Blago gone

SPRINGFIELD -- Rod R. Blagojevich at 4:51 p.m. Thursday became the first governor in Illinois' 190-year history to be driven from office by impeachment.

Senators voted 59-0 to dump Blagojevich, who was arrested Dec. 9 on federal corruption charges. And minutes later, they voted 59-0 to bar him from ever holding elected office in Illinois again. Later, outside his Northwest Side home, Blagojevich said, "I predicted it. The fix was in from the very beginning."

At 5:40 p.m., Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn placed his hand on a family Bible held by 25-year-old son Patrick, took the oath of office from Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke and broke into a broad grin as spectators in the House rose to their feet and cheered the arrival of a new era.

"I want to say to the people of Illinois, the ordeal is over," said Quinn, who became the state's 41st governor.

Most observers, knowing that Blagojevich was caught on tape by federal investigators attempting to sell the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama, would find little or nothing remarkable in his removal from office.

However observers familiar with the Democrat party in general and the Illinois Democrat party in particular are somewhat amazed by the events described above.

Under normal circumstances when a Democrat is caught red-handed in some form of official corruption other Democrats invoke what is to them the third most sacred principle of American law, the presumption of innocence (the first and second most sacred being abortion and gay marriage). However in this case the party did not pretend that the evidence conclusively proving guilt did not exist and acted swiftly to remove the corrupt politician from office and from among their midst.

We must ask ourselves why. Have the Democrats suddenly become so ashamed of being the party of sleaze and corruption that they have decided to clean up their act?

[Lemuel pauses to let the laughter die down]

Of course we know that isn't the case so what is it?

The answer is simple. Blagojevich was an embarrassment to the little messiah.

Blagojevich and Obama are alike creatures of the unbelievably corrupt sewer of the Cook County Democrat machine. They are constructed from the materials to be found in that sewer. They are not simply touched by or covered in the sewer they are the sewer.

Blagojevich and Obama's ties are close and they go back for years and Obama's new chief of staff, another Illinois sewer dweller, was on those tapes possibly getting very close to negotiating with Blagojevich over exactly what kind of quid pro quo Blago could expect to get somewhere down the road for installing the little messiah's hand picked successor in his Senate seat.

Clearly Blago had to be hustled out the exit as quickly as possible otherwise the little messiah's tinfoil halo might have gotten seriously tarnished.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the coming months. One would think that with nothing left to lose politically and facing a federal prison term that Blago would be trying to cut a deal with the US Attorney to rat out everyone he knows in exchange for immunity.

Other Illinois Democrats have to know that and the White House has to know that so why hasn't Blagojevich's body already been found in Fort Marcy Park? The only thing I can think of is that some kind of backroom deal has been struck in exchange for Blago's silence.

If I am correct we will see the criminal case against Blagojevich collapse in the months to come. He will either walk on a technicality or recieve a short term of probation after being allowed to plead guilty to one minor charge. After this he will be given a large advance on a book deal from a publisher with ties to high level Democrats.

Either that or he will manage to shoot himself eight times through the brain while cleaning the six-shot revolver that no one who knows him has ever seen before.

Miss Ann is talking

That means that YOU are listening!

I notice that liberals have not challenged the overall thesis of my rocketing bestseller, Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America, which is that liberals always play the victim in order to advance, win advantages and oppress others.

I guess that would be hard to do when the corrupt Democratic governor of Illinois is running around comparing himself to Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.

Indeed, you can't turn on the TV without seeing some liberal playing victim to score the game-winning point.

Caroline Kennedy tried to Bigfoot her way into New York's Senate seat while being bathed in the Kennedy light of eternal victimhood. The New York Times began a profile of Caroline by quoting an average citizen who "turns almost maternally protective" upon hearing Caroline's name, mentioning the assassination of her father -- nearly half a century ago.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews summarily announced: "We all want to be protective of Caroline Kennedy." When one of his guests, Michael Smerconish, merely asked what her qualifications were, an appalled Matthews said: "Wow."

Political reporter Ron Brownstein elaborated on "wow," saying: "Well, that's pretty rough. That's pretty rough. I mean, but she has got, at least publicly, a very private persona, one of quiet grace and elegance and intelligence."

The Times' City Room exercised its own protective function toward Caroline by censoring any indelicate inquiries about her on its blog.

The Kennedys are the textbook case of victims who go around victimizing others. As I describe in Guilty,
in 1969, Times reporter James Reston began his story about Teddy Kennedy driving a girl off the Chappaquiddick bridge with the sentence: "Tragedy has again struck the Kennedy family."

Reston waited a discreet four paragraphs before mentioning the name of the dead girl, whose "tragedy" was arguably greater. (Even the Times rewrote Reston's opening line.)

Caroline's expectation that she would sail past all other contenders and be handed a seat in the U.S. Senate is perfectly in keeping with her family tradition.

When Robert Kennedy won his Senate seat from New York, he unseated a well-liked Republican, Kenneth Barnard Keating, who had represented New York in Congress for more than a decade.

Meanwhile, Robert Kennedy hadn't lived in New York since he was 12 years old. But the allegedly sophisticated voters of New York were awed by the Kennedy name, and dumped a popular native son.

A deputy manager of Kennedy's campaign explained that the carpetbagger accusation could not withstand the image of JFK's assassination a year earlier: "You couldn't vote against Robert Kennedy without seeing the presence of John Kennedy."

With New York's record of swooning for celebrity victims, it was a snap for another carpetbagger, Hillary Clinton, to push aside veteran New York Democrats to win her Senate seat in 2000.

When Gov. David Paterson ended the Kennedy soap opera by appointing Democratic congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand, her Democratic colleague, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, blanketed the airwaves, threatening to challenge Gillibrand in the next election because of her NRA-approved stand on guns.

McCarthy explained, "My voice is for the victims."

The only reason McCarthy was elected to Congress in the first place is that her husband and son were shot by a crazed gunman on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993. Colin Ferguson's shooting spree wasn't stopped sooner because none of the passengers had guns. As has been demonstrated beyond dispute at this point, armed citizens save lives.

In a comprehensive study of all public multiple shooting incidents in America between 1977 and 1999, economists John Lott and Bill Landes found that the only public policy that reduced both the incidence and casualties of such shootings were concealed-carry laws. Not only are there 60 percent fewer gun massacres after states adopt concealed-carry laws, but the death and injury rate of such rampages are reduced by 80 percent.

Rep. McCarthy claims to "speak for the victims" by promoting policies that will provably create a lot more victims.

And all of this occurs in a year when the mainstream media is agog with their discovery that a black man can be elected president in America! By being elected president, Obama overcame the massive racial hatred that existed only in liberal imaginations.

I don't know a single conservative who thought America wouldn't elect a black man.

If Republicans had run Colin Powell in 1996 -- back when he was a Republican -- he would have been the first black president. As Powell himself said, he received the strongest support from Southern white men, who admired his military background.

The first serious black candidate to run for president in America won, so blacks are one-for-one in a country liberals would have us believe is teeming with Ku Klux Klanners.

Throughout Obama's entire life, doors were opened for him, his college applications smiled upon and favors bestowed simply because he is black -- the original victim category in America. Being black is the highest victim caste because of blacks' authentic victimhood: The nation once tolerated slavery and Jim Crow.

But ironically, Obama's father is from Africa: He never suffered from the ancient policies that, today, give his son Victim Gold. To the contrary, if Obama's African relatives had anything to do with slavery, it was on the business end.

In the interest of clarity I point out that Miss Ann's reference in the last sentence is to the fact that the vast majority of Africans exported as slaves from Africa were captured and enslaved by other Africans and then sold to White slave traders.

Miss Ann is, as usual, entirely correct in her characterization of Democrats. They wrap themselves in the cloak of victimhood and use it as a shield against every form of criticism or opposition. Even when Democrats try to support the military their support rises above claiming that veterans are ill treated and promising to write them bigger government checks.

Just yesterday I received my copy of Miss Ann's latest book. Over the next few days I will read it and then post some comments.

Rush seems to have struck a nerve

From The Politico:

Rush Limbaugh may command a large following, but his caustic comments Monday about the GOP’s congressional leadership have at least one Republican House member defending his colleagues and offering an unusually candid critique of the talk radio powerhouse and his fellow commentators.

Responding to President Obama’s recommendation to Republican congressional leaders last week that they not follow Limbaugh’s lead, the conservative talkmeister said on his show that Obama is “obviously more frightened of me than he is Mitch McConnell. He's more frightened of me, than he is of, say, John Boehner, which doesn't say much about our party."

Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., did not take kindly to this assessment in an interview with Politico Tuesday.

“I think that our leadership, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, are taking the right approach,” Gingrey said. “I mean, it’s easy if you’re Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks. You don’t have to try to do what’s best for your people and your party. You know you’re just on these talk shows and you’re living well and plus you stir up a bit of controversy and gin the base and that sort of that thing. But when it comes to true leadership, not that these people couldn’t be or wouldn’t be good leaders, they’re not in that position of John Boehner or Mitch McConnell."

Asked to respond to Gingrey, Limbaugh, in an email to Politico, wrote: “I'm sure he is doing his best but it does not appear to be good enough. He may not have noticed that the number of Republican colleagues he has in the House has dwindled. And they will dwindle more if he and his friends don't show more leadership and effectiveness in battling the most left-wing agenda in modern history. And they won't continue to lose because of me, but because of their relationship with the grassroots, which is hurting. Conservatives want leadership from those who claim to represent them. And we'll know it when we see it.”

The back and forth comes as some on the right speak more openly about what they perceive as the lack of leadership in the Republican Party. Unapologetic conservatives, like Limbaugh would prefer to see elected Republicans confront the new president. But many GOP officials, daunted by the new president’s approval rating and what they believe is fatigue on the part of voters over partisan fighting, are loath to openly criticize Obama.

Rush is entirely correct. The average conservative voter wants to see genuine conservatism from our elected Republicans. That is, after all, what we sent these clowns to Washington for.

What we are getting instead is cringing timidity from scared little men who seem more determined to listen to their Democrat opponents, and the liberal media (sorry, redundant) than their own constituents.

The problem is that the GOP House members and Senators are forgetting history. They need to remember that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the beginning of the war George W Bush had an approval rating near 70% and how Charles Schumer circulated a memo among his fellow Democrats warning them that if they didn't start working NOW to drive these numbers down that Democrats wouldn't stand a chance of retaking the legislature or the White House.

Republicans need to realize how seriously Democrats took Schumer's advice and how well their efforts to demonize the president worked.

The GOP also needs to remember the history of the Clinton's first term and how he passed tax increases against united Republican opposition. By standing together in opposition the Republican party drew a clear distinction between themselves and the Democrats and in the midterm elections made massive gains, seizing control of both houses of congress.

Right now the Obama administration is attempting to ram the largest spending program in the history of the world through congress. Very little about this "stimulus program" will actually stimulate the economy. Most of it is make-work projects and pork intended to help liberal politicians buy votes and pay off loyal constituents.

The truth is that Obama's plan will siphon massive amounts of capital out of the private economy where it could be put to productive use and pour it down a giant rat hole. And worse the massive debt created by this boondoggle will continue to suck resources out of the private economy for generations to come.

Obama knows this.

The Democrat leadership in the House and Senate know this.

Why else is Obama so desperate to get Republicans to co-sign his plan when he has the numbers in both chambers to get the legislation passed without one Republcan vote?

Obama knows that his plan won't do what he claims it will. He needs the GOP to accept partial responsibility for the coming disaster in order to give himself and his party cover when the absolutely inevatible and eaisly predictable blowup happens.

Republicans might not knwo their history but Obama and the Democrats do. They know that after the crash of 1929 that Hoover and then FDR did exactly what they are trying to do with the result that a recession turned into a depression.

So why, you might ask, are Obama and the Democrats so determined to ram this spending bill through congress when they know that it will only make things worse?

The answer is to be found in history. Look at how Roosevelt was able to use the public's fear and desperation over the Great Depression to grow the federal government.

That is the lesson that the Democrats learned from history and if the GOP doesn't learn it as well the nation will be doomed to repeat that history.

Off with his head!

From the Politico:

President Obama made a surprise visit to the White House press corps Thursday night, but got agitated when he was faced with a substantive question.

Asked how he could reconcile a strict ban on lobbyists in his administration with a Deputy Defense Secretary nominee who lobbied for Raytheon, Obama interrupted with a knowing smile on his face.

"Ahh, see," he said, "I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I can't end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I'm going to get grilled every time I come down here."

Pressed further by the Politico reporter about his Pentagon nominee, William J. Lynn III, Obama turned more serious, putting his hand on the reporter's shoulder and staring him in the eye.

"Alright, come on" he said, with obvious irritation in his voice. "We will be having a press conference at which time you can feel free to [ask] questions. Right now, I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself to you guys - that's all I was trying to do."

The president was quickly saved by a cameraman in the room who called out: “I’d like to say it one more time: ‘Mr. President.’ ”

And so we see the pattern as it will be played out countless times over the next four years. Obama expects to be worshiped and when he is not he grows frustrated and angry. When someone in the media actually treats him like an elected official should be treated (by asking him real questions and being skeptical about the answers) he is quickly rescued by other members of the media who understand that it is their place to simply grovel before the majesty of His splendid presence, urinating on themselves at the prospect of his divine gaze falling upon them.

In a related story members of the White House Press Corps asked the president to make an exception to his ban on the use of torture so that they might "take necessary and appropriate action against heretical journalists who commit the blasphemous act of questioning the Divine Presence". An unnamed administration official said that the request was being given what he termed "due consideration".

Mac is back indeed

From the Washington Post:

A joke made its way around the Capitol yesterday: How do you know the 2008 election is really over? Because John McCain is causing trouble for Republicans again.

Two and a half months removed from his defeat in the race for the presidency, colleagues say, McCain bears more resemblance to the unpredictable and frequently bipartisan lawmaker they have served with for decades than the man who ran an often scathing campaign against Barack Obama. In some instances, he's even carrying water for his former rival.

"Mac is back!" one of his devoted friends in the Senate declared as McCain walked into the chamber Wednesday to deliver his first speech of the 111th Congress: a blunt admonishment of Republicans delaying Hillary Rodham Clinton's confirmation as secretary of state.

"I remind all my colleagues: We had an election," McCain noted. "I think the message the American people are sending us now is they want us to work together, and get to work."

[. . .]

The surest sign of McCain's return to his "maverick" ways came when he caught wind of an effort by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) to delay Clinton's confirmation vote by a day, pushing it from Tuesday to Wednesday because he was seeking greater disclosure about foreign donors to former president Bill Clinton's charitable foundation. McCain found the objection gratuitous -- despite policy disagreements with Clinton, he and most Republicans consider her well qualified -- and said so publicly.

"I think that's indicative of the role that John McCain is going to play," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who hatched the push-back against Cornyn's gambit over dinner with McCain on Tuesday night, and who followed him to the floor to support Clinton's confirmation. "He's going to play a very active role. He's going to try to forge bipartisan coalitions. And he won't shy away from controversy."

So in the diseased imaginations of Crazy John McCain and left-wing liberal RINO Susan Collins "winning an election" means that corruption and conflicts of interest are no longer relevant?

To say that many of the donors to the Clintons campaigns, library, legal defense fund and other entities are of questionable character and associations is an understatement worthy of a British comedy sketch. Under the deal worked out with the Obama administration Hillary will only have to disclose donations which are higher than usual for any particular donor. That means that if an al Qaeda front group or the Red Chinese military has been giving Hillary and Bill millions they can remain silent about it unless they start giving billions.

But of course insane evil John McCain and his RINO sycophants have no problem with this.

Yet the GOP is supposed to make the "survival of Northeastern Republicans" their top priority and not oppose the little messiah over the next two years.

Let me say this loudly and clearly:

THE GOP DOES NOT NEED PEOPLE LIKE SUSAN COLLINS AND IT CERTAINLY DOES NOT NEED PEOPLE LIKE CRAZY JOHN MCCAIN! WE ARE ALREADY IN THE MINORITY. WE ALREADY LACK THE NUMBERS TO STOP ANYTHING ON A PARTY LINE VOTE SO WE DO NOT NEED TO BE WEAKENED BY LIBERAL REPUBLICANS LIKE COLLINS AND MCCAIN.

The GOP is better off because McCain lost the election and the nation is too. It is clear now that there is very little (if anything) that the little messiah will do in office that McCain would not have done had he been elected. It is far better that these things come from a Democrat than from a nominal Republican. This preserves the GOP's potential status as a viable alternative to the Democrats utter incompetence.

That is unless we become nothing more than rubber stamps for the left. There are very good reasons to oppose Hillary Clinton's appointment as Secretary of State - starting with the fact that there is nothing in her background to prepare her for the job and ending with the fact that she and her husband are criminals who are on the payroll of our nation's enemies.

To meekly roll over and accept her is the height of folly. How can we stand up in 2010 and 2012 and denounce the Obama administration's wretched and terrible lack of judgment in appointing her when we raised no objections to her now when it counts?

So I say again, and not for the last time, kick John McCain's crazy evil ass out of the Republican party right damn now! He does us no good and much harm. We do not and never have needed him.

And the new NY Senator is. . .

From The New York Post:

ALBANY - Gov. Paterson, defying the liberal wing of his Democratic Party, has chosen little-known, NRA-backed, upstate Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton as New York's junior senator, it was learned last night.

The surprising - and, for many Democrats shocking - decision to pick the conservative Gillibrand, 42, from Hudson in Columbia County, was disclosed by the governor in calls to party officials and some members of the state's congressional delegation, many of whom said they were unhappy with the selection, sources said.

[. . .]

Gillibrand has won two successive elections in one of the heaviest GOP districts in the state, first upsetting incumbent Rep. John Sweeney and, in November, defeating former state GOP chairman and multimillionaire Alexander Treadwell, in one of the most expensive races in the nation.

Liberal Democrats have been wary of her because she ran for re-election with the backing of the National Rifle Association, opposed the federal TARP program to rescue banks, and has been less than enthusiastic about gay marriage.

First of all we should remember that Sarah Brady could get NRA backing if she were heavily favored to win whatever election in which she was running as long as she would promise to give NRA representatives access to her office and to "seriously consider" their arguments.

But that aside it is interesting that the Blind Sheik would appoint a conservative (for New York) to fill Hillary Clinton's seat. It is even more interesting that the suggestion came from Chuck Schumer who said that an upstater (read, conservative - for New York) was needed on next year's ticket. This would seem to indicate that they are a great deal less confident about their future prospects than their outward demeanor would indicate.

This would suggest that they have little genuine hope that the little messiah's economic program will lift the nation out of recession. And why should they have any expectation that repeating actions that have always failed in the past would suddenly produce a different result now? No nation in the history of the planet has ever achieved prosperity through government spending. The best that can be hoped for is slow decline and the worst is utter collapse.

While having another member of the Senate who isn't a complete raving lunatic is good on one level I am still dissapointed that Princess Caroline of Camelot didn't get the job. As I've said before the more Democrats in elected office who can't hide their stupidity the better in the long run. Having Caroline the Dim sitting next to Al Franken with the baggage from his obviously stolen election hanging off of him like the chains on Marley's ghost and the token black appointed by Illinois criminal governor would help frame the 2010 mid-term elections correctly for the voting public.

Still, early signs of desperation from the left are something to cheer the heart.

Miss Ann is talking

And that means that YOU are listening!

It will not be easy for President B. Hussein Obama. More than half the country voted for him, and yet our newspapers are brimming with snippy remarks at every little aspect of his inauguration.

Here's a small sampling of the churlishness in just The New York Times:

-- The American public is bemused by the tasteless show-biz extravaganza surrounding Barack Obama's inauguration today.

-- There is something to be said for some showiness in an inauguration. But one felt discomfited all the same.

-- This is an inauguration, not a coronation.

-- Is there a parallel between Mrs. Obama's jewel-toned outfit and somebody else's glass slippers? Why limousines and not shank's mare?

It is still unclear whether we are supposed to shout "Whoopee!" or "Shame!" about the new elegance the Obamas are bringing to Washington.

Boy, talk about raining on somebody's parade! These were not, of course, comments about the inauguration of the angel Obama; they are (slightly edited) comments about the inauguration of another historic president, Ronald Reagan, in January 1981.

Obama's inaugural address tracked much of Reagan's first inaugural address -- minus the substance -- the main difference being that Obama did not invoke God as stoutly or frequently, restricting his heavenly references to a few liberal focus-grouped phrases, such as "God-given" and "God's grace."

Obama was also not as fulsome in his praise of his predecessor as Reagan was. To appreciate how remarkable this is, recall that Reagan's predecessor was Jimmy Carter.

Under Carter, more than 50 Americans were held hostage by a two-bit terrorist Iranian regime for 444 days -- released the day of Reagan's inauguration. Under Bush, there has not been another terrorist attack since Sept. 11, 2001.

But I gather that if Obama had uttered anything more than the briefest allusion to Bush, that would have provoked yet more booing from the Hope-and-Change crowd, which moments earlier had showered Bush with boos when he walked onto the stage. That must be the new tone we've been hearing so much about.

So maybe liberals can stop acting as if the entire nation could at last come together in a "unity of purpose" if only conservatives would stop fomenting "conflict and discord" -- as Obama suggested in his inaugural address. We're not the ones who booed a departing president.

It is a liberal trope to insult conservatives by asking them meaningless questions, such as the one repeatedly asked of Bush throughout his presidency about whether he had made any mistakes. All humans make mistakes -- what is the point of that question other than to give insult?

When will the first reporter ask President Obama to admit that he has made mistakes? Try: Never.

No, that question will disappear for the next four years. It will be replaced by the new question for conservatives on every liberal's lips these days: Do you want Obama to succeed as president?

Answer: Of course we do. We live here, too.

But merely to ask the question is to imply that the 60 million Americans who did not vote for Obama are being unpatriotic if they do not wholeheartedly endorse his liberal agenda.

I guess it depends on the meaning of "succeed." If Obama "succeeds" in pushing through big-government, terrorist-appeasing policies, he will not have "succeeded" at being a good president. If we didn't think conservative principles of small government and strong national defense weren't better for the country, we wouldn't be conservatives.

And why was that question never asked of liberals producing assassination books and movies about President Bush for the last eight years?

Say, did liberals want Pastor Rick Warren to succeed delivering a meaningful invocation at the inaugural?

The way I remember it, the Hope-and-Change crowd viciously denounced the Christian pastor, stamped their feet and demanded that Obama withdraw the invitation -- all because Rick Warren agrees with Obama's stated position on gay marriage, which also happens to be the position of a vast majority of Americans every time they have been allowed to vote on the matter.

Liberals always have to play the victim, acting as if they merely want to bring the nation together in hope and unity in the face of petulant, stick-in-the-mud conservatives. Meanwhile, they are the ones booing, heckling and publicly fantasizing about the assassination of those who disagree with them on policy matters.

Hope and unity, apparently, can only be achieved if conservatives would just go away -- and perhaps have the decency to kill themselves.

Republicans are not the ones who need to be told that "the time has come to set aside childish things" -- as Obama said of his own assumption of the presidency. Remember? We're the ones who managed to gaze upon Carter at the conclusion of his abomination of a presidency without booing.

Let me say two things. One, I hope that President Obama has a successful presidency - meaning that I hope that he breaks nearly every one of his campaign promises to his left-wing constituency and governs the nation like Ronald Reagan rather than like Fidel Castro.

If Mr. Obama does this he will cut taxes, reduce regulation, pursue energy independence through drilling, development of nuclear power and clean coal. He will also aggressively prosecute the war against our Islamofascist enemies and give our unconditional support to the state of Israel.

He will uphold what the United States Constitution actually says rather than what leftist judges wish that it said.

This will have the effect of making America a free, prosperous, strong and safe nation.

Of course if Mr. Obama attempts to implement his stated policy goals then I hope he fails utterly because success for Mr. Obama in that would bring ruin to the nation.

Two, I promise to treat Mr. Obama with all the deference, respect and consideration that the political left gave George W Bush. With one exception.

I will not call for Mr. Obama's murder and I will not write wish-fulfillment fantasies about Mr. Obama's assassination in novels, short stories or screenplays. I willingly cede that territory to the political left.

But in every other respect I pledge to give B. Hussein Obama all the consideration that Keith Olbermann and The Daily Kos gave to Mr. Bush.

Princess Caroline's brush with reality

From the New York Post:

Caroline Kennedy last night withdrew from consideration to replace Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, just two months after rocking the New York political landscape by throwing her hat in the ring.

She confirmed the news publicly in a statement released shortly after midnight today - hours after The Post exclusively revealed her decision last night.

"I informed Gov. Paterson today that, for personal reasons, I am withdrawing my name from consideration for the United States Senate," the 51-year-old Camelot daughter said.

But then there were some reports that she was back in. Then more reports that she was back out. . .

George Stephanopoulos summarizes:

Here's what we know: Caroline Kennedy's advisers and friends believed she would be appointed to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat later this week, and were working with New York Gov. Paterson's intermediaries on the roll out.

They fully expected it to come.

But then sometime early yesterday evening, around the time Clinton resigned her Senate seat, Kennedy called New York Gov. Paterson and said she was withdrawing for personal reasons.

Now, that set off another flurry of activity where it appears that some on Paterson's team tried to convince her not to withdraw.

The Associated Press then reported Kennedy was not withdrawing. But then there was another conference call just around midnight, and Kennedy finally, finally withdrew.

Her team put out a statement saying ... it was over, she is out, it is done.

All we know from her camp is that the reasons for her dropping out are "personal."

This is going to be spun as Caroline's reaction to Ted Kennedy's collapse at the inaugural luncheon on Tuesday. It will be said that she now truly realizes that her beloved uncle has only a short time left and that she wishes to spend as much time with him as possible.

The real reason is her less than warm reception by the people of New York. Remember it was not just conservative Republicans, of whom there aren't all that many left in the Empire State, it was her fellow left-wing loons who questioned her qualifications and ability.

Kennedys in general and Princesses of Camelot specifically are not accustomed to being held to any standard whatsoever and the experience was very uncomfortable for her. The prospect of spending the next four years in the public eye as anything other than a figure of veneration was simply too much to ask of her.

In the end she was wise enough to heed the old bit of advice that it is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt.

This is not good news for Republicans. Of course the Princess would have been a reliable rubber-stamp vote for every bit of dangerous left-wing foolishness which will spew forth from the Democrat controlled Senate but then anyone that NY's Governor (who has been given the nickname "The Blind Sheik") appoints to fill Mrs. Clinton's seat will be a left-wing rubber-stamp.

At least Princess Caroline lacked the ability, which many other Democrats have, of being able to hide her stupidity - at least from a casual examination. And the more Democrats who can't even make it through a softball interview with a left-wing mainstream media "journalist" without looking retarded the better.

Sarah Palin in 2012 - Updated

I'm starting a new blogroll today in order to promote Sarah Palin as the GOP presidential nominee in 2012. Sarah was almost strong enough as a VP candidate to drag John McCain across the finish line single handedly. She is a good communicator who has already captured the heart of the conservative base of the Republican party.

She is an authentic Reagan conservative who has a demonstrated ability to lead. As governor of Alaska she has all the executive experience she will need to prepare her for the office and she has the next four years to learn what she will need to know about foreign policy and military affairs.

She will also have four years to hone her response to a vicious press corps bent on her and her family's utter destruction.

The one good thing about the McCain candidacy was that it introduced Mrs. Palin to the nation and catapulted her to the forefront of the GOP.

Blogrolling is still fried so I can't use it to generate a blogroll but anyone wishing to join the Palin '12 blogroll can respond in the comments to this post or send me an email. I will hand code a blogroll on this blog and move it over to blogrolling the minute that it becomes available again.

After four years of Obama socialism America is going to be ready for a real change because lose change is all the little messiah is going to leave us to live upon. I invite you to get in on the ground floor of the Palin revolution.

UPDATE: I'm keeping this at the top for a while so scroll down for new content.

UPDATE: We have our first button for the blogroll. Many thanks to the Dowager Viscountess for all her hard work.

UPDATE: The hand-coded blogroll is up on this blog. I will create a blogroll on blogrolling as soon as the service is back up and running. Until then any member who wishes to may take the picture and the links from here and make his own blogroll. Just remember to link it back to this post.

Also, if you join post about it on your blog. We need as many people to sign up as possible. Both the left and the Defeat Wing of the Republican party are trying to create a narrative of 2008 which pins responsibility for the defeat on Governor Palin.

We cannot allow that to happen!

UPDATE: We have some more graphics for the blogroll.

A measure of justice at last

From Fox News:

On his last full day in office, President Bush commuted the controversial sentences of two former Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a Mexican drug runner in 2005.

The imprisonment of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean had sparked outcry from critics who said the men were just doing their jobs and were punished too harshly. They had been sentenced to 11- and 12-year sentences, respectively.

Their sentences will now expire on March 20 of this year.

Ramos and Compean were sentenced in connection with the shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, who was shot in the buttocks while trying to flee along the Texas border. He admitted smuggling several hundred pounds of marijuana on the day he was shot and pleaded guilty last year to drug charges related to two other smuggling attempts.

The pair's case ignited debate across the country, as a chorus of organizations and members of Congress -- many of them Republican -- argued that the men were just doing their jobs. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., was particularly outspoken on the issue, at one time describing Ramos and Compean as "unjustly convicted men who never should have been prosecuted in the first place."

Rohrabacher applauded Bush on Monday, telling FOXNews.com "his own stubbornness was overcome by better parts of his own soul."

"The order ... reaffirms our faith that the system works, if indeed the American people are willing to work at it," he said.

Nearly the entire congressional delegation from Texas and other lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle pleaded with Bush to grant them clemency. Conservatives hailed Bush's decision Monday.

"The whole thing was ridiculous from beginning to end, and two years was way too long for them to serve," said radio talk show host Laura Ingraham. "Conservatives are very happy across the country."

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said in a written statement that Bush had "responded to the calls for compassion that came from across the country and made the right decision in granting these two men commutations."

This is good news indeed, although it remains a tragedy that these two men had to spend even one second behind bars. And that they will still have to carry around undeserved felony convictions for the rest of their lives.

Stan Lee's brush with the law

Last week when posting about Stan Lee's new gay superhero I mentioned that his association with an FOB - Friend of Bill (Clinton) - nearly earned him a jail sentence. Our friend Patrick, who blogs at The Pagan Temple, asked for details. Here is the Cliff Notes version.

In the mid to late 90's Stan Lee befriended an attorney named Peter Paul - a friendship which was based in part on their shared left-wing political views. Paul was able to negotiate a contract for Mr. Lee with Marvel Comics which allowed him to work on outside projects. This led to Lee and Paul forming a company called Stan Lee Media, which later went public.

Paul and another corporate officer named Stephan Gordon illegally manipulated stock prices in the corporation in order to defraud investors. Part of the money they raised in this way was funneled into the campaign of Hillary Clinton who was running for her first term in the US Senate.

When the SEC discovered the illegal activities Stan Lee Media filed for bankruptcy and Paul fled to Brazil, but was later extradited back to the US. The SEC investigated Stan Lee's involvement in the affair but could not find sufficient evidence to disprove Lee's claim that he was only the creative side of the management team and had no idea what was going on in the financial side of the company, although Lee was on record approving of his companies efforts to help the Clintons.

My point is not that Stan Lee was personally involved in illegal activities but that his association with the kind of people who associate with Bill and Hillary Clinton landed him in the cross hairs of a federal felony investigation. The Clinton Machine is nothing more than an ongoing criminal enterprise and associating yourself with it, even peripherally, is asking for trouble.

Thought crime in the new era of Obama

From The Dayton Daily News:

Mason school officials said they are taking a proactive educational approach in advance of next week's planned Inauguration Day activities.

"Inappropriate comments that may make other students, staff or families feel unwelcome or uncomfortable in school or on the bus will not be tolerated," Superintendent Kevin Bright said in an e-mail sent to parents Monday, Jan. 12.

The district, he said, expects students and staff to show respect for President-elect Obama and the incoming administration, as well as President Bush and the outgoing administration, and recognize that "while the election is a competitive process, our nation's greatness is displayed when all sides come together for a united country."

Jeff Schlaeger, Mason High School's psychologist, said "inappropriate comments" occurred around election week when doctored pictures of Obama appeared at the school, including "derogatory caricatures" of him dressed like a terrorist and signs that read "Obama '08/Biden '09."

"There were groups of students that were worked up over the results of the election," said Schlaeger, who is a member of the district's racial equity committee and curriculum organizer for MHS Freshman Diversity Week.

The school is offering a variety of events for students at every grade level, ranging from letter-writing and books, to videos, reflection and watching the inauguration itself, Bright said in the e-mail.

"We're attempting to take a more proactive approach now and, first of all, celebrate the passing of power in our country and at the same time also celebrate this historic inauguration and the election of our first African-American president," Bright said during an interview Tuesday.

Where to start. . .

First it is legal for the school to do this. Students in high school are not adults and while during school hours and on school property the school may order their behavior. However it seems a very poor lesson for the children to learn that criticism of elected leaders is out of bounds in a free society.

Second it seems that the school is looking at Obama purely through a racial lens. The idea that someone could legitimately disagree with Mr. Obama's stated policies and plans for the nation seems never to have occurred to them. It just seems to this school's administration that the only possible problem that anyone could have with the little messiah is the color of his skin.

In this I think we see a preview of how all criticism of Obama will be treated over the next four years.

Tonight's Music

A performance of the song Apothecary by the band Enter The Haggis. We shot ETH at World Cafe in Philadelphia on November 25, 2006.

The return of the Real McCain

Rick Santorum published an opinion piece in the Philadelphia Enquirer called The Elephant in the Room: McCain May be Obama's Secret Weapon. Here is the meat of it:

Obama was a candidate of scant accomplishment but grand promise. Promise won, but promising to be a unifying, transformational force creates high expectations. Rolling Republicans right away would shatter that Hollywood story line.

Obama also faces the reality of needing at least one Republican senator to join him to break filibusters. Many speculate that three moderate Republicans will provide the necessary Senate votes and the imprimatur of bipartisanship.

Still, Obama and the GOP moderates will not produce the kind of post-partisan harmony that Obama promised and the public now expects.

But I believe Obama has an ace in the hole among Senate Republicans. This unlikely ace can deliver not only the GOP moderates needed to break a filibuster, but also the stamp of bipartisanship: the 2008 GOP standard bearer, John McCain.

McCain was once the mainstream media darling, back when he joined Democrats on a host of issues. He prized his maverick moniker and used it to propel himself onto the national scene in the 2000 Republican presidential primary. Early in the Bush years, he shored up his status as the media's favorite Republican by opposing Bush on taxes and the environment.

But this love fest came to a halt when McCain became the front-runner for the GOP nomination. First he began to sound more like a conservative by altering his stands on immigration, the environment and taxes. Then he named Sarah Palin his running mate. It was too much for a media that had fallen head over heels for Obama. The media had a new darling.

In McCain's mind, however, losing the presidency will not be the final chapter of his life story. He knows the path to "Big Media" redemption. Working with the man who vanquished him in November will show them all the real McCain again.

Remember, it was this onetime prisoner of war who led the charge to open diplomatic relations with Vietnam. If that past is prologue, and McCain's legislative record is any guide, he will not just join with Obama but lead the charge in Congress on global warming, immigration "reform," the closing of Guantanamo, federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research, and importation of prescription drugs.

But McCain won't stop there in his effort to rehabilitate himself in the media's - or maybe his own - eyes. He will forge common ground on a long list of initiatives that go far beyond where he has gone before, including the stimulus package.

This is why I and so many others shouted ourselves hoarse warning the Republican Party not to commit suicide by nominating this odious and detestable RINO to be our candidate in last year's election. But the party failed to listen to wisdom and so went down to an utterly predictable defeat.

Evidence that Mr. Santorum (who lost his bid for reelection to the United States Senate because he angered Pennsylvania conservatives by backing liberal RINO Arlen Specter in a primary fight against Reagan-conservative Pat Toomey) is likely correct in his analysis could be seen in the look of pure orgasmic bliss on John McCain's face during his concession speech as he spoke of how much he was looking forward to helping Barack Obama when he returned to the Senate. And why shouldn't McCain help Obama with his legislative agenda. He and the little messiah agree on a very broad range of issues.

Like Obama, McCain worships in the Church of Man-Made Global Warming. They line up side-by-side to receive green communion (baked in a carbon free solar oven) from its High Priest, Al Gore. Obama and McCain also agree on the issue of immigration reform. Both of them wish to see America's borders opened to an endless wave of Third World peasants who will come to the US and consume vast oceans of taxpayer dollars, lower wages, drive up crime and, once they complete the new streamlined path to citizenship, vote in such a way as to give the left wing of the Democrat party unbreakable control of every part of American government for at least the next 50 years.

Like Obama, McCain believes that the path out of our current economic difficulties is not to leave the market alone and let it self-correct (as it would do within 18 months to 2 years) then begin growing again. Instead the two of them believe that the path back to prosperity is massive government spending, you know the same strategy which Hoover and FDR used to turn the serious recession of 1929-1930 into the Great Depression of 1929-1950.

McCain agrees with the little messiah on other important issues like closing Gitmo and bringing the hard-core murdering terrorists warehoused there back to the US where they can be given full due process, just like American citizens. That this means most of them going free due to the fact that the evidence which proves their guilt cannot be revealed in open court without compromising important intelligence gathering sources and methods is of no concern. At least when you are a left-wing loon like Obama or a just-plain loon like McCain. After all it is far more important that America restore its reputation in the world by proving to every rogue-state Dictator and terrorist madman on the globe that we will do nothing effective to protect ourselves.

Yes, everything we know about John McCain tells us that the most enjoyable and rewarding part of his life will be acting as B. Hussein Obama's hand-puppet in the United States Senate.

Tonight's Music

Clandestine performing Craig Gallagher's. They will be at the 2009 Grandfather Mountain Games.

Miss Ann is talking

That means that YOU are listening!

In a front-page article on Jan. 2 of this year, The New York Times took a brief respite from its ongoing canonization of Barack Obama and returned to its series on violent crimes committed by returning GIs, or as I call it: "U.S. Military, Psycho Killers."

The Treason Times' banner series about Iraq and Afghanistan veterans accused of murder began in January last year but was quickly discontinued as readers noticed that the Times doggedly refused to provide any statistics comparing veteran murders with murders in any other group.

So they waited a year, hoping readers wouldn't notice they were still including no relevant comparisons.

What, for example, is the percentage of murderers among veterans compared to the percentage of murderers in the population at large -- or, more germane, in the general population of young males, inasmuch as violent crime is committed almost exclusively by young men?

Any group composed primarily of young men will contain a seemingly mammoth number of murderers.

Consider the harmless fantasy game, Dungeons and Dragons -- which happens to be played almost exclusively by young males. When murders were committed in the '80s by (1) young men, who were (2) Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts, some people concluded that factor (2), rather than factor (1), led to murderous tendencies.

Similarly, for its series about how America's bravest and finest young men are really a gang of psychopathic cutthroats, the Times triumphantly produced 121 homicides committed by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in order to pin the blame for the murders on the U.S. military.

Perhaps the Times' next major expose could be on how a huge percentage of murderers are people who won't ask for directions or share the TV remote.

Let's compare murders by veterans to murders by other 18- to 35-year-olds in the U.S. population at large. From 1976 to 2005, 18- to 24-year-olds -- both male and more gentle females -- committed homicide at a rate of 29.9 per 100,000. Twenty-five- to 35-year-olds committed homicides at a rate of 15.8 per 100,000.

Since 9/11, about 1.6 million troops have served in either Iraq or Afghanistan. That makes the homicide rate among veterans of these wars 7.6 per 100,000 -- or about one-third the homicide rate for their age group (18 to 35) in the general population of both sexes.

But fewer than 200,000 of the 1.6 million troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have been women, and the murder rate for the general population includes both males and females. Inasmuch as males commit nearly 90 percent of all murders, the rate for males in those age groups is probably nearly double the male/female combined rates, which translates to about 30 to 55 murderers per 100,000 males aged 18 to 35.

So comparing the veterans' rate of murder to only their male counterparts in the general population, we see that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are about 10 times less likely to commit a murder than non-veterans of those wars.

But as long as the Times has such a burning interest in the root causes of murder, how about considering the one factor more likely to create a murderer than any other? That is the topic we're not allowed to discuss: single motherhood.

As I describe in my new book, "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America," controlling for socioeconomic status, race and place of residence, the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single parent. (The second strongest factor is owning a Dennis Kucinich bumper sticker.)

By 1996, 70 percent of inmates in state juvenile detention centers serving long-term sentences were raised by single mothers. Seventy percent of teenage births, dropouts, suicides, runaways, juvenile delinquents and child murderers involve children raised by single mothers. Girls raised without fathers are more sexually promiscuous and more likely to end up divorced.

A 1990 study by the left-wing Progressive Policy Institute showed that, after controlling for single motherhood, the difference in black and white crime disappeared.

Various studies come up with slightly different numbers, but all the figures are grim. A study cited in the far left-wing Village Voice found that children brought up in single-mother homes "are five times more likely to commit suicide, nine times more likely to drop out of high school, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 14 times more likely to commit rape (for the boys), 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home."

With new children being born, running away, dropping out of high school and committing murder every year, it's not a static problem to analyze. But however the numbers are run, single motherhood is a societal nuclear bomb.

Many of these studies, for example, are from the '90s, when the percentage of teenagers raised by single parents was lower than it is today. In 1990, 28 percent of children under 18 were being raised in one-parent homes -- mother or father, divorced or never-married. By 2005, more than one-third of all babies born in the U.S. were illegitimate.

That's a lot of social problems in the pipeline.

Think I'm being cruel? Imagine an America with 60 to 70 percent fewer juvenile delinquents, teenage births, teenage suicides and runaways, and you will appreciate what the sainted "single mothers" have accomplished.

Even in liberals' fevered nightmares, predatory mortgage dealers, oil speculators and Ken Lay could never do as much harm to their fellow human beings as single mothers do to their own children, to say nothing of society at large.

But the Times won't run that series because liberals adore single motherhood and the dissolution of traditional marriage in America. They detest the military, so they cite a few anecdotal examples of veterans who have committed murder and hope that no one asks for details.

The irony is that the Times has a legitimate story, that military service improves young men. That it makes them more mature, more law abiding and responsible. But that doesn't fit the left's preconceptions about the military or the kind of men who volunteer for service so they will not just refuse to tell that story they will not even be able to see that story when the evidence for it is it is staring them in the face.

This is a large part of the reason for the dramatically shrinking readership/viewership of old media like the NYT. Just about the only audience they have left is the extreme hard core left. That pool of listeners/readers is enough to keep the Daily Kos the most visited political site on the Web, but it isn't enough to keep a newspaper or television network's news department in the black.

And before some idiot leavs a comment about how MSNBC more than doubled its rating by going hard left let me address that.

MSNBC went from having ratings that could not be detected to having ratings that can barely be detected. They went from having way less than a million viewers a night to having a bit less than a million viewers a night. Now that MSNBC has more than doubled its ratings it has almost as many people listening in a week as Rush Limbaugh has in any randomly selected 20-minute segment of his radio show.

Way to go MSNBC why not give Maddow and Olbermann a raise!

The final cultural barrier is shattered

SPIDER-MAN creator Stan Lee is to unveil the world’s first gay superhero.

High school basketball star Thom Creed hides his developing superpowers along with his sexuality.

Former Marvel Comics boss Stan, 86 — who also created the Hulk and the X-Men — will unleash the character in an hour-long TV drama being shot in the US.

If it’s a hit there it will cross to the UK.

TV execs hope it will rival the huge success of shows likes Heroes.

Lee developed the idea of a gay character from the award-winning novel Hero by Perry Moore.

A TV insider said: It was only a matter of time before we had our first gay superhero. And if there is one man who can make him a success it is Stan Lee.

There’s a real buzz among comic book fans.

I'm afraid that gay superheros have been around for years. I remember watching a TV show about them when I was a kid.

Think about it. Bruce Wayne, a never married millionaire who spends a lot of time in the gym, lives in his mansion with his "butler" Alfred and a doting elderly aunt who is so clueless that she cannot tell when people who live under the same roof with her are living secret lives.

Then he takes in Dick Grayson, a very athletic teenage boy - who throughout the entire series never had a girlfriend - as his "youthful ward".

Bruce and Dick dress in tights and spend a great deal of time associating with men who are steeped in American penitentiary culture, with all that implies.

When not "fighting crime" Bruce and Dick are avid patrons of the arts, attending the ballet, gallery openings and the theater.

Do I need to continue?

[Yeah, I know you've never heard any of those before]

As a powerful and influential member of the new media I have obtained an advertisement for the new series which is being shown to focus groups representing key demographic groups.

Seriously, I've known that Stan Lee was a wackjob since he apologized for making the communist North Vietnamese look like bad guys in the first issue of Iron Man.

Any doubt about where Mr. Lee stood on political/cultural issues was removed when he got so deeply involved with members of Bill Clinton's inner circle that he barely escaped a jail sentence.

Tonight's Music

The other day I was discussing the penultimate episode of the SciFi Channel's series Stargate Atlantis with a friend and we agreed that this episode was one of the best of the series and that we enjoyed the way they used the Johnny Cash's version of the Neil Diamond song Solitary Man in the episode. Well it seems that others agreed with us because scenes from the episode have been cut together with Mr. Cash's recording of Solitary Man into a very good music video.

Change = Conspicuous Consumption?

Barack Obama's inauguration is set to cost more than £100m making it the most expensive swearing-in ceremony in US history.

The President-elect will take less than a minute to recite the oath of office in front of an estimated two million people in the US capital next week.

But by the time the final dance has been held at one of the many inaugural balls the costs for the day will be a staggering £110m.

Auto executives fly to Washington on private jets and they are pilloried for being "tone deaf" in not realising how it will look.

Yet the little messiah's crowd drops around $150,000,000.00 on a giant party and no one asks how many uninsured children could be provided with healthcare for that money.

Of course not. Obama is a leftist and as far as the mainstream media is conserned the only wrong he can do is to move to the right.

The little messiah goes RINO hunting

This could ruin their reputation: President-elect Barack Obama Tuesday evening attending a dinner party at the home of conservative columnist George Will, attended by fellow conservatives William Kristol and David Brooks.

The press pool following the president-elect reported that he left his temporary home at Washington’s Hay-Adams hotel Tuesday evening and arrived a short time later at Will’s home in the Maryland suburbs. A press pool photographer shot a photo of Kristol, an editor of the Weekly Standard, and Brooks, a columnist at the New York Times.

The "conservative" guests at this dinner are all inside-the-beltway RINO's or borderline RINO's who, for the most part, care far more about being invited to appear on the Sunday shows - and the right cocktail parties - than they do about the fate of either the nation or the Republican party.

As far as I'm conserned the little messiah is welcome to them.

To embargo or not to embargo

Full disclosure. I like Cuban cigars and on occasion risk possible prosecution by ordering a few of them on the Internet. I also realize that the embargo actually serves an important purpose for the communist regime in Cuba by giving them a convenient scapegoat for the fact that they have utterly failed to provide anything remotely resembling an adequate standard of living for the Cuban people.

For these reasons I am somewhat sympathetic toward the idea of dropping the embargo. It would be nice to be able to visit the local tobacco shop and purchase a box of Romeo y Julieta sticks with no fear of being set upon by agents of ICE.

But Humberto Fontova, writing on today's American Thinker presents some very interesting facts about the embargo and the United States' relationship with Cuba:

The U.S. taxpayer remains among the few in the industrialized world not screwed and tattooed by Fidel Castro. But fear not! Most "analysts" see Obama moving quickly to rectify this shameful state of affairs, by scrapping his country's obnoxious (to liberals and foreigners) penchant for "unilateralism" in foreign policy.

"Will Obama Shift Policy on Cuba?" pants a recent BBC headline.

After all, as the AP reported from the Latin American summit in Brazil last month: "Latin America leaders demand (italics mine) U.S. end Cuba embargo."

And as the Russian News Agency, Novosti, reported back in October: "UN General Assembly demands (italics mine again) U.S. lift embargo on Cuba."

Needless to say, MSM commentary overwhelmingly supports these "demands." U.S. policymakers must immediately take heed of these "demands," from those more internationally sophisticated parties, who have all been doing business with Cuba for decades.

For those actually aware of Castro's commercial record and the nature of the "Cuban embargo" a much better explanation for these "demands," is that: "misery loves company."To wit:

"Cuba stopped payment on all its foreign commercial and bilateral debt with non-socialist countries in 1986." disclosed U.S. International Trade Commission Report in 2001.

"Debt talks between Cuba and the Paris Club of creditor nations are on hold. On the table was $3.8 billion of official debt to Paris Club members, part of a much larger debt Cuba ran up through the 1980s, until it began to DEFAULT on payments and then stopped talking with creditors." Reuters, from back in June 2001.

And remember, back then Cuba was getting $5 billion a year from the Soviet sugar-daddy.

So what happened to that debt, you ask? Well, Fidel repudiated it too. "Soviet Union?" he frowns. "What Soviet Union?...Where is this Soviet Union?" No country by that name anymore, right? So how can I owe it any money?"

In late 2006 France's version of the U.S. Government's (i.e., us taxpayers) Export-Import Bank, named COFACE, cut off Cuba's credit line. Mexico's Bancomex did likewise. This came about because the Castro regime stuck it to French taxpayers for $175 million and to Mexican taxpayers for $365 million, when these state-run banks had financed sales by some those nations' politically-connected companies' to Stalinist Cuba. Bancomex was forced to impound Cuban assets in three different countries in an attempt to recoup its losses.

Early this year, one of the Cuban regime's best friends, South Africa, was also compelled to bend over for the soap. Here's part of the AFP story: "Given the assessment of Cuba's debt position," Said South African Minister, Themba Maseko, "we are of the view that Cuba was not in a position to meet its obligations in the foreseeable future." Cuba stuck it to the Export Credit Insurance Corporation of South Africa (South African taxpayers) for $117 million, dating back to 1996.

Last year, one of the world's most respected economic forecasting firms, the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit, ranked Cuba as virtually the world's worst country business-wise. Only Iran and Angola ranked lower. This firm predicts that Cuba's abysmal business climate will remain that way for the next 3 years, at the very least.

Dun & Bradstreet also rates Cuba among the world's worst, right below Belarus. Moody's rating is off the bottom of the chart as "very poor." Standard & Poors refuses even to rate Cuba, regarding the economic figures released by the regime as utterly bogus.

Yet despite all the scribbling and gabble about the "U.S. embargo of Cuba," or "Blockade" as termed by The Congressional Black Caucus and Castro lobbyists (but I repeat myself) the U.S-as I sit here and write--is Cuba's biggest food supplier and fifth biggest import partner, and has been for the past five years. The U.S. has done over $2 billion dollars worth of business with Cuba the last few years-all for cash.

And that's the rub with the politically-connected companies who sell Castro. These U.S. Agri-giants crave the same deal from U.S. officials (via the U.S. Export-Import Bank) that France and Mexico's government elites (among many other nations') gave their business cronies and cocktail guests.

Castro does much of his U.S. business with Archer Daniels Midland. For decades ADM executives and Castro lobbyists (but I repeat myself) pined for an end to the "embargo." That long gone, they now whine that restrictions on doing business with Cuba are "too onerous." Again, these "restrictions" stipulate one thing primarily: that Cuba's Stalinist regime pay cash for U.S. imports. That's basically all the "embargo" amounts to nowadays, along with a (quite flexible) travel ban.

The big push to end the so-called embargo came in 1998, after the Pope's visit to Cuba when an outfit called Americans for Humanitarian Trade with Cuba, popped up. "Ordinary Cubans are paying a severe price for the ban on U.S. food and the most severe restrictions on the sale of U.S. medical products," mourned the AHTC manifesto. "We can no longer support a policy carried out in our name which causes suffering of the most vulnerable--women, children and the elderly." (note, it's all "for the children.")

On the Board of this AHTC sat David Rockefeller of the Council on Foreign Relations, Wayne Andreas of Archer Daniels Midland and Frank Carlucci, at the time chairman of The Carlyle Group, the world's biggest private investment corporation, which is headquartered on Washington DC's Pennsylvania avenue itself. Carlyle Group is widely regarded as the most politically-connected corporation in the world. George Soros was among its founders and major investors.

A few years later something called the U.S.-Cuban Trade and Economic Council, burst upon and scene. Lo and behold, Dwayne Andreas again appeared on the board. Follow the money trail and most of these names keep popping up on practically everything associated with easing the Cuban "embargo."

Somebody sees dollar signs, and it's not Joe the Plumber.

When it comes to political influence, liberals denounce Cuban-American lobbyists as singularly unscrupulous, diabolically clever, and awash in ill-gotten lucre -- unlike those babes-in-the-woods Dwayne Andreas, David Rockefeller, and George Soros.

The anti-"embargo" reasoning seems to go something like this: The Carlyle Group, Archer Daniels Midland, and The Council on Foreign Relations, along with congressmen representing the most heavily taxpayer-subsidized sector of the U.S. economy, spend most of their waking hours agonizing over the welfare of the Cuban people and yearning to succor them. The Cuban peoples' cousins, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters in Miami, however, want only to starve and torture their relatives.

But however valuable to the U.S. taxpayer today, U.S. sanctions against Castro's Stalinist regime were not originally enacted because of an abysmal credit rating. Following please find a list of items many in the Mainstream Media and Castro lobbyists (but I repeat myself) are frantically trying to erase or obscure:

In 1959 the U.S granted diplomatic recognition to the Castro regime in record time for such benediction, faster than they'd recognized Batista in 1952 -- faster than they'd recognized any Latin American regime. Then the U.S. lavished Castro with $200 million in subsidies from U.S. taxpayers.

A few months later Castro responded: his KGB-trained security forces stormed into 5,911 U.S owned businesses in Cuba and stole them all at Russian gunpoint -- $2 billion were heisted from outraged U.S. businessmen and stockholders. Rubbing his hands in triumphant glee, Castro boasted at maximum volume to the entire world that he was freeing Cuba from "Yankee economic slavery!" ( Che Guevara's term, actually) and that "he would never repay a penny!"

This is the only promise Fidel Castro has ever kept in his life.

Not all Americans surrendered their legal and hard-earned property peacefully. Here's court records from a suit in the 11th Judicial Circuit Court, Miami-Dade County by Katy Fuller, whose father was murdered in 1960 by "Cuba's Elvis!" (Dan Rather's term Fidel Castro) for resisting the theft of his farm.

From The Estate of Robert Otis Fuller vs The Republic of Cuba filed May 5 2002:

"Agents of the Castro Government acting under orders of the Castro Government, led Bobby Fuller to a firing squad where he was shot and killed after being tortured by having his blood drained from his body. Thereafter, his body was thrown into an unmarked mass grave in an unknown location."

Here's another lawsuit against "One Helluva Guy!" (Ted Turner's term for Fidel Castro) by the family of U.S. citizen Howard Anderson who resisted the theft of his filling stations and Jeep dealership by Castro's gunmen in 1960: Anderson v. Republic of Cuba, No. 01-28628 (Miami-Dade Circuit Court, April 13, 2003). "In one final session of torture, Castro's agents drained Howard Anderson's body of blood before sending him to his death at the firing squad."

"Death to the American!" screamed Howard Anderson's communist prosecutor at his farce of a trial on April 17, 1961. "The prosecutor was a madman!" says a Swiss diplomat who witnessed the trial, "leaping on tables, shrieking, pointing, as Mr. Anderson simply glared back."

Two days after his "trial," Howard Anderson's refused a blindfold, to glare at his executioners. Medically he was probably in shock at the time from the blood-draining. "Fuego!" The bullets shattered Howard Anderson's body at dawn on April 19, 1961. "Castro is very selfless and moral" reports his friend Oliver Stone.

Yet to hear the international community and U.S. "multilateralists," we're the bad guys in this issue, were' the mean "bully"

The "U.S. embargo," has always exempted medicine and humanitarian supplies, by the way. In fact the U.S has always provided millions more in such aid to Cuba than those who scold us from the Latin American Summit and UN General Assembly.

For me the bottom line is that dropping the embargo would result in the pouring of billions of dollars of American taxpayers' money down a communist rat-hole long before we would see so much as one Havana Montecristo on sale at the local cigar store.

That and the fact that I deeply despise the people who are pushing the hardest for the end of the embargo leads me to favor keeping it in place.

That and the fact that it is so much fun to point out to leftists that Cuba can now, and has always been able to, trade with the entire rest of the world and they are still a basket case. After all the European Union has a combined economy slightly larger than the US and their citizens are perfectly free to travel to and trade with Cuba and Cuba is still a basket case.

Mexico and all of central and south America along with Canada and Asia and Africa are all perfectly free to travel to and trade with Cuba and Cuba is still a basket case.

Yet the brainless left is insistent that lack of trade with the US is the sole cause of Cuba's misery.

Anything that puts their stupidity on display so clearly is definitely worth keeping.

Obama clutches a viper to his bosom :)

Here is another of those stating the obvious articles, but some things need repeating.

Here is a thought experiment that does not take very much thought. Picture, if you will, Hillary Clinton facing a foreign-policy conundrum. With whom will she discuss it first and most intently: with her president or her husband? (I did tell you that this wouldn't be difficult.) Here's another one: Will she be swayed in her foreign-policy decisions by electoral considerations focusing on the year 2012, and, if so, will she be swayed by President Barack Obama's interests or her own?

The next question, and I must apologize in advance for once again making it an un-strenuous one, is: Who else will be approaching Bill Clinton for advice, counsel, and "input" on foreign affairs? It appears from the donor list of the Clinton Foundation that there is barely an oligarch, royal family, or special-interest group anywhere in the world that does not know how to get the former president's attention. Just in the days since the foundation agreed to some disclosure of its previously "confidential" clients—in other words, since this became a condition for Sen. Clinton's nomination to become secretary of state—we have additionally found former President Clinton in warm relationships with one very questionable businessman in Malaysia and with another, this time in Nigeria, who used to have close connections with that country's ultracorrupt military dictatorship.

The Nigerian example is an especially instructive one. Gilbert Chagoury is a major figure in land and construction in that country and has contributed between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation as well as arranged a huge speaking fee for President Clinton at a Caribbean event and kicked in a large sum to his 1996 re-election campaign. In return for this, he has been received at the Clinton White House and more recently at Clinton-sponsored social events in New York and Paris. This may have helped to alleviate the sting of Chagoury's difficulties in Nigeria itself. As a close friend of the country's uniformed despot Gen. Sani Abacha, he benefited from some extremely profitable business arrangements during the years of dictatorship but was later compelled, after an investigation of his transactions, to return an estimated $300 million to the Nigerian treasury in exchange for a plea-bargaining arrangement by which his bank accounts could be unfrozen.

Aha, you say, there's no evidence of any quid pro quo here. (Or, in other words, Chagoury gives a fortune to Clinton because he, too, wants to "fight AIDS.") Of course, this may only be seed money for a later "quid" or even "quo" that hasn't yet materialized. And if Chagoury or anyone else had ever received the impression that the Clintons would play for pay, it's easy to see how he got the idea. (See my Nov. 24, 2008, Slate column on the investigations of the Clinton campaign-finance scandals and the shenanigans surrounding the Marc Rich pardon.)

But does a contribution to Bill Clinton's foundation get you any traction with Sen. Clinton, at least in her political and official capacity? Let's see. A recent story in the New York Times managed to begin with some very crisp and clear and fact-based paragraphs:

An upstate New York developer donated $100,000 to former President Bill Clinton's foundation in November 2004, around the same time that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton helped secure millions of dollars in federal assistance for the businessman's mall project.

Mrs. Clinton helped enact legislation allowing the developer, Robert J. Congel, to use tax-exempt bonds to help finance the construction of the Destiny USA entertainment and shopping complex, an expansion of the Carousel Center in Syracuse.

Mrs. Clinton also helped secure a provision in a highway bill that set aside $5 million for Destiny USA roadway construction.

Why should anyone doubt, then, that in small matters as well as in large ones, the old slogan from the 1992 election still holds true? As Bill so touchingly put it that year, if you voted for him, you got "two for one." What the country—and the world—has since learned is a slight variation on that, which I would crudely phrase as "buy one, get one free."

The deal struck by the wide-eyed incoming Obama administration is that the list of donors to the Clinton Foundation will be reviewed once every year and that only the new donations from foreign states—which already include an extraordinarily large number from Gulf sheikdoms—will be scrutinized by administration lawyers. How would we react if we read that this was the rule for the Vladimir Putin government, say, or former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's regime in Germany? Before me, for example, is the report of a pledge of $100 million to the Clinton Foundation's Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative by a set of companies based in Vancouver and known as the Lundin Group. The ostensible purpose of this mind-boggling contribution is stated in the usual vacuous terms of "sustainable local economies," chiefly in Africa. All I know for sure about the Lundin Group is that it does quite a lot of business in Sudan. And all I can think to ask—as perhaps some senator might think to ask—is why such a big corporate interest doesn't just donate the money directly, rather than distributing it through the offices of an outfit run by a seasoned ex-presidential influence-peddler. What do they and the other donors suppose they are getting for their money? A good feeling?

That was another no-brainer question I just asked. So let me stop insulting you, dear reader, and pose a question to which we do not have any obvious answer. Why is Sen. Clinton, the spouse of the great influence-peddler, being nominated in the first place? In exchange for giving the painful impression that our State Department will be an attractive destination for lobbyists and donors, what exactly are we getting? George Marshall? Dean Acheson? Even Madeleine Albright? No, we are getting a notoriously ambitious woman who made a fool of herself over Bosnia, at the time and during the recent campaign, and who otherwise has no command of foreign affairs except what she's picked up second-hand from an impeached ex-president, a disbarred lawyer, and a renter of the Lincoln Bedroom. If the Senate waves this through, it will have reinforced its recent image as the rubber-stamp chamber of a bankrupt banana republic. Not an especially good start to the brave new era.

But the Senate will wave Hillary's nomination through. The Democrats have 48 Senators (and if Franken gets the courts to rubber-stamp his election fraud they will have 49. Of course this doesn't take into consideration the RINO's (mostly from the Northeast) who can be counted upon to vote with the Democrats.

And that doesn't take into account Crazy John McCain who has taken it as his holy mission to ensure that every last thing that Obama wants sails through the Senate with as little opposition as possible.

But back to Hillary. True she has no foreign policy experience and equally true she has terrible political instincts. True also that her and Bill's co-presidency was one of the most corrupt in the history of the nation and true also that since his retirement from the presidency and Hillary's election to the Senate Bill's Foundation has been little more than a bribe collection agency for his wife.

BUT that's not important right now.

Remember Barack Obama is the president! The nation is screwed! With Hillary as the Secretary of State or without the nation is still screwed.

What is important right now is that as many people be made aware of how badly the nation is screwed as quickly as possible and having Hillary Clinton (who has all the gentle subtlety of Reinhard Heydrich) in such a prominent position cannot but help that goal.

That and the fact that she will be working tirelessly to undermine the Obama administration from within will do much to put the GOP back in control of congress in 2010 and the White House in 2012.

I don't know how long Hillary will last as a member of the Obama administration but that time will be filled with hijinks.