boy), and 14(girl). If the State came and took my 6 year old she would be traumatized by being denied her mother. (Her father less so ha ha laugh at yourself). My 11 year old boy would be just as traumatized, if not more, by being denied his mom and dad. I read “The American Girl Doll” books to my daughter every night for a half an hour before she goes to sleep. With my son, I tuck him in every night, without exceptions, ever. That is something we share that is precious to me. My 6 year old I get up every morning and I take her to school along with the 11 year old. I cherish that time together. What if it were your kids? How would you feel? And, more importantly, how do you think your child would feel to be separated from you?

See, if this were pursued, as it should have been, as a criminal case against any man who forced a girl under 16 (or 17 whatever the law is in Texas) to marry, have sex, get pregnant and have babies, the law would require “Probable Cause” to get a search warrant and the “authorities” of the State of Texas did not have “Probable Cause,” only rumor, innuendo, and suspicion. By claiming that a mystery caller complained of being an underage mother and declaring therefore, that all the children risked possible abuse, was a brush stroke way, way too broad to have used rather than more pinpoint removal and investigation.

Judge Walther signed an emergency order nearly two weeks ago giving the state custody of the children after a 16-year-old girl called an abuse hot line claiming her husband, a 50-year-old member of the sect, beat and raped her. The girl has yet to be identified.The children, who are being kept in a domed coliseum in San Angelo, range in age from 6 months to 17 years. Roughly 100 of them are under 4. Did these 100 children under 4 years old do anything that justifies them being taken away from their Mothers? Are children under 4 years old even potentially possibly in any kind of immediate jeopardy of any the acts alleged by the mysterious caller? By the way, where is the tape or tapes of the 911 or Hotline phone calls? With today’s technology and the State of Texas’ resources, why have the calls not been traced to a specific cell phone? Or did the call from a payphone somewhere? Just where did these calls come from?

FLDS members deny children were abused and say the state is persecuting them for their faith. What if this is true? The last time I remember the United States Government rounding up all the “people” of one group and placing them in concentration camp type situations was in WWII when we rounded up all the Japanese Americans and placed them in “relocation camps.” And the Supreme Court issued its worst decision ever in U.S. v Koromatsu and let the government get away with crystal clear violations of the Constitution. The Court, if I remember correctly, held that to place the Japanese into the camps was a violation of their rights, but that based upon the situation, the government was justified in that instance of violating those rights for the greater good.

Is the State of Texas justified in taking all the children out of the home in this case? No way. Not even close. However, the evidence does justify taking all of the girls from 12 to 17 out of the home. Or, in the alternative, take all the men from 18 on up out of the home and leave the little ones alone. (I believe the men even volunteered to leave the compound so the women and children could stay, but the State of Texas, in a blunder beyond belief, decided to remove all the children from the home instead and separate all of them from their mothers.

In today’s testimony, Crawford acknowledged the records contained no evidence of sexual abuse. However, 20 teen girls were pregnant or had already had a baby. What is the legal age in Texas to get married? Is it 16 or 17? If all the State has is 20 teenagers 16 and 17 that have kids that doesn’t prove squat. If a girl were under 16 and was “in the family way,” then we’d have proof of a crime. Punish the criminal, not the children victims.

Current talk by the MSM is about taking custody away from the parents and placing all the children in foster homes. But the relief the Judge can grant doesn’t require such a drastic step. The Judge has a whole range of dispositions to pick and choose from that are short of removing the children. And that’s the key here, removing the children. Was that warranted? Really? Wouldn’t it have been much smoother, quieter, peaceful and least disruptive to the children if the State simply took into custody all the men? Leave the kids alone, arrest the criminals. But no, the State didn’t have “Probable Cause” to do that so they manufacture probable cause through a juvenile case of a witch hunt. Where is the ACLU? Don’t these women and children have constitutional rights? Or does that only apply to Muslims and Hindus and anything other than Christians?

I agree that something had to be done. But what they did do is a clear violation of Constitutional Rights and certainly what they did was not “in the best interest of the child[ren].” I worked in Juvenile for over a year and I really enjoyed working on behalf of kids. The Juvenile system is supposed to be less adversarial than regular Criminal or Civil litigation. The Judge, the State’s Attorney, the Child’s Attorney and the Parent’s Attorney are all supposed to have the same goal in mind: What is in the best interest of the child?

The State could have decided, and should have decided, to investigate these calls from Sarah. But they could have done so in much, much less intrusive ways. The same can be said of the final disposition of this case, it can be a harsh removal of all the children like a whack from an axe; or, it can be finely tuned monitoring and education and support for all boys and girls between the ages of 10 to 16. And pregnancy testing of all girls under 16 on a monthly basis. Educate these kids about their own rights to be free from sexual abuse and monitor them on a monthly basis: trust, but verify!Hold these older men accountable. They should be able, through DNA, to create a complete map of all the various inter-relationships and dates of activity. For example, they should be able to prove that Man X had a child with Girl Y and the child is now Z years old and the girl is now K years old, so when she had the baby she was only S years old and given typical 9 month pregnancies, she had to have been impregnated between this date and that date. Then you have him. Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Then punishment should be swift and severe. Punish the proven criminal, not the innocent children.

There is no need to punish the children. The State could have used more of a “velvet glove” approach rather than the “Iron Fist” they actually clobbered these poor children with. Texas, I’m with you for prosecuting criminals and looking out for the best interests of the kids, you guys just went about it in a very clumsy and bullish manner that certainly has already caused and will continue to cause deep emotional trauma in these youngsters who should be with their moms. Take away the men, and if you have to take some of the kids, take the girls between ages 12 and 17 only. These are the girls that are at risk. Not the four year old boy, or a six-month old baby! Come On! What Texas did to these kids was so unnecessary and so brutally harmful it should be an example for future cases of what “not” to do.

These people have the constitutional rights to practice their own religion. They do not have the constitutional right to commit child abuse and sexual abuse of children. Let’s hope that the Judge figures out a gentler, softer way to treat these precious children of God.

Update: The Texas Supreme Court totally trashed the trial Judge, rightly so.

BUTTER-UP BARACK: HE’S TOAST (Written in May 2008)

2008-07-23T12:32:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama will win the Democratic Nomination barring the bizarre. However, when it comes to his chances against John McCain in November, he’s already lost. The reasons he has already lost come from his own words, his Pastor’s words and his Wife’s words. Try as they might to hammer home their message that the words need to be placed “in context” they are still their words.

A couple of months ago Barack was cruising along, kicking Hillary’s butt and seemed almost invincible. But a couple of months ago, the American public knew little to nothing about the guy thanks to the Main Stream Media’s (“MSM”) love affair with the Senator and their failure to do any kind of background checking on the guy. But then, the light of truth started getting out thanks to his wife, his Pastor and himself.

For example, the MSM has given Barack a free-ride on the whole Tony Resco deal. Remember, Resco bought the land right next to Barack’s for full asking price, while Barack paid $200,000 less than the asking price for his adjacent property. They both closed on the same day and the seller was the same for each. Hmmm. The Resco trial is currently unfolding and we’ll just have to wait and see if Barack is tied in other ways to Mr. Resco.

The real truth though, started to come out when Barack’s wife said that “for the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country.” This statement gives us a profound insight into the attitude of Mrs. Obama. Furthermore, when you connect it with the information about Barack’s Spiritual Guide and Mentor, Reverend Wright, a clearer picture of the Obama household’s philosophy starts to emerge.

America is not a country that Michelle Obama is proud of. Therefore, she must be somehow ashamed of America. This attitude is consistent with the anti-American and racist ravings of Barack’s Pastor. Remember also that in Michelle Obama's words Americans can be "just downright mean."

Let’s think about this: In the course of twenty (20) years of membership in Reverend Wright’s church, if the O’Bamas went to church every week of the year except for two, that would be 50 services per year and 1,000 services over the 20 years. Reverend Wright’s attitudes have clearly taken hold of Michelle Obama and, I submit that whether he acknowledges it or not, Barack was also influenced by the attitudes of his Spiritual Mentor and Guide. Let’s take a look at Pastor Wright’s own words on four different issues.

First, Pastor Wright said: “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people," he said in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.” Second, the Sunday after 911, in addition to damning America, he told his congregation that the United States had brought on al Qaeda's attacks because of its own terrorism. His exact words were: "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost," he told his congregation.

Third, he believes the whites created HIV to kill off the black people. His exact words: "[t]he government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.” Fourth, he has said that Mr Obama “knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich, white people; Hillary would never know that, Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger”.

Isn’t “God Damn America” the same thing as Michelle Obama saying she is not proud of America? Barack lied about his knowledge of Pastor Wright’s radical philosophy. At first he said he didn’t know about any of it. Then he said he wasn’t there the day Pastor Wright said God Damn America. (Query: Where were his wife and children that day?) Then, when the tapes came out of Pastor Wright’s extreme anti-Americanism, Barack had to change his story and say that he knew about some of Wright’s rants, but he doesn’t share the same attitudes. Bullshit. A person’s Pastor has a significant impact on their life, their attitudes and philosophy. One looks to one’s Rabbi (teacher) for guidance the same way, I submit, that Barack looked to Pastor Wright for guidance.

Then Barack gives the “Race” speech that was just a load of crap. He equated his white grandmother’s fear of black men on the street late at night one time, to Pastor Wright’s outrageous anti-American and anti-white rants which is like saying the KKK was just a social club. Pastor Wright is a vehement racist, plain and simple. Bill Moyers can try as hard as he can to legitimize Wright and soften the negative impact he has had on the Obama campaign, but even “in context” god damn America is still “god damn America.” And actually, if you read the surrounding paragraphs his comments have even a greater effect.

Moreover, while Barack says that he rejects "stereotypes," he then goes straight into his own stereotypes about "a typical white person" or "bitter" gun-toting, religious and racist working class people. Barack is a two-faced politician and now that several of these events have come to light, the American people are getting to know the real Barack Obama. He has stated that although he doesn’t have experience, he does have Judgment. He opened the door for everyone to look at his Judgment then, didn’t he?
He chose to open and announce and celebrate his very first political campaign effort at the house of William Ayers. Ayers, who has admitted to bombing government facilities and wishes he could have done more bombings, is now a Professor and a respected citizen, just ask Chicago Mayer Richard Daley. Ayers still advocates the violent overthrow of the United States of America. So Barack’s Pastor, his wife, and his friend are all outspoken critics
of America. Barack’s Judgment, has surrounded himself with a cast of characters that defy Judgment. And although Barack said we had to trust his “Judgment,” now we can’t look at how he has exercised his judgment over the last twenty years? Yes, the left exclaims: “To show video of Reverend Wright is Racist.”

Barack’s “bitter” American comment gives us insight into how he thinks about middle American working class people. His exact words were: “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, is that enough context! Not only does Barack make these outrageously prejudicial and condescending statements, afterward, when questioned about the comments, he said: “I said something that "everybody" knows is true ...” These statements are alienating middle Americans who will turn to John McCain as a more rational and sane politician who actually does have many years of experience in authoring and passing bi-partisan legislation. In other words, McCain is the real deal when talking about bi-partisanship. Barack has neither authored, passed, or even has played any type of serious role in anything that was bi-partisan. Nothing. Voting records analyzed by the National Journal show Barack to be the farthest left of anyone in the Senate. Nor has he sponsored any significant bipartisan legislation -- nor any other significant legislation, for that matter. In short, he’s an inexperienced rookie.

Barack also said that if one of his daughters got pregnant, she would be punished by being forced to have a baby. When my three children were born, those three days are the greatest days of my life. Creating life is not “punishment.” Caring for a child is not “punishment.” Rather, to most Americans, having a baby is truly a miraculous event. Barack is simply out of touch with the majority of Americans per his own words themselves.

Mr. Obama also backed a total ban on handguns, a move his campaign now says was the result of a rogue aide filling out a questionnaire. But Mr. Obama's own handwritten notes were found on the questionnaire, calling into question the campaign's version of what happened.
Another two faced example of Barack’s attitudes comes from Canada. According to Canadian diplomats, top Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee admitted to them that they could dismiss Barack’s anti-Nafta rhetoric. In essence what happened is Barack is trying to pull one over on the American voters. He says he’s against NAFTA to potential voters, while simultaneously telling Canada, I don’t really mean what I say.
Obama who, when he had the chance, did not even join with several of his Democratic Senate colleagues in voting to ban the horrid practice of partial-birth abortion, in which the brains of a fully developed baby are extracted as the child emerges from the womb. These are late term abortions where the child sometimes actually takes a breath, and is certainly capable of living out of the womb. But Barack doesn’t vote to ban this murderous practice.

Obama favors same-sex "unions." Though he might call them something other than marriage, he would allow all of the benefits government conveys on heterosexual married couples to be given to same-sex partners.

So let’s review. Barack’s life partner isn’t proud of America and thinks that Americans are “downright mean.” Barack’s Spiritual Guide and Mentor makes racist and defamatory statements about America. Barack is friendly with a domestic terrorist from the 1970’s who still is advocating the violent overthrow of the United States Government. Barack himself lumps all white people into the category of a “typical white person.” Barack equates Reverend Wright’s statements with his elderly grandmother’s fear of black men at night. Barack thinks that a young girl having a baby would be punishment. Barack also said that middle class working white Americans are bitter and because they are bitter they cling to guns and religion and are prejudiced against others. He also basically called them racist anti-immigration morons. Lastly, Barack said that he was only saying what “everyone knew was true.”

John McCain is going to have a field day with all this good ammunition Barack himself, and the people closest to him, have provided. Just like Hillary and ABC had a field day with him in last week’s debate. In short, the light of truth about who this guy really is has become clearer and clearer. As more and more voters become aware of the real Barack, they are left with a sour taste in their mouths. This will not sit well with the American people and they will show it when it comes time to make that vote on election day.

America is the greatest county ever, in the whole history of the world: there has never been a greater country than the U.S.A. The American people are good, hardworking people who are not the stupid dolts Barack makes us out to be. Americans are going to see through Barack’s and the MSM’s smokescreens and see the real truth about Barack and the people closest to Barack, even “in context.” The American people are going to reject Barack and he will lose the election in November. Not only will he lose the election, he is going to lose the election BIG! John McCain is going to carry about 40 states and his victory will be the biggest landslide in years. Barack will win in only the most liberal of states.

The MSM will be “shocked” that American would be so stupid to elect a seasoned veteran politician over an inexperienced rookie. Claims of racism will no doubt abound as the sore loser democrats look for a scapegoat to blame for their humiliating defeat. Little did they know, their worst enemies were themselves. Barack might not realize it yet, but butter him up, he’s toast.

COL. ROD COFFEY HONORS THE FALLEN

2008-07-23T12:23:00.000-07:00

A friend has sent us the eulogy given by Lt. Col Rod Coffey, Commander 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment (Wolfpack), Diyala Province, Iraq, at the January 22, 2008 memorial ceremony for his six soldiers and one Iraqi interpreter killed in a booby-trapped house in Sinsil, Iraq on January 9, 2008 during Operation Raider Harvest. Col. Coffey spoke to honor the soldiers that died in the operation:

Specialist Todd E. Davis, 22, of Raymore, Mo.;
Staff Sgt. Jonathan K. Dozier, 30, of Rutherford, Tenn.;
Staff Sgt. Sean M. Gaul, 29, of Reno, Nev.;
Sgt. Zachary W. McBride, 20, of Bend, Ore.;
First Sgt. Matthew I. Pionk, 30, of Superior, Wis.; and,
Sgt. Christopher A. Sanders, 22, of Roswell, N.M.

Col. Coffey spoke as follows:
Gen Petraus, LTG Odierno, Major General Hertling, BG Boozer, BG Thomas, COL Riscassi, fellow squadron and battalion commanders and command sergeants major;
On behalf of all the soldiers of 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment we thank you for coming to pay tribute to our fallen brothers in arms.
We are here to honor the memory and service of seven men, seven of our brothers in arms.
There is a story about loss in war where one character comments to another, “We are ready for the occasional empty chair, the fond farewell for comrades lost. But we are never, never ready for so many.”

I cannot, as your commander, in anything I say today diminish the impact of losing these men all at once. In fact because we lost them so quickly, it all seems like a bad dream -- that we will wake up tomorrow and they will all be back again.

Each of us, whether present at the scene that day or not, will remember when we first found out. We will remember our inner anguish when we got up the nerve to ask, “Who was it?”
Others will recall the steeled strength it took to calmly and professionally report and verify the battle roster numbers, knowing full well we owed them this calmness and professionalism, so their families would be taken care of.

Others of us will never forget rescuing the four wounded that day and getting them to a helicopter as fast as we could. All these things are true. All these things will be seared in our memories. It was a terrible day and we cannot change that.

We are not alone in mere personal grief, or our desire to honor the fallen. The presence of the general officers here is their effort to acknowledge the sacrifice of this unit and the bravery of these men. Although I have not been able to access every news report, the ones I have read indicate the nation supports us, mourns with us and honors the men we have lost in the recon platoon.

The governors of the states of Virginia and Nevada and Wisconsin and Oregon and New Mexico have ordered the flag of the United States of America and the flags of their respective state flags be flown at half-mast on the day of our men’s funerals. We are not alone in honoring them. Again, I don’t have news stories for all of our men yet but those I have read indicate hundreds have attended their funerals.

And why this reaction? Why hundreds of people at funerals? Why governors issuing decrees for flags to be flown at half mast?

Because we are all in awe of their great sacrifice, courage and devotion to duty and each other. These men, our men, are fallen on the field of battle. Forever more that is their legacy. Their names are now enshrined on the scroll of America’s hallowed dead. And where they died, where they shed their blood, is sacred ground to us.

We still cannot help think why. Why do we have to lose such good men?
Part of the answer is only good men like these volunteer to serve and defend their country. Here’s two brief examples of their motivations:

SPC Davis had his car packed and had been admitted to the University of Oklahoma when he changed his mind and decided to enlist in the army. His family believes he did so out of pride for his father who had served in the military and had passed away in 2003. There he was -- the excitement and opportunities of college life and getting a degree ahead of him -- and he heard that call, the call to defend and serve his country. At the last moment he could not go through with the easy choice. He chose the harder life of a soldier in a time of war.

Of SSG Gaul his stepmother noted, “Being a soldier was his life. It was what he truly wanted to do.”

I could mention every one of them and tell a similar story. I wish I knew more about Roy’s story, for the courage and guts displayed by our interpreters on a daily basis is an inspiration for us all.

It is still a natural human instinct to ask….But what did they die for? Wasn’t it a waste?
There are several answers to that question but the most basic and simple is they died for us. They entered that house so you and I wouldn’t have to. At that moment they saw it as their duty to clear that house and they acted with discipline courage and bravery. The character of our fallen heroes in the recon platoon is revealed by the actions of the living that day.
As many of you know they were essentially lured to the house by someone that we later discovered had ties to Al Qaida. One of the members of the platoon, on the roof when the blast occurred and the building collapsed -- and wounded himself -- ran down the local who had had lured them to the house ……And then when he found him, did nothing more than detain him.
That professionalism, that discipline, that honor and self-sacrifice speaks of extraordinary nobility of character in the entire platoon. Another soldier, the senior squad leader at the scene with calmness and strength took over the role of platoon sergeant as if he had been doing the job for months.

I could go on and on about the enormous character demonstrated by that entire platoon and entire company that day – a strength and determination that continues to today.
And then there is the unfeigned determination of the recon platoon. It’s not put–on. It’s not fake. They are not trying to be something they are not and failing to express their emotions about this. But the speed with which they have rebounded and insisted to me that they go out on missions again is awe-inspiring.

I do not know where such men come from, except to say they are the kind of men who have made America great and will continue to preserve it.

The act of going in first, the act of willingly doing your duty in a dangerous environment, is by its very nature an act of heroic self-sacrifice for the sake of others. These men we honor today had that spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion to duty to an awe-inspiring degree.

And so I need to speak of what else they died for, and what I believe our honored dead would now expect of us.

I’ll begin by saying what they would not want. They would not wish to be seen as victims of a misguided war, victims of stop loss – or victims of anything else for that matter.

We know we are fighting extremism here in a thousand ways. And as the hometown news articles are getting written several of these fallen heroes are on record stating they believed the war in Iraq is a noble cause.

For those who want to support us by getting us out of Iraq as soon as possible, without a victory, I have but one comment. You’re too late. We have sacrificed too much and all we ask of you is the necessary time to finish the job.

Our children and yours, our grandchildren and yours will be safer for it.

This squadron and the formations on its left and right have in the balance sheet of history, already achieved far more than extremist reckless hatred will ever accomplish.

SSG Dozier once asked his father Carl, “Is it weird to really want to do this?”
His father Carl, filled with pride at what his son had become said "No," "This is what you're trained to do."

On another occasion this brave man, SSG Jonathan Dozier told his father he was prepared to die, “But,” he said, “I don’t want to die for nothing.”

So I ask you Wolfpack to make this promise with me: SSG Dozier, will not have died for nothing. We owe him a victory. We owe him a win. We owe him our own lives if necessary.

If the enemy comes out to fight he will be met with a disciplined lethal ferocity he has never before endured. If he plays the sly game of intimidating, beheading and torturing the innocent people of Iraq when he thinks we’re not looking he will be met with a cunning, a sophistication and a relentlessness that will lead to his utter defeat.

This is my promise to you as your commander and from all of us to our honored dead.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

2008-07-23T12:18:00.000-07:00

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. -- Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. -- And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

-- John Hancock

Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry, Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery, Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott, William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris, Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark, Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross, Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean, Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton, William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn, Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Mr. Jefferson was the third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence