BOOMING HOUSE MARKET: IS IT "THE AMERICAN DREAM" OR A BUBBLE?

Left-wing pessimist KRUGMAN pens ANOTHER negative column about the "housing bubble." It seems to Krugman that too many Americnas are buying and selling too many homes at too much profit. I guess he'd like to see prices drop or sales slow or fewer people able to afford a home. Maybe he'd like a "REAL ESTATE PRICE CONTROL BOARD" to regulate the sale of homes?

Seriously: I am old enough to remember a time when THE AMERICAN DREAM - the dream of of owning your own home - was embraced by Democrats, even Liberal ones! Now - as that dream comes true for more and MORE Americans (and as a result, there are more buyers than sellers, and prices are going up) - Lefties like Krugman seem to be wishing it collapses merely to show that Bush is a bad person.

Well, all the BIG BUBBLES we've suffered from recently: the "New Economy"/NASDAQ/Telecoms/Fannie Mae etc bubbles - and ALL THE BIG CORPORATE MALFEASANCE SCANDALS (ENRON/TYCO/Arthur Andersen, AND the "Fake Calfornia Energy Crisis" took place on Clinton's watch; they were BUBBA'S BUBBLES. And the foul mess that resulted (because BUBBA and Rubin allowed it to go on in the CORRUPT financial industry and the CORRUPTED markets) is being CLEANED UP ON BUSH'S WATCH!

Krugman, the Democrats and the Left have let BDS - and their adherence to a completely discredited ideology: socialism - destroy their objectivity. One should no more give any credence to what Krugman writes than to Chomsky or al Jazeera (or Dan Rather or Jayson Blair or Newsweek!).

BBC: BRIT DOCTORS TO PROPOSE "KNIFE CONTROL"

After a spate of knife attacks in Great Britain, I wrote about "KNIFE CONTROL" on 2/9/05.

I suggested this SARCASTICALLY in order to demonstrate the IDIOCY of GUN CONTROL; gun control can NEVER reduce violent crime because guns are (like all weapons) merely tools that cannot be blamed for what humans do with them, and because if a person wants to harm you - or themselves - they will find an available tool to do it.

Well, reality once again proves that socialists (statists who believe in using the power of the State to achieve what's in THEIR MIND "utopianist" social aims) know NO BOUNDS when it comes to their elitist goals (and it's why their ideology ALWAYS amounts to nothing more than an inexorable march toward tyranny). According to the BBC, doctors in Great Britain will soon be proposing that the government limit the sale of knives!

Sheesh. What do these Lefties think, that they can ban all sharp implements - and even "sticks and stones" - and that violence will cease!? This is the same illogic that led the Left to favor unilateral disarmament of the USA during the Cold War. It is bad-thinking and bad policy and must be fought.

If doctors in Great Britain wanted to seriously reduce violent crime in Great Britain they'd support mandatory carry law!

(PS: DRUDGE AND KJ OF NRO BOTH LINK TO THIS BBC ARTICLE.)

OVERDUE: A PALESTINIAN "OPERATION THUNDER" (in Gaza, for starters)

Abbas has NOT done enough to disarm the neojihadists. The Iraqis are doing what they can; they just announced a HUGE anti-terror operation, dubbed OPERATION THUNDER. It's time to pressure Abbas to have his own Operation Thunder in Gaza. Until Abbas actually starts to disarm the neojihadists, he shouldn't be to rewarded as Bush did by meeting him in the Oval Office and by giving him MILLIONS of dollars of TAXPAYER MONEY. This is NOT CONTROVERSIAL or "anti-Arab": just as the IRA must be disarmed before they can have any role in self-rule of Northern Ireland, so too must the Palestinian Arab neojihadists be disarmed. (Ditto Hizballah in Lebanon: before they can run any candidates in the upcoming Lebanese elections, they should be forced to disarm.)

More on WHY ABBAS IS MORE LIKE ARAFAT THAN IRAQ'S ALLAWI OR JAFARI HERE.

IT'S TIME TO NUKE SENATE DEMS

Well, the Leftie Dems are filibustering Bolton (see stories HERE and HERE). That means it's time to change the filibuster rules. WHY?! Excepting for reasons of malfeasance, the president should be allowed to pick ANYONE HE WANTS to be his own/executive branch subordinates. Bolton was approved by the Senate for his current job, and ALL of the allegations against him are for stuff he ALLWEGEDLY did BEFORE that. So they're irrelevant - he performed his current job EXCELLENTLY, and the pres wants to promote him. It's time we made the Lefties irrelevant: by changing the cloture rules! NOW! MICHELE has more.

Pope Benedict and Schroeder: WILL THERE BE AN ELECTORAL EFFECT?

Pope Benedict has made it clear that he recognizes that a major enemy of the West is relatvism and socialism - IOW: he gerhard Schroeder camp. WIll the Pope weigh in on the lection in some way? Or will his mere presence have an effect?

I think so. I predict a RESOUNDING victory for the Christian Democrats (who are led by Angela "the German Maggie Thatcher" Merkel. I predict that this defeat will be the beginning of what I will call "The Benedict Effect" -- or the beginning of the end of the West's post-modern self-loathing. Here's why - from NO PASARAN:

The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne writes of Pope Benedict XVI, nee Joseph Ratzinger:

[PB16] developed a mistrust of the left because of the student revolt of the 1960s. He once said that "the 1968 revolution" turned into "a radical attack on human freedom and dignity, a deep threat to all that is human."Addressing fellow cardinals, Dionne reports Cardinal Ratzinger saying: "We are moving," he declared, toward "a dictatorship of relativism …that recognizes nothing definite and leaves only one's own ego and one's own desires as the final measure."The modern world, Ratzinger insisted, has jumped "from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, up to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism* and on and on."

Gerhard Schroeder and his partner Joschka Fisher are BOTH children of the "1968 revolution" and the current leaders of the parties which are the main promulgators of the evil ideologies which PB16 has stated he must defeat. He will - with Angela Merkel's help!

FACTS ABOUT THE FURTIVE FOURTEEN

The FURTIVE FOURTEEN - THAT'S 14 out of 100 - Senators who brokered their own PRIVATE BACKROOM DEAL are themselves nothing more than a self-annointed minority who are blocking the will of the majority. They are obviously and MERELY only 14% of the US Senate, yet they are effectively DICTATING how judical nominees may be confirmed.

To give you a better idea just how UNREPRESENTATIVE these FURTIVE FOURTEEN REALLY ARE, here are the FURTIVE FOURTEEN listed with their states population ranking and total:

John McCain (Arizona) #18 - 5.7 million
John Warner (Virginia) #12 - 7.5 million
Lindsey Graham (South Carolina) #26 - 4.2 million
Susan Collins (Maine) #40 - 1.3 million
Olympia Snowe (Maine) " "
Lincoln Chaffee (Rhode Island) #43 - 1 million
Mike DeWine (Ohio) #7 - 11.5 million

Democrats:

Ben Nelson (Nebraska) #38 - 1.7 million
Robert Byrd (West Virginia) #37 - 1.8 million
Joseph Lieberman (Connecticut) #29 - 3.5 million
Mark Pryor (Arkansas) #32 - 2.7 million
Ken Salazar (Colorado) #22 - 4.6 million
Daniel Inouye (Hawaii) #42 - 1.3 million
Mary Landrieu (Louisiana) #24 - 4.5 million

TOTAL POPULATION REPRESENTED BY THE FURTIVE FOURTEEN SENATORS: 51.3 million PEOPLE. Or, ONLY 15% OF THE TOTAL POPULATION OF THE USA. (Except for DeWine of Ohio, NOT A SINGLE SENATOR COMES FROM A "TOP TEN" STATE.)

When elected leaders of 15% of the people dictate their policies to the other 85%, well... it can hardly be called democratic. These 14 weenies not only subverted the Constitution, they undermined the very ESSENCE of democratic rule: MAJORITY RULE.

The GOP has a majority in the House and the Senate and has the White House because the MAJORITY of Americans support them and their policies. When a minority in one body holds a gun to the head of another branch, it is UNDEMOCRATIC and IMMORAL and BAD.

A POX on all 14 of the FURTIVE FOURTEEN. I hope they ALL go down to primary defeats!

Paul over at POWERLINE agrees, and adds this SAGE OBSERVATION:

As a general matter, I think that the deal helps show why no sitting U.S. Senator has been elected president since 1960. Senators value arcane and democracy-curbing traditions. They come across as members of a secret club or cult. They pride themsevles in being less pragmatic than other public officials. They pride themselves, period. Usually, none of this plays very well outside of Washington and other MSM strongholds. This deal will confirm the perception that Senators are clubby, timid, and self-congratulatory. In fact, most Senators on both sides weren't clubby or timid this time. But I don't think that will matter.

Betsy's Page agrees too: "...it still stinks to have fourteen senators get together and swap and trade judicial nominations amongst themselves as if they should be the Fabulous Fourteen who get to decide who becomes a judge and who doesn't. There is the real minority rule that is now running the Senate on judicial nominations."

HOPEFUL NEWS ITEMS... we'll wait and see...

1 - Germany's Christian Democratic Union has a 17 percentage-point lead over Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats before an election later this year, an opinion poll showed.

2 - WASHINGTON - President Bush will insist at a White House meeting with Mahmoud Abbas this week that the Palestinian leader dismantle all terrorist networks in Palestinian areas, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday.

3 - TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's hardline Guardian Council watchdog on Tuesday reversed its ban on two reformists excluded from presidential elections on June 17, defusing a row which had sparked some calls for a boycott of the vote.

4 - Polls show that the French "no" vote grows to 53%!

These four AIN'T "good news"... YET! Schroeder MUST lose; Abbas MUST disarm the neojihadists; the Iranian people must democratically overthrow their theocratic totalitarian regime; and France must vote down the EU "Constitution."

It might be more likely that someone find the Ark of the Covenant than ALL these four things happen. I'll pray for ALL FIVE!

SLIMY SMARMY BACKROOM DEAL YIELDS FILIBUSTER FOLLIES FINALE

The so-called "moderates" made a deal - and it sucks. WHAT ARE ELECTIONS FOR, ANYHOW, IF A BUNCH OF MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD WEENIES CAN GUM UP THE WORKS AND PUT THE KIBASH ON A TRUE AND JUST CONFRONTATION!?

This is a case of 14 Senators caring and doing more for their own turf and aggrandisement than for the voters. McCain and Snow and DeWine are the kind of weenies I'd expect this from; I'm VERY disappointed in Warner - especially for the praise he heaped on that senile KKK member Byrd who said they'd just "SAVED THE REPUBLIC!" BULLSHIT!

The judiciary is meant to be populated by picks of the president as specified under Article II - the PRESIDENT'S SECTION of the Constitution; the Senate is to merely give advise and THEN CONSENT by a simple majority. What the Senators did was SUBVERT the Constitution in order to retain an arbitrary institutional filibuster option which is NOT in the Constitution.

SHAME ON THEM. Not a single of the 14 Senators - of both parties - WILL EVER SEE A PENNY FROM ME! What they demonstrated was not a profile in courage; it was a blatant BACKROOM deal. THAT AIN'T DEMOCRACY! We'll take care of them at the ballots next time, and VOTE OUT the slimy backroom dealmongers and replace them with some reliable, true conservative GOP Senators with REAL INTEGRITY!

GERMAN PEOPLE SPEAK: SOCIALISTS SUFFER HUGE LOCAL DEFEAT!

BBC:

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder says he wants a general election this autumn - a year early - after his party lost a key powerbase in local polls. Mr Schroeder made the announcement after his Social Democrats (SPD) lost the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which they had held for 39 years. [...] Mr Schroeder's Social Democrat-led government not only lost its traditional powerbase on Sunday, but it now has so few seats in the upper house of parliament that its ability to actively govern is massively diminished, our correspondent says.

The Socialists are losing because running on anti-Americanism can only take you so far. And their socialist policies have, of course, FAILED to accomplish what they set out to; in fact they've only made things WORSE.

If the Germans bring back the Christian Democrats to lead the national government - and if France defeats the EU constitutional referendum (as is now likely), and if Pope B16 can revitalize Christianity in Europe - then there is hope for Europe.

TEHRAN'S TYRANTS SUBVERT FREE ELECTIONS

BBC:

Iran's election watchdog has disqualified all but six of more than 1,000 candidates for the presidential election, state television reports. Among those eliminated are Mostafa Moin, who was the choice of the country's largest reformist party. Elections for the presidency will be held on 17 June.

That AIN'T DEMOCRACY! The Mullahs are afraid - VERY AFRAID; they should be: they KNOW that the IRANIAN PEOPLE WON'T EVER CHOOSE THEOCRATIC TYRANNY!

STOPPING TEHRAN BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE

According to the WASHPOST/AP: Iran is smuggling in nuclear materials for a bomb. The smuggling operation includes people involved with the Pakistani AQ KHAN network.

If the current talks stall, then the Free World must act - DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO "de-fang" the tyrants of Tehran before it's too late.

We should demand that the MULLAHS/IAEA/UNSC GUARANTEE that Iran is "weapons program free." If they cannot, then Congress should authorize a massive pre-emptive missile strike against all known AND SUSPECTED, PEACEFUL AND MILITARY - AND DUAL USE - nuclear sites ANYWHERE inside of Iran.

That ought to get their attention.

CONGRESS MAY FINALLY TIGHTEN SCREWS ON CORRUPT U.N.

FOX/AP:

A U.S. congressional committee has drafted a bill that threatens to withhold tens of millions of dollars in dues from the United Nations unless the world body conducts wide-ranging reforms, possibly setting the stage for a funding battle like the one that plunged the U.N. into financial crisis a decade ago. The "United Nations Reform Act of 2005" targets a panoply of issues that have troubled critics of the United Nations, particularly Republicans, for years. Among other things, it would seek to cut funding for programs seen as useless and bar human rights violators from serving on U.N. human rights bodies. The 80-page bill, from Illinois Republican Henry Hyde's House International Relations Committee, is still in an early form and has only recently been distributed to Democrats, who are likely to oppose several elements. It was sent to a few U.N. officials Thursday night, when a copy was obtained by The Associated Press. One of the bill's most controversial proposals will be linking dues to the changes it spells out. The document stipulates that if the reforms are not carried out, Congress will withhold 50 percent of U.S. dues to the U.N. general budget, taking the money from programs it deems inefficient and wasteful.

Readers of this blog know that I called for this MONTHS AGO, in a post HERE - "TIME FOR HELMS -BIDEN REDUX."

ALSO THERE'S THIS ITEM: Trump weighs in on the UN's $1.2 BILLION renovation - which the USA is supposed to pay for. FROM POWERLINE/The Weekly Standard:

... on April 6, 2005, Senator Jeff Sessions recounted his conversation with Trump:

Let me share this story with you, which is pretty shocking to me. The $1.2 billion loan the United Nations wants is to renovate a building. Some member of the United Nations, a delegate, apparently, from Europe, had read in the newspaper in New York that Mr. Donald Trump . . . had just completed the Trump World Tower--not a 30-story building like the United Nations, but a 90-story building, for a mere $350 million, less than one-third of that cost. So the European United Nations delegate was curious about the $1.2 billion they were spending on the United Nations. He knew he didn't know what the real estate costs are in New York. So, he called Mr. Trump and they discussed it. Mr. Trump told him that building he built for $350 million was the top of the line. It has the highest quality of anything you would need in it. They discussed the matter, and an arrangement was made for Mr. Trump to meet Kofi Annan, Secretary-General, to discuss the concerns. . . . So according to Mr. Trump, who I talked to personally this morning, they go meet with Mr. Annan, who had asked some staff member to be there . . . When the European asked how these numbers could happen, Mr. Trump said the only way would be because of incompetence, or fraud. That is how strongly he felt about this price tag because he pointed out to me that renovation costs much less than building an entirely new building. So he has a meeting with Mr. Annan, and they have some discussion. And Mr. Trump says these figures can't be acceptable. He told me in my conversation this morning, he said: You can quote me. You can say what I am saying. He said they don't know. The person who had been working on this project for 4 years couldn't answer basic questions about what was involved in renovating a major building. He was not capable nor competent to do the job. He went and worked on it, and talked about it, and eventually made an offer. He said he would manage the refurbishment, the renovation, of the United Nations Building, and he would not charge personally for his fee in managing it. He would bring it in at $500 [million], less than half of what they were expecting to spend, and it would be better. . . . Yet he never received a response from the United Nations.

It appears there are serious questions about the U.N.'s renovation project. Depending on which assumptions one accepts about cost and square footage, anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion in expense is unaccounted for. Given the U.N.'s history, is there any reason to doubt that the costs projected by that organization include substantial sums representing, as Trump put it, incompetence or fraud? Given what we know about the oil-for-food program, is there any reason to trust the U.N.'s business or accounting practices?

NOPE! The UN is a CESSPOOL of Leftism and corruption, and it's BEYOND RENOVATION. IT'S A TEAR-DOWN! Instead of RENOVATING it - or its building - we should TEAR IT DOWN -- LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY -- AND START FROM SCRATCH: A NEW ORGANIZATON AND A NEW BUILDING AT A NEW LOCATION!

And we could have them sell their building and real estate to Trump, and he could make it into a hotel/condo/marina-resort.

TYRANT FIDEL THUMBS NOSE AT E.U.

From the BBC:

Cuba has expelled two European Union politicians visiting Havana to address a rare pro-democracy conference. ... The pair were due to address a meeting of dissidents opposed to the Communist rule of Cuban President Fidel Castro. The EU, which has called for 61 jailed dissidents to be released, will decide next month whether to impose sanctions against Cuba for human rights abuses. ... Several other EU politicians have been arrested or barred from entering Cuba in recent years, accused of fostering links with dissidents. EU-Cuban relations have been strained since 75 were people were arrested during a crackdown on political opponents in March 2003. The EU imposed sanctions but lifted them when 14 were released last year. Sixty-one still remain in jail.

Totalitarians like Fidel - Mugabe, Chavez, Assad, Kim Jong Il - ARE ALL LEFTISTS and THEY ALL MUST GO!

KORANGATE: FRIEDMAN GETS ONE RIGHT - for a change!

This blog has been justifiably tough on NYTIMES columnist Tom Friedman, so it's only fitting and proper - and FAIR AND BALANCED - that we cite him when he's gets something right:

The Muslim world's silence about the real desecration of Iraqis, coupled with its outrage over the alleged desecration of a Koran, highlights what we are up against in trying to stabilize Iraq - as well as the only workable strategy going forward.

[...] If the Arab world, its media and its spiritual leaders, came out and forcefully and repeatedly condemned those who mount these suicide attacks, and if credible Sunnis were given their fair share in the Iraqi government, I am certain a lot of this suicide bombing would stop, as happened with the Palestinians.

The Muslim world's lack of criticism of the Muslims who rioted because of the Newsweek article, and the fact that Muslims rarely criticize Iraq's suicide bombers reveals a HUGE problem within Islam.

Muslims must cease their xenophobic hysteria and their reflex to use violence. This would most likely begin to happen if their mainstream clerics would LOUDLY AND UNAMBIGUOUSLY criticize the neojihadist fanatics who riot or become suicide bombers; (right now, the only Islamic folks who are consistently crticizing the neojihadists are Islamic fringe critics like IRSHAD MANJI). WE'RE WAITING.

WHAT IF THERE WERE ONLY 35 DEMOCRAT SENATORS??

HARRY REID REFERS TO THE FILIBUSTER AS IF IT WAS THE ONLY THING WHICH STOOD BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND TOTALITARIANISM.

WELL, IF THERE WERE ONLY 35 DEMOCRAT SENATORS, WOULD THEY EXPECT THE GOP MAJORITY TO RAISE THE NUMBER OF VOTES IN ORDER TO INVOKE CLOTURE?

THAT'S ABSURD!

THERE'S NOTHING "MAGICAL" ABOUT THE NUMBER 40. IT USED TO BE 35; BEFORE THAT, IT WAS 30. THE DEMS CHANGED IT - TO INCREASE THEIR POWER AND DECREASE THE POWER OF THE GOP SENATORS.

THERE IS SOMETHING "MAGICAL" ABOUT MAJORITY RULE - IT'S CALLED DEMOCRACY.

IF THESE 5 NOMINEES WERE REALLY "BEYOND THE PALE" THEN THEY WOULD NOT PASS IN A STRAIGHT UP-OR-DOWN SENATE VOTE.

THINK ABOUT THIS: BUSH IS HAVING A PROBLEM WITH 5/270 NOMINEES. THAT'S 1/54th. HARDLY AN AMOUNT THAT WOULDS IRREVOCABLY HURT THE JUDICIARY. AND THERE ARE ABOUT 200 APPELLATE JUDGES ON SVERAL CIRCUITS. THESE FIVE NOMINEES CANNOT POSSIBLY CHANGE - IN ANY MAJOR WAY - THE CHARACTER OF THE APPELATE COURTS TO WHICH THEY ARE NOMINATED, IF THEY ARE CONFIRMED.

WHICH PRIOVES THAT THE WHOLE ISSUE IS NOTHING MORE THAN HYSTERICAL LEFT-WING BS! THE DEMS ARE HOLDING UP THE NOMINEES TO RAISE MONEY FROM THEIR LEFT-WING BASE, TO PROVE THEIR "WORTH." THE DEMS HAVE PROSTITUTED THEMSELVES TO THE ANTI-MAJORITARIAN, ANTI-MIDDLE-AMERICAN, LEFT-WING. THIS WILL GET THEM MONEY - IN THE SHORT RUN - AND AN EVER-DWINDLING RESULT AT THE BALLOT BOX IN THE COMING ELECTIONS.

CHECKS AND BALANCES AND SENATE FILIBUSTERS

The Dems in the Senate are CHARGING that the proposed rule change will destroy "checks and balances" and will turn our republic into a tryanny. But "checks and balances" is a term which has to do with the three co-equal branches (the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary), and NOT minority powers within one body (the Senate) of one branch.

When the Dems CHARGE that MERELY reducing the votes required to invoke cloture on judicial nominees is an "attack on checks and balances" they are hyping to the point of pure unadulterated demagogic LYING!

The reason that Bush should get most if not ALL of his nominees conformed is because we live in a DEMOCRACY, and a majority of Americans have VOTED IN the GOP into a MAJORITY in the Congress - BOTH in the House and in the Senate - and into the White House. That's DEMOCRACY - the WILL OF THE PEOPLE - and NOT a "power grab." Rather, it is the DEM MINORITY that's trying to GRAB power - literally use ARCHAIC SENATE RULES to exert more power than they are Consitutionally entitled to, and more power than they can win IN ELECTIONS. And in DEMOCRACIES, elections are SUPPOSED to be how things get decided.

UPDATE: 12:54PM - Chuckie Schumer is accusing the GOP of abusing power and threatening "CHECK AND BALANCES" - and... GET THIS: he accused the GOP of throwing a "TEMPER TANTRUM." The Freudian concept of "projection" never had a more perfect, more salient example.

IS BUSH TRYING TO "PACK THE COURT"

I'm watching the Senate rule change debate on C-SPAN.

Leahy has just charged that Bush is trying to "pack the court." BS!

Leahy then went on to say that the Senate has already confirmed about 270 Bush nominees, and are only holding up 5.

WELL: HOW COULD 5 NOMINEES AMOUNT TO PACKING THE COURT?! It's pure demagoguery. These five nominees cannot possibly change the character of ANY court to which they are appointed.

Then Leahy charged that the GOP is hyping the crisis and dangerously employing the "nuclear option." But the GOP is merely changing Senate cloture rules which the Dems changed 5 times - three times when Byrd himself was leader. The number of votes required to invoke cloture has been reduced before. It is NOT "nuclear." Charging that it is "nuclear" is HYPERBOLE AND DEMOGOGIC!

And then Leahy called the GOP contemptible McCarthyites. Which is yet another example of OUTRAGEOUS DEMOGOGUERY.

It's the Dems and demagogic jerks like Leahy who've fomented this crisis and who are HYPERBOLIZING the crisis.

Now that HOMUNCULUS Durbin is admonishing Frist and the GOP for using hyperbole. WHAT HYPOCRISY!

UPDATE: The INVALUABLE MALKIN is NUCLEAR OPTION central - CHECK HER OUT! And WELCOME Malkin readers; please check out a few other FRESH posts while they're still wamr!

MORE PROOF THE LEFT LIKES NEOJIHADISM MORE THAN NEOCONSERVATISM

From VIKINGPUNDIT (hat tip AZ CENTRAL):

DNC CHAIR Howard Dean on a NEOJIHADIST GENOCIDAL MURDERER:

"I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found," [Howard] Dean said during the 2004 Democratic primary campaign. "I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials."

About Tom Delay - who has been neither indicted or convicted of ANYTHING - (and who has been "charged in the COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION" ONLY with doing what 150 Democrat Congrressman have done: travel at someone else's expense):

"I think Tom DeLay ought to go back to Houston, where he can serve his jail sentence."

This OUTBURST reveals that the Left fears neoconservatism - and Bush and Delay - more than they do neojihadism. Which is warped. And it's why - as long as there's a war on - the Dems will NEVER be trusted with the White House or control of the Congress.

I guess this is to be expected from the party that still advocates socialism - like nationalized health - even though it has failed (or is failing) everytime it has ever been tried everywhere in the world.

And it's more proof that the Left is not anti-war; they're on the other side.

WARS WORK!

From WINDS OF CHANGE:

[The 20th Century was] a century that saw far more people murdered by governments than killed in wartime 169M to 36M, by one estimate...

SO: when we FAIL to intervene against socialist tyrannies, we err on the side of GENOCIDE. It SAVED LIVES to defeat Hitler. If we had marched on to Moscow in 1945 - it would have SAVED LIVES. If we had intervened MILITARILY in Rwanda, it would have SAVED LIVES.

And I believe that making war against tyrants like Mugabe and Fidel and Chavez and Kim and the mullahs would not only end their TYRANNY but SAVE LIVES, and lift the people up to lives of liberty and prosperity.

That makes me a libertarian hawk. And a HUMANITARIAN who wants to SAVE LIVES.

BOTTOM-LINE: WAR WORKS. I think this is further proof that the DOVES OF THE LEFT (since Vietnam days and all the way to the anti-Iraq War folks) have been "anti-war" because they're on the other side, and not because they want to save lives.

NEW LEFTIST MANTRA: "FAKE BUT ACCURATE!"

"FAKE BUT ACCURATE." It makes perfect sense. To the Leftist mind. They do NIT even see the INANITY of it. "FAKE BUT ACCURATE." Rathergate was FAKE BUT ACCURATE. Newsweek's KORANGATE was "FAKE BUT ACCURATE."

To the Left, "fake but accurate" means that a lie or a fiction might get at a higher truth than the facts.

You know what the REALLY scary thing is? Leftists really REALLY believe this.

Real truth - the LITERAL TRUTH - is not as important to the Left as stuff that FEELS truthful, as the FIGURATIVE TRUTH. That's why they come up with stuff like: BusHitler/AshKKKroft/Blood4Oil/Bush-lied; people died.

And it's why they so often argue analogically ("Zionsim is racism/Sanctions were infanticide", and use metaphors (like "Nuclear Option"), and coin coded synonyms, like: Neocon is code for Likudnik which is code for Zionist which is code for International Jewish Banking Conspiracy/CFR-Bilderberger, blah blah blah.

Unfortunately for the Left - and fortunately for the rest of us - figurative thinking, analogies, and code-words are NO SUBSTITUTE for good-thinking, logic and the truth.

Which is why the Democrats are in REAL TROUBLE: they have more affinity for the Loony "FAKE BUT ACCURATE" Left than they do for Middle America.

Welcome BASIL'S BLOG readers! And if you're not one, you should be EVERYDAY!

More on "FAKE BUT ACCURATE" here and here and here and here and here.

NEWSWEEK SOURCE IDENTIFIED!

It was Joe Wilson. I mean Dick Clarke. I mean Dan Rather. I mean Mary Mapes. I mean Chuck Graner. I mean Sy Hersh. I mean Howard Zinn. I mean Sandy Berger. I mean Alger Hiss. I mean John Kerry. I mean Ramsey Clark. I mean Noam Chomsky. I mean Jimmy Carter. I mean Benedict Arnold.

Well... I can GUARANTEE THIS: it was a Left-wing anti-American who believes that the USA needs to be punished. (What for you ask!? For being: Western; middle class; vulgar and unsophisticated compared to zuh French; universalist; the ONLY superpower; capitalist; free; and traditional.)

(BY THE WAY: SHOULDN'T THERE BE SOME KIND OF "FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT" IN RELATION TO THE MSM (WHEN THEY GET IT SO SO SO SO VERY VERY WRONG!? SHOULDN'T WE IN THE DEFRAUDED PUBLIC HAVE THE RIGHT TO SUE THE MSM TO FIND OUT WHO THEIR SOURCE WAS?! IT MIGHT DISCOURAGE THIS DESPICABLE ACTIVTITY.)

MUSLIM REACTION TO NEWSWEEK LIE UNACCEPTABLE - so is the MSM's!

At NRO's THE CORNER, John Podhoretz spotted this comment from last night's anti-American/anti-Bush NIGHTLINE show (which I saw):

"It would certainly be convenient to say that all this is Newsweek's fault," said Nightline's John Donvan. "The problem is, America also has a credibility problem in the Muslim world."

Blaming America for the misperceptions that many Arabs and many Muslims have about America is like blaming the beaten and abused wife for the abuse she receives at the hands of her wife-beating husband (who says in his own defense: "It's HER fault; she doesn't effing listen!")

Except of course that UNLIKE the wife-beater, the Arabs and the Muslims have the MSM and al Jazeera to thank for CRANKING-UP and reinforcing their WARPED view of what the USA is all about. The MSM - and al Jazeera - are essentially like the mean-spirited friends of the wife-beater who egg him on by LYING about the wife.

They have no shame.