I’d like to take credit for original thinking here, but this thought from Red State:
A Republican is finally standing up for something and it turns out it is to obstruct the investigation of a Democrat with $90,000 in slush funds stuffed in his freezer.
And this also from Red State:

Note to Denny Hastert: When Nancy Pelosi stakes out a position, you run the other way quickly. You do not issue a joint statement agreeing with her.

Had this been a raid on Tom DeLay’s office, Pelosi would be dancing in the aisles of Congress.

If Speaker Hastert’s stated position remains the position of the Republican majority, the Republican majority will be one step closer to disaster in November. Yes, it IS that big a deal.

And so the Republican leadership is firmly in defense of a guy who ordered the National Guard to rescue him instead of his constituents when Katrina hit.
As Glenn Reynolds writes :” Could Al Qaeda have slipped mind-altering drugs into the DC water supply? What’s gotten into these people? Or has some sort of deal been cut? Whatever it is, I don’t think I like it.“

Seems that Prairie Pravda (PP) thinks that Carl Pohlad isn’t rich enough. But, thanks to you, he’ll be a couple of $100,000,000 richer. Don’t expect a thank you note or Christmas card anytime soon.
PP says that Unca’ Carl came out of this thing “with Pohlad having scored a capital gain among the best in the league.” That the Twins value may increase up to $500,000,000, a NET increase of over $280,000,000. And Karl didn’t spend a damn dime! He got other people to force you to do it! Well, that’s not true. If he spends a dime, he got other people to force you to fork over half a buck. By force.
Now, think this scenario over: If Carl spent money to have people go door to door in Hennepin County and forced every person who buys something in the county to give him $.03 for every $20 they spend, he and his thugs would go to jail. They committed extortion. No questions asked. Carl and company making license plates and bailing twine. Next question please?
However, that Carl spent money to get legislators to force you to do the very same thing somehow now makes it right? That the legislators suspended a law that allowed you to have a voice in the matter, and then forced you to do for Karl what would be illegal if he did it directly means that this is extortion by proxy.
And again, I’m still looking for a explanation as to why this is any different than what was supposedly covered in the Eminent Domain bill. And speaking of THAT bill, seems that there is a FIVE YEAR window of opportunity for governments to steal your property.
Had enough yet?

This story just slayed me when I read it.

“The Enlightenment happened at half past 12 a.m. in Burger King, Park Royal. I had ordered my food, and a French guy got talking to me and asked, “Are you Muslim?” He said, “Look at this,” and he showed me the cone. I saw it and I thought, “Wow,” like anyone would. He said, “Turn it around.”
I was thinking of my stomach. I was hungry. I would have loved to eat an ice cream. When I saw it, my mouth fell open. I dropped the ice cream. I canceled my order. That was the defining moment of my life.
The Burger King logo is there in Arabic. “Allah” is spelled exactly how it is there, and the Burger King logo is where the ominah should be. Why, there is no way it could be a coincidence. How can you say it is a spinning swirl? How does it spin on something that is static? You cannot spin it around unless you have a mechanical device. You spin it one direction, to the right, and it is offending a billion people. “

Now I certainly understand what the young man in this story feels. I feel the same way each and every time my faith is attached (on a daily basis) from the secular media that thinks that religion is “optional” as long as it isn’t too strict. Heaven knows I would be just as upset if BK was selling “Jesus gelato” or “Jehovah’s Jello”.

“I want to humiliate the person who did this to an extent that he never works again. I’m going to make him see that it was the biggest mistake in his life. I want to meet the guy. I want to ask the guy, “What does this mean to you?” then never see his face again.
In a way, I’m glad he did this to me. It has opened my eyes. The fear of God, the love of God, the love of not letting anyone disrespect God. Even though it means nothing to some people and may mean nothing to some Muslims in this country, this is my jihad. I’m not going to rest until I find the person who is responsible. I’m going to bring this country down. ” (emphasis mine)

DUDE – get a grip! I said this before and I’ll say it again…do you see Christians acting like this over the DaVinci Code? The blashpemy in TDVC is more offensive to Christians than this should be to Muslims because the blasphemy in TDVC is intentional, whereas the BK mis-use of the name of Allah was unintentional! Islam needs to grow up and start acting like responsible adults! The temper tantrums and threats are turning more and more of the world against you. The time may come when the war against Islamic terrorists truly does become a war against Islam and it will come because of your over-reaction to unintentional slights!

And this review from Taxpayers League of Minnesota of our representatives in St. Paul and what the lack of constitutional restraint has yielded:

April 5, 2006

PLYMOUTHThe Minnesota Legislature is rushing headlong into another billion dollar bonding season.

What will we be getting for our billion dollars?

Beyond the biggest and most obvious boondoggles, such as $50 to $60 million for the Northstar Corridor rail project, or the $7 to $15 million for greater Minnesota business development (huh?), there are a ton of wonderful little goodies buried in either the House or Senate bonding bill, or both.

“My personal favorite boondoggle is the $11 million for the Schubert Theater tucked away in both the House and Senate bonding bills, said David Strom, President of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota. The most expensive building move in history has bought us a rotting hulk in Downtown Minneapolis. Now they are going to throw good money after bad to restore yet another money-losing theater.

Taxpayers may recall all the promises to restore the theater entirely with privately donated funds. And the price of the restoration project has increased by a whopping 67% since first proposed! The current cost of restoring the theater will be $41,222 per seat one of the costliest restorations ever, anywhere. Restoring the Orpheum Theater in St Paul cost less than $4000 per seat.

Other boondoggles tucked away into the Bonding Bills? Taxpayers are being asked to pay for: the Bloomington Ski Jump, the Hennepin County Center for Changing Lives, a raft of community centers, a Southwest Regional Events Center, a Como Zoo Gorillas/Polar Bear exhibit, a Rochester Volleyball Center, and of course between $7 and $20 million for an Itasca County Steel Mill (since when has government been in the steel milling business?).

“Legislators are trying to buy their way back into the good graces of the voters. What makes the process so galling is that they are using taxpayer dollars to do so, said Strom.

“This bonding bill is looking like a giant taxpayer rip-off. The Legislature should go back to the principles outlined in the Governor’’s bonding proposal, sticking to projects of statewide or at least regional significance. Theaters, community centers, and Centers for ‘changing lives’ don’’t meet that test, Strom concluded.

The Taxpayers League is Minnesota’s largest taxpayers advocacy organization.

Going through my emails, I came across one from the Taxpayers League of Minnesota. The email came out on the 19th of May and was talking about the Stadium Bill. And here is a an article from their website on at least eight reasons that the Senate and House completely ignored in passing this travesty:

8 Reasons to reject publicly financed stadiums for professional sports teams.

1. Public Money for Private Gain.– Providing public subsidies for private stadiums is corporate welfare plain and simple. Public subsidies for stadiums go directly into the pockets of team owners and players by increasing profits, player salaries and raising the re-sale value of the team. According to one study, a new stadium increases team profits by an average of $11 million annually, payroll salaries by $14 million and increases team book value by $90 million.¹ The billionaire team owners and the players profit, but the taxpayer doesn’’t see a dime.
2. Negligible Economic Benefits.- Contrary to the claims of stadium boosters, the wide body of economic research shows that new stadiums have little (and even negative) impact on the local economy. Stadiums don’t create new wealth; they simply redistribute existing entertainment dollars from one form of entertainment to another. People spend more on sporting events but spend less on movies, restaurants and other local entertainment.
3. Costs Outweigh the Benefits.– A study by the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank² found that a typical baseball or football stadium costs taxpayers $188 million while generating only $40 million in long-term benefits from jobs and tax revenues. The costs of a stadium outweigh the benefits by more than 4 to 1!
4. Destroys jobs and drives down wages.– Recent studies suggest that stadiums actually destroy more jobs than they create and reduce local income overall.³ Because sports teams require relatively few employees to operate, and most of they jobs are low-wage temporary positions, they cause overall employment and income in a city to decrease when they drive out other local businesses (which provide more jobs at better pay).
5. Stadiums can be built with private money.– In their analysis of professional sports stadiums built between 1989 and 2001, University of Dayton economics professors Marc Poitras and Larry Hadley conclude that public subsidies to build stadiums are unnecessary and new stadiums could recover all of their construction costs if they were built with private money.⁴ The Atlanta Braves Turner Field was built in 1997 with 100% private funding; San Francisco Giants SBC Park was built in 2001 with over 96% private funding.
6. Doesn’’t Improve Team Performance.- A study of the impact of new stadiums on team performance concludes that there is no strong statistical evidence to support the claim that teams perform better after a new stadium is built. In fact, in football, basketball and hockey team winning percentages actually decrease on average after a new stadium is built. Only in baseball do team records improve by an increase of 8 wins (per season) on average.⁵
7. Doesn’t improve team attendance.- Research also shows that new stadiums have little impact on long-term attendance. A study of the impact of new stadiums on attendance shows that attendance increases by over 10,000 per the game the first season (the “honeymoon period) buy quickly dissipates to less than 2,500 per game in the fifth season. Case in point is the Milwaukee Brewers $400 million Miller Park where attendance fell 40% last year from the stadium’’s opening season in 2001.
8. Diverts resources from funding priorities.– The costs of a stadium are even higher when you factor in the opportunity costs. Money spent on a stadium is money that could have been spent on schools, roads, and public safety services which benefit all Minnesotans.

And yet in spite of ALL this evidence and in direct defiance of the peoples wishes (where 63% of those polled said they wanted a referendum to vote on a sales tax increase), the Legislature and the Governor have and will authorize this travesty.

A ruling out of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals this week has a few tongues wagging. The same court that said saying “one nation under God” was unconstitutional has said that requiring students to pretend that they were Muslim is A-OK.

“California’s 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it’s OK to put public-school kids through Muslim role-playing exercises, including:
Reciting aloud Muslim prayers that begin with “In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful . . . .”
Memorizing the Muslim profession of faith: “Allah is the only true God and Muhammad is his messenger.”
Chanting “Praise be to Allah” in response to teacher prompts.
Professing as “true” the Muslim belief that “The Holy Quran is God’s word.”
Giving up candy and TV to demonstrate Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.
Designing prayer rugs, taking an Arabic name and essentially “becoming a Muslim” for two full weeks.”

OK – this was in a “World Religions” class, but I wonder just how the class handled Christianity.

“Christianity is not presented equally. It’s covered in just two days and doesn’t involve kids in any role-playing activities. But kids do get a good dose of skepticism about the Christian faith, including a biting history of its persecution of other peoples. “

Now, we are starting to have a problem. What do we know about the teacher?

“The ed consultant’s name is Susan L. Douglass. No, she’s not a Christian scholar. She’s a devout Muslim activist on the Saudi government payroll, according to an investigation by Paul Sperry,”

Let me see if I have this straight…we have an Islamic activist, teaching our kids how to be “Muslim” in a World Religions class that doesn’t deal (as much) with other world religions? I wonder how the school would respond to a youth pastor requesting equal access? Do you really think that request would be honored or even taken? Would they even allow him/her onto the grounds to submit the request? Somehow, I highly doubt it.

This was in a 7th grade classroom. I have a child about to enter the 7th grade. I will be keeping a very close eye on any classes remotely resembling a “World Religions” class and heaven help the teacher that tries this on my child. Because I will take it all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. We either keep ALL churches/religions out of the schools or we allow them all in. Allowing only ONE in and leaving the rest as poorly covered as this school did is tatamount to the school ENDORSING one religion over another in strict violation of the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution!

I don’t even know where to begin with this story….

“Three males cheered on another as he raped a 13-year-old girl at a party March 4 at the Little Earth housing complex in south Minneapolis, according to criminal charges filed Thursday.”

Why was a 13 year old girl out on a school night, drinking brandy and vodka? Then again what were the 16 & 17 year old boys doing at that party? And WHERE WERE THE PARENTS OF THESE KIDS?????

What happened in these kids lives where they thought that this kind of behavior ws acceptable?

verifying a story? Going for “multiple credible sources”? ABC News ran with this report from Brian Ross about a probe of Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL).

“Federal officials say the Congressional bribery investigation now includes Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, based on information from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government.”

With breathless abandon, the commentors on the ABC blog trash Hastert and climb back on the “Republican Culture of Corruption” meme. One minor problem with this report……

“ABC News, citing unnamed Justice Department sources, reported that information implicating Hastert was developed from convicted lobbyists now cooperating with the government.
But a Justice Department official told Reuters: “The story is wrong. Hastert is not under investigation.” (emphasis mine)

Woops – that’s gonna leave a scar! Here is a hot tip for all of you pros, from one of the amateurs. Before you go to print with a rumor – GET MULTIPLE SOURCES!!!!! It’s no wonder the people of the US don’t trust the major media anymore.

This NY Times op-ed is just amazing in it’s ability to spew the DNC talking points with a straight face.

“One way or the other, tax increases are coming. The nation’s budget deficits are too big to outgrow, and the latest tax cuts — which Congress is likely to sign off on today — will dig the hole deeper. Neither Congress nor the public has the stomach to slash government programs anywhere near enough to bring spending in line with revenues. The only real question, then is this: Whose taxes will be raised in the future to pay for today’s tax giveaways?

Here’s a hint: If Congressional Republicans get their way, the people who benefit the most from today’s tax cuts — mainly wealthy Americans with lots of investment income — will get special protection from future tax increases. “

Tackling the second paragrah first. What American does NOT have a 401(k) or similar investment platform? If any of you readers out there don’t, contact me (ladylogician at hope4america dot net) and I’ll get you set up! Seriously folks, personal portfolios were indeed once the sole property of the rich, but they have not been that way in the last 20 years! At one time I had 4 different 401 (k) plans from different employers. 401 (k)s replaced the pension plan back in the 1980’s and are now a staple of employment in the private sector. Anyone who does not participate in his/her employers plan needs to remember this. Social Security will be bankrupt in 11 years! You willing to take a chance that this government program will be there for you when you retire?

On to the first paragraph. There is a grain of truth in what the Times writes. The House and Senate do NOT have the intestinal fortitude to slash spending in a manner that is required in order to tame the deficit. There is a solution for that too! It’s called the Pennsylvania Earthquake which I wrote about here. If your Senator or Representative will not vote to cut spending then vote them out of office. It’s that simple. We have to quit rewarding those who “bring home the pork” by returning them to DC. If they bring home the pork – send them back home to the private sector where they can re-learn what it means to actually WORK for a living!

The richness of the irony of this story is so very sweet.

“The American Civil Liberties Union is weighing new standards that would discourage its board members from publicly criticizing the organization’s policies and internal administration.
“Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director should refrain from publicly highlighting the fact of such disagreement,” the committee that compiled the standards wrote in its proposals. “

Excuse me???? Isn’t this the same ACLU that encourages people who disagree with big business or the Bush Administration to go public with any and ALL criticisms no matter who sensitive to national security?

I loved this quote though.

“Nat Hentoff, a writer and former A.C.L.U. board member, was incredulous. “You sure that didn’t come out of Dick Cheney’s office?” he asked. “

Ah yes…..hypocricy by any name would still be spelled D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T-S…