If this doesn't prove the system is broken...

According to a poll reported in ABC News, in Iowa, the two leading Republican candidates are - Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. Governors Romney and Huckabee are both way behind in national polls, both trialling Senators McCain and Thompson and Mayor Giuliani. Why do we have a process which skews so heavily to a couple of states which are so out of touch with the rest of the country.

Poll: Top Democrats Deadlocked in Iowa
Huckabee Catching Up to Romney Among Hawkeye State Republicans
November 13, 2007

Democrats and Republicans are both headed toward heated showdowns in Iowa, where, according to a new CBS News / New York Times poll, Hillary Clinton holds a statistically insignificant lead over John Edwards and Barack Obama, and GOP hopeful Mitt Romney finds his long-held position as the state's front-runner challenged by a surging Mike Huckabee.

The situation in Iowa, where nominating caucuses are scheduled for Jan. 3, is in stark contrast to New Hampshire, where Clinton and Romney continue to hold large leads among those likely to vote in the state's first-in-the-nation primary, which would come only two days after Iowa's contests.

But in both states, large chunks of voters have yet to make up their minds, meaning the results of the contests that will kick off the 2008 nominating season are still difficult to predict.

In Iowa, the Democratic contest is knotted up. Among likely caucus-goers, Clinton came out on top with 25 percent support, but she was trailed closely by Edwards at 23 percent, and Obama at 22 percent. With a margin of error of 4 percentage points, there is no clear leader. Trailing behind was Bill Richardson, at 12 percent, with all other candidates in single digits.

If this doesn't prove the point...

If this story doesn't prove that our immigration system is broken, nothing does. An illegal immigrant whose family members are under indictment for funding the terrorist group Hezbollah was able to obtain sensitive jobs at the CIA and FBI. She was then able to use those positions to look into the government's investigation of her family's alleged illegal acts.

If this doesn't show that we have a very serious problem with immigration and identity, then I don't know what will. Why we have any objection at all to biometric identifications in light of this is completely beyond me.

Fake U.S. citizen got FBI secrets from files
Hiring missed La Shish, terror links
Detroit Free Press

In an embarrassing breach of national security, a former metro Detroit woman whose family is suspected of having links to a Lebanese terrorist group got sensitive jobs at the FBI and CIA despite being an illegal immigrant, authorities said Tuesday.

Worse, they said, Nada Nadim Prouty, 37, of Vienna, Va., used her position at the FBI to access a classified computer system to find out whether she or her family members -- including fugitive La Shish restaurant chain owner Tatal Chahine -- were being investigated for terrorist activities. She also took home classified FBI information.

Prouty accessed the system a second time to find out about a Detroit-based investigation involving Hizballah.

Prouty, who resigned from the CIA last week, pleaded guilty to the charges Tuesday in Detroit.

Entitlement spending since 2002 cost family of 4 $146,300

The AP has a story reporting on a partisan "study" done by the Democrats which states that the 7 year cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars from 2002 to 2007 will cost a family of four $20,900. This is based on the assumption that the wars together cost a total of $1.6 trillion.

Of course, during this time the nation has directly spend over $7 trillion on entitlement spending with no effect on poverty rates among children or working age adults. Why aren't the Democrats harking about that amount? Using their "math" - remember, this is the same math - remember, this is the same math which states that 50% of taxpayers paying 3% of federal income taxes is unfairly high - entitlement spending over the same period of time costs that family $146,300. Of course, this $7 trillion for entitlement is actually spending and not some trumped up number which assumes it is accountable for 100% of the budget deficit or other mysterious hidden costs that apparently you need to be a Liberal Elite to see.

I'm not going to even mention that they're now apparently considering that the war in Afghanistan is not worth funding.

Dems: U.S. wars cost family of 4 $20,900
Detroit News

WASHINGTON - The economic costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are estimated to total $1.6 trillion - roughly double the amount the White House has requested thus far, according to a new report by Democrats on Congress' Joint Economic Committee.

The report, released Tuesday, attempted to put a price tag on the two conflicts, including hidden costs such as interest payments on money borrowed to pay for the wars, lost investment, the expense of long-term health care required for injured veterans and the cost of oil market disruptions.

The $1.6 trillion figure, for the period from 2002 to 2008, translates into a cost of $20,900 for a family of four, the report said. The Bush administration has requested $804 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined, the report stated.

For the Iraq war only, total economic costs were estimated at $1.3 trillion for the period from 2002 to 2008. That would costs a family of four $16,500, the report said.

TMQ versus Al Gore

Gregg Easterbrook, the Brookings Scholar and ESPN football writer, is a passionate environmentalist. Unlike many environmentalists, however, he is adamantly against the dishonesty, self-promotion, and hypocrisy with which many environmentalists treat their work. In today's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column, he takes serious aim at Al Gore. It's well down the page if you want to read more. I'd strongly suggest doing so. His column is a great piece of writing and always worth a look.

Those Hollywood Searchlights Around Gore's Home Sure Eat Power
Tuesday Morning Quarterback for ESPN

Gore wasn't the first quack to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and history suggests he will not be the last. Gore spent eight years in the White House, and in that time took no meaningful action regarding greenhouse gases. The Clinton-Gore administration did not raise fuel economy standards for cars and trucks or propose domestic carbon trading. Though Clinton and Gore made a great show of praising the Kyoto Protocol, they refused even to submit the treaty to the Senate for consideration, let alone push for ratification. During his 2000 run for the presidency, Gore said little about climate change or binding global-warming reforms. In the White House and during his presidential campaign, Gore advocated no consequential action regarding greenhouse gases; then, there was a political cost attached. Once Gore was out of power and global-warming proposals no longer carried a political cost - indeed, could be used for self-promotion - suddenly Gore discovered his intense desire to demand that other leaders do what he had not! It is a triumph of postmodernism that Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for no specific accomplishment other than making a movie of self-praise. Gore caused no peace nor led to any reconciliation of belligerent parties nor performed any service to the dispossessed, the achievements the Peace Prize was created to honor. All Gore did was promote himself from Hollywood, and for this, he gets a Nobel. Very postmodern.

An annoying complication of Gore's Nobel is that few realize the award was given jointly to him and to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an organization well worthy of distinction. The IPCC is a group of scientists who have spent two decades studying climate change n obscurity, and in many cases without pay. The IPCC's efforts have been selfless, motivated only by concern for society. Had the Nobel Peace Prize gone solely to the IPCC, it would have been a great day.

An astonishing measure of how out-of-touch the Norwegian Nobel Committee seems is that it gave a prize to Gore for hectoring others about energy consumption in the same year it was revealed that Gore, at his home, uses 20 times the national power average. Gore's extraordinary power waste equates to about 377,000 pounds of greenhouse gases annually, or about 20 Hummer Years worth of global warming pollution. (A Hummer Year, TMQ's metric of environmental hypocrisy, is the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in a typical year of driving a Hummer). When his utility bill made the news - though apparently not in Oslo - Gore responded by saying he buys carbon offsets. That takes you back to the offset problem: All offsets do is prevent greenhouse gas accumulation from increasing. If you really believe there will be a global calamity unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced 80 percent, as Gore told the Live Earth crowd, you would not by carbon offsets and cut your own energy use. Instead, Gore flies around in fossil-fuel-intensive jet aircraft telling others: Do as I say, not as I do!

After news of Gore's personal energy consumption broke, Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider told The Associated Press the utility bill was justified because "Al and Tipper both work out of their home." This raises the question - what kind of work are they doing? Perhaps reanimating Frankenstein; in Frankenstein movies, there is always a lot of electricity crackling wastefully about. Here are other possible reasons the Gores' home requires so much energy:

• Gore is building a time machine to return to Palm Beach, Fla., in October 2000.
• The former vice president is doing everything he personally can to cause global warming, so he can claim his predictions came true.
• Gore is growing marijuana in his basement. (Note from the corporate legal department: This is strictly a joke, ESPN is not accusing Al Gore of growing marijuana. We stand by our allegation that he is a sinister kingpin of international rare-bird smuggling.)
• Members of Gore's species require high power levels to maintain human form.
• Al and Tipper don't just leave the lights on when they make out, they leave the lights on all over the house.
  

Biggest non-story of the year

Why is anyone writing this story? It must have been a ridiculously slow news day.

Falling Flags
Political Radar for ABC News

It's been a rough stretch for Hillary Clinton -- a tough debate performance, a lost voice, and the revelation that the Clinton campaign had been coaching questioners at events.

Then, on Sunday, everything started falling down around her.

After a very Presidential-esque news conference - Clinton turned around to leave the reporters and their peppering questions. A staffer swooped open a curtain, and chaos ensues. Four large American flags came crashing in front of Senator Clinton as she headed for the door. In a controlled panic, the staffers and the Senator attempted to catch the flags before they fell to the ground.

"I think the bases are not weighted enough," Clinton said as she propped flags back up. One of Clinton's aides quickly summoned the advance man in charge to assist in the crisis.

Why can't the Freep do math?

The Detroit Free Press is once again advocating a massive release of criminals from our state's prisons. This isn't a surprise; what is a surprise, though, is their justification:

"Michigan's incarceration rate - 502 inmates per 100,000 people - is out of wack. It is by far the highest in the Great Lakes region - Illinois, for example, is 354, Ohio is 414 - and eight-highest among the 50 states, according to the latest report from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. The state's staggering prison costs might be worth it if Michigan also was among the lowest-crime states, but it's not."

Perhaps this is beyond the Freep's basic ability to understand: when crime rates are higher, it leads to more people being incarcerated. Of course we're going to have a higher incarceration rate; we have a higher crime rate. The way to deal with this is to reduce crime overall. The massive release of criminals from the system, particularly when Michigan has a 50% recidivism rate, isn't going to do that. It's going to drive up crime. As the Free Press points out, Michigan's crime rate is already high. Why are we trying to put more criminals out on the street?

Don't throw away the key
Prisons can safely save state millions by revising sentencing, parole rules
Detroit Free Press

Facing its worst budget problems in modern times, the State of Michigan still incarcerates 50,000 people at a cost of nearly $35,000 per inmate per year. That adds up to nearly $2 billion -- more than 20% of the general fund budget -- for the Department of Corrections. While most of the people behind bars in Michigan are right where they belong, the state can and should take more steps to safely reduce the inmate population.

Michigan's incarceration rate -- 502 inmates per 10,000 people -- is out of wack. It is by far the highest in the Great Lakes region -- Illinois, for example, is 354, Ohio 414 -- and eighth-highest among the 50 states, according to the latest report from the federal Bureau of Statistics. The state's staggering prison costs might be worth if it Michigan also was among the lowest-crime states, but it's not.

Nor are Michigan prisons much more than warehouses, lacking education and rehabilitation programs that might make a difference in the return rate for offenders, now at nearly 50%.

The state Department of Corrections has begun some efforts to cut costs. It has slightly increased parole rates in conjunction with its prisoner re-entry program; released some old, infirm or deathly ill inmates; and closed two prisons. But there is much more to be done, including revisiting the guidelines under which Michigan judges sentence people to prison and complying with a recent court ruling that could affect about 1,000 "lifers" who committed crimes before 1992.

Maybe I'm not crazy after all...

My biggest issue with the Democratic Party is that the party as a whole is led by elitists who believe wholeheartedly that the individuals who inhabit this country are not capable of running their own lives. Thus, they believe we need the Liberal Elites to dictate the course of our lives for us. They make decisions on our behalf and utilize extra-democratic means to enforce them. They put forth policies which interfere with our own abilities to choose where we send our children to school, what words we can say, what religious practices are acceptable, how to defend ourselves, how to spend our own money, how to plan for our own retirement, how to manage our finances and where to work. Most recently, they have even been working in Michigan and Florida to ensure that the people don't get in the way of the Liberal Elite's decision on who gets to run for the Presidency on the Democratic ticket.

All of this comes from the Liberal Elite's innate feeling of superiority over the common American. They know how to run your life better than you do. This all comes from their condescending view of the common American. This has long been one of my most tightly held beliefs - that much of the Democratic policy is made by Liberal Elitists who believe the common American is incapable of running his or her own life.

It looks like Senator Joe Biden agrees about this condescension. In an interview at the New Hampshire Union Leader on Thursday, he pointed out that the Democrats don't trust the American people. While I stridently disagree with Sen. Biden on quite a few issues, it's good to see a Democrat recognize that so many of his fellow Democrats are elitists and making noise, at least, about moving away from that condescension.

Biden: Democrats have lost faith in the American People
New Hampshire Union Leader

Sen. Joe Biden said in an interview at the New Hampshire Union Leader this afternoon that too many Democrats, including the frontrunners for the presidential nomination, do not have faith in the American people.

"We've got to trust the American people more," Biden said.

"I think they've really lost faith in the American people in terms of leveling with them," he said of his leading rivals.

When he asks groups of Democrats if they think the American people are stupid because they elected George W. Bush twice, most respond that yes, they do, he said. HE said he thinks that attitude is a real problem for the Democrats, who fail to understand how smart and pragmatic the American people are.

Biden was generally critical of the far left wing of his party and of the strategies the frontrunners are using to win the nomination.

Asked if he thinks, as he suggested recently in another interview, that the other candidates tend to think the American people are stupid or easily fooled, he said, "Well, I do."

Have to take issue...

Normally, I'm very much a fan of FactCheck.org, a private, non-partisan group which analyzes statements by politicians and determines their veracity. In a recent article on their site, they look at a Mitt Romney ad that talks about immigration. They take issue with two items. The first, their assertion that Gov. Romney's claims of ordering the State Police to enforce immigration laws is misleading, is fine. When Gov. Romney did order the State Police to work with the Federal government to enforce immigration laws, the order came very late in his tenure as Governor and was immediately rescinded by his successor. Their second claim, however, I take issue with.

Governor Romney claims that when he becomes President, he will deny funding to sanctuary cities. FactCheck.org takes issue with this because he did not do that as Governor and claims that this is somehow misleading. Frankly, this is an unfair statement on their part. Gov. Romney never made this statement in order to talk about what he's done in the past; only about what he intends to do in the future. He never gives the impression that he had done the same as governor of Massachusetts, nor that he feels that it is a Governor's responsibility to deny state funding to sanctuary cities; only that he feels it is the President's responsibility to deny federal funding to the same. These are definitely different issues and it is perfectly valid for someone to feel differently about the two different topics.

I'm not saying Gov. Romney isn't flipping on this issue. He very may well be doing so. However, to label it as misleading is unfair.

The real concern I have with Gov. Romney is that his views on issues such as abortion, gay rights, and immigration seem to have dramatically changed in the past two years. It makes it difficult for me to understand where he stands on these issues and where he'd stand if elected. Are the new views on abortion and gay rights just an act to get the nomination? Were his old views on immigration just an act to garner support in Massachusetts? I'm hoping that these were acts, but it's tough for me to think that he's just acting on abortion and gay rights to get a nomination now but has had a revelation about immigration and what he's saying is now what he believes.

Tough Guy on Immigration?
Romney puffs up his record.
FactCheck.org

Mitt Romney casts himself as tough on illegal immigration in a new add in which he says that, as Massachusetts governor, "I authorized the State Police to enforce immigration laws." He doesn't mention that his order never took effect. It came in the closing days of his administration and was rescinded by his successor, as we wrote back in August.

He also promises, "As president, I'll ... cut funding for sanctuary cities." Maybe so, but as governor he took no action against several such towns in his state.

We find Romney misleading on both counts.

Why do we call Democrats "Liberals"?

The State Legislature, led by the Republicans, is trying to reinstate the January 15th primary election after an Ingham County judge has struck it down. The Republicans in both the House and Senate are trying desperately to create a law which will hold up to judicial scrutiny. There are three problems facing the issue:

1. House Speaker Andy Dillon, a Democrat from Redford, wants to just scrap the whole thing and go back to the caucus/convention style of selecting a Presidential candidate.
2. Senate Democrats have the votes to enact the primary law but are waffling about enacting it in time for this election. They want to enact the law, but not have it in place for this election.
3. The current law has a provision stating that the entire law would be invalid if any part is removed; therefore, a judicial decision striking down a small portion of the law would not be a solution which would work in this case.

In all, you have Democrats who are once again working as hard as possible to deny the right to vote to the citizens of Michigan. Like the Democrats on a national level, local Democrats like Andy Dillon are working to ensure that backroom influence peddling will choose a nominee, not a vote by the people. Why the Democrats are so gung-ho about disenfranchising Michiganders and why Democratic voters are so willing to excuse this is beyond me. Frankly, as a Michigander, the only Democrat I'd even consider voting for would be Hillary Clinton because she has co-operated the least in Democrat's disenfranchisement of Michigan.

It is becoming clearer that the Liberal Elites who run the Democratic Party view the world in an elitist prism: a ruling class made up of them and the ignorant, incapable, uneducated masses who they have to direct. It's not enough that the so-called Liberal's envisioned ruling class chooses what schools people go to, how much they make on their jobs, where they live, what they do in their own homes - they now want to make sure that the masses don't butt their way into their choice of which members of the ruling class get to run for President.

State Legislature works to save Jan. 15 primary
Detroit Free Press

LANSING -- Michigan's Jan. 15 presidential primary remained on life support Thursday as the state Legislature tried and failed to push through changes in the primary election law that would help it survive a legal challenge.

The State Senate worked into the evening on legislation to address objections from an Ingham County Circuit Court judge, who a day earlier ordered the primary suspended because of a provision to give exclusive access to voter lists to the Democratic and Republican parties.

But the Senate fell short of garnering enough votes to put the changes into effect immediately, which was crucial.

Some supporters of the legislation said it could be revived in the next week, in time to meet deadlines for the election, and that negotiations would continue.

Mike Huckabee: Extremist

Salon has an interview with Mike Huckabee which goes into detail about exactly how much of a radical extremist he is when regarding social issues. It's a very interesting read and anyone who will be voting in the Republican primary (assuming, of course, that the Democrats let us have one) should read it.

Mick Huckabee, on a wing and a prayer
In a Salon interview, the long-shot GOP candidate reveals his convictions about gay marriage, wonders about Mitt Romney's faith, and fires back at Fred Thompson
Salon

VINTON, Iowa -- Unlike junior high, it's often a good sign in presidential politics when people say nasty things about you. It means you are threatening. It means others fear you. IT means you might just win something.

So, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the dark horse in the Republican race, has not been sweating the recent barrage of attacks against him. In recent weeks, Mitt Romney has accused Huckabee of supporting tuition assistance for the children of illegal immigrants. (Gasp!) Fred Thompson called him "one of the highest taxing governors" in the nation. (Zing!) A Wall Street Journal editorialist called Huckabee a waffling conservative. (Ka-pow!) Conservative doyenne Phyllis Schlafly blamed him for wrecking the Republican Party in Arkansas. (Wham-o!) One Thompson supporter really went for the jugular, evoking the specter of Bubba: "I certainly cannot support another individual from Hope, Arkansas," announced retired Brig. Gen. James Livingston before a Thompson event on Tuesday in Columbia, S.C.

Why all of the sudden attention? With a scant staff and no television advertisements, Huckabee, a former Baptist pastor, has moved into second place in the Iowa caucus polls, and he is inching up on a big spender Romney in the still highly speculative national polls. He has earned consistent praise for his performance in debates, and regularly overperforms in straw poll contests. "He is coming on like gangbusters," says David Woodard, a South Carolina political scientist and a Republican political consultant.

So when Huckabee arrived in Iowa Wednesday for a four-stop tour of the eastern cornfields, he was greeted by the full weight of the national press: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the McClatchy News Service and a half dozen others. In January, when Huckabee launched his campaign, only a couple of local reporters were around to ask questions. Now his daughter, Sarah, who serves as a top aide on the road, has to call "last question" in press scrums so her dad can stay on schedule.

The Al Gore Sore Loser Award goes to...

This past Tuesday was Michigan's local elections. For some incomprehensible reason, Michigan chooses to waste money and reduce participation in local elections by holding elections every year - national and state elections in even years with local elections in odd years. This past Tuesday, nearly the entire city government of Ecorse was replaced. The mayor and five of the seven city council members were voted out of office. A sixth council member chose not to seek reelection. In retaliation, they have voted 5-2 (one outgoing council member, Angela Smith, and the member who chose not to seek reelection were the two against) in order to dramatically cut the pay of the winners.

The incoming council members will have their pay cut from $15,000 a year to $5,000 a year, while the new mayor will have his pay cut from $69,000 a year to $12,000 a year. Talk about vindictive...

Election's losers cut pay for the winners
Part-time intentions cited
Detroit Free Press

Only hours after Ecorse's mayor and five of the City Council members were voted out of office for the next term, they slashed their successors' salaries by much more than half.

The mayor-elect is considering going to court over the decision.

The 5-2 vote Wednesday night adopted the Local Officers Compensation Board's decision to cut council members' annual pay from $15,000 to $5,000 and the mayor's compensation from $69,000 to $12,000.

Losing re-election bids Tuesday were Mayor Larry Salisbury and council members Brenda Banks, Nathaniel Elem, Robert Hellar, Arnold Lackey and Angela Smith. Councilwoman Theresa Peguese didn't seek re-election; she and Smith were the two nay votes Wednesday. Salisbury defended his vote in favor of the pay cuts. He said Thursday that he treated the job like a full-time position, but "The incoming officers failed to commit to anything but a part service."

Good news? CNN still can't help but take a dig on the Administration.

CNN has a positive report about dramatically declining rates of chronic homelessness in America. Note that before President Bush was elected, there were Democratic partisans who were attacking President Bush and Republican economics, saying that they would result in "armies" of the homeless. It turns out that the Administration's focus on moving people from temporary housing to permanent housing had reduced chronic homelessness by about 12%.

The most amusing part of the article (I love the first line): "The Federal Government is taking credit for..." They can't help but put a dig on the Administration. What's particularly amusing is that the advocates for the homeless that they've spoken with have largely agreed that it's the new Administration initiatives which have reduced the chronically homeless.

Report: 20,000 fewer chronically homeless on streets
CNN

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal government is taking credit for what it says is a nearly 12 percent drop in the number of people who are chronically homeless, according to government estimates being released Wednesday.

About 20,000 fewer chronically homeless were on the streets from 2005 to 2006, says the Department of Housing and Urban Development citing its programs designed to move homeless people into permanent housing.

HUD says people are chronically homeless if they have been continuously living on the streets for a year or more, or if they have been homeless at least four times in the past three years. They also have to have a disability, often mental illness or substance abuse.

The number of chronically homeless people dropped from 175,900 in 2005 to 6,502 in 2006, HUD reported. In Miami-Dade County, Florida, the number dropped from 831 in 2005 to 577 the following year. In Washington, D.C., the number increased from 1,773 to 1,891, though city officials told HUD they believed the change was caused in part by better counting methods.

Judge blocks Michigan's primary

A circuit judge in Ingham County, one of the three counties that surround Lansing, has ruled that the January 15th Presidential primary cannot be held. His ruling was based on a technicality that held that a Presidential primary election is somehow a "private" event. Likely, the basis of that ruling revolved around ownership of the lists of people who voted in the election, lists which would go solely to the parties to distribute as they saw fit.

The clear and obvious solution to this would be to release the voting roles to all interested parties; instead, Judge William Collette has sided with the national party powerbrokers and against the citizens of Michigan.

The primary system is broken. If a technicality as to who owns the voting lists is what is going to keep the broken system in place then the leaders of both state parties need to stand up and agree to release the voting roles to the public in order to make it clear that we're talking about a public interest, not a private one.

Judge blocks Michigan's Jan. 15 primary
The Detroit News

LANSING -- An Ingham County Circuit Court judge today ruled that Michigan's Jan. 15th presidential primary cannot be held.

Judge William Collette said the contest is unconstitutional because it allocated public money to be used for a private purpose, which would require a two-thirds cote of the legislature. The law passed this summer establishing the contest didn't pass by a two-thirds vote.

"Clearly there's an injury to the public interest," said Collette.

At issue are the lists with the names of voters who take part in the Jan. 15 balloting. Under the law, voters would have to request one ballot or the other, and the Republican and Democratic parties would take sole ownership of the lists of who voted in each contest.

Nothing to see here...

Yet another report, this time from MSNBC, that the war is going well. More than 46,000 people have come back home to Iraq in October, a rate described by the left-leaning MSNBC as "streaming home." Of course, expect liberals like John Dingell, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton to ignore this success and call for a 'change' from our current, successful strategy back, essentially, to the failed pre-2007 strategies.

Iraqis reportedly streaming home from abroad
Spokesman says more than 46,000 return; 17 bodies found in mass grave
MSNBC

BAGHDAD - The number of Iraqis returning to their country after fleeing abroad is growing, with more than 46,000 people coming home last month, an Iraqi government spokesman said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi Army said 17 bodies were discovered in a mass grave northeast of Baghdad in an area troops have only recently been able to enter because of a downturn in violence.

Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, the Iraqi spokesman for a U.S.-Iraqi military push to pacify Baghdad, said border crossings recorded 46,030 people returning to Iraq in October alone. He attributed the large number to the "improving security situation."

"The level of terrorist operations has dropped in most of the capital's neighborhoods, due to the good performance of the armed forces," al-Moussawi told reporters in the heavily-guarded Green Zone. Al-Moussawi did not give numbers of Iraqis returning home before October.

A shameful statistic

A quarter of the homeless in America are war veterans. This is absolutely unacceptable. Everything the government could possibly do to help these vets must be done. I hate taxes and I hate government spending, but we owe these man and women an incredible amount of appreciation and gratitude for their sacrifice, and we absolutely must do whatever is necessary to help them.

Study: 1 Out of 4 Homeless are Veterans
Out of Uniform and on the Street: Study Finds That Veterans Are a Quarter of the Homeless
ABC News

Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a study to be released Thursday.

And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.

The Veterans Affairs has identified 1,500 homeless veterans from the current wars and says 400 of them have participated in its programs specifically targeting homelessness.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, a public education nonprofit, based the findings of its reports on numbers from Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau. 2005 data estimated that 194,252 out of 744,313 on any given night were veterans.

ABC a part of the New Hampshire lovefest

ABC has a completely meaningless article with a ridiculous title: NH Could Turn GOP Race Upside Down. The article then goes on to point out that even though New Hampshire residents frequently vote for GOP contenders other than the front-runners, they never get the nominations. Examples include John McCain in 2000 winning New Hampshire and losing the nomination and Pat Buchanan winning the state in both 1992 and in 1996 before losing out to George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole, respectively. So, basically, the last three time the GOP nomination was contested, New Hampshire had exactly zero impact on the race -- in all three times, the favorite going into New Hampshire failed to win New Hampshire and still got the nomination. Nice!

NH Could Turn GOP Race Upside Down
NH Up in the Air, Could Turn Republican Presidential Race Upside Down
ABC News

New Hampshire is known for turning Republican presidential primaries upside down.

It could happen again this year.

"We're a tiny little state, but we get to go out and rub shoulders with all of the candidates, and be a big of the big decision," says Cindy Horvath, 46, an undecided Republican voter from Somersworth.

And, she added, have a big impact.

Polls show a tight race for the GOP nomination in the state. Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain are in strong contention. Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul could complicate an already muddled contest.

How dumb are thieves these days?

Five Washington, D.C. employees were arrested for stealing and laundering $16 million from the city. What blows my mind is that they stole an average of $3 million each and were still working for the city. I'm an honest man; however, if I were going to become a thief and managed to steal a few million dollars from the city, you can bet I wouldn't be spending it an Neiman Marcus - where defendant Harriette Walters is accused of spending more than $1.4 million. If I had just stolen $1.4 million, I'd be in a nice little villa in Bermuda with the money invested in some nice Bermuda insurance company making myself a ridiculous sum of money.

D.C. Hit by Costliest Corruption Scandal in History
City Employees Charged With Taking $16 Million; Using Money to Buy Luxury Goods
ABC News

Federal law enforcement and Washington D.C., city officials announced arrests and charges Wednesday in the costliest public corruption scandal to ever hit the district's government.

Five individuals are in custody for a scheme that allegedly defrauded the D.C. government out of more than $16 million. Charges against them include mail fraud, money laundering and conspiracy.

Officials say Harriette Walters, a manager of the D.C. Real Property Tax Administration Adjustments unit and Diane Gustus at the D.C. Office of Tax Revenue, were at the center of the operation. The pair allegedly approved and issued fraudulent property tax refund checks, that averaged $388,000 per check.

Investigators say the funds were used to buy luxury goods, including jewelry, homes and clothing. According to affidavits filed in the case, Walter's annual salary as a District of Columbia employee was $81,000. From September 2000 to the present, Harriette Walters spent more than $1.4 million at Neiman Marcus.

"They abused the trust the district placed in them," U.S. attorney Jeff Taylor of the District of Columbia said at a news conference announcing the charge.

Hillary could be innocent in this mess...

I really hate to say this, but I've done some digging on the accused terrorists from whom Hillary has taken money. In all fairness to her, I've run each of them and their organizations through publicly available software for checking against the Office of Foreign asset Control database. This database is the one in which financial companies such as banks, mortgage lenders, and insurance companies much check to ensure they aren't facilitating terrorism funding.

Not a single one of the individuals listed was found in the OFAC database, searched using the OFAC Watchdog software by Attus Technologies.

That being said, I think we really need to give Hillary and her organization a pass on this one. Assuming that she has implemented an OFAC check, these individuals would not raise flags for her organization. The bigger question is how closely she knew them, which is unclear at this point.

Hilary takes cash from terror suspects
Muslim donors targets of federal investigation
World Net Daily

Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has taken thousands of dollars in cash donations from Islamists under federal investigation for terror-financing, money laundering and tax fraud, WND has learned.

The Democrat senator over the past seven months has received $1,000 from M. Yagub Mirza and another $500 from M. Omar Ashraf, federal campaign records show. Federal agents raided the Virginia homes and offices of the Muslim donors after 9/11 for ties to terrorism.

Others tied to the still-active probe also have contributed money to Clinton, including one Muslim man who after 9/11 complained to the U.S. government should focus on changing its Mideast policies instead of killing Osama bin Laden and other Islamic terrorists.

Mirza, who also has given to other candidates, including Republicans, is said to act on behalf of Saudi millionaire Yassin al-Qadi, who the U.S. Treasury Department in October 2001 blacklisted as al-Qaida financier.

Hard choices are sometimes required

Buried down in the bottom of a long, protracted, and intellectually void article written for Slate by Gary Kimaya, he claims incredulously that a 1% chance of our enemies obtaining and us using a nuclear weapon on our civilian population is insufficient grounds for attack.

Perhaps he lives in a different reality, but the one in which I live in looks at a 1% chance of millions of civilians killed as a pretty significant problem. From a very basic analysis, a 1% chance that a million civilians are killed in a nuclear attack by, say Iran, is about equivalent to a 100% chance that 10,000 Americans are killed in a war with Iran. It might seem a harsh calculus for a political party whose entire platform is built on the naive and childish notion that we can save everyone, everywhere but real leaders have to sit down and make that balance. If a war would cost 5,000 lives but has a 1% chance of saving a million, isn't that worthwhile? If the chances that Iran is, indeed, working towards a nuclear weapon that they would use against us are much greater than that - 10% or 15% - then what possible individual can rationally believe that it's not worth the sacrifice?

Is this an easy sacrifice? Of course not. However, when it comes to defending the lives and freedom of our country, we must sometimes have to make very difficult decisions and a real leader needs to sit down some times and realize that it might be worth sacrificing a few thousand to save a million.

Iraq taught us nothing
The U.S. establishment's acceptance of a possible war with Iran shows that the folly that led to Iraq still rules Washington
Current Opinion for Salon

The U.S. could attack Iran in the next few months.

Let's repeat that. The U.S> could attack Iran in the next few months.

The fact that this sentence can be written with a straight face proves that the Iraq debacle has taught us absolutely nothing. Talk of attacking Iran should be confined to the lunatic fringe. Yet America's political and media elite have responded to the idea of attacking Iran in almost the same way they did to the idea of attacking Iraq. Four and a half years after Bush embarked on one of the most catastrophic foreign-policy adventures in our history, the same wrongheaded, ignorant, and self-destructive approach to the Arab-Muslim world and to fighting terrorism still rules establishment thinking.

The disturbing thing is that we have no excuse this time. Five years ago, a wounded, fearful and enraged America was ready to attack anybody, and Bush waved his red cape and steered the mad bull toward Iraq. We now know that was folly. The completely unnecessary invasion has so far resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and almost 4,000 Americans, severely destabilized the region, cost billions of dollars, and increased the threat of terrorism. Yet today we are blithely considering attacking a much larger Middle Eastern country for equally dubious reasons, and mainstream politicians and the media are once again going along. The American people have signed off on the conventional "wisdom". In a recent poll, 52 percent of Americans say they would support attacking Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.

This is surreal. It's as if we're back on Sept. 12 and Iraq never happened.

Back to their old tricks

Having found that they really have no interest in actually doing anything to address any topic of substance, the Democrats are back to what they do best: grandstanding and making a political show for the cameras. This time they (once again) are trying to charge Joshua Bolton and Harriet Miers with Contempt of Congress.

Representative John Conyers of Michigan, who heads the Congressional Judiciary Committee, is trying to avoid taking this to court. "I very much hope that we can similarly avoid a constitutional confrontation in this case," Conyers said. The reason, of course, is that a Constitutional challenge will clearly be lost by Congress.

Congress has no power to charge crimes or compel testimony. The only power they have regarding criminal behavior is impeachment.

What's particularly galling about this situation is that no one is even suggesting that anything illegal has taken place. There are only suspicions that something untoward - but perfectly legal - took place. The hope here is for John Conyers to put people close to the President under oath and desperately hope that they perjure themselves. Making the Administration look bad, of course, is more important than trying to renew S-CHIP or make sure our troops in Iraq are funded or fixing Social Security or coming up with a market-based solution to the health care problem that could draw bipartisan support.

House Democrats Push Bush on Subpoenas
House Judiciary Panel Head Tells White House to Answer Subpoenas to Presidential Aides
ABC News

House Democrats threatened Monday to hold President Bush's key confidants in contempt of Congress unless they comply with subpoenas for information on the Justice Department's purge of federal prosecutors last winter.

The White House shrugged off the ultimatum, saying the information is off-limits under executive privilege and that the aides in question White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolton and former presidential counselor Harriet Miers are immune from prosecution.

"It won't go anywhere," predicted White House press secretary Dana Perino.

Congressional Democrats nonetheless submitted their 102-page report, and a Republican rebuttal, to the House clerk on Monday afternoon. The report accused Miers of contempt for failing to appear and testify as subpoenaed. She and Bolton were charged with failing to produce documents on whether the prosecutors were fired at the White House's behest.

Another reason to support Rudy

Anyone that the Angry Left hates this much must be worth voting for...

Hating Rudy
The Angry Left finds a new target
Opinion Journal

"Rudy Giuliani [is] probably the most underqualified man since George Bush to seek the presidency," Sen. Joe Biden declared during Tuesday's Democratic debate in Philadelphia. "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11."

The crowd roared with laughter, and liberal blogger John Marshall wrote, "Okay, I may have to endorse Biden after this tear against Rudy."

With the end of the dreaded Bush era approaching, Rudy Giuliani has slowly begun to supplant the president as the leading hate figure among liberals, a reality that will only help Mr. Giuliani in his efforts to overcome his differences with conservatives and win the Republican nomination.

Within the past month, The New Republic, The Nation, and The Washington Monthly have all run anti-Giuliani cover stories, with the last one declaring that, "as president, Giuliani would grab even more executive power than Bush and Cheney."

Would term limits fix bad judgement?

Inexperienced governor? She's on her second term! She's been in office 6 years!!!

Would voters loosen term limits?
Legislature may ask, but hurdles loom
Detroit Free Press

Michigan voters were in a surly mood in 1992 when they voted overwhelmingly to limit the terms of the state's elected officials.

The thinking went something like: If we can't get them to behave, let's make them leave.

Fifteen years later voters appear surly again, in part because many people blamed the recent budget crisis on the chaotic performance of an inexperienced governor and legislators.

Consider that the top three leaders in the House today have less than 13 years of legislative experience among them, compared to 40 years for the same three positions in 1992.

Still, would voters change the law?

Joe Biden's version of history...

Glad to see we have Presidential candidates who either have no idea how the Iraq war started or are willing to lie to a bunch of fourth-graders. Nice!

Biden's History Lesson to Fourth-Graders
Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H. - The words were a bit simpler but the answers none the shorter when Joe Biden, who has a reputation for being verbose, faced an audience of fourth-graders Thursday.

The Democratic presidential candidate encountered the group in the lobby of the New Hampshire statehouse on his way to filing his candidacy with he secretary of state's office.

Asked how long he had been in the Senate, the Delaware senator, who was elected in 1972, started talking about the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He then detoured into an aside about how his sister was pushed to be a nurse or teacher was he was encouraged to pursue any career he wanted despite grades worse than hers.

He also gave a detailed answer to a question adults don't often ask candidates: How did the war in Iraq start? Biden compared the war in Iraq with the invasion of Afghanistan.

Man tries to cure cancer in garage...and it works?

This just seems so strange...the idea that someone could build something like that in his garage and have it work is flabergasting.

Cancer Victim Invents Possible Chemo Alternatives
Suffering Under Chemotherapy, Retired Man Develops Radio-Wave Treatment
ABC News

This is the story of a man whose reaction to a cancer diagnosis was to go to his garage and invent something -- a machine that serious scientists are now taking seriously.

John Kanzius made his fortune owning radio stations in Pennsylvanis, then retired with his wife in Florida. Five years ago, he was diagnosed with leukemia.

While he was undergoing chemotherapy he decided there has to be a better way to fight this illness. And even though he wasn't a doctor, he figured he could figure it out himself.

Sudanese justice?

Memo to self: Do not go to any country ruled under sharia.

Facing 40 Lashes for 'Slur on Islam'
The Sun

The British teacher facing 40 lashes in Sudan for letting her pupils name a teddy bear Mohammed had told friends how she was loving her life in the country.

Gillian Gibbons, a 54-year-old described as "timid and polite," has been arrested and accused of blasphemy against Islam's prophet.

The teacher, from Liverpool, let her class of seven-year-olds choose the teddy's name as part of a project at Unity High School in Sudan's capital Kharourm.

She was said to be "deeply distressed" in a police cell last night after learning that she faces the barbaric lashing under the Muslim state's strict sharia law.