Savage Republican

Three things happened in the last week that makes me realize that free speech is history. The first is this out of California. Now much has been said about this story, including this entry over at Shot In The Dark. The fact that McCarthyistic professors can, with a straight face, accuse someone else of McCarthyism (especially when said professors have a history of flunking students who dare to question the professors leftists views) is the highest of high irony. The fact that the furor that they have raised has caused the alumni organization to withdraw their offer and the non-chalance of the reporting of this leads one to realize that not only is free speech dead on our college campus’ but that it is accepted as normal.

Secondly, was this editorial out of the NY Times. There is great wailing and gnashing of teeth over the fact that the Supreme Court, in a rare moment of clarity, ruled that portions of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform law was wrong.

If the courts create a big “grass-roots lobbying” loophole, it will free corporations and special interests to run phony “issue ads” that are actually a form of unregulated campaign contribution. That is not what Congress wanted when it passed McCain-Feingold, and it is not what the public wants today.

“Phony issue ads”??? Oh you mean like those dastardly Swift Boat Vets that banded together with their own time and money to make ads that were critical of John Kerry’s leadership abilities????? Make no bones about it people, the only people that the NY Times wants free speech for (especially in the last 60 days before an election) is themselves! They certainly do not want “we the people” to have it! The Wall Street Journal hit the nail on the head in this editorial today when it spoke of McCain Feingold’s “unprecedented restrictions” being an assault on the free exchange of ideas!

Then there is this. Google announces, with great fanfare, that they are going to be offering censored services in Communist China. The same communist China that recently closed down a newspaper that was “critical” of the current regime. The same Communist China that sent a reporter to jail for over reporting an outbreak of dengue fever in a remote province!

“Li Changqing reported for U.S.-based news portal Boxun, which is blocked in China, that more than 100 people were infected with the mosquito-borne disease. Authorities in the provincial capital Fuzhou kept silent for one month before announcing 94 cases.”

That’s worthy of jail time????? Well then look out NY Times and Strib staffs. The Bush Administration is coming for you next. What’s that you say? We have rights in this country???? Not according to the fever swamp. According to the Democratic Party, President Bush is the second coming of Hitler and Stalin and “you KNOW what I’m talking about…..”

There is a serious point to all of this. Goggle is “self-censoring” in order to get into China and yet they are refusing to work with the US goverment in it’s search for terrorists using their sites. I have nothing wrong with them choosing to self-censor in order to gain 4 billion customers mind you (it’s the market after all) but if they are going to willingly work with one government, the time is going to come when that cooperation with the governments is not going to be expected, it will be mandated! And that is going to be the day when people will finally realize that they squandered away their rights to free speech!

I remember a quote some years ago from Tom Bernard on KQRS when he said “I’d like to once see an editorial in the Star Tribune that I couldn’t have predicted.” I find that all I need to do is peruse the first line in the online edition of Prairie Pravda and know what the entire editorial is about. And soon to be former Senator Mark Dayton isn’t about to disappoint me either with his recent submission that shows that we don’t waste enough money on one of Karl Marx’s points from his Communist Manifesto, the complete control by government of education-Hail the Young Pioneers!
I always find that the left wingers and their acolytes believe and take as gospel two erroneous assumptions: 1. That government education will be or is effective 2. That the only reason that government education is not effective is because we don’t spend enough money on government education (see my three points below).
Lefties in their arguments always go from point A to point J to point Z with no stops in between. And call that a cohesive logical argument.
In constant dollars we spend twice what we were spending 20 years ago. Government schools are way behind private schools and home schools in results. And spend multiple times more money for those failed results. And yet, we as a nation are woefully behind many smaller industrialized nations. (The table below shows math rankings from a study highlighted in an article a year ago in USA Today . The article correctly points out that math is a critical component of education and critical comparative indicator in education):

Finland . . . . . . . . 544
S. Korea . . . . . . .. 542
Netherlands . . . . . 538
Japan . . . . . . . …. 534
Canada . . . . . . . . 532
Belgium . . . . . . . . 529
Switzerland . . . . .. 527
Australia . . . . . . . 524
New Zealand . . . . 523
Czech Republic .. 516
Iceland . . . . . . . .. 515
Denmark . . . . . . . 514
France . . . . . . … . 511
Sweden . . . . . . . . 509
Austria . . . . . . . .. 506
Germany . . . . . . 503
Ireland . . . . . . . .. 503
Slovak Republic . 498
Norway . . . . . . . 495
Luxembourg . .. . 493
Poland . . . . . . . . 490
Hungary . . . . . … 490
Spain . . . . . . .. .. 485
United States ….. 483
Portugal . . . . . … 466
Italy . . . . . . . ….. 466
Greece . . . . . .. . 445
Turkey . . . . . . . . 423
Mexico . . . . . .. . 385

And Dayton’s solution? Throw more money at a problem where more money has shown not to be effective.
But, as Dr. Thomas Sowell points out in his book “The Anointed” that lefties (The Anointed) will persist in failed or even disastrously tragic programs despite moutains of evidence of the disaster and failures. An excellent review of the book is found here. (I’ll write on this review in a subsequent entry).
And how do the proletariat feel about government education? Read one man’s musings .
Remember, for a lefty, any tax cut or any spending cut or even cut in the rate of spending is too much. And any tax increase or spending increase is never enough.
And also remember, the ONLY reasons put forth for the failures of any and all government programs:
1. Not enough time has been allowed for the program(s) to work.
2. Not enough money has been spent.
3. The right people either haven’t been in charge, and/or been allowed to fine tune the program.
And the cry of the left? “Ego sentio ergo rectus” (I feel therefore I’m right.)

The Star Tribune, to it’s great credit, printed a letter to the editor that just spanked the Dems and their race-baiting of the last two weeks.

CLINTON’S COMMENT
History says differently
I find laughable Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s comment that she feels the Republican-controlled Congress is run like a plantation (Star Tribune, Jan. 17).
The Republican Party was established a few years before the Civil War with one purpose — to end slavery. Many Democrats who strongly opposed slavery joined this new party.
When Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, was elected, Southern Democrats realized that this was the beginning of the end of slavery and seceded from the Union so they could continue enslaving African-Americans. The Civil War followed.
Now fast-forward to today. While more than 90 percent of African-Americans vote Democratic, they have little to show for it. They are being tossed bones.
It seems to me that slavery is still alive and well. The new plantation is the federal government, and the plantation owners are the Democratic Party.
Pxx Dxxxxxxx, Pxxxx Lxxxx

WOW – what more can I say – other than “well said neighbor…well said!”

This op-ed from the LA Times has many folks up in arms today. Hugh Hewitt, specifically, is apoplectic over it, but then again, it doesn’t take much out of the Times to set Hugh off. Many people in my political groups are expressing their “outrage”.

“I DON’T SUPPORT our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car. Supporting the troops is a position that even Calvin is unwilling to urinate on.I’m sure I’d like the troops. They seem gutsy, young and up for anything. If you’re wandering into a recruiter’s office and signing up for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas. “

That is the part that has fueled the outrage. However, hidden a couple of paragraphs later there is a refreshing bit of intellectual honesty that should not be ignored:

“But I’m not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they’re wussy by definition. It’s as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn’t to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.”

OH HAPPY DAY!!!! An honest leftist! Many soldiers, sailors and marines have said the same. Eagan’s own Col. Joe Repya was on one of the KTLK programs this morning and he repeated “the troops will tell you that if you do not support the mission, they do not feel that you are supporting those of us carrying OUT the mission!” Friends of mine who have returned from “the big sandbox” have said the same thing, time and time again!

“I do sympathize with people who joined up to protect our country, especially after 9/11, and were tricked into fighting in Iraq. I get mad when I’m tricked into clicking on a pop-up ad, so I can only imagine how they feel. (ED – I have no idea what the heck he was thinking with this analogy – it makes no sense!)
But when you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you’re not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you’re willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse. Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it’s Vietnam. (ED – Well someone finally figured this out)
And sometimes, for reasons I don’t understand, you get to just hang out in Germany. (ED here’s a hint bucco…..it’s because they are NEEDED there…) “

Give Mr. Stein credit – he faced the lion, by going on Hewitt’s program this evening (transcript here). Realize though that you are talking about a 30 something who has never interacted with anyone serving in Iraq. He does not know the military mindset, he does not appreciate the military mindset. If you must send your protests to the LA Times, you should at least thank Mr. Stein for being honest and pressure him to get more honesty out of his fellow leftists. Maybe once they finally start being honest about their supposed “support” of the troops, then this will be a much redder country!

On Sunday I met with Captain Ed and his wife for lunch. I had invited Ed and Marcia to meet with Herb Suerth. Mr. Suerth is the President of E Company, (of 2nd Battalion, 506th PIR (Parachute Infantry Regiment) 101st Airborne (The Screaming Eagles)). E Company is also known as “The Band of Brothers” from the Steven Ambrose book and HBO mini-series.
Mr. Suerth joined E Company just before they were dispatched to Bastogne in the Ardennes Offensive (called the Battle of the Bulge)-as Mr. Suerth said “sort of a bad place to come in.” And Mr. Suerth was badly wounded in Bastogne when an 88 shell exploded nearby, with a piece of shrapnel penetrating and shattering both femurs. Mr. Suerth was subsequently hospitalized for 18 months.
What prompted this Sunday lunch was an idea I had almost two years ago. I had read “Band of Brothers” and was looking forward to seeing the mini-series on the History Channel for the 60th Anniversary of D-Day. After the series I was doing an internet search on Major Winters and came across a site that was dedicated to getting Maj. Winters the Medal of Honor that he was cited for. On D-Day he led a critically important mission to take out what were thought to be a few German 88mm cannons. It turned out that there were four 105mm howitzers raining down deadly accurate fire on Utah beach. Major (then Lieutenant) Winters lead 17 men (basically a large squad) against the heavily fortified position (at least company strength of 90 crack German troops and at least two of the most feared guns in the German arsenal, the MG42) and took out all four of these deadly accurate howitzers.
Unfortunately,in the citation for the MOH, Col. Sink (regiment commander who wrote the citation for Lt. Winter’s MOH) ran into a top level decision that has military bureaucracy written all over it: the decision to ration the MOH to only one per division for the Normandy Campaign,
Well, this site had letters from Stephen Ambrose and C.Carwood Lipton supporting the correction of this injustice to Maj. Winters. I found and called the number for Mr. Lipton and talked to his widow. Mrs. Lipton gave me Mr. Suerth’s name. And so I started talking to Mr. Suerth. I found that the effort in 2003 was ultimately unsuccessful. But, being quarter Swede I’m persistent (read stubborn). And it occurred to me that there may be a better way.
I asked my friend John Hunt at AM1280 The Patriot what we might be able to do. He suggested that I start with the bloggers.
I had met Captain Ed and the First Mate at a Patriot function and so contacted him about the possibility of a project to honor a WWII veteran. As a blogger of the first rank, Ed had and has the reach that I didn’t. We met for lunch a few months back. I explained the project and much to his credit Captain Ed was on board immediately. And this lead to Mr. Suerth, Captain Ed, the First Mate and I meeting for lunch.
Captain Ed recorded the interview and wrote a wonderful review of it here. And he’s done a much better job than I have in capturing Mr. Suerth’s personality, his humor, his kind directness and his humility.
Captain Ed and I will be updating you all as we progress with the campaign to get Major Winter’s his MOH. And we’ll also be asking all of you to become involved with the effort

Even the uber liberal Wisconsin State Journal gets, what the Star Tribune refuses to admit. That Judge Sam Alito deserves to become Justice Alito.

“…we are impressed that the American Bar Association gave you its highest rating for integrity, professional competence and temperament. We are equally impressed that judges of both Republican and Democratic political views at last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing described you as “even-handed,” “open- minded,” and “intellectually honest.”

The State Journal is intellectually honest enough to admit it. Judge Alito is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. Oh to be certain, they discuss the issues where the disagree with Judge Alito but that is to be expected. What is not to be expected or accepted is a “independent” press that parrots either party line. The editors of the Star Tribune would be wise to follow in the steps of the Wisconsin State Journal.

Seems that there is someone who doesn’t take as long as John Kerry to flip flop AND have it both ways. Seems that the Ex First Lady can do it in the same day, same speech.
She stresses that “We cannot and should not — must not — permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons,” And then says the reason that we’ve arrived at this point is that we’ve “outsourced” negotiations. Her solution? Outsource negotiations by involving China and Russia.
She seems to believe that Russia and especially China aren’t involved in the nuclearization of Iran in the first place.
But, then again why would she disparage her political homelands?

This is one of those things that has been buzzing around in my brain for some time. It is something that I just do not understand. Maybe someone who understands the liberal mindset better than I do can help me understand it.

Much has been said, over the last few weeks and months about alleged transgressions of our military (John Kerry) and our President (Al Gore) vis a vis al Qaeda. Al Gore recently said that there is no difference between the 9/11 attacks and the Pearl Harbor attack and that confuses me. The Japanese attacked the Pearl Harbor Naval Air Station and the 9/11 hijackers attacked the World Trade Center. One is a military target, the other a civilian target. Where is the similarity?

Others have said that our soldiers, who are helping to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, are just like the terrorists they are fighting. How many female foreign journalists have our soldiers held captive? How many of our soldiers have detonated IEDs in markplaces full of civilians? How many of our soldiers are beheading other people?

I guess what I am getting at here is that I don’t understand how anyone can take a look at the evil that we are fighting and say that we are the same. I admit that our system is not perfect, but then again, neither is mankind. Why is it that some feel obligated to tear the country down? It seems that we are in a cycle where it is deemed “cool” to deride anything and everything. Especially if it something that the majority holds to be special.

How about DFL? For weeks we have been hearing about the so-called Republican “culture of corruption”. Well now we know just where the corruption truly lies….within the DFL.

Pat Kessler over at WCCO TV does a regular report called “Reality Check”. Pat uses this spot to point out irregularities or inconsistencies in advertisements or announcements out of the Minnesota political parties. Last nights “Reality Check” was on the Abramoff scandal. We have heard Ember Reichcott Junge tell us (on At Issue with Tom Hauser – KSTP) how the DFL “never” took money from Abramoff – only his clients and that is different. She was basically parroting the party line as expressed by Howard Dean (which I wrote about here).

Kesslers report (found here) tells the whole story:

Of the $19,000 given to Minnesota politicians by Abramoff clients, $15,000 went to DFLers. And while many politicians are donating the questionable cash to charity, Democrats are not. It’s TRUE. The Minnesota DFL Party accepted $9,000 from a non-Minnesota Indian tribe and Abramoff client in 2002.

$9,000 to run the 5 day campaign for Senate that Walter Mondale took up after the death of Senator Paul Wellstone – for a non-Minnesota tribe and St Paul took money from the SAME tribe during the campaign!

What makes this “Reality Check” all the more ironic is that just yesterday morning, Brian Melendez, DFL Chairman, issued this press release in which he talks about ending the “Republican culture of corruption”. Mr. Melendez, if you are going to throw stones, you should not live in a glass house. You need to give back all of your “tainted” money (like Senator Colemand and Congressman Kennedy) otherwise your credibility is non-existent.

Trust me, I was not, repeat NOT surprised at all at the headlines that screamed that the ineffective, counter productive badly mismanaged and grossly unconstitutional Medicare program,specifically part D, was and is a disaster. Duh! Next they’ll tell me that the sun rises in the east and expect me to be surprised at that also. And the same useful idiots will complain that, well, that is evidence of directionism. And that the western horizon needs to experience sunrise also.
And these people believe that the same people who brought this on us are the very same people who will be able to get it right…maybe…eventually…they hope.
Yup. And we all hope that Charley Brown will be able to kick that ball…