Ten Reasons to be happy about the economy

Bloomberg's has this to say about our economy. Apparently things aren't as bad as the Democrats claim.

Why did Al Qaeda kill Bhutto?

The Wall Street Journal editorial page says this about Bhutto's assassination:

"There's little question the attack, which had every hallmark of an al Qaeda or Taliban operation, is an event with ramifications for the broader war on terror. With the jihadists losing in Iraq and having a hard time hitting the West, their strategy seems to be to make vulnerable Pakistan their principal target, and its nuclear arsenal their principal prize."

A Good Year

Dr. Marvin Olasky runs down the list of things we all can be happy about this past year, and reminds us that even in suffering, joy and peace can be found.

Is Iran helping us win in Iraq?

Not at all, actually. The NY Sun is reporting that the reason for the dramatic turn-around in Iraq isn't, as some say, due to Iran's show of good will toward the same country (America) her president promises death and destruction to. This thinking stems from a recent Washington Post column where the assertion was made that because there are less attacks in Iraq, and because those attacks originated with Iranian financing and IED's (Improvised Explosive Device), that the drop-off in violence must be thanks to Iran.

The truth is that it has been the blood and sacrifice and bravery of US Troops, in conjunction with the increasingly effective Iraqi Army, that has turned the tide in a country that Democrats call a "quagmire".

This could get ugly

Former Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated today in her home country. The killer shot her at close range and then blew himself up, killing at least 15 more innocent bystanders who were taking in the procession of Bhutto's motorcade.

The situation in Pakistan has been tenuous for months (years) as current and former leaders engage in power plays for who will be in control after next month's elections. This tragedy will most certainly lead to more death and bloodshed in the weeks to come.

What's your deal, Russia?

Vladamir Putin and his generals are talking trash, and in case you are as confused as I am about why they would even think to start trouble with the U.S., here is a fascinating piece in the Wall Street Journal that should serve to clear some things up for you.

Yet another positive report from Iraq

Newsweek has been as critical as a publication can be toward the war in Iraq and President Bush's so-called "failed policies" there. This week, some much-needed perspective and context is given by that same periodical regarding the monumental strides that have been taken in 2007. Why can't the Democrats see what Newsweek can?

Bad Tiger

And people laughed at me when I would say growing up that Zoo's are scary places...

Apparently, a tiger has killed one man and mauled two others at a zoo in San Francisco. Knowing the kind of nuts who live out there, I won't be surprised when PETA comes on CNN to say that it was mean of the police to shoot this animal in the head (which they thankfully did).

To waterboard or not to waterboard?

If you are like most normal Americans, the whole discussion regarding "waterboarding" appears confusing and politicized. Here is the article for you!

Iraq has turned the corner

The people of Iraq are taking their country back from the insurgents who have plauged that country since our de-throning of Saddam in 2003. Even the liberal Guardian in London is willing to admit it. Where are the Democrat politicians and pundits praising the President and Gen. Petraeus who saw fit to criticize them both incessantly for most of 2007?

I guess it's only fair to blame Bush for everything, not give him credit for anything.

Status of the "Axis"

President Bush in 2002 labeled Iran, Iraq, and North Korea the "Axis of Evil." Here's an update from Krauthammer (that is more than worth your time to read) on how things have gone with each country since.

My Man Mitt

Here, yet again, is another pundit calling it like it is in the GOP Presidential race: Mitt vs. Rudy. Hugh Hewitt tells us why the "smart money is on Mitt.

Protecting our nation

Newly appointed Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, explains in this USA Today column why we need the intelligence gathering measures we currently employ if we are to continue to keep Americans safe.

Cool year, Democrats

2006's "surge" for Dem's in Congress looked to spell the end of GOP dominance in Washington. Thankfully, Democrats still act and vote like Democrats so they haven't achieved much of anything this year. Even in today's Post, the results are in and it doesn't look good for Pelosi & Co.

Is it really that close?

by:R.J. Moeller


Much is made of the social and political divides in this country. The media and her bountiful supply of experts remind us constantly of the purported “narrow gap” between Red and Blue State America. To ensure that their own liberal views are represented as mainstream, we are led to believe that there is absolutely no majority on any major issue. This from the same people who twice predicted George W. Bush would never be able to win the presidency. (Reminder: Bill Clinton never got 50% of the vote, something W’s done twice.)

But former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich believes the governing majority of opinion on almost all of the important issues today in the United States to be around 70%. Despite his label of “Conservative partisan,” Newt makes this claim based on research, not arbitrary conjecture.

During and after the 2004 presidential election, his conservative think-tank group, the American Enterprise Institute, conducted a study to find out how exactly it was Americans felt regarding 34 of the most talked about issues. This included such topics as: God’s name on our money and in our Pledge of Allegiance, border control, partial-birth abortion bans, over-reaching judicial power and activism at the Federal level, gun control, and the War on Terror.

On 33 of the 34 issues, John Kerry was, on average, in a 77%-17% minority. The sole area where Bush was vulnerable? Global warming and the environment. (And this was before Al Gore inconvenienced the world with his power point presentation on displaced polar bears and renegade ice bergs.)

So how was it that the last two presidential elections were so tight? How was it even possible that exit polls on November 2nd, 2004 were reported to indicate an easy win for Senator Kerry? More importantly, how scary was it that Teresa Heinz-Kerry almost became our first lady?

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the hot wind coming from a decidedly Left-leaning media and academia (not to mention an enthusiastically uninformed Hollywood). Over 80% of journalists and educators in public school and universities voted for Kerry and Gore in the previous two elections. Not only did they vote at such a high rate for two liberals, but the financial contributions received by Democratic candidates in 2000 and 2004 from those same two groups were nearly identical in proportion.

Former CBS News correspondent Bernie Goldberg, a veteran of the news business for three decades (and life-long Democrat), wrote a Wall Street Journal Op-ed in 2002 calling on fellow members of the media to wake up and smell the bias. He emphatically maintained that the liberal partiality he himself had been guilty of in his own reporting was not any sort of grand conspiracy where secret meetings in the bowels of the New York Times’ building determined the global strategy to undermine traditional, conservative, core American values. The problem was more subtle than that.

In business there is a term called “group think” which defines what happens when an isolated group of employees eventually all end up agreeing with each other on a specific topic just to avoid “rocking the boat.” Goldberg realized that even he was susceptible to subjective reporting that echoed his own views rather than the objectivity he knew the viewers deserved. For this he was “let go” by CBS.

Dan Rather led the charge of public, personal attacks on his former friend and employee, claiming Goldberg was a conservative all along and was dead wrong to say that the media’s admitted personal liberal preferences got in the way of good, solid reporting. Within two years, however, Rather would be fired for knowingly using a falsified National Guard report two weeks before the 2004 election in an attempt to give John Kerry a bump in the polls, and force the bumbling cowboy from Texas out of the White House. (I’d hate to see what media bias does look like in Rather’s world.)

Does it frighten anyone else that the only media outlets that gave 100% of their campaign contributions and votes to Gore and Kerry in the last two elections were NPR and PBS, the two “publicly” owned and operated networks? Fairness Doctrine, anyone?

Heading in to the 2008 Presidential election, it is critical that we begin to fight through the barrage of misinformation from the traditional news sources. I’m not suggesting that everything you hear on NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN is worthless and that all you need is Fox News. But, to get the fuller picture of what is actually being said by the candidates who desire to lead the Free World, you are going to have to work a little harder than taking in the three minutes of Anderson Cooper you flip to during commercial breaks of Hogan Knows Best. The candidates are talking, and we need to listen.

Hillary Clinton has vowed that she will “take from some to give to others” and brags: “American can’t afford all the plans I have.” Barack Obama publicly says on one day that he would bomb our ally Pakistan without warning, says he’ll sit down and negotiate with our enemy and known terrorist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran (a direct contradiction to U.S. policy since George Washington) on another, and then claims he’d do neither and was misquoted. John Edwards promises state-run control over “big oil” and “big drug companies,” both ideas supported and practiced by Hugo Chavez and Communist China.

Common themes for each of the six leading Democratic candidates: increased centralization of power in the hands of the Federal government, higher taxes, reduction in military strength and intelligence gathering capabilities (the kind that have prevented 19 terrorist attacks since 2001), harping on the divide between rich vs. poor (a favorite of Communists everywhere), promises of entitlements for Baby Boomers (their own generation), and an immediate withdrawal from Iraq where violence is down 75% since April. Any takers? I’m not making this stuff up.

I end with what I think to be a prime example of the disconnect between what Americans generally believe and what they are told they believe by liberals in positions of influence. In 1970, then Governor Ronald Reagan of California goes to the Governor’s Association conference and speaks on the detrimental effects welfare has on society, and more importantly, the people who receive it. He warned that we couldn’t give able-bodied parents something-for-nothing and expect that their children will work for it when it’s their “turn”. He said that our focus as a nation should be the hand-up, not hand-out model of truly helping the less fortunate. As could be expected, he was unanimously and resoundingly dismissed as out-of-touch with the American people and on the path to career suicide. As was his habit, Reagan cheerfully continued speaking on the issue and pushing for reform.

In 1994, the Republican Congress, finally in control for the first time in more than 50 years, introduces Welfare Reform legislation. It takes still another two years, and two subsequent vetoes from President Clinton before he finally signs the bill into law 8 weeks before his 1996 re-election. The week Welfare Reform became a reality the New York Times runs an article citing that 92% of Americans were in favor of the cutbacks in entitlement programs, including 84% of citizens currently receiving government hand-outs.

But for the 28 years from Reagan’s speech to Clinton’s signing, everyone knew that reforming welfare was not only impossible and unpopular, but was supposedly mean-spirited, cruel, and somehow anti-American. For a policy reform initiative that was allegedly untenable, Welfare Reform proved to be something almost every American wanted. There are many issues out there where the consensus is overwhelming, but the politics surrounding them are divisive.

Far too often we refrain from voting for particular candidates for reasons that are far less important than the ones that should guide us in our decisions: our values. No candidate is perfect, just as no Party is perfect. So what are we to do?

Listen with your own ears, vote with your own values, and I promise: you’ll be surprised to find out just how conservative you really are.

Ideology and the people

Washington Times's Tony Blankley breaks down the new Pat Buchanan book and discusses the problem with blind ideology in our current political discourse.

Merry Steynmas

Mark Steyn's latest is one of his best.

"At the recent climate jamboree in Bali, the Reverend Al Gore told the assembled faithful: “My own country the United States is principally responsible for obstructing progress here.” Really? “The American Thinker” website ran the numbers. In the seven years between the signing of Kyoto in 1997 and 2004, here’s what happened:

* Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%.

* Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1%.

* Emissions from non-signers increased 10.0%.

* Emissions from the U.S. increased 6.6%."

Krauthammer on Religion in Politics

A thoughtful piece from syndicated Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer on the role religion plays in politics. Included in his article is a link to the recent speech that Mitt Romney gave regarding his own views on the matter.

From Russia, with not a lot of love

This Russian general is trying to relive the Cold War glory days when people actually cared about what the Russkies did and said. Banished to the realm of inconsequentiality typically reserved for ex-child stars of sit-com tv shows, the Russians are attempting to become a key world player once more. Their tactic? Align with Iran, criticize America.

Their latest strategy includes this ultimatum, warning the United States against the implementation of missile defense systems in Eastern Europe (which those respective countries have each asked us for). The defense systems are meant to protect Europeans from any potential Iranian missle attack. Russia says we're just trying to "spy on them."

Note to Russia: your time has passed. Join the winning side and embrace free market, representative democracy. You're placing your bets on a losing Arabian (and Persian) horse.

This is our enemy

The recent bombing in Pakistan was an attempt on the life of a former President of that country who had recently come back from political exile to push for reform in her nation. Mrs. Bhutto was almost assassinated by an explosion which we now learn came from a bomb strapped to an infant baby girl the perpetrators handed to people standing near Bhutto.

It is Al Qaeda and their corollaries in this part of the world that cannot stand for any "Western" influence, which they perceive Mrs. Bhutto as being. But being willing to kill an innocent child for your cause? This is not an enemy that will back down because Hillary promises to be nice or Edwards promises to care about the children. It's past that point. We must have tough leaders who will boldly react to these kind of events if and when they begin to occur here at home (God forbid).

We don't need coalitions, we don't need empty rhetoric from the UN, and we certainly don't need leaders who turn their backs on a war and a fight they voted to send American troops in to.

The Left has been consistently on the wrong side of history since Vietnam, and when you hear stories such as this one from Pakistan, and you put aside all the clutter of campaigns and polling data and Alan Colmes' inability to make a valid point for more than a decade...you realize that there are really bad people out there who mean us all harm. This poor baby died because her kidnappers and murderers deemed it Allah's will to blow up a woman who seeks to bring a secular, democratized, Western government to that part of the world.

National Review backs Romeny for President in 2008

National Review is by all accounts the leading conservative publication on the planet. Today they've decided that Mitt Romney is their candidate of choice to endorse. Read more here.

I wrote about him more than a year ago, and it took the best minds we've got on the Right this long to figure that out? Come on, guys.

Religion of Peace Update

This girl was murdered by her own Muslim father for not wearing the traditional head-scarf "required" by her faith to wear. This didn't happen in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or even Iran. This didn't ocur in the 7th or 11th century.

It was in Canada and it was this week; and it's coming to a neighborhood near you if our elected leaders continue to put political correctness and multiculturalism ahead of assimilation and adherence to American legal and cultural principles. It's by no means all Muslims, but it's enough of them to worry the average citizen of democratized Western nations.

The new AG is more than just OK by ME

Newly confirmed Attorney General, Robert Mukasey, writes in today's L.A. Times that Congress (gasp!) is shirking it's duties by failing to pass long-term legislation regarding what will and will not be allowed in intelligence gathering (wire-tapping) done from sources originating outside of the United States.

The people don't give you the lowest approval ratings in our nation's recorded history for nothing, Congress.

MUST READ: NIE Report on Iran proves NOTHING!

New York Times journalist Kenneth Timmerman, a man many believe to be the country's leading expert on Iran, writes in this column that the NIE Report on Iran's supposed suspension of their clandestine nuclear program in 2003 proves little, if anything, more than we already knew.

Here Timmerman goes on to point out that: Iran's a threat. They're continuing to enrich Uranium (the single most important step in the process). Their leaders publicly promise the destruction of Israel and America in the near future.

You do the math. Timmerman has.

Slow Week

I have finals this week, so don't think I've become a liberal if you don't see as many insightful links or columns as I typically post. At least know that I'm thinking about blogging no matter how deep into my studies I may be.

Here's a picture of me doing just that (thinking about blogging) while resting upon my favorite rug. Enjoy.

See, I told you so

by: RJ Moeller

Historians will look back on this decade in particular as the time in our nation's history when one political party put their own electoral successes over the safety and security of American citizens. These modern Democrats in Congress are so remarkably disingenuous and two-faced that it is staggering to behold.

We now learn in today's Washington Post that in 2002 members of Congress from both parties were briefed with full disclosure on the tactics used in coercive interrogations with enemy combatants. This included water boarding. Nancy Pelosi, one of the loudest critics of President Bush on the issue of so-called torture, was among those present who did not object to a single thing the CIA divulged that day. Some of those present even asked, according the Post, if tougher tactics would be more effective to extract information from known terrorists and their cohorts.

Five years and millions of hypocritical and dangerous quotes later, Pelosi and her Democratically-controlled Congress maintain their use of the word "water boarding" as a weapon with which to bludgeon Bush and the GOP over the head.

What are we to think or say about politicians such as these? How in the world do they expect any of us to take them seriously on such serious matters? They've emboldened our enemies by castigating our Commander-in-Chief and his intelligence gathering agencies as being menaces and torturers, while all along knowing full-well (and even in some cases admitting publicly) that tactics such as water boarding are not only useful and appropriate, but necessary and indispensable.

A Price-Tag on Security?

by: R.J. Moeller

Since Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and John Kerry voted to send our troops into Iraq nearly five years ago, one of the Left’s favorite talking points has been: the United States, under George Bush, spends way too much on National Defense. The assumption and often-made accusation is that Bush’s “buddies”, a term conveniently left undefined, are cleaning up on defense contracts and that the Military-Industrial Complex has produced a Manchurian Candidate-style president.

Toss in a few “Halliburton” references, and in the court of misinformed public opinion (i.e. the Democratic base), your case against this administration’s supposed over-spending on “guns and bombs” is all but wrapped up.

But facts and common sense tell a very different story. Not only do we not spend “too much” on National Security-related expenditures, the case can readily be made that we allocate far too little for them.

Defense spending includes many different things, and the numbers can appear staggering at first glance. Most obvious are the costs that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are racking up (more than $100 billion per year). The Department of Defense’s budget is included (approximately $400 billion), and spending on things like counter-terrorism are understandably higher than normal. (Psst, remember 9/11?) All told, in 2006 alone, we spent roughly $600 billion on keeping the United States safe.

Now your reaction to that sizable number is a simple, yet effective, litmus test that can tell me whether you are more Conservative or more Liberal. After the initial shock of such a seemingly high price tag wears off, in all of three seconds, the Conservative smiles and thinks, “Man, think what we could be doing to cripple our enemies with $700 or $800 billion?” A Liberal sees this number and after consulting their shrink (Oprah) thinks, “How many oil-covered baby seals or helpless minnow darters could this money have saved?”

Numbers, devoid of context and perspective, are just that: numbers. Wasteful policies and unaccountable spending are absolutely wrong and intolerable, but in the case of securing our nation and her people, so would be the under-funding of our defenses or the misallocation of funds to less important programs.

Undeniably, our nation currently has what amounts to a peacetime budget, especially when put into the context and perspective of National Defense spending since WWII. Currently we spend just under 4% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Harry Truman spent 8% in peacetime. JFK spent 9%, Reagan 6.5%, and the average spent during the Cold War-era was 7%. For some perspective: we spend nearly three times as much on Entitlement programs (i.e. welfare) than we do on Defense.

While engaged in “real” wars, America spent 14% for the Korean War and 9.5% during Vietnam. Thanks to Bill Clinton’s slash-and-burn approach to our military and intelligence gathering agencies during the 90’s (during which he dropped the spending on National Defense to 3% by the time he left office), the ability to defend ourselves in case we went to war with the two Middle Eastern nations (Iraq and Afghanistan) that surround the world’s leading state-sponsor of terrorism (Iran) was dramatically decreased.

Ironically, the staunchest supporters of cutbacks in Defense spending in the 90’s (which included the drastic reduction in the number of troops employed by our military) have been some of the loudest critics of Bush’s “failed strategy”, specifically hammering home the point that we don’t have enough troops and supplies to fight our wars properly. (Note: “Ironically” is interchangeable with “Pathetically” when referring to liberal political expediency trumping national security.)

One of the most ingenuous and useful things our country ever spent substantial amounts of money on was the post-WWII: “Marshall Plan”. Helping to prevent the spread of Communism across Western Europe by directly aiding in the establishment of competitive economies and legitimate defensive military capabilities, the Marshall Plan was the pre-emptive scheme hatched by the U.S. State Department to save potential greater, future costs (like, having to come back in when Uncle Joe Stalin and the USSR would inevitably take over Europe) in American lives and dollars. It consumed nearly the identical 4% of the GDP that the current administration is spending in a time of war.

Important to note here is the fact that we are at war. The only conceivable way that the Democrats (not named Joe Lieberman) can avoid being called either cowards or fools regarding the War on Terror is if they were able to convince enough of us that the only thing we have to fear is Bush himself. If there is no threat, and if the radicalized anger of millions in the Muslim world can be deposited at the feet of a “cowboy” President from Texas, well then any subsequent cent spent on an “illegal, immoral war” is worthless and wasteful in the eyes of any politician with a “D” in front of their name (again, ones not named Joe Lieberman).

We are generally a peaceful people here in America. When it comes to war, even one like WWII, we will do whatever it takes to avoid conflict and the losses of our young men and women that inevitably follows. You look at the Bush administration and it is hard for anyone to feel confident that things have been handled with much competency since Congress voted for the invasion of Iraq.

But something that is difficult for most of us to separate, and desperately needs to be, is the reality witnessed on 9/11 (and heard weekly from the mouth of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) that we are in fact at war with the irreconcilable wing of Islam from the undeniable truth that the War in Iraq has been mismanaged and tax money has been most certainly wasted in specific instances.

The fact that we are at war and the fact that the war hasn’t gone exactly to plan are two things unrelated in all the ways that matter. The necessity and reality of the former cannot, and must not, be dismissed for the failures involved with the latter. Even putting aside the recent remarkable progress being made inside Iraq (thanks to the Bush-Petraeus “surge”), the most important fact-on-the-ground for citizens of the Free World is that WE ARE AT WAR.

It was declared on us by radical warriors of hate and injustice who’ve manipulated a self-described religion of peace into a 100 million person-plus wrecking ball of jihadic fury. And according to the enemy’s promised “work” schedule, our homes are set to be demolished next.

Iran has been attacking America and our interests since 1979, and is currently enriching Uranium at a rate that even the recent tepid National Intelligence Estimate claims will reach nuclear weapon-quality by 2009. Iraq under Saddam was a consistent threat for some 20 years, something Bill Clinton firmly stated and believed until a Republican finally did something about the Butcher of Baghdad. Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda and the Taliban publicly pronounced their stated purpose for existence long before we watched two building in Lower Manhattan collapse: Death to Israel, Death to America!

Now the question remains in light of all this: what do we do about it? This is the tightrope any would-be President will have to walk for decades to come. One thing, if only in practice, that Harry Truman, JFK, and Ronald Reagan agreed upon was that spending on National Defense must remain at workable levels (i.e. more than 4%). These guys didn’t spend those specific amounts more because they were so much cleverer than anyone else; they did it because it was necessary.

The Constitution lays out specific jobs for each branch of government, and the federal government as a whole. Charged with the duty of protecting Americans from foreign and domestic threats above all else, we should be demanding of our elected representatives that they build more bombers, equip more voluntary soldiers, and focus like a laser beam on the task at hand: making sure we are safe, and our enemies are not.

If our government spends wisely now on Defense, builds our military back up to pre-Clinton levels, and sets a democratic tone in Iraq and Afghanistan, we might be able to avoid what both my parents and grandparents’ generations had to bear: draft-enforced service in a global conflict. But then again, perhaps that is exactly what my generation would need to wake us up from our collective, self-induced, falsely secure slumber?

Trust, but verify

Hugo Chavez has conceded defeat (for now) in the recent referendum vote for extending his Presidential powers and term-limit indefinitely. The people spoke, and not surprisingly it was the poorest demographics who voted most strongly against Chavez's Socialistic policies. The country is in economic crisis, propped up by an oil industry that only the federal government controls.

Let's hope that Chavez does good on his promise to finish his six-year term and then peaceably step down.

What's it going to be, Putin?

President Vladamir Putin is positioned to make himself President/Prime Minister for a long time with his Party's recent electoral victory. Is this a good thing for the Russian people and the Free World at-large?

The answer rhymes with "so".

Iran Stopped Nuke Production in 2003...but is back on-line

The AP story here reveals an intelligence assessment of Iran's nuclear capabilities. 2009 is the earliest experts say the Persian nation might have a bomb.