The oft repeated canard that Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have had to "accommodate" so-called "moderate" Democrats is nothing more than a well orchestrated deception. And they proved it with their late-night Senate vote on the outrageous socialist health care "reform" bill. In spite of the fact that Americans, by a huge margin, oppose the blatant government take-over, EVERY Democrat voted for the bill - they got in line like those goose-stepping North Koreans we see on propaganda videos.

The truth is, every Democrat elected official is a liberal. Every Democrat is a socialist. Every Democrat is a big government loving, out of control spender of YOUR money - at least if you're one of the top half of Americans who pay 97% of the income taxes. (Of course, if you're one of the free-loaders and dead-beats in the bottom half who pay only 3% of all the income taxes, you probably hope Democrats keep on stealing from the rest of us - so you can get more "free" handouts.)

Every Democrat goes along with the "global warming"  nonsense - in spite of the mountain of evidence (not to mention snow!) piling up that shows that it is a monstrously fabricated fraud.  But of course they do - because it gives them just one more excuse to do what they really want to do, which is to control every aspect of your life.

Every elected Democrat wants to tell you what you can eat.

Every Democrat wants to tell you what kind of car you can drive.

Every Democrat wants to tell you where you can live.

Every Democrat wants to tell you when (and where) you can go to the doctor.

Every Democrat wants to tell you what kind of light-bulb you can use (and when you can turn it on).

Every Democrat wants to force you to keep your children in liberal indoctrinations centers (otherwise known as "public schools").

Every Democrat wants to silence your opposition to their policies - they want to control what you watch on TV, listen to on the radio, and read on the Internet.

Every Democrat wants to keep you from having access to affordable energy.

Every Democrat wants to keep you from drilling for YOUR OWN oil.

Every Democrat wants to keep you from using YOUR OWN vast reserves of coal.

Every Democrat hates private business - even though businesses, large and small, are the source of all wealth in America.

And yes, Virginia, every Democrat wants to take away your right to own a gun. Think not? Just wait.

So the next time anyone talks about "moderate" or "Blue Dog" Democrats, just take a cue from Special Agent Gibbs on NCIS, and give them a slap on the back of the head. Because there is no longer any such thing as a "moderate" Democrat in the United States Congress. And unless genuine moderate Democrat voters make their voices heard in 2010, there never will be again.

Why I Love the Marines

 (anonymous)

I like the fact that if you are a self-declared enemy of America, running into a Marine outfit in combat is your worst nightmare...and that your health records are either about to get a lot thicker, or be closed out entirely.

I like the fact that Marines are steadfast and consistent in everything they do...regardless of whether you agree with them or not.

I like the fact that Marines view the term 'Politically Correct' with nothing but pure disdain.

I like the fact that Marines stand tall and rigid in their actions, thoughts, and deeds when others bend with the direction of the wind and are as confused as a dog looking at a ceiling fan.

I like the fact that each and every Marine considers the honor and legacy of The Corps as his personal and sacred trust to protect and defend.

I like the fact that most civilians don't have a clue what makes us tick. And that's not a bad thing. Because if they did, it would probably scare the Hell out of them.

I like the fact that others say they want to be like us, but don't have what it takes in the "Pain-Gain-Pride" department to make it happen. 

I like the fact that the Marines came into being in a bar, named Tun Tavern. And that Marines still gather in pubs, bars and slop chutes to share sea stories and the "Hot scoop."

I like the fact that Marines do not consider it a coincidence that there are 24 hours in a day and 24 beers in a case...because Marines know there is a reason for everything that happens.

I like our motto... SEMPER FIDELIS, and the fact that we don't shed it when the going gets tough, the battlefield gets deadly, or when we hang up our uniform for the last time.

I like the fact that Marines take care of each other...in combat and in a time of Peace.

I like the fact that Marines know the difference between 'Chicken Salad' and 'Chicken S--t' and aren't afraid to call either for what it is.

I like the fact that real Americans hold Marines in the highest esteem, because they know that they can count on us to locate, close with, and destroy those who would do them harm.

I like the fact that people think we are cocky....but we simply have confidence in everything we do, and the fact that others don't know the "taste" of that makes them look at us as if we are arrogant.

I like that fact that we know the taste of freedom and would give our very lives for it. And that it is a taste the protected will never know.

I like the fact that Ronald Reagan said: "Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference...Marines don't have that problem."

I like the fact that we are brothers to the end...and that no matter what happens in life, we know that we have one another's "Six."

I like the fact that when an elected member of congress felt compelled to publicly accuse the Marine Corps of being 'radical and extreme' our Commandant informed that member of congress that she was absolutely correct...and thanked her for the compliment.

I like the fact that Marine leaders - of every rank - know that issuing every man and woman a black beret - or polka-dotted boxer shorts for that matter - does absolutely nothing to promote morale, fighting spirit or combat effectiveness.

I like the fact that Marines are Marines first, regardless of age, race, creed, color, sex, or national origin, or how long they served, their former rank, or whatever else they achieve in life.

I like the fact that you always know where you stand with a Marine. With Marines, there is no hand-wringing, no middle ground or gray area. There are only Missions, Objectives and Facts.

 I like the fact that General of the Army William Thornson said: "There are only two kinds of people who understand Marines: Marines...and the enemy."

I like that fact that Eleanor Roosevelt, as the First Lady in 1945, said: "The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!"

And I really like the fact that the Marines' unofficial motto is: "No Better Friend - No Worse Enemy..."

Yes, I love Marines...and I love the fact that I am humbled to walk among the ranks of other Marines.

In closing...if you aren't a Marine, the next best thing is to have a Marine for a husband, wife, father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter...or friend.

If you haven't seen the wonderfully illuminating exchange between Lord Christopher Monckton and a Greenpeace groupie at the Copenhagen conference, I urge you to do so at:

http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=12930

What is so compelling about this roughly 10-minute video clip, is that Lord Monckton, an obviously intelligent, and undeniably charming gentlemen, engages the woman in a reasoned, polite, and totally respectful conversation, yet he delivers the most devastating evisceration of a typical "global warming" true believer than has ever been caught on camera - and all with a smile.

No wonder Al Gore is terrified at the thought of ever confronting Mr. Monckton - with his formidable debating skills backed up by a mountain of legitimate research, Lord Monckton would likely reduce Mr. Gore to the rhetorical equivalent of a watermelon that had found itself in a "debate" with a 12 gauge shotgun.

But even more intriguing is how, when confronted by Lord Monckton's methodical obliteration of one false notion after another, the woman persists in clinging to her "faith" in the global warming doomsayers, simply refusing to accept anything that runs counter to her beliefs. It is stark evidence of the validity of the observation that those in the "man-made global warming" camp are closer to religious fanatics than they are to sober seekers of truth.

This is not a new phenomenon. Those of us in the battle to preserve the rights to own and carry firearms for self-defense, have encountered the same utter intransigence in the anti-gun fanatics. Even in the face of decades of overwhelming historical crime data that prove they were wrong, these gun control "true believers" continue to be every bit as adamant as the "climate crazies" in clinging to their beliefs.

But what causes this? How do seemingly nice, decent people, who seem to possess reasonable intelligence, become so invested in "believing" something, even after it is shown to be false? Watching the Lord Monckton video clip will explain, at least in part, how this happens. Each time the woman from Greenpeace is questioned as to "why" she believes what she does, she cannot point to any source of actual, hard data - she instead relies on what "the press" or her own organization, Greenpeace, tells her.

When asked if she did even cursory fact-checking on her own, just to verify that what she believed was true, the reply was always "no." Even worse, when Lord Monckton asked her why she had not done such rudimentary homework, she gave the oft-claimed "I don't have the time" answer. After Lord Monckton advised her that, thanks to the Internet, solid information from genuinely reliable sources (like the University of Illinois) could be accessed in "less than 10 minutes" she back-pedaled yet again.

But her behavior is predictable - for true believers, whether their religion is gun control or "carbon control," all the facts and data in the world do little to change their views. Because their views are never based on facts and data - they are based on "belief." People like the Greenpeace lady just "feel" that what they believe is true - facts and reason have no place in their world.

And sadly, she is not alone...

A scumbag street hustler dies in a shootout with police, and all New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg can do is talk about where the shooter got his gun. But given Bloomberg's obsession with piling mountains of gun regulations on the decent citizens of New York, rather than going after the thugs and gang-bangers who prowl the city's streets, we aren't the least bit surprised.

No sooner had the gun smoke cleared from Times Square than the New York Mayor was touting the incident as "proof" that more and stricter gun laws are needed. And not just in New York - Bloomberg has been on a crusade to spread his gun control gospel to surrounding states as well - he has even tried to sue legitimate gun dealers in states like Virginia.

But in fact, the case of William Martinez, the CD-hawking rapper wannabe who tried to kill a plainclothes police officer, is a perfect example of why all gun control measures put forth by the likes of Bloomberg are ultimately doomed to failure. Because, not surprisingly, Martinez didn't buy the gun legally - street thugs like him almost never do.

Nor do they go to gun shows, as is often claimed by the anti-gun lobby. Legitimate studies have shown time and again that the "gun show loophole" is a myth fabricated to justify ever more useless regulations on the 80 million legitimate gun owners who never commit crimes of any kind. A recent 5 year study of over 800 attacks on police officers, conducted by the University of Minnesota at Mankato, in concert with the FBI, confirms the fact that virtually all of the attackers obtained their guns illegally - and not one came from a gun show. 

Criminals use two primary methods to obtain guns, neither one of which will ever be prevented by any gun regulation. They either buy them off the street from other criminals who have stolen them, or they get someone with no criminal record (often a girl friend) to buy the gun for them. This is called a "straw man purchase" and is already a felony.

It's too early to tell, but a straw purchase may very well be what was involved in Martinez's case - the woman who originally bought the gun he used purchased it only two months ago, and (conveniently?) reported it stolen just weeks later. But whether the gun Martinez used was genuinely stolen or a straw purchase, the plain fact is that no gun law of any kind would have prevented it.

Naturally, gun control lobbying groups like the Virginia Center for Public Safety (don't ya just love those "nice" sounding names they give themselves?) always claim that "more gun laws" will somehow magically help. According to their spokesperson, "If all guns were required to be registered, police could've tracked this stolen gun sooner."

Now, exactly HOW this could have been accomplished they can't say, since in almost all such cases, the gun is not recovered until AFTER it has been used. More to the point, since no criminal is going to be "on paper" for any gun, and street-gang "protocol" is to "ditch" the gun within minutes of its being used (in a dumpster or down a sewer), no registration scheme is likely to result in catching the killer, let alone stopping a shooting before it happens.

Ironically, the gun Martinez used is a MAC-10, one of those "scary looking" guns that producers of TV crime shows love - and gun control fanatics hate. But most legitimate gun owners don't own them anyway. Because they are junk - inaccurate, clumsy, and notoriously unreliable. Something that was illustrated clearly when Martinez's gun jammed after just three shots.

Unfortunately, facts and common sense are never going to persuade the virulently anti-gun politicians like Mayor Bloomberg - for them politics will always trump reality.

I was not surprised to discover that 5 Muslim-Americans were arrested in Pakistan, apparently having gone there to engage in terrorism. Here in Minnesota, there is an ongoing investigation into the recruitment of Somali Muslims to become jihadists. What is most impressive in the Pakistani case is that one of the parents of the would be terrorists had the integrity, not to mention the courage, to notify American authorities.

This is unusual in the Muslim world, where allegiance to their religion supersedes their duty to their country. An explanation for this phenomenon may be found in the response by a Saudi Muslim to the following question:

Can a good Muslim be a good American?

He replied:

Theologically - No. Because his allegiance is to Allah.

Religiously - No. Because no other religion is accepted by his Allah except Islam.

Scripturally - No. Because his allegiance is to the five pillars of Islam and the Quran (Koran).

Geographically - No. Because his allegiance is to Mecca, to which he turns in prayer five times a day.

Socially - No. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends with Christians or Jews.

Politically - No. Because he must submit to the mullahs (spiritual leaders) rather than the state - and it is the mullahs who teach Annihilation of Israel and Destruction of America, the great Satan.

Domestically - No. Because he is instructed to marry four women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him.

Intellectually - No. Because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.

Philosophically - No. Because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not allow freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist. Virtually every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic.

Spiritually - No. Because when we declare "one nation under God," the Christian's God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as a heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in the Quran's 99 "excellent names" for Allah

I hope for our sake that he is wrong, and that the actions of the parents in the current case will become the rule, rather than the exception.

But I doubt it.

If you do not understand the threat to your liberty posed by having the Environmental Protection Agency declare carbon dioxide a "dangerous pollutant" then you are either not paying attention, or you are ignoring history.

Put aside for the moment that CO2 is not a pollutant at all - it is a critical component of all life on earth, humans included. Plants use CO2 to convert sunlight into energy, and in the process releasing...oxygen, a substance that most human beings find rather useful. No CO2, no plants. No plants, no oxygen. No oxygen...got it?

But there is a much larger issue to consider - giving unlimited power to an unelected (and uncontrolled) bunch of government bureaucrats is a prescription for tyranny. Like the rapidly multiplying "czars" that now infest the Obama administration, these agencies are not subject to any oversight, and history has shown that their natural inclination is to amass more and more power.

It works like this - an agency is given some sort of very generalized charter, like "protecting workers" (OSHA) or "protecting the environment" (EPA). Sounds noble, right? But here's the rub - once tasked with their respective "duties" they then get to define (and more ominously) redefine what constitutes those duties. And you can't do a thing about it.

It is like giving the NFL officials who referee football games the authority to change the rules of the game - at any time. And neither the players nor the team owners have any recourse. For example, suppose the refs were to decide that it's not "fair" that some teams have better running backs than others, so they decide to create a new rule that limits the maximum number of yards a player can accrue in a single game. Don't like it? Tough.

Not surprisingly, the EPA's decision just happens to come precisely at a time when evidence is piling up that the Earth not warming at all - it has been cooling for more than 10 years. Add to that the recent "climate-gate" scandal which revealed that the entire "climate crisis" has been fabricated by a bunch of left-wing fascists bent on reducing American prosperity. Meanwhile, polls of likely voters show that the number of people who still believe in "global warming" is falling faster than the temperature in Minnesota.

So, Obama and the "global warming" scammers see the prospects of getting their "Cap and Trade" legislation through the Congress fading rapidly. What to do? No problem - just ignore the will of the people, do an end run around the legislative process, and have the snotty little government toadies at the EPA declare that CO2 is "harmful to humans." Take that, you ignorant peasants.

This is much bigger than you think - once an agency like the EPA has the sweeping authority to declare ANY substance a "pollutant" then just about everything you do can be regulated, taxed, and controlled. And life as you know it will be altered forever - and not for the better. Energy costs will skyrocket. Food prices will soar. Millions of American jobs will be lost. And personal freedom and liberty will become a distant memory.

2010 cannot come too soon...

I doubt that anyone is surprised to learn that prisoners in jails and prisons get health care at taxpayer expense - we're becoming numb to such insanities. But most people would be very surprised, and likely a bit angry, to learn that in most jurisdictions, inmates, by law, are entitled to "the same standard of care as is provided in the community" at large.

And for some inmates, things are even better. For instance, you might think that those incarcerated in Southeastern Minnesota would have their medical needs met by the Olmsted Community Hospital, the same place where most local people of limited means have to go.  But you'd be wrong - because, you see, in this part of the state criminals get their needs served by...

...the staff of the world renowned Mayo Clinic of Rochester, Minnesota.

You read that right - thugs, gang-bangers, drug dealers, rapists, and yes, murderers, are treated by one of the most prestigious medical institutions anywhere. From heads of state to oil sheiks to corporate billionaires, people gladly line up to pay for what many consider the finest medical care in the world. Naturally, the crooks don't pay a penny for any of it - you do. Not even Mayo employees get that good of a deal - they have to pay a deductible and a co-pay.

And we're not talking about everyday cuts and bruises here. Inmates get treatment for diabetes, hypertension, and even psychological problems, not to mention complex procedures like kidney transplants, which often require enormously expensive (and ongoing) medication.

But footing the bill for society's scum because of genuine illness is bad enough - what really frosts taxpayers are situations like the case of one Ismael Bugarin, a Dodge County man who is charged with killing his wife and young son. As a result of Mr. Bugarin's self-inflicted wounds (he slashed his own wrists), his medical bills have so far topped $120,000.

And according to the Rochester Post-Bulletin, while some outlying counties have actually seen costs go down, in Olmsted County (the same county where Mayo is located) the jail has seen its medical expenses for inmates go from around $360,000 in 2000, to over $1.2 Million in 2008.

The Bulletin also reports that a growing number of the medical costs are going for emotional disorders - the Olmsted County Director of Detention Services said that today, 30% of the people in custody have "serious and persistent mental illness." Which translates to bigger budget deficits - as Jamie Fenskie, Fillmore County Jail Administrator says, "their meds are so expensive, and most of them don't have any kind of health care [insurance]."

Now, if rising costs are a problem in a tiny Minnesota county, imagine how much money goes to treat criminals in big metropolitan areas like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. But, hey, no problem - just send the taxpayers the bill.

And if you think it's bad today, imagine a likely scenario under government run health care - the same politically correct bureaucrats who currently mandate "equal treatment" for prisoners will tell you that, sorry, your 11 year old daughter will not get the heart transplant, because a serial killer is "next in line" and "we cannot discriminate, you know."

Think that won't happen?

Think again...

The recent Pew Research political awareness quiz raises some troubling questions:

http://pewresearch.org/politicalquiz/quiz/index.php

The test consists of 12 questions about current events, from identifying the most recent Supreme Court appointee to what the "Cap and trade" bill deals with. In other words, things that one would hope most people would know.

In general, Republicans did better than Democrats, men did better than women, and older people did better than younger participants. But the details of the results are disturbing, to say the least - 44% of the population got only 4 (or less) correct, and 21% (that's 1 in 5 people) got only TWO questions right!

While 65% of respondents correctly identified Sonya Sotomayor as the newest Supreme Court, the scores on certain key questions are more frightening.

25% do not know that Democrats control the House of Representatives. (Think about that - 1 in 4 people think Republicans are in charge, even though Democrats have had the majority since 2006).

44% do not know that the "public option" (in the news practically every day) is the term for government run health insurance.

47% do not know what the unemployment rate is (10%) even though the choices were 5, 10, 15, and 20%  (and despite the fact that the unemployment rate has been in the news every day for almost a year).

67% do not know the current Dow Jones average (not even close).

And perhaps the most disturbing of all:

87% do not even know what the "Cap and Trade" bill is, let alone that its phony "carbon offset" scheme will cost more than a TRILLION dollars, and likely destroy the U.S. economy, affecting every American.

And these people are allowed to VOTE?

Now, one could be tempted to blame this sort of ignorance on the bias in the mainstream media. And certainly, much of the lack of awareness is indeed the result of "selective" reporting by news organizations who "pump up" stories that bolster their political views (the New York Times putting the silly Abu Ghraib "controversy" on the front page for 44 days), while burying "inconvenient" stories like "Climate-gate" - the recent discovery of e-mails exposing the lies and deception behind the "Global Warming" fraud.

But with the enormous number of new resources available to anyone who cares to look (from the Internet to Talk Radio to the explosion of "blogs") no one really has an excuse for not knowing what should be just basic facts about what is going on in the world. There is a reason that people who watch FOX news are far more informed than those who get their news from ABC, CBS, NBC or CNN.

Not to mention the (rapidly declining) number of people who watch the off-the-deep-end MSNBC (popular in the "crafts room" at the local asylum) and the 35% of (predominantly liberal) young people who get their "news" from The John Stewart Show - these folks are utterly clueless.

All of which begs the question: Should people who can't even answer simple questions about current events be allowed to vote?

Remember, when people vote, they have an affect on all of us. We already have half of the people paying almost no income tax, yet receiving enormous amounts of money from the other half who pay the lion's share (97%) of the taxes. And these perennial free-loaders invariably vote for socialist thieves who take more and more of what productive people earn and destroy our economic system in the process - just look at what Obama and his neo-Marxist colleagues in the Congress have already done in less than a year.

The truth is, the right to vote carries with it an implicit responsibility to actually have a smattering of knowledge about the issues that are at stake. A basic test could easily be created that is non-partisan and non-discriminatory (and in English, please - if you don't even speak the language, you do NOT deserve to vote).

After all, we require that you pass a test just to get a driver's license - surely it would not be out of line to require that you pass a simple quiz on current events before you get to help decide who our next Senator, Governor, or President is going to be.

But just as they oppose any and every Positive Voter I.D. effort, Democrats would fight such a test, tooth and nail. They have to - because an informed electorate would eventually lead to the death of the Democrat Party.

"How is this possible?" That is the question that normal people are going to be asking about Maurice Clemmons, the miserable piece of sub-human garbage who is now being sought for the killing of four police officers in Washington State. According to the Seattle Times:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010385617_webmansought29.html

 "Clemmons' criminal history includes at least five felony convictions in Arkansas and at least eight felony charges in Washington." The Times further reports that "Clemmons had been in jail in Pierce County [Washington] for the past several months on a pending charge of second-degree rape of a child. He was released from custody just six days ago, even though was staring at seven additional felony charges in Washington state."

Why someone with such a record was granted bail at all is a question we'd all like to have answered. But even more astonishing, and disgusting, has been the revelation that Clemmons, who was facing up to 155 years in prison, would not have even been on the streets of Washington State...had then Governor Mike Huckabee not commuted Clemmons' lengthy sentence.

Naturally, soon after his release, Clemmons was back to his old ways, including aggravated robbery and theft. As a result, the Times says, "[Clemmons] was returned to prison on a parole violation." That should have been the end of Clemmons' career.

"But in what appears to have been a mistake" said the Times, "Clemmons was not actually served with the arrest warrants until leaving prison three years later. As a result, Clemmons' attorney argued that the charges should be dismissed because too much time had passed. Prosecutors dropped the charges."

Which lead ultimately to the release of Clemmons back onto our streets...

...and to the deaths of four police officers.

[*Update - December 1, 2009 - Thankfully, Maurice Clemmons was shot to death early this morning by a police officer attempting to arrest him. Which means not only that justice has been done, but that we will also be spared having to watch Clemmons appearing on Larry King and Good Morning America with his ACLU lawyer, blaming his criminal career on "racism" and "white privilege." - Ed.]

The way Obama and his policies have destroyed the economy, you might wonder if he and his team grasp even the most basic principals of business and finance. The answer would seem obvious: they don't.

But why? Simple, really - Obama has stacked his cabinet with a group of individuals possessing practially no experience in private industry - they have spent almost their entire lives in government. Nick Shultz of the American Enterprise Institute references a J.P. Morgan research report that compares the private sector experience of all the cabinets of U.S. Presidents since 1900:

http://blog.american.com/?p=7572

The results are illuminating. Not surprisingly, Republican administrations tend to have cabinets composed of people with more than 50% of their experience in business and finance, while Democrats were less likely - scoring, on average, in the 30% range. But Obama's cabinet is made up of people whose combined experience in the private sector is a dismal 8% - the lowest in history, and by a wide margin.

Instead of seasoned private sector veterans, Obama has surrounded himself with a bunch of political hacks and academics who have almost no understanding of what it takes to run a successful enterprise in the real world. They have never signed a paycheck. They have never had to make the hard decisions to keep costs under control. They have never been personally responsible for a budget. Heck, Obama could get better advice from Joe the Plumber than any of the socialist ideologues he relies on today.

But it's even worse. Not only has Obama selected advisers who lack the wisdom that can only come from private sector experience, he has hand picked some of the most anti-business, anti-capitalism, and anti-free market neo-Marxists ever to inhabit the White House. So of course they won't make sound economic decisions when it comes to America's capitalist, free market system.

And it doesn't stop at economics - Obama's highest legal official, Attorney General Eric Holder, is ideologically so far to the Left that he authorized the civilian trial of Islamic terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed...in New York City of all places. But then, why wouldn't he? After all, Holder comes from a law firm with a history of defending...Islamic terrorists. 

Polls indicate that more and more Americans are disappointed with Obama's mismanagement of the nation's economy, not to mention his lack of will in handling the Afghanistan war. And even many of those who voted for him are waking up to the fact that they were sold a bill of goods.

But the real question is: why is anyone surprised?

She then showed us a picture of her son taken right before he he left for the Army with his arm around his very proud mom, and also shared with us a letter he'd just written to her with the oversized words "THANK YOU!!" splashed across the top and bottom of the page. "He's so brave," she said, "but he's so young!" And then she went back to her galley and engaged in some work that would prevent the passengers from seeing a member of the flight crew in anything less than a state of perfect control.

The woman in the aisle seat across from me got up and gave the flight attendant a quick hug; when this woman sat down again, she looked over and said that in some way she couldn't quite explain, she felt a connection with the flight attendant because this passenger had just experienced the familial emotional strain so evident from the flight attendant: the passenger's mother had just died and the grieving daughter was returning from the funeral.

"My mother lived a long, long, and wonderful life," she said. "But these young men and women in the military are only 19 or 20 and they're putting their lives on the line for the rest of us." So we chatted about that for a bit, and about her mom, and about the simple blessings of families, parents and children, and long lives filled with memories that some of these young warriors will not get to experience.

Then the flight attendant leaned in and said, "As brave as that young soldier is, there's another boy on this plane who's at least as brave. He's 8 years old, his liver has been failing for a couple of years, and they've got a donor for him in Pittsburgh—we have him and his parents in the first row and as soon as the plane lands they'll rush him off to UPMC for the surgery. He's a real fighter."

By this point my head was spinning as all my usual standard, selfish, narrow-minded, and astonishingly petty flight-related thoughts flashed like billboards in front of me: I hope I don't get a middle seat, I hope I don't get stuck next to an overweight person, I hope the person I front of me doesn't put his seat back, I hope there's room in the overhead right above me for my bag, I hope the flight's not 10 minutes late or I'll be terribly inconvenienced, I hope the person next to me doesn't try to say hello, I hope the taxi line isn't too long...

Well, darn, just when Al Gore and his cronies were about to cash in even more on the whole "global warming" scam, an enterprising hacker blows the whistle on some of the High Priests of the Church of Climate Change.

For those of you either A) living in a cave in Afghanistan, or B) getting your news exclusively from John Stewart or MSNBC, the details are covered rather well at:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704888404574547730924988354.html

Now, finding out that a bunch of neo-socialists have been lying is not exactly news, especially to anyone who has done any due diligence in researching the whole "climate change" issue. But it does underscore the lengths that the radical Left in America will go to achieve their real goal: the destruction of the American economic system.

Like everything else the Left does, "climate change" legislation has nothing to do with it's stated purpose. The so-called "Cap and Trade" bill is not about imaginary "carbon footprints" - its actual goal is the suppression of the American economy. Since the beginning of the "progressive" movement in the early 20th Century, the Left has seen every ill on the planet as being caused by American prosperity. Thus, every new "problem" discovered (or invented) by the Left always has as its "solution" the reduction in America's standard of living.

There is no better example of this "blame-America-for-everything" mindset than the fact that just a few decades ago, when the boogey-man was "global cooling," the cause was immediately laid at the feet of America's economic activity. Yet when the same people who claimed we were headed for another ice age, suddenly reversed their predictions to "global warming" - well, whaddya know, the problem is still...America's economic activity.

The truth is, the American Left, now even more open about their socialist, if not outright communist, worldview, hate America's success, power, and most of all, its prosperity. They don't think it's "fair" that Americans have such a magnificent standard of living when so many in the rest of the world do not - the fact that these Third World hell holes are invariably run under the very socialist policies they endorse eludes them.

This latest revelation simply underscores that fact that these neo-Communists are willing to say or do anything, including lying, deceiving, and manipulating science, in order to bring about a "new world order" (their words), where America's exceptional prosperity is replaced by equally shared misery.

The headline in the Denver Post (Saturday, Nov. 21, 2009) seemed straightforward enough:

"Denver Police arrest 32 in series of downtown assaults"

And the fact that the offenders nabbed in the sweep were all young, black males, most of whom were affiliated with major street gangs, came as no surprise to anyone who lives in Denver, or any major city in America for that matter. Young black males account for a hugely lop-sided proportion of violent street crime - the Bureau of Justice statistics have documented this for decades.

But when the details of this particular operation, and its genesis, were revealed, a more disturbing aspect emerged. These young thugs, who viciously beat and robbed dozens of people, had specifically targeted their victims because of their race. Their victims were almost exclusively white, with a few Latinos thrown in.

As Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman describes it, starting in July, "Groups of four or five black men would approach a victim late at night or early in the morning and attempt to spark a fight" usually with racial insults.

The Post further reported that "Victims were punched in the head, resulting in head injuries, broken noses and shattered eye sockets, according to Whitman" who also said "it might be the largest racially motivated criminal group ever in Denver."

All well and good, but the most significant (and disturbing) line in the article states that "In September, police asked the public for help in solving 14 downtown muggings but chose not to alert the public to the racial nature of the crimes" supposedly out of "concern that the undercover effort would be compromised."

So, warning potential victims that they may be targeted because they happen to be white would "compromise" the investigation? What nonsense. What we have here is once again, public safety being trumped by concerns for political correctness. And that is no exaggeration - more than a dozen additional attacks occurred that might have been prevented, had police been up front about the racial nature of the attacks.

Shades of Ft. Hood.

What's next? Referring to the "Rollin' 60s Crips" and the "Black Gangster Disciples" (the two gangs behind the attacks) as "African-American Social Clubs?"

Let's face it, if these attacks had been the work of some white "skin-heads" who had attacked blacks or Latinos (or heaven forbid, Muslims) the outcry would be deafening, and unending.

Chris Mathews would be having a stroke.

Al Sharpton would be vomiting his usual race-baiting rhetoric.

The "Lame-Stream Media" talking heads would be chattering hysterically about the "wave of racism" inundating the country.

Even President Obama would likely sally forth with a somber (and Teleprompter-coached) statement on America's "persistent racism" - why, with a couple of tweaks, he could simply recycle his "Skip Gates" speech.

But don't hold your breath waiting for this case to become a wall-to-wall 24/7 story on CNN. Just as the "LSM" buried the story in Kansas City where a young white couple was savagely raped and tortured for days, then burned alive by four black men and a black woman, today's press hates to report black-on-white crime (in spite of the fact that it is 3 times more likely than white-on-black crime).

After all, actually reporting the truth might throw a monkey wrench into their relentless "diversity" crusade - and in their distorted world, that would be worse than the crimes themselves.

If you had any doubt about how deeply the American Left fears Sarah Palin, you need only look at Newsweek's recent cover photo of her. With a whole cabinet full of perfectly reasonable pictures they could have used, the Newsweek editors dug through the files to find one of the former Governor...in shorts, originally taken for Runner's World magazine. Then there is the caption right below the photo, taken straight out of the Democrat's "search and destroy" playbook:

"She's Bad for the GOP - and for Everyone Else, Too."

Unfortunately, this is the kind of objective, neutral "journalism" we have come to expect from the likes of Newseek, so no one is fooled for a minute. The cover is obviously (and intentionally) an insulting and demeaning hit-piece, designed to marginalize Governor Palin while masquerading as "news" coverage. They hate her, and they will abandon all pretense of objectivity in order to destroy her.

But the Newsweek cover is also part and parcel a deeper kind of kind of nasty, sexist animus we have seen against all women in politics, regardless of their political affiliation - when the media decided that Obama was their "Chosen One" they had no problem making obliquely sexist attacks on Hillary Clintion. That Sarah Palin is a staunch conservative simply elicits even greater bile from the liberal elitists who inhabit most of mainstream journalism.

Yet in an incredibly feeble attempt to defend their decision, Newsweek's Editor, Jon Meacham, actually had the nerve to say: "We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard."

A "gender neutral" standard, he says? I laughed so hard I almost spilled coffee into my keyboard. Not even Sarah Palin's detractors will believe that one. And these people wonder why Newsweek, the New York Times, and others with the same left-wing bias are spiraling toward bankruptcy.

More to the point, Sarah Palin isn't even running for office yet. Can you imagine the kind of sleazy, vicious attacks that will come her way should she actually declare herself a candidate for any elected office, let alone the Presidency? And whether or not one likes Sarah Palin is beside the point - this kind of blatant abuse of a woman by a magazine that attempts to portray itself as a "news" organization is simply beyond the pale.

Women, all women, deserve better.