Democrats Oppose New Oil Development Even At $10/gallon

How much is too much to pay for gas? We know that it's more than $10 per gallon.

Barack Bringeth Forth Oil From A Tire Pump

Moses struck water from a stone.

Christ fed thousands with five loaves of bread and two fishes.

Obama solveth the oil shortage by airing up the tires.

Newly Discovered Monkey Nearly Extinct

Wow! That's gotta be a new record!

Just three years after it was discovered, a new species of monkey is threatened with extinction according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which recently published the first-ever census of the endangered primate.

John Kerry Once Again Vindicates The Wisdom Of Voters (Outside of Massachussetts Anyway)

It must have something to do with being a Bay State Democrat.

Dear Republican Party - Is There Any Intelligent Life?

Stop acting like babies. Americans want offshore drilling. Hammer the Democrats on this one. Hard!

Obama The Pompous Ass

"This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for. I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."

Jesus was far more humble. Apparently, Obama even transcends messianic.

More Experience That Does Not Qualify McCain For President

I'd love to hear Obama's perfumed prince explain why this disqualifies John McCain.

Hat tip, Gateway Pundit.

I was wondering the other day why John McCain is not telling his story more and I realized something. He shouldn't have to. That's the media's job. And once upon a time, they did their job. Back in 2000, when McCain was the media's favorite versus George Bush, they told his story frequently. Today, The One is their favorite, and they're keeping McCain's heroism to themselves.

Global Cooling: It's Natural

There can be no doubt that the planet has been cooling lately, Nobel prizes and Academy Awards notwithstanding.

And now, even some of those vaunted authorities have started to take notice.

A number of influential people in Russia, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam say the planet is now entering a 30-year cooling period, the second half of a normal cycle driven by cyclical changes in the sun's output and currents in the Pacific Ocean. Their theory leaves true believers in carbon catastrophe livid.

Then there's this great summation:

So does the climate computer have a real audience, or is it really just another bag lady muttering away to herself in a lonely corner of the intellectual park? That the computer is heard in Hollywood, Stockholm, Brussels and even some parts of Washington is quite beside the point--they have far less global power and influence than they vainly imagine. Vinod Dar is right: "Contingency planning should entail strategic responses to a warming globe, a cooling globe and a globe whose climate reverberates with laughter at human hubris."

Of course, Democrats haven't figured it out. Nancy Pelosi is trying to save the planet by starving the US of energy.

[T]he wave of change her party has ridden could come crashing down. The pressures facing the nation — troubled financial markets, falling housing prices and rising energy and food costs — are genuinely historic. The next president will inherit a projected deficit of close to $500 billion, and Democrats admit privately that they were caught off guard by the spike in gasoline prices and the hardship it has imposed on middle-income and working-class voters.

With fewer than 20 legislative days before the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, the entire appropriations process has largely ground to a halt because of the ham-handed fighting that followed Republican attempts to lift the moratorium on offshore oil and gas exploration. And after promising fairness and open debate, Pelosi has resorted to hard-nosed parliamentary devices that effectively bar any chance for Republicans to offer policy alternatives.

“I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet,” she says impatiently when questioned. “I will not have this debate trivialized by their excuse for their failed policy.”

Obama's Dignity Battalions?

Just what was Barack Hussein Obama talking about when he advocated a civilian national security force?

"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set," he said. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded."

Now, let's think about that. We spend half a trillion dollars a year on our armed forces. Does Obama really intend to spend that much on a civilian security force? And where in the Constitution does the federal government have the authority to impose such a security force on the nation? I can't find it.

Interestingly, Team Obama has since airbrushed that reference out of transcripts of the speech, but Babalu found it.

And, of course, it's on YouTube, a medium that not even Barack Obama has yet managed to transcend.



Babalu compares Obama's National Civilian Security Force to Fidel Castro's Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. I can't help but recall the former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega's "Dignity Battalions."

More here.

A Grim Milestone For The New York Times

The left's last hope for US failure in Iraq has become as irrelevant in that country as Jesse Jackson in this one.

The militia that was once the biggest defender of poor Shiites in Iraq, the Mahdi Army, has been profoundly weakened in a number of neighborhoods across Baghdad, in an important, if tentative, milestone for stability in Iraq.

It is a remarkable change from years past, when the militia, led by the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr, controlled a broad swath of Baghdad, including local governments and police forces. But its use of extortion and violence began alienating much of the Shiite population to the point that many quietly supported American military sweeps against the group.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki struck another blow this spring, when he led a military operation against it in Baghdad and in several southern cities.

It has come to this. Not even the New York Times can deny the truth anymore.

And here's a line that Obama could learn from, if he were capable of admitting that there is anything he doesn't already know.

The changes are not irreversible. The security gains are in the hands of unseasoned Iraqi soldiers at checkpoints spread throughout Baghdad’s neighborhoods. And local government officials have barely begun to take hold of service distribution networks, potentially leaving a window for the militia to reassert itself.

The militia’s roots are still in the ground, Abu Amjad said, and “given any chance, they will grow again.”

Associated Press: We Won!

I wonder if it took so long for the AP to report this because they were waiting for Jamil Hussein to break the news to them.

The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost.

Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace — a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago.

Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.

That does not mean the war has ended or that U.S. troops have no role in Iraq. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President Bush optimistically declared it had. The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.

They certainly had no difficulty rushing false stories about finding 20 beheaded bodies or Sunnis being burned alive within view of approving Iraqi soldiers.

Change Nobody Can Believe In

There's a small problem (subscription probably required) with Larry LaRocco's campaign button at left. That's not Larry LaRocco. That's toe-tapper Larry whom LaRocco would like to replace in the Senate.

"A defective campaign button offered a new take on Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign slogan, "Change we can believe in."

The 3-inch button was intended to show Obama standing next to Larry LaRocco, the Idaho Democratic candidate running for U.S. Senate. Rather than LaRocco's smiling face, however, the button had a photo of Sen. Larry Craig, the staunch Republican who's vacating the seat LaRocco wants to fill.

"That sounds like it's going to be a collector's item," said Dean Ferguson, LaRocco's communications director. "I'm sure Senator Obama appreciates Senator Craig's support."

Even if that were Larry LaRocco's picture, I'm not sure that the best way to get yourself elected to the Senate in Idaho is to attach yourself to Barack Hussein Obama's coat tails.

McCain Tries To Distract Voters With Facts

Powerline has this excerpt from a McCain speech. Powerful stuff. Will he have the nuts to keep saying this stuff?

"Senator Obama and I also faced a decision, which amounted to a real-time test for a future commander-in-chief. America passed that test. I believe my judgment passed that test. And I believe Senator Obama's failed.

We both knew the politically safe choice was to support some form of retreat. All the polls said the "surge" was unpopular. Many pundits, experts and policymakers opposed it and advocated withdrawing our troops and accepting the consequences. I chose to support the new counterinsurgency strategy backed by additional troops -- which I had advocated since 2003, after my first trip to Iraq. Many observers said my position would end my hopes of becoming president. I said I would rather lose a campaign than see America lose a war. My choice was not smart politics. It didn't test well in focus groups. It ignored all the polls. It also didn't matter. The country I love had one final chance to succeed in Iraq. The new strategy was it. So I supported it. Today, the effects of the new strategy are obvious. The surge has succeeded, and we are, at long last, finally winning this war.

Senator Obama made a different choice. He not only opposed the new strategy, but actually tried to prevent us from implementing it. He didn't just advocate defeat, he tried to legislate it. When his efforts failed, he continued to predict the failure of our troops. As our soldiers and Marines prepared to move into Baghdad neighborhoods and Anbari villages, Senator Obama predicted that their efforts would make the sectarian violence in Iraq worse, not better.

And as our troops took the fight to the enemy, Senator Obama tried to cut off funding for them. He was one of only 14 senators to vote against the emergency funding in May 2007 that supported our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. ...

Three weeks after Senator Obama voted to deny funding for our troops in the field, General Ray Odierno launched the first major combat operations of the surge. Senator Obama declared defeat one month later: "My assessment is that the surge has not worked and we will not see a different report eight weeks from now." His assessment was popular at the time. But it couldn't have been more wrong.

By November 2007, the success of the surge was becoming apparent. Attacks on Coalition forces had dropped almost 60 percent from pre-surge levels. American casualties had fallen by more than half. Iraqi civilian deaths had fallen by more than two-thirds. But Senator Obama ignored the new and encouraging reality. "Not only have we not seen improvements," he said, "but we're actually worsening, potentially, a situation there."

If Senator Obama had prevailed, American forces would have had to retreat under fire. The Iraqi Army would have collapsed. Civilian casualties would have increased dramatically. Al Qaeda would have killed the Sunni sheikhs who had begun to cooperate with us, and the "Sunni Awakening" would have been strangled at birth. Al Qaeda fighters would have safe havens, from where they could train Iraqis and foreigners, and turn Iraq into a base for launching attacks on Americans elsewhere. Civil war, genocide and wider conflict would have been likely.

Above all, America would have been humiliated and weakened. Our military, strained by years of sacrifice, would have suffered a demoralizing defeat. Our enemies around the globe would have been emboldened. ...

Senator Obama told the American people what he thought you wanted to hear. I told you the truth.

Fortunately, Senator Obama failed, not our military. We rejected the audacity of hopelessness, and we were right. Violence in Iraq fell to such low levels for such a long time that Senator Obama, detecting the success he never believed possible, falsely claimed that he had always predicted it. ... In Iraq, we are no longer on the doorstep of defeat, but on the road to victory.

Senator Obama said this week that even knowing what he knows today that he still would have opposed the surge. In retrospect, given the opportunity to choose between failure and success, he chooses failure. I cannot conceive of a Commander in Chief making that choice."

Media Love Not All It's Cracked Up To Be

The mainstream media admits its love for Barack Hussein Obama, while warning that it could backlash.

"[B]eing the favorite of the press doesn't necessarily win you votes. Most people don't actually like the press. The friend of my enemy is not necessarily my friend."

Little Johnny Edwards Affair Gets Juicier

There's a strong possibility that Little Johnny will have to explain himself under oath regarding his wet wick incident with his mistress.

It couldn't be happening to anyone more deserving.

No Oil, No Drilling, No Debate

Republicans should take notice of what scares Nancy Pelosi.

WHY NOT have a vote on offshore drilling? There's a serious debate to be had over whether Congress should lift the ban on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf that has been in place since 1981. Unfortunately, you won't be hearing it in the House of Representatives -- certainly, you won't find lawmakers voting on it -- anytime soon.

Instead of dealing with the issue on the merits, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a staunch opponent of offshore drilling, has simply decreed that she will not allow a drilling vote to take place on the House floor. Why not? "What the president would like to do is to have validation for his failed policy," she said yesterday when asked that very question. "What we're saying is, 'Exhaust other remedies, Mr. President.' . . . It is the economic life of America's families, and to suggest that drilling offshore is going to make a difference to them paycheck to paycheck now is a frivolous contention. The president has even admitted that. So what we're saying is, 'What can we do that is constructive?' "

Shocker! Barack Obama's A Liar!

And, the mainstream media doesn't notice.

Brian Williams asks Obama about the surge, and whether it has been a success. Obama answers that "even at the time of the debate of the surge, was if you put 30,000 troops in, of course it's going to have an impact."

Obama tells Brian Williams that he always said more troops would have an impact: "(snicker) What I said was even at the time of the debate of the surge, was if you put 30,000 troops in, of course it's going to have an impact. There's no doubt about that. The question is, does it solve our larger strategic questions and do the costs involved, uh, do they outweigh the benefits."

Oh really!

Here's what he said when the surge was proposed:

"I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there in fact I think it will do the reverse. I think it takes pressure off the Iraqis to arrive at the sort of political accommodation that every observer believes is the ultimate solution to the problems we face there. So I am going to actively oppose the president's proposal... I think he is wrong."

Democrats Energy Policy: Blame Straw Men

If the United States Senate’s dimmest bulb really wanted to stick it to oil speculators, she would side with President George Bush and back oil exploration along the nation’s continental shelf, among other places. Instead, she has chosen to attack a straw man with a bill that will probably pass, but will do absolutely nothing about energy prices because it does nothing to increase supply.

Patty Murray recently barnacled herself to whining airline executives who claim to have discovered proof that speculators were to blame for rising oil prices: “Twenty years ago, 21 percent of oil contracts were purchased by speculators who trade oil on paper with no intention of ever taking delivery. Today, oil speculators purchase 66 percent of all oil futures contracts, and that reflects just the transactions that are known. Speculators buy up large amounts of oil and then sell it to each other again and again. A barrel of oil may trade 20-plus times before it is delivered and used; the price goes up with each trade and consumers pick up the final tab.”

Imagine that – people buying and selling a commodity for profit? That bears an unsavory similarity to capitalism and something must be done about it! And Patty Murray intends to do just that with her foolish “Excessive Energy Speculation Act of 2008.”

I have two pieces of information that might help enlighten Ms. Murray, although I doubt that enlightenment is what she seeks. First of all, people who actually know what they’re talking about (they’re called “economists”) insist that evil speculators actually smooth out markets and dampen wild price oscillations. If airline presidents were smarter, they would purchase aviation fuel on the futures markets so that they would know in advance what their fuel costs would be and plan accordingly. And the reason that oil contracts trade so much more often than they once did is an effect rather than a cause. Futures contracts for any commodity that is exhibiting rapid price fluctuations will be traded frequently. And finally, any legislation passed by the Congress that would limit oil speculation only has force within the United States. Oil speculators abroad will simply ply their trade elsewhere.

But of course, this means nothing to Patty Murray, because reducing oil prices and punishing speculators is not her real intention. If she wanted to do something about either she would join with Republicans as they seek to increase supply. Since President Bush rescinded an executive order banning oil exploration along United States coastlines, crude oil prices have fallen by more than $20 per barrel. That means that every speculator who bet on oil prices continuing to rise has lost his shirt or perhaps his hajib.

What Patty Murray and her homey, Washington’s junior U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell, are seeking is not consumer relief, but showboating. They wish to create the illusion of “doing something,” knowing full well that they are doing nothing and have no intention of accomplishing anything. Maria Cantwell let that cat out of the bag last week. When asked point blank if she would support efforts to provide Americans with relief by increasing supply she adhered tightly to the Nancy Pelosi/Harry Reid party line: “Oh, we definitely want to move beyond petroleum. And so there will be a supply side offered by the Democrats and it will include everything from battery technology to making sure that we have good home domestic supply, and looking, as I said about moving faster on those kind of things like wind and solar that can help us with our high cost of natural gas.”

Translation: She’s only interested in economically unviable and technologically infeasible goofball programs that are nowhere near bearing fruit and likely never will. Gasoline prices are not going down. In fact, unless something substantive is done, in a few years we’ll be recalling the $4.00 per gallon summer of 2008 as the good old days.

In the meantime, Americans will have to settle once again for promises from Democrats that they will get even with “the man.” Propping up cardboard cutouts of enemies and knocking them down is a party tradition. It’s the foundation of the tax code, a fact that Barack He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Middle-Named Obama let slip during a debate. Getting even has become the last vestige of the civil rights movement, and that’s been enough to keep 90% of the Democrats’ most loyal demographic in line. Will that getting even with cartoonish enemies be enough to seduce the rest of us?

Update: Harry Reid falls to pieces.

Reporters tried to pin Reid down Thursday on the amendment issue.

In the exchange, Reid told one reporter she should "watch the [Senate] floor more often. ... You might learn something."

Another reporter explained she had watched the Senate proceedings and said it was not clear he was ... offereing separate amendments, to which Reid asked the reporter if she "spoke English."

"Turn up your Miracle Ear," Reid added.

Little Johnny Caught With A Wet Wick

Well, the John Edwards affair is pretty much confirmed now, even if the MSM does its level best to ignore the story.

If only they had paid attention way back when.

Barack Hussein Obama Discovers That Iran Is A Threat

Once upon a time, Iran was not a threat. That was then,



Clearly, this was not the Barack Hussein Obama that Barack Hussein Obama knew, because this is now.

"A nuclear Iran would pose a grave threat and the world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon," Obama said.

"I will take no options off the table in dealing with this potential Iranian threat," Obama said on the latest leg of talks in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

"A nuclear Iran would be a game-changing situation, not just in the Middle East but around the world.".

Prehistoric SUV's?

Scientists have discovered irrefutable proof that Antarctica was once at least 30 degrees warmer than it is today.

Marchant estimated that the summer temperatures in Antarctica would have been about 30.6 degrees F (17 degrees C) warmer than they are now.

This warmer period started to end when the first continent-sized ice sheets began appearing on Antarctica around 34 million years ago, around the end of the Eocene epoch. These ice sheets expanded and contracted until around 14 million years ago, during the Miocene epoch, when a dramatic cooling took place and transformed the tundra into an environment "that today looks like Mars," Marchant told LiveScience.

Marchant said climatologists are uncertain exactly what caused this intense period of cooling.

Clearly, it was prehistoric carbon taxes.

The Media Sells Out In Record Time

Yes, the giant mainstream media cluster kiss-ass is too much, even for Comedy Central.
Bonus: An environmentalist wacko gets his ass handed to him.

Apparently toothpaste and dental hygiene are environmentally incorrect.

Democracy! Whiskey! Sexy! KFC!

Do you remember Fallujah? Well, if you need anymore evidence that we have won in Iraq, here's proof.


Not quite "democracy, whiskey, sexey," but probably more importantly symbolic. How about a new slogan for Iraqi liberation? I propose democracy, whiskey sexey, KFC.
Hat tip: Gateway Pundit.

If John McCain is smart, he'll use this in a campaign commercial. That means, it won't happen.

Starvation In America

What a country! National Public Radio chose these people as examples of Americans who are having to cut back on their food budget!

The Wit Of New Yorker Magazine, Explained

Dan Rather: Jesse Jackson Paves The Way For Osama bin Laden

Screw The Polar Bears, Drill Here, Drill Now

Elitist opinion treats anthropogenic global warming skeptics as the moral equivalent of Nazi holocaust deniers and the intellectual equivalent of flat Earth adherents. All of the computer models, all of the newspaper editorial boards, all of the Hollywood stars, the Democratic Party leadership, both major party presidential candidates, the Weather Channel and the infallible United Nations all agree – burning fossil fuels will warm the Earth, melt the glaciers, flood coastal cities and cause kidney stones. In fact, just this last Wednesday, I received a letter from that noted atmospheric scientist, Leonardo DiCaprio, warning me that cute little polar bear cubs would die screaming in anguish as their melting snow dens collapse.

Global warming seems to have everything going for it, except for warming. Ten years ago the news that 1998 was the warmest ever recorded made headlines. What has not made headlines is that, ever since, the Earth has been cooling and today its temperature is about the same as it was a century ago. This data was verified by thousands of buoys scattered around the world’s oceans to measure water temperatures at depths down to several thousand feet. These buoys confirmed what your bones already know, that the Earth is growing colder.

Have you seen that in the headlines? I haven’t. I don’t watch television news, but I doubt that any of the networks have mentioned it. Even Shepard Smith, host of the supposedly conservative Fox News recently expressed his incredulity that anyone could doubt global warming: “It’s hard to believe this, but there are people watching us right now, and I’ll get e-mails from hundreds of them, who don’t think we have anything to do with this [global warming]. They refuse to believe it. They believe that what’s happening is they want to try to tax us on our carbon eventually, and that this is all a conspiracy to get us. ”

It strikes me as curious that computer models predicting global warming qualify as news, while the actual fact of global cooling is not news. Those of us who place more faith in data than theory are the fools. And of course, computer predictions of global warming are the primary reason why we are not permitted to develop any new oil in this country. Instead we are told that we have to pursue whimsical solutions like wind and solar power, even though any reasonable evaluation of data or computer models prove conclusively that both are losers. Meanwhile, nuclear remains a taboo. And so, we are paying more than four dollars per gallon to drive our cars. And much of the money we spend on that fuel ends up in the hands of America’s most venomous enemies.

All the while, we remain the only nation in the world that chooses to leave undeveloped all the fuel we would need to wean ourselves from imports. Tens of billions of barrels of easily recovered oil are sitting in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and along our coasts. According to the Institute for Energy Research, our shale oil deposits hold at least 8 times as much petroleum as the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Recently, a few timid Republicans rose up on their hind legs and called for more domestic oil and gas development. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Luna) denounced this as a “hoax.” For decades now, Democrats have insisted that new oil development would take a few years before it bore fruit. But, immediately after President George Bush announced that he was rescinding the executive order banning oil exploration along US coastlines, oil prices dropped by $10 per barrel each of the next two days and another $5 on the third day. Natural gas prices have fallen even faster and farther.

That was quite a different reaction than Ms. Pelosi gained when she threatened to sue OPEC for not pumping enough and pushed through legislation barring the government from purchasing oil for the National Strategic Reserve, the only solutions that her party has authored.

Republicans need to stop seeking the approval of the mainstream media. The MSM will publish stories about how global warming will increase the incidence of kidney stones (as they did this week) or repeat the rantings of a crank who hoaxed them into reporting that global warming was causing stronger earthquakes.

If Republicans get aggressive about energy policy, they’ll not only be doing right by America, they’ll win the November election. If not, they deserve a place in the rubbish can of history.

The Democrats' Energy Policy

This one picture is worth a billion words.

Democrats and the Privileges Of Power

Christopher Dodd, Kent Conrad, Barack Obama and now Charlie Rangel have been exposed exchanging their power for very favorable housing deals.

News Not Fit To Print

Considering how much opinion finds its way onto the front page, perhaps a little room should be made for news on the opinion page. There have been a number of interesting stories in these last few weeks that have not seen the prominence they deserve. In fact some have been totally ignored.

For example, you probably heard that several hostages were rescued from the so-called Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) guerillas in Columbia. These cocaine smuggling terrorists have made life miserable for Columbians for years. You might also have read someplace that the FARC has suffered a number of other devastating defeats recently.

But, unless you read the Wall Street Journal, you probably have not heard that a laptop computer was recently captured and that it contained a wealth of information about the FARC and its allies. Along with revelations about FARC’s alliances with Venezuela and Ecuador, we learned that the Democratic Party was conducting back channel negotiations with the FARC.

More recent information has come to light that Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco, where else?) had a direct hand in these negotiations and had personally designated Representative James McGovern (D-Massachusetts) to represent her to the terrorists. Among the issues discussed was the recently negotiated Columbia Free Trade Agreement. The terrorists are against it. Nancy Pelosi exercised unprecedented powers to stall the treaty in the House. Coincidence?

If you doubt the authenticity of the intelligence, it should be noted that Columbia allowed Europe’s Interpol to examine the hard drive and Interpol concluded that the evidence was authentic and that the hard drive had not been tampered with.

A few years ago, the front pages were covered with the Valerie Plame affair. Valerie Plame was a CIA desk jockey who’s “cover” was blown after her husband, the execrable Joe Wilson had written a New York Times Op-Ed piece in which he claimed to have disproven President Bush’s claim that Iraq had sought to purchase high grade uranium ore from Niger. The mainstream press dutifully repeated Joe Wilson’s accusation that Karl Rove had exposed his wife and ruined her career.

Well, it turned out that Joe Wilson’s Op-Ed was directly contradicted by the report that Joe Wilson had submitted to the Bush Administration. The Iraqi trade minister had indeed visited Niger to promote trade between the two countries. And considering that uranium ore is Niger’s only export, the Niger government interpreted the visit as an attempt to purchase the raw materials for a nuclear bomb.

This is old, if not widely reported news. Even less widely reported was the recent revelation that Valerie Plame shares her husband’s reverence for the truth. When asked why the Bush Administration would have hired a flaming lefty like Wilson for such an assignment, the answer given was that, he had been recommended by his wife. She vehemently denied that publicly and under oath. A recently declassified document shows that indeed, Joe Wilson was hired after his wife’s recommendation.

You’d think that the truth would deserve as much prominence in the mainstream news as the original lies received. You’d think. But you’d be wrong.

Early last month, the New York Times briefly noted that a major military operation was getting underway in Iraq. In fact, what was happening was an Iraqi-led operation to snuff out the last remaining organized remnants of Al Qaida in Iraq. An estimated 12,000 terrorists had been surrounded and ever since their number was being ground down. The final pocket of about a thousand was essentially wiped out. Iraqi president Maliki declared the war essentially over. I didn’t learn this from reading American newspapers or watching American television news. I learned it reading the Times of London online edition.

At last check, the US had only suffered one combat death this month.
So, how did the mainstream media go about putting a negative spin on this grim milestone? They noted that combat deaths in Afghanistan had surpassed Iraqi combat deaths.

I think that I am far more likely to read about Britney Spears being seen again in public sans underwear than good news from Iraq.

Finally, the latest underreported story was the revelation that the United States has spirited 550 tons of purified uranium ore out of Iraq. Now, what would 550 tons of uranium ore be doing in Iraq? As everyone surely knows, Saddam Hussein had no plans to develop nuclear weapons. And so, he would have had no use for uranium. Surely, somebody simply misplaced it. It was probably Niger.

Barack Hussein Obama: Embarassed to be an American

I don't think Lee Greenwood is going to put this to music.

Update: Wasn't this the same guy who thought that Afghans spoke Arabic?

If It's Not The Barack Obama You Knew, Then It's Your Fault

If Barack Obama's message seems all over the map lately, it's not his fault. He's perfectly consistent. It's your fault.

Ann Althouse isn't buying it.

Let Democrats Defend The Oil Shortage They Created

There are times that I think that if the entire Republican Party leadership were to combine its entire vertebrae inventory, it still couldn’t put together one complete spine. Led by John McCain, who’s guiding principle is gaining the approval of The Washington Post, the party has lost all direction except that summarized by Malcolm Baldridge who observed that, if the Democrats proposed burning Washington to the ground, Republicans would introduce legislation that it be phased in over 5 years.

Republicans have become so reluctant to stand for anything remotely that U.S. Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon is running for reelection on Barack Obama’s coat tails, boasting that he works well with the callow junior senator from the America-hating ideological left.

I’d like to believe that the Republican retreat has been a strategic move intended to draw the Democrats out so that they will say and do things that can be used against them in the election. But I’ve seen no evidence of such cleverness. They're not called the "stupid party" for nothing.

And so, since the Republican Party has chosen to take its marching orders from Democrats, I’d like to recommend that they embrace the appellation given them by CNN correspondent, Paul Begala. During a typically classless speech last week, after calling Republicans “dirt bags,” he anointed the GOP as the “Grand Oil Party.”

Republicans should adopt that, and anoint Democrats as the NOPEs, the “No Oil Party, Ever.”

It was amusing to hear the Democrats deride John McCain’s call for increased drilling and exploration. Barack He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Middle-Named Obama dismissed it as the “failed policy of the past.”

That’s not how I recall it. When we drilled with abandon, we produced most of our own oil. Now that the Democratically controlled Congress has placed most of this country’s potential new oil fields off limits to exploration, we import most of our oil. And we have to import much of our gasoline from Venezuela. Do you think that there might be any political profit in reminding people that George Bush was right about energy policy 7 years ago?

Bush sold his plan as an aggressive drill-and-dig, anti-regulatory prescription to shoo away the tree-huggers and get the nation — and the economy — humming again.

Two months later, a New York Times/CBS poll released last week found that not only do two-thirds of the nation think Bush and Cheney are too beholden to oil companies, 60 percent think the pair made the whole energy crisis up.

Barack Obama, most Democrats, and too many Republicans have signed on to a demonstrably absurd policy of distilling corn into ethanol, a strategy that has contributed nothing to reducing oil imports (it takes almost a gallon of oil to produce a gallon of lower energy ethanol), has left us dependent upon foreign imports and has driven food prices up dramatically.

That’s what I’d call a failed policy of the past, but I’ve not yet heard a Republican say so. It’s that spine deficit again.

A year ago yesterday, on July 4, 2007, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury) and the rest of the Democratic leadership stood before an easel with a poster showing how gas prices had risen since 2001 and complained that America was too dependent on foreign oil. She promised bold initiatives to correct the problem.

In the intervening year they passed a bill banning purchases for the Strategic Reserve and threatened to sue the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries for not pumping enough oil out of their oil fields. And since that day one year ago, prices have risen more than a dollar and in fact have nearly doubled since Democrats seized control of Congress in 2006.

But, have you heard one Congressional Republican other than John McCain say that we need to increase exploration and drilling? When John McCain is your boldest spokesman, your party is in trouble.

A blogger who calls himself Pollkatz has posted a chart on his website that graphs both George Bush’s approval numbers along with an inverted plot of gasoline pump prices. The two plots track nearly perfect parallels.

Considering how Democrats have obstructed every attempt to bring more domestically produced oil onto the market, it wouldn’t be hard to hang that albatross around their necks. But it would take courage, a commodity far scarcer than oil in Republican strategy sessions.

I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears, Barack Obama saying that high energy prices were actually a good thing. Surely Republicans could take that video and turn it into a devastating campaign commercial. Most Americans would angrily disagree with the messiah on that one.

For decades now, Democrats have insisted that we can pursue their environmental agendas on the cheap. A dozen years ago, Bill Clinton vetoed a bill that would have opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, claiming that drilling there would not benefit the country for 10 years. Hmmm. By my math, we would have been seeing that oil long before Nancy Pelosi’s Oil Independence Day press conference.

Let’s see if Democrats can play defense. Democrats are losing this argument even without the Republicans engaging them in debate.

The Tour De France

Jackie and Dunlap's primer for the Tour de France. It starts tomorrow!



Even our sickest athletes can beat the French.



At least France now has a military victory to brag about.

Another Barack Obama That Barack Obama Never Knew

I'm getting dizzy. Now Barack Hussein Obama says that he's not in favor of a rapid withdrawal from Iraq. Furthermore, he's never been in favor of a withdrawal timetable.

“I’ve always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability. That assessment has not changed. And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies.”

He's always said that, except when he's said something different.


Barack Obama, on July 17, 2007:

"The United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there."

Barack Obama, April 16, 2008:

Charles Gibson: "And, Senator Obama, your campaign manager, David Plouffe, said, 'When he is' -- this is talking about you - 'When he is elected president, we will be out of Iraq in 16 months at the most. There should be no confusion about that.' So you'd give the same rock-hard pledge, that no matter what the military commanders said, you would give the order to bring them home?"

Obama: "Because the commander-in-chief sets the mission, Charlie. That's not the role of the generals. And one of the things that's been interesting about the president's approach lately has been to say, 'Well, I'm just taking cues from General Petraeus.' Well, the president sets the mission. The general and our troops carry out that mission."

And, of course, he's always been in favor of the individual right to possess a handgun and he's alway been in favor of free trade and he's always been in favor or welfare reform...

Jackie Broyles On The Heller Decision

That Was Not The Barack Obama I Knew

One again, Barack Obama is having to distance himself from Barack Obama. Even the New York Times has started taking notice.

He cited that broad base of small-dollar donors in justifying his decision to reverse his pledge to take part in the public financing system if his opponent did as well.

But Mr. Obama’s stepped-up schedule of big-money fund-raisers — the campaign has more than a dozen events planned over the next two weeks — showcases a formidable high-dollar donor network that is gaining more heft with an influx of former supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The Obama campaign was initially powered last year in large part by high-dollar donors, but his schedule of traditional fund-raising events fell off this year in the face of a packed campaign schedule. Mr. Obama attended only a handful of fund-raisers, relying instead on contributions over the Internet.

Now, with his schedule freed up and faced with the need to raise more than $200 million for the general election, Mr. Obama’s major fund-raisers are eager to have him back to headline events that require attendees at the highest echelons to contribute more than $30,000 a person to a joint fund-raising committee for the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

$30,000 per person - minimum? He seems to have drifted from his Che Guevarra tee shirt wearing base. Somehow I don't think that he has drifted from their ideology.

Motive Unclear?

Let me clear that up for you, he was a Muslim. That's what Muslims do in the Middle East.

Obama's Gonna Have To Give Another Speech

There's a problem with patriotism in the host city of the Democratic National Convention.

No Evolution For Me

To think that I share 99% of this guy's DNA.



I'm sorry, there's a lot more to being human than genetics.

Sex For Gas?

What's the big deal? Back when I was a pump jockey working my way through college, I was occasionally offered sex in exchange for a fill up. I recall one woman who asked me to check her oil. When I lifted the hood, she had a hand lettered sign on her air filter that read, "Ass for Gas."

For that matter, I had plenty of unconditional propositions for sex while pumping gas. I think a lot of women were simply looking for anonymous, uncomplicated recreational sex, just as a lot of guys are.

Obama: For it, Against it, For it, Against it........

Hotair notes that Obama has now spun past every point on the compass on multiple issues. There's something there for everyone.

And I have no doubt that Keith Olbermann has been right there with him every step of the way.

Supreme Court Liberals: The Gang That Can't Shoot Straight

In its ruling banning the death penalty for child rape, the left wing of the United States Supreme Court opinion was factually flawed.

When the Supreme Court ruled last week that the death penalty for raping a child was unconstitutional, the majority noted that a child rapist could face the ultimate penalty in only six states — not in any of the 30 other states that have the death penalty, and not under the jurisdiction of the federal government either.

This inventory of jurisdictions was a central part of the court’s analysis, the foundation for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s conclusion in his majority opinion that capital punishment for child rape was contrary to the “evolving standards of decency” by which the court judges how the death penalty is applied.

It turns out that Justice Kennedy’s confident assertion about the absence of federal law was wrong.

This is becoming a pattern. Is truth anathema to the legal left?

Barack Obama's Sweetheart Mortgage

First, it was Democrats Kent Conrad and Christopher Dodd. Now, it turns out that Barack Hussein Obama cashed in on his status as a US Senator to get a good deal on a mortgage.

"The real question is: Were congressmen getting unique treatment that others weren't getting?" associate law professor Adam J. Levitin, a credit specialist at Georgetown University Law Center, said about the Countrywide loans. "Do they do business like that for people who are not congressmen? If they don't, that's a problem."

Indeed.

Christopher Hitchens on the Presidential Candidates, And Their Spouses

Barack Husseing Obama's Forbidden Words

The seven deadly words you can't say in the 2008 campaign.

That Was Not The Barack Hussein Obama I Knew

Suddenly, Barack Hussein Obama is a champion of the 1996 welfare reform and claims that he always was.



ABC discovered otherwise.

Barack Obama aligned himself with welfare reform on Monday, launching a television ad which touts the way the overhaul "slashed the rolls by 80 percent." Obama leaves out, however, that he was against the 1996 federal legislation which precipitated the caseload reduction.

Let's see, that means that he was against it before he was for it?

Barack Hussein Obama: Another Distraction, Enequal Pay For Equal Work

Guess what, Barack Obama isn't just a flip flopper and a liar, he's a hypocrite as well.

While Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has vowed to make pay equity for women a top priority if elected president, an analysis of his Senate staff shows that women are outnumbered and out-paid by men.

That is in contrast to Republican presidential candidate John McCain's Senate office, where women, for the most part, out-rank and are paid more than men.

Obama spoke in Albuquerque, N.M. last week about his commitment to the issue and his support of a Senate bill to make it easier to sue an employer for pay discrimination.

"Mr. McCain is an honorable man, we respect his service. But when you look at our records and our plans on issues that matter to working women, the choice could not be clearer," Obama told the audience in New Mexico, a voter-swing state. "It starts with equal pay. Sixty-two percent of working women in America earn half or more than of their family's income. But women still earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2008. You'd think that Washington would be united it its determination to fight for equal pay."

He continued, saying that he is proud to have supported the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which would extend the limit on how long an employee can wait before suing an employer for pay discrimination.

This law applies to thee, but not to me.

Aren't You Glad You Elected Democrats?

It's been a year,



And, don't forget, Nancy Pelosi also wants to sue OPEC for not pumping enough oil while obstructing domestic oil development.

Oooooh, OPEC is really scared!